#jackistan

When I was on YouTube back in 2015, I remember gaming videos would be around 15 minutes long. I definitely remember PewDiePie making "slop" content (before it got that name), reviewing his Reddit, when someone said "the floor is making a video below 10:02". There was a meta at the time to make videos a certain length: not too short, can't monetise; not too long, can't put too much work into a video.

Now, I look at people's second channels (the money-making channels, just post anything to generate income) and their videos are pushing 20 minutes, even 30-40 minutes in some cases. I just find myself asking, "is this getting a bit excessive?" I've even looked at my own videos and wondered whether they're too long.

My last video was 27 minutes, and that was after a second edit where I took even more out. I think it started off as 33 minutes, and I thought I'd be wasting people's time to ask for 30 minutes, in exchange for a couple matches and a bit of commentary. BattleBit, a similar game, was only 18 minutes, which feels much more reasonable.

GTA's last video was 22 minutes: all I did was steal a car. I suppose the final 5 minutes is me doing a completely different task, so it's more of a 17 minute video with a 5 minute bonus. Still, 17 minutes for a single car? I feel like I'm ripping people off at that point. The GTA video before was only 13 minutes, which I find much more reasonable. Perhaps I should record less and cut more.

My Minecraft videos tend to get a bit long, but I feel that's chalked up to the fact I get carried away playing. I ended last video with a whole bunch of ideas on what to do next, which I look forward to, but in the 20 minutes I uploaded, I got quite a bit done.

Still, I can say to myself, "this video deserves 20 minutes", but does this video deserve 20 minutes of the viewer's time? Sometimes I watch a video of a content creator I like and I think to myself, "come on, mate, you're reading Reddit posts, not painting the Mona Lisa. Give it a break!" And then I click off. There's a growing trend of "long form" videos being the new meta: hours long videos, which ultimately boil down to plot synopsis, surface level analysis, or just mashing several old videos together. Video slop.

It makes me wonder if there's consumerism in the attention economy - that being, people try and bloat videos out just for the sake of reaching a timestamp. The videos don't NEED to be 20-60 minutes long: people just WANT you watching for longer. Of course, longer watch time means two things:

1. More ads shown, more payout

2. More watch time, more algorithmic success

Perhaps that's too cynical of me. Still, I can't help but shake this feeling of wasting people's time with a 20 minute video. I've got things to do and I'm sure other people do too. We're not in lockdown anymore. Do any of us have the time to watch a 30 minute YouTube video? We're reaching cable TV lengths of video. Some TV drama episodes are shorter than these videos.

Let me know what you think.

Oh my god am I so fed up each time someone gets "cancelled" aka exposed as a groomer/creep online. Not because of the discourse, I think the call outs are necessary and should absolutely happen.

I'm fed up because every SINGLE TIME there's someone exposed nowadays, there's always swarms of brainwashed and obsessive fans that will literally reaffirm themselves of anything to "disprove" allegations.

I think it's absolutely mental William Gold still has a fanbase. Lovejoy was an audience of notoriously progressive fans who would champion social justice and call out bad apples. Hell, Lovejoy fans piled on Ash Kabosu each time he made some stupid tweet which needed calling out. Lovejoy fans were willing to call out their own bassist each time he screwed up, where's that same attitude when MULTIPLE WOMEN come forward regarding sexual/physical abuse?

Don't get me wrong, Wilbur Soot and Lovejoy aren't the same thing. I just feel like so many people who were once so vocal for social change and progressive values online were only doing it because they had no attachment to the person they were calling out. But why do SO MANY fans try and excuse obviously guilty people?

The mental gymnastics that some people come out with is insane. I've made fun of disgraced creators in the past, and some pretentious Stan comes along in my replies and says, "um, actually, they made a response, so you should read that before having this opinion".

To any Stan whose only rebuttal to their creator being a horrible person is "see their response"...

That response sucked balls. Big ones.

There's so much gaslighting in these creators' responses to the point where there's almost always someone screenshotting and annotating the gaslighting sentences. It's also almost always the top reply. Hell, I'm looking into an example for a video, it's horrific.

My guess is that the most hardcore stans don't want to have to admit that 1-4 (or more) years of their life was spent supporting a straight up horrible person. These people don't want to admit that these creators who they look up to are horrible people, so they accept literally any response at face value. These people find any response at all "appropriate" and "well presented", even if the actual content is full of gaslighting, manipulation of information or straight up deflection.

So, I guess my point is, when your favourite YouTuber gets cancelled or outed as a creep, actually read what both the accusers and creators have to say. Seriously think for a while about what both sides are trying to tell you. How are they telling you this? Would you come to the same conclusion?

Oh, and one more thing.

Support all victims coming forward.

anyway, have a cute picture from the animation cos its so beautifully animated

oh yes.

oh yes.