What I find interesting is that many of these youtubers have created personas to appeal to their audience, like true entertainers. However loyal viewers are fooled into this false sense of reality, where they are friends with content creator and this is not a persona at all, he's my friend. Over time, the content creator and the audience share so many moments together, it becomes an emotional bond and a substitute for people's social needs. People grow attached to this persona, sometimes obsessively. I think it could create of a scary pattern of disassociation, has it already?
Another thought: If the content creator chooses to optimize the money-making persona, it eventually leads to sensationalized content to generate the maximum possible number of views. I think there is some sadness in that: no matter what form of art, so much of it is influenced (disrupted?) by money -- it almost seems inevitable.
My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says the amount of kids who are developing anti-social behaviors is increasing pretty rapidly. Kids these days have computers and are basically simply "escaping" to the internet to live in a fantasy world that is disconnected from reality. Some even display active addictions to computer games, like minecraft, while others say they only have friends online in the games or with these youtube personalities like you say. These kids literally do not know how to make friends or interact with other kids because they are so used to just sitting in front of a game or computer basically having a "friend" entertain them with only one-direction of interaction. They think this is normal relationship for a friend. They don't understand that in the real world in order to get friends you need to talk to other kids and interact with them. They literally do not know how to do this because they've learned it is not necessary...
Parents need to take it very seriously and limit the amount of time the child uses the computer...otherwise these behaviors continue into adulthood. If you are socially incompetent then it will hold you back in terms of jobs and so on. Very troublesome is that parents are basically using computers to babysit the kids or to keep them occupied...which only helps to reinforce the lack of social skills they get. How many times do you see a kid in a shopping cart holding a tablet watching some movie or whatever? Very common.
Before I had regular access to technology I spent most of my after-school and recess time staring off into space, pacing around constructing imaginary worlds, and reading YA fiction. I had no interest in my peers, and no idea how to connect with them, years before I ever touched a computer. When I finally did get into the internet, and programming, it was manna from heaven. Now I get to be a productive member of society, staring off into space at my desk and constructing imaginary worlds in the form of software systems for important business purposes. If it weren't for that, I might have wasted away, disintegrated, completely detached from the normal human world.
I dunno. Just because a child has no social life and a lot of screen time, doesn't mean the causality works as you propose. Some of us have a tighter grip on the world of things than the world of people. (It's definitely become more balanced for me, with time).
I also grew up during the transition. We didn't have Internet in the house until I was 14, and even then my computer time was limited. My story is similar to yours. I had a few neighborhood friendships that only worked out because I was able to tell them what I wanted them to do. Otherwise, interactions with my own age group were never 2-way: if they didn't want to do what I wanted to do the way that I wanted to do it, I just went off on my own and was perfectly content.
In my teen years I spent most of my time writing, reading, or walking wherever. Again, I had a few friends, but I was picky and apart from that didn't care to "maintain" the friendships. When I started using the Internet more frequently, I found more passive friendships online that came and went and this was a much better solution for me. It meant I could connect when I wanted to, and instantly end the connection when I wanted to be alone, without much risk.
I probably sound a little more pathological than you, but my point is that some people just are a certain way. Apart from that there are external reasons why kids prefer the Internet to in-person interaction. The Internet as a solution came about for a reason. The world is so populated now that when one walks down the street, your neighbors are unkind or elusive because people cannot keep up with so many relationships at once. Trains are packed, everyone's chattering, everyone's rushing, there are people everywhere but no one is communicating-- there's no time or energy to connect with people. Some guy on the train is crying, but no one is going to comfort him because everyone has so much shit going on. The Internet, in one sense, is a way to reconnect with one's neighbors intimately while keeping a sane distance. If a guy on reddit is telling me he's crying, I instantly attempt to comfort him.
It's a weird thing, for sure. But, personally, I don't see an easy way around it in the short-term.
I think many who grew up in the transition phase became hooked on arts or other creative things like programming. (Programming can often be an art in itself, especially if done for fun.)
But today, when I can barely get shit done with all the distractions at my fingertips, I wonder if I could learn the basics before gravitating towards something passive.
The lack of internet on my LCIII as a kid forced me to scour every bit off these dozen or so "Nautilus" CDs we got in the mail. They were like little random chunks of internet. Some demos, software, music, a video (holy crap video on a computer!!!), And lots of written media.
It forced me out of necessity to give time to content I never would have bothered with otherwise.
No doubt. I'm glad to see other people saying this. I used to be bored all the time, and it did wonderful things for me.
Among those: the media, fiction, or interactions that were meaningful to me held more space in my mind. They weren't competing against a sea of trash and new stimulus.
I spent hours and hours with Robot Odyssey when I was 9-10 and hours with Fisher Technic around 10-11 because there just wasn't a ton of other games on the family Apple IIGS. On mobile so sorry no links but the former is basically robot programming with logic gates. The latter was scale industrial hardware and software. And yeah. Now I'm a roboticist.
Also I did a ton of engineering and robotics extra curricular stuff through the years. Then one year we got broadband and I got Lego Mindstorms. I took it out of the box once. I still feel bad about that gift.
>If it weren't for that, I might have wasted away, disintegrated, completely detached from the normal human world.
Or you might have found a friend and started a social circle based on common interests. Now you never have to, you get various approximations of that. You can hop onto an MMO and have an approximation of a social circle. You can code until a manager says "good job" and have an approximation of social approval. Hell you can watch porn and get an approximation of sex. You can watch ASMR videos and get an approximation of affection (don't tell me a video of a cute girl with audio that sounds like she's whispering in your ear isn't meant to be an approximation of affection).
It's good to have tech and the things it brings us, but on the other hand they're clearly sucking people into a passive life where they interact with the actual world as little as possible. I've looked back on how socially retarded I am because I ran away from the world using these tools, and I don't like it. And it's only a personal failure to a certain extent. We all know, clear as a bright spring day, that a lot of apps and services are build deliberately to keep you there as long as possible as often as possible.
When people say they wouldn't have it any other way, I'm not sure it's for any reason but they either don't know or can't handle any other way.
I'm still not convinced the "real world" is actually better, tbh (if we're talking about human interaction specifically, I don't mind getting outside occasionally).
I live in both, I can function decently in both, and I still prefer the passive tech life. Pretty sure without tech, I'd still prefer to be distant/alone most of the time, with only occasional contact with other human beings
Computers, internet, youtube, games - these things are a part of a real world. I mean, they aren't a hallucination, they don't exist on a separate plane of reality. Experiences are real, joy they bring is real, and for many people, it's far better than what the "real" world around them has to offer.
If people are tempted to escape into a virtual world, it might be because the real world around them sucks.
And the last century has shown us that while the preference for candy/sugar might have created a big obesity problem, we're still around and there's no going back. The jury is still out whether or not it's inherently bad.
Not being online-savy would put me at a social disadvantage. I'm in my early 20s. My impression is that it's only more so for younger ones. When people talk of "real-world social skills" they usually mean the ones that made sense during their adulthood.
Exists something call moderation, it works both for online presence and for candies. Eating 300 kcals of candies in one day every day will not have a bad effect on you (if the rest of the diet is good), same as checking your Facebook account for 1 hour every day (in 5 minutes interval every 1-2 hours), I disabled every notification from Facebook et similar, and I check them only when I have nothing else to do, and I believe is having a good effect on me, I'm still present online but I'm not wasting all my time and mental energy there
I don't think that's a good, general comparison. Depends on what you're doing online.
I spend my time online reading about my interests or talking to other people. In the outside world, the conversations I have are short and often unfulfilling. People are more open online and I really value that kind of open introspection with others. It's difficult to find information about my interests outside of the Internet as well, unless I go to the library which, for me, is at least an hour commute.
Lots of people are learning how to use the Internet productively because as we migrate our time from physical reality to virtual reality, we crave more corresponding meaning.
The real world sucks for me sometimes (y'know, apart from nature walks and the like) because it's not the apple it's the candy. It feels fake, empty, and lifeless.
kids who have been indulged however do mind, they want the candy, they want it now, and will complain for the next couple days about how you are always trying to give them fruit lest you attempt it again.
The obvious problem with this temptation is that it leads to atrophy (or non-development in the first place) of social skills, which, for 99% of people, is detrimental.
I have never really heard people describe elementary school as the most inclusive environment where if just children took their time to talk to their peers then everyone would get along and bullying would be something of the past.
If children has a higher need to escape reality than in the past then maybe we should ask why that is rather than in vain hope try to make the problem go away by removing the escape method. Like you I find it troublesome that parents use computers to babysit, but I would say the same thing about any form of babysitting mechanism that result in the child not get any social support.
The idea that children "decide" to escape reality is completely ludicrous. The purpose of parents and society is to make good decisions for the future of their children, not pretend like they're opting-in to media manipulation.
The term escaping carries a rather strong implied meaning that its not a opt-in choice in the absence of that which to escape from. It is simply the result when there is no social support from parents and society (ie adults), and the environment that exist in schools that results in bullying and other anti-social behavior.
Maybe Minecraft and others succeed because they're just easier than actual real-life connections? If so, Minecraft might be a problem, a shortcut too many kids are taking.
maybe is because I'm not from US, but I remember elementary school as a very inclusive place, we used to play with every single person in the classroom and also nearby classroom during recess. We used to meet outside school, play in parks and go to each other birthday, I still remember the single day of birth of every single classmate I had, and we are still in contact even if we all took different roads once starting university 10 years ago
Youtube is turning 14 next year and computers have been mainstream way longer than that. Personally I was a kid when it was the TVs fault and video games were making kids violent, but imo things turned out just fine.
Definitely, I'm not saying that these videos were the first. I'm saying that this trend started with them. Meaning: Many of the original 2010 Minecraft youtubers are still around and they're generally considered "the veterans".
Problem is that one can't measure social skills against anything other than ones own standards, and those evolve as generations go. In the eyes of a 1900 upper middle class person, we'd probably all be degenerates.
I'm born '86, regular access to technology since the early nineties. I'm a social kind of person, have many friends. Sometimes I just want to lock myself in for an entire weekend and play video games for 16 hours a day. Other times, I'll be having barbecues or going dancing.
And as many here have already stated, the extremes go smoothed over by time.
Before my household had internet I was nose deep in a book 24/7, never leaving my room, and I had no friends at all.
Post-internet I at least had friends, sure some were in the Netherlands, or Germany, or Australia, or Brazil, or Japan but they were people. Actual people that existed outside of the fantasy novels I would read. People that as an adult, I was able to travel to and visit. I have a job in web development, something that wouldn't even exist without the internet.
I owe essentially 100% of my "successful adult life" to the internet existing. Without it I'd likely be working a minimum wage job at a local fast food chain without a single friend to speak of. Merely existing and reading books.
I blame helicopter parents like my mother far more than I blame access to the internet.
What about the giant scare of strangers that flared up in the 90s? Every stranger is a potential murderer/rapist and you shouldn't speak to them. Children not being allowed to travel outside alone, the rise of "helicopter parenting". Even if you allow your child to go outside it's increasingly unlikely they'll meet another child because other parents don't let their children go outside. When I was younger I remember always seeing parks full of unsupervised kids playing. Most parks I see now are empty. Or maybe a parent watching their kid(s) play on the equipment.
A great feature on Playstation is Family Management using sub-accounts. You can set time limits where it will log them out automatically. You can also setup a schedule with certain hours per day and end time.
I hear lots of "how much gaming did you do when you were young?" but it isn't the same. Today big game companies engineer the games to be addictive to "win" screen time. Back then I may have sunk a lot of time into Nintendo but it was mostly solo playing or playing with friends/siblings that sat next to you. You tended to help each other out to get past levels, etc.
I'm not sure it is so simple. As a point of counter anec-data I was always kind of concerned about this, and I even developed a slightly unhealthy habit with my phone when I sank into depression. In any case, we decided an iPad for our son might be helpful for education and we bought one for him/us when he was 1. He used it quite a lot and he learnt maths really early. As he has grown up - now 3, he only occasionally uses his iPad. To be honest, I find it quite strange that it hasn't turned out how we all would expect it to. I've been conscious to not put crappy advertising games on there, or anything with psychological hooks. But I honestly don't think it is the device that is the root of the problem.
> I've been conscious to not put crappy advertising games on there, or anything with psychological hooks.
It's almost like reasonably moderating the content your child consumes will help prevent undesirable behavior.
I'm being a bit gratuitously sarcastic right now but that's really the crux of it. If it's trying to sell your child something or constantly stimulating them in a way the real world can't or it's not teaching your child something you want them to learn, be careful about how they consume it.
I'm nowhere near the age of having kids yet but I'm already thinking about the optimal balance of usage so my kid would be digitally native and not addicted to apps.
It's not a matter of "computers" but a matter of education: if kids discover something like Smalltalk/Cobol scripting in a friendly environment like ancient Alto&c workstations or actual unix shells and Emacs they may choose to develop some IT skill or ditch computers entirely; if they are mere consumer of contents they became incapable of developing anything themselves.
Kids are "totipotent" individuals if they grow up as creators, citizen between other citizen they became adult, otherwise they became consumer, easy to steer from employers to politicians but incapable of being citizen.
I don't think that behavior should be called anti-social. Why do you put their online friends in quotes? When I grew up, I only had one real friend, and everyone else I played with only because they lived on the same street. I did not particularly like the games most of the time, but there was no choice.
In contrast, these kids have friends, who actually share some common interest. They choose those friends. And also, probably, more of them. If anything, I'd call that hyper-social.
> My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says
Respectfully, I've spent a _great deal of time_ with elementary school teachers, and many appear very very willing to diagnose random children, adults, and coworkers as being "a bit autistic", and so on.
In addition, and assuming wildly here, how old is she? If you're the HN average of about 30, and she's about your age, she doesn't really have a cross-generational experience to pull from, even assuming she was making observations free of the very many cognitive biases one would expect in this situation.
My bet would be that if you found a teacher -- from almost any point in history -- and asked them what the kids are like in their time period, they'd tell you about the latest inventions that have made their kids uniquely awful and anti-social. I'll spare you pulling out the 3,000 year-old quotes about how "young people these days don't respect their elders".
If there are some studies that show it, I'd be all for it. Teacher anecdotes are uniquely poor quality samples, in my opinion.
Seriously, let’s be real. How much experience does this elementary school teacher have with the previous generation? None, probably.
Through all of time we’ve heard this. The current generation is supposedly rubbish in some way the previous generation was not. Instead it’s been the opposite. Each succeeding generation has surpassed the previous in any human quality. I have immense confidence that our collective children will be the same. We are better people than our parents. Our kids will be better than us. No doubt about it.
I have the same outlook. There are bad points in every generation, but groups of people don't get arbitrarily worse because they were born together at a certain point in time. Every generation faces a new challenge, and every generation attempts to overcome it, usually with unique results. Previous generations have no concept of the challenges their kids and grandkids face.
I'm a millenial, and my partner's parents, stereotypically, are always going off about how lazy, whiny, and unmotivated my generation is. From where I stand it's the complete opposite. I could explain why but, at the risk of starting a debate about millenials, I'll just say that my generation has been working on solutions to problems our parents either didn't have to deal with, or weren't aware of. And that's just the way "generations" work.
> My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says
Respectfully, I've spent a _great deal of time_ with elementary school teachers, and many appear very very willing to diagnose random children, adults, and coworkers as being "a bit autistic", and so on.
I've had a very similar experience with the people I know who are trying to be teachers, though most of the people I deal with are either in or just out of college and this could be attributed to inexperience.
I find it a little troubling that I see people practically seeking examples of unusual social behavior and attributing it to autism. I saw this sort of pseudo-analysis happen a lot with Sheldon in Big Bang Theory. Opinions of the show aside, I don't think it was ever explicitly stated that he had a social disorder.
I've made this same argument to my teacher friends who are worried about the youth. But consider this: while they may not have direct experience with youth across generations, we are unlikely to have as much experience with the youth of any generation as they do.
This was described in 1956 by Horton and Whol in the paper Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction.
> One of the striking characteristics of the new mass media - radio, television, and the movies - is that they give the illusion of face-to-face relationship with the performer. [...] The most remote and illustrious men are met as if they were in the circle of one's peers; the same is true of a character in a story who comes to life in these media in an especially vivid and arresting way. We propose to call this seeming face-to-face relationship between spectator and performer a
para-social relationship.
They even use your term 'persona' to refer to the individual behind the glass.
> But of particular interest is the creation by these media of a new type of performer: quizmasters, announcers, 'interviewers' in a new 'show-business' world - in brief, a special category of 'personalities' whose existence is a function of the media themselves. [...] Lacking an appropriate name for these performers, we shall call them personae.
> Over time, the content creator and the audience share so many moments together, it becomes an emotional bond and a substitute for people's social needs.
I've wondered about this for podcasts too. I noticed a scary habit where I would play podcasts when I was feeling lonely. Over time, you feel like you're pals with the hosts and something about the audio format checks the social needs box in your brain, thinking that you're hanging out with another human. I don't want to unconsciously sate my social needs with podcasts so I've been more intentional about my listening.
There is a good reason why the Kardashians are incredibly successful. They are able to convince their viewers they are part of the family with their shows. I think its because you feel included since most of the show is back-and-forth gossip on family issues where its common for the people in the scene to try and find a solution to a problem where the problem person is excluded from the conversation. As a result, I think the viewer feels more welcome than even one of their family members.
Once hooked, the kardashians make bank because they can sell their fans laxative teas or hair growth gummy bears on instagram through huge ad endorsements
> I think its because you feel included since most of the show is back-and-forth gossip on family issues where its common for the people in the scene to try and find a solution to a problem where the problem person is excluded from the conversation.
Yes. I see this kind of shows as social pornography. But meanwhile pornography is seen as something that you see in private and you are kind of ashamed to recognize that you see it publicly. This social pornography is widely accepted and even children watch it with, usually, their mothers.
Society needs to create a taboo about this kind of shows. It maybe OK to watch them on your own if you need it. But not to include children and not to make it the center of your life.
These are just the initial iterations of how influence in a hyper connected society works. What happens next we are yet to see. Naturally most people don't think anything good.
Reality TV produced Trump. People forget it(what passes for news+social media news) also produced Obama. Remember he was hailed as the first social media President. After that every single politician, religious and social figure in every country was suddenly broadcasting their daily activities.
Just another avatar of what Reality TV hit upon.
So now the mechanics exist for an enterprising person to exert influence on a large numbers of people like never before. Across all kinds of geographic/social/cultural boundaries. Traditionally such influence has taken decades for famous people to acquire. So the textbook on how to use that influence has been very thin. The outcomes produced were much more based on pure luck than by design.
With big data and thousands of psychological experiments going on, how to use influence vast numbers if peoples lives, for good, is going to increase.
Personally I’ve experienced something like this while reading fiction. The characters are so life-like and endearing in some books that I miss them and feel a loneliness temporarily after finishing. So I guess it isn’t just modern media, humans just have a tremendous capacity and need to connect.
Same here, I actually find the effect from reading fiction to be much stronger than any other form of entertainment. After finishing a series of book, I will tend to be subdued, lonely and slightly depressed.
Fun to imagine an alternative reality where our brains would simply be unable to accept flashing monitor LEDs or vibrating speaker diaphragms as representations of people.
You're putting a dark twist on it, but personally, I do feel like many of my favorite youtubers are my friends. I might not be their friend, but I love them, they have taught me a lot, and helped me to get through tough times.
If I'm sad I can always watch their videos and feel happy and connected to other people. I like people who create awesome stuff, I can relate to them a lot more than to the people I meet in real life.
I don't think these feelings are invalid. If people watch someone's content, and learn things, and feel connected, and that makes them feel good and happy - I think that's wonderful.
Besides, it's not like real life people are amazing at being real, everyone has a fake persona they're trying to project. What you can't fake is being funny, insightful, educational, likable, charismatic, talented, inspiring, etc. If you're creating something good, people will like you. Nothing wrong with that.
Junk food will make you full too, but over time make you sick. I fear you're substituting real human connection with cheap alternatives. Cooking healthy food can be annoying and it often makes a mess, but is necessary in the long run.
Dismissing real life people as "not amazing at being real" is ironic to me because people have been the way they are since maybe even before the dawn of homo sapiens. That's just what real is. Not everyone is this charismatic, funny, inspiring character. You still welcome them into your life just as they welcome you into their lives.
I think this is the essence of most modern entertainment. I once produced a pilot children's animation and had written a "bible" - the text that sets out what you plan to do for a series - and was told by a senior commissioner in no uncertain terms that modern children's tv series "must take place in the same place with the same characters so kids can come home and watch the show at the same time every day and feel like they have a family while their parents are doing something else. That way they buy into the brand and parents buy all the merchandise". As you mention, it's the inevitable consequence of optimisation and why there should always be a space for government-funded programming and art.
> there should always be a space for government-funded programming and art.
Why is everything people want has to be government funded? Just go ask people for money directly, like a lot of the abovementioned youtube stars do. Tax man with the gun does not have to be involved with this.
Basically all of (central, where I live) Europe, not sure about the USA. The police comes if you don't pay - it's a criminal offence. Nobody would pay if they only sent letters. Also European ministries of finances often have their own armed forces (customs administration[1]).
[1] For example the Czech Customs Administration: https://www.celnisprava.cz/en/Pages/default.aspx - note the sentence at the top: "Customs Administration of the Czech Republic is a security force ensuring processes in the field of customs administration and related taxes, as well as other non-fiscal activities in the favor of the state and its citizens. It is subordinated to the Ministry of Finance."
Absolutely. But I for one would rather live in a world that had the diversity of both private and state-funded art, each with their own biases. Surely that's better than the single influence of the market?
Virtually all governments all over the world have various arts funding schemes that covers music.
That being said I have no strong opinion either way on if that's a good thing or if the music funded this wouldn't have been funded some other way if those schemes hadn't existed
What country are you in? Definitely if you're in the US or Europe there are plenty of places you can apply for government funding if you're a composer.
Also if the government is funding the concert hall and that funding lets the concert hall put on work by and pay a composer, at what point does it stop being government funding?
"The Chicago Philharmonic Society has been named the recipient of a $10,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The award will support a collaboration between The Chicago Philharmonic Society, composer Augusta Read Thomas, and Chicago-based percussion ensemble Third Coast Percussion for the creation and performance of a new work for percussion quartet and orchestra. The premiere will be presented in fall 2017 as part of the Chicago Philharmonic's 2017-2018 symphonic season."
Just out of curiosity, can you name a CD produced in the US by a composer paid by the government to compose?
No, but if really I wanted to find one I'd probably start by looking here: https://www.arts.gov/ and then continue looking at smaller and more local arts grants. Also I'm sure that at some point some part of the government has commissioned new music for some project or event, although it's quite possible that that music has never been released on a CD.
But again it's all down to how you draw the line. Are you asking if there are composers on the federal payroll or if a composer has ever won a government grant and uses the money for that grant to pay his rent while continuing to compose?
And more importantly what do you mean by funded? If the local council offer free or subsidized rehearsal space to local up and coming bands, is the album they created there "government funded"?
I'd say no. But some people would say that the road the band used to drive around was government funded, therefore their music is. I don't agree with them.
I'd say government funding is when the government pays money to a specific artist to produce art. Like when a record company decides to pay a band to produce an album, or a publisher decides to give an advance to an author to write a book.
Australian here - I just discovered today that our current right/conservative government has a program where artists can receive a $15,000 grant to record their album [1], and the left/progressive opposition has pledged to double the number of grant recipients if elected [2]. I can't say I've heard of any of the 2017 grant recipients.
Yes, but there is a bright side too. Mr. Rogers developed a personal relationship with many of his viewers in the way that you are talking about, and I think he did a great service to the world
Mr. Rogers was different because he was using his influence for social good and to teach positive characteristics/skills/traits etc.
The other personalities, do not specifically cater to this. They're more interested in creating a following and creating something that keeps people coming back for more.
Are you saying Mr. Rogers did all of his work for free out of the goodness of his heart? He was a TV personality and totally reliant on ratings to pay the bills. I don't see how YouTube is any different.
Of course Fred had bills to pay as well, but on the whole his motivations were certainly overwhelmingly altruistic. Read his Wikipedia page[1] to get an idea of what drove him to produce Mr. Rogers. Here's an excerpt:
>Trained and ordained as a minister, Rogers was displeased with the way television addressed children. He began to write and perform local Pittsburgh-area shows for youth. In 1968, Eastern Educational Television Network began nationwide distribution of Rogers's new show on WQED. Over the course of three decades, Rogers became a television icon of children's entertainment and education.
>Rogers advocated various public causes. In the Betamax case, the U.S. Supreme Court cited Rogers's prior testimony before a lower court in favor of fair-use television show recording (now called time shifting). Rogers also testified before a U.S. Senate committee to advocate for government funding of children's television.
If you dig deeper Politics, Sports, Religion, Movies/TV all do the same thing. They contribute to a "sense" of well being.
What contributes to "actual" well being of the follower is another matter entirely.
Though in the age of big data, despite all the pessimism we are surrounded by, it is possible more and more for the celeb class to influence "actual" well being (in terms of mental health/purpose/financial stability etc) of their followers.
The next George Lucas or Stan Lee could push psychological buttons in ways no one ever has before.
Here is a (somewhat related) instance of what you are talking about: A New Mexico Resident drove for 11 hours to break into the home of Gavin Free and Meg Turney, with intentions to kill Free [0]. It seems he became obsessed with Turney and wanted Free to die "alone and without children". Obviously there were other mental health factors at play and it wasn't just "youtube fame did this", but it is a case of this largely one-sided relationship-dynamic.
Pewdiepie definitely diverges strongly from Felix‘ IRL persona. Pewdiepie is an outgoing personality with misogynistic tendencies, playing with racial slurs every now and then, appealing to his Reddit/4chanish/incel followers (whom he now calls army of 9 year olds).
IRL he seems to be awkward around other people, soft (nice), and obviously a bit depressed.
I think Pewdiepie's main reason for success is the opposite of what you just said. Differently from other youtubers, he seems real and honest, not built artificially to target a specific audience.
Have you ever watched Meme Review or You Laugh You Lose? Nobody is like that IRL, these videos are made on lots of energy drink. He has a lot of honest videos too, but those are not where most of his revenue comes from. He also admitted that he used "forced positivity" for a long time to gain subscribers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyGI1uHyyws
Maybe I'm biased because I'm a fan. But there is a large difference between forced positivity and "misogynistic tendencies, playing with racial slurs". I'm not saying he's not partly performing, but he's not the misogynistic/racist character you were suggesting.
Oh yes he is. How do you explain the „respecting wamen“ thing? „Death to all Jews“ - yeah it was just a joke, right? „F‘n N-Word“ in a live stream. The incidents add up. He’s probably not serious, but he does play around, I don’t know how you can deny that if you have seen a lot of his videos.
I've watched pewdiepie vids and think they're completely retarded but pewdiepie as a person is a genius because he knows the largest demographic on youtube are immature youngsters who have tons of time to watch youtube. So he creates content to cater to that demographic's quirks.
His real persona comes through pretty frequently though, which is why people like him, imo. When he does longer gaming videos, or more serious videos, you can see what he is really like to some degree. Most of his viewers should be very aware that the PewDiePie persona isn't who he actually is in real life, which is a departure from other YouTubers who always have their "TV personality" on while they are recording. Even in his less serious videos, every once in a while he will break from his PewDiePie persona and have a bit of more serious commentary, which makes him seem very genuine, while still being entertaining. The viewers know he is having fun and joking around in his videos, rather than trying to act like he is something he's not.
I've never watched pewdiepie but I assume his audience is too young to be on reddit or 4chan or to having been rejected by women for so long as to consider themselves to be celibates.
How would you know any of that without actually knowing him IRL for the contrast?
Afaik your IRL description is one he gave about himself, where he also explained that he initially used YouTube to get past his "awkward around other people" issue.
In that context, I find it hard to believe that people could consistently play a "fake-persona" without that ever influencing their normal mannerisms, particularly when they have to summon this "fake-persona" on a near-daily basis.
> How would you know any of that without actually knowing him IRL for the contrast?
I follow him around a lot, and as you said, you cannot hide personality traits forever. E.g. he definitely is not misogynstic, but he plays that card often during Meme Review or his other weekly formats to cater to his Reddit audience. I honestly believe he speaks for his real self in his social commentary videos.
I've had a few phases were I binged a couple of his videos over the years, as such it feels like I've actually seen him kinda grow up.
I don't think it's really a "card" he consciously plays, it's much more a reflection of the culture he lives in and caters to, as a gamer.
Not all use of misogynistic language has misogynistic intent, particularly not when it's been an established part of the sub-culture. And in that context, this recent need to "enforce PCness", particularly in gaming culture [0], DID trigger a massive reactionary backlash that most of the industry and especially the mainstream seems still to be ignoring.
Gaming has always been about freedom and creativity, just hinting at intent to censorship [1] is enough to cause a, usually very loud, reaction. Right now the industry as a whole is running into a wall it won't be breaking through, instead it's paying the price by losing customers en mass. Take a look at recent EA, Ubisoft, Activision stock development and you will see exactly what I mean.
Other factors play into that as well, like over monetization of products which are often of very shallow quality. Case in point: Fallout 76
Or simply misreading what your customers actually want: Blizzard with Diablo immortal.
All these issues have brought the community to a breaking point, and now the most visible and biggest industry players are feeling the brunt of it.
With the audience that he has, he HAS to hold himself to higher standards. I get that he would burn out if he didn’t do what he liked, but he could at least let Brad edit it all out.
"They are not authoritarian, they just censor your language."
But I guess intent doesn't matter, it's all about the optics, right?
It's kinda amazing how ESRB 18+ games can have players commit the cruelest and bloodiest violence, but as soon as somebody says a slur, that's suddenly "crossing a line".
More interestingly this mechanic functions in every kind of social relationship. Everybody who isn't a total shut-in has at least a few different audiences they cater to. Also very common to become too attached to a persona that, say, pleased one's parents but doesn't quite work out at work and suffer for it.
And if anything given the prevalent expectation for consistency, such dissociation is rather freeing.
Great comment. I have some thoughs on the matter:
- I dont think you need the money motive though (its def. sufficient but not necessary). - The relationship between money and art is as old as civilization itself - in fact I believe the coupling is looser today than in ages past.
- Some would argue that the term art is not applicable to most popular youtube channels.
>People grow attached to this persona, sometimes obsessively. I think it could create of a scary pattern of disassociation, has it already?
I know Jenna and Julien have had people show up to their previous address, it seemed like mostly parents driving/flying their kids across the country to show up at their rental house to meet them...
I follow some vloggers that I find entertaining as well as have listened to podcasts for a decade now. I will readily admit I have more of a perceived familiarity with a lot of these people than I do with people I know in the real world for example:
- Adam Carolla and crew, 5 days a week times many years. I know about Adam's kids, his nanny, his wife, his business endeavors, his high school antics, his childhood, falling out with his friends, his genital warts test...
- A guy in Germany named Pierre who does a couple of few vlogs a week on his YouTube that I've supported via patreon and am Facebook friends with now
- Jenna and Julien, I've basically been watching both of their channels the entirety of their relationship
- The hosts of Geek Radio Daily, which I'm friends with on facebook. I've been listening to them a decade, I've been writing and calling in to the podcast the entirety of that time, I occasionally shoot memes to Flynn and we've been playing Words With Friends for several years, yet he and his wife know virtually nothing about me and I feel like they are old very good friends as I've been listening to them sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, for a decade.
- Mike Luoma, I discovered him on podibooks a decade or so ago. Listened to him narrate his stories. Found his podcast. Listened to it. Hired him to do an intro to my podcast that lasted a few episodes. Been friends on Facebook for years, have introduced him to other podcasters, will be on his 500th episode in a couple of weeks, I feel like I know so much about Mike yet I bet he knows virtually nothing about me.
It's certainly an interesting world we are building. Celebrity worship has been a thing as long as there have been celebrities but never before have we had such levels of exposure to given individuals. Such access to their lives through their video or audio, through their social media, through their patron-only content.
I find it fascinating and addictive but I absolutely recognize there is real danger in a society that is moving towards this sort of exchange, especially for individuals that do turn to obsessive behavior and even idol-worship.
Radio has similar properties, which is one of the reasons it is such a popular medium for certain types of demagoguery. Modern TV is different, but many people had similar feelings of attachment to soap opera characters, etc.
This is just watching tv. I can make my wife laugh with our injokes based on our own life and stories but also based on Modern Family and Fresh Off the Boat episodes we’ve both watched.
Considering the politician with the best understanding of exploiting a major social media platform is President now, imagine where these youtubers will go.
> However loyal viewers are fooled into this false sense of reality, where they are friends with content creator and this is not a persona at all, he's my friend.
Just like Mister Roger's Neighborhood in the 1970s.
By all accounts Mr. Rogers wasn't a persona, though, that was the real him. He really did want to be everybody's friend, not for fame or fortune, but because he wanted to make the world a better place.
> If the content creator chooses to optimize the money-making persona, it eventually leads to sensationalized content to generate the maximum possible number of views.
In the past brand prestige protected the media from this to happen. A backslash on a TV will make all advertisers to flee.
YouTube does not suffer from this. They host radical, xenophobic, and misogynistic content without consequences. Because they label themselves as a tech company, a middleman that has no responsibility on their own content. But are they? Meanwhile we buy what YouTube advertisements show they have no reason to stop.
When you optimize society to generate money instead of generate value you get to this weird situation.
Another thought: If the content creator chooses to optimize the money-making persona, it eventually leads to sensationalized content to generate the maximum possible number of views. I think there is some sadness in that: no matter what form of art, so much of it is influenced (disrupted?) by money -- it almost seems inevitable.