The real tea for this video is that is the second time that I'm recording it
because the first time I forgot to plug in my microphone. Also I am sick, I've got
the flu and a terrible cold so if I sound weird well weirder than usual that's why.
Anyway in the last few years there is being an overwhelming increase
of commentary channels whose sole purpose is most often to comment
negatively on other youtubers. In this video I want to talk about them I want
to understand what kind of dynamics they employ sometimes not even on purpose and
why exactly do people love watching drama. So the full idea for this video
came about a week ago when I was so sick that all I could do was watching stuff
on my computer so I caved in and I was finally started watching some videos
from this creator which YouTube has shamelessly continuously recommended to
me all the time. This new creator is Angelika Oles. You
may know her from a very popular Zoella video or for her road to irrelevancy theme
which she uses as a way to discuss in each video about a single youtuber or
multiple youtubers and why they're not successful anymore. So we'll start from
there and then we will expand into so much more.
One of her videos that really interested me was the why youtubers hypocrites
one. In this video she addresses the people who dislike her the other
youtubers that hate her and specifically Superwoman's and Mark Butler's
reactions to being picked for her commentary. And while their reactions are
very brief and fundamentally not that negative I mean Superwoman spends a few
minutes in her vlog talking about her accomplishments as a way to show that
she's not irrelevant and Marcus Butler is simply puzzled by the popularity of
the trend itself, Angelika spends 14 minutes on this video
and throughout her discourse I found so many dynamics that usually I've seen
employed by other commentary channels but all in one video. So nothing personal
against Angelika but I'm going to borrow this video and use it as a blueprint to
analyze these dynamics that I'm talking about in relation to the commentary /
drama channels. Angelika mentions how she used Lilly
Singh's image in the thumbnail but never actually called her irrelevant
in the video itself.
Yes clickbait is a thing is very common and I'm not necessarily against it however
putting someone's face together with the cheeky title like 'the road to
irrelevancy' does automatically create an association between said
person and the claim that you're making. After all research has shown that we
judge negative information to be more revealing than positive one and we also
retain it better. Even if in the video you may not use that specific adjective
to describe that specific person many people may not watch the video in its
entirety or at all and just glance on it but they will still remember that
association. That's why it is damaging especially for youtubers whose personas
are basically their own brand. It is the same logic that made certain
viewers uneasy with certain parts of Shane Daswon's latest videos on Jake Paul.
Shane Dawson mentions several times in those videos how he is not saying that Jack
Paul is a sociopath but the association of certain symbolism be it an image
horror sounds effects etc clearly play on the narrative of associating Jack
Paul with sociopathy. In this video Angelika also use a certain rhetoric
which is pretty common of commentary channels which to me speaks more about
how she wants to be perceived and the brand that she is trying to build rather than
the actual youtubers that she's criticizing.
She's using superficially controversial topics to
effectively create a narrative around her own persona that compared to these
fake youtubers she's an honestly brutal creator therefore someone that an
audience can trust and give their loyalty to. For example we know that
gossiping about someone is an indirect way of speaking well of ourselves and of
the people that are willing to listen to us which in turn makes us feel superior.
This is pretty much the same thing and it is not something that she's
necessarily doing on purpose this theme of us versus them is so evident in this
latest trend that I will definitely talk about this more later in detail.
When I talk about fallacious logic I talk about fallacy an error in reasoning. The most
common which I have seen by watching way too many of these types of videos in the
past week is something called the slippery slope fallacy. In this case this
fallacy presents itself when Angelika links two arguments against Superwoman
there have no consequential logic. In her vlog Superwoman details how she doesn't
feel like she's strictly YouTube related right now because she has expanded
her skills and her presence in other areas such as business and activism for
example. Angelika extrapolates those statements and links two different things together.
1) Don't act like you are so much more than YouTube, with 2) Youtube made you
Superwoman says in that context that she's so much
more than YouTube now because she's involved in a series of many other
projects ergo her life doesn't revolve exclusively around YouTube anymore that
doesn't mean that she's ungrateful of what she has gained through YouTube: the
two are not consequentially linked. And this is the typical form of the slippery
slope fallacy in which argument one leads to argument two which leads to
argument three etc until we reach an obviously unacceptable argument - in this
case Superwoman is ungrateful of her success - so that argument one where we
started from is no longer acceptable either. This is an extremely fallacious
logic that have seen employed so many times by certain channels and I find it
particularly problematic because if we accept this form as the norm then
potentially everything and everyone can be portrayed in a negative light despite
there is actually no argument for it. Another standard practice of these channels is
making assumptions. Now everyone makes assumptions. I'm sure
I made assumptions in this video and that's why with assumptions we resort to
complete a view which is not clear or total about a certain topic or a person
following our own trajectory of thought and that's why assumptions are biased - we
should try and make them as logically sound as possible - and definitely shouldn't
be considered the same as facts. In this video Angelika makes the assumption
that Superwoman is unable to deal with the criticism that she has raised and
has therefore taken a break from YouTube because of it.
Apart from being a quite arrogant assumption it is also
completely false it's not even an assumption anymore. It's twisting someone
else's weakness to fit your own agenda and I have a specific problem with this
because Superwoman did state her reasons for taking a break from YouTube on a
main channel video and she has talked about mental health which is something that
not only doesn't have anything to do with Angelika Oles - surprise surprise -
but also shouldn't be trivialized.
In the attempt to feed the narrative of the greedy dishonest and views obsessed
mainstream youtubers some commentary channels make assumptions to back their
arguments and the problem is that they portray them as facts. The final dynamic
that I want to talk about is the creation and mobilization of a group
identity. What do I mean by that? Well look at this.
Beside making me feel like this has suddenly become a Taken movie -
- this is a problematic approach that I've seen employed by many channels and not just commentary ones. I do
remember Tana Mongeaus - I hope I'm pronouncing that right - rant about VidCon
that resulted in her audience in her millions of followers sending tons of
social media hate to this specific woman. However this concept works specifically
well for commentator channels. Because their all objective of exposing
someone of doing the right thing helps in creating this righteous sentiment
and this righteous audience that is more than willing of perpetuating
negativity towards a specific individual that has been exposed. At the end of the
video Angelika makes a sort of disclaimer saying not to send hate to
those she has talked about but that part right there -
- aims at fomenting a group of people which feel the need to defend their
creator. This results in many viewers jumping on hateful bandwagons
building up this amplified effect that becomes just overwhelming. Let's just
look at some of the tweets that viewers write to the object of the commentators
critique. I'm on Twitter by the way - Come and send me hate. I know you want to.
if you look at what these people write it's basically an exact duplicate of the
words used by the creator.
This doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't call someone out when you think
there is something wrong going on nor it doesn't mean that a single creator is
responsible for the erratic behavior of a few of its followers
however utilizing this sort of discourse that Angelika portrays here in this
video does help in legitimizing a vicious cycle of negativity.
Many commentator channels often focus on how youtubers manipulate their often
impressionable young audiences specifically when it comes to
merchandise. Sometimes audiences are indeed manipulated into buying things
because they feel they are representative of the group of which
they are a part of and of which the youtuber is the leader - a materialistic
expression of belonging. However I've never seen apply the same logic when
discussing how youtubers use the same grouping technique to sell their
audience a specific narrative about someone. If Angelika implies - well she didn't
actually imply more stated outright that Superwoman is ungrateful of her fame
despite a final warning of not sending hate her group Angelika's group
Angelika's audience has absorbed this narrative as true in the same way that
some audiences may be blindsided into buying a hoodie. And I would argue that
sometimes selling an idea or belief can become far more dangerous than selling a calendar.
Now personally I don't think that commentary channels are the same
thing are equivalent to bullying as some believe. However there is a difference in
the form of how we address things. And although they may feel all the same to a
casual viewer - and I definitely grouped them under the same terminology
commentary channels in this video for the sake of efficiency -
once you critically analyze them and spend way too much time on them you
realize that there are very different declinations to this trend.
There are channels completely dedicated to exposing beauty
gurus like here for the tea and tea spill which usually don't show their
face use either voiceovers or text on-screen and repeat a video sequences
to dig into the current scandals of the beauty community. The likes of Philip De
Franco and drama alerts are styled after news shows after all Keemstar does use a
spinning globe sequence although his personality and content is much more
sensationalized and similar to a Youtube version of TMZ whereas De Franco aims
at describing an ongoing issue and favors
different opinions and often also addresses more substantial themes like
politics. There are also more vlog-styled channels pretty popular with UK
commentators like Inabber, ImAlexx and JaackMaate where their personality is often
equally important as the subjects they discuss. Some are clearly more
well-versed in the actual commentating side of the spectrum while others aim to
create their content to make the more entertaining as possible. But all pretty
much use the same keywords like exposing truth drama and sometimes even identical
titles like why this youtuber channel has died we need to talk about this youtuber
why this youtuber needs to be stopped how this youtuber just ended their
career what really happened with insert here name of event like Tanacon or
name of youtuber or name of beef between two or more youtubers.
Personally although I'm not usually entertained by most of these videos -
apart from ImAlexx because he's hot - I do apply a difference in judgment - personal
judgment obviously to these channels. I don't see them as if they were all the
same. For example I quite like JaackMaate mostly because not only he doesn't just
simply describe how a channel is losing views with a typical social blade
screenshot but because fundamentally I see him as a comedian. And I find that
the videos where he focuses more on himself and on his type of comedy are
much more interesting. He has an added value to his content creation that he
often uses in a more irreverent and satirized way to also highlight certain certain social issues.
Obviously I don't always like or agree with everything that he says but that pretty
much goes with everyone that I don't know that I watch online or even
that I do know. Generally speaking I guess the difference for me is: is this
video criticizing someone just for the sake of it? or is it a way to arrive to
an additional insight which doesn't need to be particularly profound. It can be
just a way to satirize our own society. Or perhaps if you can pinpoint why
something is harmful in order to help viewers understand how this may affect
them without their knowledge or if you can have an added value like comedy then
these videos can be quite interesting. For example when a lot of commentary
channels criticized Nicole Arbor's This is America edit I saw a lot of
bland reactions making fun of her because to be honest she was an easy
target which were all just a way to laugh at her latest mistake and I think
I never saw anyone actually centered their argument or at least arrive at the
conclusion as to why her appropriation of content in this specific context was
problematic for black minorities. Probably because that would be difficult
to frame in an entertaining way - albeit it can be done as some commentary channels show us.
Likewise in the case of Bobby Burns I've never actually seen so many
people criticizing a guy that actually didn't do anything wrong. We get it his
content changed yeah we get it most people don't like it let's move on do we
really need to have 50 videos on Bobby Burns for God's sake. Otherwise you're
left with simple descriptions of declining numbers downright hateful
commentary or mere gossip. But people a lot of people like that which begs the
question. Why? First of all I think there is an underlying psychological need of
eliminating uncertainty. Uncertainty from what? Well pretty much everything.
The more our realities become complex chaotic and difficult to deal with
the more we abandon self-reflection to seek external reassurances on things
that don't really matter in our daily lives
because they allow us to partake in Escapism. Don't need to tell me I run a
channel on TV series and popular culture I am the queen of emotional avoidance.
Because escapism at its core is the intentional detachment from the real world.
it's a healthy and momentary defense mechanism that allow us to distract
ourselves and recharge our batteries. Just like watching a movie or reading a
book then watching commentary channels that create or exploit drama become
another form of stimulating escapism. But then why not watch a movie or read a
book instead of watching these channels? Well partly for the same reasons as to
why we enjoy more traditional Hollywood drama for example. I'm not going to talk
about the culture of celebrification on this video because otherwise we're going to
add other 30 minutes or something but there is a quote that I like a lot
from Huffington Post writer David Zyla that said...
But I believe there is a reason why this trend developed only recently on YouTube.
You see in the old YouTube creators had a perceived authenticity that made viewers
see them as more credible than the typical celebrity. This was also driven
by YouTube's business model which was about broadcasting yourself whereas
after the all Google coming into the situation it obviously became a more
media corporate conglomerate. Because viewers saw these people online on a
frequent basis on a daily basis really sometimes they developed a parasocial
relationship with them manifested through a sense of intimacy equality and reality.
In the meantime creators popularity grew YouTube changed his
business model and obviously OG creators started to become rich and successful -
which was fine up until some time ago. Lately our culture has shifted into a
general mistrust of established and mainstream figures something which is
majorly exemplified in many areas of our lives perhaps the most obvious one being
the political world. Donald Trump has claimed to be a 'man of
the people' and managed to frame a narrative of his sometimes abrasive but
always truthful behavior compared to the greedy and
corrupt Hillary Clinton. Brexit was mainly about re-establishing national
supremacy over the EU populism has been used rather than as an ideology as a
strategy propelled by uncertainty and precarious economies to obtain power in
many European countries. The sense that traditional media is purposely selling
lies and fake news the whole concept of relatability in every area of popular
culture - which is something that by the way I also discussed in another video if
you want to check it out - are all symptoms of a major shift in our culture
that made everything mainstream increasingly untrustworthy and has
people looking for newer smaller-scale improved versions of what they perceive
to be more authentic. Within this context the commentary trend also inserted
itself successfully onto YouTube with smaller commentators gladly taking up
the roles of exposers to the popular youtubers. Let me ask you something
though: if the end goal of both types of creators though - so the old ones and the
new ones - is the same then who's to say who is more trustworthy. In this race of
youtubers policing other youtubers there is an obvious conflict because
those who supposedly police wrong behavior are doing so in the exact same
context as those they are policing. I'm obviously not saying that all people in
the commentary community don't believe what they say or don't believe that
they're actually doing something right but rather than going at war with two
specific groups that incorporate so many different people we should try and
identify each individual and "judge" each individual accordingly. We should learn
how new narratives are framed because it is indeed a different time that it was
when these OG creators started and we should also just try to spread some more
positivity on this platform perhaps. Because I believe that in the long run
fostering this continuous negative environment always picking up on people
on very silly things or simply because you don't like their
content or just for the sake of gossiping excitement is going to be
detrimental to all types of creators and to audiences as a whole.
I'm done. I'm tired. I hope that no one took offence probably yes but really
this video was about making an analysis pretty much like those that I make in
other context like the TV series because I really do think that is a fascinating
topic which we should all try to come close to in a more calm way.
As usual if you enjoyed this video and would like to see more from me well check my other
videos first of all and subscribe and hit the bell button if you'd like to be
notified about my next uploads thanks for watching.
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