Maybe not that interesting for everyone here, but I found no better community for this.

  • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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    2 days ago

    They are owned by private equity? It’s pretty common these days for the more popular YT channels. Veritasium, Astrum, Fireship, fern., and Hoog are some other examples. Basically, if it’s a popular YT channel, it’s either owned by PE, in negotiations to be acquired by PE, or pursued by a PE firm in the hopes that they can acquire it. Private equity is accelerating their acquisitions, actually, and they want to control everything that captures the attention of viewers.

    Here’s a video that talks about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ-rRXWhElI

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      No wonder veritasium has felt “off” for me for a good while as well. A few years ago I deliberately stopped watching that channel, seems there was a deeper reason behind my superficial reasons and gut feelings

      • socsa@piefed.social
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        1 day ago

        He basically only makes “why everyone except me is wrong about X” content now, and it’s super smug and obnoxious.

        • Iceman@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          They seem to use the “shotgun” future in Youtube for titles and Thumbnails. Having the a bunch of different titles and and thumbnails and eventually sticking with the combo that drives the most engagement.

      • minimum@mander.xyz
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        1 day ago

        The content is higher-quality, more like a TV production. But it’s still pretty solid. Good analogies and intuitive explanations.

    • hikaru755@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Do you have actual evidence for Kurzgesagt being among PE-owned channels, or are you just extrapolating? Because the video you linked doesn’t mention them, and a quick search didn’t turn up anything about that.

      • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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        1 day ago

        if most of your money comes from billionaires and you admit to making propaganda videos for them, you’re owned by private equity. it doesn’t matter how much you or they argue about how that isn’t technically true because it’s not officially on paper.

        • hikaru755@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Like it or not, words have meaning, and black and white thinking is comfortable, but doesn’t help anyone. There is still a massive difference between the gates foundation having a 0.5% stake in Kurzgesagt and them being “owned” by PE, and pretending otherwise just means you’re not actually interested in any kind of productive discussion.

          • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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            1 day ago

            When you sell your soul to the devil, it’s gone forever. And I never implied I was interested in “productive discussion”. I said what I said because I’ve seen what evidence there is and have made my own conclusions. I never said I was interested in debating.

    • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      There’s an incredible amount of money in those offers. Years ago Linus Tech Tips got an offer of 100m, so I get why people take the money.

      • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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        2 days ago

        I mean, I would probably sell the channel myself. That’s a lifechanging amount of money. I would buy some land deep in the backcountry, build a little walled village, and invite my family and friends to come live there. Grow our own food, set up some solar panels and wind turbines, buy up plenty of guns and ammo, and see if we couldn’t hunker down and live out the ever more likely downfall of the American economy in relative peace.

      • Rose@slrpnk.net
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        2 days ago

        Astrum makes space stuff videos? I dunno, been a while.

        Fireship makes videos about programming. Has series about “(Programming language/Framework) explained in 100 seconds”, for example. I think people are complaining that the channel is slipping into AI dudebroery.

        Hoog is a history/explainer type channel, I think.

        • toynbee@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yes, and also I was able to extrapolate that much, but I was looking for some idea of what kind of content they provided.

          That said, I can look them up; apologies for bothering you on the matter.

          • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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            1 day ago

            oh, sorry, I misunderstood your question. Veritasium and Astrum are science channels, Fireship covers programming. fern. and Hoog do what I guess you could call deep dive videos on all sorts of topics. everything from how the North Korean king travels, to how that giant hotel aquarium broke several years ago. it’s pretty random with them.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Anyone down voting this should be ashamed of themselves.

      Like deeply and personally ashamed.

      The type of shame that follows them for the rest their lives, because that’s how scummy you’d have to be in order downvote someone shining a light on how private equity is buying out major YouTube channels.

      Something that I was entirely unaware of, and appreciate your comment regarding.

      • Damage@feddit.it
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        5 hours ago

        You wrote all that shit and forgot that accusations like that need proof.

        • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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          4 hours ago

          The video which made the accusations, not me, provided sources for all of the claims.

          Did you even look?

          Sorry, that was rhetorical, obviously you did not look.

            • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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              3 hours ago

              I didn’t single out any particular YouTube channel for individual scorn. My comment was in reference to that very well sourced video about private equity buying up / investing many YouTube channels, of which they provided sources for in the description of the video.

              • Damage@feddit.it
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                3 hours ago

                Look, I’m sorry you got invested in Youtube channels and now feel betrayed, but that’s something everyone else already understood: don’t blindly trust anyone or any organisation, they can be bought, and will when it’s advantageous to do so.

                In the meantime, don’t shit on people’s work without a good reason, or you’re doing the work for those who mean to control you.

                • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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                  1 hour ago

                  I have no idea what you’re going on about.

                  It’s not a matter of betrayal, it was a video revealing another area of influence in society that is now controlled behind the scenes by private equity.

                  Whose work was I shitting on? I was shaming people who were down voting that very well sourced and informative video, that documented private equity’s quiet takeover of major YouTube channels.

                  Maybe you should review the comment thread and see if you meant to respond to someone else, because that’s the most charitable explanation I can come up with for your responses to me.

      • hikaru755@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Bringing this general issue up in a thread about Kurzgesagt, without also providing evidence that Kurzgesagt specifically is actually part of that issue, is at best irrelevant and at worst misleading though

      • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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        2 days ago

        I get it. They like the channel, and don’t want to think that a channel they love could do something they don’t love. Or maybe some of them don’t see it as a bad thing in the first place.

        Me, I’m the opposite. I want to know who owns the media I consume, because I want to know who might be influencing the things I see. It’s always better to have the whole truth, even if that truth hurts. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the channel still, it just means you’re better prepared to understand the context of anything that that channel might say. Even cold hard facts with empirical evidence can be propaganda, depending on how it’s presented.

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Except you lied about who they are owned by.

          Why make yourself out to be virtuous and caring about the truth when your entire premise is a lie?

          • _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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            5 hours ago

            I never made myself out to be virtuous, nor do I care about what you think of me. I’m an asshole, and that’s fine because I love me exactly how I am and don’t need random strangers on the internet for validation. and I certainly don’t care about what you think of them making propaganda videos. I wouldn’t even still be in this thread if you guys weren’t still throwing a tantrum about somebody calling out your precious favorite YouTube channel for their less-than-stellar quality and tendency to pander to billionaires.

            I posted my opinion, you got butthurt over it. that’s as far as this conversation is ever going to go, because I don’t care about you enough to bother arguing it extensively. now why don’t you take your sci-fi antisemitic trope of a username and get out of my mentions.