Feel free to check Asmongold’s react video or Chris Broad’s original video.
Someone commented:
Person: i don’t think a diet should be entirely 100 percent cake.
Asmon: i think it’s very pretentious to say only eat salad and never ever ever eat cake. People like cake. It’s ridiculous to say to not have even one piece of cake in your entire lifetime.
My reply:
I think Asmon has a Carlin-esque point of view laced with sophistry. He reminds me of my former best friend who had that exact same kind of mindset, so if someone does something bad, they’re like, “What, are you surprised? This happens all the time. Big deal, so you might as well just enjoy the madness.” Or just arguing for the sake of arguing, and never caring about reaching a conclusion, kind of like the Joker (wanting the see the world burn) but with words instead of actions. It’s like pointing out anything that’s remotely bad gets an automatic “virtue signaling ban” like it’s impossible for any of us to be a decent human being. To be fair, he is a self-proclaimed sociopath with artificial morals, so to speak, so it makes sense that he’s this way, always twisting arguments, mindlessly generalizing, contradicting himself (like telling people not to take anything seriously, then getting super mad when a game disconnects out of the blue), and then banning anybody that calls him out for any of it. His Twitch chat knows how unhinged he is, so the second he pulls someone up, they start spamming the salute (o7) emoji, which I think is hilarious.
Having said that, I think Asmon still has a point that we should just enjoy the show, since for all we know, streamers, like everybody else, are just bots living in their little perfect loop or bubble, and each tries their best to approach the profitable parasocial relationship they have with their audience in a slightly different way. For example, Asmon seems nihilistically self-aware about it, which can also be interpreted as some kind of reverse-psychology, especially since, according to him, it’s all about money, and nothing else, while streamers like Pokimane weaponizes it by acting like a passive-aggressive, arguably cute generic Mean Girl character. Who knows? Maybe it’s just one of the many symptoms of being chronically online. Asmon’s approach is like a disclaimer of sorts; he’s like saying: “If I’m ever in trouble, remember that I never claimed to be the good guy.”
To tolerate Asmon’s antics, you should just pay attention to his rare `enlightenment` moments like when he tells you not to take anything seriously or to focus on the entertainment aspect of Internet culture, in general, since shaking one’s head at every disappointing thing that happens online would probably have the same attention-span-shortening effects as doomscrolling on TikTok for 6 hours straight.
artfxdnb commented:
It baffles me that Asmon thinks YouTube was always about views and money, because he is so wrong on that one. For somebody as online as Asmon I would expect he knew better. Chris started YouTube in a time when this was not the case, same for me btw, when YouTube wasn’t about that. We do it for fun, sure making some money with it on the side is a nice bonus, but the core reason is because it is a passion. In Chris’ case a passion to make videos about Japan, educating and entertaining his viewers. For me the reason was always to spread the knowledge on music production that I learned over the years, instead of keeping it all to myself. Money was never the driving factor, I build a community with thousands of music producers, helped others with their music and you know why? Because I like to do that.
YouTube was never about money, it was about people with a passion to make content, it’s just that the platform changed and became much more corporate. Mr Beast for sure had a big hand in this, but it’s not like if Mr Beast never existed this wouldn’t have happened, somebody else would’ve taken his place and done a similar thing. However we can clearly see how his style of content has now become the norm, and that has changed why people get into making content. A lot of times it’s not from a place of passion, instead it comes from a place of wanting views, attention and often money (and maybe greed as well).
This is what is unhealthy. Analogy: you also wouldn’t become a top athlete because you want to win the big prize money in a tournament/competition, you do it because you have a passion for the sport. If you get skilled enough that might lead to money, but that money was not the reason you started playing.
YouTube, or content creation in general is similar in that sense, Never forget what the ‘you’ in YouTube originally stood for.
Edit: to address the parasocial relationship part, connecting with viewers could lead to them creating this parasocial relationship with you, however I don’t think you can blame content creators for this, it is the audience who builds up this relationship with them. It’s crazy to think that content creators need to change their content because some viewers might see them as a close friend, because they can’t differentiate an online personality from a person they meet IRL. This says a lot more about that specific viewer than it does about the content creator, just saying.
Finally Asmon if you do read this, I am saying all of this as a creator who has always struggled monetarily behind the scenes, so I’m not coming from a place of ‘I have many subs and I’m a millionare’, like some of the others in this video. This whole argument that they can say this stuff because they have fame and money is a bullshit argument.
My reply:
I second that. I started dabbling in IT when I was 12, and now I’m 30. It never occurred to me to wanna become the next CEO of Google or anything like that although almost everybody that I help with IT stuff calls me a genius and shit, and I never let it get to my head; I just love technology, and as long as I have a roof over my head, and a family that cares about me, the amount of money I need to survive and be happy would sound utterly pathetic to most of the world.
When some friends and family members suggest that I become a streamer, I’m like, “If I ever do that, I won’t be able to enjoy gaming; it’ll turn into a boring job that I gotta do every day for 8+ hours, which will definitely burn me out. I also don’t like the idea of being a corporate shill, brainwashing people into buying products I don’t care about, and don’t get me started on fake malicious ads everywhere. There’s just nothing fulfilling about being a streamer or a YouTuber as far as I’m concerned.”
It’s no wonder some people lose themselves in the process, and they start filming dumb heartless shit. Just look at that Japanese producer that filmed a guy naked in a room for 15 months, surviving on nothing but sweepstakes; that’s like the complete opposite of less is more, always waiting for the next big thing, and you feel like you can’t get enough, mindlessly pushing the envelope come hell or high water. The fact that Reality TV show aired back in 1998 just proves how history keeps repeating itself.
I also won’t deny that I did try creating content for a little while back in 2015 (IT channel) as soon as I dropped out of university even though I was top of my class, and then 2018 (gaming channel), but I always end up finding a better, more fulfilling alternative within a month or two. Besides, what’s the point of uploading content that will get suppressed unless you pay for ads? What’s the point of being passionate about content creation if the algorithm is designed to waste resources, so you end up with dozens if not hundreds of educational videos with pretty much 0 views?
The first time that I ever uploaded a video was back in 2008 (mind you, I was 14 at the time); it was camera footage of a theft that took place at an electronics retail store in my city. At the time, I thought to myself, “I’m going to include the Arabic word for “Scandal” in the title because Arabs love looking up scandals.” And lo and behold, 10K views in 48-72 hours! In this day and age, you can never get that kind of views if you start from scratch, especially if you go the educational content route, .e.g., IT tutorials or something like that. I obviously had no intention of uploading TMZ-like content on a regular basis, so the theft video was a one-time thing; I just wanted to prove a point, and my experiment worked like a charm; it’s probably one of the main reasons I despise the idea that only sensationalism/clickbait gets viewers’ attention, and nothing else. I’m obviously glad that not everyone is pessimistic about content creation. However, morals or not, it can be such a turnoff when you’re engaged in a video, and suddenly, the guy’s trying to sell you a T-shirt, a hoodie, a 3-year VPN subscription, a YouTube membership, and a used pair of his girlfriend’s panties. Oh, and don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe! Give me a fucking break! Just because some stats say that you have to remind people to do that shit every time doesn’t mean you should be super obnoxious about it, always hiding behind the excuse that a man’s gotta make money. There are many ways to make money that don’t involve upselling genuinely curious viewers into oblivion. I’m tired of it. Even uBlock Origin, and SponsorBlock aren’t enough. Oh, well. shrugs