shameless self promotion
i am now guilty of this cardinal sin. what i could never do in real life i am doing on youtube. it's crazy how an experiment that was supposed to help me understand kids becomes more and more a study in my own motivations and behaviors.
late yesterday afternoon, "soundlyawake", aka Nick, tweeted me (yes, i have opened a twitter account. it is part of the phenomenon). i had submitted a question for his comedic "ask keisha" video, but it was very unclear that i was asking the character keisha. so it was not surprising that nick was confused and perhaps a bit perturbed when i asked, "how do you get rid of unwanted body hair?" i explained my mistake, in 140 characters or less, and apologized. he was kind enough to reply and let me know that it was just fine. i boldly replied back explaining that i love his work (which is true) and that i had put him in a video. i sent the link. apparently he watched and liked it and tweeted about it.
now i want to do some research on twitter, but i'd need a lot of cooperation from youtubers. see, compared to dan brown (with over 20,000 followers on twitter), nick's tweet (2500 followers) got me about 45 hits on vidcon in a 10 hour period compared to 800 hits on noodly appendage in about 4 hours. interesting.
so today, i took a chance and sent the link to natalie tran. maybe i'll send it to michael buckley as well.
ok. full disclosure. when i first put vidcon blues up on youtube, i sent it via yt email to all the people in it. only way responded. which means that nick didn't read that email. tweeting is a better way to communicate now? i did see a piece on yt (about texting) that indicated that email is "too slow and cumbersome". so these days it's all about tweets and texts.
truly, this experiment is turning into a full-time job. but it's so compelling, i can't seem to stop. so, do i have any right to turn up my nose at people on youtube who are tweeting every 2 hours about their latest video, or encouraging me to buy this limited time offer t-shirt or coffee mug?
it seems like youtube started as a means of expressing ourselves and is now a means of selling ourselves.
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I plan to buy some of WheezyWaiter's shirts. And RayWilliamJohnson's "Fake and gay" and "two camels in a tiny car" shirts.
ReplyDeleteMainly because I think they're funny and I'd like to show my support, as I would with a band I like.
Not everyone who makes a profit from sharing their soul is a whore. But like I said somewhere else, I don't like the marketing virus that has spread from traditional media, either.
your comments never annoy me.
ReplyDeleteother than the "fake and gay" shirt ( that phrase just makes me angry. i've been literally spat upon simply because i'm gay. i feel a rant coming on, i'll stop now), i don't have a big problem with the products themselve. i have a problem with the constant commercialism. i don't watch tv anymore so i don't know how often the commercials come on now, but it used to be about every 12 minutes. on youtube now, entire videos of some of my formerly favorite youtubers are entirely about merchandise they are selling. it bothers me. i want some part of my world to not be about monetary gain.
I definitely understand why you don't like the "fake and gay" shirt. To me, it's about making fun of trolls and people who use the word gay for the wrong reasons. I don't like its use any more than you do. I'm half gay, so I can relate. Kind of. Not really.
ReplyDeleteAs far as commercial products go, I don't have a problem with a YouTuber selling merchandise. I like showing my support with money, and I like showing my support by wearing band t-shirts and stuff like that. I think that when they dedicate so much of their time to create content I like, I don't mind them selling something. Especially not if I like what they're selling.
But it can be annoying.
TV is almost as bad here in Norway. At least the commercial based channels. Too long and many commercial breaks for my attention span. That's why I have a PVR. That way I can just record whatever I want to watch and hit fast forward when I'm watching it.
I hardly ever watch tv on my tv anymore though. I get dvds and blurays. I watch a lot of web content, and I definitely think about advertising a lot.
But how would you be able to dedicate all that time, and sometimes money, into making good content, if you don't have an income? I mean, you wouldn't be able to make content all day AND have a full job.
I think that it's just fair that there is a commercial aspect to YouTubing. But I think there should be a better balance. I don't want to see half assed videos every day just for the views, when I can get a good video once a week. And if you talk about your products all the time, it's too much.
In summary I'd like to say that I don't disagree with you about advertising and commercialising is a big problem, but I don't agree that, say, WheezyWaiter is part of this problem.
And if you let the commercial aspect overshadow the content, that's not good. (That goes both ways. Don't let Wheezy's t-shirt store overshadow the awesomeness of his videos.)
PS: I'm glad you value my disagreeing.
Yay! Another long, incoherent comment.
Sorry.
don't apologize for telling me what truth looks like from your view point. it helps me decide if what i'm thinking needs to be rethought or if my convictions are true.
ReplyDeletei'm still working on this one. my sister has asked why i wouldn't sell my songs if i could. i don't have any answer except that it just doesn't feel right. i guess if i ruled the world, we would all spend part of our day doing the physical work of making the world a better place and part of the day creating stuff to share. impossible to do with 7billion people on the planet, but i can dream.