It's worth nothing that this article was posted a month ago: since then, there was another incident along the same lines where popular YouTuber JonTron imploded for the same reasons as described in the article.
That hadn't occurred to me before, but I think you're right in that JonTron's situation is roughly comparable to the second half of OP's article. Any real publicist would have advised him that doing that debate was a bad idea or at least would have prepped him for it, but it doesn't look like he got any such advice (or if he did he didn't listen to it).
There's probably a point to be made that a real publicist would also help do damage control, which both Pewdiepie and Jontron (and I imagine most people) are clearly are terrible at.
(One difference I would draw is that I don't think PewDiePie is genuinely racist, he just made a really, really stupid joke. Conversely, JonTron was pretty clear about what he thought about undesirables polluting the gene pool...)
That's part of YouTube vloggers' appeal though. They seem genuine and not personalities and anecdotes carefully crafted by publicists like you see from celebrities on talk shows. This leads to the greater risk of someone doing something moronic, but the rewards are a greater connection with fans.
I think that's fair (especially in light of some of the other racially and sexually off-color things he's done), and a good way to phrase it. I had tried to figure out how to say that in my initial comment, but I couldn't find the words for it. Thank you!
JonTron isn't going to lose his subscriberbase from this though... I doubt most of them care.
Personally I don't really, mostly because his personal views never come into play on his actual show. This kind of thing always happens when you get someone involved in comedy to participate in a serious discussion, you start realizing they have opinions and views that you may not like.
> JonTron isn't going to lose his subscriberbase from this though... I doubt most of them care.
I'm sure many of his casual viewers won't care (or even know), but spaces like his subreddit have a lot of people condemning him and saying they're done with his channel. That's the sort of thing that can eventually eat away at content quality by breaking your relationship with bigger fans - think of how Many A True Nerd depends on subreddit feedback to fix mistakes and guide playthroughs.
Again, "many of his casual viewers won't care". Several people elsewhere in this thread have observed that his subscriber count did dip, but normal growth has brought him back above that level already.
My point was a very specific one, which is that a lot of longtime viewers who heavily engaged with his content (e.g. posted at length on the subreddit) seem to have walked away from engaging or perhaps subscribing at all. I think that's damaging even if his viewer count doesn't tank, which is why I gave a specific example of how it could hurt a channel.
>My point was a very specific one, which is that a lot of longtime viewers who heavily engaged with his content (e.g. posted at length on the subreddit) seem to have walked away from engaging or perhaps subscribing at all.
On the contrary - a large number of them had little or no history on the subreddit and it reeked of a bizarre form of astroturfing with plenty of new accounts repeating very similar messages. To what end? No idea. He's popular enough that it is totally possible he had a number of subscribers that felt the need to join Reddit and speak out. But any long term fan would know Jon's opinions on such things. So if anything, they weren't the most engaging of fans and "no harm done".
It's not his youtube subscriber base that he should worry about, it's his advertisement / cross-promotion deals. He did a series with Disney on Star Wars, promotes Audible on his channel, in addition to other deals.
In response, many gamers are revolting and asking for refunds. Their reason is that Playtonic did it as a political move and games shouldn't be political. And a lot of "SJW" stuff. Playtonic, in response, is banning a lot of people from the Steam forums and refusing refunds. (I don't know if Playtonic is banning people for asking for refunds of them just being rude).
Even if his subscribers are not affected, his reputations certainly is. Frankly, I have no idea how these people make money/ make a living but their prospects for media endorsement (at least by mainstream companies) is effectively dead.
By that logic, everything everywhere is free if you are willing to accept the consequences. How reasonable the consequences of action are should be somehow part of the definition of freedom.
You are free to say that, just accept that someone can beat you up for it or harass your employer/girlfriend/boyfriend till they fire you or ...
As typical for these type of events, a relatively small proportion unsubscribed, which was completely counteracted by latent user growth in a couple weeks.
Why Is that so ridiculous. Humans are more powerful than their environment. No other species is. When you can craft the environment you exist in, the evolutionary pressures on you are correspondingly weaker. Have you wondered how mental disorders or chronic diseases still exist? You're not dropping any pills, you just sound like you talk about things you don't understand.
I feel like that article was just a bunch of more or less hypothetical scenarios where X did Y and then some other characters being in "our time" and yada yada.
I still have no idea what JonTron did, I guess he said something racist ... somewhere?
He had a debate that was cast on Twitch. Pretty good overview here (the subreddit is clearly hostile to Jon's opinions, but the original post is quality):
Jim Sterling has the most objective take on the sequence of events: http://www.thejimquisition.com/youtubers-say-the-darndest-th...