#25 The Fandom outfoxing YouTube
W/C 27 September
Hello and welcome to #25. I seem to have a few new signups in the last 10 days, SubStack doing it’s thing it seems. If you are new, welcome. This SubStack (not a newsletter) is a little wrap-up of what I am reading and think is interesting and then some links for you to make your own mind up, generally goes out once a week. I also watch a lot of TV and share a little recommendation in the last section. There are tons of errors in my spelling and grammar, I write like I speak but I speak quite casually, which I realise only works if you know what I sound like. Maybe I need an audio note section. ANYWAY. This bit you’re reading right now is usually a little intro that tries to be both pithy and personal. To that end I am currently nursing an ear infection like I’m a toddler. The glamour.
Now, on to the #content.
1. The Fandom outfoxing YouTube
Get the fandoms going and you’ll never look back, or at least til they aren’t happy with you. This is pretty extraordinary. BlackPink are a fantastically successful Kpop band and their fans are pretty into them. The lengths that their fans are going not only to drive success for the band but also to build the success of other fans of the band is, well, quite fanatical. Imagine the Beatles or Take That (sure) fandoms in the 90s but with tech we have now. Impressive? Scary? Probably both. See some of their (actually really great/smart) dos and don’ts.
2. 2.5m views, more than the avg PL match on Sky Sports?
Some of the biggest creators in the world had a charity football match, raised £1m and interestingly had 2.5m, concurrent viewers. The average PL viewership on Sky is around 1.7-9m I believe. It’s easy to dismiss creators, but for many, many reasons, they are important in culture.
3. YouTube’s big shift in Creator strategy
It’s funny to say but I still think YouTube is really underrated. I personally use it more and more and it seems to have constantly balanced cool/relevance and utility. They have somewhat lost ground on Creators though, which they seem to have finally tried to counteract. More journalistic view here.
Odds and ends, basic links. Pure linkage, low intervention links.
‘My life in a telegram bitcoin group chat full of ghosts’ - hell of a ride.
CyberPunk has changed its fortunes it seems = Netflix + iteration. Fair play.
Nice post on what platforms give away to Creators. OnlyFans and Substack FTW?
How to absolutely make a trend a trend when it shouldn’t be a trend. The NyQuil Tik Tok debacle.
Bonus.
I recently watched Am I Being Unreasonable on iPlayer - and enjoyed it. It’s 30mins per episode and a little more intriguing perhaps than first meets the eye. For new readers, I watch a lot of TV. Tell me what’s good.
All the spelling and grammatical mistakes in this Substack are on purpose to test you, actually. Well done. You got them all. No, I don’t need to know about them, you have that kudos.