YouTubers, that is.
I’ve been watching (well, listening) to a lot of videos that summarize the rise, fall, and other misadventures of various YouTube stars lately.
Why? Well, partly because they are just interesting stories, but mostly because I hope to become a YouTube star myself and so you better believe I am taking notes.
Granted, they are mental notes. But those are the only kind I use anyhow.
In school, I took notes in class mostly to keep from being bored.
The strongest theme that has emerged from all these videos is these people not responding well to criticism.
They get super defensive and lash out, and end up starting beefs with other creators, and then comes the drama llama to poop all over everything. The creator ends up losing a lot of subscribers and everything goes to hell.
This is not particularly surprising. You take some youngish person and give them sudden wealth and fame and you get angst and drama. These people, like most of us, have never dealt with all the weird shit that comes crawling out of the dark dank swamp of our social instincts when our social status suddenly skyrockets, so it is not a surprise that they get confused and angry and so on.
After all, when you think about it, it’s no wonder these people don’t know how to deal with criticism because most of us don’t ever face serious criticism.
At least, not in the larger social sense.
So I consider myself forewarned. If I ever get anywhere on YouTube, I will have to make sure to not get hot under the collar about shit people say about me.
It’s got me thinking about what kind of persona I want to project as well. While being a paradigm shattering shit disturbing iconoclastic firebrand has great appeal to me, I am increasingly pondering an alternative I call “Mister Reasonable”.
I know that I have the ability to keep cool and calm and controlled where others might get drawn into petty arguments, personal attacks, and the usual interpersonal crap.
I could see myself acting as a cool, detached, but compassionate voice of reason in public debate whose manner and outlook inspires people to see past their anger and focus on the simple, human things that really matter.
So basically a toned down version of Secular Messiah Fru.
I know I can do that. But I don’t know if I wanna. Once more, I am faced with the issue of trying to pick one of my facets to represent the whole and it’s really frigging hard.
I keep coming back to the idea of having different personae, each with their own channel and their own area of expression. That would solve the many facets issue,but there is a reason I have always resisted any identity splitting like that, and it’s the deep fear that my sanity would shatter from the strain.
I am not saying I would develop full blown Dissociative Identity Disorder), but I can see each persona developing in parallel and my ending up very confused.
So I doubt I will go that route.
Don’t know how else to solve the problem though….
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated,
More after the break.
Inside a mind
Another genre of video I have been consuming lately is the output of a channel called Inside a Mind. Here’s their telling of the infamous BBC show “Ghostwatch”.
It’s a fascinating story and I heartily suggest you watch the video, but in case you are too TL;DR for that, here’s the gist :
Way back in the 90s, the BBC put on a drama called Ghostwatch on Halloween. But this was not your average spookfest. Instead, it was done exactly like it was real news coverage of actual paranormal events, complete with an actual well respected newscaster as the anchor and real celebrities as themselves doing the presenting.
Including fan favorite Craig Charles,aka Lister from Red Dwarf.
And while they told people it was fiction at the beginning and end, and did other things along those lines, they did such a good job making it seem real that it didn’t matter. A lot of people were scared far beyond any reasonable limit, including one mentally disturbed boy who committed suicide and left behind a note saying something like “Ghosts are real, so I think I will go be a ghost now. “
For more on what an amazing job they did making it seem both real and hella fucking scary, watch the clip.
So clearly, the BBC fucked up big time. But I can’t censure them too harshly because this is exactly the sort of thing I would want to do if I could.
Well, and I hadn’t watched the clip and learned what a terrible idea it would be.
I enjoyed that video so much that I decided to check out other videos on the channel, and that’s how I came across this :
It’s the story of this YouTube account that posted videos telling a marvelously disturbing story of Daisy Brown and her father’s creation called Alan.
Now, to me, it was clearly fake. I mean, one look at Alan and you know he’s a puppet. But it was told in a very “real” way that had a lot of people wondering if it was fiction or maybe even…. nonfiction?
Well, not everyone has a keen analytic mind like mine.
Anyhow, what kept me enthralled with the story was how it was told indirectly but very compellingly. In fact, the fact that people had to dig around a little to find it all because it was not being presented as a narrative only made it seem more real.
Ethically, I have some reservations about fucking with people’s minds like this.
But artistically I could not possibly love it more. I am enraptured by the potential of this kind of storytelling and have enormous respect for the people who put it together because if there is one thing I respect, it’s a really top quality public illusion.
The kind that takes a lot of effort and thoughtfulness and attention to detail.
I love it so much that I actually thought about whether I wanted to try something like that myself. But I don’t think I do.
Or if I did, it would be from an entirely different angle from horror.
Possibly something that convinces people of its reality precisely because nothing implausible happens in it.
Something about a rising global movement? I dunno.
But regardless of whether I get involved, I am taking great inspiration from it.
Art is so goddamned awesome.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.