They're putting out a product that viewers can consume or not- if they want to appear to care about their fans while doing so, then great! What a bonus on top of getting content from them that you enjoy. But the transaction is just that they put out a video on their end, and somebody watches it at the other end. If part of the strategy in getting people to watch and to keep watching is to 'care' about their viewers, then okay good for everybody involved. But what does 'caring' even mean, beyond putting out a product the creator feels is enjoyable and worth being seen by others? If they're not in a space (for literally any reason) that they feel they can accomplish that, is it uncaring to not put anything out until that situation changes? Is it uncaring to put themselves (so: their mental health, family, personal concerns, just anything) first ahead of countless anonymous strangers whose expectations they're unable to reach? Is caring saying 'thanks, love you guys!' as part of their sign-off in every video?
I don't know, I've been thinking about this with the whole Louise thing going on in her thread (so this isn't at all just directed at you onetruetrash, it's at the entire general conversation), and while she is being mostly insufferable garbage in the way she's handling the kind of thing Evan's talking about, her main point of 'I don't owe you anything' isn't incorrect. If people watch her videos: cool. If people buy her merch: cool. She put out a video and somebody watched it, she put a book out and somebody bought it- those are all transactions of something being given and then received. Imo, saying 'thank you for watching this video/buying my book' afterward is an extra thing that, while a nice gesture, isn't actually necessary. It's beyond the scope of the completed transaction. So I guess going that extra step is where 'caring' starts to get defined? But I do think it's an extra step and not quite part of the job description, especially as YTers/creators are molding their jobs to what they want them to be and there isn't actually just one static job description that everybody needs to follow. Looking to the most successful/productive/caring content creators and expecting everyone to follow their template ("X uploads 5x a week so why can't Y do the same?") is just guaranteed disappointment for everybody.
I don't really like Evan most days either so it actually pains me to agree this much with himonetruetrash wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2017 5:10 am Sorry to double post, but I felt the need to add this and it's too late to edit my post. I think part of the things I said stem from the fact that I don't have the best views on Evan in the first place. I don't think all of the things I said can be applied to every situation. Every situation is different and every person is different. I don't think "you always should do this" and "you can never do this" rules can be applied here.
But yeah as I said above, this is all more of a general addition to the whole convo that started with Louise and things that have already been on my mind and I was feeling rambly.