Emma Chamberlain dropped out of school and changed the world of online video

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/style/emma-chamberlain-youtube.html

by bookofjoe • 7 years ago

44 53 7 years ago

bookofjoe• 7 years ago

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/07/emma-...

The wording of the title feels like an ad for youtube or the gig economy, but besides these winners there are far more losers.

piokoch• 7 years ago

I can't believe my eyes. Am I just too old? Some random persons shows herself in 5 different shirts or shows herself sitting all day on the balcony? Why is that interesting and so many people want to watch this?

GarvielLoken• 7 years ago

Have fun at the retirement home grandpa!

mothsonasloth2• 7 years ago

Get off my lawn!

dang• 7 years ago

Please don't do this here.

majos• 7 years ago

My conjecture, for which I offer no proof: people get a lot of utility from friendship, especially if that friendship is with someone popular/fun/cool/beautiful. People are also not very good at distinguishing "I see this person on a screen every day and it's like we're hanging out" from "I hang out with this person every day".

Way back when this effect played out in the way people connected with the people on their favorite TV shows. If anything, it's compounded now, since you can watch these people do normal hangout stuff like "sitting all day on the balcony". That stuff used to be reserved for friends and family, or at least acquaintances. So we still attach a special feeling to taking part in it. Again, this is most true when we see the person as cool.

Might even be further compounded by the rise of actual friendships (i.e., two-way streets) that mostly play out online -- if many of your interactions with actual friends occur over Instagram, it's easier to see "I see person x's Instagram posts" as a kind of friendship.

These are just guesses. I follow some people on YouTube, but they're all very skilled practitioners of at least one of my hobbies, and I'm not into their sporadic "my life outside my hobby/vlog" videos.

Also, on reflection, I probably stole most of these ideas from an old essay David Foster Wallace wrote about television, "E Unibus Pluram" [1].

[1] https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf

number101010• 7 years ago

I have noticed this effect in myself while watching streamers on Twitch. You start to feel like you're sitting on a couch with your buddy playing a game.

pjc504• 7 years ago

I've heard this described as "parasocial interaction".

davidcollantes• 7 years ago

I don't watch it, don't find it appealing, but I don't watch "reality shows" either, and consider them pure rubbish. I think videos like hers are very close to reality shows. Many people like those, right? They just simply entertain a range of viewers.

If you have children, or younger siblings, you will know they consume those like candies. Is it generational? I don't think so, unless "Internet, Youtube, Social Media... etc." is counted as a generation--which might as well be.

zzzcpan2• 7 years ago

There are many reasons why independently created vlog-style content could be more appealing to many people. It's more relatable, not predictable, more current, there is more variety, fewer restrictions, much less propaganda (no pushing diversity, minorities, no pro-government, pro-police, pro-military propaganda, etc.).

Why so many people still want to watch hollywood movies is what I would ask instead.

saxonslav• 7 years ago

This isn't real news. The whole "what if YouTube is a real job?!?!?!?" Bullshit was hyped up 10 years ago, at the earliest, if I recall correctly, when pewdiepie was starting to go mainstream and vloggers were getting traction. It's always difficult work. That's not the purpose of the article though - it's just trying to shine another light on an old topic to revive it for the public and make some easy clicks.

minikites• 7 years ago

Chamberlain edits each video she makes for between 20 and 30 hours, often at stretches of 10 or 15 hours at a time. Like other professional social media users, the work has taken a physical toll on her. (She releases roughly one video a week.) She used to edit at a desktop, but she developed back pain. Now she works from her bed. She keeps blue mood lighting on, but her vision has deteriorated.

She works harder than many "adults" I know. Considering the USA's collective obsession with "hard work" and long hours she should be lauded, but I mostly see comments denigrating her, probably because there's no stock price at stake. We only value hard work when somebody else benefits from it.

ajbetteridge2• 7 years ago

I think she needs some kind of counselling or mentoring because working long stretches like that is not going to lead to long term gain as she's already noticed with her health. The attitude and work ethic are commendable but it's not what I want as a role model for my own kids.

AFascistWorld2• 7 years ago

For her subscription numbers, I guess millions of dollars per year is very realistic, for that kind of money, many adults would be willing to work long hours too.

And in the fickle world of internet fame, you would want to make the most of it while you are at it.

But for six figures or less, not much so.

dahdum• 7 years ago

I don't quite understand how her "physical toll" is any greater than other computer workers, other than she now does her work in bed. It's certainly a lighter load than any labor or trade job, so that part of the article falls flat to me.

She should be lauded for producing something people want to see, with no external harm, that makes her a living. That's difficult, unstable, and stressful. It could disappear overnight from a gaffe or any number of other causes both within and outside her control.

PhasmaFelis2• 7 years ago

I don't feel like judging YouTubers either way right now, but our obsession with "hard work" has always been really unhealthy. Not everything that's hard is worth doing.

petercooper• 7 years ago

This is a good piece, but I can't see it playing well around here. Modern youth culture is treated in an as facile and impenetrable manner by today's adults as our cultures were by our own parents. Yet.. as with any generation, there's a lot of good and bad to be seen, and this generation will surely give way to one that's even more intriguing.

casefields• 7 years ago

Mirror: https://outline.com/ZgEY5K

jadel4• 7 years ago

Honestly I don't think there is much to be seen. Young people are playing the hand they have been dealt, it just isn't a very good one.

kabouseng• 7 years ago

That is a very victim mentality statement to make.

ajbetteridge2• 7 years ago

That doesn't make it any less true.

brownbat• 7 years ago

"Joel got the idea for the song when he had just turned 40. He was in a recording studio and met a friend of Sean Lennon who had just turned 21 who said 'It's a terrible time to be 21!' Joel replied to him, 'Yeah, I remember when I was 21 – I thought it was an awful time and we had Vietnam, and y'know, drug problems, and civil rights problems and everything seemed to be awful.' The friend replied, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's different for you. You were a kid in the fifties and everybody knows that nothing happened in the fifties.' Joel retorted, 'Wait a minute, didn't you hear of the Korean War or the Suez Canal Crisis?' Joel later said those headlines formed the basic framework for the song."

dgellow• 7 years ago

Which song?

jadel4• 7 years ago

I have heard the argument before, that things were always bad, but that isn't the point. The difference isn't that things aren't better, but that they aren't getting better. The reason we remember hippies, punk rockers and skaters is because they ended up having an outsized impact in expanding cultural centres. You can trace back entire movements or industries to certain locations or events. But is anyone going to talk about the subprime mortgage crisis, some algorithm change or even "occupy" in the future? Is anyone going to say "I was there when people were in debt, couldn't afford to live in cities and were playing video games and watching YouTube"? I think it is doubtful. People can't even remember current wars. The cast of "Girls" isn't the cast of "Kids". But I guess I can't entire rule out iJustine becoming president one day.

neotokio• 7 years ago

Some time ago I always looked down upon such creators, but, with time - what is the difference between those influencer kids and Hollywood (especially in times of netflix cut-cost model)? Its still only about content provided, and content market is biggest ever today. Of course, I doubt that this (being employed as YT persona) is sustainable on a long run (there is myriad of reasons, including platform dependence), but girl already has a foothold in entertainment industry, far easier to start for her now than if sending screenplays to random producers. My point being, people watching it (or authors creating it) are not stupid, they are market driven, its almost a systemic problem that we can create value out of nothing and sustain this value doing nothing. World continues to spin.

mothsonasloth2• 7 years ago

[Warning cynical and bitter post below]

Ah, Youtubers. I am not sure what's more tragic about them; making hyperbolic or fake events to attract viewers.

Or allowing viewers a "no-bars" tour around their personal lives and sometimes their own heads.

Or is the real tragedy the viewers, who binge vicariously into these empty vessels. Relishing in the rise, peak and eventual fall from fame of these online stars, with all the emotions and vulnerability put on for display.

Then for this audience to move onto the next piece of entertainment?

The worst part is the propagation that Youtubing is a legitimite vocation / lifestyle. It's almost as bad as these other fake lifestyles:

* Travel Bloggers, desecrating and ignoring local customs for the entertainment of readers.

* Forex / Bitcoin millionaires (Buy my eBook).

* The mum that makes £50,000 a week from doing online surveys.

* ASMR escorts

* Instagram influencers, prostituting themselves literally or metaphorically to businesses / media / rich saudi princes

To read more like this, please check out my blog, so I can live out my dream of being a digital nomad and pose with my expensive Macbook in a third world country...

tomaytotomato.com

chr1• 7 years ago

Is the tragedy for viewers any worse than binge watching tv which was more common before youtube?

mattmanser• 7 years ago

I find this comment snobbish, arrogant and crass. I don't believe it belongs on HN.

In insulting other people lives and how they enjoy them, all you have shown is that you're an intolerant, elitist asshole.

asark• 7 years ago

The common factor in most of the jobs that post was about is that bullshit (lying) is so effective in their execution that the bullshitters tend to squeeze out the non-bullshitters very effectively, with some exceptions (...or are they exceptions? Who knows.) The lower your tolerance for "acceptable" self-interested lying the more likely you are to be grossed out by the whole online media/marketing career scene.

celticmusic3• 7 years ago

or ... you know ... they have an opinion.

pjc504• 7 years ago

How much of this is just disintermediated "reality" television, though? It used to be the case that only very few people could become celebrities, and this was mediated by the existing power brokers. Now people can become a TV star directly without having to go through the TV. Long hours are still required, but this is fundamentally a competition: you'll be beaten by someone putting in more hours. The real curse of full commoditisation of time and life.

The difficult bit is trying to untangle whether the audience's participation in it is just entertainment, or takes on unhealthy aspects of boundary crossing, addiction, or delusions of closeness.

Forex / Bitcoin millionaires (Buy my eBook).

Popular financial frauds have a centuries-long history.

zzzcpan2• 7 years ago

The difficult bit is trying to untangle whether the audience's participation in it is just entertainment, or takes on unhealthy aspects of boundary crossing, addiction, or delusions of closeness.

Why is that even a concern? Would you be just as concerned if it was about veritasium or eevblog channels?

casualm• 7 years ago

Although I believe that the amount of effort put in will also provide an amount returned, this isnt always the case, and moreso in this type of "showbiz" career. It also doesnt help that by lowering the bar in this field, you yield better results (see early pewdiepie, belle delphine) it provides better results with a fraction of the effort.

AwesomeFaic• 7 years ago

As a frequent traveler who very much shares your cynicism on the aforementioned, I've used that negativity to motivate me to work on a blog specifically against disrespectful, mindless, and destructive behavior while traveling internationally. Not that it offsets the damage done by these "influencers", especially since their attention dwarfs content like mine, but hopefully more of us can utilize these negative feelings to contribute more meaningful and responsible content to the digital landscape. wanderandponder.com

celticmusic3• 7 years ago

and the worst part is that after the 5th literally in 2 sentences I closed the video.

Maybe I'm just that old guy screaming at the kids to get the hell off my lawn, but I found the communication style to be obnoxious.

chrshawkes• 7 years ago

Regardless of your personal opinions on YouTube, It's mostly all the kids are watching these days. The realness and closeness to the content creators is something Hollywood and mainstream cable can't provide. MTV Real World and Survivor seemed to kick start this average Joe celebrity type world we now live in.

Is it any worse than Tom Cruise and the like giving us political advice about who to vote for? I'll take YouTubers over Hollywood celebs any day.

astrea• 7 years ago

I like to watch mindless things and giggle after a full day of working and frying my brain. Sometimes it isn't any deeper than that. I don't understand these misanthropic rants that come out of the HN crowd any time someone even half mentions YouTube.

II2II• 7 years ago

That is an awfully broad generalization. There appear to be plenty who generate some form of income from the service while drawing a clear line between their professional and personal lives, without being profoundly hyperbolic or outright fake, or many of the other stereotypes propagated by the media. The media doesn't talk about them very much for pretty much the same reason that the media doesn't talk about office works very much: the mainstream media is based upon sensationalism, much like the YouTube superstars are. Those who operate YouTube channels as a small business or a supplementary source of income are not going to get the attention because they are simply trying to do their job.

drivingmenuts• 7 years ago

I made it about 30 seconds hoping for something funny, but hey, if it works for her, more power to her.

nihil75• 7 years ago

OMG! The internet is so changed I can't even comprehend! My JS won't run, even backend Python/PHP won't run, And my mouse turned into a moose. Much change.

gravitas• 7 years ago

Did everyone forget about JenniCam? The subtitle gore of this NYT post is myopic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Ringley

RandomInteger4• 7 years ago

As someone currently doing backbreaking work, please fork off with this bullshirt.

Yeah, I get it, it's mentally tiring and a lot more effort than we see in the video. Cry me a river. Be glad your everything from the waist down doesn't feel like it's falling apart without taking an iburprofen because you didn't just have to clock in a half forking marathon in some cheap sneakers from walmart.

DanBC• 7 years ago

You can say fuck on HN.

lostmsu• 7 years ago

The title was misleading for me. I expected a tech project in the domain of online video. Can we change it to include "YouTube" or add "influencer"?

Emma Chamberlain dropped out of school and changed the world of online video

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