diff --git a/images/atomic wallet.png b/images/atomic wallet.png new file mode 100755 index 0000000..b59099a Binary files /dev/null and b/images/atomic wallet.png differ diff --git a/images/stackoverflow gatekeeps young upstart.png b/images/stackoverflow gatekeeps young upstart.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04655bd Binary files /dev/null and b/images/stackoverflow gatekeeps young upstart.png differ diff --git a/src/script.md b/src/script.md index 431c55e..6bfec8c 100644 --- a/src/script.md +++ b/src/script.md @@ -1,5 +1,3 @@ -[//TODO: the bit about "the platform is the algorithm" kind of shows up unexpectedly at the end. Go backward and point it out, more and more.] - # platform as place [discord message - simulate, from Bat] Why do you hate people on tiktok so much? Is it just portrait-orientation? @@ -21,7 +19,7 @@ I don't know if people still have a feeling of a Home Forum. [note] Somehow I doubt they've brought back the eponymous Links, rofl I won't bore you with mine, but I'll say that even now "NWS" feels right and "NSFW" feels weird. "So what?" you may say. "Cultures emerge, something something diversity etc". -Microcosms of culture are all well and good. But that's not what's happening on modern social media. Every interaction with other people is mediated through an algorithm that sorts you into a group of like-minded people, and shields you from dissent. An account on a website is not membership in a community, it's placement within a market segment. +Microcosms of culture are all well and good. But that's not what's happening on modern social media. Every interaction with other people is mediated through an algorithm (often labeled "AI" for marketing reasons) that sorts you into a group of like-minded people, and shields you from dissent. An account on a website is not membership in a community, it's placement within a market segment. ### slang is [vertically challenged] for [abbreviated] language @@ -204,9 +202,9 @@ I know, arguing "Censorship is Bad, Actually" is an uphill battle, for some reas ### hypothetical - atomic wallet I know lots of people just add "reddit" to every google search they run to hopefully get actual people talking to each other - but I think people forget, -[//TODO: i swear there's like, n-word audit or something?] +[https://www.reddit.com/user/nwordcountbot/] reddit has a proud history of fun and/or useful bots. -[that photo of atomic wallet] +[https://www.reddit.com/r/atomicwallet/comments/apeyp8/is_atomic_wallet_fully_open_source/] The value of getting conversation from reddit is that when someone says something stupid, someone else can tell them they're stupid. Is atomic wallet open source? some braindead marketron says: [alt] yes :) it *uses* open source *components*! @@ -250,6 +248,11 @@ we get an algorithm. built into the platform, serving only economic incentives. [quote from grapes of wrath. chapter 5? about the bank. "it's not me, it's the monster". somewhere around 1:22:50] some of them were cold because they found long ago they could not be an owner unless one were cold. and all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid. But some worshipped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought, from feeling. these men would take no responsibility for the company because they were men and slaves. While the banks were machines and masters. Some of the ownermen were a little proud to be slaves, to such cold and powerful masters. "when the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size. "we have to do it. we don't like to do it, but the monster's sick.. something's happened to the monster." "the bank owned the land then. But we stayed. And we got a little bit of what we raised." "we know that. All that. But it's not us, it's the bank. But the bank isn't like a man. [...] That's the monster." [...] "we're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man." "yes. the bank is only *made of* men." "No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.” "the monster owns it." [...] "the monster isn't men. but it can make men do what it wants." -In 1939, the Grapes of Wrath talked about the bank. our monster is The Algorithm. Like a capricious dark god, its wrath is unpredictable and its favor is unreliable. Its only directive: +In 1939, the Grapes of Wrath talked about the bank. our monster is The Algorithm. +[fade from black on the rotating d13] +Like a capricious dark god, its wrath is unpredictable and its favor is unreliable. +[stop rotating, arm extend from within] +Its only directive: +[have the arm pick up the stack overflow logo, drop it in a pyre in front of the golden calf "shareholder" shrine] sacrifice for the shareholders. diff --git a/videos/20221210 - Monetization will ruin the internet (again) - [-EKF9P8EDS0].en.vtt b/videos/20221210 - Monetization will ruin the internet (again) - [-EKF9P8EDS0].en.vtt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a37b48b --- /dev/null +++ b/videos/20221210 - Monetization will ruin the internet (again) - [-EKF9P8EDS0].en.vtt @@ -0,0 +1,3900 @@ +WEBVTT +Kind: captions +Language: en + +00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:04.350 +Despite the length and effort of this video, +this is not an attempt at creating a magnum + +00:00:04.350 --> 00:00:08.840 +opus. Far from it, it is a cathartic mess +designed to cap off my first year of Youtube + +00:00:08.840 --> 00:00:14.460 +while also indirectly and incompletely chronicling +my experience with platforms, attention economies, + +00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:20.260 +and the desire to be recognized in my works. +It is, largely, an effort of practical explanation + +00:00:20.260 --> 00:00:25.519 +mired in anecdote, to which I provide a smaller +companion, more expressly telling My Youtube + +00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:29.330 +Story and sharing my feelings on the state +of things. + +00:00:29.330 --> 00:00:34.399 +This will be a journey, from a made-up website +to places monetizing creativity to a ridiculous + +00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:38.680 +cryptocurrency project, into the past- and +a glance to the future. + +00:00:38.680 --> 00:00:41.940 +It is, despite this, still an essay with a +thesis: + +00:00:41.940 --> 00:00:46.739 +The monetization of creativity, though a means +of nominally empowering creators, will forever + +00:00:46.739 --> 00:00:51.260 +be intrinsically hostile to creativity, so +long as it is an incentive to + +00:00:51.260 --> 00:00:52.260 +Produce. + +00:00:52.260 --> 00:00:57.010 +We’ll be discussing the twofold path of +monetization: one, the advertisers who are + +00:00:57.010 --> 00:01:02.960 +drawn in, and two, the payout for content +creation and how creation becomes…production. + +00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:06.700 +Some sites have one, some sites have both— +though it’s rare to see the payout without + +00:01:06.700 --> 00:01:12.460 +ads, we do have one example. The focus will, +at first, largely be on that latter part– + +00:01:12.460 --> 00:01:16.260 +payout– demonstrated through a few models +of how sites have implemented payout and the + +00:01:16.260 --> 00:01:18.600 +subsequent cultural ripple. + +00:01:18.600 --> 00:01:22.759 +Sites or apps changing their layout and design +approach can massively impact culture and + +00:01:22.759 --> 00:01:27.689 +we just kind of accept that. Think of Instagram +and the change from being a place where people + +00:01:27.689 --> 00:01:31.960 +once only posted wordless photos to how it’s…basically +tiktok now. + +00:01:31.960 --> 00:01:36.200 +Generally, apps have expanded functionality, +or indeed, chased the market of other successful + +00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:41.690 +apps by adding features meant to turn their +platform into an alternative– again, instagram + +00:01:41.690 --> 00:01:46.409 +(and youtube) trying to be tiktok. +But there’s a lingering question of if people + +00:01:46.409 --> 00:01:52.009 +would even *want* to use instagram or youtube +to…do a tiktok, if creators weren’t directly + +00:01:52.009 --> 00:01:56.829 +incentivized to create there. For a bit on +how those incentives work, there’s a video + +00:01:56.829 --> 00:02:02.020 +by Swell Entertainment which I’ll link below. +Indeed, incentives will be a lingering theme + +00:02:02.020 --> 00:02:03.119 +of this video. + +00:02:03.119 --> 00:02:08.300 +Generally, the point is that things…change, +and one of the biggest sources of change is, + +00:02:08.300 --> 00:02:11.380 +inevitably, monetization and the culture it +brings. + +00:02:11.380 --> 00:02:16.290 +How about we used a made-up example to chart +the general trajectory of online content spaces… + +00:02:17.290 --> 00:02:19.290 +For fun, let’s just make up a site. + +00:02:19.290 --> 00:02:21.879 +We’ll call it… Embler. [apologies if there’s +already a cheap tech startup called this] + +00:02:21.879 --> 00:02:26.739 +Embler is a picture hosting social media site. +On Embler, people are able to post almost + +00:02:26.739 --> 00:02:31.069 +whatever they want provided it doesn’t break +laws. The site was originally intended as + +00:02:31.069 --> 00:02:36.069 +a place to post stunning vistas or cottagecore +home vibes (fe backgrounds). Sure, some users + +00:02:36.069 --> 00:02:40.849 +would post an image of some text but it didn’t +change the vibe much and was usually some + +00:02:40.849 --> 00:02:44.510 +live laugh love type junk. +Eventually comments were enabled and a bit + +00:02:44.510 --> 00:02:50.129 +of conversation started in the comment sections, +treating them like threads, sometimes irrespective + +00:02:50.129 --> 00:02:51.849 +of the actual pic. + +00:02:51.849 --> 00:02:57.020 +After update 1.7, called Binding internally, +the site featured text posts without the image + +00:02:57.020 --> 00:02:58.020 +element. + +00:02:58.020 --> 00:03:01.830 +Shortly after, this became the dominant way +users interacted with the platform, going + +00:03:01.830 --> 00:03:08.020 +from an image posting board to sort of an… +Ur-Forum, and people took to it well enough. + +00:03:08.020 --> 00:03:13.099 +Eventually this change allowed for more interactivity +between users and a degree of…personality + +00:03:13.099 --> 00:03:15.239 +to come out from the formerly wordless space. + +00:03:15.239 --> 00:03:19.830 +With that, people start amassing followers +around their personalities and commentary + +00:03:19.830 --> 00:03:25.129 +more than just how nice their DSLR photos +looked. Sure, some people mourned the vibe + +00:03:25.129 --> 00:03:29.220 +change (Camus) but generally people liked +having a place to post more of themselves, + +00:03:29.220 --> 00:03:33.129 +even if it is angery poetry (Camus mask). +People are largely posting for the sake of + +00:03:33.129 --> 00:03:37.360 +sharing their feelings or communicating with +friends, but some people have started to find + +00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:43.040 +reward in being recognized in an online space, +and really dive into the idea of growing followerbases. + +00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:48.489 +Now by this point, there have been ads on +the site for a while, but it’s not intrusive. + +00:03:48.489 --> 00:03:51.000 +Or, no more intrusive than on other sites. + +00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:55.209 +Eventually, the site gets big and profitable +enough that– to encourage growth of the + +00:03:55.209 --> 00:04:00.900 +platform and “give back”-- Embler starts +a program to pay their largest contributors. + +00:04:00.900 --> 00:04:05.680 +The change is…subtle, at first. People just +post what they always did, and indeed they + +00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:10.560 +don’t meet the threshold for pay anyway. +But big accounts can now make it “their + +00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:15.299 +job” without having to worry about outside +sponsors which were…tolerated at most by + +00:04:15.299 --> 00:04:19.410 +the site administration. +The fact that people *can* make it their job + +00:04:19.410 --> 00:04:25.130 +becomes aspirational, even.That said, not +everyone on the platform jumps at the opportunity + +00:04:25.130 --> 00:04:29.680 +to earn, and the dichotomy of posters and +lurkers is still there. There will always + +00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:33.639 +be lurkers (lowen?). +But eventually the tone of content shifts. + +00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:36.570 +People are now posting things with calls to +action baked in. + +00:04:36.570 --> 00:04:41.060 +Advertisers have made it clear that a nebulous +range of content is unwanted, even when it + +00:04:41.060 --> 00:04:45.960 +doesn’t break site rules. +An entire subculture once only full of aspirant + +00:04:45.960 --> 00:04:50.500 +14 year olds, develops around the question +of “how to get big”. + +00:04:50.500 --> 00:04:54.820 +Content is made with the express purpose of +pretending to hold a definitive answer, the + +00:04:54.820 --> 00:04:59.850 +only true answer, to that question. +In the end, creativity becomes a job option. + +00:04:59.850 --> 00:05:04.440 +For some, it’s incredibly lucrative, for +others, supplemental advertising is part of + +00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:10.139 +their content, and for some there’s external +platforms to help. These factors tether content + +00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:14.300 +to routine, and so begins the phenomena of +monthly content waves. + +00:05:14.300 --> 00:05:19.350 +With the advent of Embler becoming a “job” +comes a marked shift in quality of content, + +00:05:19.350 --> 00:05:23.230 +and with a shift in quality comes a shift +in expectations. + +00:05:23.230 --> 00:05:25.880 +Casual amateurism becomes near derided. + +00:05:25.880 --> 00:05:29.960 +Some big posters are even allowed to bend +rules, so long as advertisers don’t personally + +00:05:29.960 --> 00:05:34.630 +step in or, as the case often becomes, get +goaded into stepping in. + +00:05:34.630 --> 00:05:39.220 +It becomes clear that some people start flooding +the site with content that, by just barely + +00:05:39.220 --> 00:05:44.240 +skirting the line of several rules but breaking +none of them, are producing cash grab content, + +00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:48.570 +farming engagement, things like that. It starts +to become a problem to the point of affecting + +00:05:48.570 --> 00:05:52.889 +the site ecosystem. +The way the site filters content starts changing + +00:05:52.889 --> 00:05:57.660 +under the apparent idea of providing a better +user experience, but to safeguard from bad + +00:05:57.660 --> 00:06:01.620 +actors, the mechanisms of the site are kept +intentionally obtuse to such a degree that + +00:06:01.620 --> 00:06:07.090 +no one person, neither working on the site, +working for the site, or posting on the site, + +00:06:07.090 --> 00:06:11.800 +could explain how it works. +This goes smoothly until eventually some users + +00:06:11.800 --> 00:06:15.960 +start ironically worshiping the mechanism +that filters posts. As with all ironic things + +00:06:15.960 --> 00:06:20.090 +on the internet, given a digital generation, +i.e. the length of one full rotation of an + +00:06:20.090 --> 00:06:24.990 +American High School student body, around +4 years, the irony is lost on the new site + +00:06:24.990 --> 00:06:29.840 +members, and they begin worshiping in earnest. +This turns out to be the way to summon a dead + +00:06:29.840 --> 00:06:35.520 +god named Gargalon or something who proceeds +to vanish as suddenly as he arrived, signaling + +00:06:35.520 --> 00:06:37.400 +the End of Days. + +00:06:37.400 --> 00:06:40.380 +Wait what was the metaphor again? + +00:06:40.380 --> 00:06:41.950 +Okay let’s go with a different approach. + +00:06:41.950 --> 00:06:45.880 +I’m just gonna go through some sites I have +personal experience with and less focus on + +00:06:45.880 --> 00:06:52.180 +how they transformed across years, so much +as how their culture is informed by the monetization. + +00:06:52.180 --> 00:06:54.300 +Less before-and-after, more… case studies. + +00:06:55.600 --> 00:07:00.520 +There’s this site called Medium. It’s +basically youtube for sapiosexuals. It’s + +00:07:00.520 --> 00:07:07.210 +like “oh I don’t watch tv I read” for +the internet. Like a blog. It’s a blog. + +00:07:07.210 --> 00:07:11.490 +Okay, being less facetious, it’s a platform +founded by one of the co-founders of Twitter + +00:07:11.490 --> 00:07:16.849 +Evan Williams–originally intended to be +longer twitter. I suppose, at that time, the + +00:07:16.849 --> 00:07:21.169 +name was conceived to be a declaration of +post length.The design has since pivoted to + +00:07:21.169 --> 00:07:23.890 +Williams’ other area of expertise, blogging. + +00:07:23.890 --> 00:07:28.580 +It is now a place for blogs and air quotes +“journalism” without having to make a + +00:07:28.580 --> 00:07:32.330 +website or understand wordpress. It’s a +hosting platform. + +00:07:32.330 --> 00:07:35.979 +By the nature of how blogs have been monetized +for almost their whole existence, it’s a + +00:07:35.979 --> 00:07:41.010 +little hard to say whether the monetization +of Medium is an innovation or tradition, really, + +00:07:41.010 --> 00:07:46.050 +but there’s a bit of what I’ll call hybridization +going on. The appeal, and how the site markets + +00:07:46.050 --> 00:07:50.270 +itself, is as a place where one can earn from +sharing their thoughts. + +00:07:50.270 --> 00:07:51.830 +This is how its structured: + +00:07:51.830 --> 00:07:55.440 +Medium has a whole host of categories and +a tag system for designating how articles + +00:07:55.440 --> 00:08:00.690 +get sorted by “genre” so far, nothing +special. Now there are two types of articles: + +00:08:00.690 --> 00:08:04.240 +normal and premium, with premium denoting +a paywall. + +00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:08.409 +If one pays for premium membership they can +get past this individually selected paywall + +00:08:08.409 --> 00:08:13.800 +as many times as they want. Without membership, +you get to pass the wall five times a month. + +00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:18.509 +Three enmeshed things make Medium interesting +for our purpose: the ad-free nature, the way + +00:08:18.509 --> 00:08:21.830 +people pay in, and the way people get paid. + +00:08:21.830 --> 00:08:25.400 +But first things first, why does Medium exist? + +00:08:25.400 --> 00:08:29.310 +The history isn’t very long and I won’t +go in that deep. Essentially Williams tried + +00:08:29.310 --> 00:08:33.890 +to make the first idea and it didn’t go +super well, because “twitter but more words” + +00:08:33.890 --> 00:08:38.740 +just means a feed of facebook rants. From +there a pivot was made to article style posts, + +00:08:38.740 --> 00:08:43.729 +ostensibly reinventing the blog space, and +then proudly standing by that reinvention, + +00:08:43.729 --> 00:08:49.260 +with an intended mission to save blogging +from oncoming irrelevance. After that, monetization + +00:08:49.260 --> 00:08:53.760 +for creators in the form of the paywall came +up in around 2017, pivoting the content to + +00:08:53.760 --> 00:08:59.020 +a sort of… each man his own New York Times +op-ed writer, dogshit takes optional. + +00:08:59.020 --> 00:09:04.870 +What needs to be considered is that Medium +exists to pay people. Let me put it this way. + +00:09:04.870 --> 00:09:10.620 +Writers existed before Medium. Youtubers didn’t +exist before Youtube. Yes, people made videos + +00:09:10.620 --> 00:09:15.450 +prior to youtube, but first and foremost the +point of youtube originally was ease of hosting, + +00:09:15.450 --> 00:09:19.870 +which led to a new type of platform. +In part, Medium has that angle too: it is + +00:09:19.870 --> 00:09:24.630 +a platform for articles, no need to learn +how to use Wordpress or make your own website, + +00:09:24.630 --> 00:09:29.230 +SPEAKING OF MAKING YOUR OWN WEBSITE, nobody +sponsors me. but I bet you thought of someone, + +00:09:29.230 --> 00:09:33.540 +because you’re on youtube and I said “making +your own website.” Kinda scary isn’t it. + +00:09:33.540 --> 00:09:37.089 +The new generation of corporate jingles being +etched in your brain. + +00:09:37.089 --> 00:09:41.500 +Uhh. I hope several people didn’t just click +away trying to find where the ad ends, cause + +00:09:41.500 --> 00:09:44.200 +there isn’t one… +Medium’s main value and primary goal is + +00:09:44.200 --> 00:09:48.910 +in being a place where writers can monetize +their content. It is, in effect, democratizing + +00:09:48.910 --> 00:09:54.330 +not access to writing, but access to deploying +a paywall. That paywall is the hybrid element, + +00:09:54.330 --> 00:09:58.779 +taking blogs and merging them with a tactic +borrowed from traditional media outlets, themselves + +00:09:58.779 --> 00:10:01.390 +archaically positioned on the modern internet. + +00:10:01.390 --> 00:10:04.800 +With that in mind, let’s talk about paying +in, and paying out. + +00:10:04.800 --> 00:10:10.329 +Hmm. Okay well the old link to how payout +works and the site premise is gone, and the + +00:10:10.329 --> 00:10:14.779 +new one just says “A portion of your membership +will directly support the writers and thinkers + +00:10:14.779 --> 00:10:20.190 +you read the most” with no elaboration. +From my memory this is how it worked…at + +00:10:20.190 --> 00:10:25.630 +least at some point: For a monthly or upfront +fee, users get to circumvent the paywall. + +00:10:25.630 --> 00:10:30.050 +A portion of the money collected from said +fee is put into a creator fund, kind of like + +00:10:30.050 --> 00:10:34.829 +how shorts work on youtube, if you’re familiar. +Then, the pay is portioned out each month + +00:10:34.829 --> 00:10:40.290 +according to not views, not visits, but how +many likes, called kudos, an article gets + +00:10:40.290 --> 00:10:44.670 +*from paying members* +In effect, this means the free-to-read visitors + +00:10:44.670 --> 00:10:50.620 +using up one of their 5 freebies cannot contribute +to payout in any manner beyond the psychological. + +00:10:50.620 --> 00:10:55.320 +The way it was explained, again to my memory, +was that paying members were essentially assigning + +00:10:55.320 --> 00:11:00.250 +a portion of their pay-in to an article for +every kudos they gave it. It must be noted + +00:11:00.250 --> 00:11:04.720 +here that readers can give up to 50 kudos +to a single article. There is no finite pool + +00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:08.860 +of kudos to give out in a month. They’re +not like casino chips with a static value. + +00:11:08.860 --> 00:11:13.639 +The worth of a kudos is relative to the amount +of them divvied out. This allows for some + +00:11:13.639 --> 00:11:18.180 +manner of granular-satisfaction spending. +In theory, if I have a membership and I give + +00:11:18.180 --> 00:11:23.930 +one article a single kudo and no other articles +any, that article’s writer will get my whole + +00:11:23.930 --> 00:11:28.980 +prize share. If I give one article 50 and +another 50, they’re both splitting it evenly. + +00:11:28.980 --> 00:11:33.420 +If I give 20 articles 50 kudos, the split +is, again, even. + +00:11:33.420 --> 00:11:38.380 +My suspicion is that many medium subscribers +are medium contributors. In one sense, this + +00:11:38.380 --> 00:11:43.120 +makes perfect sense, people who are on the +platform will consume on platform. It’s + +00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:48.389 +a generalized hobby space in the way Youtube +is, but with a narrower reach. As such, the + +00:11:48.389 --> 00:11:53.209 +platform is inhabited proportionally, by a +larger host of consumers who are themselves + +00:11:53.209 --> 00:11:54.670 +creators. + +00:11:54.670 --> 00:11:58.839 +If my suspicion is right, it would go pretty +far towards explaining the nature of content + +00:11:58.839 --> 00:11:59.839 +on the platform: + +00:11:59.839 --> 00:12:04.230 +A culture exists on the site of writing articles– +of course behind the paywall– geared solely + +00:12:04.230 --> 00:12:09.260 +to be advice on how to “make it” on the +platform. As we’ll see later, this is not + +00:12:09.260 --> 00:12:14.570 +an uncommon dynamic. The more generalized +content has its own similar vibe. + +00:12:14.570 --> 00:12:18.899 +In theory, the content of the site could have +taken on any shape, but instead there’s + +00:12:18.899 --> 00:12:24.120 +a looming productivity cult. +It may just be my experience, subscribed as + +00:12:24.120 --> 00:12:29.170 +I was to the tags of “writing” and “freelancing” +among the others that were “non-work interests”, + +00:12:29.170 --> 00:12:33.751 +but the majority of articles put in front +of me were paywalled guides to success. Going + +00:12:33.751 --> 00:12:37.959 +on the site incognito, the suggestions are +still productivity geared. + +00:12:37.959 --> 00:12:42.269 +Here’s another question: when does one decide +to put up the wall? + +00:12:42.269 --> 00:12:45.800 +When people have something important to say, +there’s arguments in either direction for + +00:12:45.800 --> 00:12:50.600 +if they ought paywall it. Shouldn’t people +earn for their time and effort? Say my story + +00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:55.199 +about an important issue everyone should know +about goes viral, shouldn’t I get something + +00:12:55.199 --> 00:13:01.010 +for my trouble? And besides, the paywall has +five free uses a month, it’s not *really* + +00:13:01.010 --> 00:13:03.420 +blocking anyone from seeing my critical information…right? + +00:13:03.420 --> 00:13:08.040 +There’s a lot to be said, and indeed likely +a lot of ink spilled about the effects of + +00:13:08.040 --> 00:13:12.769 +digital journalism colliding with a need to +keep the lights on, or profit. For an example + +00:13:12.769 --> 00:13:16.779 +of this, I merely cite the way some articles +with information pertinent to things like + +00:13:16.779 --> 00:13:22.580 +elections or the global pandemic were paywalled +by big journalism sites. But is that not fair? + +00:13:22.580 --> 00:13:27.770 +Was creating the article not labor? How else +do we cover the cost of producing the article, + +00:13:27.770 --> 00:13:32.720 +of doing the research, of hosting the information? +Well, as some of you might already be aware, + +00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:36.860 +that argument has some holes, biggest of which +being that running a for-profit newspaper, + +00:13:36.860 --> 00:13:41.980 +or even running one at-loss is not always +altruistic. + +00:13:41.980 --> 00:13:47.520 +Medium at certain points has paid famous people +to post on their platform, behind the paywall, + +00:13:47.520 --> 00:13:49.410 +another tactic that will return. + +00:13:49.410 --> 00:13:55.050 +The core reason to be on Medium *is* that +possible paywall, that angle of payout, and + +00:13:55.050 --> 00:14:00.430 +it’s no more altruistic of Medium to “create +the opportunity” than anything the Gig economy + +00:14:00.430 --> 00:14:01.430 +promises. + +00:14:01.430 --> 00:14:06.250 +As far as the cultural impact goes, note that +there is genuine content on Medium, but there’s + +00:14:06.250 --> 00:14:12.180 +also the scars of incentivizing a particular +culture, of clickbait headlines, of churning + +00:14:12.180 --> 00:14:17.940 +out content, of feigned empowerment. The paywall +isn’t a “pay people what their worth!” + +00:14:17.940 --> 00:14:21.140 +initiative, it’s an earnings scheme. + +00:14:21.140 --> 00:14:26.810 +But what if there was a much worse monetization +scheme for writing articles? I mean, sure + +00:14:26.810 --> 00:14:31.170 +it’s a bit hard to imagine, but like… +what if we combined two radically awful ideas, + +00:14:31.170 --> 00:14:36.190 +like say the unusable Fandom wikis but for +regular wikipedia content and cryptocurrency + +00:14:36.190 --> 00:14:39.610 +Web 3.0 decentralization fantasies. + +00:14:39.610 --> 00:14:43.670 +Well we don’t need to imagine, cause it +was real and I was personally involved. + +00:14:44.769 --> 00:14:50.620 +I simply cannot begin to tell you how excited +I am to have an excuse to share this story. + +00:14:50.620 --> 00:14:55.430 +Okay so back in like 2017 I was working in +a bar and a coworker of mine who was a relatively + +00:14:55.430 --> 00:15:00.399 +early adopter of Cryptocurrency—he’d been +at it for years and, again this was 2017– + +00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:06.279 +told me about this new platform that was doing +a writing contest with a cash payout. Kinda. + +00:15:06.279 --> 00:15:12.080 +The platform was planned to be, and explained +to me as “decentralized wikipedia” which…we’ll + +00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:16.910 +come back to shortly. The contest was to write +the first wiki articles for the platform and + +00:15:16.910 --> 00:15:21.820 +the top three articles got a prize, paid in +Ethereum, a then mid-sized competitor to Bitcoin + +00:15:21.820 --> 00:15:25.320 +but not as entrenched in the crypto space +as it is now. + +00:15:25.320 --> 00:15:29.079 +For the curious this isn’t about to become +a cryptocurrency rant, though I probably do + +00:15:29.079 --> 00:15:33.889 +have one in me. It is, however, important +to understand the culture this site was designed + +00:15:33.889 --> 00:15:38.600 +in and around. I’m not gonna go too deep +into that here, and while I would suggest + +00:15:38.600 --> 00:15:43.130 +Dan Olson’s Line Goes Up to get a sense +of it all, the videos is hours long and you’d + +00:15:43.130 --> 00:15:46.829 +forget to come back here. Also chances are +you’ve already seen it. + +00:15:46.829 --> 00:15:51.709 +My friend was very “in” on the idea of +the platform, called Lunyr, and planned to + +00:15:51.709 --> 00:15:56.600 +buy the token— which mind you is like buying +stock in a company, particularly an initial + +00:15:56.600 --> 00:16:02.170 +public offering– not like buying a digital +currency in this case. He fully believed in + +00:16:02.170 --> 00:16:08.589 +this company and their plan. I was…skeptical, +but I mean, maybe there was something to it, + +00:16:08.589 --> 00:16:12.350 +so I sent something in and was part of the +community for a little while. + +00:16:12.350 --> 00:16:16.661 +So what was the plan? +Well, the short version is, as I said, a decentralized + +00:16:16.661 --> 00:16:21.620 +wikipedia. But, wikipedia famously doesn’t +make money unless it’s doing that fun little + +00:16:21.620 --> 00:16:27.399 +guilt trip donation drive at the top. Lunyr +wanted to have ads. In fact, that was a selling + +00:16:27.399 --> 00:16:31.920 +point, because Lunyr itself and investors +weren’t the only ones poised to make money. + +00:16:31.920 --> 00:16:36.940 +They wanted to offer an aggressive meritocratic +earning opportunity with their platform. Articles + +00:16:36.940 --> 00:16:41.060 +would get ad revenue for clicks. And, I know +I’ve implied this already, (or outright + +00:16:41.060 --> 00:16:46.079 +said it) but these articles are meant to be +wikipedia style articles, not recipe blogs + +00:16:46.079 --> 00:16:51.200 +or news articles or whatever. But the idea +is also to write an article that rakes in + +00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:52.610 +views. Hmm. + +00:16:52.610 --> 00:16:56.410 +So the goal becomes writing the best article, +winning the marketplace of ideas, and getting + +00:16:56.410 --> 00:17:00.579 +the most views. There’s a lot wrong with +how this model shakes out and I’m sure some + +00:17:00.579 --> 00:17:06.089 +of it feels immediately apparent. For one, +topics. Writing the article on some obscure + +00:17:06.089 --> 00:17:10.900 +Irish poet from the 18th century might be +a non-competitive space, but it’s also not + +00:17:10.900 --> 00:17:15.050 +likely to get many clicks, the incentive to +write about things that aren’t already common + +00:17:15.050 --> 00:17:19.280 +knowledge isn’t really there. And as for +making sure articles are written well and + +00:17:19.280 --> 00:17:23.589 +not just made up unsourced nonsense, well, +we’ll get more into it later, but for now + +00:17:23.589 --> 00:17:29.380 +just know that there were intended to be self-deputized +subject experts who vetted things. + +00:17:29.380 --> 00:17:33.799 +The incentive to write these things at all +is dependent on pay. That’s the short version. + +00:17:33.799 --> 00:17:38.640 +The monetary incentive made this immediately +an untenable trainwreck. + +00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:41.940 +And people… uhh +Didn’t seem to get what the whole site was + +00:17:41.940 --> 00:17:43.710 +even meant to be. + +00:17:43.710 --> 00:17:47.679 +This really is at least half-tangential but +it’s too funny to not mention. + +00:17:47.679 --> 00:17:53.809 +Wiki-style articles. That’s the intent, +yeah. Easy to understand, even if the “decentralized” + +00:17:53.809 --> 00:17:58.291 +lingo flies over your head, even if the connection +to the blockchain stuff makes no sense, the + +00:17:58.291 --> 00:18:01.270 +“wikipedia” part should still click. + +00:18:01.270 --> 00:18:05.020 +The submissions they got, however, and I know +this from seeing what articles came up on + +00:18:05.020 --> 00:18:10.990 +day one, were more like… bad Medium posts. +One I saw and distinctly remember was “Why + +00:18:10.990 --> 00:18:16.419 +do women date jerks?” which, after “review” +was requested to be reformatted to sound more + +00:18:16.419 --> 00:18:21.250 +like an academic article and renamed itself +to “the jerkboy theory”... + +00:18:21.250 --> 00:18:24.670 +Continuing that trend, lots of the content +on the site was what you might expect from + +00:18:24.670 --> 00:18:29.850 +the culture of the crypto community, even +as far back as 2017. So while that one article + +00:18:29.850 --> 00:18:35.060 +was basically a retooled rant about how “women +only date assholes”, it was hardly alone. + +00:18:35.060 --> 00:18:39.540 +There was another filled with Pick up artist +dating tips. And another one I saw was about + +00:18:39.540 --> 00:18:44.190 +“FEMALE SEXUAL HYPERGAMY” +Almost all the articles I saw were either + +00:18:44.190 --> 00:18:49.470 +slightly veiled redpill interests or literally +about the crypto community itself, like articles + +00:18:49.470 --> 00:18:54.800 +about Etherium or coins or whatever. +This is no longer tangential, because it played + +00:18:54.800 --> 00:18:59.830 +a hefty part in the site’s downfall as well. +The site wanted to replace wikipedia and terrible + +00:18:59.830 --> 00:19:04.080 +business model aside, it presumed it could +farm out all the content generation to users, + +00:19:04.080 --> 00:19:08.430 +and that somehow this would produce a rounded +and totalizing pool of information. + +00:19:08.430 --> 00:19:13.510 +Based on the incentives, on paper, they thought +users would rush to stake writing The Winston + +00:19:13.510 --> 00:19:17.510 +Churchill article, and that, presumably once +the big known topics were covered, people + +00:19:17.510 --> 00:19:22.000 +would go for more obscure ones, trying to +claim more and more “real estate” so to + +00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.490 +speak. +My clever idea in all this was that it would + +00:19:24.490 --> 00:19:29.750 +be very smart to twist articles one writes +to always have an undue amount of hyperlinks + +00:19:29.750 --> 00:19:32.059 +to other articles you made. + +00:19:32.059 --> 00:19:38.280 +So, say you wrote the article on WW1, a HUGE +topic. Not only would this be a popular search, + +00:19:38.280 --> 00:19:43.240 +but it would also provide branches to *tons* +of other topics. So what if you just also + +00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:47.750 +happened to corner all those topics too, rushing +to fill in every possible hyperlink with an + +00:19:47.750 --> 00:19:51.880 +article that you made? +That’s going to shape content. And moderation + +00:19:51.880 --> 00:19:56.760 +was unlikely to target an article for including +superfluous hyperlinks… because…. + +00:19:56.760 --> 00:19:59.400 +Well let’s talk about moderation. + +00:19:59.400 --> 00:20:03.419 +Moderation was also expected to be farmed +out. Or more accurately, it was meant to be + +00:20:03.419 --> 00:20:08.500 +self-evident, done by the community, and in +the community’s own interests to moderate. + +00:20:08.500 --> 00:20:14.361 +Like… some kind of hyper-individuallist +community effort? I dunno, in truth this whole + +00:20:14.361 --> 00:20:18.590 +thing feels like a case study in how ancap +communities cannot function. + +00:20:18.590 --> 00:20:23.040 +In terms of moderating for quality there was +only one approach and it had a simply massive + +00:20:23.040 --> 00:20:26.880 +blindspot. +The quality of articles would be self-correcting + +00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:31.600 +because the best articles would win in the +marketplace of ideas and get the clicks they + +00:20:31.600 --> 00:20:32.600 +deserve. + +00:20:32.600 --> 00:20:34.790 +Okay actually there’s like four blindspots +there… + +00:20:34.790 --> 00:20:39.410 +Let’s run through that one again. “The +Quality of articles would be self correcting + +00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:44.420 +because the best articles would win in the +marketplace of ideas and get the clicks they + +00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:48.420 +deserve.” +Okay, uhh, problem one. I’m not on wikipedia + +00:20:48.420 --> 00:20:53.190 +sorting articles by number of citations or +how compelling the writing is, I’m there + +00:20:53.190 --> 00:20:57.280 +trying to learn what the fuck this band everyone +keeps mentioning is all about. + +00:20:57.280 --> 00:21:02.980 +Two is that they hoped to incentivize touching +up bad articles by “splitting revenue” + +00:21:02.980 --> 00:21:09.059 +from an article based on edits. Now fundamental +to this, on some level is the blockchain element + +00:21:09.059 --> 00:21:12.770 +of it…or allegedly that was part of it. +Because in theory there weren’t supposed + +00:21:12.770 --> 00:21:18.220 +to be edits. Stuff was etched in stone. But +in practice they actually DID do edits to + +00:21:18.220 --> 00:21:23.140 +pages. I guess their idea was that users would +write wholly distinct new better versions + +00:21:23.140 --> 00:21:28.919 +of other articles and replace the old one… +acting as market competition, but for info + +00:21:28.919 --> 00:21:30.840 +on what clouds are. + +00:21:30.840 --> 00:21:35.150 +But that was highly impractical, so it just +opened up to editing like we saw with the + +00:21:35.150 --> 00:21:39.320 +Jerkboy theory one. Sure, the old versions +were somewhere on the blockchain, but that + +00:21:39.320 --> 00:21:44.500 +seems to solve a non-problem. Wikipedia doesn’t +have famous instances of whole articles vanishing + +00:21:44.500 --> 00:21:48.760 +to censorship. Solving this non-problem just +invented another one. + +00:21:48.760 --> 00:21:53.470 +Open seasons was declared on articles for +producing needless edits and then having to + +00:21:53.470 --> 00:21:57.490 +somehow calculate shares of an article’s +ownership. If I write the Winston Churchill + +00:21:57.490 --> 00:22:02.390 +article and it looks like this and someone +comes by and adds to it making it look like + +00:22:02.390 --> 00:22:08.490 +this, do I still get a share? Keen eyed viewers +might notice that I’ve literally copy pasted + +00:22:08.490 --> 00:22:13.220 +wikipedia here, and no, that wasn’t just +to avoid writing a whole fake winston churchill + +00:22:13.220 --> 00:22:17.980 +article, it’s because this was ANOTHER LITERAL +PROBLEM OF THE SITE. + +00:22:17.980 --> 00:22:21.990 +Three. People were copypasting things from +wikipedia. The site runners said they didn’t + +00:22:21.990 --> 00:22:26.679 +like this very much, because they had to pretend +to be better than wikipedia so obviously they + +00:22:26.679 --> 00:22:32.110 +would curate only the most smart boy, powerful, +intellectual, and thorough userbase. This + +00:22:32.110 --> 00:22:36.299 +meant that, far less than the charge of plagiarism, +the concern was that Lunyr’s information + +00:22:36.299 --> 00:22:42.419 +ought to be different somehow. I mean, that’s +in the conceit. Decentralized Wikipedia didn’t + +00:22:42.419 --> 00:22:46.900 +just mean like… wiki on the blockchain. +If anything, the blockchain obsession and + +00:22:46.900 --> 00:22:51.669 +the practical site function were wholly divorced. +It meant something to the effect of “Wikipedia + +00:22:51.669 --> 00:22:56.510 +without meddling from “insert bad thing” +I’d call this Wikipedia for paranoid libertarians, + +00:22:56.510 --> 00:23:00.659 +but Jimmy Wales, the founder of wikipedia +is already a self-professed libertarian, so + +00:23:00.659 --> 00:23:04.659 +I don’t think there was some fear of his +“secret totalizing control” or “political + +00:23:04.659 --> 00:23:08.490 +bias” as motivation for founding Lunyr as +a competitor. + +00:23:08.490 --> 00:23:12.490 +Now, sidestepping the myriad of problems that +presents in terms of authorial intent and + +00:23:12.490 --> 00:23:17.750 +historical accuracy and biases and all that, +it’s still a fundamentally absurd issue + +00:23:17.750 --> 00:23:22.140 +to have. They presumed their userbase would +act in good faith…which you should never + +00:23:22.140 --> 00:23:23.560 +do on the internet. + +00:23:23.560 --> 00:23:27.760 +They presumed that the users would prioritize +the viability of the site and incredibly long + +00:23:27.760 --> 00:23:33.570 +term vision, a deeply long term investment, +instead of embracing the core tenant of crypto– + +00:23:33.570 --> 00:23:38.020 +fast money. The site runners were so blind +to this reality of their userbase that they + +00:23:38.020 --> 00:23:43.460 +were genuinely *mad* that the quality of articles +was as shamelessly low as it was. Eventually, + +00:23:43.460 --> 00:23:48.510 +once the wikipedia copy-paste issue was “handled” +by being made against the rules, people started + +00:23:48.510 --> 00:23:52.710 +just doing that with articles not in English, +because literally nobody on their skeleton + +00:23:52.710 --> 00:23:56.200 +crew staff of 3 dudes living in LA knew another +language. + +00:23:56.200 --> 00:24:01.080 +All this may have you wondering, okay but +what were the actual mechanisms of content + +00:24:01.080 --> 00:24:05.179 +review? What does leaving it to the people/market +mean? + +00:24:05.179 --> 00:24:09.350 +The way things passed inspection was that +someone just looked at it, verified it, and + +00:24:09.350 --> 00:24:14.750 +got a cut of the future proceeds of the article +for being its “quality reviewer.” Now + +00:24:14.750 --> 00:24:19.480 +uhhhhhhhhhh. The level of faith in the community +on display here makes the “communism only + +00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:25.340 +works in an ideal world” thing right wingers +say look like the utmost projection. The creators + +00:24:25.340 --> 00:24:30.250 +of the site left moderation to the community, +with a monetary incentive for sheer volume + +00:24:30.250 --> 00:24:34.840 +of articles okayed, somehow presuming that +people would take the task seriously instead + +00:24:34.840 --> 00:24:40.080 +of, AT BEST clearing articles for the sake +of getting in on an easy revenue stream, or + +00:24:40.080 --> 00:24:45.210 +at worst and most easily manipulable– forming +off-site groups that just circularly approve + +00:24:45.210 --> 00:24:47.890 +each other’s stuff no matter how dogshit +it is. + +00:24:47.890 --> 00:24:50.130 +And so we circle back to language. + +00:24:50.130 --> 00:24:55.460 +Four. Translation. Translations were supposed +to also structure their payout as a pyramid + +00:24:55.460 --> 00:24:59.740 +scheme. The French article on the decline +of a woman’s value as she got older would + +00:24:59.740 --> 00:25:04.500 +have to pay a share of its earnings back to +the original English one. In turn, of course, + +00:25:04.500 --> 00:25:09.059 +this led to people taking the actual articles +that were up, and trying to “stake” foreign + +00:25:09.059 --> 00:25:12.210 +language versions by running them through +google translate. + +00:25:12.210 --> 00:25:15.720 +Who cares if it’s bad? People won’t know +that before they click on it, and it’s not + +00:25:15.720 --> 00:25:19.799 +like entertaining content where people share +it around if it’s good. + +00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:24.070 +Cumulatively, we end up in a situation where +there’s not really recourse to fix that + +00:25:24.070 --> 00:25:31.039 +or do quality control. Say I technically wrote +the first article on Alex Jones in Tagalog + +00:25:31.039 --> 00:25:35.590 +by copy paste translating it. If someone goes +in to fix my article, I still get a share + +00:25:35.590 --> 00:25:41.270 +of whatever their work amounts to, in perpetuity. +This disincentivizes people from ever improving + +00:25:41.270 --> 00:25:46.100 +an article until there is literally nothing +left to stake claims on. This competitive + +00:25:46.100 --> 00:25:51.760 +collaboration was untenable from the start, +the monetization scheme was untenable from + +00:25:51.760 --> 00:25:52.760 +the start. + +00:25:52.760 --> 00:25:57.970 +All that aside, the worst hole in the business +model is the premise itself: Why would I go + +00:25:57.970 --> 00:26:03.440 +to an incomplete website to seek my information, +under the promise that this information is + +00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:08.960 +“decentralized”-- somehow presuming that +1, wikipedia is centralized, which I guess + +00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:14.080 +is code for secretly run by Hillary Clinton +or something, and 2, that a platform with + +00:26:14.080 --> 00:26:18.500 +literal monetary incentives would produce +more objective high quality articles than + +00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:23.970 +a volunteer system. The concept was that it +was “free from censorship” but when pressed, + +00:26:23.970 --> 00:26:28.539 +nobody could name an actual censorious thing +about Wikipedia, and given that the articles + +00:26:28.539 --> 00:26:32.630 +that came out on launch were just like… +bad incel talking points, I can only imagine + +00:26:32.630 --> 00:26:34.909 +what censorship meant to that community. + +00:26:34.909 --> 00:26:38.791 +This whole thing was like watching someone +say “Let the free market decide” without + +00:26:38.791 --> 00:26:43.020 +getting that that’s just an empty platitude, +as the market crowdfunds an initiative to + +00:26:43.020 --> 00:26:46.889 +have Mr Market Decider himself lowered into +a vat of acid. + +00:26:46.889 --> 00:26:50.440 +In the end it was a terrible product with +foolish goals, and a contributor-base who + +00:26:50.440 --> 00:26:55.720 +cared more about monetizing an idea than seeing +that idea flourish… and yet it had enough + +00:26:55.720 --> 00:26:59.660 +of an earnest streak I can’t exactly call +it a grift. + +00:26:59.660 --> 00:27:03.409 +That said it also certainly wasn’t free +of the crypto cult culture, of systematic + +00:27:03.409 --> 00:27:08.620 +aggression towards anyone pointing out a flaw. +A fear of fear poisoned people’s minds. + +00:27:08.620 --> 00:27:13.860 +The term “Fudding” meaning fear, uncertainty, +doubt, was thrown around at any instance of + +00:27:13.860 --> 00:27:18.960 +a perceived critique. Naturally, this abject +W for Free Speech enjoyers was not conducive + +00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:21.210 +to getting problems noticed or fixed. + +00:27:21.210 --> 00:27:25.779 +It’s like the toxic positivity of a video +game hype train, but worse cause people think + +00:27:25.779 --> 00:27:30.100 +it’s gonna make them the next American Billionaire. +I think I said something in the discord one + +00:27:30.100 --> 00:27:34.580 +time about how there was a bug, and got @’d +by like six people over it. + +00:27:34.580 --> 00:27:37.920 +By the time I had remembered the site even +existed and further cashed out what I had + +00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:43.720 +left of whatever paltry amount of their token +I got, they had around 3000 articles up and + +00:27:43.720 --> 00:27:49.270 +the vast vast majority of them suffered from +these aforementioned problems. The company, + +00:27:49.270 --> 00:27:55.110 +which may I remind you was literally three +guys in an office, went dark in 2017-2018 + +00:27:55.110 --> 00:27:59.500 +though I wouldn’t say it was a rugpull. +Lunyr’s failure derived from incompetence + +00:27:59.500 --> 00:28:01.000 +not intent. + +00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:05.740 +In the end, it’s not exactly concrete proof +of where monetization leads, nor is it free + +00:28:05.740 --> 00:28:10.669 +from the…cultivated culture of duplicity, +haste, immediate-gratification, and outright + +00:28:10.669 --> 00:28:15.390 +grifting common to Crypto land. It does, however, +still provide us with an understanding of + +00:28:15.390 --> 00:28:20.240 +how incentives have to meet with the userbase +intent, and without sufficient control over + +00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:25.590 +users in other ways, the whole thing collapses. +Further, it’s a strong example of how these + +00:28:25.590 --> 00:28:32.059 +platforms are reliant on incentivizing communities +to exist and create for them. They needed + +00:28:32.059 --> 00:28:36.680 +the contest not to drum up interest, or as +a marketing ploy, but to literally get their + +00:28:36.680 --> 00:28:41.990 +site populated with articles. I mean, what +were all the losers gonna do? *not* post their + +00:28:41.990 --> 00:28:45.270 +thing right after and try and still score +some cash? + +00:28:45.270 --> 00:28:49.620 +Can we learn anything from the way this site +functioned? The intrinsic model of a crypto + +00:28:49.620 --> 00:28:55.020 +climate warps it a fair bit to being more +about early adoption and revolutionary promises. + +00:28:55.020 --> 00:28:58.710 +So much is predicated on getting in at the +ground floor, that the business model itself + +00:28:58.710 --> 00:29:03.380 +is hardly applicable to other sites. +That said, the climate of crypto is a window + +00:29:03.380 --> 00:29:09.169 +into the logical endpoint of a hyper-monetized +internet. Crypto itself exists with the promise + +00:29:09.169 --> 00:29:15.140 +of monetizing everything. That’s why there’s +projects seeking to like… turn MMO grinds + +00:29:15.140 --> 00:29:21.870 +into earning potential. NFTs, by design are +not only an art theft scam, but also, remarkably, + +00:29:21.870 --> 00:29:28.210 +driven by the idea one can monetize *memes* +something we all take as famously having no + +00:29:28.210 --> 00:29:29.590 +ownership. + +00:29:29.590 --> 00:29:34.230 +To return to a narrower insight: Lunyr is +a case study of how their incentive structures + +00:29:34.230 --> 00:29:39.620 +for generating content– or more correctly +prompting user generated content, seeing as + +00:29:39.620 --> 00:29:44.960 +they didn’t make anything themselves, made +the collapse inevitable irrespective of the + +00:29:44.960 --> 00:29:46.730 +broader crypto ecosystem. + +00:29:46.730 --> 00:29:51.290 +From this, we’re set to look at incentives +more narrowly and we’re going to do so on + +00:29:51.290 --> 00:29:53.770 +a site that literally all of you are acquainted +with. + +00:29:54.970 --> 00:29:59.110 +With youtube, a journey of sorts began for +me, and while I’m sure it’s got as much + +00:29:59.110 --> 00:30:03.560 +passing similarity to the journey of others +as it does moments of disconnect, it is my + +00:30:03.560 --> 00:30:09.630 +window into another intersection of monetization +and a platform, one I had far less of a view + +00:30:09.630 --> 00:30:12.270 +into when I simply consumed on the platform. +When I started out, it was a lonely thing. + +00:30:12.270 --> 00:30:14.049 +There was nobody I could really talk to about +“work” struggles. Even when I found spaces + +00:30:14.049 --> 00:30:19.270 +of creators, it felt more like I was walking +past communities or through their places of + +00:30:19.270 --> 00:30:23.210 +congregation, on a journey alone, rather than +walking with them. + +00:30:23.210 --> 00:30:26.860 +I had to walk that Lonesome valley by myself. + +00:30:26.860 --> 00:30:31.610 +Early on I compiled a list of videos from +various creators seeking to explain the process + +00:30:31.610 --> 00:30:36.669 +a bit, from Thoughtslime’s two or so tutorials +on what to consider when doing youtube, to + +00:30:36.669 --> 00:30:42.250 +the odd Q&As of many creators where people +had asked things about The Process– and + +00:30:42.250 --> 00:30:47.240 +to things less intended for the purpose of +getting people into creation like Big Joel’s + +00:30:47.240 --> 00:30:51.840 +video on small creators– something that +gave me direction, intended or not, on where + +00:30:51.840 --> 00:30:53.269 +to go next. + +00:30:53.269 --> 00:30:59.720 +From there, I gravitated to these “Small +Youtuber” spaces, particularly the discords. + +00:30:59.720 --> 00:31:04.900 +I’m…alright at being present in online +community spaces, so being in discords wasn’t + +00:31:04.900 --> 00:31:10.000 +particularly strange to me. What was strange +was the way it kind of reminded me of Lunyr. + +00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:13.539 +Not in that it was a grift or whatever, and +not that everyone there was just hoping to + +00:31:13.539 --> 00:31:18.169 +make a quick buck…but they were all there +to make *something*. + +00:31:18.169 --> 00:31:20.809 +They wanted to Make It™ + +00:31:20.809 --> 00:31:24.640 +And that came with its own culture– one +I wouldn’t say translates fully to Youtube + +00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:29.809 +the platform, but it presents pretty plainly +many concerns the platform plagues its creators + +00:31:29.809 --> 00:31:32.559 +with. +Brushing aside the army of 14 year old hopefuls + +00:31:32.559 --> 00:31:37.250 +who join to take no critique themselves while +loudly saying the system is broken because + +00:31:37.250 --> 00:31:42.160 +their 2 episode minecraft letsplay has been +uploaded for 19 minutes and hasn’t cleared + +00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:45.799 +a million views…Most people were there to +put in the work in some form. + +00:31:45.799 --> 00:31:50.820 +I don’t think the space ever got competitive +or included bad faith advice as some form + +00:31:50.820 --> 00:31:56.179 +of sabotage, it was uplifting, but it’s +uplifting in a “nobody wants to be here” + +00:31:56.179 --> 00:32:00.559 +kinda way. Less Crab Bucket and more… waiting +to get adopted. + +00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:05.149 +If adoption required like… ample lifehacks +and eye catching cool hair or something. The + +00:32:05.149 --> 00:32:06.480 +metaphor is escaping me. + +00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:11.610 +What I saw there was largely people trying +to workshop things, figure out not just their + +00:32:11.610 --> 00:32:16.690 +craft, but the algorithm. When I later “graduated” +to the “Partnered Youtube” discord, it + +00:32:16.690 --> 00:32:20.660 +felt like all the hustle elements of the culture +were cranked up to 11. Now, there’s nothing + +00:32:20.660 --> 00:32:24.980 +wrong with playing the game, so to speak. +It’s impressive that people are even collaborating + +00:32:24.980 --> 00:32:30.279 +and sharing how to “make it” on some level. +Honestly, I kinda get why people fall for + +00:32:30.279 --> 00:32:34.250 +sigma male grindset stuff. Given the way that +youtubers are basically all entrepreneurs, + +00:32:34.250 --> 00:32:39.890 +you’d think this stuff would be super popular +here. In terms of how one “runs” a youtube, + +00:32:39.890 --> 00:32:44.910 +you have to put in tons of hours before it +becomes “worth your time” financially. + +00:32:44.910 --> 00:32:50.080 +It’s very aspirational. +But it isn’t how I hear most anyone in at + +00:32:50.080 --> 00:32:54.350 +least the parts of youtube I’m on talk about +their channel. It’s something more reserved + +00:32:54.350 --> 00:33:00.100 +for the people who are, I imagine, yearning +to be stars, thus the… yearning discords. + +00:33:00.100 --> 00:33:05.019 +There’s a few reasons for why even with +a *left tube* that is very concerned with + +00:33:05.019 --> 00:33:11.919 +visibility and subsistence, few people fall +into the grindbrain– one of which is gigantic. + +00:33:11.919 --> 00:33:17.250 +Among the smaller reasons is creativity and +expression. Ugh. Imagine that, creativity + +00:33:17.250 --> 00:33:21.639 +is reduced to being a small impediment to +hustle, rather than a counterpoint, so grand + +00:33:21.639 --> 00:33:26.590 +is the large hurdle. The creativity thing +is really easy to explain: People make things + +00:33:26.590 --> 00:33:31.990 +cause they want to make them. That’s always +going to be contrary to monetary incentive, + +00:33:31.990 --> 00:33:36.920 +even when they overlap. Passion pervaded even +in those youtuber spaces, even when people + +00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:41.539 +were also talking about branding or falling +into pits of gamification. + +00:33:41.539 --> 00:33:45.610 +While I was in the Youtube Discords, I almost +felt like all the advice didn’t apply to + +00:33:45.610 --> 00:33:50.409 +me. At the time I debated if I was being stubborn +about style, and sometimes I was, which is + +00:33:50.409 --> 00:33:56.110 +why I can see growth, in retrospect, that +makes me wince, that I didn’t –for example– + +00:33:56.110 --> 00:34:15.649 +notice my audio was bad. But when I look back +at the space I feel like it genuinely was + +00:34:15.649 --> 00:34:20.310 +ill-fitting advice for the side of Youtube +I wanted to end up on. Advice about how the + +00:34:20.310 --> 00:34:25.520 +“first 50 videos are gonna suck” doesn’t +really work for channels at my pace. Advice + +00:34:25.520 --> 00:34:31.079 +about uploading every four days at the exact +same time doesn’t suit longer form content. + +00:34:31.079 --> 00:34:36.210 +People still had outlets for creativity, sure, +but the grind took precedence. The goals were + +00:34:36.210 --> 00:34:39.310 +always reaching numbers, not people. + +00:34:39.310 --> 00:34:42.440 +As a brief aside: +I don’t mean to sound dismissive, necessarily. + +00:34:42.440 --> 00:34:46.490 +Maybe there’s some stuff in there we could +all do to learn. Sometimes I worry we might + +00:34:46.490 --> 00:34:51.099 +over-presume our own suppression and just +stop trying to “play the game” even a + +00:34:51.099 --> 00:34:55.099 +little. Sometimes I worry there are ways we +are out of touch. And perhaps I should only + +00:34:55.099 --> 00:34:59.200 +speak for myself here, but sometimes I worry +that we value integrity more than the platform + +00:34:59.200 --> 00:35:03.320 +allows and aren’t pragmatic with our concessions +in order to reach goals. + +00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:05.369 +But this video can’t be all worry. + +00:35:05.369 --> 00:35:10.431 +Another thing those Youtuber spaces operated +on, beyond grind and an…individualist community + +00:35:10.431 --> 00:35:16.210 +was… some measure of mysticism. +These spaces act as, whether they know it + +00:35:16.210 --> 00:35:20.619 +or not, cults of appeasement +And their Gospel transcends them, to the whole + +00:35:20.619 --> 00:35:24.760 +of the site. +The Algorithm is a capricious god to be flattered. + +00:35:24.760 --> 00:35:32.750 +Guides are made, remade, rituals discussed, +debates formed around the nature of the machine. + +00:35:32.750 --> 00:35:38.710 +Less passion has gone into divining the cosmological +significance of saints than that of the Algorithm’s + +00:35:38.710 --> 00:35:41.580 +nature. +The Algorithm is kept obtuse by Youtube as + +00:35:41.580 --> 00:35:47.160 +a matter of practice, it is in their interest +to avoid the very “gaming” most people + +00:35:47.160 --> 00:35:48.840 +implicitly seek. + +00:35:48.840 --> 00:35:54.130 +And in that logic, that which strives to answer +the algorithm, a transformation occurs whereby + +00:35:54.130 --> 00:35:59.780 +opinions and taste become “best practice” +and a “language” of content creation forms + +00:35:59.780 --> 00:36:07.140 +that is unintelligible to the viewers of said +content. Said language is expressed in “objective + +00:36:07.140 --> 00:36:12.480 +quality notes” for thumbnails. Yes, thumbnails +can be bad or lack readability but there’s + +00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:17.970 +nothing inherent in the human condition to +the memetic prevalence of soyfacing or whatever + +00:36:17.970 --> 00:36:23.369 +the hell people call the gaping mouth feigned +surprise thing. Yes, arrows are something + +00:36:23.369 --> 00:36:27.820 +we’re trained to look at, and then follow +with our eyes, but I don’t actually know + +00:36:27.820 --> 00:36:30.980 +that it makes a video twice as enticing to +see them. + +00:36:30.980 --> 00:36:35.579 +When Hideo Kojima “predicted memes” or +whatever dorks attribute to him as “the + +00:36:35.579 --> 00:36:42.310 +point” of the Gene Meme Scene and MGS2, +he didn’t mean wojaks or cat pics, he meant + +00:36:42.310 --> 00:36:47.630 +the way information is conveyed, the memetic +conditions, stuff like the “language” + +00:36:47.630 --> 00:36:48.630 +of thumbnails. + +00:36:48.630 --> 00:36:55.230 +It’s a product of platform culture, regardless +of it it works or is mocked…or both. Clickbait + +00:36:55.230 --> 00:37:00.630 +is, allegedly discouraged by youtube’s own +rules, but said rules aren't using the colloquial + +00:37:00.630 --> 00:37:07.140 +definition of “kinda cringy predictable +curiosity fishing” They *Want* you to do + +00:37:07.140 --> 00:37:08.140 +that. + +00:37:08.140 --> 00:37:13.140 +No, there’s a slight shift in how they define +rulebreaking clickbait, towards being outright + +00:37:13.140 --> 00:37:18.349 +deceptive, something where the content inside +doesn’t match up. But how is that determined, + +00:37:18.349 --> 00:37:22.630 +exactly? If Matthew Patthew doesn’t make +a shocked face in his A-reel, poggin it out + +00:37:22.630 --> 00:37:27.540 +big mood, is it clickbait? What about tiddy +thumbnails? I don’t think there’s any + +00:37:27.540 --> 00:37:32.370 +more quantitative evidence that tiddy thumbnails +lead to people clicking off from a video midway + +00:37:32.370 --> 00:37:37.250 +than your average thumbnail. I don’t imagine +people feel betrayed that there wasn’t bouncy + +00:37:37.250 --> 00:37:42.080 +bazonga content in the video titled “This +GUY SOLD THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE TWICE” + +00:37:42.080 --> 00:37:43.810 +Bait might just work. + +00:37:43.810 --> 00:37:47.450 +But I would be skeptical of anyone who claimed +to know for certain or that they could prove + +00:37:47.450 --> 00:37:48.450 +it. + +00:37:48.450 --> 00:37:53.260 +A lack of access to algorithmic knowledge +is supplanted with what is, essentially folk + +00:37:53.260 --> 00:37:59.210 +practice backed up by loose science. We don’t +know the line between superstition and feature. + +00:37:59.210 --> 00:38:03.880 +An example you might see on twitter is posting +the link to a video in the replies, not the + +00:38:03.880 --> 00:38:08.750 +original tweet, because something something +links are suppressed. These folk practices + +00:38:08.750 --> 00:38:13.920 +are sometimes localized to one community, +and sometimes the product of… self-deputized + +00:38:13.920 --> 00:38:17.849 +experts whose claim to expertise is a subscriber +count. + +00:38:17.849 --> 00:38:24.120 +A while ago noted Elon Musk reply guy Mr Beast +gave the advice of making 100 videos before + +00:38:24.120 --> 00:38:29.859 +being a success. Beyond being a comical example +of falling for a survivorship bias paradigm + +00:38:29.859 --> 00:38:35.010 +to ask the big youtubers how to get big when +the real answer is “who knows” there’s + +00:38:35.010 --> 00:38:39.950 +something very funny to how his imprecise +wording led to some guy, or…probably a middle + +00:38:39.950 --> 00:38:46.260 +schooler, really, in the youtube discord creating +100 videos in an attempt to follow that advice. + +00:38:46.260 --> 00:38:50.900 +The Kicker here is that many of the people +a step down in the “qualified to give advice” + +00:38:50.900 --> 00:38:55.720 +sphere are falling for that same bias. Where +Mr Beast himself is just presuming he skilled + +00:38:55.720 --> 00:39:01.480 +his way to the top, the people looking to +him as a case study have a different blindness. + +00:39:01.480 --> 00:39:06.270 +The Beast Observers, as I’ll call them, +look at large channels, huge ones, and analyze + +00:39:06.270 --> 00:39:11.420 +relative success compared to eachother as +though that data is unquestionably transferable. + +00:39:11.420 --> 00:39:16.210 +“This thumbnail with the pog face got a +million more views than this video doing uhh…ahh + +00:39:16.210 --> 00:39:21.260 +the home alone face –so better keep poggin” +“this title doesn’t have nouns and it + +00:39:21.260 --> 00:39:25.859 +did better so we can see that nouns are out” +–these methods of analysis are woefully + +00:39:25.859 --> 00:39:31.660 +incurious focusing on current success patterns +rather than the *rise* to that level. They + +00:39:31.660 --> 00:39:35.410 +make economists look like what economists +think they are. + +00:39:35.410 --> 00:39:39.520 +These “analyses” from looking at huge +channels to understand success presume and + +00:39:39.520 --> 00:39:45.050 +ignore too much to be objective. They presume +an objective path at all. First and foremost + +00:39:45.050 --> 00:39:50.890 +on my list of massive blindspots is the unquestioned +assumption in the analysis that from subscriber + +00:39:50.890 --> 00:39:55.130 +1 to subscriber 1 million the journey has +the same rules barring an exception we’ll + +00:39:55.130 --> 00:39:56.130 +get to. + +00:39:56.130 --> 00:39:59.410 +In presenting the “data” how they often +do, there’s a presumption that Mr Beast + +00:39:59.410 --> 00:40:04.810 +is earning the attention of 111 million views +from scratch each time, that any and everyone + +00:40:04.810 --> 00:40:10.630 +could be enticed by the ultimate juicy thumbnail. +There is, at once, an urge to understand youtube + +00:40:10.630 --> 00:40:14.380 +as a predictable machine, despite YouTube +itself having a vested interest in that not + +00:40:14.380 --> 00:40:19.080 +being the case– and an urge to pretend everyone +can “make it” with the right tactics. + +00:40:19.080 --> 00:40:24.000 +And while not as stark a zero sum game as +Crypto, that cannot be true. Not only because + +00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:30.230 +creativity and ideas will always retain a +portion of value, but also because Time –even + +00:40:30.230 --> 00:40:36.040 +shared across 2.1 billion people– is finite. +The Attention Economy is very real. + +00:40:36.040 --> 00:40:39.490 +And that’s saying nothing about taste or +preference or language. It’s like pyramid + +00:40:39.490 --> 00:40:44.190 +scheme exponential growth presumptions all +over again. There is no way to entice the + +00:40:44.190 --> 00:40:48.410 +whole of the platform. Not every single person +is a potential subscriber. + +00:40:48.410 --> 00:40:52.380 +Now, that’s not to disparage the actual +success of these deputies. Some of their efforts + +00:40:52.380 --> 00:40:57.190 +may have been naive, but their results were +very real, subscriber count in at least the + +00:40:57.190 --> 00:40:58.900 +tens of thousands. + +00:40:58.900 --> 00:41:03.280 +But the individual practices and beliefs were +not what caught my attention the most in the + +00:41:03.280 --> 00:41:07.720 +end. The striking part, the thing that formed +the Lonesome Valley, for me, was that these + +00:41:07.720 --> 00:41:11.300 +were communities built around wanting to exit +said community. + +00:41:11.300 --> 00:41:15.520 +It was a space designed where everyone in +it wanted to leave as soon as they could, + +00:41:15.520 --> 00:41:20.440 +seeking self-reliance and independence, to +have their own communities later. It’s another + +00:41:20.440 --> 00:41:25.069 +“communal” space with individualist aims. +Sure, people could network, but I don’t + +00:41:25.069 --> 00:41:29.619 +know how much that actually happened. One +channel I discovered from the starter space + +00:41:29.619 --> 00:41:32.819 +is Shea’s Violin who I’m shoehorning in +here with the hopes some of you will check + +00:41:32.819 --> 00:41:38.480 +out her channel. Supporting others, community, +is something Youtube does the least to encourage. + +00:41:38.480 --> 00:41:42.780 +It’s something WE fail to encourage half +the time, even though it’s important and + +00:41:42.780 --> 00:41:46.330 +effective. +That’s, I suspect, an implicit element of + +00:41:46.330 --> 00:41:51.720 +collaboration in the space– that people +collaborate in order to have an “excuse” + +00:41:51.720 --> 00:41:55.710 +to share each-other. I don’t know if that +marks me as paranoid, or if I’m right, but + +00:41:55.710 --> 00:41:59.790 +I really do get the sense that there’s some +part of it all that’s about having an excuse + +00:41:59.790 --> 00:42:04.690 +to mention another creator, not as payment +for the service of working together, but to + +00:42:04.690 --> 00:42:10.990 +work together as a justification for citation, +for name-dropping, for vouching. Building + +00:42:10.990 --> 00:42:15.569 +eachother up is the main tool we have to weaken +the hold the algorithm has. + +00:42:15.569 --> 00:42:20.960 +In fact, there’s also a small collective +trying to Kill God right now, called F the + +00:42:20.960 --> 00:42:22.109 +Algorithm. + +00:42:22.109 --> 00:42:26.790 +Now you may ask yourself if it’s relevant +that I may have been featured on FtA as their + +00:42:26.790 --> 00:42:29.470 +monthly nepotism pick once, welllll. + +00:42:29.470 --> 00:42:34.900 +Really–and I do mean this–the reason I +bring them up is to point at how there is + +00:42:34.900 --> 00:42:40.380 +concrete organization to circumvent the algorithm +through community support, rather than bow + +00:42:40.380 --> 00:42:46.230 +to and be subsumed by its vagaries or sliding +back down into a forced sense of individualism, + +00:42:46.230 --> 00:42:48.230 +back into the Lonesome Valley. + +00:42:48.230 --> 00:42:53.470 +The reason I bring up these Youtuber spaces +and their counterpoint in F the algorithm, + +00:42:53.470 --> 00:42:58.119 +despite not being platforms themselves, is +that they demonstrate how Youtube’s monetization + +00:42:58.119 --> 00:43:03.660 +culture ripples out, how it affects people +even at the most entry of levels, creates + +00:43:03.660 --> 00:43:08.000 +“languages” of creativity, or…moreso, +production. + +00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:14.870 +The creativity itself is a casualty to trying +to be “picked up.” Uniformity begets best + +00:43:14.870 --> 00:43:21.770 +practice, best practice begets uniformity, +so unto us all. In the language of youtube + +00:43:21.770 --> 00:43:27.100 +an Objectively Good thumbnail can exist. “Objectively +Good Practices” exist. + +00:43:27.100 --> 00:43:31.930 +Hell, while making this video I legitimately +debated excising the entire Lunyr section + +00:43:31.930 --> 00:43:36.559 +so I could market it as its own standalone +video, one that could more easily be attached + +00:43:36.559 --> 00:43:40.760 +to discussions of crypto cringe, more easily +offered as some manner of companion piece + +00:43:40.760 --> 00:43:42.380 +to Line Goes Up. + +00:43:42.380 --> 00:43:46.420 +Alternative to making it a punchy standalone +bit, I would feel disingenuous making it the + +00:43:46.420 --> 00:43:51.619 +center feature of the title or thumbnail for +*this* video. In turn, people won’t know + +00:43:51.619 --> 00:43:56.660 +to come to this video for a juicy crypto L. +I’ve had to, in that, consider the integrity + +00:43:56.660 --> 00:44:02.670 +of making an exploration of monetization culture +in one “succinct” video, or tearing out + +00:44:02.670 --> 00:44:08.590 +a chunk to use as bait on its own. That itself +is the impact of monetization culture. + +00:44:08.590 --> 00:44:14.339 +In that same vein I debated the near hyperbolic +positions of finding it either supremely tasteless + +00:44:14.339 --> 00:44:18.800 +or entirely to my point to mention patreon +in this video. + +00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:22.940 +While I recognize having an algorithm and +monetization culture itself are nominally + +00:44:22.940 --> 00:44:28.099 +distinct and that all sites have algorithms +(despite what some people think) we don’t + +00:44:28.099 --> 00:44:32.460 +see the same fretting over algorithmic impact +on other sites unless there’s a flare up + +00:44:32.460 --> 00:44:37.690 +in consciousness about the presence of an +algorithmic bias, like Facebook or Tiktok + +00:44:37.690 --> 00:44:42.740 +boosting fringe ideologies. +There’s a reason “Youtube and The Algorithm” + +00:44:42.740 --> 00:44:48.500 +is a truly endless discussion, rivaling theology. + +00:44:50.640 --> 00:44:51.640 +I’m so F*cking stressed out from running +my Pet Lizard’s Instagram account, I’m + +00:44:51.640 --> 00:44:52.640 +about to have A Nervous Breakdown. +I told my therapist… + +00:44:52.640 --> 00:44:56.570 +She said “well take a break from your pet +lizard’s instagram account” + +00:44:56.570 --> 00:45:05.770 +I said “I can’t! It’s my sole source +of income!” + +00:45:05.770 --> 00:45:07.810 +[smoking intensifies] + +00:45:07.810 --> 00:45:11.910 +When I started doing youtube a year ago, I +didn’t really have a sense of how to compare + +00:45:11.910 --> 00:45:17.119 +my experience to others, to get my bearings +on when I was doing something right or wrong, + +00:45:17.119 --> 00:45:23.359 +to find feedback. I craved it, particularly, +because I knew on some level platform success + +00:45:23.359 --> 00:45:30.160 +was not correlated to quality. There was an +algorithm in the way of meritocracy. Nevertheless, + +00:45:30.160 --> 00:45:36.280 +I still held, and indeed may never relinquish, +that sense of a looming… Question of Merit. + +00:45:36.280 --> 00:45:40.109 +At the end of the day, I don’t know how +anyone who makes content on a platform like + +00:45:40.109 --> 00:45:46.130 +this could even believe in meritocracy. I’m +not exactly pulling from a huge sample size, + +00:45:46.130 --> 00:45:50.530 +mind you, but just from my own work since +I’ve started, it’s been incredibly obvious + +00:45:50.530 --> 00:45:55.990 +that Youtube has complete control over my +success on the platform. You may say that’s + +00:45:55.990 --> 00:46:00.890 +hyperbolic. And maybe it is, but here’s +my perspective on the matter: In a space where + +00:46:00.890 --> 00:46:06.570 +total appeal, that is, appeal to every single +potential viewer is not my goal, all I can + +00:46:06.570 --> 00:46:11.960 +do, as a creator, is try to present myself +in ways that either I find appealing, or I + +00:46:11.960 --> 00:46:17.051 +assume will appeal to an audience. +Those aren’t entirely the same thing, and + +00:46:17.051 --> 00:46:21.630 +there’s a question raised about displaying +one’s own taste in personality vs appealing + +00:46:21.630 --> 00:46:27.980 +to people and being a “character” but +that’s a huge branching topic all its own. + +00:46:27.980 --> 00:46:32.790 +Mirroring that is another branch into what +living under an algorithm is even like, and + +00:46:32.790 --> 00:46:37.441 +how a subculture of snake oil seminars has +formed in that ecosystem, but I’ll leave + +00:46:37.441 --> 00:46:42.140 +that exploration to Super Eyepatch Wolf’s +video linked below. There’s little I could + +00:46:42.140 --> 00:46:46.690 +add to that conversation beyond the glimpse +at the creator discords I already gave. + +00:46:46.690 --> 00:46:52.770 +For now I want to center on a different element, +the reason for the Algorithm: Audience. + +00:46:52.770 --> 00:46:57.539 +The audience we’re appealing to is and isn’t +people. Of course, youtube’s algorithm, + +00:46:57.539 --> 00:47:01.640 +from what we know, really only cares about +marketability and watch time. It promotes + +00:47:01.640 --> 00:47:05.950 +people who keep people on the platform for +as long as possible, in range of their ads + +00:47:05.950 --> 00:47:10.900 +for as long as possible. But there’s something +of a tension there. Quality is measured by + +00:47:10.900 --> 00:47:16.300 +quantity. It’s a framework of: “Let the +free market of the attention economy decide” + +00:47:16.300 --> 00:47:21.079 +rather than the marketplace of ideas. There’s +a lot of implicit assumptions about the value + +00:47:21.079 --> 00:47:26.369 +of a video in the valuing of watch time. +While it would be easy, nay, expected for + +00:47:26.369 --> 00:47:31.520 +me to say this is all bad, this is ultimately +the quirk that has led to the relative success + +00:47:31.520 --> 00:47:36.431 +of the Video Essay Genre in a world of tiks +and toks. And credit where it’s due, the + +00:47:36.431 --> 00:47:40.849 +reason I keep to this medium, both in terms +of consumption and production are because + +00:47:40.849 --> 00:47:47.100 +it is *the best* way to find and be part of +thoughtful, topical, and radical conversations. + +00:47:47.100 --> 00:47:50.740 +Imagine telling literally anyone in the year +2000 that there would be a video hosting site + +00:47:50.740 --> 00:47:55.119 +where people make a living not just giving +quirky skit-laden rants about “[popular + +00:47:55.119 --> 00:48:00.180 +thing]” but in-depth analysis of global +economic conditions. Imagine telling someone + +00:48:00.180 --> 00:48:05.550 +that even in Early Youtube days. You’d sound +more out of touch than early Lunyr adopters, + +00:48:05.550 --> 00:48:07.880 +except for the whole part about being wrong. + +00:48:07.880 --> 00:48:12.760 +But remember. Just as Quality is measured +by Quantity here, viability is measured by + +00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:17.550 +someone…or something, that doesn’t even +watch the videos. + +00:48:17.550 --> 00:48:21.830 +James Stephanie Sterling of The Jimquisition +has– I promise I’m going somewhere with + +00:48:21.830 --> 00:48:27.420 +this–, in the past, raised the point that +game players are not consumers so much as + +00:48:27.420 --> 00:48:32.720 +cattle when it comes to how very large publishers +work their business models. The customers + +00:48:32.720 --> 00:48:37.780 +are shareholders who are, in turn, catered +to with large presentations not showcasing + +00:48:37.780 --> 00:48:43.339 +new and exciting games, but revenue streams +and monetization models. That’s why despite + +00:48:43.339 --> 00:48:48.210 +being remarkably unpopular, something very +few people really wanted in the games they + +00:48:48.210 --> 00:48:53.710 +played, NFTs sort of manifested in a manufactured +consent kind of way and were just offered + +00:48:53.710 --> 00:48:58.960 +as inevitable exciting upcoming features, +with the guise that players had demanded them. + +00:48:58.960 --> 00:49:03.859 +It was a new revenue stream, and it indeed +had been demanded by customers, but those + +00:49:03.859 --> 00:49:06.150 +customers weren’t the players. + +00:49:06.150 --> 00:49:12.869 +And so unto Youtube and platforms like it. +Advertisers are the customers, buying ad space. + +00:49:12.869 --> 00:49:18.750 +Creators aren’t creating content, as far +as youtube cares, they’re creating ad space. + +00:49:18.750 --> 00:49:24.510 +Content consumers, in turn, are less customers +to be appealed to as they are the responsibility + +00:49:24.510 --> 00:49:31.500 +of a creator to cultivate. I am but a free-range +cow growing its own grass. There’s not even + +00:49:31.500 --> 00:49:34.270 +an effective illusion of hierarchy here.. + +00:49:34.270 --> 00:49:38.240 +And, mind you, youtube doesn’t pay creators, +technically. + +00:49:38.240 --> 00:49:42.059 +Let’s compare this model to two typical +service style jobs in the US: + +00:49:42.059 --> 00:49:47.220 +A cafe job works like this: a worker puts +together x drinks an hour each worth some + +00:49:47.220 --> 00:49:51.940 +small cost in materials and sells them. Profit +for the business comes from the difference + +00:49:51.940 --> 00:49:56.869 +between the income represented by how much +the drink sells for and expense in the form + +00:49:56.869 --> 00:50:02.099 +of materials and labor cost. Basic stuff. +A bartender is the same thing, except we have + +00:50:02.099 --> 00:50:07.329 +to change the model for expense. There’s +no labor cost. In a sense, because the bartender + +00:50:07.329 --> 00:50:11.390 +earns from the goodwill of patrons through +tips alone, as a worker, they are, from a + +00:50:11.390 --> 00:50:16.140 +twisted perspective, renting the bar and its +stock from the owner in order to put on a + +00:50:16.140 --> 00:50:21.680 +show of work. The cost of doing their work +is simply everything they made from drinks. + +00:50:21.680 --> 00:50:26.490 +They may not bring their own tools. +Youtube is somewhere between this. It both + +00:50:26.490 --> 00:50:32.040 +seeks the charity of patrons, and gives a +cut of ads. We effectively rent the platform + +00:50:32.040 --> 00:50:36.700 +by paying half our earnings. In that way, +pay is based on performance without pretending + +00:50:36.700 --> 00:50:41.590 +to be a commission model. You’re paid what +you “earn” in that you are not paid if + +00:50:41.590 --> 00:50:46.980 +you earn them nothing. But at least you owe +no rent for the space. + +00:50:46.980 --> 00:50:50.910 +Now imagine if a bartender’s boss, instead +of just scheduling for good or bad shifts, + +00:50:50.910 --> 00:50:56.420 +had a lever they could pull to invite people +to the bar and more or less invent a “good/busy” + +00:50:56.420 --> 00:51:01.710 +night whenever. Now imagine the bartender +never knows when it’s gonna happen, if ever, + +00:51:01.710 --> 00:51:06.700 +and granted, no promises are made, but there’s +always the idea. Instead of the normal system + +00:51:06.700 --> 00:51:12.150 +of taking a slow tuesday to earn a good friday, +we are constantly working Sunday, with no + +00:51:12.150 --> 00:51:14.230 +idea if the crowd is coming. + +00:51:14.230 --> 00:51:19.089 +And it doesn’t seem to be based on quality +of work, expediency, contentedness of guests, + +00:51:19.089 --> 00:51:23.890 +just quantity of drinks drunk. But there’s +hints everywhere that maybe the lever gets + +00:51:23.890 --> 00:51:27.470 +pulled based on what outfit the bartender +wears and what drink they’ve got listed + +00:51:27.470 --> 00:51:30.480 +on their sandwich board outside. +More than anything, there’s a pervading + +00:51:30.480 --> 00:51:34.390 +mood that the boss might hate your music taste +and just hasn’t told you yet, even though + +00:51:34.390 --> 00:51:38.020 +you still use the default bar playlist and +radio safe edits. + +00:51:38.020 --> 00:51:39.099 +That’s youtube. + +00:51:39.099 --> 00:51:42.930 +To anyone who has spent more than one angry +headline pondering what censorship truly is + +00:51:42.930 --> 00:51:46.451 +in the corporate age, it is no surprise that +the dictates of content are not the First + +00:51:46.451 --> 00:51:50.290 +Amendment or “cancel culture” or anything +beanie boy would decry, they’re…corporations. + +00:51:50.290 --> 00:51:55.540 +I almost want to go on a whole tangent about +the massive sides of the human experience + +00:51:55.540 --> 00:52:00.210 +that are left out of discussion on platforms +because of this angle, but I don’t want + +00:52:00.210 --> 00:52:04.059 +to risk demonetizing this video that’s also +already approaching an untenable length. For + +00:52:04.059 --> 00:52:08.450 +just a singular example, look at what creators +like Evie Lupine have to go through to talk + +00:52:08.450 --> 00:52:12.670 +about their content, the hoops being jumped +through, and the eternal feeling of being + +00:52:12.670 --> 00:52:17.420 +“unsafe” from it all suddenly vanishing, +of getting hit by the ban bat that’s so + +00:52:17.420 --> 00:52:21.190 +inconsistent and malleable it might as well +be a pool noodle. + +00:52:21.190 --> 00:52:26.680 +Much, very much has been said on this topic +before. It exemplifies the negative current, + +00:52:26.680 --> 00:52:31.420 +an impact of monetization culture, just as +much as bait content, just as much as memetic + +00:52:31.420 --> 00:52:36.160 +language. The key takeaway from a space like +YouTube is that its monetization, the way + +00:52:36.160 --> 00:52:42.020 +it has the potential to be a job has shifted +the incentives for making content. To Corporate + +00:52:42.020 --> 00:52:46.299 +Youtube, the ideal would be that nobody even +looks at or thinks about their analytics, + +00:52:46.299 --> 00:52:51.710 +“just, just create some things, make stuff, +fill the space,” that’s their ideal. We + +00:52:51.710 --> 00:52:56.060 +shouldn’t even think of the fact the algorithm +is there, just let it do its magic + +00:52:56.060 --> 00:53:01.530 +Instead, they’ve created a space where entire +channels find success in trying to talk people + +00:53:01.530 --> 00:53:03.390 +through navigating the algorithm. + +00:53:03.390 --> 00:53:08.059 +There’s a paradox to those channels too, +which I only note here because I love a good + +00:53:08.059 --> 00:53:10.940 +paradox. +Say my channel is expressly dedicated to teaching + +00:53:10.940 --> 00:53:16.499 +people about the algorithm. Subscribe for +more hot tips like these! Okay, now, the audience + +00:53:16.499 --> 00:53:21.420 +is only going to be youtube hopefuls. But +how does one get that ball rolling? Who would + +00:53:21.420 --> 00:53:25.670 +listen to some guy claiming to have Cracked +the Code™ on the algorithm, who himself + +00:53:25.670 --> 00:53:31.650 +only has like…300 subscribers, you know? +They don’t *make* content that looks remotely + +00:53:31.650 --> 00:53:37.220 +similar to what any aspirants come to them +for. They aren’t like you or any of the + +00:53:37.220 --> 00:53:42.359 +hopefuls. Using themselves as an example of +what to do is absurd, because their audience + +00:53:42.359 --> 00:53:47.579 +is remarkably desperate, by design. I don’t +say this to knock them, but to simply call + +00:53:47.579 --> 00:53:50.710 +attention to the way authority for these claims +works. + +00:53:50.710 --> 00:53:54.559 +I watched a few hours of content from these +kinds of channels to shore up my thoughts + +00:53:54.559 --> 00:53:59.050 +for this section and it wasn’t very worth +it, at least for the sake of this video’s + +00:53:59.050 --> 00:54:03.261 +content. In terms of the advice they had, +I learned what I’ve always known, which + +00:54:03.261 --> 00:54:08.000 +is that youtube is unsuited for “rapid pivots” +as I appear to do on my channel, and that + +00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:14.180 +youtube deeply prioritizes growing within +niches over reaching into many niches. Which + +00:54:14.180 --> 00:54:19.809 +makes sense. The reason larger channels, even +in LeftTube Land can do pivots is because + +00:54:19.809 --> 00:54:23.840 +with their personality in effect becoming +their own niche they are, effectively, too + +00:54:23.840 --> 00:54:27.130 +big to fail. +By every tip and bit of advice they give, + +00:54:27.130 --> 00:54:32.220 +Hbomberguy should be an abject failure channel, +and yet he’s managed to “crack the code” + +00:54:32.220 --> 00:54:37.000 +in an entirely different direction. It’s +the kind of thing they, in salvaging authority, + +00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:41.750 +would incredulously laugh off as “It shouldn’t +work but it does” like a poker player who + +00:54:41.750 --> 00:54:43.109 +failed to call a bluff. + +00:54:43.109 --> 00:54:48.680 +Regarding the content of the gurus: +The advice is usually genuine, sometimes sound, + +00:54:48.680 --> 00:54:52.760 +and always more subjective than they can admit. +One added feature of it all is that they often + +00:54:52.760 --> 00:54:58.130 +want to play up how much youtube is “constantly +evolving” so that they can remake old guides. + +00:54:58.130 --> 00:54:59.319 +It’s a business. + +00:54:59.319 --> 00:55:03.960 +They’re a monetized channel that makes its +money in ways that I can seldom call outright + +00:55:03.960 --> 00:55:07.809 +predatory, despite its intrinsically desperate +audience. Some of these channels are also + +00:55:07.809 --> 00:55:12.170 +the only place I’ve seen discussions of +what I can only call…content creator self + +00:55:12.170 --> 00:55:17.201 +care? Things like reminders of one’s own +worth, that this is a job, that it’s not + +00:55:17.201 --> 00:55:23.410 +a reflection of self worth, that Youtube hasn’t +exactly done you any favors. It’s almost…radical + +00:55:23.410 --> 00:55:27.069 +to see that in spaces so dedicated to grind. + +00:55:27.069 --> 00:55:32.490 +My point is that there is a, perhaps unexpected, +kindness in these guide spaces sometimes, + +00:55:32.490 --> 00:55:38.160 +it’s not raw grift. But that gets washed +out by where the brunt of content positions + +00:55:38.160 --> 00:55:39.160 +itself. + +00:55:39.160 --> 00:55:44.380 +The odd but entirely predictable prevalence +of videos claiming to be a guide to the…exact + +00:55:44.380 --> 00:55:49.589 +minimum requirements for monetization paints +its own picture. This stuff is exclusively + +00:55:49.589 --> 00:55:54.910 +a product of the monetization culture. Without +the culture, yes, people would still desire + +00:55:54.910 --> 00:56:00.750 +to be viewed, but I think folk practice would +outstrip guides. This stuff is pure business. + +00:56:00.750 --> 00:56:05.460 +It’s mysticism. It’s content that would +be entirely meaningless without other youtubers + +00:56:05.460 --> 00:56:11.230 +and self-imagined “soon-to-be” youtubers +to consume it. It’s bait and confidence, + +00:56:11.230 --> 00:56:13.430 +but that’s business. + +00:56:13.430 --> 00:56:17.349 +Looking back at it all, I want to say “Oh +Brave New World” to this whole monetized + +00:56:17.349 --> 00:56:22.520 +platform thing, this world of creativity being +a job, but the truth is… our expression + +00:56:22.520 --> 00:56:26.430 +has always been for sale. + +00:56:26.430 --> 00:56:30.450 +The monetization of content has always kind +of been there, but in a more implicit and + +00:56:30.450 --> 00:56:34.359 +insidious way. Don’t worry this isn’t +about to pivot into some lecture about the + +00:56:34.359 --> 00:56:38.540 +patronage of Early Modern painters or something. +Also, before this point I’ve contained the + +00:56:38.540 --> 00:56:45.410 +conversation to sites focused on…well, “creators” +figures intended to be the key content generators. + +00:56:45.410 --> 00:56:51.010 +But I want to expand our perception of what +“content” is and, in turn, who does “content + +00:56:51.010 --> 00:56:52.010 +generation.” + +00:56:52.010 --> 00:56:55.780 +We’re sticking to the internet, and going +back to 1994. + +00:56:55.780 --> 00:57:00.040 +Note that there is a lot going on in this +essay to come, and I won’t unpack even most + +00:57:00.040 --> 00:57:05.349 +of it. I look to it here, for our purposes +as a cultural artifact, one that illuminates + +00:57:05.349 --> 00:57:08.539 +how innate these issues are to the internet. +_______________________________________ + +00:57:08.539 --> 00:57:14.211 +it is fashionable to suggest that cyberspace +is some kind of island of the blessed where + +00:57:14.211 --> 00:57:17.900 +people are free to indulge and express their +Individuality. + +00:57:17.900 --> 00:57:23.059 +some people write about cyberspace as though +it were a 60′s utopia. in reality, this + +00:57:23.059 --> 00:57:29.440 +is not true. major online services, like comp-u-serv +and america online, regular[ly] guide and + +00:57:29.440 --> 00:57:34.970 +censor discourse. even some allegedly free-wheeling +(albeit politically correct) boards like the + +00:57:34.970 --> 00:57:39.559 +WELL censor discourse. the difference is only +a matter of the method and degree. + +00:57:39.559 --> 00:57:46.039 +i have seen many people spill their guts on-line, +and i did so myself until, at last, i began + +00:57:46.039 --> 00:57:51.640 +to see that i had commodified myself. commodification +means that you turn something into a product + +00:57:51.640 --> 00:57:57.099 +which has a money-value. in the nineteenth +century, commodities were made in factories, + +00:57:57.099 --> 00:58:02.950 +which karl marx called “the means of production.” +capitalists were people who owned the means + +00:58:02.950 --> 00:58:06.670 +of production, and the commodities were made +by workers who were mostly exploited. + +00:58:06.670 --> 00:58:11.359 +i created my interior thoughts as a means +of production for the corporation that owned + +00:58:11.359 --> 00:58:15.800 +the board i was posting to, and that commodity +was being sold to other commodity/consumer + +00:58:15.800 --> 00:58:22.190 +entities as entertainment. that means that +i sold my soul like a tennis shoe and i derived + +00:58:22.190 --> 00:58:27.150 +no profit from the sale of my soul… +proponents of so-called cyber-communities + +00:58:27.150 --> 00:58:31.940 +rarely emphasize the economic, business-mind +nature of the community: many cyber-communities + +00:58:31.940 --> 00:58:38.049 +are businesses that rely upon the commodification +of human interaction. they market their businesses + +00:58:38.049 --> 00:58:44.089 +by appeal to hysterical identification and +fetishism no more or less than the corporations + +00:58:44.089 --> 00:58:46.930 +that brought us the two hundred dollar athletic +shoe. + +00:58:46.930 --> 00:58:53.890 +people can talk about cyberspace as a Utopian +community only because it is literature, and + +00:58:53.890 --> 00:58:58.579 +therefore subject to editorial revision. [Prior] +events plus another where a woman’s death + +00:58:58.579 --> 00:59:03.760 +was choreographed as spectacle online, made +me think about what electronic community was, + +00:59:03.760 --> 00:59:09.059 +and how it probably really did not exist, +except like i said, as a kind of market for + +00:59:09.059 --> 00:59:13.640 +the consumption of sign-value. + +00:59:14.789 --> 00:59:19.079 +The full essay is linked below. It’s interesting +and briefly touches many things that are… + +00:59:19.079 --> 00:59:23.660 +outside the scope of our discussion. I do +not intend to do a disservice to the questions + +00:59:23.660 --> 00:59:28.470 +it has for diversity, feminism, greenwashing, +any of that, by not including them. I recommend + +00:59:28.470 --> 00:59:32.079 +it in future, and may even cite it again someday. + +00:59:32.079 --> 00:59:36.780 +I won’t spiral all of this into talking +about the failed liberatory promise of techno-futurism + +00:59:36.780 --> 00:59:41.740 +and the internet, but I can’t help feeling +like with the communal internet, we are looking + +00:59:41.740 --> 00:59:46.400 +at a revolution betrayed. Perhaps that too +is for another day. + +00:59:46.400 --> 00:59:51.359 +From Pandora’s Vox, we see that questions +of commodity, of production have been here + +00:59:51.359 --> 00:59:56.869 +longer than, I would wager, half of today’s +prolific internet users have even been alive. + +00:59:56.869 --> 01:00:02.700 +In a sense, crypto is an attempted modern +solution to this now age-old problem. It is + +01:00:02.700 --> 01:00:08.650 +a solution that required the intensification +of the problem in the process of solving it. + +01:00:08.650 --> 01:00:14.130 +Crypto looked at how this manufacture of content +for the Owners of the Internet in 1994 could + +01:00:14.130 --> 01:00:20.720 +be solved by simply placing the power of monetization +in the hands of creators, of manufacturers. + +01:00:20.720 --> 01:00:25.140 +With that vision set, their eyes widened at +the potential of making every single facet + +01:00:25.140 --> 01:00:31.119 +of digital existence an earning opportunity, +of effectively seeing all things as production, + +01:00:31.119 --> 01:00:35.680 +without ever speaking in terms of labor. They +have blurred the meaning of being “paid + +01:00:35.680 --> 01:00:40.300 +for one’s time” imagining the entirety +of digital existence as transactional, which + +01:00:40.300 --> 01:00:45.200 +is, in some sense, like viewing every meal +in one’s life by a dollar to calorie ratio. + +01:00:45.200 --> 01:00:50.230 +It’s practical to a point of misery, mathematical +to the point of inhumanity. + +01:00:50.230 --> 01:00:54.750 +The execution of that ideal was far from successful +and, in turn, more or less created monetary + +01:00:54.750 --> 01:00:59.980 +schemes we’ve always had. Most of digital +monetization as a practice, from 1994 to now, + +01:00:59.980 --> 01:01:05.789 +has used some manner of democratization or +empowerment as its rallying cry, giving YOU + +01:01:05.789 --> 01:01:11.020 +the Creators a slice of the pie, finally. +But from Medium’s deployable walls to crypto’s + +01:01:11.020 --> 01:01:15.329 +feudal structures, to Youtube’s kingmaking +ghost in the machine, we’ve gotten nowhere + +01:01:15.329 --> 01:01:16.660 +fast. + +01:01:16.660 --> 01:01:20.789 +Tangential to this, there’s also a means +of monetizing our interaction not as a creative + +01:01:20.789 --> 01:01:25.430 +energy, but as a malicious little monsters. +To that, there’s a video by SK the Crusader + +01:01:25.430 --> 01:01:30.880 +that goes into the Main Character phenomena, +which has been with us since Humdog’s time. + +01:01:30.880 --> 01:01:36.710 +Ultimately, this is not a perfect and totalizing +view of the past, but it is a prescient relic. + +01:01:36.710 --> 01:01:43.630 +In it, we see a disdain for imagined utopia, +a critique, contempt, thus for the evangelizing + +01:01:43.630 --> 01:01:49.210 +utopians… who denied the monetization was +a danger. It hearkens to the cryptospace near + +01:01:49.210 --> 01:01:58.980 +two decades early. But it also reminds me +of someone and somewhere else. + +01:01:58.980 --> 01:02:04.210 +Okay okay, no I can’t find a way to pretend +Runescape is a platform, even if it does have + +01:02:04.210 --> 01:02:06.450 +one hell of a shitposting community. + +01:02:06.450 --> 01:02:10.890 +We’re returning to the present day with +Twitter, a place I never expected would become + +01:02:10.890 --> 01:02:12.470 +part of my job. + +01:02:12.470 --> 01:02:16.950 +Twitter is a bit of an odd addition to this +mix because it’s inherently opposed to monetization, + +01:02:16.950 --> 01:02:21.589 +and not just in a “how do we even do it” +kind of way like Vine was. + +01:02:21.589 --> 01:02:26.109 +I… I can’t believe I’m saying this but +maybe more sites need to be like twitter. + +01:02:26.109 --> 01:02:27.510 +Or like it was. + +01:02:27.510 --> 01:02:32.510 +I won’t go too deep into the evolving story +of Twitter’s…descent, both in that it + +01:02:32.510 --> 01:02:37.140 +is ongoing, and in that it’s covered ground, +but here’s the shortest bit for the blissfully + +01:02:37.140 --> 01:02:38.380 +logged out: + +01:02:38.380 --> 01:02:43.049 +In a fundamental misunderstanding of how Verification +is even given its value, Musk opted to turn + +01:02:43.049 --> 01:02:49.070 +it into a mix of paid status symbol, a membership +system, and a soft…inverse paywall. There + +01:02:49.070 --> 01:02:54.020 +are supposed algorithmic benefits to having +the verification, though nothing has materialized + +01:02:54.020 --> 01:02:58.760 +as of yet. If we know anything from exploring +Youtube, it’s that preferential algorithm + +01:02:58.760 --> 01:03:02.980 +treatment is a dream for many. +Following a slew of impersonation gags that + +01:03:02.980 --> 01:03:08.320 +cost advertisers collective billions in market +cap value of their stock, and delighted the + +01:03:08.320 --> 01:03:13.520 +entire internet, all for $8, there are now +allegedly plans to make company and government + +01:03:13.520 --> 01:03:18.119 +specific verification. The whole thing has +been like watching someone walk backwards + +01:03:18.119 --> 01:03:19.869 +in a spiral. + +01:03:19.869 --> 01:03:24.349 +Inexplicably we have ended up with Musk being +a hands-on moderator like this is some dingy + +01:03:24.349 --> 01:03:28.150 +DnD forum in 1994, or a contemporary crypto +scam. + +01:03:28.150 --> 01:03:32.779 +There has, for weeks now, been talk about +abandoning the platform. But there’s an + +01:03:32.779 --> 01:03:36.420 +important part of that which hasn’t exactly +been hashed out. + +01:03:36.420 --> 01:03:41.720 +The reason “where do we go now” is an +unanswerable question is because all the options, + +01:03:41.720 --> 01:03:47.090 +frankly, suck. Those of us on twitter know +we are on an imperfect platform. And all the + +01:03:47.090 --> 01:03:51.231 +other ones are no better. People talking about +Hive bring up that it’s “owned by an ableist + +01:03:51.231 --> 01:03:56.101 +and a trump supporter” as though that isn’t +the case with 4/5ths of the venture capital + +01:03:56.101 --> 01:04:00.000 +funded tech landscape. +Like seriously, good luck finding a site that + +01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:03.130 +isn’t owned by an ethically compromised +billionaire. + +01:04:03.130 --> 01:04:08.100 +My personal solution is that we all just colonize +academia.edu and set up accounts, shitposting + +01:04:08.100 --> 01:04:11.369 +in faux-essay, or critical response format. + +01:04:11.369 --> 01:04:15.079 +“Sir, +I have reviewed your recent post with regards + +01:04:15.079 --> 01:04:22.200 +to the claim that Stalin “would have been +an e-boy” with intense frustration. It is + +01:04:22.200 --> 01:04:28.390 +clear to me you lack either the seriousness +or the vigor to make it in this discipline. + +01:04:28.390 --> 01:04:32.460 +Clearly, Bukharin was the one with e-boy energy.” + +01:04:32.460 --> 01:04:38.980 +Now, realistically twitter is no stranger +to jokes and hyperbole about leaving the “hellsite” + +01:04:38.980 --> 01:04:43.549 +forever, but I want to, for a moment, take +quick stock of what stands to be lost with + +01:04:43.549 --> 01:04:47.650 +Twitter, because I think it’s dawning on +people that this sucks for a reason. + +01:04:47.650 --> 01:04:51.510 +Twitter is very helpful and effective for +activists and outreach programs. + +01:04:51.510 --> 01:04:55.930 +Much has been said about the efficacy of organization +and dissemination of information during the + +01:04:55.930 --> 01:04:57.530 +Floyd protests. + +01:04:57.530 --> 01:05:01.930 +For an even older example, think of the role +social media took in the Arab Spring, you + +01:05:01.930 --> 01:05:06.210 +may likely know more about the presence Twitter +had in that historical moment than the current + +01:05:06.210 --> 01:05:09.450 +state of a single country for whom it was +historical. + +01:05:09.450 --> 01:05:14.390 +But those things are practical. They’re +important, but not the focus of this discussion. + +01:05:14.390 --> 01:05:18.460 +I won’t go into every detail of twitter’s +culture, as shitpositng is more universal + +01:05:18.460 --> 01:05:23.369 +than the site, but I will explain what features +I think make it both a useful tool, a place + +01:05:23.369 --> 01:05:28.270 +of communities, and in some ways, resistant +to advertisers and…until now, cataclysmic + +01:05:28.270 --> 01:05:29.380 +levels of monetization. + +01:05:29.380 --> 01:05:34.650 +Twitter’s features allow for relatively +easy circulation of content, but also curation + +01:05:34.650 --> 01:05:39.010 +of one’s own feed. Where places like Tiktok +just blast you with the next thing in a row + +01:05:39.010 --> 01:05:43.480 +and it can be like Russian Roulette for transphobia, +twitter is more about following people than + +01:05:43.480 --> 01:05:48.599 +implicit ideas. There is an algorithm, to +be sure, but ad-spaces are noted when they’re + +01:05:48.599 --> 01:05:52.779 +present, and other than the occasional slot +dedicated to outright promotion or “based + +01:05:52.779 --> 01:05:57.970 +on your likes” content, most of the momentum +behind discovery is social networking. + +01:05:57.970 --> 01:06:02.260 +Corporations know this, which is why there’s +the existence of Brand Twitter, and brands + +01:06:02.260 --> 01:06:03.789 +trying to go viral. + +01:06:03.789 --> 01:06:07.050 +Likes and retweets come from individuals, +and while you can’t exactly predict the + +01:06:07.050 --> 01:06:10.829 +extent of what a mutual might like, which +could mean getting smacked in the face with + +01:06:10.829 --> 01:06:15.130 +er*tic zootopia art, for the most part it’s +a curated experience. + +01:06:15.130 --> 01:06:19.829 +The other end of this curation is that muting +and blocking accounts is easy and effective. + +01:06:19.829 --> 01:06:24.930 +You can block advertisers, no questions asked. +It’s so mundane a significant feature I’m + +01:06:24.930 --> 01:06:28.130 +going to repeat it for emphasis: you can block +advertisers. + +01:06:28.130 --> 01:06:32.869 +That may sound like it would cost twitter +a lot of potential clients, but think of it + +01:06:32.869 --> 01:06:38.080 +as the obverse of self selection. Advertisers +want their product shown to people who *are* + +01:06:38.080 --> 01:06:45.010 +interested, and if people who expressly *aren’t* +block them, that’s not a “wasted” impression. + +01:06:45.010 --> 01:06:49.720 +Some people like to brag about how deranged +their ads get because of their expert curation. + +01:06:49.720 --> 01:06:54.140 +Ads themselves are not rampant, which makes +me wonder if Musk’s claim that Twitter Blue + +01:06:54.140 --> 01:06:58.340 +will give you half the ads is either true +and meaningless, or they’re going to also + +01:06:58.340 --> 01:07:02.310 +crank the ad dial. +…if there’s anyone left who wants to advertise. + +01:07:02.310 --> 01:07:07.150 +Either way, it is very funny to see a paid +premium service that doesn’t even offer + +01:07:07.150 --> 01:07:11.940 +an ad-free experience. And again, we had the +means to block ads we didn’t like, which + +01:07:11.940 --> 01:07:13.960 +could be…cathartic. + +01:07:13.960 --> 01:07:19.040 +Ads aren’t the nuisance of twitter, bots +are. But bots are blocked just as easily and + +01:07:19.040 --> 01:07:24.020 +only really swarm to viral posts or ones that +mention keywords. I took a video of finding + +01:07:24.020 --> 01:07:28.829 +an ad, blocking it, and then scrolling until +I found another one and gave up after 2.5 + +01:07:28.829 --> 01:07:34.390 +minutes because I was tired of speed scrolling. +Note this isn’t emptier than pre-Musk. The + +01:07:34.390 --> 01:07:39.890 +only difference is that half the ads now are +some Saudi image laundering program. + +01:07:39.890 --> 01:07:43.299 +Interesting to note here is that Musk’s +paid verification system conflicts directly + +01:07:43.299 --> 01:07:47.940 +with this “block whoever” system. With +this system of “negative curation” the + +01:07:47.940 --> 01:07:51.760 +incentive to actually be boosted isn’t all +that strong when you anticipate selective + +01:07:51.760 --> 01:07:57.220 +blocks. Verified status won’t evade blocking. +And in turn, as intimated when I said this + +01:07:57.220 --> 01:08:01.710 +became a new badge of shame to wear, people +have already figured out that best practice + +01:08:01.710 --> 01:08:06.070 +will be to auto-block anyone that has paid +verification, at once getting rid of the clowns + +01:08:06.070 --> 01:08:09.530 +willing to shell out and nullifying the signal +boost they paid for. + +01:08:09.530 --> 01:08:15.320 +This, all together, is the impact of monetization, +even in the negative, in resistance. Twitter + +01:08:15.320 --> 01:08:20.390 +is resistant to monetization because it gives +the users some tools of curation. + +01:08:20.390 --> 01:08:24.600 +And even without those tools, Twitter doesn’t +have the same capacity towards monetization + +01:08:24.600 --> 01:08:28.739 +as something like Youtube. Musk, bizarrely, +said in one tweet that he planned to turn + +01:08:28.739 --> 01:08:33.969 +twitter into a youtube competitor, saying +it would be partly financed by the verified. + +01:08:33.969 --> 01:08:38.509 +This would ostensibly adopt a somehow worse +form of what Medium does with its content + +01:08:38.509 --> 01:08:44.110 +with a vastly more significant data footprint. +He wanted to offer room for posting 40 minute + +01:08:44.110 --> 01:08:49.960 +videos at 1080p. That could be anywhere from +300 mb to 3 gigs an upload. On top of that, + +01:08:49.960 --> 01:08:54.359 +Twitter does not have what I would call a +navigable system. Tweets are meant to be flung + +01:08:54.359 --> 01:08:58.929 +into the aether and then forgotten about, +not something as laboriously crafted and “shelf + +01:08:58.929 --> 01:09:01.130 +stable” as a youtube video. + +01:09:01.130 --> 01:09:02.969 +Let’s step aside for a second. + +01:09:02.969 --> 01:09:08.529 +A few months ago Patreon lost a LOT of money +and had to fire a LOT of people over a failed + +01:09:08.529 --> 01:09:13.420 +attempt to break into tiktok. What Patreon +did was throw a lot money at a few big tiktokers + +01:09:13.420 --> 01:09:18.219 +and *some* money towards mid sized ones, in +an effort to promote patreon, to get the tikotkers + +01:09:18.219 --> 01:09:22.940 +to try it out and tell everyone to pay them. +This misstep was colossal. + +01:09:22.940 --> 01:09:26.171 +For reasons other than this, I was already +convinced that Patreon didn’t understand + +01:09:26.171 --> 01:09:30.650 +its own platform. But illustrative for our +purpose is how they failed to understand Tiktok. + +01:09:30.650 --> 01:09:35.600 +They assumed that creation was the same on +there as it would be on youtube, that fandoms, + +01:09:35.600 --> 01:09:40.469 +followings, support, was the same. They mistakenly +assumed that just because a tiktokker had + +01:09:40.469 --> 01:09:45.029 +1 million subs and millions of views, it would +be the same as hooking youtube audiences. + +01:09:45.029 --> 01:09:48.640 +They failed to consider the relative value +people put into short form video content consumed + +01:09:48.640 --> 01:09:53.810 +in a slurry. Supporting creators from places +like Youtube off-platform leads to the creation + +01:09:53.810 --> 01:09:59.530 +of things meant to endure– works.Tangible +things. Not necessarily to be viewed as funded + +01:09:59.530 --> 01:10:04.130 +projects, but at least as something with presence. +There are people who make longer form content + +01:10:04.130 --> 01:10:09.360 +than shorts for whom patreon would also be +a bad fit, on youtube no less. They also tried + +01:10:09.360 --> 01:10:14.460 +to get Mr Beast to join patreon which is an +even worse idea and I cannot afford to tangent + +01:10:14.460 --> 01:10:17.370 +into that. +The point is that they saw that some youtubers + +01:10:17.370 --> 01:10:21.969 +use patreon and without thinking through the +specific details of who, why, and how, they + +01:10:21.969 --> 01:10:25.280 +tried to slap that idea onto another video +platform. + +01:10:25.280 --> 01:10:30.070 +Similarly, Musk failed to consider just how +many people would be willing to pay for twitter. + +01:10:30.070 --> 01:10:34.270 +Sycophants came out of the woodwork to be +like “it’s just $8” usually ending it + +01:10:34.270 --> 01:10:39.300 +with the new calling card of the least funny +people on earth, the tilted cry laugh emoji. + +01:10:39.300 --> 01:10:43.290 +All that to say that Twitter is not in the +hands of someone who understands twitter. + +01:10:43.290 --> 01:10:47.510 +Musk is redesigning the app around his own +experience with having an abnormally high + +01:10:47.510 --> 01:10:51.970 +bot following and presuming that’s a shared +experience for all users, he’s presuming + +01:10:51.970 --> 01:10:57.600 +his experience as the world’s richest man +is normal. He’s listening to a cadre of + +01:10:57.600 --> 01:11:03.560 +dorks and somehow creating a publicly observable +echo chamber. Twitter is, ostensibly, in the + +01:11:03.560 --> 01:11:08.460 +hands of those assuring the emperor his clothes +look lovely. + +01:11:08.460 --> 01:11:14.500 +This leads us to the situation we were always +in, Twitter, our space, is out of our hands. + +01:11:14.500 --> 01:11:20.563 +I have likely done an imperfect job distinguishing creativity and production. + +01:11:20.563 --> 01:11:23.002 +To that end, I will +restate and emphasize. + +01:11:23.002 --> 01:11:29.136 +Creation is jeopardized when it becomes production +on the behalf of an entity like these platforms. + +01:11:29.136 --> 01:11:37.770 +However, on these platforms we cannot avoid +our creations becoming productions, even when we are, ourselves, unrewarded. + +01:11:37.770 --> 01:11:43.409 +Digital spaces are not a commons, not freely +owned by us all, though we are what comprises + +01:11:43.409 --> 01:11:48.610 +them. Without people, there is no platform. +That leads to a separate and, perhaps more + +01:11:48.610 --> 01:11:50.179 +subliminal theme: + +01:11:50.179 --> 01:11:54.420 +The way that these sites rely on users as +content creators. + +01:11:54.420 --> 01:11:58.020 +Simply that. +In part, though not formally a response to + +01:11:58.020 --> 01:12:03.719 +Line Goes Up, it did inspire this work, in +a perhaps unexpected way. The obvious route + +01:12:03.719 --> 01:12:08.420 +would be that I had the Lunyr story, but really +it wasn’t the “I too know about crypto + +01:12:08.420 --> 01:12:13.860 +nonsense” as much as it was that it forced +me to remember those spaces, their culture, + +01:12:13.860 --> 01:12:19.400 +and in doing so, I reconciled the uncomfortable +overlap with my youtube experience, with discussions + +01:12:19.400 --> 01:12:25.250 +of individualist communities, aspiration, +“making it.” I remembered that while crypto + +01:12:25.250 --> 01:12:31.659 +is a creatively bankrupt space, conversations +in Small Youtube were nearly as stark. What + +01:12:31.659 --> 01:12:37.239 +Lunyr did in having it’s only remotely academic +articles end up being about crypto projects + +01:12:37.239 --> 01:12:42.449 +feels like what Medium is doing with its articles +on being good at Medium, what part of youtube + +01:12:42.449 --> 01:12:44.550 +does with its gurus. + +01:12:44.550 --> 01:12:49.120 +There’s value to understanding how cultures +shift with monetization, and how incentives + +01:12:49.120 --> 01:12:54.219 +are formed, and how those incentives shape +what gets produced, but the biggest unifier + +01:12:54.219 --> 01:12:59.070 +here is that we don’t congregate on these +sites because they, the site, provide us with + +01:12:59.070 --> 01:13:05.380 +content, we congregate to witness and experience +other people. Despite these dual revelations, + +01:13:05.380 --> 01:13:10.401 +that of the filters and walls monetization +creates and of platform versus people, we + +01:13:10.401 --> 01:13:16.810 +are not granted some easy actionable control. +We are, thus, bound on both ends, unable to + +01:13:16.810 --> 01:13:23.280 +control our own output, even as nominally +free agents, and unable to reorganize. + +01:13:23.280 --> 01:13:28.179 +Efforts such as F the Algorithm, as I mentioned, +attempt to change this. Supporting others + +01:13:28.179 --> 01:13:33.310 +attempts to change this. But working within +these systems, there will always be that specter + +01:13:33.310 --> 01:13:37.659 +of monetization, wielding the algorithm like +a scythe. + +01:13:37.659 --> 01:13:41.980 +This is not my moment to call for revolution +so that I may make art freely without having + +01:13:41.980 --> 01:13:47.150 +to earn my keep, no, even now in the throes +of some form of passion, I have the clarity + +01:13:47.150 --> 01:13:52.840 +to see that as hyperbolic. It is more a reminder +that we are creating communities in spaces + +01:13:52.840 --> 01:13:59.560 +we cannot own, cannot control, cannot take +ownership of. What does the Twitter Purchase + +01:13:59.560 --> 01:14:05.330 +prove if not that? There is no Promised Land +we might flee to next. + +01:14:05.330 --> 01:14:09.580 +To end this on a note about the Digital Commons +would appear to get away from my point, but + +01:14:09.580 --> 01:14:14.550 +in truth these things are interlinked. As +I said, as Humdog expressed for us, these + +01:14:14.550 --> 01:14:18.900 +problems have been with us far longer than +even the titans of the modern internet in + +01:14:18.900 --> 01:14:22.989 +Google and Facebook. +We saw the flood wash over the dreams of the + +01:14:22.989 --> 01:14:27.970 +early tech utopians, and we could not build +upon that land, for laying foundation deep + +01:14:27.970 --> 01:14:33.949 +into mud, jagged with rubble, required power +we could not have, could not organize. It + +01:14:33.949 --> 01:14:38.480 +is not the fault or failing of anyone on the +internet today that it is how it is. Companies + +01:14:38.480 --> 01:14:44.640 +laid new foundations, and we moved onto the +land they owned. The Commons was never an + +01:14:44.640 --> 01:14:53.390 +option, the root issue, bigger than the whole +of the internet. + +01:14:55.489 --> 01:14:59.970 +Originally I intended to just cut this video +off. Full stop. I wanted to end on a note + +01:14:59.970 --> 01:15:05.120 +of dramatic impact but I don’t think it +matters that much. People click off when they + +01:15:05.120 --> 01:15:09.870 +do and being overly wrought in drama in the +last ten seconds isn’t what makes a video + +01:15:09.870 --> 01:15:14.409 +“do well” +I’m very very brainpoisoned right now about + +01:15:14.409 --> 01:15:20.580 +algorithms and success and caught in that +mixed web of like, wanting things to do well, + +01:15:20.580 --> 01:15:25.100 +naturally, and worrying I’m losing sight +of the distinction between reaching people + +01:15:25.100 --> 01:15:29.230 +and reaching numbers. +As I said at the start, this video has (or + +01:15:29.230 --> 01:15:33.810 +will have, depending on schedule) a companion +video that’s fully anecdotal and just exploring + +01:15:33.810 --> 01:15:39.450 +the last year. It’ll probably also be melodramatic +or sappy. + +01:15:39.450 --> 01:15:43.910 +Speaking of sappy. +Thanks, like, real, sincere thanks to everyone + +01:15:43.910 --> 01:15:49.380 +who contributes to the production of these +things, be it voice talent, with Little Hoot + +01:15:49.380 --> 01:15:54.690 +and Armchair Egyptology, script reads,..letting +me use the lizard breakdown, or patrons. + +01:15:54.690 --> 01:16:00.449 +..That’s not to say or imply prior thanks +were insincere, but I guess making this has + +01:16:00.449 --> 01:16:06.360 +made me hyper-aware of support. +Voiced Credits thanks this time go to: + +01:16:06.360 --> 01:16:10.199 +Chandler Mason* +Étienne Garant* + +01:16:10.199 --> 01:16:12.120 +Freddy* +Hausum* + +01:16:12.120 --> 01:16:14.030 +Nic* +Nitesurgeon* + +01:16:14.030 --> 01:16:19.060 +There’s a few new names here, and sorry +if you came for map game and got smacked with + +01:16:19.060 --> 01:16:23.960 +this. There will be map game again soon, after +the video in early January where I’m remaking + +01:16:23.960 --> 01:16:29.929 +my first one. That one doesn’t really have +a negotiable schedule spot if it’s an anniversary. + +01:16:29.929 --> 01:16:33.370 +But there I go, breaking my rule on promising +things. + +01:16:33.370 --> 01:16:35.139 +Uhh, bye. + diff --git a/videos/20221210 - Monetization will ruin the internet (again) - [-EKF9P8EDS0].mkv b/videos/20221210 - Monetization will ruin the internet (again) - [-EKF9P8EDS0].mkv new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c36fb5 Binary files /dev/null and b/videos/20221210 - Monetization will ruin the internet (again) - [-EKF9P8EDS0].mkv differ diff --git a/videos/Are There Internet Dialects？ ｜ Idea Channel ｜ PBS Digital Studios [SDPasRas5u0].en-qlPKC2UN_YU.vtt b/videos/Are There Internet Dialects？ ｜ Idea Channel ｜ PBS Digital Studios [SDPasRas5u0].en-qlPKC2UN_YU.vtt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de4aefa --- /dev/null +++ b/videos/Are There Internet Dialects？ ｜ Idea Channel ｜ PBS Digital Studios [SDPasRas5u0].en-qlPKC2UN_YU.vtt @@ -0,0 +1,1174 @@ +WEBVTT +Kind: captions +Language: en + +00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:00.610 +Here's an idea. + +00:00:00.610 --> 00:00:02.886 +Certain parts of the internet +have their own dialects. + +00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:10.100 +I've joked more than once that +the internet is my home town. + +00:00:10.100 --> 00:00:12.516 +And I want to be completely +clear that that is not a joke. + +00:00:12.516 --> 00:00:13.930 +I am literally +from the internet. + +00:00:13.930 --> 00:00:14.430 +OK. + +00:00:14.430 --> 00:00:15.590 +Really, I'm from Massachusetts. + +00:00:15.590 --> 00:00:18.089 +But I have been wondering, in +the way that most of my family + +00:00:18.089 --> 00:00:21.390 +has a strong Boston accent, +do I or other people + +00:00:21.390 --> 00:00:23.530 +have internet accents? + +00:00:23.530 --> 00:00:24.504 +Is that a thing? + +00:00:24.504 --> 00:00:25.920 +Is there some part +of the internet + +00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:28.020 +that I sound like I am from? + +00:00:28.020 --> 00:00:29.830 +I mean, it's probably +not an accent, + +00:00:29.830 --> 00:00:31.304 +because accents +are pronunciation. + +00:00:31.304 --> 00:00:33.220 +And on the internet, you +don't talk, you type. + +00:00:33.220 --> 00:00:35.210 +And when you're reading +what I have written, + +00:00:35.210 --> 00:00:36.460 +I'm not doing the pronouncing. + +00:00:36.460 --> 00:00:38.750 +You are, in your head. + +00:00:38.750 --> 00:00:41.210 +Unless I start writing +like James Joyce, I guess. + +00:00:41.210 --> 00:00:43.160 +We know you like Latin +with essies impures, + +00:00:43.160 --> 00:00:45.650 +and your liber as they sea, +we certney like gurgles, + +00:00:45.650 --> 00:00:47.830 +love the nagleygargley, +so arrahbeejee. + +00:00:47.830 --> 00:00:50.790 +So maybe on the internet, it's +not an accent but a dialect. + +00:00:50.790 --> 00:00:52.770 +Dialects account for +pronunciation, but also + +00:00:52.770 --> 00:00:55.120 +word choice, vocabulary, +how those words are + +00:00:55.120 --> 00:00:56.420 +arranged and used. + +00:00:56.420 --> 00:00:58.740 +Usually, we take dialect to +indicate a group of people + +00:00:58.740 --> 00:01:01.300 +in a place, like southern +American English, Rioplatense + +00:01:01.300 --> 00:01:04.080 +Spanish, or the Norrland +dialects of northern Sweden. + +00:01:04.080 --> 00:01:06.450 +But These are simply +regional dialects. + +00:01:06.450 --> 00:01:09.330 +Dialect refers to any +characteristic use of language + +00:01:09.330 --> 00:01:13.160 +by a group of people-- a region, +ethnicity, social class-- + +00:01:13.160 --> 00:01:16.000 +including uses that don't +really sound characteristic, + +00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:19.880 +like Midwestern American English +or, quote, general American, + +00:01:19.880 --> 00:01:22.680 +the seemingly featureless +dialect of American English + +00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:24.880 +that most national +newscasters speak. + +00:01:24.880 --> 00:01:26.860 +I'm chasing down +leads and practicing + +00:01:26.860 --> 00:01:28.172 +my non-regional diction. + +00:01:28.172 --> 00:01:29.630 +And speaking of +speaking of which, + +00:01:29.630 --> 00:01:32.050 +since American English is +the thing I speak the most, + +00:01:32.050 --> 00:01:33.510 +besides highly of +Chris Pratt, it's + +00:01:33.510 --> 00:01:36.430 +gonna have to be the lingua +franca for this episode. + +00:01:36.430 --> 00:01:38.366 +I'm sure all of this +stuff applies really well + +00:01:38.366 --> 00:01:39.740 +to other languages +and internets, + +00:01:39.740 --> 00:01:42.320 +and I hope that you'll tell +me how in the comments. + +00:01:42.320 --> 00:01:44.200 +So then I wonder, if +there is such a thing + +00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:47.630 +as general American +internet variety, + +00:01:47.630 --> 00:01:52.790 +a kind of uninflected standard +dialect of internet English. + +00:01:52.790 --> 00:01:53.640 +I think so. + +00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:56.100 +I think it's marked by +the use of common acronyms + +00:01:56.100 --> 00:01:58.600 +and emoticons, lots of +which are shared with SMS + +00:01:58.600 --> 00:02:00.900 +speak, maybe a +nervously deployed + +00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:04.100 +hash tag or the occasional +nonstandard abbreviation, + +00:02:04.100 --> 00:02:07.330 +maybe the only semi +self-conscious use of the word + +00:02:07.330 --> 00:02:08.690 +selfie. + +00:02:08.690 --> 00:02:10.320 +I think of general +internet English + +00:02:10.320 --> 00:02:13.040 +as being used by those +with no particular internet + +00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:16.630 +affiliation, or who are old. + +00:02:16.630 --> 00:02:19.760 +General internet English is +an email from your coworker + +00:02:19.760 --> 00:02:22.430 +who really enjoys +going jet skiing. + +00:02:22.430 --> 00:02:25.761 +It's the opposite end of +the spectrum from, say, /b/. + +00:02:25.761 --> 00:02:27.260 +And here, I think +it's worth pausing + +00:02:27.260 --> 00:02:30.150 +to say that it is always +irresponsible to confidently + +00:02:30.150 --> 00:02:33.370 +proclaim that all people +in X location do Y thing. + +00:02:33.370 --> 00:02:35.460 +I think all of my +generalizations + +00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:37.770 +have at least one +foot in reality. + +00:02:37.770 --> 00:02:40.070 +But if you disagree, I +hope you will tell me why. + +00:02:40.070 --> 00:02:43.220 +So that being said, lots of the +boards on 4chan have clearly + +00:02:43.220 --> 00:02:44.720 +identifiable ways +of communicating, + +00:02:44.720 --> 00:02:47.300 +but /b/'s is more so. + +00:02:47.300 --> 00:02:49.770 +Many anons on /b/ make +liberal use of epithets + +00:02:49.770 --> 00:02:53.040 +for homosexuality, describe +people or media as cancer, + +00:02:53.040 --> 00:02:55.270 +and generally traffic in +conversation unsuitable + +00:02:55.270 --> 00:02:58.500 +for your run of the +mill grandma, Let's say. + +00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:00.850 +Some features of communication, +like green texting, + +00:03:00.850 --> 00:03:03.780 +which isn't particular to +/b/ but 4chan as a whole, + +00:03:03.780 --> 00:03:07.320 +exists because the code +of 4chan provides it. + +00:03:07.320 --> 00:03:10.930 +This is an important part of the +equation-- available technology + +00:03:10.930 --> 00:03:14.440 +influencing components of +mediated communication. + +00:03:14.440 --> 00:03:16.380 +For example, the fact +that Tumblr animates + +00:03:16.380 --> 00:03:19.970 +gifs in stream made them +important and powerfully + +00:03:19.970 --> 00:03:22.750 +expressive there, which is +funny because while gifs might + +00:03:22.750 --> 00:03:25.700 +be powerfully expressive, +the stereotypical Tumblr text + +00:03:25.700 --> 00:03:29.530 +post lacks effusiveness-- +all lowercase, very fluid, + +00:03:29.530 --> 00:03:30.470 +no punctuation. + +00:03:30.470 --> 00:03:33.350 +It's like Cormac McCarthy +without capital letters, + +00:03:33.350 --> 00:03:36.280 +and channeling some kind of +recognizable quirkiness instead + +00:03:36.280 --> 00:03:38.660 +of frustration at the +futility of justice + +00:03:38.660 --> 00:03:39.840 +in a society on the brink. + +00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:43.260 +MAN: TBH, I literally +say "literally" and "TBH" + +00:03:43.260 --> 00:03:45.650 +literally all the time, TBH. + +00:03:45.650 --> 00:03:47.810 +Anyway, TBH we +could literally spend + +00:03:47.810 --> 00:03:49.900 +the rest of the day talking +about how people talk. + +00:03:49.900 --> 00:03:53.070 +But I still have some questions, +and we're be running out + +00:03:53.070 --> 00:03:53.976 +of time here. + +00:03:53.976 --> 00:03:55.600 +Doesn't there seem +to be something more + +00:03:55.600 --> 00:03:57.940 +to these couple examples +than just this is + +00:03:57.940 --> 00:03:59.070 +how these people talk? + +00:03:59.070 --> 00:04:01.210 +More than simply words +and how they're used, + +00:04:01.210 --> 00:04:04.290 +it also seems to reflect +the values and norms + +00:04:04.290 --> 00:04:05.650 +of the community itself. + +00:04:05.650 --> 00:04:09.830 +Tumblr's stereotypical text post +is hesitant, even vulnerable, + +00:04:09.830 --> 00:04:12.440 +on a website where many +people value sensitivity + +00:04:12.440 --> 00:04:15.540 +and occasionally become so +emotional that they simply + +00:04:15.540 --> 00:04:17.589 +cannot even-- myself included. + +00:04:17.589 --> 00:04:22.560 +I frequently am just +completely unable to even, + +00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:24.840 +especially if there's a +Chris Pratt gif set involved. + +00:04:24.840 --> 00:04:25.515 +What? + +00:04:25.515 --> 00:04:25.790 +I literally can't even. + +00:04:25.790 --> 00:04:26.670 +I'm done. + +00:04:26.670 --> 00:04:29.890 +/b/ is a very fast paced +environment concerned with very + +00:04:29.890 --> 00:04:32.440 +particular aspects of +the internet and culture. + +00:04:32.440 --> 00:04:35.360 +It appears unwelcoming +to most newcomers, + +00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:37.170 +and its language reflects that. + +00:04:37.170 --> 00:04:39.730 +This isn't necessarily true +of dialects which, yes, + +00:04:39.730 --> 00:04:42.370 +are particular uses of language, +but don't really account + +00:04:42.370 --> 00:04:44.150 +for any kind of value system. + +00:04:44.150 --> 00:04:46.780 +The fact that Rhode Islanders +use "cabinet" for "milkshake" + +00:04:46.780 --> 00:04:49.060 +or that Bostonians call the +person who repairs shoes + +00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:51.840 +a "cobbler" doesn't +arise from any attitude + +00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:55.060 +about dairy products, loafers, +or being from New England. + +00:04:55.060 --> 00:04:56.600 +My boy's wicked smart. + +00:04:56.600 --> 00:04:59.170 +So maybe we're not +talking about dialects? + +00:04:59.170 --> 00:05:00.820 +Educational theorist +Etienne Wenger + +00:05:00.820 --> 00:05:03.130 +wrote about communities +of practice, + +00:05:03.130 --> 00:05:06.000 +which describe +roughly-- very roughly-- + +00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:08.100 +people who do things together. + +00:05:08.100 --> 00:05:09.990 +The concept of +practice, he wrote, + +00:05:09.990 --> 00:05:13.890 +connotes doing, but not +just doing in and of itself. + +00:05:13.890 --> 00:05:16.950 +It is doing in a historical +and social context that + +00:05:16.950 --> 00:05:20.170 +gives structure and +meaning to what we do. + +00:05:20.170 --> 00:05:24.130 +In this sense, practice +is always social practice. + +00:05:24.130 --> 00:05:26.610 +Communities forming +around said practice share + +00:05:26.610 --> 00:05:29.660 +all kinds of stuff, including +but not limited to, quote, + +00:05:29.660 --> 00:05:32.770 +untold rules of thumb, +recognizable intuitions, + +00:05:32.770 --> 00:05:37.680 +specific perceptions, well-tuned +sensitivities, and shared world + +00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:38.495 +views. + +00:05:38.495 --> 00:05:40.435 +I know you all in +for just enough. + +00:05:40.435 --> 00:05:42.500 +For Wenger, the idea of +communities of practice + +00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:44.830 +is rooted in +education, specifically + +00:05:44.830 --> 00:05:46.850 +about interests and professions. + +00:05:46.850 --> 00:05:49.540 +But its uses are +really wide ranging. + +00:05:49.540 --> 00:05:51.180 +Linguistics professor +Penelope Eckert, + +00:05:51.180 --> 00:05:53.080 +who you might remember +from our BMO episode, + +00:05:53.080 --> 00:05:55.590 +wrote about how communities +of practice, because they + +00:05:55.590 --> 00:05:57.130 +share all of those +things, can have + +00:05:57.130 --> 00:05:59.610 +very strong linguistic aspects. + +00:05:59.610 --> 00:06:01.550 +Speakers develop +linguistic patterns + +00:06:01.550 --> 00:06:04.650 +as they engage in activity in +the communities in which they + +00:06:04.650 --> 00:06:06.230 +participate, she writes. + +00:06:06.230 --> 00:06:09.280 +And later, social identity, +community membership, + +00:06:09.280 --> 00:06:13.800 +forms of participation, the full +range of community practice, + +00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:16.430 +and the symbolic value +of linguistic form + +00:06:16.430 --> 00:06:19.250 +are being constantly and +mutually constructed. + +00:06:19.250 --> 00:06:21.500 +Eckert was writing specifically +about the construction + +00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:21.999 +of gender. + +00:06:21.999 --> 00:06:24.120 +But her thesis still +applies, I think. + +00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:26.890 +In short, what you do, +who you do it with, + +00:06:26.890 --> 00:06:30.490 +how you talk about it, how the +talking advertises or supports + +00:06:30.490 --> 00:06:33.210 +the doing, and how +you self-identify + +00:06:33.210 --> 00:06:37.529 +as a doer of things are +all very intimately linked. + +00:06:37.529 --> 00:06:40.070 +Captain Rachel on Twitter let +me know that alternatively, you + +00:06:40.070 --> 00:06:42.290 +could call these speech +communities, a term + +00:06:42.290 --> 00:06:44.920 +with a separate but related +background and connotation, + +00:06:44.920 --> 00:06:48.250 +lacking a specific +emphasis on doing stuff, + +00:06:48.250 --> 00:06:51.150 +but with a similar insistence +that members share, quote, + +00:06:51.150 --> 00:06:54.540 +language ideology, beliefs +about language, identity, + +00:06:54.540 --> 00:06:58.260 +and membership, and attitudes +towards language use. + +00:06:58.260 --> 00:07:01.230 +Of course, people rarely +belong to just one community + +00:07:01.230 --> 00:07:03.360 +of practice or speech community. + +00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:05.170 +Like Settlers of +Catan, your alliances + +00:07:05.170 --> 00:07:08.620 +are always changing, +intensifying, attenuating, + +00:07:08.620 --> 00:07:10.880 +and with them, the +way you communicate. + +00:07:10.880 --> 00:07:15.380 +So maybe I talk more Tumblrish +on Tumblr and less Twitterese + +00:07:15.380 --> 00:07:16.290 +on Facebook. + +00:07:16.290 --> 00:07:18.590 +Maybe sometimes my +Something Awful or IRC days + +00:07:18.590 --> 00:07:22.010 +ring through when I want to +feel cool or let someone else + +00:07:22.010 --> 00:07:24.030 +know that I know what's up. + +00:07:24.030 --> 00:07:26.270 +And oh, on the original +topic of pronunciation, + +00:07:26.270 --> 00:07:28.550 +I am trying to adopt +the Idea Channel + +00:07:28.550 --> 00:07:32.150 +native pronunciation of +zhaif, because I do really + +00:07:32.150 --> 00:07:32.822 +want to fit in. + +00:07:32.822 --> 00:07:33.780 +What do you guys think? + +00:07:33.780 --> 00:07:36.640 +What are the recognizable speech +communities on the internet? + +00:07:36.640 --> 00:07:40.640 +And do their characteristics say +something about that community? + +00:07:40.640 --> 00:07:41.950 +Let us know in the comments. + +00:07:41.950 --> 00:07:45.340 +And unbeknownst to you +would ire turn o'er see, + +00:07:45.340 --> 00:07:47.600 +a nuncio would I return here. + +00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:48.730 +Subscribe. + +00:07:48.730 --> 00:07:50.270 +It doesn't actually +say subscribe. + +00:07:50.270 --> 00:07:53.430 +I added the subscribe +to "Finnegan's Wake." + +00:07:53.430 --> 00:07:54.450 +Sorry, Joyce. + +00:07:54.450 --> 00:07:56.679 +(SINGING) Do you want +to read some comments? + +00:07:56.679 --> 00:07:58.720 +Let's see what you guys +had to say about "Frozen" + +00:07:58.720 --> 00:08:00.550 +as a critique of fairy tales. + +00:08:00.550 --> 00:08:02.230 +yepimbatman makes +a really good point + +00:08:02.230 --> 00:08:05.290 +when they bring up "Shrek," +which is a movie we did not + +00:08:05.290 --> 00:08:06.097 +spend any time on. + +00:08:06.097 --> 00:08:07.680 +And yes, that is a +complete oversight. + +00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:10.830 +I think I feel similarly to +how String.Epsilon feels, + +00:08:10.830 --> 00:08:13.620 +which is that "Shrek," +to me, communicates + +00:08:13.620 --> 00:08:16.840 +a kind of parody, satire, maybe +even pastiche of fairy tales. + +00:08:16.840 --> 00:08:21.150 +But it's not nearly as much of +a kind of genre deconstruction + +00:08:21.150 --> 00:08:23.360 +as "Frozen" is. + +00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:27.340 +I mean, it does contain actual +elements from real fairy tales, + +00:08:27.340 --> 00:08:31.670 +but it seems much more like +a set of jokes relating to, + +00:08:31.670 --> 00:08:36.600 +as opposed to a dismantling +of, which-- yeah. + +00:08:36.600 --> 00:08:37.100 +Yeah. + +00:08:37.100 --> 00:08:38.039 +I think that's how I feel. + +00:08:38.039 --> 00:08:39.980 +Relatedly, Desiree +DeCosta brings up "Mulan" + +00:08:39.980 --> 00:08:42.030 +and "Brave" as +examples of movies + +00:08:42.030 --> 00:08:44.250 +that did things similar +to what "Frozen" has done, + +00:08:44.250 --> 00:08:47.894 +but didn't maybe receive +the same level of notoriety. + +00:08:47.894 --> 00:08:49.310 +And I totally agree +that these are + +00:08:49.310 --> 00:08:51.840 +movies that are super +important and have + +00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:53.091 +done cool and exciting things. + +00:08:53.091 --> 00:08:54.506 +But the reason +they didn't come up + +00:08:54.506 --> 00:08:56.140 +is because they +don't so much sit + +00:08:56.140 --> 00:09:00.280 +inside that genre +deconstruction idea-- + +00:09:00.280 --> 00:09:02.280 +that "Mulan" is based +on a Chinese myth, + +00:09:02.280 --> 00:09:04.530 +"Brave" is a +totally new property + +00:09:04.530 --> 00:09:06.370 +that has its own +sort of reference + +00:09:06.370 --> 00:09:07.620 +to things that came before it. + +00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:11.485 +But I don't think that they +sort of relate to that, + +00:09:11.485 --> 00:09:15.050 +like we were talking about, +culturally ingrained kind + +00:09:15.050 --> 00:09:17.880 +of story nearly as much. + +00:09:17.880 --> 00:09:19.610 +nyihead and I are on +similar wavelengths + +00:09:19.610 --> 00:09:23.870 +in that what Terence Hawkes +says about the critic finalizing + +00:09:23.870 --> 00:09:26.120 +a work is true, but +that distinguishing + +00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:28.140 +between the +professionally-trained critic + +00:09:28.140 --> 00:09:30.880 +and the fan who is +critiquing things + +00:09:30.880 --> 00:09:33.380 +does stink of a +little bit of elitism. + +00:09:33.380 --> 00:09:35.249 +So yeah, I agree. + +00:09:35.249 --> 00:09:37.040 +Anna Robinson writes +a really great comment + +00:09:37.040 --> 00:09:39.180 +that maps the trajectory +of the Disney Renaissance + +00:09:39.180 --> 00:09:42.050 +to art history, and says +that their current period is + +00:09:42.050 --> 00:09:45.950 +something like the neoclassical +period of Disney fairy tales. + +00:09:45.950 --> 00:09:47.500 +And yeah, I really +love this idea. + +00:09:47.500 --> 00:09:49.700 +And this makes me +wonder how long is it + +00:09:49.700 --> 00:09:55.150 +going to take for us to get +to the Disney postmodern fairy + +00:09:55.150 --> 00:09:56.150 +tale period? + +00:09:56.150 --> 00:09:59.715 +And what is it +going to look like? + +00:09:59.715 --> 00:10:04.460 +I'm gonna like brain chew +on that for a little while. + +00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:07.340 +Disney and postmodern are two +things that I don't normally + +00:10:07.340 --> 00:10:08.590 +put together. + +00:10:08.590 --> 00:10:11.190 +Mikaele Baker writes a comment +about Strauss-Howe generational + +00:10:11.190 --> 00:10:13.400 +theory and how applying +those ideas to "Frozen" + +00:10:13.400 --> 00:10:15.840 +might not turn out perfectly. + +00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:17.700 +But it still could +provide some insight + +00:10:17.700 --> 00:10:20.160 +into how it works as a movie +and why it is so popular. + +00:10:20.160 --> 00:10:23.930 +And this comment is +just-- it is so good. + +00:10:23.930 --> 00:10:26.472 +I wish I could spend so much +more time talking about how + +00:10:26.472 --> 00:10:27.680 +good I think this comment is. + +00:10:27.680 --> 00:10:29.346 +But I can't, so you +should just read it. + +00:10:29.346 --> 00:10:31.710 +Links to this one and the +rest in the doobly-doo. + +00:10:31.710 --> 00:10:35.770 +Mikaele, awesome-- just awesome. + +00:10:35.770 --> 00:10:37.640 +This is why I do this-- +comments like this. + +00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:40.280 +NKR178 writes that while +people critiquing "Frozen" + +00:10:40.280 --> 00:10:44.260 +might have realized the movie, +"Frozen" itself does not + +00:10:44.260 --> 00:10:48.100 +necessarily realize its +genre of fairy tale, + +00:10:48.100 --> 00:10:51.510 +and that because of its +ideological positioning, + +00:10:51.510 --> 00:10:54.080 +it can come across as +simply an attack on it + +00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:57.759 +and not a realization of genre. + +00:10:57.759 --> 00:11:00.050 +And I think this is a really +fair and important point-- + +00:11:00.050 --> 00:11:03.830 +that every genre deconstruction +is not necessarily + +00:11:03.830 --> 00:11:05.780 +a realization of that genre. + +00:11:05.780 --> 00:11:09.180 +And the point might be to +actually deconstruct it, + +00:11:09.180 --> 00:11:12.950 +to do maybe even some kind of +violence to that genre, which + +00:11:12.950 --> 00:11:16.140 +can be good or bad, depending +upon your relationship + +00:11:16.140 --> 00:11:19.340 +to that genre or the work +you do in the deconstructing. + +00:11:19.340 --> 00:11:21.180 +But yeah, this was a +really great comment. + +00:11:21.180 --> 00:11:23.096 +Amy Kinsman writes a +really insightful comment + +00:11:23.096 --> 00:11:24.560 +about how "Frozen" +might actually + +00:11:24.560 --> 00:11:28.170 +create its own +critics-- that because + +00:11:28.170 --> 00:11:32.010 +of what it does with its genre, +it will implant in the audience + +00:11:32.010 --> 00:11:34.870 +a tendency to be critical +of it, and then draws + +00:11:34.870 --> 00:11:37.040 +a really awesome connection +to Bioshock Infinite, + +00:11:37.040 --> 00:11:40.800 +right, which is a game that +really encouraged the players + +00:11:40.800 --> 00:11:42.580 +to look critically +at what was being + +00:11:42.580 --> 00:11:45.020 +asked of them in the game. + +00:11:45.020 --> 00:11:47.760 +And by extension, +maybe other games. + +00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:50.140 +So yeah, this is-- I did not +even make that connection. + +00:11:50.140 --> 00:11:51.750 +And that's really awesome. + +00:11:51.750 --> 00:11:53.833 +(SINGING) The fact that I +don't read your comments + +00:11:53.833 --> 00:11:58.590 +shouldn't bother you anyway, +because there's a lot of them. + +00:11:58.590 --> 00:12:01.800 +At this point, it's basically +like winning the lottery. + +00:12:01.800 --> 00:12:03.607 +Thank you for writing +this one, though. + +00:12:03.607 --> 00:12:05.190 +This week's episode +was brought to you + +00:12:05.190 --> 00:12:07.820 +by the hard work of these +people, who say "bubbler" + +00:12:07.820 --> 00:12:09.320 +instead of "water fountain." + +00:12:09.320 --> 00:12:11.820 +We have a Facebook, an IRC, +and a subreddit-- links + +00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:13.290 +in the doobly-doo. + +00:12:13.290 --> 00:12:15.550 +There are two +things of the week. + +00:12:15.550 --> 00:12:17.400 +A tweet from @enochobus +who points us + +00:12:17.400 --> 00:12:19.840 +towards a Wired article +about an Instagram + +00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:22.680 +account that posts +only amazing looking + +00:12:22.680 --> 00:12:25.490 +glitches that are so +cool, and a post on Tumblr + +00:12:25.490 --> 00:12:30.800 +from therisingtides about how +criticism in the age of Tumblr + +00:12:30.800 --> 00:12:34.320 +is becoming much easier +and is somehow contributing + +00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:37.376 +to the popularity of things. + +00:12:37.376 --> 00:12:38.750 +It's very good, +very interesting. + +00:12:38.750 --> 00:12:39.541 +You should read it. + +00:12:48.267 --> 00:12:49.850 +And for this week's +record swap, we're + +00:12:49.850 --> 00:12:51.600 +going to be replacing +Jack Elliott singing + +00:12:51.600 --> 00:13:04.075 +the songs of Woody Guthrie +with Okkyung Lee's "Ghil." + +00:13:04.075 --> 00:13:06.420 +I really wish you +could see that better. + +00:13:06.420 --> 00:13:08.260 +Well, adios, Jack Elliott. + +00:13:08.260 --> 00:13:12.050 +Welcome, Okkung Lee. + diff --git a/videos/Are 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