MrBeast is #1 in 2024. A College dropout whom nobody would ever have got to know, except for YouTube. His childhood friends are still collaborators.
Casey Neistat popularized vlogging. A high school dropout who headed to NYC with no money. And went on to inspire tens of thousands to start their own YouTube channel. His first upload was February 17, 2010.
I first learned about him from this edit for Nike. 😀
“Nike asked me to make a movie about what it means to #makeitcount. Instead of making their movie, I spent the entire budget traveling around the world with my friend Max. We’d keep going until the money ran out. It took 10 days.”
HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. …
I call this enshittification, …
Amazon, Facebook, Tiktok. All of them.
The Google search engine app on my phone is totally ‘enshittified’ — nobody could appreciate so many inappropriate advertisements.
Wikipedia is not enshittified.
Why?
It’s not based on advertising. Ads are the main reason the internet is getting enshittified.
I don’t suffer much because I have every ad blocker known to man working in the Chrome browser. I rarely see ads, except on my phone.
Facebook ads are hardest to avoid.
I pay for YouTube Premium to avoid ads in the middle of my videos.
Mr. Beast is a 24-year-old normal guy from Kansas.
A University dropout.
His YouTube channel reached 112 million subscribers on November 17, 2022, making it the fourth-most-subscribed on the platform, and the highest as a non-corporate identity.
Aside from his philanthropy, everyone studies his simple but effective VIDEO storytelling.
By Mark Bergen, a technology reporter at Bloomberg.
Published Sept 2022.
The biggest surprise was learning that YouTube’s algorithm actually kept most of Trump’s BIG LIE from getting promoted in early 2021. They were ready.
YouTube did a surprisingly good job of not promoting vaccine misinformation, as well.
You can find that stuff on YouTube, for sure. But it’s not being massively promoted for money.
As FREE enterprise, YouTube is FREE to post and promote whatever they want.
I’ve removed monetization from all my videos and websites.
If you eliminate ads and ad-driven algorithms, most social media problems disappear.
Google is a great search engine but I find YouTube to be quite lousy at listing either popular, quality, or related videos. Search for any topic you know well. Disappointing.
I spend a couple of hours most days on YouTube. No ads as I pay CAD$12 / month for YouTube Premium.
YouTube was super disorganized right from the start.
After Google bought the video site and made it #1, problems evolved as millions of “creators” devised hacks to make money off the site.
Despite all its growth and success, YouTube has been widely criticized.
YouTube released a mobile app known as YouTube Kids in 2015, designed to provide an experience optimized for children. …
YouTube removed public display of dislike counts on videos in November 2021, claiming the reason for the removal was, based on its internal research, that users often used the dislike feature as a form of cyberbullying and brigading. …
On October 9, 2006, Google announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock. It would have been Google or Yahoo. Google was willing to pay more.
FOX was also interested, but Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation had wasted $580m buying Myspace in 2005. They eventually sold MySpace for $35m.
YouTube had $19.8 billion in revenue in 2020. I send YouTube CAD $12 every month for YouTube Premium. Ad free videos. My music subscription. And a few other perks.
One of my most popular videos is from the early days. 😀 Low resolution. No editing. #bad
If you are irked that I call Donald Trump the fat golfer, please stop following my posts.
After a lifetime study of comparative religion, Joseph Campbell concluded that the best course was to Follow your Bliss. Make a list of those things in your life that you most enjoy; those things that enervate you, compel you; interest you in a sustained way. Do them!
Make a second list of those things that vex your existence. How can you avoid or minimize those? CANCEL them.
When in office I mostly called Trump the toddler President — rash, undisciplined, selfish, spoiled. Out of office fat golfer better sums up my opinion of him in a short, colourful way. Trump is the master of name calling. Since he does it, I feel it’s ethical to reciprocate.
The Ugly American
I believe in freedom of speech. The fat golfer can say whatever he wants on his golf course. BUT not in my home. Not on my blogs. Nor my social media feeds.
I also believe in the freedom to NOT listen to speech.
Since Rush Limbaugh — the Big Fat Idiot — popularized the notion of cancelling people in the 1980s, the word cancelled has become increasingly loaded. And increasingly meaningless.
Though I’m left leaning, I haven’t yet cancelled JK Rowling, Woody Allen, Jordan Peterson and many more. You should if they irritate you enough.
I AM quick to unsubscribe to organizations and people I believe are distributing dangerous and/or unethical content online.
Certainly the American GOP / FOX money making machine picks a new Mr. Potato Head to cancel every day. Gots to keep their mostly old, white supporters angry. (That story was fake news, by the way.)
The best coverage of this issue I’ve heard is on my favourite podcast – Reputation.
During an I.C.E. operation in New York City, officers shot a man in a car while a child sat in the back seat. On this week’s On the Media, coverage of I.C.E. has decreased since the spring, while the agency’s operations have quietly surged. Plus, rightwing activists go after the H-1B visa program. [01:00] Micah Loewinger hears from data journalist G. Elliott Morris about how I.C.E. coverage has decreased since it exploded across our front pages earlier this year, following the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. However, José Olivares makes the case that I.C.E.’s operations have actually surged in the ensuing months – the agency has just been working more quietly.[15:05] Micah interviews Christopher Mathias about how the once-fringe far-right thinker Chris Rufo (known for his critiques of DEI’ and ‘CRT’) is fomenting anti-Indian bigotry and advocating for extremist “remigration” policies.[31:02] Micah speaks to political scientist Lilliana Mason about the most polarizing issue among Americans: who belongs in this country. Mason makes the case that while polarization is worrying, it is a symptom of a greater threat to democracy that demands our attention – the rise of ethnonationalist politics.Further reading:“Gone in 90 seconds: an ‘invisibilized’ ICE is arresting more people than ever” by Maanvi Singh, Will Craft, Andrew Witherspoon and Julius Constantine Motal“Three deaths, three states, 24 hours: one day in ICE’s quiet but ‘gruesome’ surge,” by José Olivares“‘What they’re doing qualifies as torture’: new details of ICE force-feeding revealed” by José Olivares“Iran, prices, ICE, and Epstein are the biggest stories of 2026,” by G. Elliott Morris“Chris Rufo — Known For ‘DEI’ and ‘CRT’ Panics — Tries to Make ‘the Indian Question’ a Thing,” by Christopher Mathias“Polarization is Not the Problem,” by Lilliana Mason
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