Ask Lemmy

Mark Rober

He's been going harder and harder into the Mr Beast format, and it's off-putting. I'm still subscribed for now, but I almost never watch his videos unless the topic seems interesting.

It's been a while, but AvE. Dude used to be some chill guy who would take apart tools or do some deep dive into a manufacturing process. But then the covid nation attacked and all of a sudden the guy is sprinkling an opinion in here and there that made me say, eh, and then the Canadian trucker thing happened and dude was all in on that shit. AvE was the first thing I ever donated money to on patreon and the first one I yanked my monthly from because the content had changed to something it once wasn't.

I no longer get excited about a new Veritasium video.
I also don't get excited when the title and thumbnail change 5 times in a week.

MKBHD, Linus, Most of the tech reviewing kids who got money and then hired an entire staff and in lots of cases also bought up really good solo YouTubers.

Motherfcking Casey Neistat. He was never an amazing person, his exploitation of his wife’s ass in thumbnails and being comfortable with click bait titles always felt off. But he’s a masterful propagandist and videographer until I saw him waving Israeli flags at pro Palestine protests during a filmed documentary.

Binging with Babish - used to be a fantastic set of recipes and takes on cooking that I really enjoyed trying to make, then got into the serious money and jumped the shark, both in "I bought my brother a Tesla/fulfilled a fan dream" and "this week we're using this dehydrator" ways (that meant I just wasn't going to be able to even imagine using the techniques and knowledge on show).

The only one that I unsubbed to pretty fast was the 8bit guy. I generally enjoyed his videos and then in one of them, he had a fairly rare IBM PC and for some reason, he sticks a screwdriver into the power supply and blows a component.

But what really turned me off was when footage of him turned up on Reddit, taken by himself, of shopping in a place like Costco with his assault rifle on his back. I think he was taking pleasure in scaring some of the customers too.

(I think I've remembered that correctly)

Anyway, never went back to his channel after that.

Linus Tech Tips. It used to be good informative content. After they moved from the house in particular it started to really ramp up the clickbait. It just didn't feel like it was still about technology. It felt like it was about whatever gags they could throw into technology related videos.

The all the controversies happened after I had already unsubbed. Yeah, I don't know how people still engage with that channel.

I don't know if they degraded over time, but I unsubscribed from SmarterEveryDay because 1.) he kept trying to slip religious BS into videos and then I couldn't unsee his whole generic youth pastor schtick, 2.) he kept posting weird Physics Girl health update stuff. It just lost me. Not for me. I feel like the glory days of vsauce are also well behind us.

I find most channels will degrade once the creator makes Youtube their full-time job. Afterwards, it's all about selling products, donations, sponsors, and memberships.

Survival Lilly and SirSic and two channels that come to mind.

MKBHD. He used to be, IMO, the best tech channel out there. The reviews were honest, well produced, and held companies' feet to the fire. The old MKBHD poked fun at the companies' shortcomings (I specifically remember him telling iPhone users to add a widget - then going "oh, wait..."). The new MKBHD interviews Tim Cook and doesn't properly question any of the BS he speaks.

Well Wranglerstar is pretty good example. Used to be about homesteading and tools, then turned into politics, grifting and Jesus talk. There's even a subreddit dedicated for hating him for it.

Van Neistat (Casey's brother) is another one for me. It's actually one of those channels that went from me utterly loving it to entirely stopping watching it the quickest. I can't really put my finger on why but I think I just started to get the sense that this is a job for him, not a passion.

This is VERY recent but NetworkChuck. He's such a great speaker and his videos were good intros into tech (Linux, networking, etc.) but with practical applicability. I liked that he skewed family-friendly and family positive, and some of the solutions he presented were from his perspective as a father. He was never shy about him being religious and being religiously involved. Imo 100% wholesome.

This year, several weeks of his videos were paid sponsor content for very corporate Cisco BS. Then, he comes back from that and it's AI stuff that's kind of a strech for a typical home user.... Then "I'm going to end my videos in a prayer". I unsubscribed right there.

Degraded as in opinion or actual metrics?

If it's opinion I feel most channels naturally degrade over time as the broadcasters personality changes with the popularity increase.

My largest case and it's a likely a controversial take would be Markiplier. When he hit fandom he all but left the youtube lets play field in favor of other opportunities(which to be fair he was fully upfront with before he did it), then after months of almost no activity he came back with a different personality. (somewhat like how Jack did when he did his rebrand but was more noticeable). My eye opener to it was his GTFO series, I don't know of a good way to put it, he seemed super offputting and mean/childish to the people he had gamed with for years. I know it was likely meant to be a bit but, after an extended inactivity in the genre and then coming back and acting like that it was whiplash. He also seems to really be putting his fandom/viewer base on the side burner with everything, he hasen't posted regular videos in a long time(I expect it's due to his movie that he's putting his heart and soul into) and it's made it so I no longer get recommendations to any of his content since his channel has fallen off the algorithm for me. Like don't get me wrong, I still like his content(when he releases it), and he's been clear that youtube was a stepping stone for him and that his passion is in other areas but for the sake of the question I feel the channel fits.

Stephanie Sterling (and not for the reason you probably think).

I understand that the gaming industry is shit, and therefore reporting on it is always going to skew negative, but it really felt to me like the negativity started permeating their content as a whole - to the point that I got the feeling that they didn't really enjoy video games at all anymore.

I also started to get the feeling that they resent their audience for responding positively to such negative content, too - doing things like complaining that the worst-of lists get more views than the best-of lists. You don't have to make them if you don't want to.

Also, it's cool that they found a passion, but I really don't care about wrestling.

The one that jumps to mind for me the most has got to be Rick Beato.

When I first found out about him he was just a super passionate and likeable dude totally geeking out listening to stems of classic records, just being endlessly appreciative and highlighting things that he thought were cool in a way that was reasonably accessible to regular music listeners. On the side he did some more technical music theory and musicianship stuff, which I could take or leave to be honest. But overall it felt like a channel that was there for sharing this dude's love of music with others.

Lately it's just been pounded down into mediocrity, I feel. He spends a lot of time chasing after bullshit trendy stories about AI music, spotify rankings, controversies of the week, long rambling live stream rants about various meta things that nobody has time for. The silver lining to all of that is that he has been doing interviews with musicians, which are generally pretty good, but it really depends on who he's talking to. I understand that DMCA takedowns get in the way of breaking down songs, and that sucks, but my problem is that it's often kind of negative stuff that distracts from talking positively about music, musicianship, production, etc.

I think he knows this because he recently put out a video about a big "change of direction" in the channel.

Top Gear, Not sure if this fully counts as YouTube but I’m sure that’s where most of us watched it. It hasn’t been the same since Jeremy, Richard, and James left.

Basically any channel that started doing "reaction" content. Oh you're reading the top page of Reddit today? Cool, what creative value does that have to me? Absolutely none. Goodbye. I get that it's really popular but I have no idea why, and I get it's cheap to make but it's also shit, so you get what you pay for I guess.

The only exception to this is Jimmy Broadbent who occasionally does his "Sim Racing Stewards" series which is basically his take on Reddit user submitted clips of their online racing mishaps. I find it really interesting to watch because he has so much sim racing experience and, albeit less, experience of real world racing with real life stewards and racing rules. It's entertaining and interesting and I want to know his opinion on these incidents because he has enough context to have an opinion, and doesn't act like his opinion is gospel.

I've dropped a couple of channels because I suspected the presenter was a choad. I once unsubed from a movie-review channel because the presenter made a joke about "games journalism".

Another popular channel had (has) amazing content about historical guns. I first got a bad taste in my mouth because he covered some shit from Rhodesia. But I decided to give the benefit of the doubt. I know that collecting Nazi artifacts doesn't imply politics. Then the channel decided to cover "anti-riot" "crowd control" type weapons during the George Floyd Summer protests. Nah, I'm out.

LTT comes across as someone who simultaneously wants to be a boss and also do nut taps in the locker room. He himself admits he sucks at PR and then does PR solo style anyways or with Luke held hostage. He often takes things personally when it's actually a really good opportunity to show growth and standards, but I swear he misses the mark every. Single. Time. This behavior also corroborates the feelings of a staff member who left because someone higher up was creepy to her and wasn't ever confronted because that's the environment Linus fostered. You can't be a boss that's always joking because sometimes it's serious, and when it's serious, it's not always personal.

MKHD Always seemed like a bit of an Apple shill, but I gotta say it just got worse and worse. It's like he was shopping for himself and once he became a millionaire everything seemed like it was cheap if it was at all novel. He also handled that app launch insanely badly and seems like the type of dude to be impressed by anything a tech bro presents to him.

Berm Peak completely similar vibes. He's rich, so crazy expensive bikes and accessories are almost always a great deal because they're in his budget and high quality.

Ethan Klein I honestly don't know why I ever liked him apart from the copyright lawsuit with Matt Hoss. I appreciated the goofs, but for some reason it took me way too long to see that some of those people in no way shape or form deserved that treatment. Patrice Wilson for example, not to mention later when he devoted his entire life to hate watching Hasan and Hasan-adjacents while being incredibly deceptive about his and his wifes views on Israel. I ditched him before all that, but man what a massive shitshow he turned his channels into.

EEVBlog got high on his own supply. He's always been a bit snobbish, especially about sub par equipment that he already made up his mind about before opening, but I saw him talking about running for office with some dogshit platitudes that mean nothing like, "Dave'll take it apart and fix it all" and seemed very defensive when people were asking what his platform actually would be. God complex vibes from all that.

Gus Johnson because he treated his ex like crap and ran from accountability, and is now sneaking back into YouTube through his and his brother's account without ever really addressing his failures. He just wants everyone to move on and accept him again.

Cody Ko handled the fallout of sexual assault allegations horribly and is best friends for life with a known rapist, putting that relationship above everything. Gross guy, but before all that came out he was just a funny immature frat guy with a lot of jokes and good reactions. Major failure to meet the moment.

Scott Kilmer - just shitty political takes eventually wore me down.

AVE - shitty political views and then talking about teaching his daughter racist nursery rhymes was the final straw for me.

Bourbon Moth

Loved to watch his videos as he made woodworking accessible. He also does really good work.

Then one day he built an epoxy river table then promptly blew it up... Literally blew it up... Which spread all that epoxy all over the place in a forested area. I still watched, but next he did a video on rags catching fire and it was all obviously staged. That was it for me, I unsubscribed then told Youtube to never suggest his videos again.

AVE

Funny enough it was AVE that exposed Bourbon Moth on his BS regarding the towels combusting. However, shortly after that whole thing AVE just really went downhill. Instead of being informative and amusing, his videos just turned into the narcissist's playbook for look at me! Haven't watched one of his videos since. Which is a shame, because his earlier videos were really interesting.

Donut Media. They got bought out by an investment company and then all their videos became Buzzfeed style listicles.

I'm just waiting for someone to uncover that Fireship is a secret Nazi, he gives me all the same vibes as the internet historian

For some obvious and dated answers: AVGN and =3

Not sure if this counts, but CGP Grey. The frequency of the videos was always a joke, but the most recent video is a 3 month old paywalled vid of an early preview for a video still unreleased publicly. I still enjoy the videos when they're released, so it's not the quality, but the channel is clearly on autopilot. I hope everything's ok with him and maybe he's just using YouTube as passive income now that he hit it big?