[upbeat music]
So I went to VidCon in Anaheim for a second year in a row and it was different in a lot of ways.
But given that many of my audience members are rightfully going to treat this as a standalone
and not as an add-on to last year's videos,
of which I made two,
I think it's best that I present this video as a singular analysis of the convention.
VidCon was created in 2010 by John and Hank Green, legends of the
infotainment corner of YouTube and additionally celebrated writers the
convention was initially so small that it was held in a hotel in LA but as the
profession of the video maker has become more of a mob --is-- phenomenon it has
had to move to larger venues there are three kinds of people who end up going
to VidCon there's the fans who hope to run into
their favorite creators the small content creators who hope to network and
run into fans and the large content creators who hopes Network and run into
fans but they don't really have time and it would be a huge security hazard if
they tried to do that
VidCon usually runs for about four days but I always get the feeling that after
the first one you've sort of experienced everything you need to this sentiment is
quite depressing under the context of the 2018 convention because on the first
day this year there were no events and nothing was open all you really had to
do was wander around and occasionally recognize people and in a way that's the
convention
it actually is Wednesday not to knock that because it honestly really is a
unique experience worth celebrating getting to casually meet up with
colleagues in my profession who I've watched for a long time he's always a
lot of fun it's even more meaningful when it's people that I've spoken to
privately for an extended period of time I'm just confused as to why I paid
Viacom $200 to hang around a fountain and then and then I left and went to a
bar somewhere obviously for me a huge perk of VidCon is having a chance to
meet up with fans and I was honestly really surprised about how many you guys
came to meet me at VidCon getting recognized is always really overwhelming
and awesome and also occasionally a little awkward because sometimes I don't know what to say
"So hard to just pull a guy off the street"
(lil boy) Quinton?
(lil boy) Q U I N T O N R E V I E W S!
(lil boy) HElLo qUInToN RevIEwS!1!1!
TRACK: Hurt by Jonny Cash
♪♪ And you could have it all ♪♪
(lil boy) You're amazing hello
(lil boy) oh Hello
It was extremely gratifying getting to meet all of you guys in person, to hear
exactly what you individually wanted to say. I had a lot of people come up to
tell me that they had really loved my garfield analysis video which was
surprising to me because going in I thought that was gonna be a flop.
And of course I also had a lot of people talk to me about Fallen Titans and how much
they enjoy that series.
Also I had a few surprises in there quite a few people talked to me about how much they enjoyed
my last Jedi video which was surprising to me because
Uh- I thought people wanted me to die because I made that. Plenty people
also said that they found me through my VidCon series which I think is really
interesting. In general it was just incredible getting to honestly discuss
my show with people so that I know where I should take it from here.
Now other than walking around and bumping into people there are a few
event-based perks which are worthy of discussion. The first thing is the bottom
floor of the community arena last year I was pretty heavily critical of this part
of the convention because there was nothing to do other than like take
photos with minions but this year I honestly think they did a much better
job with the whole thing for instance there was this huge bouncy castle that I
chose not to go on because I knew I'd get stuck and I really feel like all the
advertisers did a much better job of implementing their brand into the floor space
Am I in Hell?
What is this?
I don't---
This is really uncomfortable
I don't--
I don't understand why this is here
"YEAH BUDDY"
"Tam here (?)"
Remember when MTV was really influential?
What's going on here?
(Girl) AhHHhhHHh
S-sorry!
A lot of people have that reaction
Have a good day!
Oh excuse me, sorry
(V/O) As I walked the floors of the convention
something seemed off I couldn't quite pin what it was at first...
It wasn't something that was there. It was something that wasn't there.
And then, all at once, it hit me;
there was no Hot Wheels pop-up this year!
I was heartbroken, lost and confused!
But, guess what was there?
An ad for "Escape the Night"
The worlds not fair John.
The main selling point for VidCon is arguably the Panels.
Where Youtubers, Video-Makers and sometimes the people behind the
maintenance of these sites, give presentations on not only video making
but indeed just general topics. Now personally I've never really felt a huge
pull to actually go to a lot of these panels but to be fair that's mainly
because I don't watch a lot of YouTube but I'm sure if you didn't watch a lot
of YouTube you'd probably love these.
I went to a BuzzFeed Unsolved Q&A that was pretty cool.
Um....
but after like 22 minutes I got bored and I went and watched something else...
The biggest mistake made by the people who were running VidCon was under
estimating the scale of the fan base for the animation community. Everywhere you
looked there were signs of people being fans of these channels. There was a
problem where all of the booths selling merch for the animators were extremely
small, but were one of the most popular things at the convention. And the actual
animation based panels were packed to the brim! I got invited to hang out at
one of these and I discovered that the line went out the door and to the next
room. It's been estimated that 1,500 people went to that single
meet-and-greet for animation channels! 1,500! That is astounding!
The most eye-opening and healthy revelation that I came to at VidCon was that there are a
plentiful amount of channels, which are extremely popular, that I have never
heard of and most of my peers do not care about. The drama channel with
4 million subscribers will put it in their heads that they are the most important
channel on the entire website to the point of becoming obsessed when the
10 million subscriber makeup Channel is invited to VidCon and that they are not.
The past few years seen a gradual increase in creators who have become
upset that they were not specifically invited to VidCon and this has led to
the creation of imitation Vidcon's which serve different audiences.
The most recent of these was TanaCon ran by pop star-
*scoffs*
Ran by teen Youtuber Tana-pronounce her last name wrong.
TanaCon opened in the same city on some of the same days
as VidCon and it expected a maximum capacity of around 5,000 people.
According to most reports 20,000 people showed up and were left in the
blistering Sun for hours on end before being told the convention was cancelled
sent home with nothing but sunburns and novelty condoms. Tana later said that
she was completely shocked that so many people showed up to her very first
convention. But if you think about it for even a second,
this was pretty predictable. Tana promised at several points that her
convention would be free, she scheduled it the same days as one of the most
popular video conventions that exists, and she constantly boasted that her
convention was going to be much better than VidCon. TanaCon was essentially a
free ad on bonus feature to VidCon, a convention that brings in 30,000 people
every single year, the fact that she somehow had in her mind that she was
going to have a little tiny convention with less than 5,000 people when she had
boasted that much and planned specifically around this gigantic,
extremely popular convention it just shows how naive the venture was from the
very beginning. Now I could have gone to TanaCon but I thought it was gonna
suck... so I didn't. You can look at it as me like missing out on a historical event,
or you could look at it as me like having like uh-um... a good day instead.
The fact that VidCon, every single year, is able to get off the ground without any hitch
really lens mad respect not only to the people who organized the event, but also
to the helpful, and respectful, and diligent security team because it could
be a massive train wreck almost every single year just like TanaCon was and
it almost never is.
And that's true essentially because of the competency of everyone involved
These gummies are terrible
There is one small change that happened at VidCon this year
which I feel like I have to start beef over. And that was the means
of passing through security. So last year VidCon had a huge problem with people
who would come to the Con with laminated photocopies of actual badges. So this
year, the people in charge had the idea of implementing little wrist bracelets
that you could scan to get into checkpoints a pretty good idea so far...
However when you put the bracelet on you would immediately be warned that if you
tightened it you could not untighten it....
You see, VidCon has also additionally always had this problem with people swapping passes.
So you go with your friend; one of you buys a community pass, one of you buys an
industry pass and then you basically just swap them whenever. Essentially
meaning that both of you have industry passes. So the logic was that if they
added a contraption that would not untighten that people would not be able
to swap their passes because you literally couldn't take the thing off
for any of the four days of the convention. The problem was that you
had idiots like me that couldn't stop fidgeting with the damn thing so we
would just get tighter and tighter and tighter and the more that you tried to
fix it the more tighter it got by the end of the second day of going around
the convention my wrist bracelet was cutting into my hand and my friends were
starting to get worried that I was going to actually start losing circulation and
so a bunch of people decided to try and help me get it less tight and that went great!
Eventually Maz ran in with a steak knife and decided that he was just gonna cut
the thing off, and so he laid my hand down on this pool table so he could try
and get a good angle at it. Meanwhile held TheOddOnesOut out continued to play
pool on the same pool table.... James can your game wait, I'm having surgery over here!
You of all people should know the hazards of having a bloody hand at VidCon.
Real Talk: the best part of this convention was getting to go to parties
and bars where I then met with content creators who I greatly respect who I
then got to know on a very personal level. I feel like video making comes
with this facade where you put on a face and you play up a bit for a camera and
getting to know the men and women who inspire me to keep creating and getting
to understand them as people and not as performances.... it's a very sobering thing
that's hard to describe unless you've lived through it
(Philip Defranco) Oh man. This is like--
(Guy) Wait Are you recording?
(Guy) You're recording?
(Quinton) I'm gonna record this.
(Philip Defranco) Yeah no that's fine!
*Quinton laughing like a seagull*
*Quinton continues his descent to become a seagull*
(Quinton) It was really great to meet you man
(Philip Defranco) No absolutely pleasure!
VidCon is an incredible chance for me to have experiences that I
might not be able to in a few years. Whether that be for good or bad reasons.
And I always walk away not only confident in my ability to create videos
but also with a heightened sense of where I want to take my channel and what
I want to do with my position. I can't make any huge promises about where I'm
gonna be in a year or even if I'm gonna decide to go to another VidCon but the
experiences I had this year their something that I'll never forget and
that's important to me...
And so that's Vidcon.
I feel like I had a better time this year but a lot of the basic issues are still obvious in the system.
But--But I kind of feel like I might recommend it, it really--
YOU'RE STILL HERE??
(Man) Change?
I changed! Why couldn't you?
(Man) Because I owe you something (?)
Here you go man, have a good Con
(Man) Thank you!
(Man) Change?
So I want to talk about my Airbnb because it's pretty interesting.
So each room has like a different theme and this one's all like Disney Princesses.
This one's Pirates of the Caribbean for some reason.
I'm presuming this is this whole situation was set up when people were pretending that this was still franchise
And in my room; is Star Wars!
What's interesting to me is how intricate some of this is and also how
not intricate other things are. I brought my buff Kylo Ren I'm thinking if I leave
this in this room will anyone ever find it?
If I just--
Pop that right there.
Will this become a piece of the centerpiece?
(Random guy) Hello I'm here to assassinate!