#bleone

Bodiontici: this tribe was located in the valley of the River Bleone and its tributaries, the Bes and the Duves, around the city of Digne (les Bains) and neighbouring communes.

I’m quite aware. But people keep bringing up the $400 and using it as proof of how “unfair” the salaries are. I also saw the post the person made and the tone was pretty accusatory. Everyone is acting as if that person was having pennies thrown at them when...that’s a pretty fucking fair rate for the work they were doing.

As far as “not getting additional payment”. Again.......we know how many views Claire and Brad get on any of their videos but lets still include one for comparison.

This was a quick search to compare numbers. Now let’s look at some ad revenue numbers:

2 thousand dollars in profit for every million views...BEFORE YouTube takes their 45% cut. Those videos that don’t even break a million views are pretty much making BA no money when you put the ad revenue up against the production costs and overheads the company has. There’s a very real possibility that they’re costing BA money instead of bringing in profit. Those videos also take maybe 3-4 hours to shoot tops. That’s if literally everything goes wrong. Something like that could easily be incorporated into anyone’s work day when it’s part of your regular responsibilities. Especially when taking into consideration that they’re not shooting every day.

The BA channel is kept afloat by GM, It’s Alive, and maybe Carla’s show but that’s because of the celebrity guests not because Carla has some massive loyal following. Mollie gets solid views but also her videos are INSANELY EXPENSIVE. We all know this. I wouldn’t be shocked if they were barely breaking even or lost money on her show.

I can’t believe y’all really making me talk about this but it’s too absurd not to at this point. I haven’t watched BA in months and I really don’t have any reason to defend any of these people, especially Rapo because y’all know I always despised him so I don’t need to state that I’m glad he’s fucking gone because I couldn’t stand his face but...........the silence of white staff??? Literally HUH? That whole thing took what...like 6 hours from start to finish yesterday? It couldn’t have been more than 6-8 hours between the time the picture surfaced and Rapo resigned. In that time EVERYONE from the BATK spoke up and pretty firmly for that matter. Not one “white” person was silent about it or about their support for the staffers that spoke up.

Also, I’m not going to get into it with titles and job responsibilities because I don’t care to get into that but the amount of posts that I’ve seen floating around since yesterday that claim Claire makes 20k/video is absolutely stupid. The notion that $400/video to shoot a 6-8 minute cooking video that probably took 3-4 hours to produce from start to finish is bad pay is also just idiotic. Here’s the thing, it’s a well known fact that there is no money in digital media. None. For a while in the last decade people thought there would be but every company that expanded their digital video presence has since shrunk it because digital is not the money pile some apparently think it is. Look at places like Vice or Vox for example. All downsized in the last year and other publications scrapped their video content completely. It’s also no secret that magazines/journalism subscriptions have slumped immensely in the last few years. Sure, you could get rich off making youtube videos but it’s SO VERY DIFFERENT when you’re a single person sitting in front of a camera at your house with little to no costs being sunk into making your videos while having sponsors than being a whole ass corporation in the publishing business.

Let’s look at some numbers:

I think a pretty realistic number is to say that an episode of Gourmet Makes brings in about 20,000 in ad revenue. That’s a fair estimate. Could be more, could be less depending on the views but let’s stick with 20k because that’s a number I’ve heard thrown around more than once. You know what’s behind those 20k? Huge operational and production costs. How many people work behind the camera on those GM videos? Every time the camera reveals crew there’s at least 7-10 people. That crew is all getting paid. Claire is getting paid. Ingredients need to be bought. Equipment has an intrinsic cost. Do you think office space at the World Trade Center is cheap? The actual cost of making those videos from pre-production to post is probably close to the 20k they bring in. Especially when you’re considering the fact that GM episodes last longer than the few hours it takes to shoot every other BATK video. That’s a day rate for the crew every extra day. That’s thousands of dollars in costs every single time Claire fails and has to come back.

Let’s look at some more numbers. SAG (Screen Actors Guild) is the actor’s union. The actor’s union sets minimum day rates and scales for what talent should be paid. YouTube videos fall under “New Media” in the SAG contracts. Do you know what the day rate is for a union actor to work 12 hour days on a new media project that has a budget under 250k?

$125 dollars. For what is usually 12 hours of work. That’s what UNION actors are getting paid per day for New Media projects. $400 per video to shoot for a handful of hours is a pretty fucking fair rate. That’s the ballpark for the 12 hour day rate for many other department head positions on set and again...those people are expected to work 12 hours, often doing a fair amount of manual labor.

You also have to take into consideration that Brad and Claire literally carry that entire channel on their backs. Do they get paid more? Sure. But they also get the most views. Bar none. If the BATK was a fictional tv show they would be the lead actors. Leads and supporting/guest stars don’t get paid the same. Not even close. ESPECIALLY not when a Claire video is going to get 4 million views in a week and one of the other person’s videos is going to get 900k views in three weeks. That’s a massive difference in revenue being created. Their compensation is matching the money they make the company. Y’all seem to forget that at the end of the day all of this is a BUSINESS. You also forget it every time a “diverse” show gets cancelled too. Something can have all the diversity in the world but if people aren’t watching it or if it’s not making the company money they’re not paying for it. Period.

....or literally the people who have been there the longest??? lol. Brad and Claire pretty much started the BA channel model as it exists today. Claire has been there since basically the beginning. Like...what??? Of course she has a bigger fanbase, more exposure, and a higher salary. Go back years and you’ll see Claire videos. She’s had a long ass time to build a following. Same with Brad and Carla and Andy and Chris. They’ve all been there from Day 1.

Lol your sister is about to miss out on the best entertainment around. OK so BA is short for Bon Appétit which is a really dope culinary magazine that has been around since like 1950 or something. Anyway, they eventually started expanding into video content when everyone in the print world did so maybe 6-7 years ago or something like that. You know how a lot of restaurants and culinary magazines have "test kitchens" where they develop the recipes they either sell or print every month? Well after a period of trial and error and weird stuff they eventually started shooting videos in their test kitchen. At the beginning they were like what I can only describe as "Tasty videos but instead of just hands and music you would actually see the talking head giving you the recipe and talking to you."

The writers/editors for the magazine are obviously also recipe testers so they were the first ones that started to host these little cooking videos. I think Carla and Claire were the first two to actually start doing them. Anyway so Claire was a full time Senior Food Editor at BA. She's a nerd with three degrees (one of them from Harvard). She can cook anything and has videos ranging the scope of savory and pastry but she really especializes in pastry.

Eventually BA started trying to expand their content and they were like "What would happen if we had one of our chefs try to recreate junk food in our fancy test kitchen?" That's how Claire's show Gourmet Makes started in 2017 and we've all been blessed infinitely since then. Basically every episode Claire is assigned a snack food of some kind (Twinkies, Cheetos, Pop Tarts, Cheeze Its, Snickers, etc) and she has to reverse engineer it and make it "gourmet". The videos started at like 13 minutes per episode and like three years later we're up to full on 40 minute episodes because they're the pinnacle of entertainment.

Claire is basically a grumpy house cat who goes through multiple entire existential crises every episode. Like...she actually truly does hate the show which makes it 10000000% more entertaining. She hates it so much that she actually said "FUCK THIS!" and quit BA in 2018. After a very nerve-wracking hiatus for all of us they somehow convinced her to come back just to host the show and make some other guest appearances but not as a full time employee because she wasn't having any of it anymore lol.

Her videos are CRAZY popular and they've made her some weird internet sensation. All her videos trend on YouTube the day they're dropped. She gets crazy amounts of views on her videos compared to literally anything else BA does. Goes to show how truly cool/funny she is. You legitimately can't help but love her and want to protect her from evil snack foods at all costs.

The best part of what has come to be known as the "BA Cinematic Universe" in the fandom is not the content of the actual videos. Am I ever going to make a homemade M&M in my entire life? Never. But legitimately every single person who works at the BA Test Kitchen is a character so good that no writer could've come up with in a fictional world so the shows/episodes have expanded to become this weird, real life, work place sitcom that is just as rich and detailed as any fictional show I've ever watched. And not a damn second of it is scripted.

They each have their own shows now but they all happen in the same place so it's literally just like watching the same show for hours even though one "episode" was about how to make a Twix and then the next "episode" I'm watching someone blindfolded and the next "episode" is a giant fluffy hyperactive man who can't properly pronounce a single word in the English language pickling some eggs. And all the jokes cross over from show to show because everyone appears in each other's show anyway so it truly is the Cinematic Universe Marvel wishes it had 😂

That brings us to our giant golden retriever in human form: Brad. Imagine the absolute antithesis to Claire in every way...you have Brad. That's exactly why they're lightning in a bottle together. They carry the entire BA video enterprises on their tired backs. Brad is just...Brad. I don't even know how to describe him because I wouldn't do him justice.

Honestly, I've given you enough context and background info already. You need to witness it for yourself now. Here's a playlist with all the episodes of Gourmet Makes. I promise you, you won't regret it.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKtIunYVkv_RwB_yx1SZrZC-ddhxyXanh

It's literally written better than any and all sitcoms I've ever seen and it's not fiction. Like...if I watched a show with all these characters I'd legit be like "this is forced" AND YET......

He’s SO dumb but at the same time he’s also a lowkey genius. It’s why you gotta love him. He does have some REALLY fucking good problem solving ideas sometimes. The only two brain cells he has are on break for most of the day but when they finally clock in, convene, and decide to actually start working to form a coherent thought then magic happens.