The Adpocalypse: YouTube Learning the Law of Unforseen Consequences
It’s hard, really, to understate how important YouTube is, and I mean from a historical perspective. Just thinking about everything that’s on there, from entertainment to educational videos, from on-the-ground images of war to revolutions, if you really think about the impact having all of that in one place has had on the world, it’s substantial. Everyone has a favorite channel, a favorite video. When there’s some sort of news, or event, that makes it’s way down the grapevine, and it involves moving pictures, that’s where we all go.
So it’s disappointing, and even a little scary, to see what’s happening right now, to the platform, and to the creators.
A brief run down for anyone who hasn’t heard of the so called YouTube “adpocalypse:” After a series of articles accusing the site — fairly or unfairly, depending on who you ask — of hosting offensive, racist, or hateful content, a large number of advertisers temporarily left the platform. Just like that, everyone was making much less money. YouTube responded by giving a greater measure of control to advertisers in regards to which videos feature their advertisements, a blunt instrument that, unintentionally I’m sure, has resulted in wildly popular channels making next to nothing, their content in serious jeapordy, just because it features some crass language or serious themes. Advertisers needed a scalpel. They were given a hammer. And, when they used it, wouldn’t you know it, something broke.
H3H3 Productions and Pewdiepie are both bringing a weekly show to Twitch, where the luxury of a sub button should help them recoup some of what they’ve lost, but even that’s not going to really bring them back to where they were, and if that’s the case for the biggest of the biggest, the smaller channels, which is, you know, pretty much everyone, they’re left in a serious existential crisis. There are creators, popular creators, across the world, right now, considering just packing it in, being forced into quitting, not because they don’t have the viewers, but because advertisers have decided their viewers aren’t valuable, because of a couple curse words or some serious discussion. This doesn’t just break the shrivled up thing in my chest I call a heart; it makes me mad.
Making sure creators could make a living out of their content without having to reach an arbitary size or be invite to a special club is the reason GameWisp exists, and seeing such a large company doing the exact opposite pushes our buttons. YouTube is important because of its creators, because their hard work makes it important. I understand that advertisements are how it makes money, but that ad space isn’t going to be nearly as valuable if it loses swathes of its best content. YouTube isn’t being malicious, they’re simply responding to a crisis, but that response seems to have been given without thought as to how it would impact creators. Their reactive stance has simply turned one conflict into another.
The actual humans over at YouTube, of course, know this. The response, during this time of struggle, should be to reach out to their creators, to reassure them, to make it clear that, to them, this extreme down-tick in income is a problem, and something they’re working hard to address. What did they actually do?
Announce they’re producing shows with Ellen, Kevin Hart, and Katy Perry. You know, some hard-up creators in need of a spotlight. That YouTube. Always looking out for the little guy.
Now, look. I know I’m being a little unfair. The problem itself, here, isn’t YouTube’s fault, and while I’m sitting here wagging my finger at them, I don’t claim to have a real solution to their relationship with brands. Advertiser’s pulling out presents an existential threat to YouTube itself; it’s the lifeblood. Something had to be done to bring them back to the fold. Everything since, the turmoil, the struggles, has been an unfortunate accident. Still, YouTube has, unintentionally or otherwise, created a real problem, and it must be addressed.
How many viewers does a channel need to have before they deserve to make a living off of their work? Most of my favorite channels don’t have a million subscribers. Does that mean they don’t deserve to exist? Does a channel with 100,000 regular viewers not deserve to have its creators at least pay their rent and put food on the table?
We’ve always felt the answer was a lot less than YouTube or Twitch partnership, on their own, seem to require. That’s the whole point of the GameWisp sub button, to empower creators through the earning potential of thier content and their fans. Ten thousand viewers, a thousand, a hundred — if you’ve put in the time, and you’ve got an audience that genuinely loves what you’re doing, you should be able to support yourself, at least somewhat, through your awesome content. It shouldn’t just be the biggest of the big. An audience is an audience, and it’s valuable.
Again, YouTube knows this. They’re not monsters trying to destroy the very thing they’ve helped built. But, the pressures on the site are numerous and great, and they get pulled in many directions, forced by circumstance to change suddenly, spontaneously. They have to start taking a moment to really consider what these snap judgements will do to their users, to just slow down for a second and consider the creator’s perspective. The more they do that, the less we’ll have to deal with moments like this, and the more we can focus on what we’re all here for: the awesome content from amazing creators.
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