Some thoughts on "content quality".
1. Subjective vs Objective
- Subjective means based on opinion. Objective means based on truth. The only way for a creative work to be objectively good is to have a checklist of thing that have been agreed upon as good subjectively, therefore it is still subjective, just by mass approval of those individual elements.
It is also difficult to decide when something is good when you are too close to it. A film student watching a film has the list of criteria going in the back of their mind at all times, cheering the checked boxes and tsking the unchecked ones. But at the end of the day the question is "did you enjoy it?" I bet there is at least one work of art in every field that is agreed on as meeting all the criterias of good and still not interesting. My husband falls asleep during older movies like the godfather because he doesn't like the slower pace. My younger cousin doesn't like the princess bride, and the older one doesn't like Spirited Away. Some people are just broken. It's a shame. I personally can't stand most crude humor, and therefore don't like most modern comedies that make a ton of money.
2. Some people don't realize this, but the Anime videos were #spon because Crunchyroll put up the money for the M&G's during TATINOF. While they were still entertaining and luckily something DnP enjoy talking about, I dont really count #spon videos as actual content. I dont think Dan does either.
In his diss track he chose the very specific number "4 videos a year". At first I thought it was just exaggeration, but then I looked at what dinof videos he put out this year alone. My life in memes, Childhood photos, ISG 7 and How to survive exams were the videos he actually put effort into scripting, performing, editing etc. (also I wasnt in the community at the time but was the childhood photos thing something the community asked him for, or something he did on his own?)
I don't think he counts spons, collabs, or trailers as true dinof content. As always though, this is an OPINION.
3. I wrote a whole paragraph here about how they do lots of side projects and deserve to have time to themselves as well, but it was really righteous so just pretend you read it.
4. Their more creative stuff gets no views....
in the last two years the typical dinof reasons why dans a fail type vid gets 2.5-3 millions views. A collab or reacts video gets 4.5-8 million. videos with the most views (in the last two years) are the freaking video booth challenge with 13million views and the reactception vid with 10 million. Neither of those needed real planning or editing. They probably took a day to make. The video Dan was the most proud of as a creator in the past was The Pom Bear Massacre. It's so cute and creative and kinda Phil like, and he practically begs people to watch it in several other videos (like the end of psycho french teacher). 5 years later it doesn't even have 2 million views. I find it funny as well that he comments that people should be proud of how it isn't 10 mins long, because his fans wanted shorter vids at that point. Strange how times change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neIizsY ... &index=110
Moving on to Phils Channel. for the last two years the average AP vid with just him talking to his camera gets 1.5-2 million views. Most collabs that aren't Dan get about the same, so people are equally interested in him+other person as they are in just him. Put react or challenge in the title and suddenly you are getting 3-4 million views. Put Dan in the video and suddenly it gets 6-8 million views. ( A lot of those is probably us rewatching them over and over lol). last "creative" video is tour of my brain at 1.9 million. His most unique stuff (tape 6, snokoplasm, tims adventure, aka, the best stuff) sit way below one million. Sadness ensues.
PJ has never given up on doing the weird creative stuff, and he just passed one million subs...
Add in the fact that during the playlist conventions youtube has large creator only discussions where they teach them how to get the most out of their branding and channel (read, how youtube can make the most money off of their creators work, because if the creators are successful then google makes more money) and yes, their ideas of what good content are have probably changed over the years. They may still want to make their creative content, but hear voices in the back of their head saying (it wont get views, no body cares, its not interesting, people will judge you, etc).
Conclusion (that has nothing to do with anything I have mentioned above, I is good college student) - I think their content is what they think people want from them. Gaming vids, Cutesy collabs, stuff to pay for their other content, and the occasional sketch or creative thing that takes a lot of effort. We vote for what we like with our views and likes, but in the end its what they want to make, have time to make, and have the energy to make. Creativity is hard, and putting something you truly love out there and seeing it fail is draining, whereas a react video leaves you intact.
Also what about the creative effort put into tatinof and their books. I saw tatinof and thought it was an interesting mix of creativity and safety. The tabinof looks like it took a lot of effort. I hope the new book is as good
