Early Script Preview (Patreon)

Hey patrons,

I'm travelling today and won't be able to film - however I thought I'd post some early text from the next video - it's a format where I talk about a topic and then make a song on that theme. Here's some stuff I put down recently:

Every YouTuber became Buzzfeed

If you're relatively new to adtube, *cough* I mean youtube, you might not be aware of this - but people actually used to make videos WITHOUT GETTING PAID. It's so engrained in internet culture nowadays to have sponsors, optimize for retention, creators hiring big teams to help them, cutting corners where you can for efficiency, churning out frequent videos...

...but it was a very slow evolution, that happened through a lot of creators taking small steps, and a lot of viewers being disappointed who felt they were abandoning their roots and authenticity along the way.

For example, there was a big hullabaloo when PewDiePie hired an editor. HOW CAN THIS BE! How can someone NOT EDIT THEIR OWN VIDEOS! That seems like an insane reaction nowadays, doesn't it?

We also used to make fun of buzzfeed a lot, and how they were kind of invading this site full of individuals in a super corporate way, with investment capital etc. They had huge teams, budgets, and something felt baseline insincere about what they were doing and presenting. It felt more TV-like and les raw and grassroots.

Fast forward 10 years or so, and boy have things changed. Spending big amounts of money is the defining characteristic of a lot of the most popular videos on the platform. Having big teams is not only common, but something that people strive for. And while all this is natural, it comes with a cost, especially with the legacy expectation that YouTubers are more authentic than the alternatives.

That's all the preview I wanted to share for now! would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. The idea is to take a topic I find interesting and talk about it, while also using it as the fundament for a song.

Have a great thursday!

J