Slashdot Mirror
A Look at the Dark Side of the Lives of Some Prominent YouTubers, Who Are Increasingly Saying They're Stressed, Depressed, Lonely, and Exhausted (theguardian.com)
Many YouTubers are finding themselves stressed, lonely and exhausted. The Guardian: For years, YouTubers have believed that they are loved most by their audience when they project a chirpy, grateful image. But what happens when the mask slips? This year there has been a wave of videos by prominent YouTubers talking about their burnout, chronic fatigue and depression. "This is all I ever wanted," said Elle Mills, a 20-year-old Filipino-Canadian YouTuber in a (monetised) video entitled Burnt Out At 19, posted in May. "And why the fuck am I so unfucking unhappy? It doesn't make any sense. You know what I mean? Because, like, this is literally my fucking dream. And I'm fucking so un-fucking-happy."
[...] The anxieties are tied up with the relentless nature of their work. Tyler Blevins, AKA Ninja, makes an estimated $500,000 every month via live broadcasts of him playing the video game Fortnite on Twitch, a service for livestreaming video games that is owned by Amazon. Most of Blevins' revenue comes from Twitch subscribers or viewers who provide one-off donations (often in the hope that he will thank them by name "on air"). Blevins recently took to Twitter to complain that he didn't feel he could stop streaming. "Wanna know the struggles of streaming over other jobs?" he wrote, perhaps ill-advisedly for someone with such a stratospheric income. "I left for less than 48 hours and lost 40,000 subscribers on Twitch. I'll be back today... grinding again." There was little sympathy on Twitter for the millionaire. But the pressure he described is felt at every level of success, from the titans of the content landscape all the way down to the people with channels with just a few thousand subscribers, all of whom feel they must be constantly creating, always available and responding to their fans.
"Constant releases build audience loyalty," says Austin Hourigan, who runs ShoddyCast, a YouTube channel with 1.2 million subscribers. "The more loyalty you build, the more likely your viewers are to come back, which gives you the closest thing to a financial safety net in what is otherwise a capricious space." When a YouTuber passes the 1 million subscribers mark, they are presented with a gold plaque to mark the event. Many of these plaques can be seen on shelves and walls in the background of presenters' rooms. In this way, the size of viewership and quantity of uploads become the main markers of value.
[...] The anxieties are tied up with the relentless nature of their work. Tyler Blevins, AKA Ninja, makes an estimated $500,000 every month via live broadcasts of him playing the video game Fortnite on Twitch, a service for livestreaming video games that is owned by Amazon. Most of Blevins' revenue comes from Twitch subscribers or viewers who provide one-off donations (often in the hope that he will thank them by name "on air"). Blevins recently took to Twitter to complain that he didn't feel he could stop streaming. "Wanna know the struggles of streaming over other jobs?" he wrote, perhaps ill-advisedly for someone with such a stratospheric income. "I left for less than 48 hours and lost 40,000 subscribers on Twitch. I'll be back today... grinding again." There was little sympathy on Twitter for the millionaire. But the pressure he described is felt at every level of success, from the titans of the content landscape all the way down to the people with channels with just a few thousand subscribers, all of whom feel they must be constantly creating, always available and responding to their fans.
"Constant releases build audience loyalty," says Austin Hourigan, who runs ShoddyCast, a YouTube channel with 1.2 million subscribers. "The more loyalty you build, the more likely your viewers are to come back, which gives you the closest thing to a financial safety net in what is otherwise a capricious space." When a YouTuber passes the 1 million subscribers mark, they are presented with a gold plaque to mark the event. Many of these plaques can be seen on shelves and walls in the background of presenters' rooms. In this way, the size of viewership and quantity of uploads become the main markers of value.
be stressed wondering if it there tomorrow
You realize how much money a YouTuber with 1 million subscribers makes? It is mind boggling. Yeah, more than IT. Sure, it's "stressful" because you have to film, edit, and upload. Poor babies. Then there's all the "merch" to sell. It's just like a real business! I say, good for you. You did it. Now stop whining, you dumb fuck.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
If you're making 500k a month. Suck it up. Bank that money for a bit. Quit. And go enjoy a nice life off the properly invested money.
Jesus. What whiners.
And this burnout they're experiencing is the end result.
It's not about QUALITY, which you can take your time and really perfect before releasing to the public. It's about views, likes, subscribers... numbers, aka quantity.
If you earn in a month 6 times more than what professionals in other industries earn in a year, how about just quit after a few months? Learn some financial managment (ie, don't spend more than you have) and be set for life.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Seriously? These idiots are whining?
If you don't like doing youtube, take your damn millions and invest it in another business so you don't have to do it anymore.
I bet A lister celebrities whine about the same problems too. "Awe my life is so difficult! I can't go outside without being mobbed by people. But yes I will continue to take these $500k monthly royalty checks."
These jack asses can go f*ck themselves.
...a couple years and he'll practically be set for life. That seems worth some stress for a while. There are some professions that require an equal amount of commitment in the training phase that don't net as much money.
And it won't last forever. Eventually his channel will start to fade. He's lucky he hit the peak at such a high point. There are plenty of crashed YouTubers who didn't earn even one-tenth of his monthly income in a year.
Tyler Blevins, AKA Ninja, makes an estimated $500,000 every month via live broadcasts of him playing the video game Fortnite on Twitch, a service for livestreaming video games that is owned by Amazon. Most of Blevins' revenue comes from Twitch subscribers or viewers who provide one-off donations (often in the hope that he will thank them by name "on air"). Blevins recently took to Twitter to complain that he didn't feel he could stop streaming. "Wanna know the struggles of streaming over other jobs?" he wrote, perhaps ill-advisedly for someone with such a stratospheric income. "I left for less than 48 hours and lost 40,000 subscribers on Twitch. I'll be back today... grinding again."
So in essence he's complaining he has to work every day to earn his high salary. What did he think, that he could just stop working and continue to get paid to do nothing?
Whaaaaaat? Achieving monetary success doesn't fill that gaping void in your soul? The adoration of strangers doesn't fill the same gap as true friends you hang out with every day? Money doesn't buy happiness? Capitalism isn't perfect?!
It's like nobody ever told us!
"And why the fuck am I so unfucking unhappy?
Not to be mean, but "youtube celebrity' is not very high on the list of things which makes the world a better place. There's no long term job satisfaction in that. As opposed to something that helps people or the world around you, like being a first responder, or a carpenter, or a doctor, or a marriage councilor, or any number of other things which improve the real world in some way.
Social media as it exists is a blight on the internet. There is not a thing at all wrong with socialization and talking to people with the same interests, but these huge companies have perverted it into a game of monetization and click counting and maximizing upvotes. That isn't the right reason to do anything. It's like what true socialization would be if it everything good about it was destroyed and it was made superficial and hollow.
So get out in the world. Get a skill set that isn't whoring yourself out on social media for likes. Learn to do something people value in the real world.
n/t
I work my ass off too doing a real job making a fraction of what these idiots do and I'm fucking stressed and depressed too. But I'm also fucking poor so suck it the fuck up.
The internet life is a lonely, and sometimes boring, life. There is a known psychological correlation between loneliness, boredom, and stress. I think that is what the article is alluding to. Money is not a cure for depression and anxiety; simply ask the wealthy that are on antidepressants and seek out therapy and counseling.
No sympathy. They chose to get paid in their "job" - now, be like everyone else. Do it, or get a new job.
Quit bitching.
Does he really do it all himself? Seriously, hire a team and cut the stress level by a huge margin.
This is just another attempt to grab more media attention. When whatever stupid thing you posted on YouTube has passed, you have to do what you can to keep the attention. Did you ever notice how many low grade trying to 'comeback' actors and musicians have ghosts and spirits in their houses today.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
They're unhappy because they've chosen an extremely shallow and meaningless avocation and have mistaken it for meaningful achievement and lasting contribution to the greater good. They're unhappy because they're beginning to realize the complete futility and meaningless of what they're doing with their lives. They're the modern, digital equivalent of 30-year-old hockey scores. No one will care or even know about them two or three years from now and they'll be left pondering how and why they've wasted some of the prime years of their lives. I hope they're saving whatever money they're making so they at least have a nest egg to finance something meaningful that will make them happy.
ZERO FUCKS TO GIVE for these little shits.
For years, YouTubers have believed that they are loved most by their audience when they project a chirpy, grateful image.
ok, let me stop you there.
"youtubers" as a specific genre or style of presentation and platform is way more narrow than "people posting to youtube". I'm not saying you're wrong, but let's be clear on what we're talking about. This is a specific "cultural trend", like how all air traffic controllers are trying to sound like that one NASA employee in Houston they heard announcing the countdown for Apollo. Or how drill sergeants all wish they were Gunny (RIP). Or how all Slashdotters are neckbeards.
But I get you. "youtubers" as a genre. The sort of stuff you see Youtube recommend when you go there without a history. The "common denominator". And personally? FUCK THAT NOISE. It is the most banal and fake shit I can imagine and it grates on my nerves whenever I hear it. If the talking heads are sad about having to maintain a fake personality, WELCOME TO TELEVISION. It's a job. In other news, Keisha isn't really drunk 24/7, CNN reporters aren't staring into the void with half-dead eyes outside of work, and that cure girl working retail isn't actually that happy to see you.
a 20-year-old Filipino-Canadian YouTuber in a (monetised) video entitled Burnt Out At 19, posted in May. "And why the fuck am I so unfucking unhappy? It doesn't make any sense. You know what I mean? Because, like, this is literally my fucking dream. And I'm fucking so un-fucking-happy."
....Really? Wow. Ok, this is so over the top it must be a hit-piece by an old codger at the Guardian. I guess giving people reasons to hate millenials pays?
being a youtuber is nothing. absolutely nothing. it's not fulfilling by any sense of any imagination. if they want to feel better about themselves. turn off the fucking internet, get a real job or at least just go outside and play in the dirt
go make something, you know with your actual hands, sorry but making shitty, worthless, useless, pointless "content" is not making anything at all and unless you're making music or art or educating people, the content on youtube is utter garbage and has no place to exist anywhere in the known universe and should have never been created or at least never shared under any circumstance.
I don't think I've heard of a "celebrity" that doesn't whine. The whinier, the celebritier.
In the yet-another-money-doesn't-buy-happiness-dept we have people self-employing themselves for 500k struggling with depression? There's an awful and growing segment of the population who are caught in the glow of their own avatars and it is NOT healthy. Get out and form some friendships, invest your millions of dollars and understand that followers are NOT friends. They're leeches who have come to consume YOU the product.
You will never be happy if you can't make the distinction.
Social Media is a comparative and dissociative medium, we compare ourselves to others 'bests' and happiest moments and dissolve our personalities to mere veneers of reality. It doesn't surprise me some get depressed even if successful, but it's not a hard fix. Drop your online and GET REAL.
So being a professional attention whore is hard work? Being professional anything is hard work. Grow the fuck up.
That someone could earn $500K a month from subscribers and donations. Surprising still that this is for playing a video game.
Even more so that anyone would pay to watch someone play a video game they could be playing for $50.
All I can figure is there are a lot of lonely people with a lot of credit card debt.
Waah, pay attention to me!
*** time passes, attention-whoring YouTubers get their validation, money rolls in ***
Waah, I'm depressed, pay more attention to me!
*** sheep go BAAAAH and give the attention whore what (s)he wants ***
..I'm sorry, but let's be honest, aren't many of these people on YouTube just attention whores? More like attention vampires, maybe? Suck up all the attention, into the black hole it goes, never satisfied, always wanting more, more, more?
..oh, please.
not for those making a killing. There are tons of people creating great videos (or other works) out there on the internet that are just trying, and often failing, to make a living from it; those people I have a lot of sympathy for. People like the two guys behind Cool Ghosts, who amongst other things have put out perhaps the best video game review 'TV' episodes of all time.
By contrast, people that are making enough they could easily retire and live an extremely comfortable life for the rest of their days? Those I don't have sympathy for. They aren't actually stuck in any real rut, and their artistic output tends to be a lot less laudable anyways.
It's an age-old problem and dichotomy. It brings to mind the song "Coup D'etat" by Sleepless Nights, about the music industry:
Who killed Sam The Record Man?
Music fans with blood-stained hands
"God damn, Celine sold less Greatest Hits this year"
The only hearts that beat close to mind
Are the casualties of the retail line
Part time artists, Scraping bottom and barely getting by
Brace yourselves, here comes the Coup D'Etat
There goes the old dead world
Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, now
Brace yourselves, here comes the shakeup shift
Golf carts are crashing hard
And I could really give a shit
For old Gene Simmons and tin-can Lars
Need their hands on my money like a hole in the heart
Art needs to suffer, not drive expensive cars
Aluminum and plastic, and more plastic still
Making mountains of ephemera in the county landfill
I remember when rare sound wasn't just a ratio kill
Brace yourselves, here comes the Coup D'Etat . . .
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
How is working in entertainment via mainly an online delivery platform different from working in entertainment via a mainly offline delivery platform?
(How is being a Youtube personality different from being a personality on radio or tv?)
Do these people know anyone who has worked in tv or radio? Have they talked with someone who remembers what it was like to be a junior writer, producer, or location scout? Have they missed the recent news about Geoffrey Owens working at a grocery store?
I live in southern California, and you don't actually meet stars here. You do meet a ton of people who tried working in entertainment at some point and burned out, or who spent decades kind of making a living at it while working really hard.
It sucks to grow up and discover that work is work.
waking up one day as a rockstar Youtuber with that though in mind, that must be a awesome epiphany.
"Tyler Blevins, AKA Ninja, makes an estimated $500,000 every month via live broadcasts of him playing the video game Fortnite on Twitch"
Christ I wish I could make $500K a month playing video games. I wouldn't have busted my backside working in boiler factory years ago to pay for college and then took all kinds of crazy jobs till I found a job I enjoyed. Cry me a river already.
Yeah I know, people say, "Well why don't you go and do it?" Well not everyone gets the brakes these people do. Right place, right time otherwise people all over the place would be taking home $500K a month playing games and there would be all kinds of job postings everywhere looking for people not playing games.
Pfff.. bank, invest, and quite the job if it's that bad.
that's the sound of the worlds smalliest violin.
I'm sorry, I live in San Diego. I'll never forget that asshat youtuber who took his supercar the wrong way on the freeway and killed a mom and her 12 year old daughter.
When I hear "youtube star" I instantly think "douchbag", and so far they've only gone down from there.
Of course they're unhappy, everyone is since Trump got elected. We're forced to see him on all forms of media every single day, just to feed good ego. Now go do something about it.
There can be no light without darkness, nor darkness without light (this second part is tricky, think a little).
Sometimes we become used to what a priori we only dreamed of -- after we get it. Things we get used to somehow disappear from radar.
And we can also be surprised by the many tasks we still got do, even after reaching paradise.
Thirdly, we need variation. Some even more than others.
Finally, in my life (59), I've come to the conclusion that happiness is not some state you can reach, but rather a change in state.
You are sick and suddenly starts to heal: that is happiness. You salary enters your account: oh, joy! The next day it's only worries: how to better spend it, will it be enough for the month, to buy or lease a car etc.
With that in mind, I suggest you strive to be ever improving -- in many way, no only financially -- and thus make change continuous, instead of aiming for a higher state.
It's a zen thing.
It seems a lot of celebs spend a lot of energy chasing reviews and accolades, which becomes a driver of their self image, before eventually arriving at the crushing realization that fame and fortune aren't all they're cracked up to be, and ultimately don't fill the emptiness they experience every day.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Reminds me of a doctor visit: (me) "Doc, it hurts when I do this."
(Doctor) "Don't do that."
Perhaps there's a lesson herein.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
doesn't make one happy? I would have never thunk it.
I hear that "Portland is a city where young people go to retire." https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Seriously, though, I could not agree more with mschuyler. Who would ever think that these attention-mongering prima donnas would bitch and moan so much about doing their jobs? Someone needs to show them what it's really like to have a stressful job---especially jobs that are low-paying, yet require more skill than making a ton of irrelevant Youtube videos.. Better yet, show them what it's like to absolutely depend on the income from two crappy, unrewarding, and stressful jobs.
Nobody is forcing them to do this. It's all self-inflicted. If you cannot handle the stress, perhaps you should look into becoming a librarian?
Besides...I would not be surprised at all to learn of a version of the appendix to one of the apocryphal versions of the New Testament that states that prominent Youtube personalities signals the approach of the end times.
CGP Grey came up with idea that initially sounds silly, until you think about it...
Get rid of publicly seen view counts, subscriber counts and thumbs up/down counts for all videos and channels. The creators would still see them privately. It would take a lot of the pressure off.
It happens. I'm surprised someone in their 20's would hit it, but it definitely is a thing. I know I can definitely relate to the "I should be happy" with my dream job making six figures. If you work crazy hours and can't ever give your mind a rest, this is what will happen. I finally had to quit. Not sure what is next, but employer didn't want to work with me, so was time to leave. I think we are going to see a lot more of this in the near future.
There was little sympathy on Twitter for the millionaire.
This. Fucking arseholes. You think such an income comes for free? You think regular people who do actual work for their money don't get stressed? People who earn your money in a year have higher job demands, so STFU.
Most of the "YouTubers" that I've had any exposure to (thankfully, very few) don't know how to do anything else and have never held an actual job for any length of time. They don't have any idea what life outside YouTube looks like. Most people who have had an actual career understand very well that higher salaries come with higher demands and very often with higher stress levels. We can easily extrapolate and understand that we could probably earn twice as much as we do now, and what the cost would be.
I've been a CEO in my life. I honestly don't want again. I prefer having a life, thank you. I'm more happy now, and trying to get rid of the last remnants from that time, the last requests and demands.
YouTubers, from what I understand, are similar to musicians or actors. Most of them have little audience and very small incomes, but a relatively low number of stars goes through the roof. It's a steep curve with a small tip. So your choice is to be on top or not, there's not much of a middle where you can be comfortable with acceptable stress level and income.
But you know what? That's a choice you made. Give me half a million a month and I'll be happy to work my arse off 24 hours a day seven days a week for a year, invest most of the profit nicely, then retire back to my current job, but live at a higher comfort level because my house is paid off and I still have a few millions in a nice portfolio that gives me a really nice passive income.
Oh yeah, I forgot. I have an actual profession that I can go back to. Poor YouTuber. Maybe spend your money on learning something? That's what smart pro-athletes do, who understand the most clearly that they can't be a soccer player or runner or jumper for many years.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
People Are Stressed, Depressed, Lonely, and Exhausted
Headline shortened and generalized for clarity.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Thankfully I'm just a wage slave while my country has a war on the poor.
In Europe we value our off time and limit our working time and take holidays. Even people who are self employed are spending their money on it.
If your hobby becomes work, it is still work. So look for something ekse to do. Build in weekends you are not in front of a PC or camera. Take uearly holiday.
Moaning about work? There is a support group for that and we meet at the bar.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
What the title says. The dumbasses are doing it for the money and the attention, not because they think it's fun. Just fucking do whatever you want to do and whatever you think is fun to do. Don't do what you think other people think is fun to watch you do. The people who think what you do is fun to watch, they will find you and watch what you do.
It's the same stupid gimmick musicians have been going through for the last 60 years. Playing music is fun, playing gigs is fun, getting signed for a big music deal is fun, but then you have to start working for the money, and that's not really so fun, so you take a few drugs to make it fun again, and you enter the inevitable death-spiral until you burn out and/or commit suicide.
But stupid people will continue to be stupid and will refuse to see the reality they live in, or learn from mistakes made by thousands upon thousands of people before them
Why should I care about these people? if you make $500.000 a month with live streaming playing a game.. Stop moaning and just stop live streaming or cutting it back.. Sorry can't have any sympathy for those people if they complain, they do it to themselves and their bankaccount isn't complaining.. A lot of people have to work a lifetime to even earn $500.000, let alone having that ammount of cash as a reserve on their bankaccount (most people don't have that).
do people really unsunscribe to a channel if it failed to upload a video for a single day??
When a business makes $500,000/mo it can afford to hire some staff.
Maybe these people should treat it like a real business and hire people to help with the workload.
YouTube "celebrities" are just discovering something that everyone else in the entertainment industry has always known - it's incredibly demanding and much harder than it looks. Audiences are fickle, and you are at their mercy.
The root issue is Narcissism. They need increasing amounts of egotistic admiration otherwise their ego/self image will suffer. At first they can achieve rapid growth in subs which feeds their ego, but they need for more attention to gain the same endorphin high, but ultimately there subscribers will plateau they will not get the highs.
Even those that do not start as Narcissists, will acquired situational narcissism as long as they receive constant positive feedback, it rewires their brains to need the endorphin high.
I have literally tens of IG followers and I know the pressure of keeping those likes flowing. One of my kids was consistently getting low ratings on Instagram so I was forced to drop his content, in favour of one of his siblings.
The problem I have with this is it is a shallow and vacuous goal.
OK, so you want to be famous on YouTube so that a bunch of strangers will validate your existence. Great.
Unfortunately, that is that it's pretty thin in terms of providing happiness and fulfilment.
So, you're a 20-year old, whose life 'dream' was to be adored by strangers on YouTube, and now you're saying "gee, now what do I do?"
In my estimation if you think being a YouTube celebrity is going to bring you a fulfilling life over the long term, you've latched onto the worst parts of society and invested your self worth in the praise of strangers. It's entirely external validation, of a fleeting and unimportant thing, and you've built it up to be the pinnacle of your existence.
To hell with rich and famous, I want to be rich and anonymous so I can go about my life without anybody giving a damn who I am.
This reminds me of child stars who suddenly find themselves as adults ... the cuteness and attention has faded, the money has dried up, and the only thing they have left is endless reality shows to try to recapture the feeling that the world still adores them.
I can't imagine anything more pointless and empty than having your life goal to be famous on YouTube; You've staked your future on something which at the end of the day is pretty pointless.
Sorry kid, it isn't all about you, but you've decided to make your world focused on it being about you. The come down from the knowledge that nobody actually gives a damn can be pretty harsh.
I'm afraid the existential angst of a whiny millennial YouTube celebrity really isn't something I can muster a whole lot of sympathy for -- not even a little.
All these youtubers turn their every interaction online into an advertisement. They're constantly planning shit, checking their numbers, etc.
If you never stop working eventually you crack I don't care if it's your job to spray tan playboy models.
I run a channel with 16.5 million views, 37k subs, and 1450 videos and it's been up for about 3 years. These whiners are entitled milennial assholes who only care about what people think of them on top of never having worked a day in their life. They're depressed that 95% of their fans loving them and 5% constantly bashing them leaves them feeling empty and "stressed out." They're shallow and impossibly lazy and picked the wrong career path. I'm not "burned out" and I work a full time job on top of making around 1.5 videos per day for my channel.
I think they worked hard to get things to the point where they can quit their day job and do this. Now they're trapped and they're stuck in the same workflow they developed getting to this point.
They dedicate lots and lots of effort to things, professional lighting (nobody gives a fuck), makeup, fancy mics, soundproofing (nobody gives a fuck), fancy cameras (old phones work fine). They should be directing that effort toward making their job easier but they're stupid so they don't.
I always hear about them spending a ton of time making the raw video, re-watching their videos over and over picking scenes. Then they open up final cut and tediously re-arrange the scenes in the gui (with a monster workstation, usually apple).
They need to be working regular 8 hour days, they need to do all this shit in batches with multiple cameras, video one day for 8 hours, editing another day, transcoding and splicing another day and they need to use automation or the job will be too big. If they did this they could make several weeks of video in advance and for CONs and other live-ish events they could have nearly their entire video ready before they even record their con footage. Check the footage, pick faves, run a script, upload the video and go to bed.
For most of these guys event coverage means all day on their feet with smelly gamers and then a night of fucking around in final cut pro in their hotel before going out and doing it again. You're burned out? You don't say?
Once I offered to help one of these guys get set up working like a professional. He never answered my IM, would have reduced his ISP bill and automated a lot of his drudge work. I was going to do this for free because he was so bad at it making a major improvement would have been effortless on my part.
They do it to themselves by being dumb managers, this is why other entertainers hire managers and agents.
video about why folks are getting burnt out putting out content on Youtube..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
...wow...just wow...
nothing to see here - move along
I suspect that most extraordinary achievers are manic-depressive. These folks produce in their manic phase, then feel unhappy in their depressive phase. Why we should care, I do not know.
If you earn in a month 6 times more than what professionals in other industries earn in a year, how about just quit after a few months? Learn some financial managment (ie, don't spend more than you have) and be set for life.
"... and be financially set for life." The answer is pretty clear to outsiders looking in, but I would expect it is similar to anyone who gets famous - how people handle it ranges from loving it and thriving on it, turning it into other opportunities all the way down to people who hate it and wish it never happened. I think what has changed over the past 10-15 years is that the speed at which it happens has accelerated. It seems that quite-literally anyone can become famous on youtube. Personally, I just don't get why people are so intently interested in famous people.
And as is fairly well known, money can't buy happiness. I do believe that. However, I would still like to have a few million bucks in the bank knowing full well it won't make me happier than I am now.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
But much better paid?
How can anyone be remotely surprised by this? If the predominant connections you have in your life are based around chasing money or superficial engagement with glorified strangers, then you're obviously going to have an empty and meaningless existence that eventually weighs upon you. This is the problem with modern keeping up with the kardashians culture... all these kids see money as the key to happiness and have no idea what life is about. They'd rather text people than see them and they spend the majority of their time doing things because they think other people will think they're cool rather than because it's what they truly dreamed of doing. This poor girl crying about being so unhappy after achieving her "dream" is completely missing fulfillment because all she dreamed of was having the followers and being a youtube star. That kid didn't grow up dreaming about creating content and acting and engaging, she dreamt about the celebrity of it and assumed that with that celebrity would come happiness. We've raised a generation, going on two generations now, of kids who don't know who they are because they're so obsessed with who they think they're supposed to be. While that's undoubtedly been a component of teenage angst as long as teens have been around, the presence and extent of social media has elevated it as much as anything else. We need to start teaching these kids to dream about what they love doing, not what they want to be... if you dream of flying, then you naturally gravitate towards becoming a pilot... but if you just get bombarded with media showing how cool pilots are, you grow up thinking you want to be a pilot then one day you just might realize you don't even like flying.
Well, here you go. Deal with it. Here is your fame? How do you like it now? Oh, the money is great, but you better keep producing or you're going to lose it. Hope you've invested wisely so you have an eventual exit strategy.
oh...there's a saying about this....how does it go?
Actors draw clear boundaries between the role and their own personality. Successful youtubers destroy that line - with the pressure to put out content constantly comes the pressure to incorporate more of the personal life into the act. Soon the line gets irrevocably blurred. Comments, likes, views, subs, and revenue become a self-reinforcing cycle tied to self-esteem. Something starting out as a quirky labor of love turns into caring what hundreds of thousands of random internet idiots think. It can destroy your passion for whatever your content is about, at a minimum. You're literally at the collective mercy of all the crackpots, cranks, weirdos, trolls, haters, fanboys. You have the awesome power of knowing that a small percent of viewers will do whatever you tell them... and realizing these tools may be the worst of all. If you have any intellectual honesty, you come to realize what many 'celebrities' do: success is random, and the product of collective stupidity based on the boredom of the world at large.
So here I am, I'm reading comments and I find myself agreeing with the chorus of voices stating these young YouTube hacks needing suck it up for that absurd amount of money. Work for a year (or even six months) and retire! I for sure would.
But then something clicked, and although I still think we are absolutely right to be disgusted at their attitudes I also think there is a flip side to the coin and we are all potentially horrifically wrong.
We need empathy for these guys and girls. We need to be thinking of ways to help them understand and cope with the pressure and their public image. We need them to understand that their profession is volatile and they will not always be on top of it. That's not an IF it's a WHEN, and that's OK!!! We need them to know that public opinion and their ridiculous income is not the be all and end all, there is more to life then they could possibly know.
Don't get me wrong, I don't actually care about them at all, and tbh would be glad to see the back of some of this nonsense, so why would I want to help? Won't someone think about the children (stay with me here). So here's the catch: Our kids are aspiring to be and learning from these streamers... These "content creators" are getting extreme exposure and all of the kids in the playground are talking about them like it or not, and all of them aspire to be like Ninja or whoever the latest flavour is. Ok, so that's not so bad to have a generation of kids subscribed to their favourite youtubers approach and attitude on life. I mean, they are actually pretty cool and can be very entertaining. So, what do you think will happen to your kids mental state when Ninja goes off the deep end after succumbing to the pressure he put himself under, with a very publicised downfall (be honest with yourself, you would happily talk with glee about this stupid kid that got his just desserts), and forbit, off's himself (Don't get any ideas Tyler, you are a good guy, reach out to your friends and family if you need!). Suddenly our kids are exposed to the most raw aspects of human fragility, are supremely confused about what success and popularity is and disappointed with what their aspirations might have been, it's not just a glitch.constrained to the game anymore. And worse than all of that, now have a niggling idea in the back of their minds that checking-out is a thing.
Btw, you cant just be like "OMG bad parent you shouldn't be letting your kids watch this trash in the first place!", they don't have to as this sh!t is pervasive, like really pervasive! My 6yr old was gushing about Ninja without ever being exposed to his stream or channel. I am well prepared for managing exposure to social media (Hey, I was happy to stop at baby shark), as it turns out the modern school yard is a powerful tool for these social channel. Yeah I am sure there are many quaint ideas on how to prevent this exposure, but it's really not practical and all our vigilance is largely futile. We can at least take a step back and teach them how to deal with the outcomes, which is much healthier anyways.
So what do we do, well we sit on slashdot and b!tch about these privileged self entitled little sh!ts some more of course!
Um, but what else do we do? TBH I dunno... The barrier to entry on YouTube/Twitch is extraordinarily low in terms of formal training and viewer phycology. Yeah, Ninja has some exceptional skills and I have to admit I have watched some of his videos and am honestly in awe of his raw talent. But at least traditional TV shows have the understanding that it is a public forum and some moderation around morals and mentality is something to be taken seriously. Twitch and YouTube has too much of a financial stake in the game so aren't going away or fix themselves voluntarily.
Personally I'd like to see some streams with entertaining characters but also being a nice people, they help coach other gamers and viewers where they can and lose more matches than they win. That's the kind of stream I would be ok with kids being exposed to, so
IMO, a large factor in this is that some of these kids (yes, kids) don't know what it's like to work for money. Some haven't had "normal" jobs. Some drop out of college to stream because it makes more money. They get popular, their egos get stroked, and because of them still being young and inexperienced with this type of attention, they don't realize how fleeting it is, and get burned out, depressed, etc. This obviously is not solely a streamer/youtube problem, as everyone deals with this, no matter their profession. However, due to the nature of how streaming works, it would be much more prominent since they completely rely on people watching/donating to their content in order to make money.
And then they want more, and more, and more, and thanks to the way our society works, they are never content, and never really happy.