I don't talk enough about Youtubers that I still like, so I thought I would take the time to do that while I'm not busy at the moment. Don't know how much I'll have to say, but I guess we'll find out!
Today I'll tell you about a fellow I stumbled onto by accident a while back. It was of a morbidly obese guy with a lisp, ranting and screaming about some video game, probably World of Warcraft. While part of me wanted to facepalm, another part of me thought that this was pretty funny to see him raging so animatedly like that. So, I clicked to see what other videos this "Francis" fellow had, since he seemed to have a lot, and I thought watching him scream and throw things might be mildly entertaining enough to watch a bit more of.
Turns out, this guy is not actually named Francis. He goes by the name Boogie (Boogie2988 to be exact), has no lisp after all, and his real voice more suited to doing radio. Francis is a character he plays sometimes, along with other characters like a redneck named Jessy. Boogie himself is not much like either of these characters. He's actually turned out to be one of the most insightful people I subscribe to on Youtube.
Boogie's Youtube description pretty much sums him up: "I'm fat, I make internet videos. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're serious. Deal with it." He's very comfortable in front of the camera, so he tackles a large array of topics, from video games and trading cards, to bullying, to politics on occasion, all the way to mental illness, depression, and suicide. He's shared details of his past with his viewers of his less-than-stellar upbringing, dealing with his mother's mental condition, and his own struggle with obesity, which led to rough points in his life. But instead of using this as a crutch for excuses or sympathy, he uses it to encourage, motivate, and educate people.
The guy just doesn't need any sympathy, and he admits it. He's engaged, he's losing weight, has a career through Youtube doing what he enjoys, and has an ever-growing following of viewers who support him in his endeavors. He seems pretty genuinely thankful of his subscribers, and often interacts with them directly in live shows. Though his growing fame still has its unfortunate side, both due to his weight being an easy target for trolls, along with all the people who stumble onto Francis videos and think he's for real. But he deals with these people fairly well, and sometimes uses it as a talking point.
I've never dealt with being overweight at any point in my life, so I can't relate to him directly in that sense. But, oppositely, I have had health issues which resulted in me combating being underweight in the past. I think a lot of people have dealt with health issues, either for themselves or a loved one, and/or have known people who have struggled with obesity, and/or known people who have had mental health issues. So I think a lot of people can find things to relate to with Boogie's ramblings on various topics. The insight he's shared on certain issues has even enlightened me a bit at times. And it indicates to me that he actually thinks about these kinds of things, where as many people simply dismiss them in favor of happier thoughts.
Now, I won't go as far as to say I watch every single one of his videos. I'm not really a big fan of the Jessy character most of the time despite my southern upbringing, and some of the trading card or video game videos I'll skip just because I don't necessarily play whatever he's talking about. But I would say that I still watch the majority of his normal videos, as well as his live streams, and always click on any of the Francis skits, all of which enough so that I can recommend people check him out if they're ever looking for somebody a little different from the average Youtube vlogger. Just look for boogie2988.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
How to Destroy Your Career
I felt this was worth writing about, so I thought I'd do it now before I forget again.
So, Cory Williams aka SMP Films announced on his Facebook that he was "done with Youtube." He listed off a myriad of other websites like Newgrounds as examples of other places which he has also been "done" with in the past. He went on about change, and how that's good and necessary. Then he said there was another place for SMP Films instead of Youtube, and to stay tuned.
The comments to this Facebook post where about what you would expect, with a mix of the typical "I'll support you no matter what" from the brown-nosers, and people expressing some degree of concern that this perhaps wasn't a smart move.
If you've read this blog for any period of time, you've probably guessed that I would fall into the latter category.
If we look back at Cory's career, he had his initial success on Newgrounds. That was in a time in the pre-Youtube days when vlogging and internet video was still very young. Lots of people still had internet that was so slow, and had to use plugins which were so crappy (RealPlayer), that streaming video wasn't exactly the most desirable media at the time. But to his credit, he still managed to get his start, with the right technology appearing on his heels, to turn his initial success at Newgrounds and Myspace into something of an actual career. Particularly so with Youtube rolling around when it did.
But that's the thing. His career now is on Youtube. It presently revolves around the partnership program that Youtube provides, based on the tens of thousands of subscribers who regularly view his videos, which allows him to buy his food and pay his rent. When you cut Youtube and his subscribers out of the equation, suddenly the career part kind of goes away with it. Your options for making money outside of that environment are not nearly as easy or advantageous, and to cut off that huge resource of user and monetary potential without at least gradually migrating to something different is pretty much how you destroy everything you built so far.
Now sure, Cory is sometimes premature in his excitement, and prone to positive and negative emotional extremes. One time he'll be so excited to tell you how good everything is going (like right now), and then suddenly a week or two later he'll be totally depressed again. I think he gets his hopes up on things which have a good chance of not working out, or he doesn't think something through, and disappoints himself. It was like with that whole stupid wrestling thing, which lasted all but a month before you never heard about it again, despite fans telling him from the start that it's a crazy idea with all of his back problems. That may be all this is, and he might be on Youtube for years to come, but his impulsive nature makes it hard to tell at this point.
If that's not the case, then his options are a bit iffy. There's Vimeo, the only other streaming video site which has had anywhere near the success of Youtube. Then there's sites like Ustream, too, but they tend to cater to live streams as opposed to uploaded media. He could have his own custom website made for serving up his videos, too. But the problem is that there's absolutely no revenue in any of these by default. I'm fairly sure that Vimeo and Ustream still lack any kind of affiliate or partnership programs. He could always use these services to host video on a custom website, but then that begs the question why not just use Youtube's player? You could put ads on a custom website of course, which makes it really the only option worth looking at, other than ads inserted into videos themselves. But then you still have the problem of viewers, making your revenue source a moot point if nobody's watching.
Let me be blunt here. Cory's success is almost entirely based around the communities of the websites he's been a part of, not by the quality of his content alone. If someone had to actually go and look on a separate website to find his stuff, his career would have likely never gone anywhere. Convenience is a huge factor in success. I subscribe to things on Youtube which I would never bother going to find elsewhere on the internet. Hell, that even applies to him and Kate, and any other vlogger I've watched over the years. I wouldn't actually seek out vlogs normally, it's just convenient for me to watch them when in my list of other subscriptions.
There's also the potential of using social media these days to promote yourself entirely, of which he already has a Facebook and Twitter presence. But he only has around twenty-two thousands likes on Facebook at the moment, which is a drop in the bucket compared to his Youtube following. And even then, you're counting on people sharing the video to ever branch out to new subscribers, because Facebook isn't designed to promote media randomly to others like a dedicated video site is. Youtube's been doing this for years, they have the "related videos" thing down pretty well now.
So basically, any other website Cory moves to means an immediate and drastic drop in views. That also means an equally drastic drop in profits, other than money he'll continue to make from stuff currently uploaded there (assuming he doesn't delete it). People don't want to leave Youtube, people don't want to check another website, and people don't like being abandoned. I've seen it before, when someone thinks they're sick of Youtube and starts posting click-through placeholder videos on Youtube linking to their actual video on Vimeo. People get pissed, they thumbs the video down, they leave a bunch of angry comments, and they never click through, out of spite and/or laziness.
And I recognize that he specifically mentioned SMP Films, which perhaps excludes Mean Kitty from being moved. And if I'm to be honest, Mean Kitty is the only one of the two channels I care much about. Though, still being honest, the Mean Kitty videos as of late have been a bit lackluster.
So I dunno, it's just all silly if you ask me. What I do know is, for a guy who has complained about money problems on more than one occasion, he sure doesn't seem to think these things out very well. While he can legitimately and proudly consider himself a trailblazer in internet video, that time is over. Crazy videos of guys doing stupid shit are a dime a dozen on the internet now, as are cat videos for that matter, and he's not going to stand out from them while doing what he's always done, regardless of what website he might take them to. There are ways to reinvent yourself without shooting yourself in the foot in the process.
So, Cory Williams aka SMP Films announced on his Facebook that he was "done with Youtube." He listed off a myriad of other websites like Newgrounds as examples of other places which he has also been "done" with in the past. He went on about change, and how that's good and necessary. Then he said there was another place for SMP Films instead of Youtube, and to stay tuned.
The comments to this Facebook post where about what you would expect, with a mix of the typical "I'll support you no matter what" from the brown-nosers, and people expressing some degree of concern that this perhaps wasn't a smart move.
If you've read this blog for any period of time, you've probably guessed that I would fall into the latter category.
If we look back at Cory's career, he had his initial success on Newgrounds. That was in a time in the pre-Youtube days when vlogging and internet video was still very young. Lots of people still had internet that was so slow, and had to use plugins which were so crappy (RealPlayer), that streaming video wasn't exactly the most desirable media at the time. But to his credit, he still managed to get his start, with the right technology appearing on his heels, to turn his initial success at Newgrounds and Myspace into something of an actual career. Particularly so with Youtube rolling around when it did.
But that's the thing. His career now is on Youtube. It presently revolves around the partnership program that Youtube provides, based on the tens of thousands of subscribers who regularly view his videos, which allows him to buy his food and pay his rent. When you cut Youtube and his subscribers out of the equation, suddenly the career part kind of goes away with it. Your options for making money outside of that environment are not nearly as easy or advantageous, and to cut off that huge resource of user and monetary potential without at least gradually migrating to something different is pretty much how you destroy everything you built so far.
Now sure, Cory is sometimes premature in his excitement, and prone to positive and negative emotional extremes. One time he'll be so excited to tell you how good everything is going (like right now), and then suddenly a week or two later he'll be totally depressed again. I think he gets his hopes up on things which have a good chance of not working out, or he doesn't think something through, and disappoints himself. It was like with that whole stupid wrestling thing, which lasted all but a month before you never heard about it again, despite fans telling him from the start that it's a crazy idea with all of his back problems. That may be all this is, and he might be on Youtube for years to come, but his impulsive nature makes it hard to tell at this point.
If that's not the case, then his options are a bit iffy. There's Vimeo, the only other streaming video site which has had anywhere near the success of Youtube. Then there's sites like Ustream, too, but they tend to cater to live streams as opposed to uploaded media. He could have his own custom website made for serving up his videos, too. But the problem is that there's absolutely no revenue in any of these by default. I'm fairly sure that Vimeo and Ustream still lack any kind of affiliate or partnership programs. He could always use these services to host video on a custom website, but then that begs the question why not just use Youtube's player? You could put ads on a custom website of course, which makes it really the only option worth looking at, other than ads inserted into videos themselves. But then you still have the problem of viewers, making your revenue source a moot point if nobody's watching.
Let me be blunt here. Cory's success is almost entirely based around the communities of the websites he's been a part of, not by the quality of his content alone. If someone had to actually go and look on a separate website to find his stuff, his career would have likely never gone anywhere. Convenience is a huge factor in success. I subscribe to things on Youtube which I would never bother going to find elsewhere on the internet. Hell, that even applies to him and Kate, and any other vlogger I've watched over the years. I wouldn't actually seek out vlogs normally, it's just convenient for me to watch them when in my list of other subscriptions.
There's also the potential of using social media these days to promote yourself entirely, of which he already has a Facebook and Twitter presence. But he only has around twenty-two thousands likes on Facebook at the moment, which is a drop in the bucket compared to his Youtube following. And even then, you're counting on people sharing the video to ever branch out to new subscribers, because Facebook isn't designed to promote media randomly to others like a dedicated video site is. Youtube's been doing this for years, they have the "related videos" thing down pretty well now.
So basically, any other website Cory moves to means an immediate and drastic drop in views. That also means an equally drastic drop in profits, other than money he'll continue to make from stuff currently uploaded there (assuming he doesn't delete it). People don't want to leave Youtube, people don't want to check another website, and people don't like being abandoned. I've seen it before, when someone thinks they're sick of Youtube and starts posting click-through placeholder videos on Youtube linking to their actual video on Vimeo. People get pissed, they thumbs the video down, they leave a bunch of angry comments, and they never click through, out of spite and/or laziness.
And I recognize that he specifically mentioned SMP Films, which perhaps excludes Mean Kitty from being moved. And if I'm to be honest, Mean Kitty is the only one of the two channels I care much about. Though, still being honest, the Mean Kitty videos as of late have been a bit lackluster.
So I dunno, it's just all silly if you ask me. What I do know is, for a guy who has complained about money problems on more than one occasion, he sure doesn't seem to think these things out very well. While he can legitimately and proudly consider himself a trailblazer in internet video, that time is over. Crazy videos of guys doing stupid shit are a dime a dozen on the internet now, as are cat videos for that matter, and he's not going to stand out from them while doing what he's always done, regardless of what website he might take them to. There are ways to reinvent yourself without shooting yourself in the foot in the process.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
There's No Sense in Nonsense
I know that I pretty much only write about KatersOneSeven and Cory/SMPFilms these days, but I guess I'm fairly disillusioned with the entire vlogging community these days, so I don't really watch many anymore to complain about!
There's a couple of things I wanted to discuss. Primarily, Kate's new car. Let's forget the fact that it's a Nissan Juke, one of the ugliest cars presently on the market, with awful gas mileage to boot. Cory owned a Nissan, so I imagine he talked her into buying one as well out of brand loyalty rather than actually knowing anything about cars, as has been covered in this blog previously.
So it's been, what, less than six months since Kate got her Ford Focus? I imagine that she got it for around five to eight thousand bucks, which isn't bad, especially given that the Focus isn't too bad of a car. I had the same thing for a while myself, so I know what it's like. But what doesn't make sense is why Kate would be jumping up and getting another car so soon, and a NEW car at that. It wasn't a month ago that she bought a brand new computer to be able to make better videos, and then returned it because her finances weren't what she thought they were going to be. Now she's gotten herself into about eight years of payments on a car that will be lucky to last that long.
The fact of the matter is, buying a new car is unquestionably a bad decision. Unless you're very rich, there is no logical justification for doing so, other than "I want it." The moment you sign those papers and drive it off the lot, it's lost 10% of its value. It's no longer a new car. You can put a hundred miles on it and then decide you don't like it, but suddenly it's worth quite a few dollars less because it's a previously owned vehicle.
Given that the Juke starts at $20k (and who knows how many options she added, not to mention at least $2k of tax and then a bunch of dealer fees), she already lost $2k driving it off the lot. Might as well have burned that money. Which is ironic, given that that much would have bought the computer she returned.
In five years, you're looking at a mere 40% of the original value. That means she's lost $12k (not counting the tax and fees on top of the original vehicle price) before she's even paid it off.
Meanwhile, she's going to sell her Focus to Cory, which I'm quite sure she won't sell him for market value given their relationship. So he might give her $2-4k for it, depending on how generous she is, which is barely enough to pay for any serious down payment.
So basically, the lack of sense put into in buying this vehicle is apparent. And this isn't just about Kate; people make this same blunder all of the time. They get into serious debt for a vehicle they don't need with money they don't have just so that they can feel good about owning something that's never been owned. They don't consider that there could be a serious and/or annoying recall within the first few months, either, which is all the more reason to avoid a new vehicle.
Then to make matters worse, Kate was going on about credit in a way which seemed to indicate that she didn't entirely understand it, and worse yet, was practically promoting that people get into debt in order to build their credit score. But whatever, people and their spending problems is a whole other topic.
My last complaint about the car she chose is that, as someone who pinches pennies as hard as she does, I fail to understand buying something with such bad gas mileage considering how much driving she has to do, and will inevitably do in the future for her career. If I were going to blow $20k on a car, I'd at least want a little bit of return in how much fuel it guzzles.
Anyway, the other topic I wanted to mention in this post was about the UFO thing I just watched, where Kate and Cory are out in a parking lot at night and are certain they see one.. Instead of considering the options of what it could be, or asking someone what they think it might be, they just immediately jump to the most far-fetched conclusion: that it definitely has to be an alien. And Cory matter-of-factly stating this just made me facepalm, since it's certainly not the first time he's factually declared something ridiculous and been utterly wrong. I've got 99 explanations, but a UFO aint one.
So yeah, that's my facepalming session for the time being. I don't try to be too harsh or anything, but come on. If people put themselves out there for the public to view their lives, then it's fair game to criticize as well. That's the whole point in this blog! Besides, there's more than enough fanboys in the world to make up for anything I say.
There's a couple of things I wanted to discuss. Primarily, Kate's new car. Let's forget the fact that it's a Nissan Juke, one of the ugliest cars presently on the market, with awful gas mileage to boot. Cory owned a Nissan, so I imagine he talked her into buying one as well out of brand loyalty rather than actually knowing anything about cars, as has been covered in this blog previously.
So it's been, what, less than six months since Kate got her Ford Focus? I imagine that she got it for around five to eight thousand bucks, which isn't bad, especially given that the Focus isn't too bad of a car. I had the same thing for a while myself, so I know what it's like. But what doesn't make sense is why Kate would be jumping up and getting another car so soon, and a NEW car at that. It wasn't a month ago that she bought a brand new computer to be able to make better videos, and then returned it because her finances weren't what she thought they were going to be. Now she's gotten herself into about eight years of payments on a car that will be lucky to last that long.
The fact of the matter is, buying a new car is unquestionably a bad decision. Unless you're very rich, there is no logical justification for doing so, other than "I want it." The moment you sign those papers and drive it off the lot, it's lost 10% of its value. It's no longer a new car. You can put a hundred miles on it and then decide you don't like it, but suddenly it's worth quite a few dollars less because it's a previously owned vehicle.
Given that the Juke starts at $20k (and who knows how many options she added, not to mention at least $2k of tax and then a bunch of dealer fees), she already lost $2k driving it off the lot. Might as well have burned that money. Which is ironic, given that that much would have bought the computer she returned.
In five years, you're looking at a mere 40% of the original value. That means she's lost $12k (not counting the tax and fees on top of the original vehicle price) before she's even paid it off.
Meanwhile, she's going to sell her Focus to Cory, which I'm quite sure she won't sell him for market value given their relationship. So he might give her $2-4k for it, depending on how generous she is, which is barely enough to pay for any serious down payment.
So basically, the lack of sense put into in buying this vehicle is apparent. And this isn't just about Kate; people make this same blunder all of the time. They get into serious debt for a vehicle they don't need with money they don't have just so that they can feel good about owning something that's never been owned. They don't consider that there could be a serious and/or annoying recall within the first few months, either, which is all the more reason to avoid a new vehicle.
Then to make matters worse, Kate was going on about credit in a way which seemed to indicate that she didn't entirely understand it, and worse yet, was practically promoting that people get into debt in order to build their credit score. But whatever, people and their spending problems is a whole other topic.
My last complaint about the car she chose is that, as someone who pinches pennies as hard as she does, I fail to understand buying something with such bad gas mileage considering how much driving she has to do, and will inevitably do in the future for her career. If I were going to blow $20k on a car, I'd at least want a little bit of return in how much fuel it guzzles.
Anyway, the other topic I wanted to mention in this post was about the UFO thing I just watched, where Kate and Cory are out in a parking lot at night and are certain they see one.. Instead of considering the options of what it could be, or asking someone what they think it might be, they just immediately jump to the most far-fetched conclusion: that it definitely has to be an alien. And Cory matter-of-factly stating this just made me facepalm, since it's certainly not the first time he's factually declared something ridiculous and been utterly wrong. I've got 99 explanations, but a UFO aint one.
So yeah, that's my facepalming session for the time being. I don't try to be too harsh or anything, but come on. If people put themselves out there for the public to view their lives, then it's fair game to criticize as well. That's the whole point in this blog! Besides, there's more than enough fanboys in the world to make up for anything I say.
Friday, August 24, 2012
So Fix It
I've kind of gotten bored of the Katers vlogs again lately, some of which I've actually just skipped along through. As mentioned in previous posts about other vloggers, that's never a good sign! But out of boredom I've just let the recent ones play, and I heard something which irked me just enough to bother making a post about it! And it's partially because I've seen this same thing happen in other couples as well.
Okay, so, Cory seems to like to think he knows about cars. He's tried to make us think that he knows a thing or two about his dune buggy, for example. And he went with Kate to help her pick out her car. He also tried to teach her to drive stick. But, as someone who does know about cars, I can tell you that Cory pretty much does not.
Now don't get me wrong, I know it's kind of a man thing to say you're into cars. It doesn't really hurt anything most of the time, which is why it didn't bother me about Cory before, aside from the teaching Kate to drive stick part (which personally I think he couldn't have done worse). All of the trouble out of Cory's jeep was also kind of an indication that he had no idea about them. But in this particular vlog, and actually a vlog or two prior as well, Kate had been having trouble with her tire. Dangerously so, I would go as far to say, because it was affecting her steering. That's when the boyfriend who conveniently knows about cars is supposed to step in.
Now, as any man who knows anything about cars might do, he would immediately jack the car up, take the wheel off, and inspect it for defects. Running over shit in the road happens all the time. I just plugged a hole in my tire after pulling a nail out of it the day before last, as a matter of fact. So, anyone who knows even the slightest bit about cars can change a tire. Cory could have checked, patched, or even replaced the tire if necessary. All he had to do was put the spare on it temporarily (in case she needed it that day or something), throw her whole wheel in his car, and just taken it to get a new tire and balancing done to it. You don't need the whole car for that, after all.
Instead of dealing with this right away, though, Kate drove on this dangerous wheel for days. It could have simply gone flat and left her stuck with trying to change it (or more likely, calling someone to), or worse, and left her careening into another car, tree, or worse.
Well when Kate took her car in, she said she was not only going to get the tire fixed, but have a rotation, alignment, and oil change. The alignment, okay, that's fine. The equipment at the shop can do an alignment way better than your average Joe ever could. And the rotation is certainly easier to do on a lift than trying to do it yourself, but it certainly could have been done by Cory at home. But the oil change is the real kicker.
Mechanics ALMOST ALWAYS rip you off on this. Some of them don't even change it. They'll check the stick, if it looks clear, they leave it. This is partially because people want their oil changed way more often than it really needs to be, to be honest. But it's still a dishonest practice by mechanics nonetheless, because you're paying for it to be done. Even if they change the oil, though, lots of them won't bother to change the oil filter. You can find hidden camera shows a dime a dozen where they've marked the filter somehow and end up getting the same one back after the "oil change." For anyone who knows anything about cars, as Cory claims to be, this is not hard to do either.
So that's the thing. Kate is always pinching pennies. Here's a perfect opportunity to save a lot of money. But what do they do? Take it to the shop, and drive it there on the bad wheel. Some car guy!
The irony of course is that in this very same vlog, Kate's chair is broken, and Cory says "I love to fix things."
I'm sure Kate's chair is still broken as well.
Okay, so, Cory seems to like to think he knows about cars. He's tried to make us think that he knows a thing or two about his dune buggy, for example. And he went with Kate to help her pick out her car. He also tried to teach her to drive stick. But, as someone who does know about cars, I can tell you that Cory pretty much does not.
Now don't get me wrong, I know it's kind of a man thing to say you're into cars. It doesn't really hurt anything most of the time, which is why it didn't bother me about Cory before, aside from the teaching Kate to drive stick part (which personally I think he couldn't have done worse). All of the trouble out of Cory's jeep was also kind of an indication that he had no idea about them. But in this particular vlog, and actually a vlog or two prior as well, Kate had been having trouble with her tire. Dangerously so, I would go as far to say, because it was affecting her steering. That's when the boyfriend who conveniently knows about cars is supposed to step in.
Now, as any man who knows anything about cars might do, he would immediately jack the car up, take the wheel off, and inspect it for defects. Running over shit in the road happens all the time. I just plugged a hole in my tire after pulling a nail out of it the day before last, as a matter of fact. So, anyone who knows even the slightest bit about cars can change a tire. Cory could have checked, patched, or even replaced the tire if necessary. All he had to do was put the spare on it temporarily (in case she needed it that day or something), throw her whole wheel in his car, and just taken it to get a new tire and balancing done to it. You don't need the whole car for that, after all.
Instead of dealing with this right away, though, Kate drove on this dangerous wheel for days. It could have simply gone flat and left her stuck with trying to change it (or more likely, calling someone to), or worse, and left her careening into another car, tree, or worse.
Well when Kate took her car in, she said she was not only going to get the tire fixed, but have a rotation, alignment, and oil change. The alignment, okay, that's fine. The equipment at the shop can do an alignment way better than your average Joe ever could. And the rotation is certainly easier to do on a lift than trying to do it yourself, but it certainly could have been done by Cory at home. But the oil change is the real kicker.
Mechanics ALMOST ALWAYS rip you off on this. Some of them don't even change it. They'll check the stick, if it looks clear, they leave it. This is partially because people want their oil changed way more often than it really needs to be, to be honest. But it's still a dishonest practice by mechanics nonetheless, because you're paying for it to be done. Even if they change the oil, though, lots of them won't bother to change the oil filter. You can find hidden camera shows a dime a dozen where they've marked the filter somehow and end up getting the same one back after the "oil change." For anyone who knows anything about cars, as Cory claims to be, this is not hard to do either.
So that's the thing. Kate is always pinching pennies. Here's a perfect opportunity to save a lot of money. But what do they do? Take it to the shop, and drive it there on the bad wheel. Some car guy!
The irony of course is that in this very same vlog, Kate's chair is broken, and Cory says "I love to fix things."
I'm sure Kate's chair is still broken as well.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Road Trip Troubles
I guess I'll throw a post on here!
When Katers and Cory first started their road trip, I'll admit, I was pretty bored of the vlogs. It had gotten to the point that I was just skipping along through them, which is usually a sign that an unsubscribe is in the not-so-distant future. I was busy during the time, too, which didn't help. Though I've been busy in the past, and still made time for the vlogs. But anyhow, I don't know what happened, I just started enjoying them again, for the most part. Funny stuff happened, meet-ups happened, etc. So while I don't look forward to the vlogs like I once did, I at least don't sigh to myself at the thought of watching another 20-30 minute episode as I was doing for a while there. I'd kind of expected the road trip to ruin them, much like such things always did to most other peoples' vlogs.
Here's the thing I don't get about this road trip, though. Cory hired this Josh guy to be his camera man, who I don't know if we ever even saw before that day. I asked myself why does Cory need a camera man, when that's what he already pays Kate to do? Stranger still, vlog after vlog happened, and we never really saw Josh even holding a camera. In fact, I had a "wat" moment when Josh had to ask Cory one time whether he needed to use the flash to take a picture of something while they were outside. So I just don't know what the deal is with him coming along, particularly since there's no indication that he's any kind of professional photographer. He might be filming actual SMP Films videos for him which we don't see on the vlogs, but still, again, why isn't Kate just filming them like before? She's the one who actually studied up on how to operate the cameras. But anyway, that all being said, Josh has turned out to be kind of entertaining, particularly when paired with Shaun.
There's also the thing with Kate getting all upset in that recent vlog. Obviously it had something to do with Cory, because she commented something along the lines of "that doesn't help" when showing people holding hands and stuff together. I guess the internet rumor machine immediately assumed this meant her and Cory broke up, but I don't know if I'd go that far. My brother has actually assumed that they've been broken up for a little while already, and that they were just keeping up the illusion for the fan's sake, but I would disagree. He actually got bored enough of it to unsubscribe, so his info isn't really up to date anymore.
One thing I kinda get tired of is this Keek thing. It's starting to rub me the way that things like City Story did. It just doesn't feel like something she just naturally wants her fans to check out. And Cory just made a video wanting people to jump on Keek as well, so if that's not proof enough to me that they're being sponsored by them, then I don't know what is. I mean, the Gung Ho stuff doesn't bother me, because they admitted they're a sponsor. It's when somebody tries to push something under the guise of it being something they personally like when it bugs me. It's that kind of stuff that turned me against people like Leo Laporte. He'll claim he loves just about any product that's given to him, then in a week or two he's back to using what he used to use. Anyway, I digress. I was going on Keek at first to see if Kate made any videos I'd be interested in, but apparently now you have to be logged in to even watch anything, so fuck that.
Shaun has turned out to be the entertainment of the trip. Most of the stuff he does is amusing to some degree, which is usually enhanced when Josh is involved. I had a few actual laugh-out-loud moments. Whether that gets annoying when riding in a car with him/them for hours though is another story!
I keep thinking there was something else I meant to touch on, but heck if I know what it was.
TL;DR version: Katers vlogs are still entertaining, but fuck Keek.
UPDATE: Naturally, the day after typing this, we see Josh filming an SMP Films video.
When Katers and Cory first started their road trip, I'll admit, I was pretty bored of the vlogs. It had gotten to the point that I was just skipping along through them, which is usually a sign that an unsubscribe is in the not-so-distant future. I was busy during the time, too, which didn't help. Though I've been busy in the past, and still made time for the vlogs. But anyhow, I don't know what happened, I just started enjoying them again, for the most part. Funny stuff happened, meet-ups happened, etc. So while I don't look forward to the vlogs like I once did, I at least don't sigh to myself at the thought of watching another 20-30 minute episode as I was doing for a while there. I'd kind of expected the road trip to ruin them, much like such things always did to most other peoples' vlogs.
Here's the thing I don't get about this road trip, though. Cory hired this Josh guy to be his camera man, who I don't know if we ever even saw before that day. I asked myself why does Cory need a camera man, when that's what he already pays Kate to do? Stranger still, vlog after vlog happened, and we never really saw Josh even holding a camera. In fact, I had a "wat" moment when Josh had to ask Cory one time whether he needed to use the flash to take a picture of something while they were outside. So I just don't know what the deal is with him coming along, particularly since there's no indication that he's any kind of professional photographer. He might be filming actual SMP Films videos for him which we don't see on the vlogs, but still, again, why isn't Kate just filming them like before? She's the one who actually studied up on how to operate the cameras. But anyway, that all being said, Josh has turned out to be kind of entertaining, particularly when paired with Shaun.
There's also the thing with Kate getting all upset in that recent vlog. Obviously it had something to do with Cory, because she commented something along the lines of "that doesn't help" when showing people holding hands and stuff together. I guess the internet rumor machine immediately assumed this meant her and Cory broke up, but I don't know if I'd go that far. My brother has actually assumed that they've been broken up for a little while already, and that they were just keeping up the illusion for the fan's sake, but I would disagree. He actually got bored enough of it to unsubscribe, so his info isn't really up to date anymore.
One thing I kinda get tired of is this Keek thing. It's starting to rub me the way that things like City Story did. It just doesn't feel like something she just naturally wants her fans to check out. And Cory just made a video wanting people to jump on Keek as well, so if that's not proof enough to me that they're being sponsored by them, then I don't know what is. I mean, the Gung Ho stuff doesn't bother me, because they admitted they're a sponsor. It's when somebody tries to push something under the guise of it being something they personally like when it bugs me. It's that kind of stuff that turned me against people like Leo Laporte. He'll claim he loves just about any product that's given to him, then in a week or two he's back to using what he used to use. Anyway, I digress. I was going on Keek at first to see if Kate made any videos I'd be interested in, but apparently now you have to be logged in to even watch anything, so fuck that.
Shaun has turned out to be the entertainment of the trip. Most of the stuff he does is amusing to some degree, which is usually enhanced when Josh is involved. I had a few actual laugh-out-loud moments. Whether that gets annoying when riding in a car with him/them for hours though is another story!
I keep thinking there was something else I meant to touch on, but heck if I know what it was.
TL;DR version: Katers vlogs are still entertaining, but fuck Keek.
UPDATE: Naturally, the day after typing this, we see Josh filming an SMP Films video.
Monday, April 16, 2012
I Find Your Lack Of Sense Disturbing
There may have been things I meant to comment on before, but I think today makes a prime candidate to update about.
So basically, Cory was determined to win his Gold's Gym Challenge, repeating often "I've got to win this" and "I'm going to win this" throughout his training. Then when he realizes he's not going to win, he starts giving that "It was never about winning" line, which I thought was a hair on the sore loser side to be honest with you. He improved his body, sure, and in that respect he certainly won. But let's face it, he was banking on winning this contest to fix his finances, and he counted his chickens before they hatched. Now he's back where he started, apparently depressed and in financial problems, and needs to find a way to make money again the old-fashion way.
The rational direction here would be to continue making DudeLikeHella videos, building up a secondary fan base and income, putting his wrestling aside so that he can work on SMP Films and Mean Kitty videos for bigger projects that will pull in the most views on his main channels.
But somehow I don't think rational thinking went into this, because he's decided to stop doing DudeLikeHella, citing a lack of views as the reason he's not going to focus his efforts on it.
Now first of all, no, I don't know how much money he makes. But I can tell you this: he has more subscribers than Kate did when I started watching her. Kate managed to move to another country on what she made, along with that from her side jobs. So something tells me that between SMP Films, Mean Kitty, and DudeLikeHella, he's making a decent paycheck. If you go and look, DudeLikeHella has been getting around 30k views on most of the vlogs. This is how much Kate's vlogs make lately, believe it or not. And this isn't good enough???
And yet, Cory's views were even much higher a few weeks ago, which, surprise surprise, we before he started this bodybuilding and wrestling stuff. I'm sorry, but that stuff is so boring to me, and apparently to a lot of other people as well. Yes I know it's part of his life, but that doesn't mean it has to be filmed. He's said before that he makes the vlogs for himself primarily, not us, so that's why he films that kind of stuff. But that's a silly excuse because there's nothing stopping him from filming private stuff of his workouts and whatever to save for later in life, and only sharing the rest of his day with fans to entertain them. The "they're for me" thing is a cop-out as far as I'm concerned. Work with your audience, don't expect your audience to work with you. If you're giving them a product they don't want, then, you know, there's a good chance they're going to stop buying it. And that's exactly what's happened to his view counts apparently.
But I digress, and come back to the thirty thousand views part. Most people never make that many on all of their videos combined, and he's making it on a potentially daily basis (if he went back to daily vlogs). And I reiterate that Kate is getting this many views as well, on a daily basis, and somehow she's managing to live just fine, even though she doesn't hardly ever make a Katers17 video anymore.
So whatever. I thumbed his video down today. I know that Cory acts on impulse a lot, and there's a good chance that he'll be posting another video in a week anyway, but the fact that he would scoff at this kind of success as not being good enough is just ridiculous. Give me a break.
EDIT: You know what I realized after writing this? The big problem Cory might have is taxes. A few days ago was tax day, and he was going to owe a lot after winning that $20k furniture contest.
So basically, Cory was determined to win his Gold's Gym Challenge, repeating often "I've got to win this" and "I'm going to win this" throughout his training. Then when he realizes he's not going to win, he starts giving that "It was never about winning" line, which I thought was a hair on the sore loser side to be honest with you. He improved his body, sure, and in that respect he certainly won. But let's face it, he was banking on winning this contest to fix his finances, and he counted his chickens before they hatched. Now he's back where he started, apparently depressed and in financial problems, and needs to find a way to make money again the old-fashion way.
The rational direction here would be to continue making DudeLikeHella videos, building up a secondary fan base and income, putting his wrestling aside so that he can work on SMP Films and Mean Kitty videos for bigger projects that will pull in the most views on his main channels.
But somehow I don't think rational thinking went into this, because he's decided to stop doing DudeLikeHella, citing a lack of views as the reason he's not going to focus his efforts on it.
Now first of all, no, I don't know how much money he makes. But I can tell you this: he has more subscribers than Kate did when I started watching her. Kate managed to move to another country on what she made, along with that from her side jobs. So something tells me that between SMP Films, Mean Kitty, and DudeLikeHella, he's making a decent paycheck. If you go and look, DudeLikeHella has been getting around 30k views on most of the vlogs. This is how much Kate's vlogs make lately, believe it or not. And this isn't good enough???
And yet, Cory's views were even much higher a few weeks ago, which, surprise surprise, we before he started this bodybuilding and wrestling stuff. I'm sorry, but that stuff is so boring to me, and apparently to a lot of other people as well. Yes I know it's part of his life, but that doesn't mean it has to be filmed. He's said before that he makes the vlogs for himself primarily, not us, so that's why he films that kind of stuff. But that's a silly excuse because there's nothing stopping him from filming private stuff of his workouts and whatever to save for later in life, and only sharing the rest of his day with fans to entertain them. The "they're for me" thing is a cop-out as far as I'm concerned. Work with your audience, don't expect your audience to work with you. If you're giving them a product they don't want, then, you know, there's a good chance they're going to stop buying it. And that's exactly what's happened to his view counts apparently.
But I digress, and come back to the thirty thousand views part. Most people never make that many on all of their videos combined, and he's making it on a potentially daily basis (if he went back to daily vlogs). And I reiterate that Kate is getting this many views as well, on a daily basis, and somehow she's managing to live just fine, even though she doesn't hardly ever make a Katers17 video anymore.
So whatever. I thumbed his video down today. I know that Cory acts on impulse a lot, and there's a good chance that he'll be posting another video in a week anyway, but the fact that he would scoff at this kind of success as not being good enough is just ridiculous. Give me a break.
EDIT: You know what I realized after writing this? The big problem Cory might have is taxes. A few days ago was tax day, and he was going to owe a lot after winning that $20k furniture contest.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
March Madness
So a few things have happened lately in the "vlogosphere" that bear mention.
First and foremost, Charles Trippy had a brain tumor. How 'bout that. I admit to resubscribing to CTFxC just to watch the events unfold. I don't know how much longer I'll stay subscribed now that the core issue is resolved, but I suppose that as long as I remain at least semi-entertained, I'll leave it. I just honestly had zero interest in watching Charles on tour with his band or any of that. But it's kind of fun to watch again lately when they were all together again.
Second, it was around that time that I realized Shay Carl has lost a ton of weight. I only stopped watching him less than a year ago, so that seems to be a bit fast based on what I've heard about safe weight loss. His face even looks a bit gaunt to me. Though he does seem to be in good physical shape. So good on him for losing it though, I suppose. But, I have to say, part of the charm is lost. Him being a big guy was part of what made him funny. It's kind of like with Wayne Knight; Dennis Nedry and Newman would not have been funny characters if he'd been his eventual thinner self. There's simply a comedic value to someone being overweight. So I'm sorry to say, but now Shay just seems like some kind of over-enthusiastic gym trainer or something.
Thirdly is Katers' little run-in with the law. There seems to be debate in the comments over whether Kate may have actually intended to steal the sunglasses. Either way, I think she exaggerated a little on what happened. She made it sound like she got taken downtown, arrested, fingerprinted, and the whole nine yards, and is "in the system" now for sure. But in reality, it sounds like she actually just got a summons to appear in court, and has a chance to contest the whole thing. That's a big difference.
Meanwhile, there's no video evidence to prove or disprove her story, so all of the rabid fanboys showing their loyalty by talking bad about the security guard and police, and claiming Kate "has proof" to sue, is all a bit unnecessary and unreasonable. Claiming you forgot you had the item in your hand is one of the most common excuses a shoplifter gives, so why should the security guard have thought Kate was any different? And no, she didn't legally have to submit to any search, but you better believe that security guards are going to let you think you have to if you don't know any better. As for the handcuffs, who knows. For all we know, maybe Kate was freaking out and arguing with them or something.
And, again, for all we know, maybe she was in fact trying to steal them. You just don't know. Kate comes from a low-income background, with no father figure present, and has shown that she was friends with a rougher crowd. It's not unreasonable to assume anything in this case. I mean, she said she joked with them about how she didn't even take sauce packets or whatever from restaurants, even though that's an obvious fib. Remember when she was visiting her dad, and scooped up every one of those little jelly jars that she could find? Yeah. And it's no secret that she's very very tight with money, to the point where she would freeze in her own house before turning the heat up a few degrees.
So yeah. I won't go as far as to say she intended to steal the things, cause it's certainly a plausible story she gave. But I will still stay open-minded enough to accept that maybe she did do it, too. We'll never know the truth either way. And I'm not boycotting Pennies over it like Cory is insisting everyone do, because if I boycotted every store where someone has had a negative experience with security, I might as well not even go out of the house. I've even had a couple of experiences myself, and while they weren't anything like Kate's, it was enough for me to stop visiting one particular store for years. But I wouldn't have gone around telling others not to shop there just because one douchebag employee ruined it for me.
I guess that's it for this vlogger blogger. I'm sure there's other topics I could talk about, but it seems Youtube ends up filling up posts plenty on its own!
First and foremost, Charles Trippy had a brain tumor. How 'bout that. I admit to resubscribing to CTFxC just to watch the events unfold. I don't know how much longer I'll stay subscribed now that the core issue is resolved, but I suppose that as long as I remain at least semi-entertained, I'll leave it. I just honestly had zero interest in watching Charles on tour with his band or any of that. But it's kind of fun to watch again lately when they were all together again.
Second, it was around that time that I realized Shay Carl has lost a ton of weight. I only stopped watching him less than a year ago, so that seems to be a bit fast based on what I've heard about safe weight loss. His face even looks a bit gaunt to me. Though he does seem to be in good physical shape. So good on him for losing it though, I suppose. But, I have to say, part of the charm is lost. Him being a big guy was part of what made him funny. It's kind of like with Wayne Knight; Dennis Nedry and Newman would not have been funny characters if he'd been his eventual thinner self. There's simply a comedic value to someone being overweight. So I'm sorry to say, but now Shay just seems like some kind of over-enthusiastic gym trainer or something.
Thirdly is Katers' little run-in with the law. There seems to be debate in the comments over whether Kate may have actually intended to steal the sunglasses. Either way, I think she exaggerated a little on what happened. She made it sound like she got taken downtown, arrested, fingerprinted, and the whole nine yards, and is "in the system" now for sure. But in reality, it sounds like she actually just got a summons to appear in court, and has a chance to contest the whole thing. That's a big difference.
Meanwhile, there's no video evidence to prove or disprove her story, so all of the rabid fanboys showing their loyalty by talking bad about the security guard and police, and claiming Kate "has proof" to sue, is all a bit unnecessary and unreasonable. Claiming you forgot you had the item in your hand is one of the most common excuses a shoplifter gives, so why should the security guard have thought Kate was any different? And no, she didn't legally have to submit to any search, but you better believe that security guards are going to let you think you have to if you don't know any better. As for the handcuffs, who knows. For all we know, maybe Kate was freaking out and arguing with them or something.
And, again, for all we know, maybe she was in fact trying to steal them. You just don't know. Kate comes from a low-income background, with no father figure present, and has shown that she was friends with a rougher crowd. It's not unreasonable to assume anything in this case. I mean, she said she joked with them about how she didn't even take sauce packets or whatever from restaurants, even though that's an obvious fib. Remember when she was visiting her dad, and scooped up every one of those little jelly jars that she could find? Yeah. And it's no secret that she's very very tight with money, to the point where she would freeze in her own house before turning the heat up a few degrees.
So yeah. I won't go as far as to say she intended to steal the things, cause it's certainly a plausible story she gave. But I will still stay open-minded enough to accept that maybe she did do it, too. We'll never know the truth either way. And I'm not boycotting Pennies over it like Cory is insisting everyone do, because if I boycotted every store where someone has had a negative experience with security, I might as well not even go out of the house. I've even had a couple of experiences myself, and while they weren't anything like Kate's, it was enough for me to stop visiting one particular store for years. But I wouldn't have gone around telling others not to shop there just because one douchebag employee ruined it for me.
I guess that's it for this vlogger blogger. I'm sure there's other topics I could talk about, but it seems Youtube ends up filling up posts plenty on its own!
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