Somebody made me aware of something with the Shaytards which I hadn't heard about, which led to me realizing more and more things. Talk about out of the loop!
First of all, he's editing his own vlogs again? Never saw that coming. I guess the money train might be drying up in California, and he's trying to fall back on his real money maker. Or who knows, maybe he actually realized they're not the same if he doesn't do it. My cynical side has a hard time deciding! I don't know how long he plans to do it, but good for him.
And directly related to that is that he's back in Idaho. Is that to stay? Is Cali too expensive? Or is it just for the holidays? Either way, it was nice to see that place again. His family, too. Their interactions were always way more entertaining than any of the California people.
And then there's the hour+ long Christmas special. Gotta give Shay credit for that. That's how you make a Christmas vlog.
I noticed a few things though which reminded me of why I got tired of him to begin with. First was the religious stuff. I know it's a big part of their family, but I'm really just not interested in hearing it all the time, and especially not in seeing them ingrain all that into their kids' heads. Seeing kids awkwardly reciting the bible stuff just comes across as weird to me. But the other thing which probably annoys me more so is plugging and namedropping Dave Ramsey. For crying out loud, you'd think they were related to the guy the way the talk about him so much. It always just reminds me that Shay is conservative, and I'd hate to see what he had to say about politics during the election. That is, unless he was smart enough not to discuss it!
But then I noticed that I didn't see Malachi anywhere. I was jumping around through the videos trying to find when they came back to Idaho, and still nothing. I saw a different dog, though, and that gave me a bad feeling. A quick Google search later revealed the sad truth: he had died.
I went back and found the video from April, and I gotta say, I don't know if I'm going to be able to watch it. I'm tearing up hardcore just from the parts where he's sick and they think the worst, and just had to pause it when Shay said they were going to leave him at the vet. I went through the same thing with a black lab once, who was old and gray and just couldn't hardly walk anymore. How terrible. I sincerely feel bad for them.
Just a few hours till New Years, so I want to finish this up quick (and less depressing!). I have no idea what the new year will hold for Youtube. Will we have upcoming Youtube stars? Will I give old vloggers another try? I guess we'll see!
Happy New Years!
Monday, December 31, 2012
How to Ruin Your Career 2.0
The last post with this title was referring to Cory. I guess Kate learned from the best, because now her career is over as well.
Haven't watched the latest Katersoneseven vlog? Don't bother. It's just a big middle finger to all the fans, followed by a Keek advertisement.
Is this just a trick to see how fans would react? Doubt it. Is it being opportunistic and finding an alternative money source which doesn't depend on the daily effort required to make vlogs? Probably!
So, let's look at this based on what we know of the situation. Kate obviously had to be making a reasonable amount of money all of this time to live where they do in California, and to buy all the clothes and makeup that she does. But she was still always rather tight with her money. And yet, she suddenly buys a brand new car, despite having already bought one a few months prior which ran fine. Then she buys an expensive dog and hundreds of dollars of supplies. Not to mention, she's been talking of them moving into a house soon. Meanwhile, Cory gets this Heathcliff movie deal with Sparta. And between all of this, the two of them have been promoting Keek like it's going out of style. So, money situation? Probably rather good right now!
But here's the kicker; shortly before buying that car, she returned a $2k computer she'd bought to better edit videos on, because of something related to her finances not working out as she'd thought (and yet bought the aforementioned car shortly after). Then later, after paying a fortune for the dog, she said she can't afford to replace the camera, which was making noises. These two particular things stand out to me for a reason: both of them were at times where she seemed to have had quite a bit of money available shortly beforehand, and yet she chose personal/luxury items instead. Maybe she really was planning on dumping the vlogs way back then, and couldn't justify the expense of a new computer or camera anymore. But money certainly seemed to be coming from somewhere.
But we have to take something else into consideration. Kate just went to the doctor, and then suddenly the next day she's ending the vlogs. Does she have some medical issue she doesn't wish to share? And/or is she pregnant? You certainly can't hide a growing belly in a daily vlog.
Either way, to me, the reason is irrelevant. She slammed the door in the face of almost one-hundred-thousand subscribers. Her video announcing this has twice as many thumbs down as thumbs up. Even the most hardcore fanboys who are trying to defend her in the comments are being out-commented by all of the people who are completely disappointed or angry about the situation.
So basically, Kate has destroyed most of her fanbase in exactly one minute worth of video. She's obviously not counting on views from her Katers17 channel to support herself, so this "making short films" thing is either total bullshit to pacify angry fans, or she's actually naive enough to believe that she can somehow continue to make any money from Youtube after ruining years of work to build a fanbase. Let's face it, her Katers17 channel just isn't very good. Particularly the more recent stuff. It wasn't until she became a vlogger that her career really went anywhere. I do hope she realizes that.
If Kate wanted to stop vlogging, she should have simply started intentionally missing days here and there, or going to just weekdays, or three days a week, etc. Fans might have been upset, but they wouldn't have been completely taken aback by it. Unless she has a significant health problem to deal with, then the way she handled this was completely unprofessional, and I do in fact hope it's negative to her career in the future. Seriously, this is essentially the same as spontaneously quitting a job without notice. Employers don't like that when looking to hire someone, because they don't want to be left hanging themselves.
So, whatever, I guess. Things in her vlogs seemed to have bugged me on a more frequent basis as she continued to deteriorate into this vapid individual who we see today. This just saves me from having to make the decision to unsubscribe. But the underlying point of the matter is irregardless of whether it's Kate or Shaycarl or any popular Youtuber: this isn't how you handle fans.
p.s. She's lost 500 subscribers in two days.
Haven't watched the latest Katersoneseven vlog? Don't bother. It's just a big middle finger to all the fans, followed by a Keek advertisement.
Is this just a trick to see how fans would react? Doubt it. Is it being opportunistic and finding an alternative money source which doesn't depend on the daily effort required to make vlogs? Probably!
So, let's look at this based on what we know of the situation. Kate obviously had to be making a reasonable amount of money all of this time to live where they do in California, and to buy all the clothes and makeup that she does. But she was still always rather tight with her money. And yet, she suddenly buys a brand new car, despite having already bought one a few months prior which ran fine. Then she buys an expensive dog and hundreds of dollars of supplies. Not to mention, she's been talking of them moving into a house soon. Meanwhile, Cory gets this Heathcliff movie deal with Sparta. And between all of this, the two of them have been promoting Keek like it's going out of style. So, money situation? Probably rather good right now!
But here's the kicker; shortly before buying that car, she returned a $2k computer she'd bought to better edit videos on, because of something related to her finances not working out as she'd thought (and yet bought the aforementioned car shortly after). Then later, after paying a fortune for the dog, she said she can't afford to replace the camera, which was making noises. These two particular things stand out to me for a reason: both of them were at times where she seemed to have had quite a bit of money available shortly beforehand, and yet she chose personal/luxury items instead. Maybe she really was planning on dumping the vlogs way back then, and couldn't justify the expense of a new computer or camera anymore. But money certainly seemed to be coming from somewhere.
But we have to take something else into consideration. Kate just went to the doctor, and then suddenly the next day she's ending the vlogs. Does she have some medical issue she doesn't wish to share? And/or is she pregnant? You certainly can't hide a growing belly in a daily vlog.
Either way, to me, the reason is irrelevant. She slammed the door in the face of almost one-hundred-thousand subscribers. Her video announcing this has twice as many thumbs down as thumbs up. Even the most hardcore fanboys who are trying to defend her in the comments are being out-commented by all of the people who are completely disappointed or angry about the situation.
So basically, Kate has destroyed most of her fanbase in exactly one minute worth of video. She's obviously not counting on views from her Katers17 channel to support herself, so this "making short films" thing is either total bullshit to pacify angry fans, or she's actually naive enough to believe that she can somehow continue to make any money from Youtube after ruining years of work to build a fanbase. Let's face it, her Katers17 channel just isn't very good. Particularly the more recent stuff. It wasn't until she became a vlogger that her career really went anywhere. I do hope she realizes that.
If Kate wanted to stop vlogging, she should have simply started intentionally missing days here and there, or going to just weekdays, or three days a week, etc. Fans might have been upset, but they wouldn't have been completely taken aback by it. Unless she has a significant health problem to deal with, then the way she handled this was completely unprofessional, and I do in fact hope it's negative to her career in the future. Seriously, this is essentially the same as spontaneously quitting a job without notice. Employers don't like that when looking to hire someone, because they don't want to be left hanging themselves.
So, whatever, I guess. Things in her vlogs seemed to have bugged me on a more frequent basis as she continued to deteriorate into this vapid individual who we see today. This just saves me from having to make the decision to unsubscribe. But the underlying point of the matter is irregardless of whether it's Kate or Shaycarl or any popular Youtuber: this isn't how you handle fans.
p.s. She's lost 500 subscribers in two days.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Merry Mediocrity-mas.
You know, maybe I just got bored of the Youtubers who probably still do a lot for Christmas in their videos (Shaycarl, Charlies Trippy, etc). And maybe those of you who still watch those channels can fill me in on whether they did anything worthwhile. But it seemed that this year's videos (at least, what I still subscribe to) were a bit mediocre to me. I kinda expected more from Wheezy Waiter, Arturo Trejo, Meekakitty/Nanalew, etc. And maybe some are still coming, but some folks didn't really even post anything!
Despite all my regular nitpicking, I have to admit that the Christmas Eve + Day vlogs of Katers weren't bad. Though I do want to point out that, again, they kept the majority of the gifts a secret. I think last year they said that it's because they want to keep some moments for themselves. And to some degree, sure, I get it, that's fine. But at the same time, one of the biggest gifts she wanted Cory to open was the robe, and she filmed that. The cynic in me pretty much thinks that they don't open presents on camera because she doesn't want people to see how much they spent on gifts. I think that's partially why she doesn't film her mail much anymore, too.
There's one other Katers-related thing I wanted to say, particularly after just watching the most recent vlog: Kate is turning into one of "those people." You know, the kind who takes their dog into stores, and restaurants. Come on, people eat their food in there, they don't want hairy animals being carried around. That's why the FDA has actual rules against animals (except service animals) being allowed into restaurants, rules which most states adopt into their local health ordinances. Plus, a lot of people out there are allergic to dogs, and I just think it's rude to shove one in their faces in places where they wouldn't normally expect to have to deal with one. People will excuse service animals, but I think they would be pretty aggravated with you if they started having allergy troubles while trying to eat. If you're going to drag the dog along with you everywhere, then send Cory in to order and you wait outside, or vice versa. Better yet, leave the thing at home. It's not a human baby for crying out loud, it'll be fine.
Cory put up a couple of Christmas videos on SMP Films, but they pretty much fit into the mediocre category I've been talking about. The first one with the alien wasn't really funny to me, nor was it very original. Think about it; how many times have you seen videos where there's an alien and completely made-up words are used to carry out a particular situation? The second one with Josh was okay I guess. It didn't turn out quite as I expected, which made it make a little less sense, but whatever.
And actually, speaking of Cory, somebody pointed out something to me in a comment which I never even realized: 36 seconds is how long a Keek video is. That's what this 36-Second Films is all about! It makes total sense now. I don't know how I missed that, even. But I swear to you, eventually we're going to find out that Cory is getting paid or sponsored somehow by Keek, because those two have been pushing that damn site worse than a used car salesman. It's not even a fad, because it's a stupid idea to begin with. You can't combine Youtube and Twitter and get anything good, because Twitter is already annoying enough. Who wants message size limits anymore? Even Facebook realized how stupid that was. If I want to deal with that shit I'll use SMS rather than filling the web with abbreviated words and sentences.
Meanwhile, I did think that the Christmas episode of Prank vs Prank was funny. Lately I think the pranks have gone way over the top, and really just weren't funny at all. Between Jeana intentionally dancing dirty with that guy to make Jesse mad, or Jesse putting hot pepper extract rated at 2,000,000 scoville into Jeana's food despite the warning label, along with various other recent pranks, I was pretty much starting to get tired of the channel. Seriously, he might as well have sprayed pepper spray in her mouth, because it's the same scoville rating. And worse yet, he wasn't even prepared to help her when she panicked. But anyhow, no, the Christmas prank wasn't the most original, but it was still funny to me, and got back more to their roots rather than this crazy over-the-top stuff they've done lately. They've had some pretty funny pranks in the past, and most of them were really pretty simple, so I hope they head back towards what made them popular to begin with.
One of the more entertaining Christmas vlogs though was somebody who I doubt anyone reading this would have ever heard of. He's one of the people who used to be a Dave's Farm regular, but has distanced himself after the most recent news. He goes by the name CrazyBritishBloke, and is a daily vlogger from Canada. He pretty much starts out the day responding to comments and videos, then goes out and films things he encounters while working or helping out friends, and usually finishes up the day with his family and showing what they're going to have for dinner (along with how to make it sometimes). Most of the people associated with Dave's Farm are essentially the Canadian equivalent to American rednecks of the south, though Bloke is a bit different. I think the biggest reason I still keep up with his vlogs (even if I skip through parts) is because he's a pretty positive guy. He always seems to encourage people or point out the bright side of a situation. He's got a sense of humor, always laughing about something. And he's always been rather impartial despite any of the drama that went on between other Dave's Farm regulars. But anyhow, point being, his Christmas vlog was good if you ask me. He and his family went to visit other family, and they all had an entertaining Secret Santa exchange. I'm sure that his channel wouldn't appeal to everyone, but given that I was entertained more by that than most of the other holiday videos so far, I thought it was worth giving some credit to.
There may still be some other holiday videos and vlogs that pop up, so we'll have to see how they compare. But so far, it just hasn't seemed like a very merry time on the Youtubes!
Despite all my regular nitpicking, I have to admit that the Christmas Eve + Day vlogs of Katers weren't bad. Though I do want to point out that, again, they kept the majority of the gifts a secret. I think last year they said that it's because they want to keep some moments for themselves. And to some degree, sure, I get it, that's fine. But at the same time, one of the biggest gifts she wanted Cory to open was the robe, and she filmed that. The cynic in me pretty much thinks that they don't open presents on camera because she doesn't want people to see how much they spent on gifts. I think that's partially why she doesn't film her mail much anymore, too.
There's one other Katers-related thing I wanted to say, particularly after just watching the most recent vlog: Kate is turning into one of "those people." You know, the kind who takes their dog into stores, and restaurants. Come on, people eat their food in there, they don't want hairy animals being carried around. That's why the FDA has actual rules against animals (except service animals) being allowed into restaurants, rules which most states adopt into their local health ordinances. Plus, a lot of people out there are allergic to dogs, and I just think it's rude to shove one in their faces in places where they wouldn't normally expect to have to deal with one. People will excuse service animals, but I think they would be pretty aggravated with you if they started having allergy troubles while trying to eat. If you're going to drag the dog along with you everywhere, then send Cory in to order and you wait outside, or vice versa. Better yet, leave the thing at home. It's not a human baby for crying out loud, it'll be fine.
Cory put up a couple of Christmas videos on SMP Films, but they pretty much fit into the mediocre category I've been talking about. The first one with the alien wasn't really funny to me, nor was it very original. Think about it; how many times have you seen videos where there's an alien and completely made-up words are used to carry out a particular situation? The second one with Josh was okay I guess. It didn't turn out quite as I expected, which made it make a little less sense, but whatever.
And actually, speaking of Cory, somebody pointed out something to me in a comment which I never even realized: 36 seconds is how long a Keek video is. That's what this 36-Second Films is all about! It makes total sense now. I don't know how I missed that, even. But I swear to you, eventually we're going to find out that Cory is getting paid or sponsored somehow by Keek, because those two have been pushing that damn site worse than a used car salesman. It's not even a fad, because it's a stupid idea to begin with. You can't combine Youtube and Twitter and get anything good, because Twitter is already annoying enough. Who wants message size limits anymore? Even Facebook realized how stupid that was. If I want to deal with that shit I'll use SMS rather than filling the web with abbreviated words and sentences.
Meanwhile, I did think that the Christmas episode of Prank vs Prank was funny. Lately I think the pranks have gone way over the top, and really just weren't funny at all. Between Jeana intentionally dancing dirty with that guy to make Jesse mad, or Jesse putting hot pepper extract rated at 2,000,000 scoville into Jeana's food despite the warning label, along with various other recent pranks, I was pretty much starting to get tired of the channel. Seriously, he might as well have sprayed pepper spray in her mouth, because it's the same scoville rating. And worse yet, he wasn't even prepared to help her when she panicked. But anyhow, no, the Christmas prank wasn't the most original, but it was still funny to me, and got back more to their roots rather than this crazy over-the-top stuff they've done lately. They've had some pretty funny pranks in the past, and most of them were really pretty simple, so I hope they head back towards what made them popular to begin with.
One of the more entertaining Christmas vlogs though was somebody who I doubt anyone reading this would have ever heard of. He's one of the people who used to be a Dave's Farm regular, but has distanced himself after the most recent news. He goes by the name CrazyBritishBloke, and is a daily vlogger from Canada. He pretty much starts out the day responding to comments and videos, then goes out and films things he encounters while working or helping out friends, and usually finishes up the day with his family and showing what they're going to have for dinner (along with how to make it sometimes). Most of the people associated with Dave's Farm are essentially the Canadian equivalent to American rednecks of the south, though Bloke is a bit different. I think the biggest reason I still keep up with his vlogs (even if I skip through parts) is because he's a pretty positive guy. He always seems to encourage people or point out the bright side of a situation. He's got a sense of humor, always laughing about something. And he's always been rather impartial despite any of the drama that went on between other Dave's Farm regulars. But anyhow, point being, his Christmas vlog was good if you ask me. He and his family went to visit other family, and they all had an entertaining Secret Santa exchange. I'm sure that his channel wouldn't appeal to everyone, but given that I was entertained more by that than most of the other holiday videos so far, I thought it was worth giving some credit to.
There may still be some other holiday videos and vlogs that pop up, so we'll have to see how they compare. But so far, it just hasn't seemed like a very merry time on the Youtubes!
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Four-Hundred-and-Seventy-Two-Second Films
I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Can't complain, myself. But now that it's over, I can write another critical blog post without ruining any holiday cheer!
This one is about, you guessed it, Kate and Cory again. I caught up on my vlogs, and there's a few things to mention.
First, we find out that Cory and Sparta are somehow going to be involved with the new Heathcliff movie. After everyone's had a chance to roll their eyes at this movie even being made, and lived through terrible flashbacks of the CG Garfield movies, let's get to the real question here: what is the point of hiring Cory and Sparta to begin with? Sparta isn't a trained animal. Not to mention, Sparta isn't even a kitten anymore. When that Mean Kitty Song video was made, Sparta was very young and rambunctious. What's he going to do now? Stand around and look intimidated on a sound stage? They're also talking about doing some kind of music video for the movie using Sparta. Again, all I can ask is, why Sparta? It's not like he's even a recognizable cat. Maru and Grumpy Cat are way more iconic. I just don't get it. Hollywood is grasping for straws these days.
I noticed this in particular, though: "Sparta, a California-based cat known for his “Mean Kitty Song,” is in. But that took a holding deal, meaning money up front, against a full fee to be paid when the “Heathcliff” movie is released, probably in 2014." I guess Cory took the quicker deal instead of waiting for a bigger amount later on. Kind of brings us back to his financial situation in which we occasionally get insight. Probably not a terrible idea, though, because shit movies like this have a good chance of never getting released to begin with. Kids have no idea who Heathcliff even is these days.
So, moving on. Kate made a Christmas video of the Easter Bunny saying "happy birthday."
...so, moving on. Cory shares a bit about his upcoming plans. It involves something called 36-Second Films. Because, you know, that's an original name, and has definitely not been used by 5-Second Films, 30-Second Films, 60-Second Films, or similarly-named segments of other media groups or anything. But hey, I'd figured he'd already come down from his happy phase and decided not to bother with whatever it was he was going on about. So it's something, at least. We'll see if he follows through.
Lastly, Kate let Cory edit her most recent video. As you might expect, we get lots of fans saying she should let Cory edit all her videos, because they wouldn't dare criticize even if they hated it. In fact, I bet it was the fans who suggested him doing it after he edited the ending of a prior one. I, for one, can do without the goofball video and sound effects. Plus, when you let someone else edit your vlog, then it's not really yours anymore. It becomes just a collection of video clips of the person. I covered this ages ago when we first heard that Shaycarl was going to start paying somebody to edit his vlogs for him. It loses that personal touch of the person choosing which clips to use, when to cut'em, etc. It might have a slightly different meaning to someone else who wasn't there to experience it. But whatever, I doubt it'll become a usual thing in this case.
On a side note, I recently went back and watched some older Katers vlogs, even as recent as when Amy visited. It was just so much more entertaining to me, and they behaved way more natural in my opinion. I can't put too fine a point on it, but Kate today is just not quite the same person I subscribed to. Tis a shame.
This one is about, you guessed it, Kate and Cory again. I caught up on my vlogs, and there's a few things to mention.
First, we find out that Cory and Sparta are somehow going to be involved with the new Heathcliff movie. After everyone's had a chance to roll their eyes at this movie even being made, and lived through terrible flashbacks of the CG Garfield movies, let's get to the real question here: what is the point of hiring Cory and Sparta to begin with? Sparta isn't a trained animal. Not to mention, Sparta isn't even a kitten anymore. When that Mean Kitty Song video was made, Sparta was very young and rambunctious. What's he going to do now? Stand around and look intimidated on a sound stage? They're also talking about doing some kind of music video for the movie using Sparta. Again, all I can ask is, why Sparta? It's not like he's even a recognizable cat. Maru and Grumpy Cat are way more iconic. I just don't get it. Hollywood is grasping for straws these days.
I noticed this in particular, though: "Sparta, a California-based cat known for his “Mean Kitty Song,” is in. But that took a holding deal, meaning money up front, against a full fee to be paid when the “Heathcliff” movie is released, probably in 2014." I guess Cory took the quicker deal instead of waiting for a bigger amount later on. Kind of brings us back to his financial situation in which we occasionally get insight. Probably not a terrible idea, though, because shit movies like this have a good chance of never getting released to begin with. Kids have no idea who Heathcliff even is these days.
So, moving on. Kate made a Christmas video of the Easter Bunny saying "happy birthday."
...so, moving on. Cory shares a bit about his upcoming plans. It involves something called 36-Second Films. Because, you know, that's an original name, and has definitely not been used by 5-Second Films, 30-Second Films, 60-Second Films, or similarly-named segments of other media groups or anything. But hey, I'd figured he'd already come down from his happy phase and decided not to bother with whatever it was he was going on about. So it's something, at least. We'll see if he follows through.
Lastly, Kate let Cory edit her most recent video. As you might expect, we get lots of fans saying she should let Cory edit all her videos, because they wouldn't dare criticize even if they hated it. In fact, I bet it was the fans who suggested him doing it after he edited the ending of a prior one. I, for one, can do without the goofball video and sound effects. Plus, when you let someone else edit your vlog, then it's not really yours anymore. It becomes just a collection of video clips of the person. I covered this ages ago when we first heard that Shaycarl was going to start paying somebody to edit his vlogs for him. It loses that personal touch of the person choosing which clips to use, when to cut'em, etc. It might have a slightly different meaning to someone else who wasn't there to experience it. But whatever, I doubt it'll become a usual thing in this case.
On a side note, I recently went back and watched some older Katers vlogs, even as recent as when Amy visited. It was just so much more entertaining to me, and they behaved way more natural in my opinion. I can't put too fine a point on it, but Kate today is just not quite the same person I subscribed to. Tis a shame.
Monday, December 24, 2012
How to Justify Pedophilia
If you read the topic of this post and immediately said "there is no fucking way to justify that," then you and I are in total agreement! But let's talk about how I've witnessed this actually happen, thanks to the 'ol internet. It's actually a topic I've started writing about in the past but never got around to finishing. This worked out fine, because there's recent news.
You see, I used to be a big fan of this Youtube channel called Dave's Farm. Primarily there were lots of car stunts and stuff out on his farm full of dirt roads and hills, which honestly wasn't really my cup of tea. But he also had mechanical repair and building videos, including some specifically devoted to explaining how something worked. He'd cover topics from refrigerators, to microwaves, to car transmissions. Plus he'd put together some crazy mechanical contraptions. I'd never really had a lot of mechanical interest beforehand, and I learned a lot by watching these things, to which I honestly have to credit him with improving my knowledge and confidence enough in this stuff to be a catalyst in eventually learning what I know today. Combined with my existing electronics knowledge, I do most of my own car and lawn equipment repairs now, and am able to help friends and family at times as well. Money has definitely been saved.
Then eventually I came to find out that Dave himself is a convicted pedophile, involving his own children. It had happened years beforehand, but the revelation kind of exploded across Youtubers who knew him or knew of him. I was pretty shocked myself. A news article came out in a Canadian newspaper about it, since by that point Dave was kind of a local name where he lived I guess, making lots of money and views from Youtube by that point. The fan base fractured, with some believing Dave's side of the story, that he simply was suffering from untreated manic depression and supposedly wasn't really a pedophile. Others totally shunned him, unsubscribing and/or bringing down negative attention on him when possible. Then you had the third group of people who didn't necessarily like what he did, but wanted to watch his videos anyway. But this led to lots of arguing in the comments.
Well, regardless of why people still watched, it didn't last for long. His ex-wives had gotten together with some of his "hater group" to push Youtube to close his channel, citing that he was using it to attract young boys to his farm. And they weren't really wrong, because people visited him all the time, including kids, so it was rather easy for one to make the accusation. Dave himself admitted that his target audience was teen males. So his channel got shut down. Then it came back, and got shut down again. I can't remember how many times it happened, to the point that eventually he was trying to get everyone to come to a different video site altogether. Then he essentially disappeared for a while.
Well, sometime later, a news program interviewed him, doing the story in a negative light. Dave came out in defense mode over it, making new videos to respond to everything he felt was wrong about the report, and I think threatening a lawsuit. Shortly following that, Dave cooperated for a documentary about himself, by a guy who actually turned out to just be an opportunistic creep. He let Dave think he was on his side to get the gig, then turned it around on him and dumped a bunch of dirt, some related to Dave's father potentially molesting him as a boy. It was just a big debacle, with that guy raging at people who torrented the documentary and everything. I think Dave compared the whole situation to blackmail, but he's been known to exaggerate, so. I can't remember if lawsuits were involved with this or not.
Regardless, Dave is back on Youtube these days. He doesn't post videos too often, and he's not part of the partner program anymore I don't believe (meaning probably no money is involved), but he's there. More drama crept back into his videos related to accusations of theft against someone who had been going to the farm for years, which split the fan base a bit further. Blind loyalty to Dave continued, with many wholeheartedly believing all of his accusations against the other guy. This was spilling over into this guy's Youtube channel and everything, and resparked the pedophile debate over and over.
And so now we finally come to present day. Despite Dave's repeated attempts to convince everyone he's not a pedophile, he was arrested on charges of child pornography a few days ago. We've heard no word out of Dave about the incident other than what the news article said, where he defended himself by claiming the content they found was simply nudist videos (since yes, Dave is a nudist, as it turned out). But come on. This is a guy who has already been in trouble with the law for recording children; does he really not have enough sense to not be present around naked children, and sure as hell not be filming them? And this isn't even the first time accusations of inappropriate conduct with children have occurred in recent years, it's just the first one that's gotten him arrested.
So now we're back to comment wars across channels associated with the farm, with people blindly and rabidly defending Dave no matter what. Some of them even completely dismiss what he did, selfishly arguing that people need to leave it alone so that he can keep making Youtube videos. Meanwhile, another Youtuber who essentially got his own start by being in Dave's videos, has now officially distanced himself from Dave and the farm. And this is a guy who's nice to everybody, not to mention keeps a trailer out on the farm for the summer, so I think that has some bearing on fan opinions. Another Youtuber, who had been the one accused of theft by Dave, pretty much put up an "I told you so" video about the news article of Dave's arrest, which is where I learned the news to begin with.
I've always been a bit torn on this issue myself, because I did take a lot away from Dave's earlier videos, and it's really a shame that this is how it all turned out. I know I'm not the only one to have learned from his videos, either. But that doesn't mean I can simply ignore what's going on. I personally believe many of the experts when they say pedophilia can't be cured, only treated. And you can't treat a problem when you don't acknowledge you have one, especially while continuing to put yourself into situations in which you can feed the compulsion. He may have done his time for his past actions, but in this case, obviously his past wasn't left in the past. You don't reform from pedophilia with simply jail time.
There is so much more to this story that I haven't mentioned, mostly because I knew this would be long (and hence why I never finished writing about this topic before). But I just thought that this was all worth mentioning because it reinforces something I've talked about before, and that's the fanboy plight. Whether it's Shaycarl, Katers, Cory, Olga, Charles and Alli, or anyone else on the planet with a fanbase, there will always be blind loyalty, even in the face of blatant hypocrisy or wrongdoing. This particular situation proves that even if you film and piddle your own kids, you'll still have quite a number of people who will aggressively defend you, thanks to the magical mental distortion field of internet anonymity.
You see, I used to be a big fan of this Youtube channel called Dave's Farm. Primarily there were lots of car stunts and stuff out on his farm full of dirt roads and hills, which honestly wasn't really my cup of tea. But he also had mechanical repair and building videos, including some specifically devoted to explaining how something worked. He'd cover topics from refrigerators, to microwaves, to car transmissions. Plus he'd put together some crazy mechanical contraptions. I'd never really had a lot of mechanical interest beforehand, and I learned a lot by watching these things, to which I honestly have to credit him with improving my knowledge and confidence enough in this stuff to be a catalyst in eventually learning what I know today. Combined with my existing electronics knowledge, I do most of my own car and lawn equipment repairs now, and am able to help friends and family at times as well. Money has definitely been saved.
Then eventually I came to find out that Dave himself is a convicted pedophile, involving his own children. It had happened years beforehand, but the revelation kind of exploded across Youtubers who knew him or knew of him. I was pretty shocked myself. A news article came out in a Canadian newspaper about it, since by that point Dave was kind of a local name where he lived I guess, making lots of money and views from Youtube by that point. The fan base fractured, with some believing Dave's side of the story, that he simply was suffering from untreated manic depression and supposedly wasn't really a pedophile. Others totally shunned him, unsubscribing and/or bringing down negative attention on him when possible. Then you had the third group of people who didn't necessarily like what he did, but wanted to watch his videos anyway. But this led to lots of arguing in the comments.
Well, regardless of why people still watched, it didn't last for long. His ex-wives had gotten together with some of his "hater group" to push Youtube to close his channel, citing that he was using it to attract young boys to his farm. And they weren't really wrong, because people visited him all the time, including kids, so it was rather easy for one to make the accusation. Dave himself admitted that his target audience was teen males. So his channel got shut down. Then it came back, and got shut down again. I can't remember how many times it happened, to the point that eventually he was trying to get everyone to come to a different video site altogether. Then he essentially disappeared for a while.
Well, sometime later, a news program interviewed him, doing the story in a negative light. Dave came out in defense mode over it, making new videos to respond to everything he felt was wrong about the report, and I think threatening a lawsuit. Shortly following that, Dave cooperated for a documentary about himself, by a guy who actually turned out to just be an opportunistic creep. He let Dave think he was on his side to get the gig, then turned it around on him and dumped a bunch of dirt, some related to Dave's father potentially molesting him as a boy. It was just a big debacle, with that guy raging at people who torrented the documentary and everything. I think Dave compared the whole situation to blackmail, but he's been known to exaggerate, so. I can't remember if lawsuits were involved with this or not.
Regardless, Dave is back on Youtube these days. He doesn't post videos too often, and he's not part of the partner program anymore I don't believe (meaning probably no money is involved), but he's there. More drama crept back into his videos related to accusations of theft against someone who had been going to the farm for years, which split the fan base a bit further. Blind loyalty to Dave continued, with many wholeheartedly believing all of his accusations against the other guy. This was spilling over into this guy's Youtube channel and everything, and resparked the pedophile debate over and over.
And so now we finally come to present day. Despite Dave's repeated attempts to convince everyone he's not a pedophile, he was arrested on charges of child pornography a few days ago. We've heard no word out of Dave about the incident other than what the news article said, where he defended himself by claiming the content they found was simply nudist videos (since yes, Dave is a nudist, as it turned out). But come on. This is a guy who has already been in trouble with the law for recording children; does he really not have enough sense to not be present around naked children, and sure as hell not be filming them? And this isn't even the first time accusations of inappropriate conduct with children have occurred in recent years, it's just the first one that's gotten him arrested.
So now we're back to comment wars across channels associated with the farm, with people blindly and rabidly defending Dave no matter what. Some of them even completely dismiss what he did, selfishly arguing that people need to leave it alone so that he can keep making Youtube videos. Meanwhile, another Youtuber who essentially got his own start by being in Dave's videos, has now officially distanced himself from Dave and the farm. And this is a guy who's nice to everybody, not to mention keeps a trailer out on the farm for the summer, so I think that has some bearing on fan opinions. Another Youtuber, who had been the one accused of theft by Dave, pretty much put up an "I told you so" video about the news article of Dave's arrest, which is where I learned the news to begin with.
I've always been a bit torn on this issue myself, because I did take a lot away from Dave's earlier videos, and it's really a shame that this is how it all turned out. I know I'm not the only one to have learned from his videos, either. But that doesn't mean I can simply ignore what's going on. I personally believe many of the experts when they say pedophilia can't be cured, only treated. And you can't treat a problem when you don't acknowledge you have one, especially while continuing to put yourself into situations in which you can feed the compulsion. He may have done his time for his past actions, but in this case, obviously his past wasn't left in the past. You don't reform from pedophilia with simply jail time.
There is so much more to this story that I haven't mentioned, mostly because I knew this would be long (and hence why I never finished writing about this topic before). But I just thought that this was all worth mentioning because it reinforces something I've talked about before, and that's the fanboy plight. Whether it's Shaycarl, Katers, Cory, Olga, Charles and Alli, or anyone else on the planet with a fanbase, there will always be blind loyalty, even in the face of blatant hypocrisy or wrongdoing. This particular situation proves that even if you film and piddle your own kids, you'll still have quite a number of people who will aggressively defend you, thanks to the magical mental distortion field of internet anonymity.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Charity Choosy
Hey look, the world still exists, and hundreds of thousands of people who actually thought something bad would happen are facing the revelation that they're completely gullible instead of dead!
I was going to write a different post, related to some Youtube drama, but I realized it would be long, so maybe next time. I haven't watched the last three Katers videos, either, so there might be something to talk about in those as well.
I mostly wanted to touch on something I mentioned last time, which I received a comment about. That would be Project for Awesome. I don't want to imply that it's a bad thing, because it's a charity, and charities usually help somebody somehow. Helping people is good. But the question is, who do you want to help, and how do you want to help them?
To me, P4A just comes across as a gimmick, particularly in being a way for Youtubers to self-promote by getting to the top of the charity video list. I honestly don't think some of the participants even care about their charities, they just want the extra views/likes/publicity that come with doing it. Think about it; they not only make money from the views on the video itself, but bring in potential new viewers in the process. Why would an established or even aspiring Youtuber NOT be part of it?
Something else important to keep in mind is that while P4A gives 100% of your money to the charities (minus the cost to make the promotional items you might buy), that doesn't mean the charities themselves use 100% of your money to help anyone. Being a non-profit agency does not mean it's run purely by volunteers. Most of these people make money, particularly the management. Always look into a charity before you toss them money, because there just might be a better one.
This is particularly a problem given that some 'tubers start selecting weird lesser-known charities just to avoid having the same one as someone else. What if one Youtuber wants to promote the American Cancer Society, but makes a less good video than someone else, someone with potentially with a bigger subscriber base as well, who promotes Jim & Bob's Hair Loss Prevention? What if the top five videos, which get the split of all the money donated, are all charities which you aren't totally satisfied with?
Last year, for example, one of the charities was to get prom dresses to girls who can't afford them. And sure, that's a fine thing. But is it more important than a cancer patient, or Alzheimer's? And this year, another charity is the One Laptop Per Child thing. And don't even get me started on that, because I could do an entire article on why that's a waste of money. But come on, at the end of the day, these are first-world problems. Cancer and debilitating conditions aside, plenty of kids need winter jackets or clothes without holes in'em, too. Adopt an angel from the Angel Tree and I guarantee you'll make some kid happy, right in your own home town.
Point is, charity is still charity, and if you want to donate to P4A, then more power to you. I just have my own issues with it, and I would prefer to give my money to causes I personally care about. I don't need popular Youtubers to decide that for me, especially if their intentions are potentially of the less charitable nature. So that's why I just skip most of the P4A videos altogether, that way nobody gets my "vote."
I was going to write a different post, related to some Youtube drama, but I realized it would be long, so maybe next time. I haven't watched the last three Katers videos, either, so there might be something to talk about in those as well.
I mostly wanted to touch on something I mentioned last time, which I received a comment about. That would be Project for Awesome. I don't want to imply that it's a bad thing, because it's a charity, and charities usually help somebody somehow. Helping people is good. But the question is, who do you want to help, and how do you want to help them?
To me, P4A just comes across as a gimmick, particularly in being a way for Youtubers to self-promote by getting to the top of the charity video list. I honestly don't think some of the participants even care about their charities, they just want the extra views/likes/publicity that come with doing it. Think about it; they not only make money from the views on the video itself, but bring in potential new viewers in the process. Why would an established or even aspiring Youtuber NOT be part of it?
Something else important to keep in mind is that while P4A gives 100% of your money to the charities (minus the cost to make the promotional items you might buy), that doesn't mean the charities themselves use 100% of your money to help anyone. Being a non-profit agency does not mean it's run purely by volunteers. Most of these people make money, particularly the management. Always look into a charity before you toss them money, because there just might be a better one.
This is particularly a problem given that some 'tubers start selecting weird lesser-known charities just to avoid having the same one as someone else. What if one Youtuber wants to promote the American Cancer Society, but makes a less good video than someone else, someone with potentially with a bigger subscriber base as well, who promotes Jim & Bob's Hair Loss Prevention? What if the top five videos, which get the split of all the money donated, are all charities which you aren't totally satisfied with?
Last year, for example, one of the charities was to get prom dresses to girls who can't afford them. And sure, that's a fine thing. But is it more important than a cancer patient, or Alzheimer's? And this year, another charity is the One Laptop Per Child thing. And don't even get me started on that, because I could do an entire article on why that's a waste of money. But come on, at the end of the day, these are first-world problems. Cancer and debilitating conditions aside, plenty of kids need winter jackets or clothes without holes in'em, too. Adopt an angel from the Angel Tree and I guarantee you'll make some kid happy, right in your own home town.
Point is, charity is still charity, and if you want to donate to P4A, then more power to you. I just have my own issues with it, and I would prefer to give my money to causes I personally care about. I don't need popular Youtubers to decide that for me, especially if their intentions are potentially of the less charitable nature. So that's why I just skip most of the P4A videos altogether, that way nobody gets my "vote."
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Vlog Overflow Error
I've gotten busy lately, and suddenly I find myself with way too many Youtube videos to watch. But "Project for Awesome" has started, again, so that means we're going to have lots of Youtubers rambling on about that for their entire video(s), which I can simply skip!
And hey, what a surprise, I'm already facepalming at these Katers videos. Not only am I tired of every other scene of these videos being about that dog or of her obsessing over getting back home to the thing, but now this dog is her excuse for why her video production quality is going to suffer. She spent a fortune on this mini pet factory animal and associated items, and now she can't even afford to fix her camera. You know, the thing which makes her her living. And if that wasn't stupid enough by itself, what does Cory do? He takes the camera from her and violently shakes it around trying to be funny. And emphasis on "trying" because his antics really aren't amusing me anymore.
Speaking of Cory, what happened with that huge thing he was working on with leaving Youtube? Seems his excitement has suddenly fizzled out, pretty much as I already predicted in a previous post.
And Christ, in this next video, Cory has his hand stuck inside some glass head.
Two or three more Katers videos skipped through in less than a minute. Now we're to one where Cory said he hasn't finished Christmas shopping for Kate because he's going to wait till after the 21st in case the world ends. Please let him have been kidding, because the amount of facepalming here is at critical levels.
On the bright side, this same video has them out shopping and doing things away from the house and the dog for most of the video for a change. Cory was a bit loopy, throwing things and all as usual, but at least this one was a bit entertaining again. But then the video concludes with him dropping the camera Kate can't afford to fix from the upstairs.
Wow I didn't expect to tear through so many videos so quickly. So much for this being an interesting post! All that was left was some electrical and automotive channels, some Wheezy Waiter, some Boogie, etc. Nothing to really talk about. Oh well!
And hey, what a surprise, I'm already facepalming at these Katers videos. Not only am I tired of every other scene of these videos being about that dog or of her obsessing over getting back home to the thing, but now this dog is her excuse for why her video production quality is going to suffer. She spent a fortune on this mini pet factory animal and associated items, and now she can't even afford to fix her camera. You know, the thing which makes her her living. And if that wasn't stupid enough by itself, what does Cory do? He takes the camera from her and violently shakes it around trying to be funny. And emphasis on "trying" because his antics really aren't amusing me anymore.
Speaking of Cory, what happened with that huge thing he was working on with leaving Youtube? Seems his excitement has suddenly fizzled out, pretty much as I already predicted in a previous post.
And Christ, in this next video, Cory has his hand stuck inside some glass head.
Two or three more Katers videos skipped through in less than a minute. Now we're to one where Cory said he hasn't finished Christmas shopping for Kate because he's going to wait till after the 21st in case the world ends. Please let him have been kidding, because the amount of facepalming here is at critical levels.
On the bright side, this same video has them out shopping and doing things away from the house and the dog for most of the video for a change. Cory was a bit loopy, throwing things and all as usual, but at least this one was a bit entertaining again. But then the video concludes with him dropping the camera Kate can't afford to fix from the upstairs.
Wow I didn't expect to tear through so many videos so quickly. So much for this being an interesting post! All that was left was some electrical and automotive channels, some Wheezy Waiter, some Boogie, etc. Nothing to really talk about. Oh well!
Monday, December 10, 2012
Unjust Justifications
So hey, let's talk more about Katersoneseven's new dog. Or should I start with her deleting my comment when I pointed out how much she paid for it? Yeah, that happened.
In her newest vlog, Kate linked to the website of the woman she bought the dog from, so I went and took a look. Maybe she assumed nobody would actually do that! But when I saw the $600-1000 price tags, I almost Shih Tzu'd myself. I mean, you've got to be fucking kidding me, right? You handed this lady potentially ten times or more the cost of a shelter dog? The same person who tells people how bad breeders and pet stores are, while suggesting they donate to animal causes? And this doesn't even count the probably hundreds of dollars she spent on items for the dog beforehand.
This woman breeds more than one type of dog. They might have a litter of five on average, each. Dogs can usually have pups twice a year. They're freaking four-legged dollar signs for this lady, I don't care how nice she seems. And of course she's going to be "one of the sweetest people you'll meet" to the suckers stupid enough to hand her hundreds of dollars a pop to keep her puppy factory running.
So when I made my comment regarding my shock at the cost, and that this woman was obviously in it for the money despite her personality, and that I was disappointed in Kate for not getting a shelter animal, she deleted it. Pretty quickly, too! And I could tell that mine wasn't the only one, because I have a tendency to check her vlog comments for criticism, because she has a history of deleting and banning people who say things she doesn't want to hear. There were scattered ones missing by the time I refreshed, but I can't really remember any specific content from them (maybe something about someone talking about not getting adopted and comparing it?), just that there were gaps.
At the end of the day, it's just a comment; nothing but bytes floating around out on Google's servers somewhere. But the fact that someone can't take honest and justified criticism of their actions, who makes a living putting their life on the internet for a hundred thousand people to see and judge every day, is a bit ironic. This blog isn't my first foray into writing, nor with negative comments, and I never deleted anyone's opinions. Hell, there's even some negative ones on this blog. And sure, a blog is a bit different from a daily vlog. But unless it's a blatant troll or spammer, you either reply to'em or you ignore'em. Anything other than that comes off too much as trying to protect your brand by keeping others in the dark.
Oh, and while we're talking about comments, I saw one from Cory on a vlog or two prior to this one. He was replying to someone leaving criticism about not getting from a breeder, seemingly peeved at them about it, then went on to say that Kate "did the right thing" over and over, and implied there's no need to question her about it. Sorry, buddy, but saying something often doesn't make it true. Obama's still not a Muslim, global warming still exists, 9/11 wasn't an inside job, there will never be a "Year of the Linux Desktop," and Tupac is dead. Didn't work for these things, and it's not working for you either. Kate did the right thing, for her. She didn't do the right thing, ethically. There's still a puppy sitting alone in a shelter somewhere (or already put to sleep) because she opted for the puppy factory version. Nothing he can say changes that fact.
Anyway, I just wanted to make a post while I was a bit steamed over what she paid for the damn thing, combined with the comment incident. But I've about run out of steam on the issue. Kate will be Kate, to which I can simply continue thumbing down her videos, and question whether I want to remain subscribed at this point, or simply fast forward through all her incessant hyperactive cooing over the puppy. Seriously, I had to skip the goofball stuff when she visited the animal store when her dad's car broke down. They must have thought she was nuts from that caffeine high she was on.
So yeah, that's enough about that nonsense.
In her newest vlog, Kate linked to the website of the woman she bought the dog from, so I went and took a look. Maybe she assumed nobody would actually do that! But when I saw the $600-1000 price tags, I almost Shih Tzu'd myself. I mean, you've got to be fucking kidding me, right? You handed this lady potentially ten times or more the cost of a shelter dog? The same person who tells people how bad breeders and pet stores are, while suggesting they donate to animal causes? And this doesn't even count the probably hundreds of dollars she spent on items for the dog beforehand.
This woman breeds more than one type of dog. They might have a litter of five on average, each. Dogs can usually have pups twice a year. They're freaking four-legged dollar signs for this lady, I don't care how nice she seems. And of course she's going to be "one of the sweetest people you'll meet" to the suckers stupid enough to hand her hundreds of dollars a pop to keep her puppy factory running.
So when I made my comment regarding my shock at the cost, and that this woman was obviously in it for the money despite her personality, and that I was disappointed in Kate for not getting a shelter animal, she deleted it. Pretty quickly, too! And I could tell that mine wasn't the only one, because I have a tendency to check her vlog comments for criticism, because she has a history of deleting and banning people who say things she doesn't want to hear. There were scattered ones missing by the time I refreshed, but I can't really remember any specific content from them (maybe something about someone talking about not getting adopted and comparing it?), just that there were gaps.
At the end of the day, it's just a comment; nothing but bytes floating around out on Google's servers somewhere. But the fact that someone can't take honest and justified criticism of their actions, who makes a living putting their life on the internet for a hundred thousand people to see and judge every day, is a bit ironic. This blog isn't my first foray into writing, nor with negative comments, and I never deleted anyone's opinions. Hell, there's even some negative ones on this blog. And sure, a blog is a bit different from a daily vlog. But unless it's a blatant troll or spammer, you either reply to'em or you ignore'em. Anything other than that comes off too much as trying to protect your brand by keeping others in the dark.
Oh, and while we're talking about comments, I saw one from Cory on a vlog or two prior to this one. He was replying to someone leaving criticism about not getting from a breeder, seemingly peeved at them about it, then went on to say that Kate "did the right thing" over and over, and implied there's no need to question her about it. Sorry, buddy, but saying something often doesn't make it true. Obama's still not a Muslim, global warming still exists, 9/11 wasn't an inside job, there will never be a "Year of the Linux Desktop," and Tupac is dead. Didn't work for these things, and it's not working for you either. Kate did the right thing, for her. She didn't do the right thing, ethically. There's still a puppy sitting alone in a shelter somewhere (or already put to sleep) because she opted for the puppy factory version. Nothing he can say changes that fact.
Anyway, I just wanted to make a post while I was a bit steamed over what she paid for the damn thing, combined with the comment incident. But I've about run out of steam on the issue. Kate will be Kate, to which I can simply continue thumbing down her videos, and question whether I want to remain subscribed at this point, or simply fast forward through all her incessant hyperactive cooing over the puppy. Seriously, I had to skip the goofball stuff when she visited the animal store when her dad's car broke down. They must have thought she was nuts from that caffeine high she was on.
So yeah, that's enough about that nonsense.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Shit Zoo
Couple things or so I wanted to mention about recent Katers vlogs before I move on to something else.
First is the fact that Kate is in Vegas again with her dad, and I gotta admit, the vlogs have been more enjoyable to watch again. With these last few videos, I've actually clicked on them not long after seeing them pop up, as opposed to letting them sit in my notifications for possibly days before getting around to them. Part of me wants to say that it's because Cory stayed behind, and maybe Kate's more herself when she's just with her dad. But I also kinda enjoyed the ones when they were visiting Cory's family too. So maybe I'm just bored of the monotony of their apartment life, I dunno.
Second thing I wanted to mention was in the recent episode where Kate bought the hat or whatever it was for that girl she saw in the gift shop. At first, I thought that was a pretty nice thing of her to do. And I do still think that, don't get me wrong. But later on, when it crossed my mind again, I realized how my parents and I might have reacted to a stranger buying me something like that. While being generous is a good thing, I don't think my parents would have really appreciated someone buying me something without their permission, and certainly something so costly. And in the case of this girl, obviously her mother had been trying to teach her financial responsibility, which might have resulted in the situation playing out a bit differently had she asked the mother first. Instead, the girl got a rather expensive item responsibility-free. But worse than that, her mother was likely feeling embarrassed at being barely able to have bought this for her child by herself, along with from knowing a stranger was watching this and pitying them enough to buy something so costly. Some people are very prideful and refuse to take charity, some to the point of feeling insult. You never know who that's going to be, so I would be a bit wary before offering something so expensive to a young person, and most especially when having not asked permission to do so. But, it was still a nice thing to do, and I don't want to pick at her for it too much. Just, you know, take other peoples' feelings into consideration too. Sometimes not being able to afford something is a lesson young people need to learn, and helps shape them to be more responsible with money as adults.
The last thing to mention is something I just saw on Facebook. Kate is determined to have a Shih Tzu, and with quite a specific laundry list of expectations about the particular animal she wants, from shedding to barking restrictions. So she found a breeder who can supposedly give her one. That immediately set off my hypocrisy detector, because Kate has always been a strong proponent of shelters, and to avoid breeders and pet stores. Not to mention, I believe she herself was burned by a breeder giving her a sickly animal once upon a time. So Kate seems to be trying to justify her current actions by commenting that this woman is "very supportive of adopting from animal shelters when you can." Irrelevant! The women breeds animals! Give me a break. She's just being sympathetic of Kate's feelings on the matter in order to make a sale. If the woman really felt this way, she should be taking in strays or shelter animals for people to adopt, not breeding new animals into the world for people with very picky expectations of what they want in a dog, while yet another unadopted shelter dog gets put to sleep. This really kinda bugs me, to be honest. It's one thing for random strangers to give business to breeders, but for Kate to do it is just simply ridiculous. I honestly don't want to hear any more from her about donating to animal charities or getting shelter animals when she's too hypocritical to practice what she preaches. Come on.
Anyhow, enough about that. I actually was going to comment on peoples' naivety concerning the importance of money after seeing some of peoples' comments on a recent Wheezy Waiter daily vlog. Since this post is already getting a bit long, I'll just get right to the point: a lot of people are just stupid about money.
You see, some people either grow up with money in their hands and never learn how hard it is to actually earn or keep it. Other people truly think that money is a bad thing and that society should/could exist without it. You will often see both of these kinds of people, along with a few other generally naive individuals not really fitting into either category who just want to appear as if they have this profound understanding of something, who will go around insisting that money isn't important. They go on and on about how it's the root of all evil, how it doesn't buy happiness, blah blah.
But you know what money does buy? It buys food. It buys water. It pays your mortgage. It pays the taxes for the land your home even sits on. It buys gasoline. It pays your car payment. It pays your medical and pharmacy bills. It buys your entertainment. It pays for your internet which allows you to make these kinds of ludicrous comments to begin with. You can't barter for everything, and certainly not if you want to live in the 21st century. Your ISP doesn't want your chickens for six months of internet service.
Money is important, folks. Nothing is free in this world; not even water (or rain). Money does buy happiness, but not necessarily in the life-fulfilling way some people hope. Money buys you peace of mind, which has an extreme impact on your happiness. If you make $15k a year and have countless medical bills and general debt looming over your head, you're going to be a much happier person if you make $250k+ a year and can actually pay all of these on time and go to your next appointment or hospital visit without concern. And knowing you can buy your kids what they want for their birthday or Christmas, or buy your wife/husband that anniversary gift you think they deserve, gives you a strong sense of satisfaction. There's certainly a limit on what amount of money can make you happy. But the fact is, that amount is still usually more than a lot of people make. If you make minimum wage working full-time in America, you're still living below the poverty line.
So this blind cynicism that money is a bad thing is just immature. Either you have too much of it, and/or you're out of touch with its importance. Currency was created for a reason, and it's because not everyone who has something you want or need necessarily needs the goods or services you yourself can provide. While the American dollar may not necessarily translate directly to something of value anymore (as in gold), it does still represent work performed or goods sold, which is the entire point of it in modern society. A piece of paper still has value if society as a whole deems it so.
Anyway, that's enough of my rambling. Probably should have broken this up into two posts, but I doubt anybody reads most of this stuff anyway!
First is the fact that Kate is in Vegas again with her dad, and I gotta admit, the vlogs have been more enjoyable to watch again. With these last few videos, I've actually clicked on them not long after seeing them pop up, as opposed to letting them sit in my notifications for possibly days before getting around to them. Part of me wants to say that it's because Cory stayed behind, and maybe Kate's more herself when she's just with her dad. But I also kinda enjoyed the ones when they were visiting Cory's family too. So maybe I'm just bored of the monotony of their apartment life, I dunno.
Second thing I wanted to mention was in the recent episode where Kate bought the hat or whatever it was for that girl she saw in the gift shop. At first, I thought that was a pretty nice thing of her to do. And I do still think that, don't get me wrong. But later on, when it crossed my mind again, I realized how my parents and I might have reacted to a stranger buying me something like that. While being generous is a good thing, I don't think my parents would have really appreciated someone buying me something without their permission, and certainly something so costly. And in the case of this girl, obviously her mother had been trying to teach her financial responsibility, which might have resulted in the situation playing out a bit differently had she asked the mother first. Instead, the girl got a rather expensive item responsibility-free. But worse than that, her mother was likely feeling embarrassed at being barely able to have bought this for her child by herself, along with from knowing a stranger was watching this and pitying them enough to buy something so costly. Some people are very prideful and refuse to take charity, some to the point of feeling insult. You never know who that's going to be, so I would be a bit wary before offering something so expensive to a young person, and most especially when having not asked permission to do so. But, it was still a nice thing to do, and I don't want to pick at her for it too much. Just, you know, take other peoples' feelings into consideration too. Sometimes not being able to afford something is a lesson young people need to learn, and helps shape them to be more responsible with money as adults.
The last thing to mention is something I just saw on Facebook. Kate is determined to have a Shih Tzu, and with quite a specific laundry list of expectations about the particular animal she wants, from shedding to barking restrictions. So she found a breeder who can supposedly give her one. That immediately set off my hypocrisy detector, because Kate has always been a strong proponent of shelters, and to avoid breeders and pet stores. Not to mention, I believe she herself was burned by a breeder giving her a sickly animal once upon a time. So Kate seems to be trying to justify her current actions by commenting that this woman is "very supportive of adopting from animal shelters when you can." Irrelevant! The women breeds animals! Give me a break. She's just being sympathetic of Kate's feelings on the matter in order to make a sale. If the woman really felt this way, she should be taking in strays or shelter animals for people to adopt, not breeding new animals into the world for people with very picky expectations of what they want in a dog, while yet another unadopted shelter dog gets put to sleep. This really kinda bugs me, to be honest. It's one thing for random strangers to give business to breeders, but for Kate to do it is just simply ridiculous. I honestly don't want to hear any more from her about donating to animal charities or getting shelter animals when she's too hypocritical to practice what she preaches. Come on.
Anyhow, enough about that. I actually was going to comment on peoples' naivety concerning the importance of money after seeing some of peoples' comments on a recent Wheezy Waiter daily vlog. Since this post is already getting a bit long, I'll just get right to the point: a lot of people are just stupid about money.
You see, some people either grow up with money in their hands and never learn how hard it is to actually earn or keep it. Other people truly think that money is a bad thing and that society should/could exist without it. You will often see both of these kinds of people, along with a few other generally naive individuals not really fitting into either category who just want to appear as if they have this profound understanding of something, who will go around insisting that money isn't important. They go on and on about how it's the root of all evil, how it doesn't buy happiness, blah blah.
But you know what money does buy? It buys food. It buys water. It pays your mortgage. It pays the taxes for the land your home even sits on. It buys gasoline. It pays your car payment. It pays your medical and pharmacy bills. It buys your entertainment. It pays for your internet which allows you to make these kinds of ludicrous comments to begin with. You can't barter for everything, and certainly not if you want to live in the 21st century. Your ISP doesn't want your chickens for six months of internet service.
Money is important, folks. Nothing is free in this world; not even water (or rain). Money does buy happiness, but not necessarily in the life-fulfilling way some people hope. Money buys you peace of mind, which has an extreme impact on your happiness. If you make $15k a year and have countless medical bills and general debt looming over your head, you're going to be a much happier person if you make $250k+ a year and can actually pay all of these on time and go to your next appointment or hospital visit without concern. And knowing you can buy your kids what they want for their birthday or Christmas, or buy your wife/husband that anniversary gift you think they deserve, gives you a strong sense of satisfaction. There's certainly a limit on what amount of money can make you happy. But the fact is, that amount is still usually more than a lot of people make. If you make minimum wage working full-time in America, you're still living below the poverty line.
So this blind cynicism that money is a bad thing is just immature. Either you have too much of it, and/or you're out of touch with its importance. Currency was created for a reason, and it's because not everyone who has something you want or need necessarily needs the goods or services you yourself can provide. While the American dollar may not necessarily translate directly to something of value anymore (as in gold), it does still represent work performed or goods sold, which is the entire point of it in modern society. A piece of paper still has value if society as a whole deems it so.
Anyway, that's enough of my rambling. Probably should have broken this up into two posts, but I doubt anybody reads most of this stuff anyway!
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