Idiots on youtube with a godzillion subscribers, 0 content?

[greg]

So what is up with these morons on Youtube who have subscribers up the wazoo and tons of channel comments, yet they have zero content whatsoever? I was trolled today by a 14 year old twerp who has 20,000 channel views, 2,679 subscribers, and 1,100 friends and he has zero content on his channel WHATSOEVER.

I just don't get it. I sometimes get spam telling me to "click here to find out how to get more subcribers" and crap like that. I ignore these because I can care less about crap like this. But of course there are plenty of morons who think it's all a popularity contest and I often get "friend" requests from boring people I don't know, so I ignore them. Is there some sort of pyramid scheme that these retards get into or something? It just baffles me.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Welcome to the generation gap.

[Ex-Cyber]

IIRC there is (or was) some way subscribe to your friends' favorites, so that might have something to do with it.

[greg]

Welcome to the generation gap.

I guess so! Check out the little idiot's channel. Why the hell would anybody subscribe to a channel with zero content? Is this just the result of stupid teenagers with nothing better to do with their lives? He was bickering with me during the day when he should be in school, so he's either on a fancy cell phone or he's one of those spoiled homeschooled kids. His description of himself just consists of his goals for having so many subscribers. I never even really set out to do many videos on my own channel. I just started, some of it was popular, and it went from there. My only goal was to put some somewhat interesting content for people to see, not making it some moronic popularity contest to see how many subscribers I could get. Looking at this guy's friends and subscribers, lots of them have avatars that say "FREE SUBS" and stuff like that. So I'm wondering if these are bots or just vacuous dolts with nothing better to do than to subscribe to as many ridiculous channels as possible.

[drauch]

Well, if you look at his subscribers they are all 14 year olds as well or bots. Just remember: he is 14; or, one of the worst ages in terms of frivolity and and just overall snottiness. Middle school ruins lives. Sometimes those kids grow out of it towards the end of high school; otherwise they just die a very lonely and bitter excuse for a human. So...just ignore them.

[greg]

Well, if you look at his subscribers they are all 14 year olds as well or bots.

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm not upset that I was insulted by a little kid, I'm just curious as to what's going on here. What are these bots, and how do they operate? Does by somehow subscribing to one of these bots, in turn you get all these tons of subscribers instantly or something? Whenever I get spam crap like this, I just trash it. It's just strange how this works. Is it like a pyramid scheme? I'd never do this, as I'm just not interested in having somebody with the alias of ILuvPussyy69 ever subscribing to me. I'm just wondering how this crap capsule works.

[Blackbird]

Lots of people do something called "sub for sub" where you subscribe to them, and they subscribe to you. None of these dummy accounts has any real content though, so I guess it's just for the sake of making a number go up =/? I'm not sure if raw subscriber count gets you any YouTube royalties. Seems pretty exploitable if that's the case.

[doctorx0079]

Lots of people do something called "sub for sub" where you subscribe to them, and they subscribe to you. None of these dummy accounts has any real content though, so I guess it's just for the sake of making a number go up =/?

Exactly. Look at the big number I got on this web site. Woooo.

[E. Randy Dupre]

It's the cult of celebrity, isn't it? We've had this unfortunate confluence of a couple of things over the last decade or so: the rise of the famous-for-being-famous celeb (Paris Hilton, Jordan, whatever) and the rise of social networking sites.

There was something I'd heard a few months ago, about how an insane number of young kids see their ultimate goal in life as becoming celebrities. I wasn't convinced, but I work alongside a guy who has daily contact with older teenagers, so I asked him if that was accurate, and he reckons so - he's part of a team that works with kids who've left school, who haven't gone into further education and who've been registered as unemployed for six months or more. Most of them come from shitty family backgrounds.

But yeah, he says it's true: that there *is* a visible increase in the number of young people who have a complete inability to set themselves realistic goals and who see their sole purpose in life as becoming celebrities. Not through doing anything to justify that position, just by following the Katie Price model of appearing from nowhere and then never fucking off back there.

And I know there's always been an element of this - girls wanting to becoming princesses, or whatever - but in the past those were entirely unobtainable goals that were easily left to one side once they gained a greater awareness of what life's really like. There were all kinds of class barriers in the way. Meaningless norks are the new royalty, though, and have been for a while now, and it's entirely possible to become a meaningless nork yourself.

Combine that with Web 2.0, where the entire point of talking is to talk about yourself, and to be able to pretend, through subscribers/friends lists, that hundreds of people are paying attention and actually have the slightest genuine interest in your uninspiring waste of a life.

Like I say, generation gap. The longer the internet exists, the younger people are introduced to it and the less experience they have of interaction elsewhere, the shittier it'll become, until the population of every single wealthy nation consists of nothing other than tiresome narcissists.

<edit> Or, to put it another way,

[Observer]

Welcome to the generation gap.

This.

I mean, I feel bad because I think I have too many videos already. 279 since 2006. 90% of them are schmukmups.

[Heartwork]

I'm not sure I buy the "generation gap" argument. I'm only 21, so demographically speaking, I'm in the same "generation" as a fourteen year old. No one I know has a channel like this, mostly because I don't hang around with vacuous twats. And it's not like this is anything new.

Back in the early 2000's, when myspace was still highly popular as a social networking site, this same kind of crap went on. There were "friend chains" and "groups" and all sorts of things you could join that just meant everyone else in the chain or group would add you as a friend, provided you did the same. It was nothing but a way of making your number of "friends" go up. And just like with youtube now, there were people who were successful enough at being myspace celebrities that they made the leap to being real celebrities. That's where the likes of Tila Tequila and Kiki Kannibal came from, and even "musicians" (I use that term loosely) like Jeffree Star and Hollywood Undead were successful purely because of myspace.

[Specineff]

Eh, it's all about E-penis bragging.

[Skykid]

I'm not sure I buy the "generation gap" argument.

Me either.

I just see a generation brought up on super consumerism with their heads full of shit, beholden to mass media for everything they think they know. It's not their fault that they're morons though, they've been made that way by external influences.

[DJ Incompetent]

Isn't there a private video setting where only friends or subscribers can see them?

[greg]

It's the cult of celebrity, isn't it? We've had this unfortunate confluence of a couple of things over the last decade or so: the rise of the famous-for-being-famous celeb (Paris Hilton, Jordan, whatever) and the rise of social networking sites.

I think you're right. Wired Magazine has done articles on this phenomenon. People becoming celebrities through the Internet even though they're not really good for anything. Paris Hilton is a perfect example of "famous for no real reason." She's not talented in any way, she's not even attractive (I always think of Charlie Sheen in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "You wear too much eye makeup. My sister wears too much eye makeup, and everyone thinks she's a whore.") She just has money, so she's become a phony celebrity.

There was something I'd heard a few months ago, about how an insane number of young kids see their ultimate goal in life as becoming celebrities. I wasn't convinced, but I work alongside a guy who has daily contact with older teenagers, so I asked him if that was accurate, and he reckons so - he's part of a team that works with kids who've left school, who haven't gone into further education and who've been registered as unemployed for six months or more. Most of them come from shitty family backgrounds.

This is just frightening. I didn't know this, but I can see this happening.

Combine that with Web 2.0, where the entire point of talking is to talk about yourself, and to be able to pretend, through subscribers/friends lists, that hundreds of people are paying attention and actually have the slightest genuine interest in your uninspiring waste of a life.

So few people can pull this off. You must have an interesting personality to be successful at this. The Spoony One is local to my area, and I'd even felt like inviting him to hang out sometime because he's a huge fan of MST3K and is a pretty funny guy. Now he's become such an Internet celebrity that I guess he doesn't even need to have a job anymore. He just records himself in front of his computer and he gets his own panels at gaming conventions and such. Whether you find him entertaining or not, he stands above the vast number of feckless camwhores who spout out drivel about why being Vegan or Atheist or Socialist is so enlightening and such, or even more ridiculous, those who just talk about why last week's Simpsons episode was the best yet of the season or something.
[/quote]

I mean, I feel bad because I think I have too many videos already. 279 since 2006. 90% of them are schmukmups.

I haven't seen your stuff, but if you actually have some content, that's at least worth something.

Back in the early 2000's, when myspace was still highly popular as a social networking site, this same kind of crap went on. There were "friend chains" and "groups" and all sorts of things you could join that just meant everyone else in the chain or group would add you as a friend, provided you did the same. It was nothing but a way of making your number of "friends" go up. And just like with youtube now, there were people who were successful enough at being myspace celebrities that they made the leap to being real celebrities. That's where the likes of Tila Tequila and Kiki Kannibal came from, and even "musicians" (I use that term loosely) like Jeffree Star and Hollywood Undead were successful purely because of myspace.

I may be mistaken, but I believe one of the main reasons behind MySpace was for musicians to become recognized. I've discovered great bands on there, as has my friend Jon on here. I'm on Youtube, but my face is hardly ever shown in any of my videos. My focus is on hobbies and nerd culture, not me.

Isn't there a private video setting where only friends or subscribers can see them?

Yes, but you can only add up to 10 people to be able to view it, not 2,000. It would still show up on a channel, but clicking on the vid will give you a message of "this video has been marked private." It seems that this twerp who called me a "dumbass" and boasted about his tons of subscribers did it by cheating: involving himself in those "free sub" schemes and getting thousands of people to subscribe to basically nothing. I think maybe these doinks just don't get paid attention to enough by their parents and are somehow seeking validity from the void of online narcissism. I get friend requests from lots of morons, divorce lawyers, wannabe celebrities, and so on. I just ignore them. They're free to subscribe, but I can care less about them if they're boring and have nothing to do with me.

[undamned]

He was bickering with me during the day when he should be in school

Were you bickering with him when you should have been at work?
-ud

[E. Randy Dupre]

I'm not sure I buy the "generation gap" argument. I'm only 21, so demographically speaking, I'm in the same "generation" as a fourteen year old. No one I know has a channel like this, mostly because I don't hang around with vacuous twats. And it's not like this is anything new.

Oh, I don't mean to imply that it's an all-inclusive thing. The whole social networking thing, though - which is basically airing your dirty laundry in public, combined with nauseating PDAs, combined with inanity (I'm not sure why couples who live together feel the need to post "Hi!" or "Love you!" on each other's [entirely public] walls during the course of the day) - is the first social phenomenon that I've had absolutely no understanding of, and it feels very much as though that's got to have something to do with my age. Previous stuff I've been able to understand the attraction for some people, even if I've had no interest in it myself, but this is beyond me.

[Smraedis]

They could spam negative or silly comments on videos too, which could get them some extra subscribers.
All the sub4sub users don't add much at all, except increase your subscriber amount, they won't be interested in you or watch your videos.

[ZOM]

...Back in the early 2000's, when myspace was still highly popular as a social networking site, this same kind of crap went on. There were "friend chains" and "groups" and all sorts of things you could join that just meant everyone else in the chain or group would add you as a friend, provided you did the same. It was nothing but a way of making your number of "friends" go up...

Sounds like grinding in RPGs.

[Observer]

Wall of text (c)

If you are bored, you can go ahead and bore yourself even more with the plethora of PC STGs videos I make.

Other than that, I don't know if it was this thread or the recent GwangeDash test videos I've been posting but I got like 10 random subscriptions out of the blue and a couple of friend requests. I barely even check this kind of stuff but had to smile considering I caught this topic not so long ago.

I also troll and blabber on Twitter now and then and it has a similar situation were a bunch of bots and people randomly begin to follow you.

edit: I don't know... I'm really too old school and anti-social to be catching on these fads. I keep using Youtube just because I know it's a way of promoting one of my most beloved genres (with RTS and mechas being the others).

[BryanM]

Jen_absgirl is my hero. She should be made Emperor of the Universe.

[Heartwork]

Back in the early 2000's, when myspace was still highly popular as a social networking site, this same kind of crap went on. There were "friend chains" and "groups" and all sorts of things you could join that just meant everyone else in the chain or group would add you as a friend, provided you did the same. It was nothing but a way of making your number of "friends" go up. And just like with youtube now, there were people who were successful enough at being myspace celebrities that they made the leap to being real celebrities. That's where the likes of Tila Tequila and Kiki Kannibal came from, and even "musicians" (I use that term loosely) like Jeffree Star and Hollywood Undead were successful purely because of myspace.

I may be mistaken, but I believe one of the main reasons behind MySpace was for musicians to become recognized. I've discovered great bands on there, as has my friend Jon on here. I'm on Youtube, but my face is hardly ever shown in any of my videos. My focus is on hobbies and nerd culture, not me.

That's what it is now, because it's been completely replaced by facebook as a social networking site for people. It was originally intended as a social networking site just like facebook, and just happened to have a music section as well.

[TodayIsForgotten]

It's all about who has the most friends, dude. Hasn't facebook taught you anything?

edit* ya myspace pretty much started this trend. I'll still never understand friends keeping in-touch with friends, online. Email, txt, phone...dont care about your pictures, what you're doing, where you're at, what you are thinking and then to comment on it? When will it end?

[gct]

I actually quite like Facebook, when used in certain ways it can be an invaluable tool. I keep a small number of friends and colleagues who post interesting or genuinely clever material, and many of my Facebook contacts are family members around the world, it's really useful to drop a line to tell them if I might make a trip to visit soon, or just to know they are well. I also do this only rarely, but it's very good for organising meetups.

Another thing about family members is that as a result I try to keep most of my (infrequently) posted content in good taste since I don't block any content. At least I realise my life is mostly uninteresting so I do not post every minute detail of it. In general, I try to operate under the mindset that things posted to the internet exist for posterity, I would not want anything there that I would regret or otherwise compromise my image both personally and professionally.
And yea, some of my younger cousins who are obviously very much in love... as E.Randy.Dupre put it, "inane" is exactly the word that I was unable to think of to describe what happens on their Facebook pages. I had a Chinese word in mind but could not make an accurate translation.

As for my old YouTube account, I posted a few VG hardware mods and had some subscribers, but I abandoned the account (in addition to my old account here at shmups) because I felt my screen handle wasn't appropriate anymore.

In short - very much so on the internet, we can only judge the quality of one's character by the quality of his words and where available, the company he keeps. It's comforting to know there are still people who care about this, even if if makes me sound like a pretentious jerk...