Over the past 12 months, a new mania has been sweeping YouTube. A plague, passing from patient to patient, from video to video, until it has all but taken over the platform. I’m talking, of course, about YouTubers holding microphones. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly when this affliction began to take hold. Did it begin when this guy stuck a microphone on his thumb, and then a guava fruit, and then a megaphone? Or did it come later, crossing over from TikTok? Whatever the answer to these questions, what we do know is that the situation has
become desperate. But, I suppose it might be necessary to provide a bit of context for those of you less familiar With audiovisual technology. See, many people assume that, when a film, TV show, or, yes, YouTube video is made, both the image one sees and the audio one hears are captured by the same device. That, after all, is how it works when you film something on your phone. But, whilst most cameras do have some form of microphone built in, almost all professional productions will record audio separately, using a dedicated microphone. There are a couple of reasons
for this. The first is simply that the microphones which come built-in to cameras almost invariably suck. Most high-end camera companies are primarily focussed on making the picture quality as good as it can be, meaning any sound-recording capabilities are a bit of an afterthought. Buying a dedicated microphone, then, is necessary if you want to ensure high-fidelity sound. The second reason is that, unless you’re filming an extreme-close-up, a microphone which is built into the camera usually isn’t in the best position to capture the desired sound. As soon as the subject is more than a couple of metres
away, a built-in microphone is more likely to pick up the heavy breathing of the camera person than it is anything the subject is doing or saying. Using an external microphone such as a boom mic, then, allows you to position the microphone in such a way that you actually capture the dialogue or audio you want your audience to hear. When doing so, however, there’s one rule which is almost so obvious and accepted as to go entirely unsaid. And that is that any microphones which are used should be positioned so as to be as unobtrusive As possible.
In scripted work, ideally you don’t see any microphones at all. Where one does slip through, it’s a whole thing. In documentary and other factual programming, they’ll at the very least be tucked away so as not to draw too much attention. In fact, even with our limited budget, making these try-hard little videos, we put great time and expense into keeping any and all microphones as inconspicuous as possible. When I film videos in my studio set up at home, there’s in the region of £500 worth of kit involved in capturing my dulcet tones without having a microphone
obstructing your view of my beautiful face. So, to see these little zoomers bursting onto the scene and just… just holding microphones in their hands? You know it almost feels like a personal attack. What makes things worse is this. See, one of the most popular microphones to hold, for the YouTubers who hold microphones, is the lavalier microphone—the “lav mic” to its friends. And, this is particularly brazen. Because, this microphone? This tiny little microphone? This is specifically designed to be as invisible as possible. I have once taped one of these to my bare chest to avoid it
being visible in the final video. To not only hold it in full view of the camera but to fling it around like some kind of majorette’s baton… it just feels like an act of outright disrespect to the master engineers at the Røde Corporation. But, look, whilst I may have recently turned 30, this video isn’t just going to be me rambling about how unfair it is that I’m not cool anymore. It may surprise you to learn that I was never particularly cool in the first place. The reason I’m closing out this year with a video about
YouTubers holding microphones is because I think it can tell us a huge amount about the culture of YouTube as a platform; more specifically, how that culture is changing. On the surface, this might seem like just some trivial little gag which has caught on. But, the intentional and targeted disregard for the “craft of filmmaking” it displays… I think that’s part of something much bigger. Whether these creators recognise it or not, YouTubers holding microphones is a repercussion of a low-key conflict which has been playing-out beneath the surface of YouTube for some time Now. It’s a struggle over
who has the right to an audience on this platform and who is an outsider who needs to be purged. As YouTube enters its 19th year and prepares to come of age, it’s ultimately the product of a site-wide identity crisis over what direction this strange social-media-platform-cum-streaming-service should go next. So, please ensure you’re sitting comfortably for this gripping presentation on why YouTubers hold microphones now. So, I got married last summer. And, getting married involves seeing lots of people you haven’t caught up with in a while: aunts, uncles, old friends. It also involves meeting lots of new people:
photographers, caterers, venue staff. Which means that, at any given moment, you’re never more than five minutes away from being asked this question. See, obviously the quickest way for me to get them up to speed would be for me to use this word: Instantly, they would have at least some idea of what my day-to-day life looks like. In practice, though, this word… …almost never leaves my lips. I used to say I “work in online education”. Which, back when I was making more explicitly resource-based videos wasn’t entirely untrue. I once tried saying I “run a video production
company”; but that felt a bit grand. These days I’ll normally say that I “make videos for YouTube”. But, only under the rarest of circumstances will I use this word: I know I’m not the only person who feels some discomfort around that term. Plenty of others who do this job have expressed similar feelings. Daniel Howell once joked that it can feel like a slur in some quarters. And, I think the reasons for this are twofold. One is a sense that being called a (whispered) “YouTuber” places one into a bucket with other (whispered) “YouTubers” one might not
necessarily want to be associated with. Rightly or wrongly, plenty of people who… make videos for YouTube… would rather not be thought of as colleagues of Logan Paul or PewDiePie or that guy who deliberately crashed a plane for views. The aspect which has always pained me, however, has never been having to explain how my videos differ from those of, say, MrBeast. That’s easily done. What’s always made me feel a bit unsure of that word is the manner in which it cedes so much of my professional identity to a very particular online platform. Describing myself using this
word… …would be to surrender to the idea that I am but a tiny cog in the gigantic corporate machine that is YouTube, that is Google, that is Alphabet. In fact, it’s worth pointing out that my declaration that I “make videos for YouTube” is also carefully worded to avoid saying that I make these: This distinction between making “videos for YouTube” and making these… …is important. For one, to say the latter would be factually incorrect. Every video I post on YouTube is also published ad-free on my premium streaming service Nebula. My videos can and do exist outside
of YouTube. But, more than this, to describe what I make as (whispered) “YouTube videos” feels as though it frames the skills I use to create them as in some way proprietary: that I’m not so much skilled in research or writing or presenting than I am simply “good at YouTube”... whatever that means. Whilst saying I “make videos for YouTube” might sound a little clunky, then, it helps me to carve out a sense of professional independence and to believe that that specific platform might not be the absolute limit of my professional and creative horizons. It helps me
to convince myself that I don’t just make these… …but that I am a versatile creative professional who makes videos which can exist in many contexts, but for whom one of those contexts just happens to be YouTube. All of this pedantry certainly helps boost my self esteem. It helps me feel more legitimate when talking to people who are unfamiliar with YouTube Either as an industry sector or as a cultural space. It’s also… completely untrue. Whenever I avoid using this word… …I’m lying to myself as much as the person I’m talking to. See, I might want to
believe I’m someone who makes videos which just so happen to be watched primarily on YouTube. But, that’s a pretty naive way of looking at things. Because, YouTube isn’t a neutral participant in my video-making. The same would be true if I posted on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. These platforms aren’t blank canvases onto which users or creators simply post whatever they want. Instead, everything about their design, the features they boast, their limitations, and The incentives offered by their recommendation and monetisation systems… these all work to actively shape the content which is posted to them. Take TikTok.
If there’s one thing which puts me off TikTok, it’s the ubiquity of the seamless loop. For the unacquainted, this is a device in which creators try to make the end of a video match up perfectly with the beginning, thereby creating the illusion of a never-ending video. The seamless loop is one of several quirks which TikTok inherited from Vine and is made possible by the fact that videos on TikTok repeat rather than simply stop once they’ve played all the way through. These looping videos can occasionally be fun. But, what you’ll soon notice is that most aren’t
particularly clever at all. I’ll regularly be watching a fairly straight-forward, educational TikTok and won’t think too much Of the fact the creator opens with a declarative statement like this: “The Black Death Killed roughly 25 million people” That is until I reach the end of the video and, after a minute or so of explaining that initial point, the creator looks knowingly into the camera and says… “And that’s why…” …before the video loops back to the beginning to complete the sentence. This rarely adds anything to the video in question. It’s not even particularly creative. To some, it
might seem kinda odd to add this weird, incongruent gag which potentially cheapens an otherwise insightful video. But, it all makes sense once we relate it to how TikTok’s recommendation algorithm works. See, TikTok differs from YouTube in that, rather than giving you a choice over what to watch, it simply serves you video after video. This means that the only real metric it has on which to judge the popularity of a post is watchtime. If people stick around to watch a video for a minute, that video is probably more engaging (and thus worth recommending further) than if
people swipe away after just 10 seconds. On a platform dominated by short videos, going viral means making every millisecond count. The recommendation system thus incentivises creators to make content which not only keeps viewers around until the very end of each video but, ideally, encourages them to watch it again. Of course, even on a platform where videos loop automatically, making content which is actually worth watching more than once is kinda hard. So, many creators simply resign themselves to squeezing an extra second or two of watchtime out of their fans by using a seamless loop to trick
them into thinking the video isn’t over. In this way (and several others we’ll come on to), the various features and incentives a platform places in front of creators shapes the content which is posted to it. Creators do not make “videos for TikTok”; in a very real sense, they create TikToks. By the same token, my statement that I “make videos for YouTube” is nonsense. When I come to plan an upcoming video, the knowledge that most people will watch that video on YouTube hugely shapes my thinking around it. The length of my videos, my use of section
headings, the way I often start with a little teaser section previewing some of the stuff I’ll be covering… all of these might be things I’d do anyway. But, any creator who tells you they just post whatever they want without any thought for what will perform well is lying. As much as I might not want to admit it, then, I do make YouTube videos, I am a YouTuber. But, this video isn’t about seamless loops. This is a video about microphones. It’s less about the form that videos take than it is about their aesthetic and style. We’re
interested in what it is about YouTube in the early 2020s which has led to this particular manner of enthusiastic unprofessionalism flourishing. And, in order to do that, we need to talk briefly about PragerU. If there’s one thing it’s harder to escape on YouTube than people holding microphones, it’s PragerU. Not only does Dennis Prager’s right-wing misinformation machine manage to pump-out Videos on a near-daily basis, but there’s a whole sub-genre of reaction and response content in which creators debunk and critique the organisation’s propaganda. These videos are hugely popular, often far out-performing other videos by the same channels.
But, I think their appeal is sometimes misunderstood. It is certainly the case that part of the draw of both making and watching these videos is the simple fact that PragerU’s politics suck. The organisation’s YouTube channel is nothing more than a steady stream of the most tedious conservative talking points: climate denial, transphobia and outrage at basically any proposal to reduce poverty. Creators are surely driven, in part, by a desire to push back on these ideas, whilst viewers find it reassuring to see them challenged. But, more than politically validating, it’s clear that both creators and viewers find
Dunking on PragerU kinda fun. There seems to be something about the channel’s videos which means that folks get a genuine kick out of seeing it brought down to size. And, I think that level of genuine glee has less to do with politics than it does to do with style. Because, there’s something about PragerU’s videos which always seems kinda off. YouTube is packed with channels which visualise complex ideas through beautiful motion graphics and animation; but, PragerU remains defiant in using the most generic corporate clipart imaginable. Where other political YouTube channels across the left-right spectrum embrace informality
and fun, PragerU relies on stuffy, impersonal hosts who read what can only be described as short lectures from an autocue. Even the hard-coded watermark in the bottom-right corner of the screen feels a little OTT. Of course, it’s tempting to simply describe these videos as bad. According to this PragerU study guide, quality in art is ‘objectively traceable’; under which logic these videos are just incontrovertibly shit. But, back in reality, there’s actually something far more interesting going on here. Because, the idea that PragerU’s videos are “bad” is kind of hard to substantiate. From a technical point of
view, they’re nothing if not perfectly proficient. They’re well-lit, in focus and, regardless of your thoughts on their clipart library, the editing is pretty polished. I’d imagine you’d be far less likely to find a spelling mistake or rendering error in a PragerU video than you would in any of those hundreds of responses to it. Most importantly, if you watch any of their studio-based videos, one thing you’re very, Very unlikely to see is a microphone. You certainly won’t find whichever right-wing weirdo they’ve hired to host that episode brandishing it like some kind of close-combat weapon. All of
which paints us into a spot which, in a certain light, looks kind of ridiculous. On the one hand, we have a YouTube channel which spends tens of millions of dollars a year producing perfectly competent videos being ridiculed for looking inferior. On the other, we have YouTubers who apparently can’t even work out how to use the clip on their lavalier microphones being viewed as sophisticated video creators whose work should be celebrated and emulated. What the hell is going on? I guess I have to start by making the obvious point that, contrary to what that study guide
says, artistic taste (like any other kind of taste) is not objective. If it were, people wouldn’t have spend thousands of years arguing over which works of art should be revered and which thrown in the rubbish bin; the answers would have been obvious. In fact, it takes more than a touch of narcissism to believe that anyone who disagrees with you over whether The Last Jedi or The Mona Lisa or Beethoven’s Fifth is good or not is simply lying. But, many people’s response to the idea that artistic taste is objective is to retort that taste is actually
entirely personal; that there are as many different views on what makes for a good book or film (or YouTube video) as there are people on Planet Earth. This is a pretty affirming view. It’s appealing to think that our opinions about everything from art to food to sport are entirely spontaneous and unique. Nevertheless, whilst saying that taste is personal is certainly closer to the truth Than arguing that it’s objective, that doesn’t quite capture the full complexity of the matter either. See, the reality is that taste is a social phenomenon. We don’t develop our views and opinions
on cultural matters in a vacuum. Instead, our judgements about what is good, bad, worthy and unworthy are shaped by all kinds of external social factors: where we live, how old we are, what opportunities are afforded to us. The relationship between taste and social context has historically been most evident in relation to class. Countless cultural theorists, sociologists and historians have highlighted the manner in which societies which are polarised along economic lines also become polarised along cultural lies. Even to this day, rich people play different sports, listen to different music and eat different foods to working class
people. In the first instance, this is a simple consequence of one group having more money that then other. A larger disposable income opens up the possibility of engaging in more expensive hobbies. If horse riding or playing the harp appear to be the preserve of rich people, it’s at least partly because horses and harps are expensive. Most of us have to find cheaper hobbies to engage in. But, this polarisation in the types of activities these groups engage in gradually leads to the development of a preferential taste for those activities. Rich people come to view opera as
better than pop music. Working class people come to view the affordable paintings of the seaside which tend to dominate local art shops as better than the conceptual art which is exhibited in expensive metropolitan Galleries. What began as two groups simply engaging in different activities ends with them having vastly different perspectives on what counts as “good” and “bad” taste. We can see similar processes occurring along other cleavages in society. Whether defined by class, geography, gender or whatever else, different communities engage in different activities which lead to the development of different perspectives on what constitutes “good” and
“bad” taste. But, these collective perspectives on taste aren’t just some fun curiosity; they can be deeply impactful. In her review of Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction, Vera Solberg describes taste as a ‘social weapon’. By this, she means that collective agreements over what counts as “good” and “bad” Taste can operate as a powerful way of making people feel either included or excluded in certain environments. There’s a scene in the final season of Succession which articulates this perfectly. It involves Greg (that’s this guy) bringing a woman he’s dating (this woman) to a birthday party. Keen to impress Greg’s super
wealthy family, Greg’s date has decided to wear this Burberry handbag, which costs the best part of $3,000. Nevertheless, the other guests ridicule her for this. Because, while, to some, such a designer handbag might seem aspirational, to these members of the international super-rich, displaying one’s wealth in this way is viewed as tacky, unrefined, distasteful. They don’t just stop at mocking her for having a different taste in handbags, either. That Greg’s date would have the audacity to show up to a party with this bag is taken as evidence that she is out-of-place and unwelcome in the rarefied,
luxury spaces occupied by Succession’s Roy family. A simple difference in what counts as good taste has here become weaponized; used as a means through which members of the economic and social elite can identify and exclude interlopers. When it comes to YouTube, then PragerU is kinda Greg’s date. Because, much like other forms of community, online platforms also tend to foster collective agreements among users over what constitutes “good” and “bad” taste. This style of video-making, editing, delivery… it might be entirely appropriate in other contexts… but, on YouTube, it comes across as a bit try-hard. In other environments,
this level of polish would be seen as a sign of solid, professional film-making. But, to many within YouTube’s core user base, that same polish is seen as evidence of a lack of taste. And, it’s this which makes mocking PragerU so much more fun than ridiculing any of YouTube’s many other right-wing channels. When we laugh at PragerU, that laughter is, perhaps, the laughter of relief. Style here becomes a “social weapon”, marking PragerU as alien and other to YouTube. It allows us to think of this as our space, in which PragerU will never quite be able to
fit in; even if, in reality, the brand of politics the channel represents is far more at home on YouTube than many of us would like. But, what does this tell us about the YouTubers who hold microphones? Well, the rise of what at first glance might seem like a fairly inconsequential trend is heavily bound up in the politics of taste. Yet, it’s not just that holding microphones does fit in with the collective agreement on what constitutes “good taste” on YouTube where PragerU doesn’t. Instead, I think the emergence of this trend is a result of how that
collective agreement has been changing in recent years. Knowingly or not, these creators are also wielding taste as a social weapon. Yet, in doing so, the effect is less to exclude anyone from the site for pure exclusion’s sake than it is to defend a certain idea of what YouTube’s function is as a platform. And, what better way to explore how YouTube’s ideal user has been changing in recent years than by taking a look at the work of someone who was the platform’s golden boy for over a decade: Casey Neistat. This is a clip from a short
film called iPod’s Dirty Secret. Although, even short film feels like a bit of a stretch. The whole video is only about two minutes and 20 seconds long. When it was first released way back in 2003, however, “short film” was perhaps the best terminology we had to describe this kind of… thing. The Washington Post went as far as to describe it as a ‘movie’. In case you don’t recognise him without his signature, spray-painted sunglasses, this is Casey Neistat. Neistat made iPod’s Dirty Secret in collaboration with his brother Van. It aimed to highlight a perceived example of
planned obsolescence in the original iPod in which the battery was only capable of lasting around 18 months; a problem exacerbated by Apple’s lack of a battery replacement programme for customers who wanted to avoid having to Buy an entirely new device. iPod’s Dirty Secret was a huge hit. Less than two months after it was released online, it had already racked up over one million views. Which, in those days, was massive. Because, as you can perhaps tell from what remains of this barebones website on the Wayback Machine, iPod’s Dirty Secret wasn’t uploaded to YouTube. YouTube didn’t exist
yet. Instead, watching iPod’s Dirty Secret involved having to find out about it through a personal recommendation from a friend and then navigate to a dedicated website. That being said, the launch of YouTube wasn’t far off. Less than 18 months passed between the release of iPod’s Dirty Secret and the upload of The first YouTube video, Me at the zoo. by which I mean to say that, as online platforms go, YouTube is old. And, its early arrival onto the scene had a huge impact on the collective understanding of “good taste” which has dominated the platform’s culture for
the majority of its first two decades. See, most younger platforms have often had to rely on some kind of gimmick to stand out from the crowd. BeReal has its designated posting times, TikTok has (and Vine had) vertical video, Instagram has filters. And, these can make it pretty easy to identify what the collective agreements surrounding “good” and “bad” taste are on these platforms. On Instagram, beauty and sincerity reign. The platform’s use of pseudo-artistic filters as its primary early draw led to the emergence of a culture in which “good taste” means sunsets, softlight and clear skin. Shitposts
are few and far between. By contrast, BeReal’s random posting times has bred a culture in which users will often compete to depict themselves as having been “caught” doing the weirdest stuff possible. Your perfectly-composed couples shoot might do big numbers on Instagram; but, on BeReal, it would be considered by many to be in bad taste and unwelcome on the platform. Being so quick out the gate meant YouTube could be far more vague in its value proposition. In the heady days of the mid-2000s, the ability to upload and share videos without having to build and host your
own website was exciting enough without the need for added quirks. But, that doesn’t mean YouTube didn’t also develop its own collective notion of what counts as “good taste”. See, these days, we often take the ways in which the internet allows us to create and share our own creations for granted. The ability to do so almost seems like an eternal, god-given right. But, 20 years ago, this still seemed hugely novel and wildly exciting. Where, in a pre-internet era, most of us had been cast in a role where our job was simply to passively consume art, information
and ideas, now ordinary people had the ability both to respond to newspaper articles and the like through comment sections and also to publish their own works too. The empowerment many people felt when faced with the early internet could often be a truly beautiful thing. But, that doesn’t mean their creations were necessarily beautiful as well. A lot of the words, music, animations and videos published to the internet until very, Very recently kinda sucked. In fact, as iPod’s Dirty Secret shows, even the good stuff could be a bit rough around the edges. There were a handful of
reasons for this. The less generous take is that the internet had opened the floodgates to hoards of people who didn’t really warrant a public platform. And, there’s definitely some truth to this. If anyone has the ability to upload videos or blogs then, yeah, a lot of what is published is going to be rubbish. But, the reality is that it was kind of hard to make anything that looked or sounded truly spectacular in those early years of mass adoption. For one, most people creating for the internet during that period were using tools and software Which simply
weren’t as refined as those we have today. Even folks who had dedicated hours to mastering Adobe Flash or HTML or Final Cut Express still had to work within the limitations of those systems. On top of this, the participatory character of early internet culture encouraged creators to release work at a rapid rate to retain relevance. This didn’t always leave time for reviewing and reworking creations before publishing. iPod’s Dirty Secret is covered in the fingerprints of such limitations. But, the Neistat brothers’ work has always been a fascinating example of technical limitations and budget constraints can force creative
decisions which are far more interesting than those which might have resulted from a process in which time and money were limitless. The DIY aesthetic which characterises both Casey’s vlogs and Van’s kinda kooky reflections prove that you can tell endlessly interesting and engaging stories without a Hollywood budget. This kind of active celebration of imperfection was pervasive in early internet culture. It’s most obvious in comedy and animation. Works like The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny turn a lack of artistic ability and resource into an asset. As with the Neistat brothers’ work, the imperfections in the video’s illustrations
add to its charm. It’s pamphlets and zines, it’s dadaism and punk for a digital age. In a 2014 article in the Journal of Visual Culture, Nick Douglas gave this aesthetic a name: ‘internet ugly’. He writes that Internet Ugly, although not the only core aesthetic of the internet, is the one that best defines the internet against all other media. [...] The ugliness of the amateur internet doesn’t destroy its credibility because it’s a byproduct of the medium’s advantages (speed and lack of gatekeepers), and even its visual accidents are prized by its most avid users and creators. Internet
Ugly quickly established itself as the marker of good taste in many online communities. Anything which looked too polished or too professional came to be viewed with a certain degree of suspicion; as a threat to the amateur, participatory ethos that internet culture was built on. When YouTube first launched in 2005, then, it’s perhaps no surprise this culture—and this collective perception of what counts as “good taste”—bled over into the platform. Whilst YouTube’s rise to prominence can be partly attributed to its slack rules with regard to copyright, it was its embrace of user-generated content which allowed it to
thrive as a unique cultural space. Whether that content took the form of vlogs or comedy sketches or unstructured rants, the fact anyone could upload a video meant the same amateur, participatory ethos which was thriving elsewhere on the web—and the same Internet Ugly aesthetic which celebrated it—flourished on the platform. But, the age of the amateur couldn’t last forever. As YouTube’s monopoly over online video has grown, the movie studios, TV networks, production companies and corporations it had often been seen as an alternative to increasingly began to muscle in on the action. Homemade documentaries and movie reviews found
themselves jostling for attention against clips from football matches and “late night” shows. Amateurism and imperfection, the attributes which were once the essential markers of “good taste” on the platform, have not been entirely marginalised. But, their position as integral to what it means for a YouTube video to be a YouTube video does seem to have come under threat. And, this is the backdrop against which YouTubers started holding microphones. Tensions surrounding the professionalisation of YouTube perhaps first began to intensify in December 2018 with the release of this video. This is the penultimate edition of YouTube Rewind; which,
for the uninitiated, was an annual video series produced by YouTube which aimed to celebrate the most viewed and most noteworthy videos, creators and trends of the previous 12 months. YouTube Rewind 2018, however, is special. Because YouTube Rewind 2018 has the honour of being the most disliked YouTube video ever. There were several reasons this particular video received such a frosty reception. One was that, by this point, YouTube had just become too popular for a single such video To be able to please all the various audience segments using the site. But, one of the more specific and
widespread criticisms resulted from this opening scene. Previous editions of Rewind had been opened by then-popular YouTubers such as Lilly Singh and Lele Pons. The producers of the 2018 entry in the series, however, had decided that the first person to be featured in that year’s Rewind should be Will Smith. Which wasn’t quite as ridiculous as it first sounds. Earlier that year, Smith had launched his very own YouTube channel. And, it had proven pretty popular. Nevertheless, a lot of people evidently felt there was a big gap between Will Smith being on YouTube and Will Smith being a
YouTuber. Rightly or wrongly, some viewers felt it was disrespectful to those who had built audiences Natively on the platform for a traditional Hollywood celebrity to be placed centre stage in what was meant to be a celebration of everything which made YouTube unique. It perhaps didn’t help matters that tensions surrounding a supposed invasion of corporate content was already a bit of a sore point among some users. Over the previous year or so, America’s various “Late Night” shows had begun to take YouTube more seriously as a distribution platform. Some produced custom content specifically for the platform—such as
Trevor Noah’s Between the Scenes—whilst others designed portions of their shows to be easily clippable and repackaged for it—such as James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. And, these videos gradually became harder and harder to escape. A particular bone of contention was that “Late Night” clips, as well as film trailers, music videos and sports clips, seemed to do especially well on the trending tab. In May 2019, Stephen from Coffee Break (and now Coffeezilla) made a video in which he used a tranche of scraped data to show that videos from corporate channels were far, far more likely to be elevated
to the trending page than those of native YouTubers. When it came time for YouTube Rewind 2019, an obvious effort was made to foreground creator-made content. Perhaps someone in YouTube HQ was keen to make amends for their perceived selling-out of homegrown creators the previous year. That being said, the idea that YouTube has become more commercial as a platform has never really gone away. In fact, I think the rise of YouTubers holding microphones is a pretty direct response to these same anxieties. Perhaps increased concerns about the supposed corporate capture of YouTube are a result Of how thin
the boundaries between commercial content and creator-made videos have become. There has, after all, always been some corporate content on the platform. The first video to receive one million views on the site was a Nike ad. But, such videos always stuck out like a sore thumb. No-one was going to get confused between a shoe advert and a Zoella vlog. In recent years, companies have got much better at tailoring their videos to the site. Take Carpool Karaoke. This segment presumably worked perfectly well as part of the larger Late Late Show when each instalment was first broadcast. But,
it was very clearly made with the intention of later uploading it to YouTube. And, that’s not just in the fact it’s easy to clip out without needing any broader context from the rest of the show. It’s also evident in its style. Because, Carpool Karaoke does its very best to channel Internet Ugly. Active effort has been put into making the segment feel low-budget and casual and camp. It’s designed to appear as though Corden has simply stuck a GoPro to his dashboard and started filming with his celebrity friends; even if producing the segment actually involves a whole
writing team and production crew and, yes, sometimes a trailer rig so James Corden doesn’t have to actually drive the car. But, it’s not just “Late Night” shows. This trend of large media companies channelling Internet Ugly in a way that makes them appear much more scrappy and grassroots than they actually are has become pretty widespread. In fact, some of my favourite news and current affairs channels on the platform do this all the time. Take this channel, Good Work, which has been picking up some pretty good momentum on YouTube over the past year. Hosted by Dan Toomey,
the show seeks to shed light on the finance sector, with videos explaining Private Equity, Consultants and Venture Capital. What makes the channel stand out though is that, rather than taking the often dry approach of business papers such as The Wall Street Journal or Financial Times, Good Work is infused with the spirit of Internet Ugly. Toomey appears bedraggled in a trenchcoat and skewed tie; he holds what appears to be a handmade imitation of a news reporter’s microphone; and he manages to find the worst-looking streets in Manhattan to report from. I’m ruining it by explaining the joke;
but, it’s good, go watch it. The overall vibe shares a lot with Rollie Williams’ Climate Town. But, unlike Climate Town, Good Work is not an independent production. The channel is owned by Morning Brew, a newsletter company which, since 2020, has in turn been owned by Business Insider, which is in turn owned by the German multinational media company Axel Springer. In the UK, there are similar traces of Internet Ugly in the output of PoliticsJOE, the excellent current affairs vertical of new media company Joe. Elements of intentional imperfection are most evident in the channel’s series of satirical
music remixes which, borrowing heavily from the work of CassetteBoy, chop up the words of British polticians and create autotuned tracks lampooning government scandals and controversies. But, it runs through the channel’s branding and even extends to its podcast the Pubcast, which is framed as simply being a few mates getting together to chat shite about politics; Sometimes with a guest. And, that’s probably not entirely untrue; the hosts clearly have a blast recording it. But, PoliticsJOE isn’t the bottom-up, grassroots outlet one could easily assume it to be. It’s a venture ultimately owned by London-based investment firm Linton Capital.
None of this is to suggest there is anything untoward about either of these channels’ work. I’m a regular reader of Morning Brew’s newsletter and have worked with them as a sponsor. Much like their newsletter, Good Work is both informative and fun. Similarly, a lot of what PoliticsJOE puts out is pretty great. While it’s likely the channel’s owners see its left-wing perspective as a way of reaching a certain audience demographic rather than as a means of bringing about the revolution, The channel still produces some really insightful and engaging pieces. My point here is that it’s not
just that there’s more “corporate content” on YouTube, it’s that corporate media companies and others have become much sharper when it comes to building channels and creating videos which feel native to the culture of YouTube; videos which channel those collective agreements over what counts as “good taste” on the site. Current affairs channels such as Good Work and PoliticsJOE have all learned to some extent from the master of new media: Vox. Vox is undoubtedly a huge trend-setter on YouTube; with its editing style being much-imitated by smaller channels seeking to make explainer videos. This influence is helped by
the fact that the Vox Media Group owns a lot more YouTube channels than you might first connect it to: including Polygon and The Verge. And, across all three of those channels, Vox has pioneered the role of what we might call the “resident creator”. Despite their parent company commanding revenue ten times that of PragerU, Vox, The Verge and Polygon never struggle with the same ability to fit in on YouTube. And, that’s largely because Vox’s various outlets play down their corporate identity in favour of amplifying the personalities of their hosts. There are certainly clear commonalities in the
editing styles within each channel. But, their videos are often framed in such a way that they appear to be the result of a single, independent, impassioned individual driven solely by curiosity. They certainly never feel like they’re the product of a major media company worth $500 million. Vox reframes its presenting staff as “resident creators” for whom having the backing of A big media company is little more than a bonus. Their hosts often give the impression that they’d be making videos regardless of whether they were getting paid or not. And, in this way, Vox, The Verge and
Polygon ensure their videos fit in well amongst those of the enthused amateurs we more commonly think of when we think of what it means to be a YouTuber. The company’s channels also regularly adopt aspects of Internet Ugly. This is most obvious in some of Polygon’s wackier stuff, but it’s there more subtly in The Verge and Vox’s super casual, vlog-style approach to much of their video-making. Their videos will often be shot in what appear to be the presenters’ own kitchens, home offices and living rooms; although, perhaps they’re sets? It’s only very, very rarely that we catch
sight of the company’s strikingly corporate HQ. Sometimes, we’ll see a microphone. Recently, I even saw a Vox host holding a microphone. Which, in some regards, is kind of the ultimate irony. See, I think the rise of the YouTubers who hold microphones can be viewed as a fairly direct response to the growing professionalisation of YouTube. Not that I think everyone who’s embraced this trend has done so as a result of some lengthy reflection on the changing culture and economy of the platform. Most presumably just saw someone else atdoing it and thought it could add an additional
layer of fun to their own videos.. But, the artistic choices of both creatives and audiences are often guided by underlying cultural anxieties. Earlier on, I joked that YouTubers holding microphones showed a “blatant disregard for the craft of filmmaking”. Which both is and isn’t true. On one level, having a microphone in frame can really elevate a shot. If on a stand, it can provide a bit of foreground interest; if held in the hand, it can push the creator to be more dynamic in their delivery style. From a technical perspective, being able to get the microphone closer
to the creator’s mouth is also hugely beneficial from an audio quality point of view. At the same time, there’s also a pointed anti-professionalism to this trend. It’s a very particular choice to go out and buy a lavalier microphone or boom—microphones specifically designed to be discrete—and to make them an active feature in a shot. Holding a microphone thus allows you to have the best of both worlds: it allows you to Indulge in a bit of Internet Ugly and celebrate the perceived imperfection of having a microphone on screen whilst actually making your video sound better than it
otherwise would. More than just making one’s videos more interesting, however, the decision to start flourishing a lav mic is deeply entangled with the politics of style. On a platform where being too professional has often been viewed as distasteful and unwanted, it’s a way for creators to communicate that they’re one of the good ones: that they understand what constitutes a good YouTube video and, by extension, belong in this particular digital space. On a broader level, the holding of a microphone operates as a social weapon. At a time when there is some anxiety about the professionalisation of
YouTube it can feel like a subtle act of resistance. It’s an attempt to double down on a certain vision of what counts as “good taste” On the platform and to use this Internet Ugly-inspired aesthetic to defend the values of amateurism and participation on which YouTube was built. It operates as a kind of warning shot: both to more corporate entities, who it seeks to highlight as being out-of-place and unwelcome on YouTube, and to anyone at YouTube HQ who might seek to sand down the beautiful imperfections which have long made videos which are published to YouTube unique
from those broadcast on TV or on more conventional streaming services. Unfortunately for those who do feel so strongly about the direction in which YouTube is heading, such resistance is kind of futile. For one, as we’ve seen, not all corporate channels are as out-of-touch as PragerU. Large media companies have long since worked out how to inject the same DIY, amateur aesthetic into their videos in a way which allows them to slot in undetected. But, more importantly, to paint the professionalisation of YouTube as a simple process in which the Platform has been invaded by devious corporate entities
is deeply naive. The reality is that the call is coming from inside the house. As the so-called “creator economy” has matured, more and more creators who were once enthusiastic amateurs have begun to earn a decent living through YouTube; as well as through related sites like Patreon. Many have been able to earn much more than that, enabling them to build whole teams to support their work. It’s not just MrBeast, either. Marques Brownlee, ContraPoints, Drew Gooden… whatever your favourite genre of YouTube video, there are creators who were once enthusiastic amateurs making stuff in their bedrooms with cheap
kit and pirated copies of Premiere Pro who now command budgets greater than some TV shows. Casey Neistat, who first gained online notoriety with that guerilla anti-Apple short, now charges hundreds of thousands of dollars per video sponsorship. It’s easy to point the finger at Vox or The Late Late Show as having helped euthanize some idealised “pure”, “authentic” vision of YouTube as a platform. But, the process of professionalisation on YouTube has been one in which not only conventional YouTubers but also many of the viewers who might now complain about it have been willingly complicit. And, there has
been a lot that has been positive about it. I, for one, like getting paid for my labour. It’s not just some hackneyed marketing promo for my Patreon page when I say that the money we earn through such things allows us to make much better videos. It allows me to hire locations, buy costumes to employ an editor and shoot videos in glistening 6K. I also think my not having to have another job on top of this leads to better scripts and ideas. And there are far better examples out there than me. There are countless creators out
there for whom the “professionalisation” of YouTube has meant being able to produce videos of mind-boggling quality and scale; whether that’s in the research or the travel required or the sheer number of people necessary to create broadcast-quality film and video, some of which would be highly unlikely to ever have been greenlit by a traditional film studio or TV network. Nevertheless, neither YouTubers holding microphones nor an uneasiness about the professionalisation of YouTube are niche phenomena. I think many longterm YouTube creators and viewers recognise the many benefits that professionalisation Has brought, yet remain a little uneasy about it.
In fact, as I was writing this final section of the video, I was struck by how rude it feels to highlight either Vox’s $500 million valuation or the fact that Casey Neistat probably doesn’t struggle to pay his heating bill. The legacy of the amateur origins of YouTube have shaped the culture of the site to the extent that acknowledging that others are doing this professionally often feels less like a statement of fact than an accusation. As though such an acknowledgement is implicitly to accuse them of being deceptive in some way. I can’t imagine I’m alone as
a creator in sometimes feeling similarly self-conscious about my own professional trajectory and how that impacts my work. In spite (or perhaps because) of being one of these… …the desire to make work which is more technically and aesthetically accomplished can make one feel like they risk being Greg’s date or PragerU; as though desiring professionality is distasteful, a bit cringe. The rise of the YouTubers who hold microphones is a perfect distillation of where YouTube is as a platform in the current moment. Having grown to prominence as an amateur participatory space, it has since evolved into a thriving
industry. And, there remains a considerable amount of awkwardness about that transformation. There is an understandable amount of worry about what might have been lost as creators’ budgets have ballooned. But, if YouTubers holding microphones shows us anything, it’s that the amateur origins of the platform continue to have a startling impact on the culture and taste of YouTube, And likely will do for many years to come. One of the most exciting things about the rise of the participatory internet for me has been the sheer avalanche of educational and documentary work it’s enabled. It allows us to hear
directly from experts like Devin at LegalEagle and Rollie at Climate Town and gives a platform to skilled researchers and writers like the team over at Wendover Productions. All of which is a godsend given that many TV networks and mainstream streaming platforms seem to have all-but given up on producing genuinely insightful documentaries in favour of exploitative true crime series’ and reality shows. But that’s not true of Nebula. Nebula is an indie streaming service which is packed to the brim with the best educational and documentary videos the internet has to offer. Its focus is on nutritious content;
videos which leave you better informed or more skilled at decoding the world around you. Series like The Logistics of X, which has been created exclusively for Nebula by the folks behind Wendover Productions and Half as Interesting. Each episode of this ongoing series places a different industry under the microscope in order to explain how coal becomes electricity, how fish get from the ocean to your fridge or how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia orchestrates Hajj. Alongside Nebula Original series’ such as The Logistics of X, Nebula subscribers now also get access to Nebula Classes, in which some of
the internet’s cleverest creators draw back the curtain on how they make their videos. Creators including myself in my Nebula Class How to Research Like a PhD Student. If you’ve ever wondered how I got about making these videos then my 16-lesson Nebula Class is a great opportunity to hear about the arsenal of research techniques I picked up during my PhD which help me to efficiently and effectively turn large volumes of books, articles and research papers into engaging videos. If you want to get access to my Nebula Class, to The Logistics of X, or simply to watch
the internet’s best educational and documentary videos ad-free, then you can support my channel by signing up using my personal link go.nebula.tv/tomnicholas This allows you to get 40% off an annual subscription, meaning you can enrich your brain with all that documentary goodness for just $2.50 a month. That’s a fraction of the cost of Netflix or Disney+ or YouTube Premium for access to a catalogue of videos which will leave you endlessly more enriched. And, for the month of December, we’re offering Nebula lifetime memberships. Until the end of the month, you can pay a one-off fee of $300
in return for access to Everything on Nebula now and everything that is ever released on Nebula in the future, meaning you’ll never have to think about monthly fees or price rises ever again. That link again is go.nebula.tv/tomnicholas Now, time for some thank yous. Thanks so much for watching this video. I hope you’ve found some of the things I’ve said mildly interesting and that, if you have, you might consider sharing this video with a friend or two. All that remains is for me to thank my top-tier supporters on Patreon: Richard, Allan Gann, Gary, Diccon Spain, Bill
Mitchell, Al Sweigart, Z.C. Reese, Zoe Alden, Alexander Blank, Niels Abildgaard, Sophia R, Sergio Suarez, strangeweekend, Ricardo Fernandez de Cordoba, Richard Rappuhn, Amit Singh Parihar, Gabriel Koch, Jimmi Dunn, Christopher Cowan, Fiasco Linguini, and Agent__Maxwell and Glenn Sugden. If you’d like to join them in supporting what I do here whilst getting access to sneak peeks at videos, copies of scripts and more, then you can find out how to do so at patreon.com/tomnicholas. Thanks so much for watching once again and, if you’re watching this video when it first comes out, have a great end to 2023.
