"My greatest weakness? Occasionally, I give a damn."

[rogueslayer452]

++ It has been confirmed that Krysten Ritter is returning as Jessica Jones in Daredevil: Born Again season two. Ever since she voiced her interest in returning I knew there would be a high possibility of it happening, and now it's finally arrived! I'm curious to see what they do, but I know that the Jessica and Matt dynamic is going to be amazing regardless. They were the highlight of The Defenders for me, so seeing them together again is going to be an utter delight. All they need to do is get Elodie Yung back as Elektra, since has has also expressed her wishes of returning in the role as well, and that would be icing on the cake for me.

++ HBO Max has changed its name back after two years of a brief rebranding. This is such a frivolous thing, but I just find it funny since the renaming was so pointless.

++ As someone who watches a lot of YouTube, I've become quite disillusioned by a lot of individual YouTubers over the years. For various reasons, the obvious being the push of the algorithm and the strive for monetization instead of just the passion of creating or talking about something they wanted to share which has ruined a lot of people who I initially used to like watching and seeing that shift has, either soured me to them or left me feeling indifferent and just no longer engaging. Between that and people just making long form videos (ex: the video essay bandwagon) to say a whole lot of nothing (literally an example of "this could've been an email" vibe, just link the wikipedia article you're directly reading from and STFU) I just have very little patience for things that waste my time in such a way. I get wanting to make money, I get that the platform has forced this on creatives who just want to do their own thing, but as I mentioned previously regarding true crime there are a lot of grifters and even sadly people who turn into grifters (anything involving drama or supposed drama, exaggerating or poorly representing a situation just for clicks and views) and it makes it difficult to find anything genuine or authentic and, while it is important to do so, it can be tiring to constantly question the motivations of why someone is making a video about a topic.

I know that YouTube has always had this side to it even in the early days, but with the way everything is online nowadays it can be quite disheartening seeing it so much more. It's why I've become so selective of who I choose to watch more frequently of.

Comments

[author_by_night]

For various reasons, the obvious being the push of the algorithm and the strive for monetization instead of just the passion of creating or talking about something they wanted to share

Yeah, I REALLY miss when YouTube was just weirdos being weird about their favorite stuff, and not about monetization (to the point of now needing awkward censorship). I like it when I find the odd channel that doesn't seem to be doing it for monetization. I don't want to monetization completely, as I know some vloggers getting paid might not be able to easily find employment otherwise (for whatever reason). But sometimes they'll say "I need to pay for this stuff, guys," and I remember when it wasn't really like that. People used to do all sorts of things on YouTube back when barely anyone knew what it was. Or post blogs.

I like video essays to a point. I don't like when they're just a whole lot of nothing, like you said, or when they're poorly researched and I can easily point out flaws.

ETA: Oh, and another thing. I realize it's not something vloggers can control, but the ads have gone haywire. And this makes sponsor breaks - especially long ones - irritating, because sometimes just as they've finally gotten to/back to the topic at hand, there'll be two ads. Or one long unskippable ads. I listened to one video yesterday that constantly had ads. Again, it's not their fault, but I've had to stop watching videos because I felt like more was being sold to me than being told to me. (And going back to the non-monetized vloggers, they usually don't have twelve billion ads.)

[rogueslayer452]

Yeah, I REALLY miss when YouTube was just weirdos being weird about their favorite stuff, and not about monetization (to the point of now needing awkward censorship).

I hate how censorship has killed the enthusiasm and passion people had, like beyond just caring about monetization in general just the fact that you cannot say certain words (normal words, mind you, things we say every single day) so either people have to mute/bleep or even substitute those words in fear of being de-monetized or even have their accounts suspended/shadowbanned/banned completely is absolutely ludicrous. This is the problem with the algorithm because people will get their videos or accounts flagged anyway even if they don't say those things, so in the end why even bother caring about monetization anyway if YouTube is going to be fickle about it? It has ruined a lot of people talking about certain topics and have to dance around these subjects when they shouldn't.

(What sucks is that there are channels who do worse things, especially bigger channels, but it seems that as long as it makes a lot of money YouTube won't care to take them down.)

I like and prefer the smaller channels who don't adhere to those ridiculous censorship rules and don't care about monetization, however you really have to search for them since they're not always easy to find because they're not being pushed by the algorithm.

Oh, and another thing. I realize it's not something vloggers can control, but the ads have gone haywire.

This is why I'm thankful for having AdBlock, it has saved me from wasting so much time with the ad rolls in videos. When a YouTuber is doing a sponsor in their video I can manually skip those without issue, and AdBlock does the rest with the ones they cannot control.

[author_by_night]

So is it that vloggers will be taken down for saying certain words, or is it an algorithm thing? Because the former I'm more forgiving of.

I almost wish someone would just start an alternative YouTube, but I think the mentality around content creation has changed so much. I sometimes say that the internet went from being Burning Man to Coachella, and well. This is just one example.

(Heh, things to post to tumblr.)

[tinny]

I agree with your disillusionment about youtube. I've really tried to curtail my viewing to people I can still watch and (mostly) trust. There are not a lot.

I don't think we have any interests in common, I don't watch anything even remotely true crime related, or I would rec you stuff. Maybe Cinema Therapy - does that appeal to everyone or am I just imagining that?

https://www.youtube.com/@CinemaTherapyShow

[rogueslayer452]

With how social media has really leaned into the monetization angle in general, it can be really difficult to find anything that isn't trying to shill something or the algorithm pushing an account/video onto you.

I tend to be wary of the "experts react to" kind of videos, especially with therapists since I've watched some in the past and while I initially liked what I saw I've also noticed a trend that a lot of them are just....bullshitting. Obviously not all of them, I do think some are genuine and do have interesting points to be made, but like with anything it's always a gamble. But I'll check this out to see if it's something I'd be interested in or not.

[kairosimperfect]

I'd love to see Elodie again, but how might they bring Elektra back? If she became one of those characters who just keeps dying and coming back to life, I feel like it would tarnish her a bit.

[rogueslayer452]

They could bring her back as a means of "haunting" Matt, like his subconscious is tormenting him with those he had lost and Elektra being one of them. His guilty conscious, if you will. That would be interesting. They did something similar in S2 of Jessica Jones with Jessica hallucinating Kilgrave, so I can imagine that they could do something like that. I guess it would all depend on how they would go about it. That is, if they're going to get Elodie Yung back. Aside from Krysten, we have no guarantee of any of the other Netflix Marvel characters returning at the moment, but I think there can be plenty of ways of bringing back Elektra without her actually being "back" back, y'know?

[kairosimperfect]

Oh nice, I like that idea much better than a resurrection. Some kind of flashbacks to Matt's past might work, too.

[night_owl_9]

I'm glad that Krysten Ritter is coming back as Jessica! Wouldn't be the same without her.

It's why I've become so selective of who I choose to watch more frequently of. - I agree! I don't have a lot of variety regarding what I look at on YouTube, but I want to watch or have stuff in the background that is worth watching, you know? I haven't given the whole monetization too much thought, but you're right on the money (literally).

[elizalavelle]

The HBO thing makes me laugh but also makes me think about how useless and expensive that change was. They would have hired a marketing firm to suggest a rebrand and after all of that fuss it would have been just fine to leave it alone because their users were never going to call it anything other than HBO and could have told the corporation that for free.

In related news: Twitter LOL.

With YouTube I think it's the monetization of content that's a huge issue. People will jump on any bandwagon to make a buck and that means there are lots of people who want to cover trials or other social issues who are in no way qualified to do so and who aren't actually interested in representing the facts, they want to represent whatever gets them clicks. I don't begrudge people who are trying to make a living. I do get tired of things when it's clear the user isn't passionate about a thing, they just want money and fame.