good morning John this week matpat from
the game theorists made a video that is
both longer and better than this one
would you talk some about the negative
ways that youtube and youtubers have
been portrayed in the media I want to
talk about this let's start here I have
a complex understanding of the content
and culture and platform of YouTube the
parts where I spend my time are amazing
because there are marble races and
knives being made out of bismuth
crystals and social commentary about the
darkness and mouthfeel and careful
explanations of ingenious technology
well when there are big stories about
YouTube and what we could consider like
the mainstream press slogan Paul or adds
being shown on terrorist recruitment
videos or things that are worse than
those things and when that happens it's
bad for YouTube creators because
advertisers are like oh I don't know
about this and they cut their spending
or they remove it completely and then
YouTube's over reacts and starts to
strengthen its t monetization algorithms
and so if you make anything even a
little bit controversial you might have
your video not make money at all the
finger of blame has been pointed in many
different directions and this is it
YouTube for overreacting or is it ad
buyers who are maybe freaking out but
also maybe using this as a tactic to
force YouTube deduce things that they
want YouTube to do or is it the
journalists who never cover this
platform in a positive way but are
always writing this inflammatory stuff
Matt that's video points to the finger
in all of these directions but it is
true that no one wants to write like
positive stories about youtubers but I
have also noticed that and the national
news also never writes positive stories
about Montana place where I live people
don't know very much about it they don't
have a complex understanding of this
place and so when we make the national
news it's either because some state
senator wanted to legalize drunk driving
or because somebody somewhere wanted to
sell us to Canada people who read the
New York Times in the Wall Street
Journal they don't have a complex
understanding of YouTube the way that
they also don't have a complex
understanding of Montana it's just not
part of their culture and the same goes
for most ad buyers like they tend to be
the ones who are reading The Wall Street
Journal not watching matpat videos
though that might be changed in a former
career of mine I wrote news stories for
a living and I never thought about
whether a story was positive or negative
I thought about whether it was
interesting if your audience doesn't
know very much about a thing they're not
interested in nuance takes or thoughts
about how it's being successful in
growing they're interested in when it's
threatening or scary or dangerous and
that goes double for when the thing that
understand very well is also really big
and important and they know that but
they also don't understand it and yes
it's also likely that some journalists
don't think that youtubers should have
the amount of power that they have and
so they don't mind taking us down some
notches what if you're looking for
communities that are big and important
but people don't understand them very
well so they're usually covered in
negative and not nuanced ways in the
mainstream media who have bigger
concerns than youtubers who are by and
large actually a really powerful force
in culture even if they don't want to
recognize it and instead sort of hide
from that as they engage in these sort
of victimhood narratives so John here
comes the true true Train what this
really comes down to is publications are
creating content for a
disproportionately powerful audience
that is unfamiliar and made uneasy by a
massive new cultural force that no one
truly understands look I love YouTube I
love it
but it also makes me uneasy to the fact
that it's a platform without gatekeepers
is what makes it so interesting but that
also creates real problems it is scary
to have someone have a huge amount of
power over young people with no
oversight it is bad to be monetizing
terrorists recruitment videos or having
bad actors stick disturbing violent
content in the middle of a kids show Wow
this community has done lots of great
things but also as a culture I don't
think we've figured out quite what to
make of it and that might be why
advertisers are hesitant to interact
with it and also why I want journalists
to be covering it ultimately in Matt
Pat's very good video it feels a little
bit like we don't know where to place
the blame and maybe that's because there
isn't a super good place and maybe
that's because the idea of a mainstream
media in a world where PewDiePie is
getting more views than any cable news
show that exists is wild there either is
not a mainstream media anymore or
YouTube is part of it John I'll see you
on Tuesday