I am in agreement with the reality aspect of YouTube, I have a guilty pleasure for watching a YouTuber who does stupid things for likes, I won't give him the oxygen of publicity here though.
However, in this desperation for likes everything is totally real, it is almost as if the guy would not be able to imagine faking it and would not be able to conceive of it. There may be click bait titles, the begging for likes and the desire for fame and fortune but it is entirely real, nothing staged. You mention doing things in post production, the idea of faking it in post is also an unimaginable idea to the YouTubers we get strangely fascinated by.
At the same time though, Instagram is fake, every face on it is fake, every scene is a setup, the people on it project a lifestyle they don't live up to. Clearly people wear make-up on YouTube too, but there is something real about that.
We laugh at millennials tuning out the TV in the corner to be obsessed with 'social media' but old media is no longer getting the attention that it once had. It survives on the momentum built up over decades with an audience that is getting older.
There was a time when I would eagerly watch soap operas, as written by vast teams of skilled writers and featuring a cast of very well paid actors. But nowadays I am not watching any of that stuff, the lone guy talking about what he is tinkering with in the garage demands my attention instead. Often this lone guy really is doing it all, the camera work, the editing, the whole shebang, to create compelling content that would have required a huge team in previous times. At other times there is a small group of friends with one of them able to do super slick editing and create content that is definitely 'broadcast quality'.
The ability to like, comment, share and subscribe is also part of it. Why watch something with 'comments disabled'? With regular TV you can shout at the TV but it won't hear you. With Youtube you might get one of those heart things and a comment back from the YouTuber/presenter which is sweet. With broadcast media there is none of this interaction.
I don't see any YouTubers wanting to get a 'proper TV series', it is always the other way, with TV types wanting to do their next project on YouTube and turning their back on the legacy media.
Some things are lost though, not having that vast team with experience is not a bad thing though as long as that reality aspect is there. It is the honesty the viewer likes.
However, in this desperation for likes everything is totally real, it is almost as if the guy would not be able to imagine faking it and would not be able to conceive of it. There may be click bait titles, the begging for likes and the desire for fame and fortune but it is entirely real, nothing staged. You mention doing things in post production, the idea of faking it in post is also an unimaginable idea to the YouTubers we get strangely fascinated by.
At the same time though, Instagram is fake, every face on it is fake, every scene is a setup, the people on it project a lifestyle they don't live up to. Clearly people wear make-up on YouTube too, but there is something real about that.
We laugh at millennials tuning out the TV in the corner to be obsessed with 'social media' but old media is no longer getting the attention that it once had. It survives on the momentum built up over decades with an audience that is getting older.
There was a time when I would eagerly watch soap operas, as written by vast teams of skilled writers and featuring a cast of very well paid actors. But nowadays I am not watching any of that stuff, the lone guy talking about what he is tinkering with in the garage demands my attention instead. Often this lone guy really is doing it all, the camera work, the editing, the whole shebang, to create compelling content that would have required a huge team in previous times. At other times there is a small group of friends with one of them able to do super slick editing and create content that is definitely 'broadcast quality'.
The ability to like, comment, share and subscribe is also part of it. Why watch something with 'comments disabled'? With regular TV you can shout at the TV but it won't hear you. With Youtube you might get one of those heart things and a comment back from the YouTuber/presenter which is sweet. With broadcast media there is none of this interaction.
I don't see any YouTubers wanting to get a 'proper TV series', it is always the other way, with TV types wanting to do their next project on YouTube and turning their back on the legacy media.
Some things are lost though, not having that vast team with experience is not a bad thing though as long as that reality aspect is there. It is the honesty the viewer likes.