YouTube: Manufacturing Authenticity (For Fun and Profit!)

the photographic chamber of the eye records bear painted walls while an electric light lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw such poverty assaults the ego caught naked in the merely actual room the stranger in the lavatory mirror puts on a public grin repeats our name but scrupulously reflects the usual terror sylvia plath tale of a tub be sure to share this video and be sure to give us a like and subscribe and hit the bell let me know what you think in the comments maximum publish a new content to make light can subscribe to make sure you subscribe cultural milestones come and go but every now and then we are privileged enough to experience something so profound and important it not only defines a generation it changes the world and right now in the era of new media created for streaming online video that is still beginning to define its own identity we can clearly pinpoint the apotheosis of generation-defining web series which intersects altruism accessibility technical skill and philosophy I'm talking of course about the YouTube series how to kick it with Yolanda Gump welcome back to how to kick it I'm Yolanda during the course of an episode of how to take it Yolanda challenges herself with the creation of a novelty cake usually in the shape of a real-life object often a tie-in with a relevant pop culture artifact that she has obviously never seen and usually draped in fondant the most disgusting foodstuff man has yet cruelly devised I'm going to carefully lift up the remaining fondant hold it and drape it over the banana a typical how to cake in episode goes as follows first Yolanda bakes her cake usually double-digit pounds of it 21 pounds 18 pounds of cake then she soaks the cake in simple syrup from her tool which her commenters have named sir squeeze a lot sir squeeze her short you can buy your very own sir squeeze at her website then she begins to ice the cake before promoting her paid service Camp cake I hope I see you at Camp cake where you can bake and decorate a cake with Yolanda in real time then she carves the cake into the right shape while asking a question for you to leave a comment which will up engagement be more favorable to YouTube's algorithm then she crumb coats and chills the cake it is time to crumb coat and chill it's time to crumb coat and chilled through before mentioning her t-shirt club asking for shares promoting her 2nd channel and then removing the chilled cake to do the final icing then she mentions her month sprinkle service which you can subscribe to then she drapes her cake in the horrible horrible fondant before then reminding you to subscribe to the channel if you have it then the decoration begins after which she reminds you that you can buy more of her merchandise at her website and during the hours of meticulous decorating she also reminds the viewer to buy her book a tactic which only a sucker would fall for as of August 2018 how to cake it has amassed 3.8 million subscribers in about 3 years and in that 3 years the show has grown from one or two calls to action within a given episode toe on average 11 calls to action in an episode your average episode of how to cake it is almost more call to action that it is cake making at this point for those of you who are not help to the lingo or who have never had a social media manager of some sort a call to action is wherein the content of a video the host asks the viewer to do engagement with the content in a more active way than just sitting on your ass for 11 to 17 minutes this can be as small as asking me for you to smash that like button if you enjoyed this video today please don't forget to give it a big thumbs up down below it's matchmaking or to ask for shares or suggesting that you use my URL to go build your own beautiful Squarespace website calls to action are somewhat unique to online media if you're hosting a cooking show on Food Network you can't exactly ask someone to leave a comment on their cable channel I mean I guess you can but but calls to action are not completely unique to online media one key to the popularity of RuPaul's Drag Race is their prevalence on social media which is not only encouraged by a RuPaul soliciting calls to action I want to hear from you the fans who do you think deserves the crown are you Team aquaria Team Asia but by the structure of its show lending itself to easy sharing not today Satan the secret to Yolanda success is not of course the calls to action those gradually rose as her subscriber count' did if you look at earlier episodes of how to take it you see that there are very few calls to action and most of them are requests for likes and subscribes with subscription services merchandise and camp cake being gradually added through the years and months early episodes are actually very conventional and more in the vein of your typical Food Network show but about five months after the channel launched in the flower pot of Cake episode published on may 5th 2015 a new element is introduced then I measure then I measure this do I look tired no sir cumference the giggle you hear is the voice of producer Jocelyn Mercer and her presence in the series interacting with Yolanda from off-screen only increases from here to the point where now it's a feature of the show that's a workout game this element proves engaging and in the following months there is a correlation of increased interaction between the production crew and the host in effect Yolanda breaks down the facade that is production she jokes with her producers she jokes with her cameraman our Americans gonna get mad at this sometimes she even jokes with her editor who is not in the room the series went from the occasional fourth wall breaks to fourth wall breaks being a part of the show's identity Yolanda and her producers have effectively figured out not only how to market a curated version of her personality but with how she interacts with her crew and the interactions with the crew make the show feel more authentic you feel like you're just you know in the room hanging out laughing about this elaborate cake that looks like a giant turkey now pop your turkey cake in the fridge I'm don't wait too much of this this falls into line with the appeal of YouTube in general that it strips away the polished facade of television to give you something more real you should send every rapper a newsletter without this info just now same word every sentence in the song ends with the same where mm-hmm Yolanda can get away with her eleven thousand calls to action per episode not in spite of this fourth wall breaking format but because of it owning the fact that a a polish production like this is in fact a group effort this isn't just a show you know we're just hanging out laughing about this cake we're just having fun you must chill this cake thy must chill to be clear this is not a call out how to cake it has a clear and effective business model and Yolanda Gump is both an engaging personality and a talented artist with fondant I do find the calls to action distracting but I loyally watch every episode of how to cake it and yes I own her goddamn book and no I have not attempted to make a single one of these cakes but there is something special innovative dare I say lucrative in the style and format Yolanda and her colleagues have devised and other companies have begun to take notice the medium is the message YouTube was founded in 2005 by three former PayPal employees Chad Hurley Steve Chen and jawed Karim the idea for YouTube in part was inspired by Jawad Koreans difficulty in finding and watching videos online of Janet Jackson having her tip exposed by Justin Timberlake during the Superbowl halftime show based on a failed prior project a video dating site called TuneIn hookup by February of 2005 the trio had agreed to set work on the YouTube project with chin and Corrine taking technical duties and Hurley taking on a managerial / administrative role in April of 2005 the very first video was uploaded to YouTube a video of jawad hanging out at a zoo both hang what these guys explain is that they have really really really long and no-one ever wanted for videos of wardrobe malfunctions ever again and that's pretty much all today so what does YouTube offer as a medium arguably YouTube offers anything you want but the platform specializes in certain niches that flourish on this platform more than they do elsewhere beauty blogs makeup tutorials video game screamer at ers and DIY channels make up a huge percentage of successful channels but the forum that both originated and flourished on the format and remains the most popular are the slice of life vloggers to this day the biggest channels on the platform with the likes of Logan Paul and PewDiePie even if they specialize in a subcategory like video games are in effect slice-of-life vloggers fundamentally YouTube lifts the barrier between the content creator and the viewer decades prior television had come into people's homes and given us the likes of news anchors and late-night talk-show hosts to provide a friendly public figure a personality that people find recognizable relatable and also a bridge to the world of celebrity but with YouTube we strip away the artifice indeed even in the name of the platform the person uploading the video controls what goes on on their channel YouTube is the medium of authenticity one simply records a video at so as they please and uploads it to their millions of subscribers no middlemen YouTube is the response to the demand of a younger audience hungry for what they consider authentic and because of this perceived authenticity audiences give a great deal more latitude with the sale of certain things for instance sprinkle services and t-shirt clubs this observation was brought to you by Squarespace with Squarespace you can design a beautiful website designed by professionals that know what they're doing not like me but even from the beginning there are blurred lines between slice of life daily vlogs and authentic fiction one of the earliest breakthrough channels was lonely girl 15 which launched in the summer of 2006 and was for a time female subscribe channel on YouTube anyway so Daniel is really mad right now and I know if he'll be allowed to come over anymore the series initially presented as an authentic YouTube video diary but gained even more notoriety when it was outed as being completely fictional in September of the same year it is noteworthy that the big controversy around lonelygirl15 was the revelation that lonelygirl15 was in fact an actress and that her daily vlogs were fictional and completely fabricated part of the appeal of YouTube is its perceived authenticity but even if there is no network or middleman everything that is uploaded to YouTube is cultivated by the creator and is it fair therefore to say that what lonely girl 15 is trying to sell you is any less authentic and Logan Cole I guess what I what I wanted to ask you was why you decided to be a youtuber I didn't decide to be a youtuber this is anyway I didn't decide to be a youtuber just called to you there well there wasn't no there was there like there were no youtubers it was 2007 there wasn't a such thing as a youtuber so here here's a question do you okay so like the stuff you're supposed to do like calls to action and do you ever do you ever consciously like incorporate stuff like that like stuff that's supposed to improve metrics no I mean the things that I do to improve metrics are like a good title and a good thumbnail and I don't think beyond that like that the algorithm changes to too much for my old man self to be trying to keep up with it but no I mean what I do to action because I want when I want somebody to take an action ID calls to action when PBS tells me what someone on Twitter actually like called me out on that they were like it's weird hearing you do a call to action it's very not on-brand and I'm like yeah yeah you're right you're right yeah influencer culture yeah hey everything about it both of those words are mean nothing I I think you can see a flash dear Hank no I ya know this this video is gonna be sponsored by Squarespace if they clear okay this video where I'm highly critical of influencer culture I like if you're gonna influence people to do something like yeah you know if you're gonna have a website you might as well use Squarespace oh that's their that's their new motto don't try to be all fancy and shit you don't know what you're doing good we're really good at this the medium is the message see I forgot his first name Marshall the medium is the message Marshall McLuhan 1961 what McLuhan yeah around one Yolanda Gump started using the joshing with producers gimmick her sub started going way way up and by mid-2016 she's well past two million subscribers and around this time on July 26 2016 venture capital funded startup craftsy begin publishing the first episode of their own cake show sometimes you need more than just to know how to cake it sometimes you need um about cake hey guys welcome to man about cake craftsy was a startup service that specialized in hobby and lifestyle tutorials and craft education that was launched in 2011 by a bunch of former eBay executives one of the contributors who featured in content behind this paywall was pastry chef and sugar artist Joshua John Russell pointer stencil resting against her cake board to help make sure it doesn't shift around we begin starring in content for craft C in 2012 but in November of 2014 the company raised another 50 million in BC financing and lo and behold they got their own fancy cake show starring Joshua John Russell featuring drastically improved production values and a whole new format one that seems strangely familiar by the way the milkman came today and dropped this on my door I don't know why I find that incredibly sexy it is sexy sword baby is about to be born okay so if like me you're integrating a new cake show into your cake tube diet one that admittedly does have more polished production values than your old hat it may feel seamless at first and this sort of thing is perfect for you to put on in the background of whatever it is that you're doing and not really paying attention to but if you watch enough man about cake you start to notice something what bird did that come out of it's like a robin's egg no Robin's eggs are very very pale our birthday it's for the viewers these guys are miked James who's that guy that's Mike say hi Mike hello that's a lavalier mic and named the dragon go ahead Brandon great okay like the sound cop from the producers on how to cake it is either at the onboard mic or from your lung does lavalier mic but I made about cake everyone on the set has a lavalier mic like these this is a lavalier it's not it is a Thor joke and then you start to notice other things like their use of props probably celebrate that was the best thing that ever happened to me guys I didn't notice there were balloons right above me balloons or their use of sound effects I'm gonna kill these balloons that pop was at it in post you all fired your fires there use of relationships within the show trim gets cornered you better watch that night do you see this shirt that does not say maybe I will cut you yeah you know just some guys joshing around just you know being broke bros making some cake as you do a weird and unnatural dynamic that Russell calls out in the very first episode of man about cake joining me is my all-male crew which is not weird at all that four guys would just be hanging out talking about cake but that's what we do and when you spend hours watching this show as I have you start to realize that this wasn't just a natural dynamic between the host and the crew that eventually got incorporated into the show like in how to cake it this was part of the pitch the banner for their YouTube show isn't just the hosts it's the host and these three guys facing away from the camera you go into their website and there are like BIOS for each of the camera guys you know camera guys but they don't have surnames or any defining attributes and their eyes are blacked out like there ain't goddamn witness protection so it's like this entire show was built around this scaffolding of bros joshan with each other while making a cake let's that was the best thing that ever happened to me more like man about fake the plain breeze just like we're done but a youtube show can't be like the obvious way more fake genre of reality shows it is that has to embrace this manufactured authenticity already pioneered by shows like how to cake it but here's the thing how to cake it has a really clear business model obtrusive at this point and honestly kind of distracting but I get it I get why the show exists and what its business model is and I can respect that but mad about cake has hardly any calls to action also on occasion they'll do like q and A's they'll do Instagram based contests they'll ask for comments but that's it the vast vast majority of the man about cake calls to action are all about building engagement and here's the thing mad about cakes Channel doesn't have that many more subscribers than I do and I know what kind of money these numbers pull ad revenue alone cannot pay for a show that looks this nice hmm starburst and in 50 yards I still don't really understand what their business model is what are you trying to sell man about cake they're just gonna get a lot of footage of me looking sad I was hoping to get it from different angles but it's genuine literary critic marie-laure Ryan states that we are more likely to be affected by what happens to people we know than by the fate of strangers and youtubers who have shared their lives with their subscribers for several years and hundreds or in some case thousands of videos can feel more familiar to some audiences than real-life acquaintances as we see in reality shows there is a viewer fascination with what Ryan calls higher cognitive emotions ie shame excitement sadness embarrassment in 2007 vlogger Chris Crocker became one of the first youtube stars with an emotional appeal defending pop singer Britney Spears who was at the time going through a variety of personal crises and being hounded by the paparazzi and press you're lucky she even performed for you bastard part of the viral appeal to this video is in part that the emotions are so extreme and sincere that they push the viewer to a place of discomfort and the best way to deal with that discomfort is to make proper the target of ridicule of parody but more to the point that the emotions over-the-top that they may be read is sincere and in this new marketplace of YouTube sincerity and authenticity are the valuable commodities reality TV was hugely popular when YouTube came onto the scene and remains hugely popular even in the world with YouTube but with reality TV there is more of an understanding that there is little real in what the viewer is watching with the medium of YouTube the rules that is to say the understanding between the creator and the viewer are a little different the videos on your personal channel were like I guess a little more stream-of-consciousness II yeah cuz I yeah just like my day of VidCon and stuff like that whereas like I guess the scishow and stuff is obviously like the most scripted and I think the interesting thing with the stuff you do on the vlog where those channels you have much you have a different cadence and the way that you speak and I've noticed this like even when I was doing a QA I noticed myself slipping into this like cadence that I I have developed I didn't even realize that I had developed it over the course of how many years yeah I am I have lots of friends who are youtubers and some of them I'm like you sound nothing like your YouTube self and they're like I don't I don't hear I don't have any idea what you're talking about it was just like you have a different voice when you're narrating a video it's just different it's completely - in some but some people sound exactly the same and they they are they they make the same jokes they make the same facial expressions like nothing is different I think usually when people meet me they're like surprised that I'm short and that I compulsively apologize what you don't do in your videos yeah no no I like kids because people kind of have like even my friends are like wow you just seem like such a hard-ass yeah and in real life you are not I don't know I don't think I am competitive in his videos I think it's just because I'm a woman and it just speaking speaking with any kind of confidence feels aggressive that's true yeah no you're not wrong the term emotional labor comes from Arlie Hochschild in her book the managed heart and was her contribution to discussions of effective and immaterial labor according to Hawks child emotional labor requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind and others her research found that in working with affect managing one's emotions can be physically tiring in the same way that manual labor is and that the commodification of emotions estranges workers from their own feelings more attention has been paid in recent years to emotional labor in a context of intimate relationship ie the idea that romantic relationships the onus falls more on women to manage the emotions both of herself and us for partner but Haas child was more interested in emotional labor as it pertains to a capitalist commodity in hostiles analysis not only is seeming to love the job part of the job but actually trying to love it and to enjoy the customers helps the worker in this effort as they are not simply faking it but they come to believe and internalize what they are doing for the job critical to her analysis is when this is done for and guided by capital it's it's kind of strategic you want someone to have a reason to come back and watch your video I think a lot of content you actually end up with it being a one-off viral video and I'm watching this because I like the video like because it's a good funny video yeah and if you don't get connected to a personality then like the chances that you're going to come back for a second video is way way down so trying to figure out how to connect with a personality without connecting your whole life experience without sharing everything is a really tricky balance how has your approach to selling a version of yourself changed since you started I that super addict no it's not it's just like I'm trying to come to terms with the version of myself that I am on the Internet I think that ultimately I think that it's it's really hard to have that version of myself not also in fact the real me and so there's the in this weird way like where I've been held accountable to being like a better person on the Internet I also like just find that it is more comfortable for me to be a better person in real life and to like be really thoughtful and careful and like aware of the impacts I'm having on other people but there is no doubt that like I am a different person on the internet than I am in real life and then I am very careful and I don't think that there's anything inauthentic about that I am the version of myself that I need to be for my own mental health but also for like the impact that I'm going to have on the people who are watching every job to a certain extent requires maintaining a certain effect but there are a number of jobs in which maintaining a certain effect is a requirement of the position if you are a cast member who works at Disneyland a requirement of the position is to maintain a friendly effect it is in your job description to make the customer feel special and to induce a feeling of happiness now anyone who interacts with a waitress or a Disneyland cast member while they appreciate and expect to receive this effect don't actually believe that this effect is genuine all of the time the bartender at the PF Changs doesn't actually care about how you never see your husband and how YouTube comments are scary and overwhelming and how you're pretty sure that the guy who sends you these novel-length screeds about how feminist throughing society and he's going to kill himself and you and probably 10 dozen other people is probably actually gonna kill you someday youtubers are selling more than a service like the bartender or the cast member the product that youtubers twitch streamers and other influencers sell is almost exclusively affect and this is a form of emotional labor more and more discussion has turned to create a burnout but most of that has focused on consistency maintaining a schedule little of that discussion has focused on the emotional burden of maintaining the effect associated with the creator's brand overtime little tiny micro traumas can build up as a result of a person behaving in a way that does not reflect their emotional truth but more importantly that their livelihood depends on and on some level a part of burnout is the desire to rebel against this one-sided picture of yourself that you have painted in the interest of consistency some extreme examples of this are high profile youtubers and streamers letting racial slurs slip into their speech or going on to other people's streams to rant about how immigrants are bad or maybe they got drunk in public and had a run-in with the police it happens I don't mean to condone random acts of racial slurs that occur during heated gaming moments but rather suggest that a part of the burnout is a result not only of YouTube's algorithm placing priority on creators who upload regularly and homogeneously but also on the emotional labor of only showing the side of yourself that your audience wants to buy we acknowledge that people working in the service industry don't always do it for the love of the game a cast member a Disneyland probably works there in part because they like being nice people but we also accept that the effect is a part of their job not necessarily their inner lived truths but there's very little sympathy for a high-profile creator who isn't 100% grateful for their platform 100% of the time when the same basic idea for youtubers comes up that they're sometimes they're afraid of their fans that maintaining an on brand effect becomes draining and exhausting that the expectation of constant availability can begin to do real harm well that becomes a breach of trust that the Creator had with this community a part of the platform of YouTube what some would call influencer culture is that it's important for creators that their audience think they know you and that your job depends on maintaining that sense of accessibility and authenticity without going crazy the premium of authenticity is predicated on maintaining that the effect is convincing the challenge for creators is to maintain the illusion for their followers of feeling like they do know this creator when reality they only know the effect the construct the site of the Creator that the Creator most likely without they're making a good conscious decision to do so has decided it is most beneficial for you the audience to see it is impossible to have a personal connection to a giant faceless mass of people who are in effect your customers and when the deception becomes clear fans can get angry but lucky for me I don't have to worry about you guys you're the good ones I remember this this very brief conversation you and I had at VidCon where you you were talking about making this video where you asked youtubers kind of random trivia questions and I was like oh man that was so sorry I hate you know I hate that you had to do that while you're here and you're like no I actually look forward to it like that's like my one creative outlet and that kind of surprised me because I like I so see you too anything that I put on YouTube is just work like sometimes it's gratifying work but at the end of the day is work to me hmm yeah no I mean like making a video is not I mean I don't know what work is I don't know what work is anymore I don't know what relaxing is I don't know like I don't I don't I really don't know I don't know how to do it really well like I have a hard time I sometimes have a hard time like being like going to just like a gathering of friends and not you know thinking about how could my time be better spent so I like I do have that problem but I do really like making YouTube videos like I love to edit video I love to I love to be on camera I love to write I love the whole process coming together I love how fast it can happen i I'm very glad that I have this than that I get to do every week yeah I know in a perfect world what would your positive impact be I want people to smile and be happy and and like think that that was a fun experience one I want people to like get excited about the universe in the world and like how cool and weird and like thinking critically and hard about stuff more and more like I want to foster some kind of better communication and Milland am also more and more I feel like that that that needs to happen a lot more off of the internet than is happening now I think that we need to have more physical connection or else we will continue to become more lonely and we need to occupy the same physical space as other human beings so my hope is also that people find community and connection that can grow outside of and be larger than just the Internet and I don't really know how I'm trying to get that done right now but it's something I think about a lot no Wendy am I going outside like Pokemon go it's like that except that I'm going to MFI friendship yeah no no no we got a game of eyes friendship it's like the Starbucks app that gamma Phi's coffee where it's like hit a star every day you get coffee so maybe game if I get a star every time you like see a person in the real save more than 10 words to them I like it the only the only problem I have with this idea is but it's a non-profit we need to make money Lindsey we need to get filthy rich so obviously I'm coming at this discussion both from the angle of a creator and as a viewer part of the reason I focused on cake-decorating YouTube is not only because you know that's what I watch but because there's something that happens in media where the scenes that are supposed to be hidden once you see them it's kind of hard to unsee asking what Matt about cake is selling is the wrong question Matt about cake isn't trying to sell anything it is instead the product to be bought which it was after that influx of VC financing in 2014 and the launch of mad about cake two years later that was all made with an eye towards acquisition which they were by NBCUniversal earlier the summer rebranding craftsy as blueprint on July 17th 2018 big corporations see the value in authenticity even manufactured authenticity like many about cake or this old companies will pay a lot of money for brands that can successfully sell authenticity and entire newer corporations have molded their marketing strategy around the faith viewers have in the authenticity of their favorite youtuber or their favorite podcaster companies like Casper audible and of course Squarespace now I hope this doesn't come across that I'm trying to make a grand sweeping statement about how thing bad even though that does tend to be the most effective way to get popular on YouTube but rather thing exists and thing is a part of a system that you may not even be conscious of but all content is cultivated no one can portray a fully lived experience on this platform and to paraphrase the great Dolly Parton it takes a lot of Labor to up here this authentic this video was brought to you by Squarespace URL squarespace.com slash lindsay ellis for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use the offer code lindsay ellis i guess to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain we bought this URL because we were having problems with google adsense and my tax ID number for my new corporation and so we were really angry about it so we just made a website where you just complain about things we don't like like this dog my new neighbor he's getting a blog entry free and secure hosting nothing to upgrade ever you can promote your business announce events powerful ecommerce functionality i should try that nothing about your neighbor's dog go easily create a website make it stand out it's gonna be beautiful the future is coming make it brighter with Squarespace Squarespace is coming I'm coming for this dog

Channel: Lindsay Ellis

Views: 1,648,059

Rating: 4.9409542 out of 5

Keywords: lindsay ellis, nostalgia chick, lindsay ellis video essay, lindsay ellis videos, hank green, lindsay ellis caketube, lindsay ellis how to cake it, lindsay ellis man about cake, how to cake it review, man about cake review, lindsay ellis xoxo, lindsay ellis squarespace, lindsay ellis youtube, lindsay ellis manufacturing authenticity, hank green interview

Id: 8FJEtCvb2Kw

Length: 36min 1sec (2161 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 11 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/BleepBloopMcGee]

Her analysis on YoutTube's personality culture is spot on. I always felt like I started watching vloggers due to their personalities and funny demeanor but as their channel's grew, the calls to action and merchandising grew and grew until they no longer had the same authenticity I enjoyed in the first place despite the fact that I know damn well they need money too. She always produces well research videos that are also entertaining to watch.

[u/PeterMus]

Authenticity is such an interesting concept in the modern world. We are all being feed an endless sales pitch on how X product or service is really part of building your unique self.

Everything has been sanitized and packed for consumption. I think that's the driving force behind the success of companies that test your DNA for specific geographic heritage. We lack a lot of the fundamental pieces of cultural identity which help us feel like an individual.

There is nothing a smart salesman can't pitch.

[u/Stre8Edge]

Yeah but seriously fuck fondant.

[u/GoldenJoel]

The facade she talks about is so real with youtubers.

I'll try not to mention names, but I know and have worked with a Video Game youtuber who blew up and started getting mass appeal. He started having guest spots on podcasts, and started interacting with said personalities at cons. As a camera man who volunteered to help out with some vids, it was truly enlightening how a famous youtube group interacted with each other.

They almost seemed annoyed with each other most the time, and would argue off camera, but then they would just 'switch on' their personality for when they turned on the camera, acting all buddy buddy, when only moments before I heard one say to the other, "You always fucking do this, shit on the town we're in because it's not ____." In a angry tone.

My friend also seemed to develop a real strong attachment to his fans. He'd be afraid of coming out against something that was clearly mob mentality at the time, and recently he's felt frustrated about current events, but he doesn't seem willing to use his platform to come out against said things.

Brigading and crusading are very real in this toxic internet landscape. You see it with the most minimal shit that spirals out of control on places like reddit, with little or no interaction from the mods who PROBABLY know they should do something, but don't. I think youtubers realize this, and don't want to threaten any kind livelihood to their platform though they're personally disgusted by what they see.

Self-regulation seems like a hard thing to manage with youtubers, especially when it's only one set of eyes on the content they produce. Having actually worked in television, that regulation is NEVER really a problem because there are 4-5 set of eyes on the work you produce to go, "Hey, this might look bad."

I've HAD those conversations. Youtubers more than likely can't, and so they either remain sealed up about how they feel or slip up and alienate a good portion of their audience.

It's a fine line to walk...

[u/danmalo82]

Whats up with that thing (brush mark?) on the screen in the final shot ( TIMESTAMP! ) of the video??

[u/invaderpixel]

I was skeptical of the total approach through the lens of cake making vlogs, but it was a good way to break it down and talk about the topic in general. I think Youtube makes it difficult to separate the artist from the business. When I was a kid I remember being obsessed with Tim Burton and Jhonen Vasquez, and felt outraged when evil Nickelodeon took away Invader Zim. I tried to feel connections to boy bands through whatever snippets a magazine would reveal about them, etc. Youtube feels a lot more personal because there's no one else to blame. But average people don't see the process and metrics behind building a Youtube channel, it's almost uncomfortable to think about what goes into getting the "likes and subscribes." Kind of makes me feel guilty for wanting to abandon certain youtubers for "selling out" and getting too popular, but it's a nice reminder you can still appreciate a content creator as long as their content doesn't substantially change.

[u/__Hello_my_name_is__]

Can I just say how much I love her intentionally half-assed plug of squarespace at the end, literally reading what she's supposed to say from her phone and all?

I mean I get that it's really just another example of what this video is about in the first place, but I still love it.

[u/FranklyTheRobot]

lindsay ellis is my hero

[u/titaniumjew]

If you're interested in these types of cultural and political YouTube essays you should check out other YouTubers in her circle like Shaun and Jen, ContraPoints, and hbomberguy.