How to kill a video community
by boh3m3 on Aug.01, 2007, under Rants
While Youtube may not be pushing up daisies it’s definitely digging a hole for it’s community.
Maybe I’m romanticizing the way I saw YT when I first arrived, but goddamn it seems like it’s gone a bit downhill with it’s “rise to power.” A year ago I was amazed at vloggers… At these ordinary Joes and Janes that could sit down and riff about something and start some dialog with complete strangers across the globe. We could do the same with chatting and forums, of course, but lending a face and seeing how people said what was on their mind was interesting to me. These intricate little dramas and connections between everyday people making videos online were precious slices of humanity, lulzy or not. I spent a pretty sizable chunk of time going from one connected video to the next and seeing where I ended up usually an hour or so later. One video talking about the latest celebrity gossip might lead a watcher [through connected videos] all the way to pirates in Beijing or some goth public access recording.
Of course people making little sketches were always interesting. Not everyone had the style and flair of Barats and Bereta, but the attempts were still there. If nothing else it was kind of cool to watch people try new ideas and develop a style of their own. The first ones that come to mind were satirizing the most subscribed members at the time, and I’ll be damned if I don’t admit that I laughed my ass off at Stevie Ryan’s parody of FilthyWhore.
Of course there were the “haters”, even from the beginning. And with the volume of videos addressed to them as well as the number of people referring to them by that name I’ve grown to hate the damn term. But however you might label them, there was no lack of a negative influence on the site. It’s only natural to expect strong personalities to clash, be it on video, in comments or in person.
It may not have been big back then… may not have been “revolutionizing the media as we know it” and probably wasn’t known by more than a few hundred thousand people… but by god it was ours. Or at least it was easier to believe it was ours, anyhow.
Now it seems as if things have changed… and I can’t say that it’s for the better. “Sold out” isn’t exactly the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind.
Consider twelve months ago, when the most subscribed member had a staggering ten thousand strong subscriber base. Remember those days? No? Well back then having only a few hundred subscribers could still put you on the most subscribed list, a list that once you are a member adds just a little bit more exposure to your account than otherwise attained. People looked at the lists and the accounts that were on it, and so you had one more chance to fuck up making anyone want to subscribe to your channel. Fun, right?
As of right now, the last entry on the most subscribed of all time list has 13,292 subscribers.
Jesus.
That takes the chances of exposure down a bit, don’t you think?
Now I can’t blame youtube for listing channels that a lot of people watch. I’m sure a year from now the numbers will be even more astronomical. What I CAN blame youtube for is listing accounts like CBS, Warner Bros Records, NBA, etc, etc, etc and in so doing taking slots on that list away from their users. Since September of last year, the CBS channel alone has submitted over 2000 fucking videos into the youtube soup.
Two. Thousand.
Not far-fetched when you consider it as a broadcasting company. In fact, when diced up into little <5 minute clips out of CBS’s entire media catalog it’s actually a pretty light volume. But as a partner, all of these videos are circulated in the director video slots. All two thousand fucking clips at one point or other were in circulation for however limited amounts of time on the director bars to the right of every video on youtube. I think it’s safe to assume that if ANY person had released two thousand clips in as many months with that kind of promotion they would be on the most subscribed list as well.
But alas… we’re not media companies, are we?
And that was the appeal. We were just people making videos to entertain each other before all the attention in the world started pissing on us. People with money don’t want people like us sapping the attention spans of their audience. Someone spending five minutes watching my video is spending five minutes away from the fine advertisers of ABC, CBS, MTV and any other fucking abbreviation on television. People ran away from TV to their computers.
So… most regrettably… TV, like a lost puppy [with rabies] followed you there.
And now, I feel it is safe to say… youtube is starting to suck. Hard.
Any thoughts?
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August 1st, 2007 on 8:23 am
Well, you know what might work… If they erased their entire database (or whatever it’s called) and started over.
August 1st, 2007 on 12:43 pm
This is completely true. When I logged on to youtube for the first time (a little over a year ago) I was amazed by the number of video bloogers that I found. I would spend hours at a time going from video to video listening to what just plain, old, regular people had to say, but now as youtube has gotten more attention I feel that the site has started to lack. I can no longer find as many regular people just saying what they feel. Now all I can find is TV, and if I wanted to watch television I’d stay off the internet. Now I leave it at that.
August 1st, 2007 on 12:55 pm
I have to agree that things have gotten much bigger and therefore less personal and cozy then it was back then when I first started doing the YouTube rounds. At this point, even if I do spam the ever-loving out of my vids, I will never make it to the top subbed. Honestly though, I don’t really care if I do, and there are a lot of people out that that feel the same. Really we just want a creative outlet to share our stuff, even if we only have just over 20 people watching. It’s like any popular online oddity, you just have to carve your niche and find a group to call your own. It’s inevitable that the big boys would come calling, but it doesn’t mean you can’t still have a cozy fan base and you can still find the ordinary Joes and Janes out there vlogging their little hearts out. You just have to do what a lot of people are doing and stop looking at the front page. Look to who you are subbed to, or who has subbed to you, and start clicking videos they have. You have over 35 thousand people who sub to you, check them out, comment to their stuff if you want that special loving feeling of being part of a smaller community. Ignore the abbreviations and focus on the real people. They are still there, you just have to click a few more times to find them is all. -TheLuggage
August 1st, 2007 on 1:03 pm
Also, we have made a new forum
http://z11.invisionfree.com/boh3mian_brainpoops
Still under construction kinda, also there is an IRC chat room again (#boh3m3)on Quakenet.
August 1st, 2007 on 8:36 pm
It seems that you’re confused in your ideals of good and bad.
Good is the fact that, unlike myspace (Which used to be tight nit). Youtube has maintained not only good bandwith, but improved threw out their existance, they continue to add more features, and people continue to throw away many of the ones that are there.
Regardless, people can only do so much, and they reached their peak, it’s true that it’s flattened out, and is even heading down. Regardless if you look to Vlogs as the only thing, something as a simple as a directors account isn’t even all that true to the ways.
With added things like guru’s and musicians, it’s becoming more and more reliable and respected. As well as a 100x’s better.
Back in the day, I used to go to youtube to check with the people I liked watching. Vloggers, teachers, musicians etc. and the thing that still brings me back to that site are those very same people, those very same reasons.
The only defining difference is instead of watching just 1 video, I drop by the most discussed etc. and see whats new.
While I’ve lost any and all interest in the “YOUTUBEEEEEEEE DRAMA” scene, honestly it was silly to begin with.
People have become so objective based wit these pointless titles that it’s almost like some one playing WoW with the best armor running around going “LOLOLOLOLOL NOOBS” CBS doesn’t exactly do that, they provide clips that people OBVIOUSLY want to see, and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
Internet celeb. and all this nonsense has always been a thing of fiction, and shouldn’t be suprising at all that it’s truthfully going to fade away.
The internet is always about giving the little guy a chance, atleast till the big companies move in. (You can see this easily on any social site)
There will be those who sky rocket at launch, and then as the rest of us catch up, it will continue to mesh together untill it just becomes a whole.
Sometimes the littleguys explode (IE Google) and sometimes they stick around for as long as they can. It’s all a matter of determination and will.
-/preach-
Listen, my point is, to say Youtube sucks, angers me as much as saying the forums sucked. While I personally didn’t have to pay for them, I adored what remained, and what continued, while it seemed almost dire, to have ceased that in unnatural death was as brilliant as saying “OMGS YOUTUBES SUCKS NOWS I CAN”TS GETS MY WAYS AROUND”
At most, it’s an inconvenience, and it’s making it harder for people to get into it. But citing wow again, it’s no different then starting wow now, after 9 MILLION people are reportedly playing that game everday, for one person to walk up and go at it full steam and suceed is just as hard as suceeding on youtube at this point in age (Give or take a few reasons) but it’s just how internet/world based things work.
Look at society as a whole, those who had a company 100 years ago and their families stuck with it, are usually rich, or doing well financially, and those of us just trying to start are starving. (Better analogy ftw)
No, things aren’t the same, but saying youtube sucks, to me atleast, sounds like a deeper cry for help in your real life.
/end heartfelt rant about one of the few things that brings me amusement
August 2nd, 2007 on 10:20 am
I love your videos 1st of all, and second it’s totally true. I don’t see why these fucking companies can’t just have video streamed on their own sites free from youtube, or have just podcasts. I mean, the thing I liked about Youtube was that you could go on there and just watch anything you wanted, free from all the bullshit tv has become and now it’s seeping onto the internet. Is there no escaping it!?
August 2nd, 2007 on 11:47 am
Now I can deal with this kind of posting. Rants are ok but your YT audience is primarily sub 20 yr olds that aren’t interested in much else. Haven’t you been curious about your demographics? Because the things you’re suggesting, aren’t of interest to many of your group of viewers. (and I’m not talking about the few decent ones on your dead forum) And besides, it seems as if you’re suggesting that corporate america has ruined YT?; not true. It’s opened doors in technology. If others build better YT type of sites, it’s because of YT (and myspace). Quit yer whining is what I’m saying. Move on past this and take what you can from it. Hey, if YT begins a monopoly in the video arena, like Sony, EMI in the music arena, you’ve got reason to complain, but no one is stopping you from creating and sharing. That’s something isn’t it? In my mind, what’s changing is normal evolution. What do you think was going to happen? Did you think that if all these computers and videos get connected we’d have a supercomputer capable of curing cancer? Remember, when the “toaster” was invented, it was a widely considered a miracle machine. But it’s really just a toaster opening doors for other inventions like toaster ovens, microwaves. (the following said in the voice of Steven Colbert)”If you’re really concerned, build a better toaster or just enjoy the toast for what it really is; toasted bread”. btw, good job on the rant Ani.
August 2nd, 2007 on 5:33 pm
Thanks dwurd, glad to see I’m not the only one to see it that way… oh and same to you.
Stephen Colbert FTW
August 3rd, 2007 on 8:55 am
Even though YouTube’s exposure of new and old vloggers through the most subscribed of all time seems to have dwindled, I don’t think that Youtube’s sold out and I don’t think that Youtube will die any time soon. The featured videos on the front page still come from vloggers and entertainers who have little to no affiliation with mainstream media companies. I’ve found that, if I want to find someone new to watch, the best place to go is the most subscribed of the month or week because the subscriber base is smaller. I’ve found applemilk1988 and kicesie through the most subscribed of the month or week.
People join YouTube either because they want to engage in a community with similar interests from around the world or because they want exposure for their talents in order to gain some sort of career in entertainment. The problem that you’re alluding to in your essay is that YouTube is no longer a place where one can find an audience for her talents and on this I agree: most people will not gain a job, an audience, or a career from posting videos on YouTube. Does a lack of audience make YouTube any less valuable? No—people learn new skills and entertain and engage with others around the world. Does this mean that some people are going to quit YouTube because they believe it’s not worth the amount work and trouble it adds to their lives? Yes. And I can’t blame them.
I recently got an email from some douche bag that asked me to subscribe to him because his future videos will contain “a comedic flow … that will appeal to anyone”. He later said, “If you’ve ever seen videos by nickynik on youtube, this is the caliber of content you will see in my future videos.” Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t content come before subscribers?
YouTube is no longer part of an alternative culture, instead it has grown to include CBS, NBC, universalmusicgroup, etc. Maybe what needs to be created is a site that focuses on creating, nurturing, and providing constructive criticism for new talent, rather than fostering attitudes of hatred and ambivalence.
I’m reminded by an episode of South Park where the kids’ news show is consistently beaten by “Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens” … maybe people should start ignoring the drooling dogs and pay attention to the intelligent people on YouTube, if only to stay sane. :P
August 4th, 2007 on 1:00 pm
ya know, someone shoud start a strictly vlog only website…it’ll be like the deviantart of vlogs. that would be interesting to see. plus then people wouldn’t be able to ‘compain’ about the corporate side of youtube.
August 4th, 2007 on 5:21 pm
well…i gotta agree with dwurd on one thing no one is stopping vloggers from making thier videos and sharing them, its just a matter of now they need to find a new way of exposure. I’m a fan of yours and you’ve got thousands of others, like many users, and I can say as long as you are still willing to make videos, I’ll be willing to watch them. And yeah, I can see where you are coming from on how newer vloggers wont be able to get on the lists because of the insane amount of subscribers you need, but whose to say we can’t say fuck the lists…the vloggers need to support eachother, as cliched as that sounds it is true none the less, we need to stick together. Now, I’m willing to stick with YouTube and see this through, because I have not had the chance to make any kind of mark yet, and I would like that chance. So in short what I am saying, Boh3m3, is that if you really wanna solve this problem, stick with YouTube and vloggers and show CBS and shit that we will not be silenced, your on the lists and you have the ablility to do this.
August 4th, 2007 on 6:34 pm
I agree I remember when alot of the member were “people” actual people not big name companys posting shitty clips from their broadcasts, but actual content from people discussing youtube, and people responding to other people.
August 5th, 2007 on 7:01 am
I’m with Dan. It’d be nice to have a site with only REAL people. Not multi-billion dollar companies and famous musicians.
I’ll confess, I watched LonelyGirl and got sucked into a lot of that drama, I made one anti-hater video, and got a lot of negative comments on a lot of things I tried. I said a lot a lot in that last sentence.
But I still want to make vlogs and sketches and respond to other people. PEOPLE! Not companies.
I miss vloggers.
August 6th, 2007 on 1:21 pm
I remember the first video I ever watched on YT.
Sad, I’m well aware of that, but hey, it was a momentous occasion.
It was a badly edited, non sequitur string of thoughts some guy I barely knew from work posted. Actually, at the time, that was about all there was on youtube. Thoughts. Vlogs, sketches, ideas, bad art films, at least it was all personal in a way that made you want to watch it. I’m sorry, but some of the videos, like those weird montages of cats… that’s just thoughtless, mindless shit.
Everything on that site is becoming more and more thoughtless.
The little utopian paradise where everyone had a chance to be on the most subscribed list and everyone was as happy as hippies with weed is disappearing. *sniff sniff*
I think that’s a nice little cheesy way of putting it.
August 6th, 2007 on 8:45 pm
I don’t have a problem with corporate clips etc since I often look for issues of interest. it’s just that YouTube should have a separation between commercial and independants and they shouldn’t have subscriber stats attached to commercial accounts etc. I’ve always felt their “niche” was the independant vloggers. But with the money being thrown around, they sold their souls and didn’t take much else into account. Either way, it may still evolve, or some other site will learn from this and it’s all good. There’s always something for everyone on the net.
August 7th, 2007 on 12:18 pm
I rarely watch vloggers any more, in fact Ben’s are the only ones I watch, and that’s mostly out of nostalgia and loneliness.
I can’t put my finger on when it happened, but somewhere along the way, people who vlog got egos (which was bound to happen really). So whatever nostalgia I have for the “old days”, however much I want Ben to go back to “his old stuff”, what’s been lost is a sense of innocence and naivety and that can’t be reclaimed.
And yes, I’m aware that it sounds odd describing vintage boh3m3 as innocent or naive, but he was a person before he was a brand and that’s what I miss.
August 8th, 2007 on 7:38 pm
I would also have to agree. First time for me was about a year ago. I think the first Vlog’s I ever saw were implementdesign (its been ages since I’ve checked on her….hhhmmmm) and I was blown away.
From there it was a few hours of bliss, checking out Vlogs, skits. It was amazing, and I went out and bought a webcam the next day, determined to get my voice heard. I never actually did (stage-fright? Lack of something to say??? I’m not sure to this day), but it was an awesome experience nonetheless.
About 6 months after that, It was getting harder and harder to find good Vlogger’s. All I could find were “Insert new celebrity/Fad” here. I’ve sorted out through a few, just discovering thehill88 today. Nonetheless, things have gone very downhill.
Now, just throwing this out here, although I can see it’s flaw’s, but why not a new site? I mean sure “But noone will watch cause they just go to YT!”. That’s true, but to quote my favorite SNES game “Time flows like a river, and history repeats”. Eventually it would get to how YT is now, but it would be better then what has become of YouTube.
I can see that there are obvious flaws in that idea, and also that it has been done with numerous other sites…but I dunno…I’m just thinking.
Now that I think about it, I shoulda just made a Vlog response to your video about this….darn….:P
Those are my thoughts! Any comments?
August 9th, 2007 on 10:41 pm
i can say that i’ve never watched a video from cbs’s youtube channel, and i just don’t think companies like that should be on the most subscribed.
August 10th, 2007 on 3:02 pm
i like this new layout.
good choice. =)
August 11th, 2007 on 10:40 pm
change your color format on the blog. I can barely read the text and it sucks. later, dwurd
August 14th, 2007 on 7:13 am
I’ve been on YouTube for a little over a year now. It’s definatly not the same site as it was even back January or February. But saying that, if you still ask anyone, YouTube is still a video vloggers site, it’s not as underground and grainy cameraish as it used to be, but it’s still a vloggers site. It just happened that it got too big and companies started taking notice and started exploiting it and making it phony. What I think YouTube should do is make a sepearate page for it partners on the most subscribed list. Because it really is a David and Galioth battle. You have these companies with lots of money and special effects and HD cameras and big names vs. these average joes with $30 webcams-$300 camcorders at the absolute best and maybe a cheap piece of flanel for blue screening (I use a green table cloth :) LOL). It’s just not fair. But that being said, there are things about YouTube that have been better. I remember very vivadly a year ago when videos had trouble uploading, private messages were being lost and videos didn’t stream quick enough (I like pud…..ing, remember when that happened alot). That doesn’t happen so much anymore. What I also think should happen is YouTube putting the vloggers in the directors bar and the front page. YouTube still has hope and it’s still good because you can watch whatever videos you want. But YouTube to save any original purpose of the site should really start to make some major changes.
August 15th, 2007 on 11:34 pm
I completely agree.
Even though I’ve only been vlogging since September 06, I remember never hearing about CBs and those channels back then.
YouTube used to be all about the community and vloggers, like me and you and probably anyone else reading this blog.
Now it’s one big, uncut commercial that leads to no real program.
Crow.
August 23rd, 2007 on 4:43 pm
I was thinking about alot of stuff like this today. In fact I worry that YouTube will get even worse. Which is pretty bad considering I hope to start a sketch comedy group on the site in the future. Now, I worry if the outlet will still be available and reliable in the future.
September 2nd, 2007 on 1:13 pm
Oh wait. Yes, I have. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have it in me right now to type it all out again. Besides, it was just ramblings anyway. You didn’t want to hear me go on and on about this, right?
September 3rd, 2007 on 4:47 pm
I hear your point… HOWEVER, all is not lost!
I was recently laid-off from my day gig (8-16), then badly sprained my ankle (8-21), so I’ve been basically sitting on my butt… more than a little bored.
I’m not a “tuber” (though that may change), I knew what YouTube was but only went there when directed, generally via an emailed link.
I heard about the Miss Teen S.C. blooper and decided to check it out on YouTube. I did, and then decided to check out related videos on the right.
I went to the Paperlilies parody, then to her channel, then to related channels, then to more related channels (Boh3m3, spricket24, thehill88, digitalsoul, xPLx, kimberleigh/talknerdytome, Khayav, WhatTheBuck, DentonUSA, even the folks whose stuff isn’t my cup of tea per se… seem like nice people (and I appreciate them just putting stuff out there) Rennetto, Katiesopinion, pablokickasso417, BadAlbert, TheWineKone, sxephil…. And stuff I don’t really like but, like a bloody trainwreck watched anyway: Crossmack, Daxflame, etc.
I can honestly say, I’ve been kept amused for days. I’ve seen some really smart stuff, funny stuff, gotten hip to the lingo (haters), followed some drama (PayPal-LonelyGirl15), some romance (um, yours)… and have come to appreciate (and be inspired by) the community so many of you have built.
I, unfortunately, have what I like to refer to as my Electric Abacus (iMac circa 2001). SO I don’t have camera. However, I did open iMovie, and attempted to work on a slide-ish video with voice memos recorded on my iPod, converted to MP3s… it might work, maybe. Or, I may just give up and get a camera, dunno.
In any regard, though the champions of mediocrity have pazzillions of dollars to throw at marketing more commercial channels… your audience(s) will still find you.
I did.
Come on, you’re smart… if you want to, you’ll find a way to pull focus… finagle!
-mychelle
September 23rd, 2007 on 8:22 pm
I only recently joined youtube, but I’ve been watching videos since the beginning. I was never that big on v-blogs, but some of them were pretty cool. I was more about weird and funny footage of real life (and comedy and music) for me, and that stuff is still there. I think it was cool that youtube started to shift the entertainment away from corporate-produced consumerist propaganda and toward regular people. Of course the corporations didn’t like that, so they put their finger in the pie. Why not just ignore it. Or perhaps YouTube could split the videos up like the music on myspace (MajorLabel/Indie/Unsigned), For Youtube it could be one category for Huge Megalo-Mart Corporation bands/media conglomerate Borg, another area for maybe YT directors, and another for Average Joe Videos. If the Average Joes channel became the most popular, it would be the sweetest revenge.
September 28th, 2007 on 4:30 am
I believe these T.V companies going onto youtube are actually going to stop outside people from making there videos and getting on the site. Knowing that unless the get ten thousand subscribers, you’re a nobody.
October 22nd, 2007 on 10:48 am
Start a youtube petition to clear the database and start over maybe?
November 4th, 2007 on 6:02 am
“I heard about the Miss Teen S.C. blooper and decided to check it out on YouTube. I did, and then decided to check out related videos on the right.
I went to the Paperlilies parody, then to her channel, then to related channels, then to more related channels (Boh3m3, spricket24, thehill88, digitalsoul, xPLx, kimberleigh/talknerdytome, Khayav, WhatTheBuck, DentonUSA”…
Yeah, that’s how it happens! lol the ‘Tube has you now…