Branding

I just had a commenter angrily dispute (read: swearing like a five year old) over my use of the word "brand" when referring to a particular Youtube channel's more prominent attributes, and it made me wonder just how many people seriously don't think they're in this for the money.

It's their day job. Of course they are.

That doesn't mean it's a bad thing. And it doesn't automatically make someone a sell-out. They started out doing something which people liked, and as the user base grew, so did ad revenue, enough so to sustain them. But to say that various Youtubers don't have a "brand" is like saying they're all the same as Joe Vlogger. They all have things which distinguish them, and most of them actively use those things to promote themselves in all things internet-related, whether that's selling shirts or growing their fan base. Olga Kay for example has her juggling (which she doesn't really do anymore though), a whole series of recurring characters she plays on her main channel videos, and her "moosh army." Toby Turner has his "darkness then redness then whiteness" thing. Cory Williams has his "mean kitties." Shay is the "family man." Arturo Trejo has his exaggerations, his family, and the whole Spanish thing. Wheezy Waiter has a number of recurring in-jokes (new couch!), Explosion Wednesday (not that that's a thing), his band, etc. CTFxC has its very name, and the dogs. I could go on and on. And let's not forget that most of these people have theme songs now, as well. When people think of these Youtubers, they identify them with these things. It's part of the "brand" they've created to set themselves apart from the masses. And it's why they're all popular. It's in no way an implication that they've sold out.

When you become a sell-out is when the search for money and/or fame goes too far and impacts what you've established. When advertising is prevalent, when products are promoted too often, when out of the ordinary things are done on the channel purely for views, outright spamming, etc. Not cool. Most of these people already make a living off of their fans, so expecting more than that, particularly at the expense of normal content, is kind of selfish. Not that I blame them, of course, because everybody likes money. But fans notice, and in the end, they're only damaging their own image.

There are in fact certain Youtubers who I feel are nothing but sell-outs at this point. Some I've mentioned in detail, others I've never mentioned here at all. And not everyone who I've had a beef with here is on that list, either, before you go making assumptions. But there's no point in me naming names, because there's obviously thousands of people who would disagree with me in each case regardless of any evidence I might present. You know, much like the angry commenter who felt it necessary to swear angrily at the very implication that their favorite Youtuber promoted any kind of brand to begin with!

And Then There Were Fewer

So since my last update, I've unsubscribed from all CTFxC-related channels. Just got tired of it in general, along with things rubbing me the wrong way occasionally. No point in making myself watch something that I don't really enjoy most days. I think the last straw was Charles and Alli wearing out Siri on their new iPhones, since I completely predicted it beforehand. Siri isn't amusing or even anything new, but seems like every kid out there is amazed by the thing. Anyway, I might go back and watch the wedding whenever that happens, but even if I missed that, I honestly just wouldn't care at this point. I'm over the vloggity.

I've also all but stopped watching Olga Kay's videos. I haven't watched one now in weeks. Why am I even still subscribed to that, actually?

I saw that the Shaytard brood is branching out, into yet more video series and now podcasts. Even his sister has a professional-looking channel now. The junk got put into my recommendations. And again I just roll my eyes at the money obsession fueling those ventures. It's just ridiculous how Shaytards went from an every day family guy to this professional scripted internet television series. Why would anyone who didn't already know Shay from the beginning even want to start watching it? What's the appeal?

Actually, nevermind. This is the same country that loves Jersey Shore, the Kardashians, and Rebecca Black.

My favorite daily vlogger remains Katers17, along with Cory and recently Amy as well. I really enjoyed the videos with Amy around. She seems to be very comfortable in front of the camera, and has a good sense of humor. Some of the funniest moments in a while happened during those three weeks of her visit. I hope she continues her own vlogging channel once she's back in England.

As for Kate, no real complaints about the vlogs in recent weeks I guess. She's been pushing that APB game a bit, and I suspect she's getting paid in some respect for at least doing the commercial part of it, but who knows. But it's nothing too intrusive so it doesn't bother me. People get some kind of Katers character tattoo out of joining through her link, so more power to'em I guess.

Currently she's kind of pushing some mobile game called City Story. I tried it since it's "free," but I don't see me playing it. I mean, I understand that games like that make money by selling items, but they're whoring this garbage on you constantly in popups and stuff. It's very annoying. Sorry, I'm not giving you money to regularly play a slow generic version of Sim City. Not when I can buy the REAL Sim City app. It all makes me wonder if Kate is being sponsored by these people. The reason I find it hard to believe that she's actually paying to play this thing is that it's obvious that she's very thrifty and money-conscious. I know she plays lots of Tiny Chef, but I've never played that one so I have no idea how necessary it is to spend real money to play it. Either way, whatever, I just thought the whole thing seemed a bit odd. Even if they're paying her, I don't care as long as it doesn't start to sound like it's being hocked rather than just suggested. I'd rather know that someone is trying to advertise to me rather than trying to trick me.

Meanwhile, Cory is on this "don't worry, be happy" phase. He's done similar things a few times in the past, and it apparently never lasts very long. Usually when somebody tries so hard to convince other people they're happy, they're only fooling themselves. I mean, more power to him if it does make him feel good temporarily, but I'm just afraid that he'll suddenly come crashing back to reality and feel miserable again. I think you're better off with a bumpy emotional state by dealing with problems, rather than pretending stuff doesn't bother you during high highs, only to end up climbing the mountain again after you hit the low lows.

Also speaking of Cory, I found it kind of ironic that he was complaining about having no money, yet he was so easily swindled into buying that car cleaner from the guy hocking it at the gas station. I can tell you right now that there was nothing in that bottle he was selling that you couldn't find cheaper in a store. I bet he paid like thirty bucks for it, too. Besides, Cory usually goes through the car wash anyway, which says to me that he obviously doesn't have the time or the desire to hand wash or wax the thing to begin with. Oh well.

I guess that's about all I meant to mention, regarding Youtubers at least. I'm sure I could find other things to go on about, but I'll save that for another time!


EDIT: Oh yeah, I know what I meant to mention now. People saying Kate complains too much. It got to the point that Kate herself now often prefaces that she's not complaining before expressing discontent. Who the fuck cares? Seriously, the girl is very chipper and grateful of most things, is she not allowed to complain as well? What reality do people live in where life doesn't give you lemons? Yeah, she lives in California where the weather is beautiful most of the time, but if she wants to complain about occasional cold or rain, why does it matter? People complain about inconveniences. It's perfectly normal. The whole "she has it all, she doesn't have any right to be complaining" thing is kind of ridiculous to impose on anybody. And don't get me wrong, there are still some things that are unjustifiable to complain about on camera, and Shaycarl was a perfect example of that. But general complaints about life are excluded. Haters will hate, I guess.

Septemblog

Hey this thing is still here and I haven't updated it. Let's try that!

I mentioned before that I still had Shaycarl on Twitter and Facebook. Well, I dumped them ages ago. Still don't miss'em at all. In fact, seeing Shay on like CTFxC/Katers/Olgakay/etc during their recent trips to Vidcon made me roll my eyes. He's so far from what he started out as that I just can't even stand to watch him.

Since I mentioned CTFxC, let's talk about that. I'm kind of bored of it, I gotta admit. There's still some things that can be entertaining, but a lot of it is just more of the same. To be honest, I think the best clips are when they're with Alli's mom, cause she seems fun. Now they're doing this whole cinema club thing, which just bored me immediately. I guess it's not as bad as that drunk gaming junk though. And another thing that irks me lately is the product placement. I've basically just skipped along through several of the vlogs lately trying to find interesting parts rather than watching the whole thing.

In other words, CTFxC is turning into Olgakay2 or Vlerabrite for me, cause I do the same thing for their vlogs. But I've pretty much done that from the beginning on theirs, since there's only so many vlogs I can watch in a day. Though I do always stop to listen to Terabrite rehearsing their music, since what's why I subbed to start with.

I guess since I rambled so much before about Cory (smpfilms / dudelikehella) and Steph that I should mention that recent "development." The one where Cory admitted what everyone already knew, that they were separated. You know, the same thing which fanboys denied adamantly for months in the comments. My feelings on the subject is that Cory wasn't always a vlogger - he just happened to live with one (Kate aka katersoneseven) - so he didn't have to necessarily share his personal life with the camera. But now that he vlogs, I think talking about these kinds of things has a bit more relevance with the fans. So I'm glad he finally decided to talk about it. Yet now he's decided to take a break from vlogging while in England, even though he's pretty much had Kate's camera in his hand for half the length of her recent England vlogs.

And speaking of Kate's vlogs, as I mentioned, she's finally back in England. I was looking forward to this trip for a while, actually. I enjoyed seeing her hanging out with people like Beth, who you could always tell were genuinely closed friends of hers. For some reason fans really liked "The Loud One" too, who I was just never particularly a fan of. Though I actually disliked various people she befriended in America more than anyone in England (which I believe I've covered in a previous post), so at least he's not on the same list as those people. I'd just prefer to see her hanging out with Beth, or that other girl whose name escapes me at the moment. Or better yet, her mother, who also seems kind of fun.

Anyway, yeah, Kate is still my favorite vlogger at the moment. Don't know who would be second. I don't really look forward to any others, unless you count DudeLikeHella, which is almost the same thing (and therefore I look forward to also). Well, I enjoy seeing certain automotive ones when they pop up, and other less-frequently updated users like say Laurbubble and Eemma. But I guess there's just no other daily vlogs I'm a huge fan of, when I think about it. Which is funny, considering I subscribe to several!

Hey It's June

I haven't posted anything recently, after getting on kind of a posting track there for a bit. I guess I'll mention that I'm pretty "ehhh" about Kate's contest thing now. At first I thumbs-downed some videos involving Living Spaces out of principle, but then I decided I just didn't care anymore. And I've been watching Cory's new DudeLikeHella channel, which is practically like having a double Katers vlog every day, so whatever. I don't tend to hold grudges. The vlogs still entertain me well enough.

I have to say though, I just honestly haven't missed watching the Shaytards. I still have him on my Twitter feed and Facebook, and I see him posting these videos with these crazy titles or promising this or that, but I always know that it's going to be nothing like that. I haven't watched a whole Shaytards in weeks now. I'm over it. Kate/Cory's still my favorite right now, followed by CTFxC.

For now it's back to throwing things in Duke Nukem Forever.

Bigger Beggar

Gotta say, I was really on the verge of unsubbing to Katers17/Katersoneseven yesterday. That furniture contest was just out of control. I'd decided to try to ignore it all and not contribute, since I didn't feel it was fair that she was using her subscriber base to boost her view count. All the other entries from average folks had no such backing so they stood no chance. I blame the contest creators as well to some degree for not thinking this thing through, but Kate realized what she was doing just the same.

But it was just nonstop reminders in her videos and especially on Twitter to view this video. It was getting to the point of desperation. So when she started actually tricking people into viewing her contest entry again under the presumption that it was something else, I was really aggravated. She took advantage of her fans on that one. Even though I didn't want to participate, she got a few more unintended views from me.

Well, then I found out she deleted a bunch of the negative or unhappy comments from the video, and was blocking people. Some of the comments I know for a fact disappeared, because I remembered seeing them earlier on. That's some bullshit right there. You're aggravating your viewers with your actions, and then you silence them when they try to voice their opinions? Fuck that attitude.

In the end, she got third place, so it was slightly satisfying that she didn't take the top at least. But there was still a big prize for that. Cory got first place, and he was doing some pretty similar douche moves himself. He made some sappy video about how he needed to win this contest for his self-esteem. Then he was faking out links on Twitter. He even made a video trying to make people click through to his contest entry video to see the second half of the one you were watching (he'd put the continuation link in the description of the contest one). I closed it and never watched the other half, because like with Kate entering, I didn't think it was fair for Cory either since he had even more subscribers than she did.

Well, here's the kicker: the rules said one entry per household. Kate and Cory live in the same house. Doesn't matter if they're moving soon, they entered and completed the contest under the same roof. They broke the rules. So technically one of them doesn't deserve the prize. I think it's only fair for Cory to keep his, since he had the most views, and Kate to be disqualified, letting one of the "little people" take her spot. I really want one of those average contestants with no big subscriber base to have a big prize, to be honest.

It's also worth mentioning that there were some fanboys in the comments cheating for Kate (and probably Cory too) by running view count bots to help boost her score. Obviously didn't help in the end, but it was cheating nonetheless.

Anyway, the whole thing just pissed me off with how Kate acted about it. That's not the person I subscribed to. Begging and sucking up to fans to win you furniture, and hushing up all the ones who disagree with it, is just bullshit. She's done it before with other smaller contests with less importance, but never to this extreme. Some of her fans may be pretty big tools, but fans are not tools to be used for winning prizes.

It's all a shame, because up to this point, she'd become my favorite vlog. But if it happens again, I'm done. No doubt about it.

Work Is Hard

Oh Shaycarl, I'd hoped you would stop giving me reasons to frown at your videos, but you did it again already.

In his attempt to defend the move to L.A. this summer, he revealed another bombshell: he's going to stop editing the videos himself. That's right, he's going to hire some guy to do it for him. He then proceeded to complain about how it takes 4 hours to edit and upload the videos. Wow, that's rough. It's a good thing nobody else has to work for 4 hours in an air-conditioned room in a comfortable chair with no boss, all to make tens of thousands of dollars.

Yes, I'm bitter. I come from a family who has worked their asses off to make ends meet, with obstacle after obstacle preventing them from getting ahead. And going by Shay's stories of old, you'd think he would be the same. But to hear him complain about doing a little work for his "dream job" just really aggravated me. Especially when this is all with the intention of making even more money by working for places like The Station.

I honestly don't think he ever truly experienced being hard up for money, based on him talking about being in tens of thousands of dollars of debt before. It sounded like he's always had a love for spending money, even if he didn't have it. And he comes from what appears to be a well-off family who I'm sure lend plenty of hands. I've known people like that. Money and possessions are their only goals in life. I won't say for sure if Shay is like that, but it's an ugly way to live, and he's sure showing signs of it.

So yeah, fuck it. If somebody else is going to edit the videos, why bother watching? He might be in them, but it won't be his personal touch editing them for humor and whatnot. And just knowing that he's too lazy to do it himself will leave a bad taste in my mouth anyway. If he's ready to ignore Shaytards even farther to focus on his solo career, then he's going to have a rude awakening on the day that he realizes it wasn't simply his own personality that made him successful. It was the entire family dynamic, and his personal interactions with the fans. You know, the very thing he's willing to throw away now just so that he can be ready for the future.

I don't think he actually plans to come home from L.A. Wouldn't be the first time I've caught him fibbing to the viewers.


p.s. And the fanboys are all over this one. Quick, how fast can you defend every one of his decisions! Bonus points for broken English.

I Nonhate Too

Just to show that I don't have to always made harsh posts in regards to the Shaytards, I'll take the time to mention that tonight's Shaytards was actually pretty pleasant, even with Shay in the majority of it and Mommytard hardly there. The voiceovers for Rocktard were funny. And despite the oddity of Carly sniffing Cascade, even that whole part was amusing. Nothing rubbed me the wrong way or anything.

Sometimes things happen that irk me, sure, but sometimes they're good episodes too. I just wanted to point that out. But now there's been like three posts in a row about Shaytards, so moving on!