Vegans vs. Comic Book Fans: Making Better Use of Youtube.
28 September 2016 [link youtube]
Find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel
The example alluded to in the thumbnail is "ComicPop", a youtube channel that has a more-or-less roundtable format (usually three people seated on a couch) discussing the state of the art, so to speak: https://www.youtube.com/user/TVLittleHouse/videos
Youtube Automatic Transcription
before I get into it i'll just mention i
still get people sending me messages on facebook trying to become my friends on facebook and nine times out of ten i got it right back to them and say look if you want to get to know me you have to pay one dollar to join patreon i do read every single message posted within patreon i do reply to those messages i do meet those people and some of those people have appeared in my channel so two examples steven fate i did a one hour podcast with him Stephen fate is a lawyer in Washington DC so we had a very political podcast trying to talk about how to organize real vegan activism out of this mess of eccentrics we've got going on on YouTube but he's living Washington DC and obviously involved in law politics ecology and any happens to be vegan case you hadn't guessed and I just had mod vegan on the channel mod also so I'm using mod as her first name you know it's not a real name but when mod vegan why just did a two hour podcast with her that you can hear now if you pay the 12 horn joint patreon but all these people I basically met and they communicated with me through patreon and then I set up a skype conversation with them or I replied to their questions in this format here on video and I'm really happy to do that i get intelligent comments and questions through patreon and i love making videos that respond to that so in my perspective for one dollar you get a lot of entertainment value types of joining my my patreon and hopefully you know you can make connections with like-minded vegans that could read to could lead to real activism in the real world you might be me it might be that you're makin connection with me and you and I together mentor going to st. posit in the future but it could be one of the other members like Stephen are like mod vegan or what have you we've got a limited talent pool here but we got a lot of ambition and I like to see people coming together at my patreon page as a crossroads but yes currently patreon is my only income on planet Earth that's the only money I've got coming in I'm going to a job interview in the next few days and if I get that job then my situation will change and you guys will probably get more YouTube videos complaining about how busy I am or my life from the job and fewer videos will start with me saying I just got back from the gym I don't know I don't know I don't know if that job would give me great access to a gym or not we'll we'll find out the hard way all right um so I just got another message from Stephen fate as I mentioned I've had appear on the channel before and Stephen says we like to think of vegans on YouTube as being activists and quotation marks I have to ask the question is there another community of self-identified activists promoting a movement on YouTube that is able to do so effective is who's asking are there positive examples for us to learn from on YouTube he goes on to say I'm skipping some of his message here I think it's clear that personality and behavior based content is what drives views and views equal money is it reasonable to demand content from YouTube personalities that its substantive and pushes our social movement forward or do we have to come to terms the fact that YouTube has an incentive structure that is fundamentally misaligned with the interests of veganism veganism as a political movement alright this may be a shocking and unexpected reply unless you've read the title of this video uh you want to learn for the best you want to learn from positive examples don't look at the political channels on YouTube I think you've got to look at things like comic books and video games if you want to learn from which community digital community not none of these are real communities i hate this use the word community but if you want to learn from a community on YouTube that's using this medium to its utmost that's really getting a lot of ashes it's really getting positive outcomes that's really making meetings and conventions and things happen in real life that may be in some cases raising tens of thousands of dollars through Kickstarter or raising millions of dollars to start a new film project or what have you I think you got to look at comic books and video games if you compare the way comic book groups and videogame groups make use of YouTube I think it's really easy to say that they're beating the hell out of vegans and most people don't even think of making that comparison in the past I've made the comparison to some of the kind of soft political groups like t YT t YT is also known as The Young Turks and their political arm is called Wolf Pack that's a political movement against corruption and graft in American politics against donation driven political campaigns United States trying to get new laws passed for that reason okay we can learn some things from tyt from The Young Turks I think we can learn a lot more by looking at the success of let's just talk about comic books for a minute as an example um you can find websites very easily by googling right now that gave you the total number of sales figures for every comic book in the last month I think there are about two months behind but you know month by month they upload those economic statistics those are real statistics I think if you look through those lists you will be shocked look at a few different months from the last couple of years you might by accident get one month at a really high sales figures the many of the mainstream big-name comic books like Wonder Woman comic books that are not trying to be edgy artistic subculture comic books mainstream comic books are selling only 20,000 copies or struggling to sell 40,000 copies okay those are small numbers you may think that the number of vegans in the world is small it is the number of people interested in veganism though compared to the number of people interested in a comic book that's based on a major movie franchise or you know a big name like this you may be shocked to say hey you know what we are in the same ballpark you know something else you look at the number of viewers on a video of discussing these comic books and it's very easy to find examples of a conversation between two comic book experts that's here on YouTube and it has more views than the actual comic book being discussed right or it's if you look at the sales figures for that comic book over the last several months maybe the comic book has only 40,000 copies sold or 20,000 depending on the case um and this YouTube video has had 80,000 viewers ok so they have reached the heavy in fact that's greater than what they're commenting on and actually like the English language basically American Center a comic book scene and obviously there's a separate scene for France and Germany but we're basically talk about english language mainstream comic books it's not infinite you may think oh those are massive cultural entities those are properties that have millions of dollars and millions of viewers and millions of copies sold but you look at the real numbers never give them up they're just a couple of comic books that are selling a hundred thousand copies and then below that there's this struggle to survive between all the comic book selling 20,000 and 40,000 and you know the fear of cancellation comes in I think when they get down to about 20,000 copies can that comic book be sustainable okay so actually comic books are a subculture and there's not a lot of money in the game I can provide a link I read a really kind of scary article and I shared it with my professor at the time I had a professor who's really interested in this stuff the pressures interesting topic how do you earn a living as a creative writer but I found an article by a comic book author and illustrator he did both the the pictures and the end the text where he talked about exactly how much money here in per month exactly how many hours he worked and he really was I'm not joking suffering for his art and he was not doing edgy artistic far out subculture stuff he was he was making comic books out of mainstream movie properties and in trying to cater to a mainstream mass-market audience okay comic books are beating the crap out of us and I think the comparison get whether you look at comic books are the TTI tyt the Young Turks or some of the other more successful political platforms um why is that they get people together on camera and I'm alone on camera I managed to interact with people vice via Skype but there have been very few videos in this channel with it's another human being in the same room with me they get people together who know the material are passionate about the material have informed opinions about the material and then they engage in analysis and discussion and exchange of views I think they disagree they managed to avoid doing what we see they managed to avoid outright violence and defamation most of the time probably a lot of you know but exceptions that were people who are comic book comic book experts on YouTube beat each other up or something I don't know about that I haven't read comic books for 25 years or something I'm you know that I'm not part of the compo culture at all it's not my thing but I can recognize the success these people have had and bring together people who are engaged in actively reading the source material informed opinion you know just a high level of commitment to an engagement with the issues and bringing fresh original quality analysis to it in exchange of views right that reflects therapies reflects who they are as people to write do we have that going on within veganism I would love to boast to say that my channel is is one of the few but there's not a lot there's never enough and that's not an unattainable goal so my point here is can we make use of YouTube better as a hub or as a crossroads to bring together people of sincere interested in engaging with concern of these issues yes can we learn from other political movements probably not we can learn from the success of other communities other niche markets that are making use of YouTube to the utmost and guys if you think this is a joke please stop and think through how much hard work goes into a comic book convention how much hard work goes into having a conference about a particular TV show like Game of Thrones so Game of Thrones also known as a song of ice and fire every year just in the United States there are so many conventions that were people there's time and money in organizing the convention but just the time of money people take to travel the convention if the convention is in California that half the people are flying there from New York if the convention is in Colorado then everybody's coming along again since except for the two people who happen to live in Colorado okay people are investing time and money to get together just to again I don't know if you want the sense of community or not they're not trying to save the world but they're beating the hell out of us as vegans it look at the vegan conventions that have existed compared to comic book conventions video game conventions or something like fans of Game of Thrones Song of Ice and Fire they're winning we're losing and they're making use of this medium to have a dynamic galvanizing effect and all the people who share those interests even though they don't have a strong humanitarian streak they don't have a strong political agenda where ultimately what they're doing has much more to do with just entertainment and casual interest so can we harness this medium to get you know even more dynamism out of it yes the potential is there let's make it happen
still get people sending me messages on facebook trying to become my friends on facebook and nine times out of ten i got it right back to them and say look if you want to get to know me you have to pay one dollar to join patreon i do read every single message posted within patreon i do reply to those messages i do meet those people and some of those people have appeared in my channel so two examples steven fate i did a one hour podcast with him Stephen fate is a lawyer in Washington DC so we had a very political podcast trying to talk about how to organize real vegan activism out of this mess of eccentrics we've got going on on YouTube but he's living Washington DC and obviously involved in law politics ecology and any happens to be vegan case you hadn't guessed and I just had mod vegan on the channel mod also so I'm using mod as her first name you know it's not a real name but when mod vegan why just did a two hour podcast with her that you can hear now if you pay the 12 horn joint patreon but all these people I basically met and they communicated with me through patreon and then I set up a skype conversation with them or I replied to their questions in this format here on video and I'm really happy to do that i get intelligent comments and questions through patreon and i love making videos that respond to that so in my perspective for one dollar you get a lot of entertainment value types of joining my my patreon and hopefully you know you can make connections with like-minded vegans that could read to could lead to real activism in the real world you might be me it might be that you're makin connection with me and you and I together mentor going to st. posit in the future but it could be one of the other members like Stephen are like mod vegan or what have you we've got a limited talent pool here but we got a lot of ambition and I like to see people coming together at my patreon page as a crossroads but yes currently patreon is my only income on planet Earth that's the only money I've got coming in I'm going to a job interview in the next few days and if I get that job then my situation will change and you guys will probably get more YouTube videos complaining about how busy I am or my life from the job and fewer videos will start with me saying I just got back from the gym I don't know I don't know I don't know if that job would give me great access to a gym or not we'll we'll find out the hard way all right um so I just got another message from Stephen fate as I mentioned I've had appear on the channel before and Stephen says we like to think of vegans on YouTube as being activists and quotation marks I have to ask the question is there another community of self-identified activists promoting a movement on YouTube that is able to do so effective is who's asking are there positive examples for us to learn from on YouTube he goes on to say I'm skipping some of his message here I think it's clear that personality and behavior based content is what drives views and views equal money is it reasonable to demand content from YouTube personalities that its substantive and pushes our social movement forward or do we have to come to terms the fact that YouTube has an incentive structure that is fundamentally misaligned with the interests of veganism veganism as a political movement alright this may be a shocking and unexpected reply unless you've read the title of this video uh you want to learn for the best you want to learn from positive examples don't look at the political channels on YouTube I think you've got to look at things like comic books and video games if you want to learn from which community digital community not none of these are real communities i hate this use the word community but if you want to learn from a community on YouTube that's using this medium to its utmost that's really getting a lot of ashes it's really getting positive outcomes that's really making meetings and conventions and things happen in real life that may be in some cases raising tens of thousands of dollars through Kickstarter or raising millions of dollars to start a new film project or what have you I think you got to look at comic books and video games if you compare the way comic book groups and videogame groups make use of YouTube I think it's really easy to say that they're beating the hell out of vegans and most people don't even think of making that comparison in the past I've made the comparison to some of the kind of soft political groups like t YT t YT is also known as The Young Turks and their political arm is called Wolf Pack that's a political movement against corruption and graft in American politics against donation driven political campaigns United States trying to get new laws passed for that reason okay we can learn some things from tyt from The Young Turks I think we can learn a lot more by looking at the success of let's just talk about comic books for a minute as an example um you can find websites very easily by googling right now that gave you the total number of sales figures for every comic book in the last month I think there are about two months behind but you know month by month they upload those economic statistics those are real statistics I think if you look through those lists you will be shocked look at a few different months from the last couple of years you might by accident get one month at a really high sales figures the many of the mainstream big-name comic books like Wonder Woman comic books that are not trying to be edgy artistic subculture comic books mainstream comic books are selling only 20,000 copies or struggling to sell 40,000 copies okay those are small numbers you may think that the number of vegans in the world is small it is the number of people interested in veganism though compared to the number of people interested in a comic book that's based on a major movie franchise or you know a big name like this you may be shocked to say hey you know what we are in the same ballpark you know something else you look at the number of viewers on a video of discussing these comic books and it's very easy to find examples of a conversation between two comic book experts that's here on YouTube and it has more views than the actual comic book being discussed right or it's if you look at the sales figures for that comic book over the last several months maybe the comic book has only 40,000 copies sold or 20,000 depending on the case um and this YouTube video has had 80,000 viewers ok so they have reached the heavy in fact that's greater than what they're commenting on and actually like the English language basically American Center a comic book scene and obviously there's a separate scene for France and Germany but we're basically talk about english language mainstream comic books it's not infinite you may think oh those are massive cultural entities those are properties that have millions of dollars and millions of viewers and millions of copies sold but you look at the real numbers never give them up they're just a couple of comic books that are selling a hundred thousand copies and then below that there's this struggle to survive between all the comic book selling 20,000 and 40,000 and you know the fear of cancellation comes in I think when they get down to about 20,000 copies can that comic book be sustainable okay so actually comic books are a subculture and there's not a lot of money in the game I can provide a link I read a really kind of scary article and I shared it with my professor at the time I had a professor who's really interested in this stuff the pressures interesting topic how do you earn a living as a creative writer but I found an article by a comic book author and illustrator he did both the the pictures and the end the text where he talked about exactly how much money here in per month exactly how many hours he worked and he really was I'm not joking suffering for his art and he was not doing edgy artistic far out subculture stuff he was he was making comic books out of mainstream movie properties and in trying to cater to a mainstream mass-market audience okay comic books are beating the crap out of us and I think the comparison get whether you look at comic books are the TTI tyt the Young Turks or some of the other more successful political platforms um why is that they get people together on camera and I'm alone on camera I managed to interact with people vice via Skype but there have been very few videos in this channel with it's another human being in the same room with me they get people together who know the material are passionate about the material have informed opinions about the material and then they engage in analysis and discussion and exchange of views I think they disagree they managed to avoid doing what we see they managed to avoid outright violence and defamation most of the time probably a lot of you know but exceptions that were people who are comic book comic book experts on YouTube beat each other up or something I don't know about that I haven't read comic books for 25 years or something I'm you know that I'm not part of the compo culture at all it's not my thing but I can recognize the success these people have had and bring together people who are engaged in actively reading the source material informed opinion you know just a high level of commitment to an engagement with the issues and bringing fresh original quality analysis to it in exchange of views right that reflects therapies reflects who they are as people to write do we have that going on within veganism I would love to boast to say that my channel is is one of the few but there's not a lot there's never enough and that's not an unattainable goal so my point here is can we make use of YouTube better as a hub or as a crossroads to bring together people of sincere interested in engaging with concern of these issues yes can we learn from other political movements probably not we can learn from the success of other communities other niche markets that are making use of YouTube to the utmost and guys if you think this is a joke please stop and think through how much hard work goes into a comic book convention how much hard work goes into having a conference about a particular TV show like Game of Thrones so Game of Thrones also known as a song of ice and fire every year just in the United States there are so many conventions that were people there's time and money in organizing the convention but just the time of money people take to travel the convention if the convention is in California that half the people are flying there from New York if the convention is in Colorado then everybody's coming along again since except for the two people who happen to live in Colorado okay people are investing time and money to get together just to again I don't know if you want the sense of community or not they're not trying to save the world but they're beating the hell out of us as vegans it look at the vegan conventions that have existed compared to comic book conventions video game conventions or something like fans of Game of Thrones Song of Ice and Fire they're winning we're losing and they're making use of this medium to have a dynamic galvanizing effect and all the people who share those interests even though they don't have a strong humanitarian streak they don't have a strong political agenda where ultimately what they're doing has much more to do with just entertainment and casual interest so can we harness this medium to get you know even more dynamism out of it yes the potential is there let's make it happen