I have written before about YouTube channels that upload outright fake and fraudulent videos, such as fake "primitive building" videos, fake "restoration" videos, and so on. These are fraudulent in that they completely mislead their viewers about the genuineness of what's shown in the video, and thus inducing a lot of views and thus ad revenue, and sometimes even fraudulent donations.
There is one type of YouTube channel that has a significantly more complicated and fuzzy status.
It can be a bit hard to imagine for the average YouTube viewer, but for bigger youtubers making videos is actually their primary and only job and source of revenue. Not only that, but some youtubers are outright rich. Literally millionaires! If you are getting millions of views, the ad revenue can be surprisingly lucrative.
YouTube and most youtubers (with some exceptions) are not completely open and clear about how much revenue a channel can get, but a rough estimate is about 1 cent per view. If a video gets, say, 20 million views, and at least half of those are not ad-blocked, that's a good 100 thousand dollars for that one single video. That's the entire yearly income of most people in a well-paying job. And that's for one single video!
And the thing is, these huge channels usually upload at a minimum one video a week, most often several per week. If each one of them gets at least 10 million (non-ad-blocked) views, that's 100 thousand for each one. That's a monthly revenue of several million dollars!
Even if a channel gets "only", say, 100 thousand (non-ad-blocked) views per video, and the channel uploads, say 5 videos a week, that's 5 thousand dollars a week, 20 thousand a month. That's more than most people's monthly salary even in very well-paying jobs.
In this light, it's no wonder why the big youtubers are so worried about demonetization: Every video that gets demonetized means it will not give any revenue at all. If a 20-million-views video gets demonetized, that's 100+ thousand dollars of missed revenue. And that's a potential inability to pay the salaries of your team.
Because, indeed, most of these huge YouTube channels with tens of millions of views per video are outright video production companies on their own. Even if the videos themselves show just a couple of guys, there's often an entire team, often consisting of at least a dozen workers, behind the scenes to produce those videos. There are scriptwriters, editors, and all kinds of people tasked with procuring and maintaining sets, props, etc. Sometimes even outright semi-professional quality studio gear (such as studio lights, cameras, and so on.) Oftentimes the videos are also filmed in outright studios or other kind of dedicated premises (requiring paying rent etc.)
Sometimes these channels will make some videos divulging this. In other words, a kind of "meet the team", or "studio tour" videos, that show what's happening behind the scenes. Sometimes members of the crew, who normally don't appear on camera, can make an appearance, or at least be talked to or alluded to by the "faces" of the show. Shoutouts are sometimes given to the show's editor (particularly if it's a two-team channel, ie. the face and the editor behind the scenes editing and publishing the videos.)
Anyway, even if most of these channels are not outright trying to hide the fact that they are actually relatively big and rich production companies with a sizeable crew, many of these channel at least try to give a picture of the "faces" of the show being just "one of you", your everyday guy just making videos.
Sometimes I think this is actually true, particularly in those two-member teams with the channel owner plus editor, even if the channel is huge. I believe that two examples of this are PewDiePie and Asmongold (I have no reason to believe that they have bigger crews behind the scenes than just an editor.)
Othertimes, however, while not outright actively trying to claim so, many of these channel nevertheless try to paint a picture of it just being a couple of guys, even one single guy, an everyday guy, just like you and me, just making videos for fun, interest, entertainment and benefit of the viewers.
This is in contrast with more traditional TV hosts and personalities. Nobody thinks that, for example, someone like Conan O'Brien, or David Letterman, or John Oliver, are just some "just like you" guy making videos with a small team. They are professional studios producing professional work for a big rich corporation, and the interests of the corporation always go first, the interest of the viewers far second.
Anyway, where am I going with this?
The thing about these youtube channels that give the impression of "everyday joes" is that they earn the trust of their audience. Their audience trusts them more than they would trust some professional TV personality.
Where does this come into play? Where would this extra trust be misplaced and misleading?
In product reviews, that's where.
Some of these huge channels indeed sometimes engage in product reviews, like for example reviewing a new electronic device such as a phone or VR headset.
While most of these channels might divulge that the product has been "sponsored by" the manufacturer in question (in most countries they are legally required to do so), they usually just leave it at that and don't make much fuss about it. It might be a brief two-second mention at the beginning of the video, or even just left as text in the description or somewhere.
Surprisingly few people even pay attention to that declaration. They just half-pay attention to it, and very soon forget about it, and don't think about it. Particularly, most people don't realize the importance of it.
Why is this important? Because these companies, particularly the big ones (like Apple, Samsung, etc) very rarely if ever "sponsor" their new products to be reviewed in honesty. The sponsorship and free review sample almost always comes with a contract, and that contract has stipulations about what the youtuber can and can't say about the product.
And the thing is, because many of these YouTube channel outright depend on these early review samples, they are morbidly afraid of angering the corporations. Make a bad review, and suddenly they will find themselves blacklisted by the company, never again to receive a review sample of any new product.
These YouTube channels depend on these early review samples because they need to publish the review videos on the day of publication (ie. when the review embargo is lifted). They can't wait to purchase the product, use it, and review it days or weeks later. By that time nobody will be interested in such reviews anymore. By far the highest numbers of viewers for a review will be on the first couple of days after the review embargo is lifted (which is usually a couple of days before the product is launched).
Thus, the "reviews" you get from these big YouTube channels will be heavily biased, trying to avoid angering the corporations. You will pretty much never get an outright negative review of such a product.
These YouTube channel maintain an image of "we are just everyday guys like you, not some paid megacorporation mouthpieces", while pretty much being paid megacorporation mouthpieces, and trying to hide that fact as much as possible.
And that's where this deception and borderline fraud is.
Comments
Post a Comment