YouTube Presents "The Hobbling: Desolation of Smaugtent"

Issue #236 | May 9, 2024

Not content to merely ruin its own search algorithm, the unblinking eye of Sauron (Google) has turned its gaze to its video platform YouTube, taking a once-monetizable business model for creators and reducing it to a barren wasteland of A/B tested content. Much like Legolas in “The Return of the King,” creators now find themselves in a battle for Mordor (YouTube recommendations) not just against the dark lord’s forces (competing channels?) but increasingly their own back catalog of content. Which in this scenario would be like the orcs. Right? (I’m no a LOTR expert, but I have seen “Rings of Power,” and our editorial companion Adelia, a Tolkien superfan, says this kind of tracks. And also to stop trying to speed-read The One Wiki to Rule Them All entries or we’ll be here all night.)

And while I may be talking out of my ass re: Hobbit shit & Silmarillion extended canon, you don’t have to take my word for it that YouTube is screwing even the most established creators (the Harfoots? Nevermind.) Just check out Lon Harris’ “Creator Confessional” column with veteran YouTuber, Steve Zaragoza, who could be called the Tom Bombadil of mid-aughts Internet culture. (Okay, I PROMISE I’m done now.) (…Ents.)

Now co-host of “Dynamic Banter,” Zaragoza first rose to Internet proto-stardom in 2012 when he joined Sourcefed, a comedic news commentary channel that arguably defined and popularized a now-ubiquitous genre on the platform. (Passionfruit fan Phil DeFranco was another cast member.) By the time of SourceFed’s cancelation in 2017, it had amassed 1.7 million subscribers and 900 million video views.

THE COMMENTS SECTION

“I’ve been doing “Dynamic Banter” for eight years, and we’ve found our audience and we have a Patreon. These people love what we do and it’s such a fun, fulfilling thing. Deviating from that, jumping back into the shark-infested waters of the YouTube world, feels like certain death.“
– “Dynamic Banter” co-host and veteran YouTuber Steve Zaragoza

“Coming from that world where anyone could become a million-subscriber YouTuber if they just had the right mix of charisma and business sense, and living through the decline…seeing the destruction of the original YouTube has creatively made me afraid of content now,” Zaragoza told us. Instead, he’s chosen to focus on community building through Dynamic Banter’s Patreon, a move we wholeheartedly support, not just because we just launched our own! Though we did and you should definitely follow us for free on there and join our Discord. Or even better, become a member, and support independent journalism and get access to exclusive content, weekly live streams, and special community channels! Join us on our unexpected journey. As Gandolf said: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Or even better, that other guy who said “Boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew.” (The stew is content.)

– Drew Grant, Editorial Director

NOTED BY LON HARRIS

Creator Confessional: Veteran Internet Personality Steve Zaragoza on Why He’s ‘Afraid of Content’

‘Everything comes and then it goes as fast as it arrived.’

By Lon Harris, Passionfruit Contributor

→ READ THE FULL STORY

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IN THE BIZ

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TikTok introduced mandatory AI-generated content labels to increase transparency, enabling users to identify synthetic media more easily.
OpenAI announced the development of Media Manager, a tool that will allow creators to opt out of having their copyrighted content used to train AI models. Set to launch in 2025, Media Manager addresses long-standing concerns about the use of creators’ content without explicit permission.