[dayon]

Wow. That's one of the most eye-opening articles I've read. I admit to having no idea how difficult it is, at least for some social media stars, to get by on e-fame.

The take-aways for me are:

1. If you become famous on social media, understand that it might not make you enough money to survive, paradoxically with more fame leading to possibly less income.

2. If you must make videos, vlogs, blogs, or whatever else online, do something that you want to do for its own sake. Make something that in itself is valuable. Don't make a song because you think it'll make you money or a branded informative video because you think it'll net you an audience and therefore income. Create something great for the sake of the greatness. That way, you can't really lose either way. Because, it seems, either way, you're going to lose.

[malbs]

You've nailed it right there... "do something that you want to do for its own sake".

There are multiple problems solved - you don't come across as fake or forced, the content you're covering seems natural, because you are generally interested in it. The flow of content comes easily because you're actively engaged in the community, so you're almost creating new content accidentally, as a by product of your self-interest.

I watch my daughters and their engagement with youtubers, twitchers etc, what seems crazy to me, in terms of what I would watch on you tube, they happily consume - watching people unwrap items they've ordered online, new fads, hours of gaming sessions. I mean really? I'd rather play the games myself!

It does lend a lot of weight to the idea that the next generation of celebrities are online based only... The downside is they can't monetize their fame! Or at least, don't know how to yet.

I make that whole "next gen celebs online only" comment like it hasn't happened yet, knowing that it is well on the way again from observing my 13/12/11 yr old daughters and their use of youtube/minecraft/instagram (did you notice the lack of Facebook? Yeah...)

[kiba]

I tried to watch youtuber and twitch play games, but mostly I just don't care.

Sometime, I get really into it. The vast majority, I just ignore their channel.

I suspect it may not all be a generation gap. Some people just find watching other people play games interesting. Others don't.

[jerf]

"It depends". I'm fond of Spoiler Warning, which I've been watching for a while, because it's a bunch of 30-somethings (like me) doing interesting game criticism in addition to the other things Let's Plays usually do. They're actually one of the earlier iterations of the idea. I also don't get the appeal of watching someone simply play the game and just generally react, when I could be playing it (or something else) myself. I've only sampled those streams every so often just to check the game itself out (i.e., briefly just sampled about 3 minutes of Angry Joe's Fallout 4 stream, just to see completely unvarnished, real footage).

On the topic of 30-somethings, while you may hear a lot more about the youth, I gotta say there's a lot of "30 somethings" in the general "Internet video" space, doing various interesting works. I noticed once I started getting into Patreon that without particularly meaning to be hipster, an awful lot of my entertainment time is spent on grain-fed, organically-raised artisanal Internet video now. It just sorta... happened.

[VLM]

Also, some games are extremely visual and creative, like minecraft, others are more cinematic / on rails and those games in YT form tend to be excruciatingly boring.

[malbs]

I can't stand to watch other people play games. I'm with you.

[vlehto]

There seems to be sex divide coming in future social media.

And I can't blame them. Girls need some girl time, boys need some boy time.

[pdkl95]

> Create something great for the sake of the greatness.

I strongly recommend ViHart's discussion[1] of Edmund Snow Carpenter's[2] "They Became What The Beheld". It is very easy to focus on the medium, when you should be focusing on the message.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm-Jjvqu3U4

[2] Marshall McLuhan may have written the initial version of that book.