Yeah the hate is weird. I’m not the biggest stream watcher, but I can respect the medium. Streamers are just doing the modern version of what AM talk radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh did. Not in terms of content or politics, but in terms of format. Limbaugh ran multi-hour long shows reacting to news and headlines. His listeners primarily listened passively, letting the radio run in the background of daily life. He would take calls and engage with his audience directly. Streaming is just modern talk radio.
He would take calls and engage with his audience directly.
Lol very rarely did he do this. His show (which I unfortunately had to listen to a lot because of various right-wing bosses I worked for) was 99% just him talking and talking and talking. Taking calls led to the very slight possibility of his having to argue against people who disagreed with him, something he was terrible at. On his TV show, in fact, he once famously had the entire audience cleared out because a small number of people had shown up to heckle him.
A single caller turned me away from Rush and got me started thinking about the content I was consuming.
Dude calls in to say he looked into getting a wind turbine and the math didn’t work out. When he brought up the cost to hook it to the grid, Limbaugh was laughing his ass off.
“Wait! Wait! It requires POWER to run! HAR HAR HAR!”
The man tried to explain that the connection would pay him when he generated more than he used. Limbaugh was an intelligent man, he knew where the conversation was going and kept cutting off the man’s explanation.
Despite the caller’s math as to why wind wouldn’t work for him, Limbaugh wouldn’t allow the man to make one positive point. That turned me off so hard I started seeking other viewpoints. 15-years later and I’m into Fully Automated Luxury Communism.
Enjoy my screenshot from the day that vile man died:
To a certain extent, a lot of streamers do a lot more stuff than actors.
Actors book a job, so some acting, maybe do a promo tour for their movie, that’s it.
Most “influencers” or streamers at least start out doing everything themselves. They need to understand the streaming tech, know how to configure OBS studio, how to edit video, understand the camera, the lighting, if they’re using make up they’re doing it themselves, they need to know how to do their own marketing, etc. And, if they’re live-streaming they need to develop the skill of interacting with their audience while they’re doing something else. Without that parasocial relationship with the audience, they don’t get big, so they need to stay on top of what their chat is saying. Sometimes that’s on top of doing something else like playing a demanding video game.
So, I think streamers / influencers are often doing a more impressive job than actors. For many streamers / influencers I’m much less interested in them. I often have less respect for the way they make money, since it’s so vapid and consumerist. On the other hand, I do admit that it can be a lot of work to master all those domains.
Yeah, that’s another part of it. Plus the magic of trying to reverse engineer the recommendation algorithms to know what it is that will get your video in front of people.
It is a generational divide to not consider streaming as “doing stuff,” but that’s a divide I’m ok crossing.
Yeah the hate is weird. I’m not the biggest stream watcher, but I can respect the medium. Streamers are just doing the modern version of what AM talk radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh did. Not in terms of content or politics, but in terms of format. Limbaugh ran multi-hour long shows reacting to news and headlines. His listeners primarily listened passively, letting the radio run in the background of daily life. He would take calls and engage with his audience directly. Streaming is just modern talk radio.
Was that supposed to entertain the idea that I should regard streamers with the same respect I would Rush Limbaugh?
If so, mission accomplished.
Lol very rarely did he do this. His show (which I unfortunately had to listen to a lot because of various right-wing bosses I worked for) was 99% just him talking and talking and talking. Taking calls led to the very slight possibility of his having to argue against people who disagreed with him, something he was terrible at. On his TV show, in fact, he once famously had the entire audience cleared out because a small number of people had shown up to heckle him.
A single caller turned me away from Rush and got me started thinking about the content I was consuming.
Dude calls in to say he looked into getting a wind turbine and the math didn’t work out. When he brought up the cost to hook it to the grid, Limbaugh was laughing his ass off.
“Wait! Wait! It requires POWER to run! HAR HAR HAR!”
The man tried to explain that the connection would pay him when he generated more than he used. Limbaugh was an intelligent man, he knew where the conversation was going and kept cutting off the man’s explanation.
Despite the caller’s math as to why wind wouldn’t work for him, Limbaugh wouldn’t allow the man to make one positive point. That turned me off so hard I started seeking other viewpoints. 15-years later and I’m into Fully Automated Luxury Communism.
Enjoy my screenshot from the day that vile man died:
https://www.photo-pick.com/online/LODXBNhT.link
That’s hilarious
To a certain extent, a lot of streamers do a lot more stuff than actors.
Actors book a job, so some acting, maybe do a promo tour for their movie, that’s it.
Most “influencers” or streamers at least start out doing everything themselves. They need to understand the streaming tech, know how to configure OBS studio, how to edit video, understand the camera, the lighting, if they’re using make up they’re doing it themselves, they need to know how to do their own marketing, etc. And, if they’re live-streaming they need to develop the skill of interacting with their audience while they’re doing something else. Without that parasocial relationship with the audience, they don’t get big, so they need to stay on top of what their chat is saying. Sometimes that’s on top of doing something else like playing a demanding video game.
So, I think streamers / influencers are often doing a more impressive job than actors. For many streamers / influencers I’m much less interested in them. I often have less respect for the way they make money, since it’s so vapid and consumerist. On the other hand, I do admit that it can be a lot of work to master all those domains.
And the consistency required, especially for steaming.
Disappear for a month and lose 30% of your audience, it’s brutal
Yeah, that’s another part of it. Plus the magic of trying to reverse engineer the recommendation algorithms to know what it is that will get your video in front of people.