The rise, fall and evolution of social media communicators

The Lounge General Discussion
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I’ve noticed lately that some of the more prominent influencers as far as electronic music gear goes, are expressing that they’re struggling to find motivation and inspiration.

The common denominator seems to be that they’ve hit a wall as far as ideas and growth go, and they struggle to cope with that. Some find it difficult to handle the mix of toxic and positive feedback, others don’t see any direction and some don’t seem to get the arena they entered and now they’re waking up to the fact that they can’t always control the shape of their posts outside of their channel.

I wonder if all the options we have ,to put ourselves out there, also means more of us face the brutal truth that before a crowd, we rarely have anything of lasting value to say. With YouTube - if we make that as a symbolic example of all channels - being accessible to everyone, and anyone can make a video and present themselves, it also means more of us will learn the hard way, there aren’t enough people out there who cares enough that an influencer can make a living. Which is a sort of cruel receipt that you’re just not interesting enough.

Are we facing the end of an influencer era, as far as a certain kind of electronic musician goes, or is this just an evolution? Perhaps it’s time to step up the game on what kind of content some of these people produce, and realise that another gear video just isn’t what we need. I mean, I don’t mind Benn Jordan’s gear reviews. But I also don’t mind him not doing them anymore, ever. But I love to hear him play, and learn from his experience as a musician. As an example.

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I think it’s always been like that and way more general , not just limited to “music influencers”.

It’s the nature of the beast: public exposure.
It can devore you.
Not everybody is made to endure that kind of pressure (real or self imposed).
Musicians, actors, public figures, etc. They’ve been struggling with this issue forever.

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‘YouTuber’ should not be a viable career path IMO. Let’s get back to funny cat videos and low res VHS rips of our favourite childhood cartoon title sequences. And if you want the world to know about your life then learn some HTML and make a Geocities page.

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There is a harder line between musical educator, musician, and online personality than many people who are deeply involved in content creation seem willing to accept. I’m not saying that’s the issue for the personality you named, and it’s not written in stone, but numbers don’t lie. If you look at social media personalities in the gear / synth realm, the plays on their demo and review videos reach a far higher level of their viewership than their personal attempts to promote their creativity. When it’s mixed in with the review videos it’s often enjoyable, but in reality, it’s easily forgettable.

Moreover, when you put yourself out there as 3 separate entities: a reviewer, a musician, and a musical educator, you inherently face 3 times the criticism and it comes at you from (a minimum of) those 3 directions. I think we’re all human, and it’s easy to say “it’s just the internet, don’t let it bother you” but not everyone has thick enough skin to take the constant battery of negativity from those who are really only here mostly for the negativity.

There’s a term, “armchair quarterback”, which is not so uncommon to hear but as it deals with American football, I’d just say it means a person who thinks they can call sport plays from their seat at home better than the person holding the ball on the field on television. There are a lot of those types online, those who are quite critical of everything and feel some elation as they spread negativity. It is indeed the nature of the beast, to have to deal with this type of phenomenon, when a person “puts themself out there” for criticism.

Is there anything we can do to change human nature? Is it impossible to spread your energy and skill in 3 different directions at once? Is it possible to do that and succeed? Maybe, but is it incredibly difficult? Absolutely. I don’t necessarily feel a connection to the extroverted personas that people play in real life or online, I’d mostly rather not be seen, but I can relate to the human desire to be accepted, or even better appreciated.

I suppose there’s no correct answer or opinion here, just that I think this is one of those situations where it goes with the territory, but that alone doesn’t make it right. It’s just a fact that one must endure or push through if your aim is to do something ultra-competitive and hold yourself to being both successful and also maintaining some semblance of your own identity while trying to do it.

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Extremely well put. You’re saying a lot of true things here.

The argument that resonates the strongest with me, is that humans are humans. There’s a bunch who will always be bullies and bastards and we’ll never be able to argue or philosophise those away. I noticed BoBeat made a comment on Jordan’s decision to stop reviewing gear, making an equally valid and naive point that we need to stop this toxic behaviour, work towards more equality and so on. And he’s totally right. But it’s never gonna happen.

There’s no world where this behaviour will go away. There’s no argument that’ll make people go “Oh, actually, that’s a fair point. I’m gonna stop being toxic now.” Mainly because most of them don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.

That critical scene in a typical American romcom, where someone’s been acting up for a good 92 minutes and when there’s about 28 minutes left of the story, they have this revelation where someone delivers to them in monlogue form, what a dick they’ve been, or they experience something where they realise “Damn, I’ve been such a dick”, they make amends and everybody has dinner together and laugh. That scene - almost never happens in real life.

In real life, that scene ends up with the very same someone saying “Well, you’re one to talk” and leave the room, or go “Well at least I’m not ugly like you” and leave the room, or go “It’s all your fault anyway” and leave the room, or they say nothing and just leave the room.

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The truth of this hurts my heart.

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For what it’s worth, almost every a-----e I’ve met in life, has a story to tell. One of the most intimidating and mean people I’ve ever known, told me at one point what his childhood had been like and how his father had treated him up until he was a teenager, where he eventually decided to strike back - not for himself, but to protect his mother.

Despite his shitty behaviour towards me and others, I felt sorry for him. Who knows what kind of person I’d turned out to be, if I’d grown up like that? Maybe worse than him, even.

So almost always, behind that aggressive behaviour, there’s pain. That, however, never justifies treating other people badly. It explains it. But it doesn’t justify it.

Which, unfortunately for them, means they almost always end up quite lonely in the end. It’ll take a while, but that has to be one of the world’s worst punishments. To face the end, knowing no one cares, not because you’re not worth caring about but because you’re such a dick, no one felt it worth the effort in the end.

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The question remains, what is toxic and what is criticism. I think some people will paint criticism as toxicity, to see themselves (and make them seem towards others) as doing no wrong.

If someone is competing, good criticism is what they want - they don’t want everyone to just cheer at them, even when they are doing bad. Because they know it is fake, it is supposed to make them happy but they want to become better. To be overtly positive and to spare critique is what people do to children or when they have a girlfriend they think is probably too good for them…

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I think the YouTubers who struggle, or will struggle, are the ones that present themselves as artists first, YouTuber second (as a side hustle that’s supposed to promote them artistically/creatively?)… that’s disingenuous and only going to end one way for the person.

But someone like Loopop has longevity because he’s authentic… he’s there predominantly to show you gear and knows that is why you are there. That seems to be the sustainable route.

Then the other side (that I’m sure we all love) is when a genuine artist circles back on themselves and starts openly talking about their process.
Like if the BoC guys or Aphex Twin started making YouTube gear videos it would obvs :rocket:.

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As consumers we digest disposable content at an alarming rate and often those content providers see extreme highs and lows in popularity. Crating a sustainable channel comes with a high pressure to produce regular, engaging and current content and for one person to do this is not easy, at least not long term.

Plus as mentioned the internet is a toxic pit of self entertainment with dickheads lurking round every corner.

I guess part of the problem is like most things on the internet when something becomes popular is we are flooded with others doing the same thing and YouTube is full of so much half arsed videos of bad jams, unboxing reviews and people showing off their gear with no real talent in using it. The worth of the synth video has seriously declined because of the substandard quality from so many.

So yeah, I guess we are seeing a shift, not just because of the consumer but because the content creators are probably burning out a bit and constantly making creative engaging content is so difficult to do. Plus it’s hard to be original with so many others doing the same, albeit badly

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I’ll just add I think like 90% of the YouTube demos I see, all the songs and music I hear feels completely soulless and never something I would add to my library or download.

I do look up gear videos before purchasing just to hear what stuff sounds like that I can’t demo but I think most “synthfluencers” make the most monotonous bubble gum music n it kills me lol

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Yeah it’s rare that the music is in any way interesting or impressive.

I used to enjoy the beatmaking videos that involved grabbing some random records, sampling them and making a beat though these often featured established beatmakers and not synthfluencers

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One thing I think about is that these people are a) just people and b) I presume people with jobs (hobbyists) or those with an ambition to get into the music industry. If that’s the case, then it seems like you have to give a lot of yourself outside the day job, which for many will become unsustainable after a certain amount of time.

I can think of one person I watch on Youtube, and while they do indulge in the occasional video re: plugins, they typically don’t do reviews, and their channel is a showcase of their music making ability. As a result they are signed to a label, and aside from releasing make money (from what I can tell) off of sample packs, mentoring and Patreon memberships. To me this seems like effectively commercialising what you’re already doing, and making that the core.

The folks who seem to struggle from what I can tell are gear first. This is of course (as others have mentioned) a tricky one for a lot of musicians because it involves putting aside musical ambition and selling product as companies like your personality and manner most of all. If you add that to the amount you have to give of yourself to sell gear, then at a certain point, I imagine some YouTubers (who probably got into it for the right reasons) would burn out.

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That sounds like someone monetising their talent rather than feeding the system with click bait and that’s two completely different roles I’d say

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Yeah for sure. I think you probably get people typecast into one of two roles; eg - gear person or music person. I bet they have had to resist the gear stuff to avoid derailing their musical focus.

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I agree with @shigginpit’s notion that these influencers are reviewers, musicians and educators or some combination thereoff.

This thread made me think: well youtube and other social media platforms are just platforms, what would this have looked like before the internet?

My dad was in music and a lot of musicians he knew back then were struggling to make ends meet on a combination of doing gigs and teaching, some were writing articles or (music) reviews for magazines. Some people did graphic design for music related stuff as a sidejob. I think not much has changed in that sense, people back then also competed with eachother, and some had longer carreers than others. In general it was not an easy career in any sense, people had good and bad periods, and some received very negative reviews or crowd response.

The thing I would say is very different from before, is that besides being musicians, teachers and reviewers, these synthfluencers make their money first and formost as salespeople, or ‘content-creators’ for marketing purposes. This is something that makes me dislike some of these guys, and which might also be the reason for a lot of toxidity: imagine your music teacher being sponsored by a guitar brand and constantly telling you how good a certain guitar is… imagine going to a show and when it starts they announce that todays sponsor is yamaha and they will only play yamaha instruments for that reason.

This is the reason I really like someone like Marlow Digs: His main thing is showing us his music and teaching stuff. He does tell us about his gear, but its often stuff that isn’t even being made/sold anymore, and its always in a context of making music.

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Yep, and then there’s just voice - I really like what Emily Hopkins is doing, and while her YouTube output is mainly gear (not just, but mostly), she’s got style and talent to match. While her concept isn’t much different from most other geartubers, she just has a tone of voice that makes it so much more compelling.

Or say Bad Snacks, who just writes and produces music that’s way above most others in that field, essentially turning her channel into just about the music and the artist, because she’s got the talent to make it so.

All of this, in my humble opinion of course. One does not have to agree that these two artists are a cut above most others in that field.

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I find the whole ‘pretending they aren’t sales people’ thing annoying. I’d rather they just be upfront about it.

I don’t really care about their opinion, as many of them aren’t that well versed in what they’re presenting. I just want them to present the sound and features clearly.

Too many fail to do that. And it’s often a lack of knowledge combined with a lack of transparency.

Missing things like the master FX gap during pattern changes on the SH-4D just seems suspect. But often you find that these features that could limit your desire to purchase are completely overlooked.

Beyond that I’d argue the market is massively oversaturated. Both with products and so called influencers.

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The fact that none of these “synthfluencers” have turned their popularity into a lucrative live tour says all you need to know about their musical ambition and talent.

To paraphrase a quote I heard (on you tube lol):

Content supports the status quo
Art creates revolution

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I really feel for them. I think the whole prospect of monetizing art sucks, I really hate it.
I think people really fail to understand that being a synthfluencer is making video first and music second.
Most influencers are successful because they make nice videos, not nice music.

So if you get into the influencer space with hopes of making music then I think you will struggle, because you will spend most of your time doing video stuff.

I think @ylva treads a perfect balance with being on social media and being a mysterious artist.

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