So I think we already know the outlines of the typical criticisms of Breadtube, namely that it’s vaguely-leftist content that focuses on cultural critique and gives a nod to socialist theory here and there but it doesn’t actually achieve anything and it’s just a media-consumption demographic with no moves towards anything that resembles on the ground organising and activism. (Obviously there are a few outliers but as a rule this generally holds true.)

I dipped out of Breadtube years ago for plenty of reasons but I just posted on Lemmygrad criticising the SPD Three Arrows movement which prompted me to have a look at the Breadtuber Three Arrows and they have done exactly the same thing that Contrapoints and a lot of other large figures in this genre have done:

They build up a healthy Patreon base and then their content drops off to like a couple of videos a year, if that, while continuing to draw off a personal salary which rivals that of a full-time worker.

In the past two years Three Arrows has produced 4 videos, amounting to less than 4.5 hours of runtime all up.

That’s staggering for someone who is getting over 60k a year, at the most conservative estimate.

Likewise Contrapoints claimed to be getting 20k a month and she’s putting out like 1-2 videos a year. And there’s plenty of other examples of this too.

Imagine what could be done if people supported their local grassroots organisations instead of paying boatloads of cash for their twice-yearly YouTube treats smh.

  • IzyaKatzmann [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Interesting, if we continue with this, why would the amount of time for each video increase as the regularity of the posting goes on? Is it since there’s less time to create something ‘short and sweet’?

    I guess I figure that the scope of each video would scale appropriately to the resources at one’s disposal. I also think that long videos would take a lot more effort but that might be because talking for such a long period to me would be exhausting. Yeah, and I don’t think I could reasonably keep on topic as well.

    I wonder what you or others might have to think?

    • ferristriangle [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      The old quote “If I had more time I would have written you a shorter letter” comes to mind.

      Making something long is easy, just cover every point you might conceivably want to talk about, and read off your first draft.

      Making something concise, coherent, engaging, focused, informative, and clear, on the other hand, often takes many revisions.

      • IzyaKatzmann [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Oh wow I feel like I gave you the perfect setup. Not saying I deserve any credit but like, your response is just so good.

        I hope there are more of the shorter kinds of content in the future.