YouTube Virtuosos (Old Man Rant)

[socialleper]

You keep asking people to prove to you that others are making money on You Tube, and keep ignoring the posts, with links, showing people making money on You Tube. Why don't you just Google it yourself, takes about 30 seconds, then you'll know what practically everyone else already knows.

You're still missing the point.
The YouTube stats page is interesting, but shows a BROAD sweep. It shows a channel making hundreds to thousands. Those aren't very good statistics because they are so broad.
What's more, as I stated, what I'm hearing is "I know a guy that says....". I'm looking for real detailed information from people that are doing it themselves. If those people are hard to come by, I think that tells you what you need to know about the viability of YouTube videos.
And yes, I could just Google it, but I'm trying to engage people in a dialogue. You know....communication.

 

[Nev375]

Because music that is liked by the masses is easy to make, always has been. The difference today is that the gatekeepers (recording industry) are being bypassed so it's getting increasingly difficult for them to charge more for music than it's worth. Before the internet they purposely kept music hard to get in order to charge higher prices and they'd feed you a line of BS to make you think you were getting something really special; but you weren't and today's music scene is proving that.

So you are saying that music (at least popular music) truly IS worthless and musicians who play it don't deserve a dime. And all is right with the world?

I find that an interesting and unexpected point of view from a musician.

 

[dalkowski]

My question is why?

Why does a dog lick her/himself?

Because s/he can.

No one is compelled to view either the videos or the dog.

 

[howlin]

Yeah, the internet is great for musicians. But for the rest of the masses that (used to) listen to music, buy albums, and admire artists for their talent., ...what about them? When they see millions of people doing it, entire albums available for free at the click of a button and the talent to do so easily purchased via a $40 video game and a $100 squier guitar... (not true, I know, but thats the impression they get) Why should they care about music any more than a kid who is jumping rope?

I kinda think you're missing the point here. It's not because people are posting stuff to YT that "the masses" aren't buying stuff anymore - it's way more complicated than that. A lot of digital technology has leveled the playing field across the board. Look at newspapers, TV, photography, music - et al. It has impacted everyone. But, like with all of the other changes that have come in the past, there are those who see opportunity and those that see gloom & doom.

There are no "good old days" just bad memories, if you know what I mean. ;-)

 

[rmayer]

Lindsey Stirling grossed 2.5 million from youtube last year.

And I don't have a clue who this person is. Guess I'm just another "old man".

 

[SteveHeissner]

"But, like with all of the other changes that have come in the past, there are those who see opportunity and those that see gloom & doom."

+100

Amen to that.

 

[itsalljustaride]

My kids are youtube generation. They know all the big names (pewdiepie, etc...). The youtuber thing tends to revolve around the themes of reviewing and playing video games with humor, excessive use of the f-bomb, and silly internet memes. There is no scripting - it's all film and edit later. I for one can't stand that crap. But my kids love it - it is their MTV. And my son in particular wants to do that, so much that I have to put the brakes on his "creative endeavors". Simply put, he want to have the benefit of an creating an internet personality, but he doesn't really want to create any content. I don't know where he gets such narcissism (he says, without any hint of irony). Our rule is that his mother and I have to review and approve any game or video that he makes before he publishes it. That, and he has to actually plan something out, and spend time on it. Else, he would just scream and cuss at a camera for 10 seconds, figure out a youtube name for himself, "release" it, and text all of his friends and spend the next 4 hours finding forums to spew on. I'm trying hard to keep him from becoming the next meme target, at least until he's old enough to deal with the consequences on his own.

God bless you, competent new-age parent. You are doing important work. I seriously can't thank you enough for at least trying to give your child a reasonable competency in internet behavior. And Lord knows it isn't just kids who should fear being meme'd next. We all should tread lightly.

 

[stgabhas]

Numbers?

Rough estimate: (Total Number of Subscribers) divided by 2 = Amount in $$$ per year.

 

[itsalljustaride]

You're still missing the point.
The YouTube stats page is interesting, but shows a BROAD sweep. It shows a channel making hundreds to thousands. Those aren't very good statistics because they are so broad.
What's more, as I stated, what I'm hearing is "I know a guy that says....". I'm looking for real detailed information from people that are doing it themselves. If those people are hard to come by, I think that tells you what you need to know about the viability of YouTube videos.
And yes, I could just Google it, but I'm trying to engage people in a dialogue. You know....communication.

Probably equally as viable as becoming a touring musician selling records making that kind of cash.

 

[whatizitman]

This. There may be something to the idea that the internet allows narcissists to indulge themselves like never before, but there have always been and will always be narcissists doing their thing. People bag on millennials like they invented selfishness and shallow thinking, but I can point to any generation and show you that pattern, manifesting itself just a bit differently every time. Hippies get a lot of mileage out of the "counterculture/protest" thing, but that really only was the beginning. After that there were all kinds of "me too"s that swamped it with self-absorbed bastardizations of what it was (or never was, depending on who you ask). Many of those kids grew up and basically became selfish dolts who offloaded their societal responsibilities yet again onto younger generations, because post-war US economics made it possible. I'm a borderline millennial. If you ask me, some of the most selfish people alive are aging Boomers who lived large due to an economic fluke and now think they own the world and deserve far more than they actually earned. Comparatively, millennials think they deserve...a job...because they went to college...which is what all those Boomers told them was supposed to happen...

The point is, it's perspective. I'm not saying I'm 100% right about Boomers being somehow objectively more selfish and narcissistic, but they do seem awfully hypocritical to me sometimes, conveniently disregarding a lot of their own generations lesser qualities.

I'm gen-X, and I wholeheartedly agree. The rise of a middle class and postwar boom are tiny little random spikes on the human timeframe. My generation and older are having to come to grips with the fact that the reasons "things aint like they used to be" is not because of satan or commies, or whatever. But due in part to the fact we are dead set on systematically removing any buffer that kept the middle class what it was for the short time it existed. Because, y'know, since we "earned it all" without the help of massive federal pre-war and post-war spending, social security, pensions, unions, low-cost tuition, progressive taxes, etc... Yeah right.

Narcissism comes in all shapes and sizes. Without it forums like this would have died out long ago.

 

[Off-Beat]

Because music that is liked by the masses is easy to make, always has been. The difference today is that the gatekeepers (recording industry) are being bypassed so it's getting increasingly difficult for them to charge more for music than it's worth. Before the internet they purposely kept music hard to get in order to charge higher prices and they'd feed you a line of BS to make you think you were getting something really special; but you weren't and today's music scene is proving that.

More artists, and more music is being enjoyed by more people than ever before and this is a bad thing?

The music industry back then was the only way to get music made by people 20.000km(12.000 miles) from your place - aside from ultra rare bootlegs. The internet piracy held the music industry hostage and they reacted by price dumping music and musicians in order to put out cheap products - spotify, youtube vevo etc. They went from Harrods to Wal-Mart.

The music just accustomed not the other way round. Music now is made cheaply for the masses without much afterthought. Last year my BL and me listened to Justin Bieber just for giggles. Never heard him before and the song was absolute feces, but it had 500.000.000 views...

Of course there's always been cheesy songs in the charts, but there were also alot of gems. Today? Not really. It's 100% cheese.

Those youtube artists, who really get heard, they don't sell their music cheap quite the opposite. They make money the business can't offer and stay out of legal obligations, but I'm sure alot of them would give their left leg to be the next Maiden, Stones or whatever, but imo these days of success of that magnitude are over.

 

[socialleper]

Yeah...but..."connecting with" only applies sort of generally in YT case. You aren't really "connecting" with most of these people. YT comments are widely regarded as the lowest form of communication, and unless you form real relationships with other YT people like calling them and doing collab videos, it's a pretty shallow form of communication and connection. Confusing internet relationships for IRL relationships can lead to some pretty classic social disorders I think. It's pretty clear to everyone now that things like FB are curated lives, not real avenues of interaction. You're constructing and participating in a facsimile of life, not actual messy life with the same level of social risk and reward.

This +100!!
Again, I don't want to be an old crank, but I can't help but wonder if there isn't some deeper societal paradigm shift happening that "social media" is both a cause and effect of. I was watching a thing on Steve Jobs over the weekend. It explained this sort of dualistic nature of the man where he was both very stand-offish but still hunted for people's praise. He considered his massive company rebellious even though it was now "the man." He created the iPhone, a communication device, that has led to less communication, not more. He saw the computer as a "personal" device that has now done more to drive wedges between people than anything in history. Two people living right next to each other can freely hate one another's guts anonymously over the internet and never know it. Families sit right next to each other while being miles apart due to their devices.
Is a "like" a real form of validation or is it an attempt to seek out reciprocation. Is "social media" even really social?
If an idea requires a picture and a short sentence to forward an idea, is it even a worth while idea?
Can anything of any true value be said in 140 characters?
How did the promise of the internet, to be a digital Library of Alexandria, become a cesspool of emotion, advertising, and p0rn?
It's all very fascinating to watch in a very frightening sort of way.

 

[mr_flood]

So you are saying that music (at least popular music) truly IS worthless and musicians who play it don't deserve a dime. And all is right with the world?

I find that an interesting and unexpected point of view from a musician.

Of course not, it's worth what people are willing to pay for it in a free market. It's only recently that the music industry is losing it's grip on on the availability of music and therefore their ability to keep music artificially scarce. Now that it's becoming more widely available it's true worth is being shown.

The greats are still making their millions, but as with all things great, that's rare. The rest of what's out there is beginning to earn what it's worth rather than being artificially propped up.

 

[Michael B]

Yeah...but..."connecting with" only applies sort of generally in YT case. You aren't really "connecting" with most of these people. YT comments are widely regarded as the lowest form of communication, and unless you form real relationships with other YT people like calling them and doing collab videos, it's a pretty shallow form of communication and connection. Confusing internet relationships for IRL relationships can lead to some pretty classic social disorders I think. It's pretty clear to everyone now that things like FB are curated lives, not real avenues of interaction. You're constructing and participating in a facsimile of life, not actual messy life with the same level of social risk and reward.

But that is a superficial view of it.

At one level comments are garbage yes but not entirely. I am a big yt follower and communicate directly with the host through comments often. The hosts of the luthier and performance related channels are there talking back and forth and it influences future videos. It's very much like a forum.
I also mentioned lots of other ways viewers connect. To generalize that comments are all noise and that all commenters are trolls is just not true all the time. There are idiots, as there are here but that doesn't have a big of an impact as you think.

If you talk to (or actually watch) any youtuber you will see their genuine thanks for the audience interaction and the overt influence it has on the channel. If you are not following any specifics channel by skipping around randomly, or just going on what you hear from others about yt, you are completely missing out.

- One guy builds guitars based entirely on user feedback
- countless amazing teachers give free performance tips to boost their private (online) lessons - see bass wizard in this thread
- my kids follow gamers and then get excited when they play with them in multi player servers by chance - they choose what to film based on user suggestions
- bands connect to audiences thru theur channels
- luthiers and tool makers expand and change their offerings soley based on yt viewership - see gelvin guitars, crimson guitars and many more
- some guys share a cover or do gear reviws - driven by user comments, see Constantine or MaxProud
- studio engineers share real tips for the home user for recording bass and everything else. see pensado, warren huart

All of these examples could not and would not exist without commenters. Replace that word with audiebce and I am sure you will see this in a completely new light.

 

[socialleper]

Why does a dog lick her/himself?

Because s/he can.

No one is compelled to view either the videos or the dog.

And yet they do. I'm not asking for the thing to validate its self, I'm trying to understand the human motivation. Dissecting behavior is a pastime of mine. Understand motivators and you understand the world.

 

[Michael B]

This +100!!
Again, I don't want to be an old crank, but I can't help but wonder if there isn't some deeper societal paradigm shift happening that "social media" is both a cause and effect of. I was watching a thing on Steve Jobs over the weekend. It explained this sort of dualistic nature of the man where he was both very stand-offish but still hunted for people's praise. He considered his massive company rebellious even though it was now "the man." He created the iPhone, a communication device, that has led to less communication, not more. He saw the computer as a "personal" device that has now done more to drive wedges between people than anything in history. Two people living right next to each other can freely hate one another's guts anonymously over the internet and never know it. Families sit right next to each other while being miles apart due to their devices.
Is a "like" a real form of validation or is it an attempt to seek out reciprocation. Is "social media" even really social?
If an idea requires a picture and a short sentence to forward an idea, is it even a worth while idea?
Can anything of any true value be said in 140 characters?
How did the promise of the internet, to be a digital Library of Alexandria, become a cesspool of emotion, advertising, and p0rn?
It's all very fascinating to watch in a very frightening sort of way.

You oversimplifying and reducing a real connected audience to a click. This is not what is occurring. See my reply above this.

 

[dalkowski]

And yet they do. I'm not asking for the thing to validate its self, I'm trying to understand the human motivation. Dissecting behavior is a pastime of mine. Understand motivators and you understand the world.

Man, we should go out for coffee sometime!

If I weren't on the clock, I could go on about the narcissism of posters/tweeters/commenters (which has been mentioned), the need to feel superior ("Let's spend hours watching losers get hit in the rig!"), and the proven dopamine dependency that today's low-effort/high-stimulation media nurtures (See A Deadly Wandering by Matt Richtel).

 

[socialleper]

You oversimplifying and reducing a real connected audience to a click. This is not what is occurring. See my reply above this.

Isn't that what the internet excels at? Oversimplification born out of a limited, anonymous interface that allows us to be anyone we want to be? It is a black box that could possibly allow us, because of spell checking and referencing, to be the smartest, most polite, helpful people ever. Yet, do we? Yes, the optimist might say "there are some useful comments on the web," but what I see is a 90% of what flows through comment sections is hateful, demeaning vitriol. We could be our best, but it seems like we prefer to be our worst.

 

[JMacBass65]

Interesting.
It kinda sounds like this guy and Jered Dines were already recording engineers and had all this equipment around already. The explains part of it. The amount of stuff you would need to make this all work is a lot to dump just on YouTube videos, but all they had to do it add a camera.
Sadly it seems like their videos are more popular than their own bands. There are a few pedal makers out there that have to pay for their music career with their pedal making. Goes to show how little being a musician pays these days.
Dines is a pretty talented musician. I'm wondering if he isn't a more "successful" musician because he doesn't want to be. Touring is a major pain and not very profitable. Scallon may be the same way. Interesting.

Last night I checked out a bunch of acts that nobody has heard of, but who seem to be out there "working it" quite a bit. This was all sparked by a post from one of our own here on TB - he had linked to an act he worked with. This led to the typical youtube time suck, with one video leading to another, etc. Then I checked out band websites, face book and so on.

Anyway, what I saw actually ended up depressing me. I saw some very talented people, pouring their heart into their craft, clearly spending lots of time & money (theirs or somebody else's) on touring, videos, etc., and ultimately I know that they are probably just scratching by.

It left me with two thoughts:

- No wonder so many bass players are hired guns for multiple acts, seems like a more sensible business model if you actually want to eat.

- I'll remember this, and be thankful for the living I make outside of music, and content with being in a weekend warrior bar band, the next time the thoughts of ""that coulda been me" creep into my head.

 

[Off-Beat]

Isn't that what the internet excels at? Oversimplification born out of a limited, anonymous interface that allows us to be anyone we want to be? It is a black box that could possibly allow us, because of spell checking and referencing, to be the smartest, most polite, helpful people ever. Yet, do we? Yes, the optimist might say "there are some useful comments on the web," but what I see is a 90% of what flows through comment sections is hateful, demeaning vitriol. We could be our best, but it seems like we prefer to be our worst.

Yeah, because we can be our best in public without backlash. Be your worst and you might get hit to death, by the wrong person. On the internet? You might get banned on certain platforms, that's it.