I will possibly regret sticking my oar in here, but as somebody that has been dangerously close to getting lumped into this category before, this kind of thing has been on my mind a lot. Apologies if this ends up as something of an essay.
There are lots of factors of course, but IMHO, we are seeing the natural outcome of a situation where people have come to rely on the money or ‘success’ of their YouTube channels, and have become disillusioned with the reality of having to produce ‘content’ in a particular way; one that doesn’t provide any kind of meaningful personal satisfaction other than the numbers (which inevitably also vary).
One of the reasons I started making videos in the first place was because so much of what was out there already seemed so ‘perfect’, or at least, attempted to present this polished persona and skill-set; people that knew everything about synthesis, or were expert beat makers. Every time they put together a track it came together in seconds, flawlessly. They never struggled to find a melody, or figure out which bloody minijack MIDI connector was the right one out of a pile of them. In other words, they lacked authenticity, and were incredibly difficult to relate to, as somebody who definitely did not have that kind of experience with gear or making music. (If you’ve ever been in a band you will definitely know what I mean!).
All of this has been compounded by a number of folks getting fixated on YouTube ‘success’ - whether that’s in subscriber numbers, view counts, or income. I can understand why. The system is designed to throw a ton of data at you in order to suck you in and produce more in response to what seems to generate the greatest up-tick in those figures. Once you give up your day job to fully rely on the revenue from producing this stuff, the whole cost-benefit calculation shifts even more dramatically. You can no longer afford to sink time into making a video that will ‘under-perform’, as the drop in view count could have a significant impact on your actual, real life. You have to consider and give primacy to the investment/return ratio.
The result of all of this is that we have a constant glut of ‘content’ (because that is all it is), which is purely designed to generate clicks, and is just a drab repetition of every other video to come before it. Soulless, empty, meaningless, shite.
What @Sleepyhead said above resonates:
As a ‘musician’ (despite arguably having qualified for this, I use the label with trepidation and reluctance), one of the cool things about having a channel where you talk about gear is that you have the chance to experiment with loads of different equipment that you would never normally be able to afford otherwise. I feel really fortunate to be in that position, because it’s provided a momentum and semi-sustainable way to indulge something that I am passionate about. Whenever I make a video, I try and express that in an authentic way - as well as hopefully providing some useful insight for other people who might be interested in the topic. But if not, it doesn’t really matter. Ultimately, I (perversely) enjoy the process, and that’s enough. If I hate a bit of gear, I wouldn’t use it. If there are major flaws or problems, I will highlight them (and have). If the video gets thousands of views then great! If it only gets a few hundred, who cares? If a brand gets pissed off with me for being honest, that’s okay. Ultimately it makes little difference because I don’t place critical importance on it.
In contrast, I find that a lot of the ‘content’ that comes out about new gear from other places is very transparently, purely about the desire to grow their channels, income, and following. Receive and ‘review’ a device as quickly as possible in the same format before moving on to the next thing. Anybody that uploads videos wants people to watch of course, and will experiment with changing titles or thumbnails or messing about with descriptions to try and get more eyeballs (partly because it’s fun!), but this particular approach oftenfeels very much just like a consumerist treadmill, and ultimately comes across as disingenuous.
What makes this worse is that the folks involved often seem to lack any sense of self-awareness. They engage in these obvious practices apparently unquestioningly, often don’t give any kind of disclosure about their affiliation with a product when they are actively involved in marketing it, and then appear personally slighted when people criticise them for that. Some of it obviously goes beyond the pale and is unacceptable. I get my fair share of unjustifiable abusive nonsense - that’s the Internet - but at some point if you want to hold yourself up as what is effectively a corporate spokesperson, then you need to expect a degree of adverse feedback, which appears to be an alien concept at times. Interestingly enough, some of these folks are also the first to be very publicly, and aggressively outspoken about anybody that questions them.
To round this off, part of the reason I ended up changing my channel name (shameless plug, because I had to, come on) was because I found myself getting lumped in more and more with the ‘synthfluencer’ crowd, and it felt like I was becoming railroaded, or trapped into a particular type of topic or format. For me, YouTube is a fun place to make and share stuff, which generates about £200 a month to help offset some of the ludicrous purchases I indulge in as part of creative pursuits. (Caveat: Half of this is from Patreon). As soon as it becomes anything other than that, it’s time to re-evaluate.
p.s. Sorry, I warned you. p.s. Don’t come for me. Or I’ll make a video about it.
Well worth the watch.
