thread of youtubers whomst are not terrible

folks, folks, there are finer things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNE2y1gOVvE

second one just went up too

I will never know if Contrapoints is good or bad because fuck watching an hour+ youtube video.

I like her videos a lot but I made it about 40 minutes into this one and decided I just don't care. "Cancel culture" is for people in their 20s with way too much free time. Hearing about it is like hearing about something that was discussed for 17000 posts on Reddit one day. None of those people will ever accomplish anything in their worthless lives, because they're...on Reddit all goddamn day.

(N.B.: even the 40 minutes I "watched" were as background audio while writing.)

concision does not seem to be the praxis of "influencers" on youtube

lol, i post something here and then read like the third post here

"hbomberguy is tight with the other two youtubers already mentioned so he tends to get lumped in as well, but my big problem with his videos is they're too damn long. if you care about the politics of gaming you could do a lot worse and he is quite funny and charming at times, but he could really take a page from Contra when it comes to concision

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.)"

only thing that would be funnier is if hbomberguy was now doing 10 minute videos

I give Contrapoints more slack regarding long videos than most other youtubers because she makes a conscious effort to make her videos visually and dramatically interesting. But yeah, hour plus is a bit much.

Very proud that out of the three ppl who gave GeoWizard and mate lifts in the first video two were portuguese.

My belief is that, in the long run, there are no Youtubers who are not terrible. That communicating, or attempting to communicate, on Youtube, on Twitter, on Facebook, will inevitably make you a worse person. My belief is that there is a sort of Gresham's Law of Discourse - bad speech drives out good. My belief is that there is, in fact, "bad speech" - abuse, threats, bullying - and that its presence creates an emotional environment that renders all other considerations irrelevant.

none of the videos posted in this thread contain abuse, threats, or bullying that I can recall (I guess the geowizard guy is a little suspicious towards the farmer population)

I guess what Jon Bois does to sports statistics could be considered a form of abuse, but strictly self-abuse

last i heard youtube still had a comments section

so does the NYT. who cares?

Yeah, you'll get no argument from me that YT comments are on average worse than in most other internet places and that the platform as a whole is mostly a force of evil, but the idea that it forcibly makes you a worse person feels like it's making it too much of a monolith; there are innumerable channels that're just people nerding out over their favourite hobbies or esoteric interests, and there's not much bullying or abuse happening on them, not even in the comments.

I have literally never purposely read a YT comment other than the "pinned" one left by the channel (with the exception of the grand old Sad YouTube collection). They're very easy not to read. You can even get a browser extension to hide them forever if you like!

Sure, but if you're an *ahem* content creator I think you're more likely than not to read the comments. But those don't have to be a trash fire, is the thing.

the nyt also makes you a worse person

look, i don't know, maybe you can be like techmoan and post videos about nixie tubes and still be a healthy positive person, but if you go on youtube and talk about incels or the alt right or any of that shit that's going to cause problems for you, in the same way that doing one of those shit jobs as a "content moderator" on facebook is going to cause problems for you.

sure, i have browser extensions to hide comments, to hide those awful fucking videos youtube recommends you, and as a result i can still to some degree watch stuff on there, even though i know i probably should stop doing that.

i believe the deliberate infliction of emotional trauma and perpetuation of cycles of abuse is a key driver of "engagement" in the internet content industry's core business model.

I did watch the entire Contrapoints video although after a certain point it got to be a bit of a personal endurance test like the time I tried and failed to listen to nothing but Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion for two weeks or whatever. She made many good points and I get that part of the point was just the overwhelming nature of what it's like to be on the receiving end of the cancel barrage (via reading tweets about her for 10 minutes straight, etc.), but maybe she could have found a way to shave an hour off somewhere.

One thing that is going to haunt my nightmares is the word "truscum", the concept behind which I'm still a little fuzzy on, but which nevertheless made me shudder.

I like her videos a lot but I made it about 40 minutes into this one and decided I just don't care. "Cancel culture" is for people in their 20s with way too much free time. Hearing about it is like hearing about something that was discussed for 17000 posts on Reddit one day. None of those people will ever accomplish anything in their worthless lives, because they're...on Reddit all goddamn day.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, January 2, 2020 7:40 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I made it 20ish minutes in? Once I realized how long it was I decided I needed to get to bed. Anyway, despite your hand-waving as a young people Reddit thing I've definitely seen the phenomenon she laid out happen here on ilx, too.

Also yes some people are on Reddit all day, some people are on ilx all day, twitter whatever. I'm not sure any of us can say we're above having our faces constantly glued to internet conversations in general.

The Lockdown 23and1 guy is good on Prison stuff too, interviews a lot of people who've been inside in various states. Not quite sure why I'm drawn to this stuff

I mean, the "carceral state" in the US is fucking huge and so often subject to cartoonish / not credible representation, so it seems like a pretty normal thing to be curious about imo

carceral culture

This Contra video is mainly confirming for me that I must stay away from both Youtube and Twitter.

Foresty Forest's videos about his living in a converted minivan are wonderful. I'm especially enjoying the more recent ones covering the depths of Canadian winter where he heads out hiking and biking in the snowy wilds alongside talking about the practicalities of his minivan life, but it's worth going back a year or so and watching through them all to see the conversion and development of the van and all the wee niggles he irons out along the way.

http://www.youtube.com/user/forestyforest/

I though it was a channel I picked up from this thread, but I can't spot it here previously.

I'm down for possumtubers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRIVTEBaLkA

just saw the contrapoints video

full stan; all hail

possum psychic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kznj1NZN90A

Anxiety porn

^this is deeply satisfying

Apparently he has an awful reputation with other restorers and conservators but it's still fascinating.

awful as a restorer or as a person/business? I mean I know <zero abt restoration but I can't imagine someone being more thorough, precautious etc.

every person on youtube must be cancelled

As a restorer. His methods are (supposedly) pretty destructive.

what is this person's reputation

https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/az9v7bp_460s.jpg

appearing pretty good at something to a layman. while providing a good narrative, makes for good videos

tbh his retouching could be with shit paint that melts the canvas a day later and we’d be none the wiser

surveillance camera man has a new travel channel...and it's pretty much what you expect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOB7wXNwjvo

Rescreened my favorite Jomboy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU-ESpiwV4o

Real life GeoGuesser from thread favourite GeoWizard, excellent stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqe5CjHRmMY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19KbrTpgiEM

Perhaps not as awesome for those not of my background, but I loved this silent tour through a recently closed Portuguese-American restaurant with Fado music in the background

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogvT7hlOJ5Y

TEH ALGORITHMS took me to a video by someone calling himself "The History Guy". slightly craggy older white man with a bowtie, probably thinks quite highly of Bill Nye. the sort of white dude i wanted to be, probably, or at least reminds me of some of my friends who i haven't really talked to since i deactivated my social media.

anyway, i took a look at the stuff he was talking about... he does this strain of history about the things that i find myself reading when i browse wikipedia, sort of an open-minded white man's history canon for people who are tired of fucking Nazis all the time. he does social history, non-military history, although of course he does have your standard video on Able Archer.

of the ones i checked out the one i liked most was his video on Yip Harburg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF2vzftzp7k

he says at the end that it's not about the politics - that's kind of the modus operandi of such people, they want to sound Authoritative and Objective and of course he is as far as that goes but for someone like me, for whom There Is Nothing But The Sociopolitical Context, i think you can tell a lot about someone by what they talk about and how they talk about it. he's obviously really enthusiastic about harburg and it's infectious.

i don't think there are any Good Youtubers because Youtube structurally precludes "goodness", but i enjoyed watching his video on yip harburg and i suspect i would enjoy hanging out with this guy.

conner o'malley has gone nuclear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeQMxy-Uf3M

I visited the same area. Video is accurate

Did we ever discuss (/r/DeepIntoYoutube?

Not all of its most upvoted picks are solid gold, of course, but as a repository of outsider video art in particular, it's unmatched.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm22FAXZMw1BaWeFszZxUKw

Following a few RIYL YT suggestions, came across his channel last week and got sucked in. The first few I watched, he uses a voicebox to call telephone scammers, pretending to be an 80 year old granny, and tries to waste as much of their time as possible. Listening to the scammers melt down, his own acting (with tangents and comments respectably suitable to his granny character), and periodic muting of the call to explain the scamming techniques - lots of LOLs and some good info to pass onto elders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2qCFzHvBoc

he has transcended

cw: body horror; extreme humour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Hw9ZgQBLc

Better than the thumbnail would lead you to believe

when u come to a thread to talk about a conversation months past

Just watched Natalie’s Canceling video. I think, like her other videos, it’s best if it is supplemented with other reading/watching on the topic, but watching it was informative and brought me closer to the issue at hand. I think I come away from all of Natalie’s videos more informed than I was going into them.

To the point of it being too long: I felt that way too, and I assumed it was because she didn’t work with an editor on this video (which may be most crucial when you’re so deeply emotionally invested in a topic).