While not the central topic of the video, his comment about video editors freely sharing information reminded me of how things were and, to a good extent, still are in the software side of the...
While not the central topic of the video, his comment about video editors freely sharing information reminded me of how things were and, to a good extent, still are in the software side of the tech industry.
So much of the innovation in the tech world has been fueled by people freely offering their work under permissive licenses for others to build upon with only attribution. And engineers often light up when you ask them how they did something at their company.
This industry would not have advanced as quickly as it has without that openness. I wonder to what extent people outside of it realize that is the case.
Watched the whole thing, highly recommend it even if in the background. Was disappointed to see Internet Historian among those, even more that he didn't own up to what he did. Lol'ed when when I...
Watched the whole thing, highly recommend it even if in the background.
Was disappointed to see Internet Historian among those, even more that he didn't own up to what he did. Lol'ed when when I saw his new video "2 fancy 2 furious: Wine", he starts with a disclaimer now.
Internet Historian lost me a couple of months back when it emerged he was on the alt-rightier side of things, with comments about converting people to Shapiro 0 1. As a consequence of this drama,...
Internet Historian lost me a couple of months back when it emerged he was on the alt-rightier side of things, with comments about converting people to Shapiro 01. As a consequence of this drama, someone pointed out a 14/88 hidden in an old video.
I find it fascinating how many people, especially but not exclusively gross alt right people, are scrambling to defend Internet Historian as having not done anything wrong. Most of the other...
I find it fascinating how many people, especially but not exclusively gross alt right people, are scrambling to defend Internet Historian as having not done anything wrong. Most of the other people called out in the video people have accepted, but Internet Historian specifically some people are extremely loathe to drop and you see a shocking amount of downplaying what happened there.
There are also angry right wing fans of his on Twitter insisting the vid is a hit piece on Internet Historian which... lmao.
That was the one that pained me the most. Unlike all the other examples IH does actually put some effort in their videos' visuals and that's part of what makes them so entertaining. All he had to...
That was the one that pained me the most. Unlike all the other examples IH does actually put some effort in their videos' visuals and that's part of what makes them so entertaining. All he had to do if he liked that hour by hour presentation was collaborate directly with the original author and work out a deal, but instead he just ripped them off and in turn destroyed what could be a fondly remembered video. What a shame.
If it makes you feel any better, most of IH's production is outsourced to a large team of editors and writers, that dude has a ton of irons in the fire and I doubt he has much to do with the day...
If it makes you feel any better, most of IH's production is outsourced to a large team of editors and writers, that dude has a ton of irons in the fire and I doubt he has much to do with the day to day writing and production of videos anymore.
Sure, but for an entertainment video I'd say fact checking isn't really that important. Integrity is a bit more important but for a entirely different medium (magazine article to video) I'd argue...
Sure, but for an entertainment video I'd say fact checking isn't really that important. Integrity is a bit more important but for a entirely different medium (magazine article to video) I'd argue there's not a ton of overlap on potential viewers, so there isn't that much actual "damage" done. Its a shitty thing to do, but I don't really think its a "problem" so to speak, especially considering the scale of other copyright infringement going on the site right now (react content, freebooting, etc)
Do you think people will share anecdotes from IH's videos? If they do, I'd say it fair to assume they believe those videos to be factual. I get where you're coming from with the different mediums...
Do you think people will share anecdotes from IH's videos? If they do, I'd say it fair to assume they believe those videos to be factual.
I get where you're coming from with the different mediums but the "damage" is that one person is stealing others' work (without credit). It's more than not-nice-thing-to-do, there's a reason why copyright protection exists even across mediums.
And the fact that there are worse copyright infringements on YouTube is just whataboutism, also I'm not quite sure I agree? Like one is lazy content and what IH is doing is more nefarious, it takes time and work, and IH is hiding the fact that they're stealing content whereas with react stuff it's obvious that they're reacting to others' content (even if they aren't crediting them). But either way, we can disapprove both without making it into a competition about finding the shittiest, slimiest YouTuber.
In fairness it is more than 3 hours into the video but hbomberguy does address that idea in the video here. Like, mistakes are human of course but there are good odds that your favourite youtuber...
Like, mistakes are human of course but there are good odds that your favourite youtuber (assuming you have one) is actually a small media empire. When you have a video creation business with multiple employees, persistent and frequent mistakes are more a sign of corner cutting and bad management.
At that point I think it should be addressed and fixed, false information can propagate in very dangerous ways and I'm not sure we should tolerate it from businesses just because they present as a friendly individual and it's "just entertainment"
That's fair, I just can't stand this guy's attitude so I couldn't watch the video. He just radiates smug reddit energy the entire time, down to the responses that are famous on the site. I can...
That's fair, I just can't stand this guy's attitude so I couldn't watch the video. He just radiates smug reddit energy the entire time, down to the
line by line
responses that are famous on the site. I can understand the frustrations, its just something that doesn't bother me that much. Him pointing out that he has "historian" in his name just seems silly to me, as if he's taking it seriously? I always took it as an ironic title.
In a previous video of his, HB says "every niche has that one person who they just wish would shut up and not represent them. That's me, oh God, I'm that guy." He's aware in a way that he's...
In a previous video of his, HB says "every niche has that one person who they just wish would shut up and not represent them. That's me, oh God, I'm that guy."
He's aware in a way that he's grating and definitely not everyone's cup of tea. I figured that IH was not entirely 'pure facts' but along with the Concordia I had figured it was at least true - which, hey, he plagiarized an entirely factual article so at least that's all true - but c'mon, the issue is the plagiarism not the fact that Bomber took the piss out of his name.
Related video from Todd in the Shadows on James Somerton, who was focused on in The Twist You Expected chapter of hbomberguy's video: Todd in the Shadows - I Fact-Checked The Worst Video Essayist...
Related video from Todd in the Shadows on James Somerton, who was focused on in The Twist You Expected chapter of hbomberguy's video:
Todd is normally a music critic/reviewer, and doesn't typically do debunking or focus on YouTube drama. So it was a surprise seeing this pop up in my notifications.
Honestly a pretty smart move tho -- having his video come out a day or so after Hbomb's means it's almost guaranteed to get tons of eyes since it's essentially the peak of people's interest in the...
Honestly a pretty smart move tho -- having his video come out a day or so after Hbomb's means it's almost guaranteed to get tons of eyes since it's essentially the peak of people's interest in the drama. I assume they must have planned this together to an extent. Hbomb also didn't release the second half of his video early to patrons, and he said openly on patreon that it was because he didn't want to tip the subject off ahead of the main release.
No need to assume. Near the start of the video Todd says he asked hbomberguy if he was going to cover Somerton's lies in his video, and was told he was mostly going to focus on the plagiarism...
No need to assume. Near the start of the video Todd says he asked hbomberguy if he was going to cover Somerton's lies in his video, and was told he was mostly going to focus on the plagiarism aspect. And that's why Todd decided to put out his own video focusing specifically on all of Somerton's lies/misinformation, and fact checking/debunking it all. Todd also said they didn't consult or collaborate with each other when making the videos, but they clearly were in contact to some degree, since hbomb also supposedly asked Todd not to release this video until after his own... which explains the release timing.
Oh, yeah I understood that. It's a very long video, and I had only just posted it. I was just trying to be informative, not accusatory. So sorry if it came across that way.
Oh, yeah I understood that. It's a very long video, and I had only just posted it. I was just trying to be informative, not accusatory. So sorry if it came across that way.
He did a video on the "ooff" sound that plays when you die in roblox. Its over an hour so I didn't expect to watch it all and I only even started watching because it was hbomberguy but it was very...
He did a video on the "ooff" sound that plays when you die in roblox. Its over an hour so I didn't expect to watch it all and I only even started watching because it was hbomberguy but it was very good.
I, too, get intimidated by HBG's long run times, but once I start watching them I usually end up watching them. I passed on the Oof sound video until just yesterday. If I had realized that it was...
I, too, get intimidated by HBG's long run times, but once I start watching them I usually end up watching them. I passed on the Oof sound video until just yesterday.
If I had realized that it was a 2 hour video dunking on Tommy Tallarico, I would have absolutely watched it when it came out.
It wasn't so much the run time. I like long form youtube content IF its good content. I just couldn't see why I would want to watch a video about a Roblox sound. I watched it only after I saw it...
It wasn't so much the run time. I like long form youtube content IF its good content. I just couldn't see why I would want to watch a video about a Roblox sound. I watched it only after I saw it was hbomberguy.
Yeah, I love hbomberguy and I do usually make it through their videos - albeit in bits and pieces over a number of days - but dammit get a script editor. I'll be amazed if I get to the end of this...
Yeah, I love hbomberguy and I do usually make it through their videos - albeit in bits and pieces over a number of days - but dammit get a script editor.
I'll be amazed if I get to the end of this one before the end of next week.
I agree that the video could probably be slimmed down (four hours seriously ?!). In the other hand, I feel that the overabundance of examples are necessary to show that this is a systematic...
dammit get a script editor.
I agree that the video could probably be slimmed down (four hours seriously ?!). In the other hand, I feel that the overabundance of examples are necessary to show that this is a systematic problem in each case, and that there's some clear behavioral parallel to be made with each cases.
Exactly. For me, his section on Illuminaugti is too long and parts on Somerton are annoying but I can tolerate it. Harris does a great job making three hours entertaining and in-depth. Three hours...
Exactly.
For me, his section on Illuminaugti is too long and parts on Somerton are annoying but I can tolerate it. Harris does a great job making three hours entertaining and in-depth. Three hours should be a grave indicator that...
...this is a systematic problem in each case, and that there's some clear behavioral parallel to be made with each cases.
Reminder for everyone reading that it's narrow-minded surmising length (the thing, not the word) being why the video's "too long" cause length is a dependant variable. The real problem is what causes something to be "too long."
As always, be kind to creators. As much as the relationship between creator and audience is ass backwards, you aren't owed anything. Make sure you check yourself, you might be entitled without realising it.
At this point, I've decided that "you're entitled" is an argument that I'll forever take an an opportunity to break any remaining assumption of good faith conversation. So I'm entitled. Why should...
Make sure you check yourself, you might be entitled without realising it.
At this point, I've decided that "you're entitled" is an argument that I'll forever take an an opportunity to break any remaining assumption of good faith conversation. So I'm entitled. Why should I care about that opinion?
About what opinion? I'm not gonna assume the opinion you mean. I'm sure it's so obvious it's staring me in the face, but nope. In fact, I was deadass writing a response but deleted it: You've made...
About what opinion? I'm not gonna assume the opinion you mean. I'm sure it's so obvious it's staring me in the face, but nope. In fact, I was deadass writing a response but deleted it: You've made up your mind on where you stand. "Why should I care about that opinion" goes both ways.
I'm willing to admit I may be wrong or need to be put in my place, however. There is no growth if you can't admit you're wrong. If you undeniably believe I'm acting in bad faith, do whatever you want. If not, then I would love to continue this conversation in good faith. With that, I would love to listen to whatever your thoughts are concerning this thread — considering the defeatist stance of your reply, I infer you changed your mind on discussing your true feelings — and properly explain whatever "that opinion" is.
After a night's sleep, I have a hypothesis as to why people complaining about others being entitled gets me so heated. Namely, it's been consistently used as a content-free dismissal of criticism...
After a night's sleep, I have a hypothesis as to why people complaining about others being entitled gets me so heated. Namely, it's been consistently used as a content-free dismissal of criticism or suggested (often obvious) improvements. As far as I've encountered, I have yet to encounter someone calling out someone else for being entitled—especially online—that's not a rephrase of "shut up and be grateful for what you have." Think the same vibes as that "society should be improved somewhat" / "yet you live in a society" comic.
That's... surprisingly an argument I am on board with. Especially online, of which I do apologise. "Entitled" is not the word I should have used. Unfortunately, social platforms on the Internet do...
That's... surprisingly an argument I am on board with. Especially online, of which I do apologise.
"Entitled" is not the word I should have used. Unfortunately, social platforms on the Internet do not have a fun time regarding nuance or even critical thought; I play into this as well. My firm belief is that this is a macrocosm of incompatible, dissimilar assumptions; when services like YouTube and Facebook were in their infancy, users joined and utilised these services as they were intended. Self-interest is innate, but the interest of sharing media and self-business overlapped. It seems the narrative would be that Silicon Valley became greedy one day, shifting their strategies from user interests to business interests; as a result, corporate leaned into their self-interests, and looked for those with common interests (investors, stockholders, blah blah blah). It would be nice if that was it... but centuries of industrialisation (look no further than Standard Oil) make light of a different perspective. Self-interest is innate, right? Well, that goes both ways too. So the narrative is a lot more complicated; business and consumer have always had unique interests, and then some more.
Deep-seated (and, when you look into it, quite stupid) cultural problems are the macrocosm of such a phenomenon. Technology companies have shifted their focus away from their consumers to their partners; this represents a change in priorities and strategy. Platforms have always been for the individual and not for the community, but it's even more apparent — even if you aren't a nerd or an armchair specialist, you can absolutely tell who a service prioritises. With Tildes, it's very obvious Deimos priorities users more by sharing mission critical resources like the source code — source code absolutely counts as a trade secret, which can be used for Deimos' own self-interests!
Maybe it's not so much entitlement as it is those who stand to benefit from the current system, which is kinda what you pointed out. If you word it right, Deimos sharing source code could easily be considered "commie" behaviour. People love to point at things they have contradictory intentions of, aka bad faith (which is what your point is).
My true point was all of that, condensed: Everything affects everything to various degrees, that's how a system works. No better field taught me that than computer science. In the context of Hbomberguy, I think he should absolutely have a script doctor but it's always worth thinking twice. Video length can have an argument that's more solid than you think, or a reasoning that justifies weakness. It is expected that creators on YouTube outsource resources to dedicated producers, writers, editors — a production team. If Harris has a skeleton crew with no script editor, it could give him (and his team) grace. As a complement, it's easy to spout things you are not knowledgeable in or communicating in self-interest — the difference between "systemic" and "institutional" come to mind, but misconstruing personal opinion as objective logic is very common. Everyone does it — as the sentiment goes, everyone has a degree on the Internet.
So what I meant by my entitled comment was not "shut up and be grateful". What I meant by my 'entitled' comment is "shut up and think twice".
As an aside...
This is a political tangent but complementary reading to my argument about the intersection between self-interest and business.
Anyone who says they're running a platform for "free speech" is selling you something. "Free speech" got sold out a long time ago by conservative business — ironically, the same people who pwn "the left" or "so called free thinkers" for living in their complex hypocrisy wonderland are the same people who live free in their self-imposed complex hypocrisy wonderland. People dog on Twitter/X for being a leftist cesspool echo chamber when the rightie equivalent can easily be Parler or, worse, 4chan. Either way, everyone accepts ads as a "necessary evil".
We play "4D chess" while industries use quantum computing.
"In the land of the white, the blue-eyed man is king" (emphasis mine).
For sure. I developed my habit of being unreasonably aggressive online on Hacker News and 2012 peak Ron Paul Reddit. Those websites are (were) full of eloquent windbags who knew every rhetorical...
social platforms on the Internet do not have a fun time regarding nuance or even critical thought; I play into this
For sure. I developed my habit of being unreasonably aggressive online on Hacker News and 2012 peak Ron Paul Reddit. Those websites are (were) full of eloquent windbags who knew every rhetorical trick. Even if your claim is factually correct and you have citations to back it up, you're fighting on their home turf. Unless you also even shaper obnoxious rhetorical skills, they're not going to be pursued by you. Even if you happen to win against them, all the audience sees are walls of text by windbags.
EDIT to add this paragraph. Personally, what really gets me riled up and ready to sucker punch the next longposter I see is when the community consensus is against me (or it's just the same guy posting essays over and over, I don't pay much attention to usernames). If it's just one dude, that's easy enough to ignore or—even—engage with in good faith. When it's a consensus opinion, that's when the troll tactics come out.
Coming in swinging with an off-topic insult, like "OK, incel," "put down the extra chromosome," or "your mom is fat" won't convince the other guy (so it's a wash there) and becomes a higher risk/higher (but still very low) reward scenario when played to an audience. It goes from a zero percent chance of anyone reading alternating walls of text to a slim possibility someone thinks "doesn't this dude have anything better to do than type essays?" of the longposter. They may still disagree with you, but they will have the subtle impression that the opinion the effort poster was pushing is for losers who care too much.
Fallacy counting and an emphasis on rhetorical debate skills to win arguments seems, IME, to be strongly associated with the 105–125 IQ crowd (numbers approximate). Those lower instinctively either go for the insult route or dig in with a support-free "that's just not true"—both are defenses against being hoodwinked or bamboozled by fancy flourishes. Above that, well, I haven't seen an online slapfight where I could confidently assert both parties were in that range. I'm certain they've happened many times, but not recognizably often in my bubbles.
4-hour vids
I can't even say they're inherently bad. However, it's difficult to know whether they'd be worth my time before I start. Sometimes, it's a deep dive that goes into all kinds of rabbit holes explaining context; others, it's an evidentiary hearing. That's a lot of time to invest in learning the nuances of people I, ultimately, don't care about one way or the other. As attracted as I am to drama, online drama isn't worthwhile. I am a scavenger in this regard.
Also, I do appreciate your point about the difference between a rookie video essayist posting a poorly-edited documentary that's longer than Return of the King and someone who has enough Patreon support to hire a team to make videos of equal length. I'd agree that mocking the rookie for excessive length is kicking someone while they're down.
Ads & free speech extremism
That's one of the big reasons why I wish federated social media and smaller communities like Tildes would take off. Backbone & infrastructure companies like Akami, Hurricane Electric, etc… have no business moderating content outside of court orders in their home jurisdictions for serious crimes (mostly to blackhole CSAM). However, communities absolutely need standards. 4chan is an example that even communities without official standards will develop de facto standards within the community (though that's more complex: IIRC, 4chan took a HARD turn from "yeah, there are Nazis here. Tell them you'll join their rally once they've proven they've had sex" to "there are only Nazis on the popular boards".
What causes so much drama with FB, Twitter, Reddit, et al is that they try to be both a private club community AND infrastructure. Federation helps add the separation of layers into community and infrastructure.
It's about finding a balance and self-editing is hard. After all, why would you have put x, y and z points in if you didn't think x, y and z was needed to make your argument? A good editor should...
It's about finding a balance and self-editing is hard. After all, why would you have put x, y and z points in if you didn't think x, y and z was needed to make your argument? A good editor should be able to take a decent chunk off the running time without reducing the impact of the script. Perhaps you really only need x with a short mention of y and z.
My general rule is that almost everything can be 30% shorter or smaller without losing anything.
It's hard to describe the unique experience of winding up on a YouTube video about a niche topic you know and care nothing about, but finding it so engaging in execution that you end up watching...
It's hard to describe the unique experience of winding up on a YouTube video about a niche topic you know and care nothing about, but finding it so engaging in execution that you end up watching it for hours anyway.
In this case it's YouTuber drama, but it could easily be a textual analysis of a 90s cartoon I've never heard of or a history of barrel making or something.
Even without the problems of plagiarism, at the core is how the content mill - which he covers about an hour in as well, which makes a ton of Youtube channels bland and uninspiring. I can...
Even without the problems of plagiarism, at the core is how the content mill - which he covers about an hour in as well, which makes a ton of Youtube channels bland and uninspiring. I can definitely relate to what he talks about with Cinemassacre, which has lost its soul once it got too big and James was reduced to merely being a hired speaker in his own videos. There are still channels that is driven by passionate people, but the commercialization of the never ending production of "content" is clearly taking all the money and is feeding the recommendation algorithms. Original content or not, tons of stuff "feels" extremely bland and similar. Written and made with the same framework and script as everyone else.
I don't watch YouTube videos over 45 minutes. Hbomber is the only exception to that and I watched this entire video over the course of the day; excellent as usual.
I don't watch YouTube videos over 45 minutes. Hbomber is the only exception to that and I watched this entire video over the course of the day; excellent as usual.
Not him, but for me it's because I vastly prefer to read rather than watch. Every time I see a video essay I desperately wished they would've at least posted a transcript, if not a written article...
Not him, but for me it's because I vastly prefer to read rather than watch. Every time I see a video essay I desperately wished they would've at least posted a transcript, if not a written article on the subject. To be honest I generally don't use YouTube at all, but when I do that rule's more or less in place on my end too.
Well you're missing out on fantastic things like The Church Play Cinematic Universe and Evermore: The Theme Park That Wasn't, both of which benefit from having video to go with the spoken script....
To be honest I'm pretty much with you on long video content, reading is a much better way to get information into my brain (same way I don't listen to long podcasts) but there are always exceptions. Jenny Nicholson and Hbomberguy are two, I can think of a few more, but only a few.
While not the central topic of the video, his comment about video editors freely sharing information reminded me of how things were and, to a good extent, still are in the software side of the tech industry.
So much of the innovation in the tech world has been fueled by people freely offering their work under permissive licenses for others to build upon with only attribution. And engineers often light up when you ask them how they did something at their company.
This industry would not have advanced as quickly as it has without that openness. I wonder to what extent people outside of it realize that is the case.
Watched the whole thing, highly recommend it even if in the background.
Was disappointed to see Internet Historian among those, even more that he didn't own up to what he did. Lol'ed when when I saw his new video "2 fancy 2 furious: Wine", he starts with a disclaimer now.
Internet Historian lost me a couple of months back when it emerged he was on the alt-rightier side of things, with comments about converting people to Shapiro 0 1. As a consequence of this drama, someone pointed out a 14/88 hidden in an old video.
I find it fascinating how many people, especially but not exclusively gross alt right people, are scrambling to defend Internet Historian as having not done anything wrong. Most of the other people called out in the video people have accepted, but Internet Historian specifically some people are extremely loathe to drop and you see a shocking amount of downplaying what happened there.
There are also angry right wing fans of his on Twitter insisting the vid is a hit piece on Internet Historian which... lmao.
That was the one that pained me the most. Unlike all the other examples IH does actually put some effort in their videos' visuals and that's part of what makes them so entertaining. All he had to do if he liked that hour by hour presentation was collaborate directly with the original author and work out a deal, but instead he just ripped them off and in turn destroyed what could be a fondly remembered video. What a shame.
That disclaimer is absolutely not new for IH. All of his videos since the start have had similar ones.
If it makes you feel any better, most of IH's production is outsourced to a large team of editors and writers, that dude has a ton of irons in the fire and I doubt he has much to do with the day to day writing and production of videos anymore.
Sure, but for an entertainment video I'd say fact checking isn't really that important. Integrity is a bit more important but for a entirely different medium (magazine article to video) I'd argue there's not a ton of overlap on potential viewers, so there isn't that much actual "damage" done. Its a shitty thing to do, but I don't really think its a "problem" so to speak, especially considering the scale of other copyright infringement going on the site right now (react content, freebooting, etc)
Do you think people will share anecdotes from IH's videos? If they do, I'd say it fair to assume they believe those videos to be factual.
I get where you're coming from with the different mediums but the "damage" is that one person is stealing others' work (without credit). It's more than not-nice-thing-to-do, there's a reason why copyright protection exists even across mediums.
And the fact that there are worse copyright infringements on YouTube is just whataboutism, also I'm not quite sure I agree? Like one is lazy content and what IH is doing is more nefarious, it takes time and work, and IH is hiding the fact that they're stealing content whereas with react stuff it's obvious that they're reacting to others' content (even if they aren't crediting them). But either way, we can disapprove both without making it into a competition about finding the shittiest, slimiest YouTuber.
In fairness it is more than 3 hours into the video but hbomberguy does address that idea in the video here.
Like, mistakes are human of course but there are good odds that your favourite youtuber (assuming you have one) is actually a small media empire. When you have a video creation business with multiple employees, persistent and frequent mistakes are more a sign of corner cutting and bad management.
At that point I think it should be addressed and fixed, false information can propagate in very dangerous ways and I'm not sure we should tolerate it from businesses just because they present as a friendly individual and it's "just entertainment"
That's fair, I just can't stand this guy's attitude so I couldn't watch the video. He just radiates smug reddit energy the entire time, down to the
responses that are famous on the site. I can understand the frustrations, its just something that doesn't bother me that much. Him pointing out that he has "historian" in his name just seems silly to me, as if he's taking it seriously? I always took it as an ironic title.
In a previous video of his, HB says "every niche has that one person who they just wish would shut up and not represent them. That's me, oh God, I'm that guy."
He's aware in a way that he's grating and definitely not everyone's cup of tea. I figured that IH was not entirely 'pure facts' but along with the Concordia I had figured it was at least true - which, hey, he plagiarized an entirely factual article so at least that's all true - but c'mon, the issue is the plagiarism not the fact that Bomber took the piss out of his name.
Related video from Todd in the Shadows on James Somerton, who was focused on in The Twist You Expected chapter of hbomberguy's video:
Todd in the Shadows - I Fact-Checked The Worst Video Essayist On YouTube [1hr42m]
Todd is normally a music critic/reviewer, and doesn't typically do debunking or focus on YouTube drama. So it was a surprise seeing this pop up in my notifications.
Honestly a pretty smart move tho -- having his video come out a day or so after Hbomb's means it's almost guaranteed to get tons of eyes since it's essentially the peak of people's interest in the drama. I assume they must have planned this together to an extent. Hbomb also didn't release the second half of his video early to patrons, and he said openly on patreon that it was because he didn't want to tip the subject off ahead of the main release.
No need to assume. Near the start of the video Todd says he asked hbomberguy if he was going to cover Somerton's lies in his video, and was told he was mostly going to focus on the plagiarism aspect. And that's why Todd decided to put out his own video focusing specifically on all of Somerton's lies/misinformation, and fact checking/debunking it all. Todd also said they didn't consult or collaborate with each other when making the videos, but they clearly were in contact to some degree, since hbomb also supposedly asked Todd not to release this video until after his own... which explains the release timing.
yeah I hadn't had a chance to watch it myself yet when I left that comment
Oh, yeah I understood that. It's a very long video, and I had only just posted it. I was just trying to be informative, not accusatory. So sorry if it came across that way.
Oh no you were perfectly fine! I just wanted to specify, you're good.
I actually watched that entire video, and it's really entertaining. Thanks for sharing.
He did a video on the "ooff" sound that plays when you die in roblox. Its over an hour so I didn't expect to watch it all and I only even started watching because it was hbomberguy but it was very good.
I, too, get intimidated by HBG's long run times, but once I start watching them I usually end up watching them. I passed on the Oof sound video until just yesterday.
If I had realized that it was a 2 hour video dunking on Tommy Tallarico, I would have absolutely watched it when it came out.
It wasn't so much the run time. I like long form youtube content IF its good content. I just couldn't see why I would want to watch a video about a Roblox sound. I watched it only after I saw it was hbomberguy.
Yeah, I love hbomberguy and I do usually make it through their videos - albeit in bits and pieces over a number of days - but dammit get a script editor.
I'll be amazed if I get to the end of this one before the end of next week.
I agree that the video could probably be slimmed down (four hours seriously ?!). In the other hand, I feel that the overabundance of examples are necessary to show that this is a systematic problem in each case, and that there's some clear behavioral parallel to be made with each cases.
Exactly.
For me, his section on Illuminaugti is too long and parts on Somerton are annoying but I can tolerate it. Harris does a great job making three hours entertaining and in-depth. Three hours should be a grave indicator that...
Reminder for everyone reading that it's narrow-minded surmising length (the thing, not the word) being why the video's "too long" cause length is a dependant variable. The real problem is what causes something to be "too long."
As always, be kind to creators. As much as the relationship between creator and audience is ass backwards, you aren't owed anything. Make sure you check yourself, you might be entitled without realising it.
At this point, I've decided that "you're entitled" is an argument that I'll forever take an an opportunity to break any remaining assumption of good faith conversation. So I'm entitled. Why should I care about that opinion?
About what opinion? I'm not gonna assume the opinion you mean. I'm sure it's so obvious it's staring me in the face, but nope. In fact, I was deadass writing a response but deleted it: You've made up your mind on where you stand. "Why should I care about that opinion" goes both ways.
I'm willing to admit I may be wrong or need to be put in my place, however. There is no growth if you can't admit you're wrong. If you undeniably believe I'm acting in bad faith, do whatever you want. If not, then I would love to continue this conversation in good faith. With that, I would love to listen to whatever your thoughts are concerning this thread — considering the defeatist stance of your reply, I infer you changed your mind on discussing your true feelings — and properly explain whatever "that opinion" is.
The ball is in your court.
After a night's sleep, I have a hypothesis as to why people complaining about others being entitled gets me so heated. Namely, it's been consistently used as a content-free dismissal of criticism or suggested (often obvious) improvements. As far as I've encountered, I have yet to encounter someone calling out someone else for being entitled—especially online—that's not a rephrase of "shut up and be grateful for what you have." Think the same vibes as that "society should be improved somewhat" / "yet you live in a society" comic.
That's... surprisingly an argument I am on board with. Especially online, of which I do apologise.
"Entitled" is not the word I should have used. Unfortunately, social platforms on the Internet do not have a fun time regarding nuance or even critical thought; I play into this as well. My firm belief is that this is a macrocosm of incompatible, dissimilar assumptions; when services like YouTube and Facebook were in their infancy, users joined and utilised these services as they were intended. Self-interest is innate, but the interest of sharing media and self-business overlapped. It seems the narrative would be that Silicon Valley became greedy one day, shifting their strategies from user interests to business interests; as a result, corporate leaned into their self-interests, and looked for those with common interests (investors, stockholders, blah blah blah). It would be nice if that was it... but centuries of industrialisation (look no further than Standard Oil) make light of a different perspective. Self-interest is innate, right? Well, that goes both ways too. So the narrative is a lot more complicated; business and consumer have always had unique interests, and then some more.
Deep-seated (and, when you look into it, quite stupid) cultural problems are the macrocosm of such a phenomenon. Technology companies have shifted their focus away from their consumers to their partners; this represents a change in priorities and strategy. Platforms have always been for the individual and not for the community, but it's even more apparent — even if you aren't a nerd or an armchair specialist, you can absolutely tell who a service prioritises. With Tildes, it's very obvious Deimos priorities users more by sharing mission critical resources like the source code — source code absolutely counts as a trade secret, which can be used for Deimos' own self-interests!
Maybe it's not so much entitlement as it is those who stand to benefit from the current system, which is kinda what you pointed out. If you word it right, Deimos sharing source code could easily be considered "commie" behaviour. People love to point at things they have contradictory intentions of, aka bad faith (which is what your point is).
My true point was all of that, condensed: Everything affects everything to various degrees, that's how a system works. No better field taught me that than computer science. In the context of Hbomberguy, I think he should absolutely have a script doctor but it's always worth thinking twice. Video length can have an argument that's more solid than you think, or a reasoning that justifies weakness. It is expected that creators on YouTube outsource resources to dedicated producers, writers, editors — a production team. If Harris has a skeleton crew with no script editor, it could give him (and his team) grace. As a complement, it's easy to spout things you are not knowledgeable in or communicating in self-interest — the difference between "systemic" and "institutional" come to mind, but misconstruing personal opinion as objective logic is very common. Everyone does it — as the sentiment goes, everyone has a degree on the Internet.
So what I meant by my entitled comment was not "shut up and be grateful". What I meant by my 'entitled' comment is "shut up and think twice".
As an aside...
This is a political tangent but complementary reading to my argument about the intersection between self-interest and business.Anyone who says they're running a platform for "free speech" is selling you something. "Free speech" got sold out a long time ago by conservative business — ironically, the same people who pwn "the left" or "so called free thinkers" for living in their complex hypocrisy wonderland are the same people who live free in their self-imposed complex hypocrisy wonderland. People dog on Twitter/X for being a leftist cesspool echo chamber when the rightie equivalent can easily be Parler or, worse, 4chan. Either way, everyone accepts ads as a "necessary evil".
We play "4D chess" while industries use quantum computing.
"In the land of the white, the blue-eyed man is king" (emphasis mine).
For sure. I developed my habit of being unreasonably aggressive online on Hacker News and 2012 peak Ron Paul Reddit. Those websites are (were) full of eloquent windbags who knew every rhetorical trick. Even if your claim is factually correct and you have citations to back it up, you're fighting on their home turf. Unless you also even shaper obnoxious rhetorical skills, they're not going to be pursued by you. Even if you happen to win against them, all the audience sees are walls of text by windbags.
EDIT to add this paragraph. Personally, what really gets me riled up and ready to sucker punch the next longposter I see is when the community consensus is against me (or it's just the same guy posting essays over and over, I don't pay much attention to usernames). If it's just one dude, that's easy enough to ignore or—even—engage with in good faith. When it's a consensus opinion, that's when the troll tactics come out.
Coming in swinging with an off-topic insult, like "OK, incel," "put down the extra chromosome," or "your mom is fat" won't convince the other guy (so it's a wash there) and becomes a higher risk/higher (but still very low) reward scenario when played to an audience. It goes from a zero percent chance of anyone reading alternating walls of text to a slim possibility someone thinks "doesn't this dude have anything better to do than type essays?" of the longposter. They may still disagree with you, but they will have the subtle impression that the opinion the effort poster was pushing is for losers who care too much.
Fallacy counting and an emphasis on rhetorical debate skills to win arguments seems, IME, to be strongly associated with the 105–125 IQ crowd (numbers approximate). Those lower instinctively either go for the insult route or dig in with a support-free "that's just not true"—both are defenses against being hoodwinked or bamboozled by fancy flourishes. Above that, well, I haven't seen an online slapfight where I could confidently assert both parties were in that range. I'm certain they've happened many times, but not recognizably often in my bubbles.
I can't even say they're inherently bad. However, it's difficult to know whether they'd be worth my time before I start. Sometimes, it's a deep dive that goes into all kinds of rabbit holes explaining context; others, it's an evidentiary hearing. That's a lot of time to invest in learning the nuances of people I, ultimately, don't care about one way or the other. As attracted as I am to drama, online drama isn't worthwhile. I am a scavenger in this regard.
Also, I do appreciate your point about the difference between a rookie video essayist posting a poorly-edited documentary that's longer than Return of the King and someone who has enough Patreon support to hire a team to make videos of equal length. I'd agree that mocking the rookie for excessive length is kicking someone while they're down.
Ads & free speech extremism
That's one of the big reasons why I wish federated social media and smaller communities like Tildes would take off. Backbone & infrastructure companies like Akami, Hurricane Electric, etc… have no business moderating content outside of court orders in their home jurisdictions for serious crimes (mostly to blackhole CSAM). However, communities absolutely need standards. 4chan is an example that even communities without official standards will develop de facto standards within the community (though that's more complex: IIRC, 4chan took a HARD turn from "yeah, there are Nazis here. Tell them you'll join their rally once they've proven they've had sex" to "there are only Nazis on the popular boards".What causes so much drama with FB, Twitter, Reddit, et al is that they try to be both a private club community AND infrastructure. Federation helps add the separation of layers into community and infrastructure.
It's about finding a balance and self-editing is hard. After all, why would you have put x, y and z points in if you didn't think x, y and z was needed to make your argument? A good editor should be able to take a decent chunk off the running time without reducing the impact of the script. Perhaps you really only need x with a short mention of y and z.
My general rule is that almost everything can be 30% shorter or smaller without losing anything.
It's hard to describe the unique experience of winding up on a YouTube video about a niche topic you know and care nothing about, but finding it so engaging in execution that you end up watching it for hours anyway.
In this case it's YouTuber drama, but it could easily be a textual analysis of a 90s cartoon I've never heard of or a history of barrel making or something.
Defunctland has that vibe for me. I get it
Even without the problems of plagiarism, at the core is how the content mill - which he covers about an hour in as well, which makes a ton of Youtube channels bland and uninspiring. I can definitely relate to what he talks about with Cinemassacre, which has lost its soul once it got too big and James was reduced to merely being a hired speaker in his own videos. There are still channels that is driven by passionate people, but the commercialization of the never ending production of "content" is clearly taking all the money and is feeding the recommendation algorithms. Original content or not, tons of stuff "feels" extremely bland and similar. Written and made with the same framework and script as everyone else.
Also on Nebula
I don't watch YouTube videos over 45 minutes. Hbomber is the only exception to that and I watched this entire video over the course of the day; excellent as usual.
Why the hard limit? I seek out videos longer than 45 minutes haha
Not him, but for me it's because I vastly prefer to read rather than watch. Every time I see a video essay I desperately wished they would've at least posted a transcript, if not a written article on the subject. To be honest I generally don't use YouTube at all, but when I do that rule's more or less in place on my end too.
Well you're missing out on fantastic things like The Church Play Cinematic Universe and Evermore: The Theme Park That Wasn't, both of which benefit from having video to go with the spoken script.
To be honest I'm pretty much with you on long video content, reading is a much better way to get information into my brain (same way I don't listen to long podcasts) but there are always exceptions. Jenny Nicholson and Hbomberguy are two, I can think of a few more, but only a few.