Asmongold Built An Empire By "Paying" With Exposure - Reaction Content (1/3)

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2aGMAuFLL0 Asmongold Built An Empire By "Paying" With Exposure - Reaction Content 1/3]

DarkViperAU:
Hey everyone. I don't do much scripted content, but I need to move my sleeping pattern and I'm very tired, so I'm gonna give it a go. Just don't look at my eyes, right?
So I watch Asmongold's content. I will even binge watch it when I need to move my sleeping pattern, like now. But I catch some stream content now and then as well. Having listened to Asmongold intermittently over the years, I have heard him make amazingly horrendous justifications, fears watching of entire videos on stream, and then re-uploading them to YouTube. He has fallen victim to that failing that we all have. Which is to passionately rationalize to ourselves things that we just want to do, and we want other people to get off our fucking backs. If I was a little less good at it, I'd be able to, you know, stop drinking soft drink. I'd be able to stop eating fast food. But it's, you know, a seriously well-documented psychological failing. Check out ‘''The Righteous Mind''’ for some really interesting examples.
So the most recent time that I know of that Asmongold gave these justifications was in a video where he was responding to a guy named Vaulty who was accusing Asmon of stealing WoW ideas. Absolute nonsense in regards to that specific claim. Asmon and Vaulty's video just coincidentally had a bit of similarity to them. Happens all the time. He's very much so innocent on that front. But the, you know, content stealing thing, the justifications, the fair used jazz that comes up after that is a, is a bit more troubling, which will now get into.

Vaulty:
And yeah, Asmongold, uh, is a streamer, but this is his official clip channel on YouTube, and he runs this channel. It's Monetized.
Asmongold:
No, I don't. I, I just, I actually don't, I don't run the channel. Uh, Katt, Danny and Daily Dose of Asmongold run the channel. I have no oversight over the channel. They upload everything, uh, on their own, completely independent of me.
Anyway, the second thing that I want to talk about, and I actually kind of need to talk about is my, uh, YouTube channel and, um, the way that I want to handle, I want to, I have to handle, uh, Asmongold highlights on YouTube from now on. (...) And so I partnered up with them and, um, we made the Asmongold TV highlights channel for YouTube. Now, that is going to be the official Asmongold, uh, Twitch highlights channel from now on. (...) Give me 48 hours after that stream is over to get all of that content uploaded onto YouTube. And the reason for that is by that 48 hour window, we will have had everything uploaded onto YouTube from that stream. (...) And that way we can kind of preserve the ability that people, uh, you know, want to have in order to make content about my stream. And it's something that I think has helped me and something that I want to continue as much as I possibly can. (...) I don't want to have to go through like fucking sending take down notices for videos and shit. Uh, it, it's obnoxious and weird to me. Makes me very uncomfortable.

DarkViperAU:
Do you own the channel? Do you hire people for it? Do you have the ability to set guidelines for the content on the channel? Control who can post there and remove whatever you please? Do you benefit monetarily or otherwise, you know, clout, brand, whatever, from the channel's existence? If the answer to even some of these questions is yes, you do run the channel. “Look man, just because I produce all the content and my face is the bloody logo of the channel, and I've specifically told people that they can put this content on a channel that has my name in it, it doesn't mean I run the channel. Sure, I could at any point terminate the channel, tell them to stop, take down all the videos, but I don't run it. I don't run shit. I just hire people with the express purpose of doing something specific for me that I outline that they can do, and then I can pull the plug at any time or change the requirements at any time.
How am I running things though? Come on. Now, if I'm not specifically outlining every single thing that my employee does, how am I running this business?”. 
This is kind of aside the point of the video, but clearly a person is well within their rights to say, you run the channel given your relationship with us, right? I mean, if you wanna get down to semantics and say, “Well, actually the definition of ‘run’ I was using…”, that's just fucking dumb. He clearly had every right to say, you run the channel.

Vaulty:
And yeah, Asmongold is a streamer, but this is his official clip channel on YouTube. (...) Most half of the videos on this guy's channel can barely even be considered his own content. Most of these videos are just him reacting to a full video that another WoW YouTuber has made. (...) I'm not sure that watching a 20 minute WR video from start to finish constitutes as fair use.
Asmongold:
Well, even if it doesn't, let's assume that it doesn't constitute as fair use. ??? is okay with me watching his videos. So even if it didn't constitute his fair use, then it would be fine. Like a lot of the people who I watch their videos. They are completely fine with me watching their videos. Even Uber Danger told me, he tweeted at me, he's like, yeah, I made the video. You know, I'm waiting for you to watch the end of it.

DarkViperAU:
This is clearly not a good argument. Continuing with the premise that Asmon stated that nothing he makes is fair use. If you steal content, you don't get a pass. If after the fact, some small portion of the people you stole from are actually cool with it, you don't get a pass morally or legally. “Hey dude, I stole a bunch of stuff from a lot of people, but some of them, after the fact said it was okay. So it's totally fine, man.”.
Is Asmongold working before or after watching someone else's content to know whether they think it's okay? Is he tracking them down, knocking on doors? No. There might be rare exceptions to that, but I suspect in most cases it's his viewers going, “Hey, Asmon looked at your video on stream”, and the person's like, “Oh, sweet, that's cool”. Or a person speaking up like, “Oh, you know, Asmon’s been watching a lot of my content, but I'm totally fine with that.”. Asmon doesn't really give a shit and his actions show it. He's sitting there like, “Oh, another person says it's okay for me to do exactly what I'm doing. Fucking perfect. I'll keep doing that then.”. This rationalization is ven worse though. If you think about the grander context of what he's talking about for. 
If someone didn't allow Asmon to watch their content, they could potentially face social and financial repercussions for saying no. Some people might not watch that other person's content just outta spite, or they might start disliking all the videos or talking shit about that personal spam in the comment sections. Who knows? If a person says, Asmon, you can steal my content. 'cause we're going by the premise. Remember that, that it's all stolen content. This doesn't mean they actually want it to occur. It's just possible that they don't want to face the negative repercussions of saying no. 

Asmongold:
And so if you want to have the argument whether if something is fair use or not, I think that's more of a legal argument and I don't know really what side of the fence that's gonna fall off on. I don't know. But I don't think that he knows either. Uh, the fact is that like, It, it's very hard to say what really is fair use and what isn't. And I think that it's contextual and it's a legal definition, right? Neither of us are lawyers, but it's just from his perspective, he doesn't like the fact that I'm looking, uh, watching videos on my stream.

DarkViperAU:
Do you know the definition of murder? It’s the unlawful, premeditated killing of one human by another. So imagine me and Asmon are at a bar and we see someone say, “I'm gonna stab you with this knife until you are dead.” and we watch a person walk over, stab another person until they're dead. I would scream, “Holy shit, he just murdered that guy!”. But Asmon wants you to believe he would say, “Ah, but neither of us are lawyers. Murder is a legal definition.”.
In life we judge things based on the evidence available and communicate what we think is most likely true. I will immediately grant, just like with fair use, sometimes a murder is actually quite hard to judge, is that murder isn't, who knows? But as with any wrongdoing, there are some really painfully, obviously, illegal things, and the existence of ambiguous cases doesn't change that one fucking iota. There are four commonly used factors that we can use to judge whether something is likely fair use or not. As long as you're of an age where you've completed high school. Whether or not most of asthma's content fits into fair use will be pretty obvious by the end of the video.

Asmongold:
And also on top of that, I think you can use another example. Is it, what was the video? Uh, the guys channel that we, uh, we watched the other day, so now he has 20,000 subscribers. Uh, whereas like I led a lot of my viewers over to subscribe to his channel. Whenever he had 5,000 subscribers a couple of days ago, 

DarkViperAU:
So obviously there are many problems here. First, you don't get to point to one individual instance of something being positive to justify all similar actions. It's like if I went around shooting people in the head and you know, one guy happened to live and I actually took out a tumor, so he lives even longer than he would have if I had never shot him. It doesn't make. Me shooting all the other people in the head justified.
If fair, you would seek both the positives and the negatives of something to weigh them both against each other. Do you wanna take a solid guess at what side of the equation ignores completely? But let's be real. Do any of you think Asmon is sitting around judging whether or not his actions in regards to stealing content is actually harming others? No. He benefits from it, thus, we can watch him in practice thinking of poor rationalizations to convince you he's doing right. You might also note that Asmon does not explicitly say to his viewers to subscribe to everyone he watches. Only if Lord Asmon is truly impressed does he pay in exposure for the content that he profits from. Also to get a bit technical. Subscribers are not a great metric for channels, as most people don't watch content through their subscription feed. They're instead fed content through their recommendations, which won't change for his viewers because he watched the video and they didn't.

Asmongold:
Is that with Taliesin and ????, whenever Taliesin didn't like, uh, the community that my, uh, stream had and like the way that it brought it into his community, he didn't like that and he asked me not to watch his videos. I've never watched a video from Taliesin since then.

DarkViperAU:
All I am asking is that everyone personally contact me to tell me whether or not I can watch their content in full and then re-upload it to YouTube. If you say nothing or you're unaware of what I'm doing, I'll just assume full consent. I mean, they haven't said no, right Asmon?

Asmongold:
So this isn't like I'm doing it against people's will or anything like that.
Vaulty:
Why doesn't he post a reaction video of Family Guy or episodes from some other big TV show? There's no way that he wouldn't get a copyright strike.
Asmongold:
Now, well… the reason for that is because those videos have a different way of being monetized. Those videos are pay-per-view. (...) The way that this is different is because the videos on YouTube are free to begin with. So if you're watching a video on YouTube, you're providing a free alternative for something that was originally something that you had to pay for.

DarkViperAU:
Something being publicly available does in no way make reproducing its legal or even morally, okay. Many businesses these days offer things for free to get people in the door. If I have an exclusive video and I'm the only person who has it, even if I'm not monetizing it by pay-per-view or ads, I can still get benefit by bringing people into my channel for other things that potentially monetize or other things that I'm selling. Because, you know, it's the only place that people can see it. It's exclusive If Asmon watches it on his stream. Or worse puts every frame of it on his YouTube channel. The purpose and value I had for my product declines, the only reason Asmon doesn't watch Family Guy is that he's far more likely to suffer repercussions for his actions from a TV network. That network isn't gonna be interested in any potential benefits that Asmon provides, and they aren't gonna be scared by the viewers, and plus they likely have an automated system anyway, so you're more likely to get flagged. YouTubers on the other hand will for start, far less likely use automated systems. But also far tinier, they will either see the benefits of Asmongold's benevolence, or they will shut the fuck up or face the consequences. You take the carrots or you get the stick, as they say. 

Vaulty:
The messed up thing is, is that some of the videos about Asmongold posts of him reacting to smaller YouTubers and fall, get more views from the original video. Like this ‘''Review of Warcraft Adventures''’ from Platinum WoW. It's really well edited and probably took a good 15 hours to make this video. Got 43k views after three days, and Asmongold literally sitting there and watching the entire thing, got 120k views all monetized to him. 
Asmongold:
So Platinum WoW is actually completely fine with me doing this. And not only is he fine with me doing it, But by doing it, it actually provides a tangible benefit to his channel. As evidenced by the actual analytics. 

DarkViperAU:
I want you to think about this for a moment. Who is benefiting more from Asmongold, watching other people's YouTube videos entirely on Twitch and then re-uploading them to YouTube? One of the biggest Twitch streamers on the platform getting 30 million views a month on YouTube? Or the people that he watches on his stream? “Don't you understand? Sure, I'm making millions off other people's stuff, but they get the crumbs that fall from my mouth. How am I the bad guy here?”. “We need to thank Asmongold guys, he's sacrificing so much to boost these small creators. Look at him floundering there. He's putting, putting so much burden upon himself to gain all these views. Oh my god and to explain he's praying so much, so much money. How? How… is he doing this sacrifice for small YouTubers like Platinum. Oh my god!”.
We are children apparently. We don't, we don't get agency. Come on now. People, we don't get to decide where our content goes. Doesn't matter how much we work on it. Asmon has decided what is best for us. He knows what he's doing is best for us, thus he is perfectly right to do it. You know, if afterwards you don't agree with what he's done, he can throw you a bone and won't do it again. He's just always looking out for the little guy, that Asmongold. 

Asmongold:
So this is a situation where everybody wins. (...) What, what, what am I getting away with? I think the only thing that he's really mad about me getting away with is I'm getting away with more viewers than he is. 

DarkViperAU:
But of course you may have missed a little bit back there. I didn't really draw attention to it, but Asmongold is a big hypocrite because, you know, he gives particular restrictions on when other people can watch or use his content.

Asmongold:
Um, so, uh, anyway, so basically if the YouTube, if I do a stream. Give me 48 hours after that stream's over to get all of that content uploaded onto YouTube. And the reason for that is by that 48 hour window, we will have had everything uploaded onto YouTube from that stream.

DarkViperAU:
So Asmonlike every YouTuber, Twitter a streamer has. Certain ideas as to how their content can be used by others, and in what capacity he has concerns about other people uploading content similar to his own and what that could potentially do for the purpose that he has for his channel and his content. Weird…! 

Asmongold:
I, I would say the way that I react to videos, I, I don't wanna like rate reactions okay. But there's a reason why people get mad that I put on a belly or video, because if it's 18 minutes, the reaction's gonna be 45. Like I, I spend more time actually talking about the videos and getting into them than almost anybody else. Like, even with this fucking video, it's been five minutes, and I don't know how long I've been watching the, uh, I've been doing this, but it's been a long fucking time. It's been like at least 10, 15 minutes. With pauses even more, and that's fine. But what I'm saying is like I, I feel like I add a lot of insight into videos for the most part, right? I mean, obviously I have reactions that aren't really that good, of course, but for the most part, that's the goal that I try to make and to say that I get away with a lot of stuff like, what the fuck am I getting away with? 

DarkViperAU:
Come here secret: I don't care if you think the sun shines out your ass, or if you think your commentary is a gift from the gods, it doesn't give you any right to take anyone's content.
It doesn't make anything you are doing justifiable. If you think you are really fucking smart and your content is so fucking amazing. Oh my god, the commentary, I'm literally fucking jizzing.
So let's take a look at the four pillars of fair use. I know Asmon is only sometimes trying to imply his stuff is fair use, or at least muddy the waters enough that no one can really say definitively either way. But let's go through the criteria anyway and why this criteria exists. 
One, the transformative factor, the purpose and character of your use at issue is whether the material has been used to help create something new or merely copied verbatim into another work. Verbatim means in the exact same words as they were used originally.
For example, if you watched an entire Bellular video on stream and then put it on YouTube, I would have no reason to watch the original because I've already bloody seen it. I watched it with you as if we were sitting on the same couch, except every four minutes you stoped to grab my dick. To catch you up… it doesn't matter how much you rub, my crutch, the video doesn't transform, then I can literally recreate Bellular’s video to the frame. Using your video shows that you have not sufficiently changed the content you were copying. You are just cutting it into pieces.
So why does this criteria exist? It's to create an environment where people are more willing to invest resources in something original as they are more protected when they bring it to market. Why would I invest a million dollars and 10 years of my life to create something original when a person over there could copy it and sell it for far cheaper 'cause they haven't had to invest that time or money in producing the thing.
Two, the nature of the copywriter work, this one isn't really relevant in this case, but facts like dark fiber has a microphone, are more freely able to be copied, less freedom is given for facts that are unpublished because your early presentation of them can alter how the fact would have been presented by the author. Why does this exist? Well, for a start, you know, the entire court system would just be full of people claiming different facts, but also, I mean, you couldn't have the news without it, people would be massively less informed.
Three, the amount and substantiality of the portion taken. Basically, did you need to take the content that you took? If you are watching a Bellular video, is the entire video necessary for your opinions on the topic? No. You can quite easily do what you used to do and make YouTube videos and communicate the exact same opinions to the same effects, but that would take more time to do. So you don't wanna do it. Laziness is not a sufficient justification for taking things from other people's videos.
As a rule, the smaller the part of what you're taking from the entire work, the more likely you'll be under fair use. Asmon is literally taking everything. With criticism and commentary, often you need to include some of the video or else the criticism and commentary. Makes no sense. If you say the lighting in this movie is dark, a viewer is not gonna know how dark or what that dark actually means unless they show a scene from the movie, but they don't need to show the entire movie to establish that the movie is dark.
Four, the effect of the use upon the potential market. If your work competes with the work you are copying from, it is less likely to be fair use. Does what you have produced seek to do the same thing as what I have produced? Remember h3h3, he took pick up videos and changed them into comedy videos. Completely different audiences. Completely different purpose. Again, Asmon is taking the entirety of a video, meaning that a person is potentially less able to achieve the value they intended for it because it now has been reproduced and their video is now in competition with that reproduction.
It is potentially possible that your reproduction helps fulfill their goals or other creative works in the future, or have increased value because of your reproduction. But this doesn't impact whether the initial reproduction is actually fair use. All it impacts is whether or not the person will be pissed for what you've done.
Having now gone through the four criteria, do you really think Asmongold, sitting in a chair, watching a video and pausing every once in a while constitutes fair use? Is that the society that you want to live in? Do you think copyright will be doing what it's meant to be doing in regards to creative works? If that is the way to get fair use?

Vaulty:
I think this actually hurts YouTubers since if people have watched Asmongold's reaction to a video before the original video, then they're not going to watch that original video when it comes up and they're recommended. Since they've already seen it, they're not going to watch it again. Why would you watch Platinum WoW’s ‘''War Crafted Ventures''’ with you if you've already seen Asmongold watch it in full? 
Asmongold:
Well, you can ask the 65,000 people that did.

DarkViperAU:
I feel like I'm kind of picking on him just to look at the smaller bits of dishonesty, but obviously a channel getting 65,000 views is not indicative of them watching exactly the video that Asmongold watched on stream. Vaulty's point was, as any idiot would be able to realize, if a person has watched an entire video on Asmongold's Stream, there's no reason to watch it again on the main channel. They may have watched other videos, but that's beside the point and was not Vaulty's claim. 

Vaulty:
I've had Asmongold react to one of my videos before and it pretty much converted into no numbers. 
Asmongold:
Well, that's because you had a shitty video. I remember your video. Your video was stupid. Your opinions were stupid.

DarkViperAU:
“Look, I'm not the bad guy here. If a person doesn't benefit from my stealing their content, they just didn't work hard enough to make a good video for me to react to. They should just go back and make a better video for me so that they can get some better exposure.”. Asmon is accidentally admitting here that his commentary is not the primary determinants of any value that a content creator will get by his watching a video on stream or reproducing it for his YouTube channel. All Asmon brings to the table is his already having an audience. And the audience will continue to grow on the backs of the hard work of other content creators that he continues to pay with varying levels of exposure to his audience. 

Asmongold:
And, and that's what it's about for him. It's about viewership. It, it, there's no integrity here at all. It's about viewership. 

DarkViperAU:
Thanks for helping me move my sleeping pattern, and there's a mowing of the lawn out there, which is probably gonna keep me up for a while yet, which is good. Um, if you go to the end of the video and you actually watch Asmongold's content, um, as I do as I mentioned previously, um, type in the comments, something to, with muffins, like as an Asmond go watcher. I got to the end of this video muffins or something. You know, if you don't watch Asmond and… I keep saying ‘Asmond’. I think that's probably wrong. You'd probably like to be called Asmon. I don't really care. I'm just too tired. Um, if you don't watch Asmon, sounds weirder, Um, right. Like, I, I can't stop thinking about muffins and cheese… Right... Um, mango’s in some context. Thank you.

Sources:
Asmongold stream [https://www.twitch.tv/asmongold Asmongold]
Asmongold YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AsmonTV A͏s͏m͏o͏n͏g͏o͏l͏d͏ T͏V͏]
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt [https://righteousmind.com/ The Righteous Mind]
Vaulty’s YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@vaulty]
Asmongold’s response to Vaulty [https://youtu.be/XdT69ngp-qI]
Asmongold’s Tweet about his youtube channel [https://twitter.com/Asmongold/status/1245509808960212995 Zack on Twitter]
Gorak’s Guide YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@goraksguide]
Teliesin & Evitel [https://www.youtube.com/@TaliesinEvitel]
Platinum WoW [https://www.youtube.com/@PlatinumWoW]
Four factors of fair use [https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors]

Asmongold's Dominance By Reuploading Content - The Dark Side of Reaction Content (Part 2/3)

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVhDyFHwTg Asmongold's Dominance By Reuploading Content - The Dark Side of Reaction Content (Part 2/3)]

DarkViperAU:
Hey everyone. The purpose of my last video was largely to explain the flawed reasoning behind Asmongold's justifications for his content theft and to explain fair use. Having now made the video, I realized that most people don't know what Asmongold is doing and why it's wrong. ‘Why does he need to justify it at all?’ is a sentiment that I saw. It kind of makes sense to me that the average person is not thinking about the method of content creation or how it's made. People watch me editing videos and they'll go, “Oh my God, I had no idea how much work went into videos.”. It's a lot of work. So this video will explain the scam Asmongold and his editors are running and why what they're doing is theft. I will use simplified numbers for the purposes of explaining the principle of what he's doing, and then move on to look at Asmongold's actual content and numbers.
So in this scenario, we have seven channels working seven hours a day for seven days to each create one 10 minute video. Each channel has worked 49 hours for their particular video. So in total, they have done 343 hours of labor for 50 minutes of content. This sort of labor, of course, if you paid for it, would be worth thousands of dollars. But these are all independent content creators though, so they upload to YouTube. Here comes Asmongold, he takes 20 minutes to watch each 10 minute video that took 49 hours to make. He then uploads each of these videos, one a day, keeping the entire 343 hours of work in his videos. He produces roughly 1.5 hours of content in 1.5 hours, which includes the 343 hours of other people's work. He then pays them nothing. Labor worth thousands of dollars. Nothing. If Asman produced the content himself, even as fast as they did, it would take him 343 hours. Instead, he has stolen it from others in 1.5 hours.
In any other scenario, Asmongold will be paying literally thousands of dollars of the millions he's made in content creation to these creators. But he's not. He's giving them literally nothing and people are praising him as if he's doing something good. Each of these channels can only make one video a week because they take so long to make. But Asmond now has seven videos. Videos that are primarily the labor of other people that he did not pay for. The other seven channels will never be able to compete with Asmongold, they will never grow as large as he will.
He has spent only a tiny fraction of the time that they have to produce content just as good because it contains the content that took 343 hours to make. The astute among you may have noticed that this is how YouTube works, as a platform. YouTube hosts our content, enriching themselves and growing as a brand. No content creator will ever be able to outpace YouTube itself because it can't compete with all the content that is being hosted so quickly. The difference here between YouTube and Asmongold is that YouTube pays us. And we have a direct say if our content goes on the platform or not. Asmongold is not asking content creators beforehand if he can use their content. He's then stealing the content maybe after the fact, hoping that they say yes. He then uploads it, monetizes it, and pays the original content creators in exposure, but a fraction of the exposure that he himself gets from YouTube with the videos. The videos of other people's content that is now being shared around in the algorithm, promoting him as a content creator. “Come to Asmongold's channel, come to Asmongold's Twitch channel! Look at all the amazing content. A video a day, 10 videos a day. How is he doing it?”.
It may surprise you, but it's even worse than this. If Asmongold was not uploading this stolen content, people on YouTube will be watching other YouTubers with that time. The spots and the recommendations that are now filled with his stolen content will go to other YouTubers promoting them, probably other WoW YouTubers. Asmongold is literally siphoning views from everyone else to build his brand and then acting high and mighty when he focuses a small fraction of it and gives it back to the people he's stealing from. Asmongold in just the seven months, his official channel has existed, has made 167 videos with ‘react’ in the title. He only has 372 videos and many of these are also react content, but don't have react in the title. It's why Asmond gets very defensive when you bring up this topic. He's not an idiot, he knows what he's doing and he doesn't want other people to know.
It's just very weird that he's doing this. Most people, when they're smaller, don't abide by a fair use. You get in five views, 10 views, you're just trying to make it in the game. Like you can worry about fair use later, that's kind of justifiable, like you are barely making ends meet. Sure, why not. But Asmongold is a multi multimillionaire, top 5 content creators on the biggest live streaming platform. He has more money than any of us will see in our entire lives. Asmongold did the opposite of what most people do. Most people, as they grow bigger, become very careful about protecting their brand and being kind to others. 'cause they have the wealth that they can do it. They can shower wealth upon other people 'cause, you know, it's, it's an excess thing for them, right? Asmongold, on the other hand, got big as a content creator, got lazy, stopped making his own content. He doesn't edit any videos anymore like he used to. And now he's stealing other people's labor to expand his influence and wealth. When is enough going to be enough Asmon?
Now, it may not have been clear in the last video, but at different points in that video, I talked about a moral question of react content and a legal question of react content. The legal question is far less ambiguous and there's less disagreement because it's, you know, written there in stone. It is the law, but morally we don't all necessarily agree what is or is not moral. We all have different goals for society, yada, yada. It is clear that the react content that Asmongold produces on Twitch and on YouTube is illegal. The moral question is different morally, for me at least, putting an entire person's video on your YouTube channel without consent is not okay. If you post someone else's content to YouTube, that content stays there forever. Being constantly recommended, expanding your brand, taking eyeballs away from fellow content creators, and bringing you revenue either directly through the video or indirectly through your increased viewership on Twitch.
Again, legally watching entire YouTube video on Twitch or YouTube is clearly not fair use. Morally uploading another person's entire YouTube video to your YouTube channel without their consent is not moral. Arguably, even on Twitch it shouldn't be done. But I'm not really concerned about what people do on Twitch in the same way, I'm really concerned about asthma gold producing 200 fucking videos of other people's content on YouTube.

Asmongold:
America's Funniest Home Videos, uh, Ridiculousness. How many. MTV shows on MTV 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are one host with a panel of C-list celebrities reacting and laughing at YouTube videos. What's the difference whenever you have a C-list Internet celebrity doing the same thing? The fact is that the react content is as old as content itself. I mean, the truth is that you have always had react content like that. I mean, there have been many shows that have been extremely popular in culture, like I think America's Funniest Home Videos or any of these other shows where you basically have a panel of people reacting or watching videos and giving their take on it, or their little 2 cents, or their funny little joke about the video. You even have like Tosh for example. And, uh, a large part of his show is about that.

DarkViperAU:
Funniest Home Videos, Tosh.0. These websites pay the creators of those videos money, or at the very least, get permission. They get licensed permission to use their content. Asmongold is directly ripping off people's content without permission. Stealing the entire video, every single frame and re-uploading it to his YouTube channel. And his justification… “I'll pause the video every once in a while and make a comment. That's, that's fair use, right?”. No.

Sources:
Asmongold stream [https://www.twitch.tv/asmongold Asmongold]
Asmongold YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AsmonTV A͏s͏m͏o͏n͏g͏o͏l͏d͏ T͏V͏]
Asmongold TV YouTube statistics [https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCQeRaTukNYft1_6AZPACnog Social Blade Stats]
1st video [https://youtu.be/E2aGMAuFLL0]
Four factors of fair use [https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors]
America’s Funniest Home Videos [https://www.afv.com/contest-rules AFV Contest Rules]

The Unseen Impact of Reactors: A Critical Analysis Ft. Asmongold (Part 3/3)

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1BN0ftxz-c Reactors Are Still Invisibly Harming Everyone Ft. Asmongold (Part 3/3)]

DarkViperAU:
Yes, I am still reading from a script, but this video is important, so I hope you can forgive me. Having now spoken to Asmongold and many of his followers in my Twitter DM’s, I have now come to the conclusion a key aspects of my previous videos was not clear enough leading people to believe I'm only claiming react content hurts those whose videos are taken by the reactor allow me to remedy that situation.
Let me ask you. Without their consent, would you take 5 cents from everyone on the planet who has over a thousand dollars? It's an interesting question, isn't it? A hundred million dollars, and few would even recognize it’s gone. Even if they did recognize they wouldn't bother doing anything about it. You could then give $1 million to your close friends and family to make up to those who matter for taking their 5 cents. We'll come back to this question a little bit later.
An unambiguous reaction video is when a person copies another person's video in its entirety by watching it and re-uploading it to YouTube. Not only does this violate fair use just by the fact that it is unedited and contains the entire original product, it is harmful in that it produces two forms of theft. The first is that react content is basically like speedrunning content creation. A hypothetical original content creator requires a hundred hours of labor to produce a 10 minute video that showcases 100 hours of quality. A hypothetical react content creator, on the other hand, can make a video that showcases 100 hours of quality in 10 minutes, as that is how long it takes to watch the original content video.
The end result is two videos of roughly the same quality, but one took 100 hours to make and the other took 10 minutes. The react content creator is therefore stealing labor. Either they have non consensually taken a person's work and claimed it as their own, or they're avoiding paying a content creator potentially thousands of dollars for their labor as they would've had to do this absent the theft. This theft, of course, means that the react content creator can produce far more videos of high quality than the original content creator can. Like how stealing a hundred televisions is faster than building 100 televisions yourself.
The second form of theft is almost invisible unless you understand how YouTube works. YouTube may seem infinite, but it is actually finite in that there is a limited amount of. Base for recommendations and limited amount of time people are being shown recommendations. 
Let us examine my recommendation feed. There is a video here of stolen content. This video would have gotten 3 million recommendations worth of exposure, meaning YouTube presented it to people 3 million times, trying to get them to click it. If this stolen content wasn't here, that exposure would have been used to help other YouTubers, I may never know about your favorite YouTuber because rather than being presented that video, I'm being presented stolen content.
The stolen video is like a vampire sucking away exposure from everyone around it, for the personal gain of the uploader. The react YouTuber due to putting far less effort into their videos for the quality they are producing can upload far, far faster than anyone else. This means hypothetically for every original video, you or I make a react YouTuber could perhaps make 50 uploads. React YouTubers can therefore steal exposure faster than any original content creator can fight to increase their own exposure. Original content creators are therefore in a losing battle where the ocean of exposure slowly shrinks around them to benefit only the react YouTuber.
Perhaps you might say, “Well, I know a react YouTuber who does upload some original content.”, this solves nothing. The react content will artificially boost the channel, meaning YouTube will recommend the original content videos more than it would without the react videos being present. Therefore, even the original content is stealing recommendation, exposure from other YouTubers, as without the stolen content, the exposure would have gone to other people. 
You might then ask, but wouldn't the specific person who had their video stolen be upset? Wouldn't they just force the React YouTuber to take down the content? In many cases, no, because the 200k views from this video represents the exposure given to the original content creator. A portion of the 200,000 people who watch the video will click through and potentially watch the original content creator's other work. So in this case, 3 million recommendations of exposure are being stolen from other YouTubers and given to Asmongold, who is then giving 200k recommendations of exposure to pints.
So back to the analogy, would you use a stolen video to take a tiny bit of recommendation, exposure from everyone on YouTube without their consent? It's an interesting question, isn't it? 3 million recommendations worth of exposure and few will even recognize it's gone. Even if they did, they wouldn't bother doing anything about it. You could even give the equivalent of 15% of that exposure to the original owner of the video you stole. They may even thank you for it. Like, let's be real. Maybe you do it once. What about doing it once a day, twice a day, 170 times in seven months? For simplicity's sake, I have just said YouTube is a lose exposure, but of course, exposure turns into clicks, which turns into actual revenue and growth. React YouTubers each and every day, literally steal income from other YouTubers. It's even worse though because eventually you have to join them one way or another. If you are also not reacting to content yourself, you are producing less content. Thus your competitors who do react will soar past you, limiting your growth.
The people who upload react content fit into three general categories. The first people who have convinced themselves that they're doing good, the second the people who don't care enough to think about the consequences of their actions. And the third, those who believe they're harming others but simply don't care. React content, like any crime, is effectively impossible to remove. This impossibility does not justify anyone doing any crime. To avoid being a react YouTuber: read fair use guidelines. Absent that, edit your videos creatively and don't use the entirety of someone else's content in your own content.
People ask me. Why pick on Asmongold? It's because I watch Asmongold. I may even like Asmongold, but he is orders of magnitude. The worst culprit of this that I know of. Even most sort of react content I see on YouTube is edited and doesn't contain the entire original content within it.
I hope this helps people understand, even though I've come to the conclusion that most people who watch Asmongold would not make it to the end of this video.

Sources:
Asmongold stream [https://www.twitch.tv/asmongold Asmongold]
Asmongold YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AsmonTV A͏s͏m͏o͏n͏g͏o͏l͏d͏ T͏V͏]
1st video [https://youtu.be/E2aGMAuFLL0]
2nd video [https://youtu.be/tdVhDyFHwTg]
Classic - Wow - Doomin by Pint [https://youtu.be/Aue1ptXUWSI]
Asmongold TV YouTube statistics [https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCQeRaTukNYft1_6AZPACnog Social Blade Stats]
Pint Youtube statistics [https://socialblade.com/youtube/c/pintpint Social Blade Stats]

Can A Leftist Justifiably Support React Content?

'''Original video: '''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A20vucHAH4 Can A Leftist Justifiably Support React Content?]

DarkViperAU:
Hey everyone. I received an email that was interesting to the extent that I wanted to make this video in response to something that was shown to me within it. Uh, it it, this part here is probably the only part that really matters: “I was recently watching a video of Xanderhal’s in response to a video made by somebody called TurkeyTom about content theft. I'm sure you are well aware of the subject. In it you are referenced, here is the timestamp.”.
Now, I wasn't immediately going to talk about what this person says 'cause he seems extraordinarily dense. I mean, I can't say no offense 'cause that is offensive. But this was funny to me. So to follow this down, what this person's saying, right? I made three videos a while back critical of Asmongold and then TurkeyTom used some of the content that I made about Asmongold in his own video. And now Xanderhal is watching TurkeyTom's use of my content about Asmongold. And so this response is me watching Xanderhall's response to TurkeyTom's use of my content about Asmongold. That is some really deep levels of responding to shit, and I thought that was kind of funny. So I'm gonna make this video just so I can say, you know, one time, five times deep in terms of responses of content.
So originally I wanted to make some sort of a summation of my videos, but I find that's quite hard. These were fairly dense and I felt well argued. What I'm gonna do instead of making a summation of this right now is I'm just gonna watch the part of Xanderhal responding to my part in TurkeyTom's video, 'cause it's fairly short. And then I can just kind of go from there. 

TurkeyTom:
From his stream to YouTube, which was covered pretty well by the YouTuber DarkViperAU where he did some math to figure out exactly how much money he believes Asmon makes off of the hard work of others and how much effort is actually put into those videos.

DarkViperAU:
Technically I didn't do that. I'm more used to hypothetical to explain why. I think what Asmon does and, and a lot of content creators, don't get me wrong, it's exploitative in some cases. 

TurkeyTom:
I highly recommend checking out ''‘Asmongold Scam, How He Steals Her Future''’, which I'll link in the description below. He did a pretty great job,

Xanderhall:
Holy shit,

DarkViperAU:
As he got big as a content creator, got lazy, stopped making his own content. He doesn't edit any videos anymore like he used to, and now he's sending other people's labor to expand his influence and wealth. 

Xanderhall:
Asmongold streams like 12 hours a day you fucking idiot.

DarkViperAU:
So, so here's the problem with people speaking about things that they know nothing about. So let's, uh, here's my, you know, days in which I streamed. Every single one of these dots is a day that I've streamed over the last, you know, what, what is this? Like four years or whatever, right? And so here's Asmongold's. Here is mine. Here is Asmondgold’s. Here is mine. Here is Asmondgold’s, right? You can do the math as well. Let me at the math here. So, my duration of my average stream is 6.7 hours. Asmongold’s is 6.1 hours. Uh, active days I stream per week, 6.6 outta 7 over the last 4 years, Asmon 4.7, that's two additional days for me. My dude. Total game has played a 150, Asmon 30. His stream isn't even as diverse as mine is, and I'm a bloody GTA V speedrunner. Total days active, almost all of them for me. Asmon, you know, two thirds. And of course, I do this while editing my own videos, releasing one every single day. There isn't a video that doesn't go up on my channel that I don't edit to some capacity. Half of them I do all by myself.
And this guy's like “You ignorant fuck, do you not know how hard Asmongold works?”. “Making no video videos himself on YouTube and streaming like two thirds what you do.” I mean, I'm just, I'm just ignorant dude. Just ignorant.

Xanderhall:
He doesn't even upload the content. I already told this at the, at the beginning of the video, Asmongold literally was having his stream clips uploaded by other people who are making tens of thousands of dollars a month off of his content.

DarkViperAU:
So let's look at some of this content that these other people were uploading prior to Asmongold making his own channel that is run by two people that he does nothing with, except of course that he instructs them as to what to upload and whatnot. Like he has executive control over what goes over that channel. He can say, don't upload this or upload this, of course, but he doesn't actually make the videos himself. But here we go. So this is the currently the most watched speedrun of Dark Souls ever. Now, Dark Souls, people have been running the game for, you know, years and years, just thousands upon thousands of hours has gone into making Dark Souls speedruns what they are. They are very interesting what they are. And here's a 50 minute video with 5 million views. Let us watch Asmon's content. 

Elajjaz:
Ah, black lamage. What the fuck? Oh, I don't know. Mick, you gotta count yourself. I can't do right now.

DarkViperAU:
Riveting! Asmongold, who knows nothing about Dark Souls, watching a very talented streamer and speedrunner, Elajjaz. This guy's like what this is. This is absurd that Asmongold wasn't able to profit off his content and this random fuck was able to upload it. This is theft of the highest order. This fuck stealing from Asmongold. The benevolence of Asmongold to allow people for so long to steal his content. It's laziness. It's laziness ladies and gentlemen. Like he just didn't ever put the effort in to care or to upload this stuff himself. But the benevolence! Oh, he just showers tens of thousands of dollars on people giving them for so long this amazing content.

Elajjaz:
Ah, you skip all Lord Souls.

Asmongold:
Wait, what?

DarkViperAU:
What?

Xanderhall:
And then he employed those people under his YouTube channel and gives them like 80% of the revenue the channel makes from the clips that are uploaded to the channel.

DarkViperAU:
So I think it's 60/40 actually. But, so what this guy is saying is, how could Asmongold be exploiting people or stealing content when he only gets 20% of the thefted revenue? I mean, come on now, that can't possibly be theft. He's giving the majority of the revenue to the people who are doing all of the work. Benevolence! Beyond reason! Oh. If we could only all be as so charitable as Asmongold. I mean, I agree with this argument completely. I mean, if you're only taking 20% of the stolen revenue, you can't possibly be stealing. Case closed.

Xanderhall:
Gives him like 80% of the revenue, 'cause he doesn't need it.

DarkViperAU:
So this is also a great argument. You guys realize that people only do what they need. They only take what they need. Now, I'm gonna, I'm gonna blow Xander's mind. Being a very successful Twitch and YouTuber, I know roughly how much money Asmongold must be making. He doesn't need 20% of the revenue from his YouTube at all. But apparently he doesn't need that 80% and he is giving that away. Implicit in that is he does need that 20% Asmongold is only taking what he needs as a multi, multi, multi, multi, multi-millionaire. One of the biggest, occasionally the biggest content creator on twitch.tv. Oh, the benevolence of Asmongold towards other people… Oh Xander! Thank you for opening my eyes and realizing how benevolent Asmongold is, only taking what he needs. 20% of a YouTube channel that he doesn't do anything on.
So we, um, that video might be getting boring. We need to watch more of the content that Xander believes was stolen from Asmongold.

- video of Asmongold watching a Dark Souls speedrun from Elajjaz -

Xanderhall:
He doesn't need it. He makes a fuck ton of money just from streaming because he's like one of the biggest streamers on Twitch. He literally said when he handed these people that were stealing his content, his own channel to all upload under it is like, I guess like, uh, to be employed by him, uh, more or less that he literally doesn't get, like he doesn't need the money and he doesn't care. 

DarkViperAU:
Then why do it at all? So if you, if you listen to, I believe I put it in the videos, Asmongold’s, impetus for bringing these two people together. I believe they came to him and asked him if they could make a formal, official channel. Was that, what would happen on YouTube is YouTube doesn't like duplicated content. So multiple content creators were uploading the same content, right? And they'd get taken down, they'd be infighting and stuff, and he wanted to get rid of all that. You know why Asmongold benefits from people uploading his content to YouTube? Asmongold benefits not monetarily, but in terms of his brand. His expanded influence. While Asmon wasn't willing to take the effort to upload all this content himself, I'm not sure that Asmon would be as blatant to upload something like this, right? But the a big reason why he wouldn't do this is 'cause it would take effort. But he didn't hate the idea of other people doing it. 'cause he recognized as any streamer would that, oh my god, having thousands of videos about you on YouTube is a good thing for bringing you new followers and subscribers and whatnot. Zero effort did Asmongold put in for years, yet he still gains endless followers, endless subscribers. He built his brand in a large part because of all this YouTube content that would get uploaded. Sure. He wasn't experiencing the revenue from these content creators. But due to his hands-off approach, so much Asmongold content was just thrown at YouTube for years. Couldn't go anywhere without tripping over an Asmongold and go, “Who's this Asmongold fellow? Let me go check out his Twitch Stream.”. Zero effort. So much reward.
Xander, on the other hand, doesn't see this. “Oh, Asmongold, the benevolence… to give these people tens of thousands of dollars. Oh god! He's just so good as a person.”. If Asmongold had been negatively impacted by these people uploading his content to YouTube, you can guarantee he would've done something about it. If Asmongold had believed that he would benefit more from uploading it himself, he would've done it. If Asmongold believed he would benefit from having a centralized place for his content, he would've done it. And we know that because he did it. When YouTube started taking down duplicate videos, two creators came to him and said, Hey, look, we, we run like the two most popular. It was Cat, Danny and the other person. We run the two most popular, uh, channels uploading your content. How about we all go in this together? We, we split the revenue fairly evenly. You promote the channel. Now say it's your official channel. We'll get more views and we'll all benefit. And Asmon is like, “So this will take no effort on my part? Oh, okay. Fair enough. Then I'll do it.”. The benevolence. Watch a bit more. 

Elajjaz:
Wait, you just, yeah, that's a glitch. So the death camera happens, and with that certain terrain doesn't spawn. 

Xanderhall:
Holy fuck. You have no idea what you're talking about. Like, I can excuse what the QC and like Pokimane and Destiny and Hassan stuff because it's like, okay, sometimes they do, um, like sit there and they eat food while, while they're watching a video. But Asmongold is notorious for going on massive rants. While reacting to videos. 

DarkViperAU:
So Xander is like, look man, he reacts very well. I like his reactions, and therefore, there can be nothing wrong with what he's doing. Now I'm, I'm gonna throw something at you guys. Stopping a video every once in a while and talking is really fucking easy. Like, holy shit is easy. You're watching it in real fucking time. Try it yourself. Sit at home, watch a 10 minute video, pause every couple of minutes and go, you know, here's my opinion on what just happened. Anyone can do it. Fucks in the movie theaters “Don't go in their she behind the door!” or whatever. People can do that shit. It's not hard content to make and that's why people make it. That's why there's so many content creators on YouTube with millions of followers who are just reacting to TikTok. They go “Oh, that's very funny.”. Like you may like his reactions, but that's just a subjective opinion. It's not like Asmongold has objectively the best reactions in the game, and therefore his reaction content is somehow good or somehow legal. If you read the four guidelines of what fair use is meant to defend Asmongold's content, his react content does not meet it in any capacity.
Do you wanna know where Asmongold's rants used to belong? Here on this channel, which he hasn't uploaded to in two years 'cause it takes more effort then reaction. In this video he has to find his own footage, his own background, might have to edit things together, edit out mistakes and whatnot. You know, this requires at least a little bit of effort. Does not take anything from anyone else, he's just playing the game and giving his ranty opinions, his thoughts as he does today, but with more effort. And this is what I said about Asmongold getting famous, getting popular, getting a lot of money on Twitch and then stopping doing the work that he used to do when it came to his talking about WoW, making content about WoW with these edited videos. Rather than going to the effort of getting stuff that is somehow related to what he's talking about, he just opens someone else's video and reacts to what they're saying. Rather than thinking of certain things and ordering them in the way that he wants so that he can make his point the way he wants to, he simply follows the structure of another person's video. So he skips the part where he has to put that effort in to make these videos like he used to and he's just using someone else's video to achieve basically the same effects. He's putting in far less effort than he used to… for the same result. Actually I would argue an even better result. Of course because the content that he picked for his backdrop wasn't necessarily the best while the videos he's reacting to might've spent, you know, they might have spent days getting together those exact clips in that exact order to make the exact backdrop that they're using. While Asmongold clearly didn't used to go through that kind of effort anyway.
Newsflash: Stopping a video every once in a while and giving your opinion… does not make your video legal, does not make it not exploitative, does not make it not theft. If you wanna argue against these points, feel free. But you need actual arguments. Not this bullshit touchy feely shit because you like Asmongold's content.

DarkViperAU:
When is enough going to be enough Asmon?

TurkeyTom:
Hopefully some of the streamers that we talked about will take our advice and stop stealing content, but as of now, they don't seem to be taking it very well. After all, why change what you were doing when you can get defensive and complain about your super hard life, where you make hundreds of thousand of dollars a year off of using a computer all day? Yeah feel really bad for you, man… you’re having it so, so rough. 

Xanderhall:
That's literally what YouTubers do as well. You're making, well, maybe not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, depending on your size. Most streamers don't make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Only like. I mean, the ones that we've shown off in this one, like Destiny, Hassan, xQc, Pokimane, and Asmongold definitely do 'cause they're fucking huge. But, um, most streamers aren't making that much. Most YouTubers aren't making that much. Uh, let's be honest here though, you're all making money, off of sitting at your computer most of the time. Unless you do content where you're going out and doing vlogs and you edit those vlog even then like…

DarkViperAU:
I hope everyone in my audience is smart enough to see through this bullshit. He is simply making a false equivalency. He's implying that everything done at a PC is somehow equal, simply because it's done at a pc. That's obviously patently absurd. I am both a YouTuber and a Twitch streamer, and I do make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. I'm very blessed to be in the situation that I'm in. I got lucky, but I'll tell you this right now. Streaming is so much easier than making YouTube videos. Actual YouTube videos. Edited original content, original jokes, key framing shit. Sitting on my ass reacting to shit is so easy. If all I had to do was stream, my life would be like at least 80% easier. As much as I stream… I still look at streaming as so much easier than YouTube. Sitting on my ass for 12 hours at my computer just editing on stream or playing a video game, especially a chill one, I can do that in a heartbeat. Editing Pacifist%... I get sweat… thinking about how strenuous that is gonna be. There's like three edits that I have to do and I pull off making that video for like a month just 'cause I don't want to do them 'cause I know how difficult they will be. I have spent nine months trying to get through ''GTA V'' without taking any damage. Nine months! And I still think that's easier than making a single episode of Pacifist%. Every person sitting at their computer for long durations of time is not putting in the same effort for what they're creating. This person is an idiot! By sitting at your computer all day it doesn't mean that whatever you're producing is equally difficult to produce. Drawing an equivalence between people who make actual original content on YouTube, not that we act shit that Xander loves… like eating fucking fast food. The people who put hour long essays together, with creative animations or original ideas, these things are just orders of magnitude. More difficult and more interesting than any stream content has ever been.

Xanderhall:
But most YouTubers… like especially TurkeyTom… you make money… you do your job… while sitting at your computer. That's what you do.

DarkViperAU:
This is amazing false equivalency. As if TurkeyTom is somehow criticizing anyone who makes money sitting at a pc, as opposed to people who do particular things at their pc. “I mean everyone who sits at the computer is exactly the same bro! Enlightened fuckwith!”.

TurkeyTom:
Life is a little easier if you hire people to edit your reactions, to cut out your dead air and only show the parts that you actually react to. But of course, that would bring your reaction VOD on YouTube from 30 minutes to 3 minutes, and you would make one 10th of the ad revenue. And we, we can't have that now, can we? I respect some of these streamers. It's unfortunate to see them having these terrible takes (...).

Xanderhall:
Okay. I think we've probably seen enough. Uh, so don't get me wrong here. Um, TurkeyTom is a reactionary and a lot of this is definitely, definitely politically motivated. The, the people he's going after and the reasons why he's doing it, absolutely politically motivated. But even outside of the political arguments he was making, his overall points were pretty dumb on their own. They're pretty dumb on their own. Anyway, time for the ‘sex work’ segment!

DarkViperAU:
At least with me, he can't just hand wave me away and say, this guy's just politically motivated 'cause certainly he and I are, from what I understand, fairly close politically. But I mean Xander… he can't just engage with people's arguments, honestly, can he? He just goes “Oh, it's just political man. Just political. Wipe it away!”. Xander… I'm gonna say this to you: I think because TurkeyTom is in political opposition to you, it has caused you not to grapple with his arguments fairly. Or mine for that matter. You are so politically entrenched that you can't assess things said by other people who are politically opposed to you on their merits alone. Which is why you've sat here and said, just in this section, amazingly stupid shit. I can't imagine the rest of the streamers any better, but maybe I'm misjudging you. Maybe you just had an aneurysm or something for this specific moment where you're talking about me. And the rest of your stream you are fucking just genius in your levels of countering what TurkeyTom says in his video.
If you want a quick summation of my video, my overall point was this: if a person makes a video that takes them a thousand hours to make, and you react to that video and upload your reaction plus the original video to your YouTube channel… you've effectively just stolen a thousand hours of labor. Your reaction video took 10 minutes to make, but the video that you've produced has a 1,000 hours worth of labor in us. That kind of return on time investment doesn't exist without exploitation. If you had to try and make that video yourself from scratch, you would have to spend for 1,000+ hours. But you skip that process by just using someone else's labor without paying them. You effectively make the argument “I'm paying in exposure”. But in that exchange, you totally wanna be the guy who's already powerful and big paying an exposure. You wanna be the guy going “I'm gonna take this video that took a thousand hours to make, this video that took a thousand hours to make, this video took a thousand hours to make.”. You don't wanna be one of those guys spending the thousand hours, you wanna be the guy spending 10 minutes to take those thousand hour videos and put them up on your YouTube channel.
The worst example when it came to Asmongold, was a guy made a very wonderful animation… and within 24 hours Asmongold had reacted to the entirety of the animation, put it on his YouTube channel without a single edit in it and his video, with the animation in it, got way more views than the original. I'm sure the other content benefited to some degree, but that is still exploitative. I'm not gonna go into it longer, but in my videos I talk about negative externalities and how this affects YouTube as a whole, how we're all negatively impacted by this kind of content. My videos were fairly extensive. Xander, you do not know anything about this topic. It boggles my mind though hearing this coming from a person on the left. A person concerned with exploitation of people in power, using people who are smaller to grow themselves. To massively enrich themselves off other people's labor and giving a small amount in return because that's what this is, that's what the content is.
Hope you enjoyed this video. Uh obviously I should have been streaming something more interesting than this… but I care about this stuff. But it's, as I said in my video, I realized that my opposition to this is not gonna matter. That people like Xander who wanna hand wave this away to give the powerful content creators more and more, they're always gonna outnumber me. You either join the reactors or you get crushed by them. 'cause you can't beat that level of return on time investment, 10 minutes for a video that should have taken you a 1,000 hours to make. You can't beat that as a normal content creator.
Xander, despite apparently caring about exploitation, doesn't care about this, and so it's gonna be the lay of the land. We aren't gonna see a resurgence against reactors like we did in 2016. In terms of issues in the world, this is very low down on the list. But it's still not a good thing, but it's probably here to stay.

Sources:
Email shown [https://imgur.com/a/qCzJUt3 Imgur]
LeafyIsHere v. Twitch Streamers (XQC, Hasan Piker, Destiny) [https://youtu.be/ILNRxwmaii0]
Xanderhal’s video on Turkey Tom [https://youtu.be/8HfPj3J_xfM?t=5546]
Turkey Tom YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@TurkeyTom]
Asmongold YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@AsmonTV A͏s͏m͏o͏n͏g͏o͏l͏d͏ T͏V͏]
Asmongold Twitch statistics [https://twitchtracker.com/asmongold/streams TwitchTracker]
DarkViperAU Twitch statistics [https://twitchtracker.com/darkviperau/streams TwitchTracker]
Asmongold Reacts to Dark Souls Remastered Speedrun - Any% in 32:54 IGT (World Record) by Elajjaz [https://youtu.be/gCGFiIFMbn8]
Four factors of fair use [https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors]

The True Harm of Reaction Content - Featuring MoistCr1tikal

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqWNmXYC76A The True Harm of Reaction Content - Featuring MoistCr1tikal]

DarkViperAU:
So MoistCr1TiKaL has made a response video to something… that people think is involved with me somehow. I don't know what he is responding to here. But I did write a 14 page script explaining why I don't like reactors and I think they're bad people. Whatever he's looking at here, isn't that because basically nothing of what he talks about in this video do I talk about in that script. That is a little bit of an exaggeration. But I'm somewhat at a disadvantage now. Because Charlie has made a response video to an <u>unreleased</u> YouTube video, my best response would be to just make the video. 'cause anyone who watched it would understand all the things that Charlie didn't understand when he might… have read the script…? I'm not a hundred percent sure. But I don't have time for that. It's a 14 page document. And I'm being defamed by this man.
MoistCr1TiKaL knows that his video is gonna reach far more people than will ever actually read that document. So he has free reign or misrepresent what's in it to 99.99999% of people. He didn't even have the courtesy to link the documents so people could fact check him. He could legitimately just say, “Well, DarkViper’s out here saying that I fucked the Loch Ness monster. I didn't fuck the Loch Ness monster!” people are like, “Wow, this DarkViper claiming that MoistCr1TiKaL fucked, the Loch Ness monster, shameful!”.
He also knows that my video refuting him will also reach one fraction of a fraction of a percent of people who watch his video. This is the power that large content creators have to shape a narrative regardless of how false.

Charlie (MoistCr1TiKaL):
And it really heats up. This gets wild and wacky for the touchdown real quick. There's a whole section in here where he basically compares reactors to sexual abuse criminals and insinuates that they'd be likely to spike your drink at a party. Take silence for consent. Basically is comparing react content creators to rapists.

DarkViperAU:
This is on page eight of 14 and is an offhand remark in brackets. This is Charlie's attempt to poison the well. “Hey guys, I'm gonna take this thing entirely outta context to present it as something that it clearly is not. In order to poison you against a 14 page meticulously written document.”, what the hell, Charlie? I didn't have the highest opinion of you, but what the hell is this? He is so keen to poison you against this 14 page meticulously argued document that he goes to the length of finding tweets out of context. He doesn't show the context, and it's just like, here's what the document's about. It's 14 pages!
Reactors will frequently say they have the right to steal as much of a person's labor as they like, until that person says no. If you work 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 weeks, 10 years, it doesn't matter, they have a right to your content. It is only after you find out that your opinion is apparently meant to matter. This is of course analogous to any situation where you ignore consent for your own gain. I did not at any point say reactors are rapists. I said It is analogous to situations where you would ignore consent for your own gain. The idea that it's okay to ask for consent after the fact is obviously a very stupid idea. Hopefully this is one that reactors will constantly say. As for taking silence for consent, that is literally what reactors do. A person has not given you consent to re-upload their content, and you say, “Well, they haven't said no yet, so I must have consent.”.
To again clarify If you read them in context, they're clearly analogies that are used to explain two things to make something more clear. That being the idea of asking for consent after you perform the action is obviously absurd. 

Charlie:
In his own document, he admits that he himself was a reactor. He is engaged in a lot of react content himself. So at one point were you a rapist DarkViper?

DarkViperAU:
I of course did not call myself reactor. In fact, I defined reactor very specifically in the first paragraph, which of course, Cr1TiKaL does not show. Because it would undercut this point massively. We'll see that later on.
I was talking about a very specific form of content of which I've never made. I also quite obviously didn't refer to reactors as rapists. The common theme in this video is Charlie gonna be like, “I'm not gonna show you where he said this, but I swear he said it.”, it and I'm gonna be like, “I didn't say that.”. And that's all the defense I can give myself 'cause it's not in the script. This is generally speaking, why you let a person make a video first Charlie, rather than handpicking parts from a script to be dishonest.

Charlie:
Of course, you don't do that anymore and you deleted all the videos, but at one point you did engage in the exact same content that you're coming out so heavily against right now. 

DarkViperAU:
In the document, I expressly outline an intricate detail why that is not the case, but even if that was true, All it would do is make me a hypocrite, it wouldn't make anything I say untrue. It does not even for a moment actually attack my arguments that I put forth in the document. It is ‘whataboutism’. Charlie has done everything to avoid the actual content of what I talked about. This is an addendum on page 14 he's talking about first.

Charlie:
It's an outrageous claim, obviously, however, he does make legitimate points in the document. It's overshadowed by this unhinged rant that he goes on. 

DarkViperAU:
Keep in mind he's talking about a bracketed sentence on page eight of a text document and calling it an ‘unhinged rant’. Even if you don't like me, can you grant that he's not being fair? 

Charlie:
He made a video correcting something I talked about, which was how much money YouTubers make from short content.

DarkViperAU:
Not only did I correct MoistCr1TiKaL, but Ludwig also made a video correcting him. And what was really annoying is MoistCr1TiKaL left that video up. His entire video, that I corrected, is wrong. As Moist will now admit, But he left it up anyway. 1.3 million people did MoistCr1TiKaL give false information to. And he did not give two fucks, did not take the video down, did not submit a attraction, did not give people actual information. No. He, in the original case, made a 10 minute video rambling about stuff that is completely untrue. When shown that it's untrue, didn't give a fuck. 

Charlie:
Obviously I do react content from time to time. 100%, I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not trying to bury it in the past and hide it, pretend like I didn't, or try and justify it because I'm not embarrassed of it.

DarkViperAU:
There's not something to brag about. It is something you should be ashamed of. You have a staggering amount of money, which you could use to pay people to make content for you, but instead you just take it for free from people you don't even ask.

Charlie:
When I react to something, I'm constantly trying to either pause it and add something to it or interject comedy into it. I treat react content like Mystery Science Theater.

DarkViperAU:
That is hilarious 'cause Mystery Science Theater actually asked for consent for every single movie that they used, and what they watched was like <u>40 years</u> old. You are watching videos as they're fresh off the presses without asking for consent. You are the furthest thing from Mystery Science Theater that could possibly exist. Mystery Science Theater had like edited sketches and stuff in their content. What is he talking about? And they at least had some idea what the content was beforehand, so they knew whether or not they could make good content out of it. 

Charlie:
Now, of course not every time is going to be a hit, which is why you'll find plenty of videos where I'm reacting to something like ‘''The Downfall of Quibi''’, which comes from a great channel that I really like to watch, and I just got too engrossed in their storytelling and the way they presented it, that I didn't add anything to it. So I ended up just kind of watching it with my community.

DarkViperAU:
So not only do I really heavily attack that idea that anyone can transform a six month work by pausing it every once in a while and going, “Ha. I think that's funny.”. Here's an idea for your revolutionary concept. How do you watch the video first and then once you've watched the video, you say, “Hey, I actually have nothing of interest to add here, I'm not gonna make a video out of it.”. Or you might say, “Hey, I have something interesting to add. I'm gonna take that individual part in the middle where I have something to add and make my own video about it.”.
The script from my video is 14 pages long. It goes into intricate detail why what Moist is saying is fucking nonsense. If he sincerely believed he had something of value to add to a video, he'd watch it and then make it into a video, putting in the effort rather than watching it and rolling the dice. “Guys, sometimes I do things that are good and therefore all the times why I don't do something good it's perfectly fine.”. This logic doesn't track.

Charlie:
And yeah, I always feel guilty when something like that happens, but that's never the goal.

DarkViperAU:
I question a person's ability to feel guilt after doing something thousands of times and never changing their behavior.

Charlie:
DarkViper's entire document here is about this belief that every reactor is doing it for financial gain and to fuck small channels. And the logic he uses to make these points is deeply flawed and isn't substantiated by any real evidence. It just feels like he pulls it out of his ass and it's “Source: Trust me bro.”.

DarkViperAU:
Guys, I want you to think for a moment, what are the odds that a person writes a 14 page document that can be summarized that simply, Moist is literally misrepresenting all of my work and then saying, “Look guys, just trust me that's what it says.”. What a hypocrite.

Charlie:
Is he has an understanding of capitalism in the free market, and that's what he's using to base all of these claims on, even though it's not directly applicable to YouTube itself.

DarkViperAU:
So I write a script where I make points to substantiate that point, and Moist says, “So, he says this thing, and no,”. What a witty even taught just not showing people what I said or how I can justify that comparison and just saying ‘no’, wow! 

Charlie:
I wonder how many small channels are out there shaking their fist right now like, “Damn, you Pokimane! My channel died because you watched my video on your stream and said nice things about me. I had such a promising career as a YouTuber until you said nice things about my video on stream to your audience of 30,000 concurrent viewers, now I'm fucking trashed. I'm ruined!”. And to be fair, that's not the exact point he's making. 

DarkViperAU:
You spent the entire first quarter of your video misrepresenting what I said and poisoning the well. Then you specifically say something you know is not true and say, “Well, to be fair”. No! You are not being fair. You are actively misrepresenting the content of the script, 'cause you know you can, 'cause there isn't a video yet. You know that people won't actually read it. If that wasn't the point I was making Most, why did you say it?

Charlie:
Now to show his point in the actual document he goes on to describe how effortless it is to make react content, which he is absolutely in the right on. This is an inarguable truth that's just blasting your ass with facts and logic 100%. He's totally right there and he's right there again.

DarkViperAU:
This man spends six minutes defaming me, poisoning the, well, misrepresenting my words. Then when he gets to my actual words, he says, “Well, he's right.”.

Charlie:
Look at someone like SSSniperWolf, she's able to do one a day and she's making I think 700 million views a month or something. She's the biggest react channel online, like anywhere on the internet. And what's shocking about DarkViper's document is she's not listed here by name. He only goes with Twitch streamers, even though SSSniperWolf does the same thing. So I found that to be weird 'cause that would've been another great point here.

DarkViperAU:
But you've read the document, you know why SSSniperWolf is not on there.

DarkViperAU (in the document ‘''How The React Grift Works By DarkViperAU''’):
“''Keep in mind that ‘reactors’ are not reviewers, analysts, documentarians, expert critics, or video essayists. They are people who present their first experience of a video as content, doing so with no idea if they have anything of substance to contribute as they haven’t seen the content before. In other words they present their ‘reaction’ to something they have not seen instead of putting actual effort into making something after the fact once they know they have something of value to add.''”

What SSSniperWolf makes is technically after the fact. I expressly desire to limit the scope of what I was talking about in the video 'cause making it too broad would make it far too long. Discussing the viability of using other people's clips or TikToks, which don't make any money, is a separate question to the one that I'm addressing in that document. Do I like SSSniperWolf content? No. Do I think it's better than Charlie sitting on stream watching YouTube videos? Fuck yes. Technically SSSniperWolf’s videos do contain editing and effects and text on screen and shit. And they can remove stuff if they don't think it's very good. Is it probably still exploitive? Hey, maybe I'll make a video on that… when it's relevant.

Charlie:
He argues that this flood of react content takes from the finite pool of impressions, so it takes those eyeballs and puts it towards the react content as opposed to going towards the original content that they would've found elsewhere if the react content didn't exist.

DarkViperAU:
I don't argue it, that is just a fact of how these platforms work. Every time a react video appears on someone's page, a different video would have appeared there if that react video didn't exist. 'cause all impressions are 100% assigned. Every single impression that a react video gets would have gone to someone else who is an original content creator. Reactors can therefore only ever be the middlemen in these platforms, taking impressions from all other original content creators and giving a small amount back to other people. Reactors do not somehow manifest additional impressions. There is no free lunch in this industry. The impressions they give out are a portion of what they steal from other people.

Charlie:
I'm skipping ahead just a bit 'cause this part is also still part of the same umbrella claim. He says ‘''If your content is good, then it will get exposure naturally and so you don't need reactors.''’. He's absolutely right, of course you don't need reactors. But he says if your content is good, it will naturally get exposure. Okay, based on what? Where's your evidence to support that claim? 

DarkViperAU (in the document ‘''How The React Grift Works By DarkViperAU''’):
“''A reactor can't make another person's content good. If your content is bad no amount of reactions will save it. If your content is good, then it will get exposure naturally and so you don't need reactors. A reactor can’t make your career, only you producing good content can do that. It is therefore amusing when reactors blame the content creators when the magical “boost” to viewership they are meant to experience never materializes. It is as if, for reactors, it is the content creator being stolen from who is responsible for making “good” content specifically for the reactor and they have failed in their duty. If the degree of “benefit” (returned stolen exposure) a creator gets is solely dependent on the quality of their content, then it shows just how redundant reactors are. This would be the case regardless of whether they existed or not, making the reactors just the middlemen growing fat and lazy on the labour of others.''”

DarkViperAU:
Admittedly, you'd have to have seen my other content to understand this, but when I say something is good, I mean an algorithmic sense, it appeals to the market. Which I would've used clips to substantiate if you’d let me make the video. It is very possible to make high quality content that no one wants to watch or to present it very poorly in regards to thumbnails and titles. But I consider thumbnails and tiles to be a part of the package. Good content is that in which can be picked up by the algorithm, but it is the rest of this that is really important. As I point out, if you are making bad content, it does matter if people react to it. It will still be bad content. If you are doing something wrong to not get picked up in the algorithm, even if a reactor looks at your content and you might get 10 more views, you will still be fucked in the long term 'cause you haven't solved any of the problems that's preventing you from growing successful. Success on YouTube is more than someone saying, “Hey everyone, look at that guy!”. And that is the point this paragraph and what came before it was meant to establish. Whether or not reactor looks at your content is completely irrelevant to whether you're doing the right things to succeed long-term on YouTube.

Charlie:
There are millions upon millions of channels, literally millions, that have made high quality productions over the last decade that went nowhere, fell flat on their face, and it had nothing to do with xQc watching ‘My mom picks my next boyfriend for me’ or anything. 

DarkViperAU:
Yes, it does, which is why I spent 14 pages establishing, which you have just completely glossed over. Every react video steals impressions away from original content. Every impression ever given to a react video, would have gone to someone else if that react video didn't exist. Therefore logically original content creators would have gotten more impressions if not for react content. As impressions are related to success, therefore there would be more successful original content creators if react content didn't exist, logically attack a premise. I hope this gets to a point where you actually talk about the arguments in the document. 'cause right now all I'm doing is just badly summarizing my own document. 

Charlie:
How can you guarantee that by making high quality productions, you're naturally going to blow up on YouTube?

DarkViperAU:
If someone was to look in the document where I said ‘high quality productions will always get exposure’, i’d love to see it because I don't remember writing that. And the reason for that is I didn't actually write that. Charlie defined high quality productions as good content, not me. Something can be really high quality and fucking terrible, both in terms of watchability and in terms of its viability in the algorithm. 

Charlie:
But you have no way of proving if that react content wasn't there, those eyeballs would go to that original content because it's the internet, it's YouTube. There's other places they could go to get entertainment.

DarkViperAU:
I chose my words so carefully in that script. I didn't specifically just talk about YouTube. I talked about the online creator marketplace. Logically, because all impressions are 100% assigned. Therefore, if react videos didn't exist, those impressions would have to go somewhere. Therefore original content would get more impressions. That does not mean all impressions would be clicked, but obviously as impressions are correlated with higher levels of success, original content would get more views and they'd be more successful original content creators. But more importantly, I didn't discriminate. If a person doesn't see something they want to watch on YouTube and then go to TikTok instead and give that person a view. That's the same thing to me. If a reactors video in their impressions on YouTube would steal that person away from watching TikTok as they would've otherwise, they have stolen a view from that TikTok person.

Charlie:
Let's say all of a sudden all of react content is gone, the people that watched react content might just go watch fucking Netflix, might just go on Twitch and watch some gaming streams or something. There's no guarantee that now that the react content is gone, those eyeballs turn towards the small YouTubers, you can't prove that.

DarkViperAU:
Nowhere in this document do I use small creators anywhere. Anywhere the impressions logically would go to other people. If a person uses react content on Twitch to keep people from going to YouTube, that is the same thing. I'm not talking about YouTube specifically, Twitch specifically, TikTok specifically, Instagram specifically. The entire online creator marketplace. If you use react content on Twitch to keep people on that platform when otherwise they would've gone, “Oh, well I guess there's nothing really interesting here, I'm gonna go watch some TikTokers.”, “I'm gonna go watch some YouTubers.”, then you have stolen from them too.
Imagine a Twitch streamer who like does high octane content, very good original content, and they're like, “Oh man, I've finished the content I can make for today, I've got no other ideas, I'm tired, I need to go to sleep or have a shower or something.” goes “No wait! I can play other people's YouTube videos to keep my audience here!”, so he turns on some YouTube videos. If he hadn't done that, had he, as he should have just turned off his stream, all those viewers would've gone somewhere else. Twitch YouTube TikTok doesn't matter, but by using other people's content, you can keep your viewers there in your form of content aggregation. Reactors use react content to keep themselves online longer, to keep people on their channels longer. They use stolen content to keep people on their platform, the actors content aggregators, to keep people with them, not finding other people. This is all meticulously detailed in that document.

Charlie:
So the claim is completely baseless. I know you drew this diagram, but there's no source here. You're just pulling this out of your ass. I would love to know where you got this data from if you have that available.

DarkViperAU:
For my old viewers, it's the meme. This is a diagram used to explain the point. You are using diagrams to explain a complex you have about reality.

DarkViperAU (old stream footage):
I think X represents a general concept of rich people and why it represents a general concept these are specific things of poor people.

Viewer in chat:
This diagram…

DarkViperAU:
NO! It describes my point! It describes it! It describes my point of view! This can't prove anything. It doesn't actually represent real life. No one can be this dumb!!

DarkViperAU:
So I walk up to a guy and I say, “Hey man, look, your odds getting laid are not going up if you play more World of Warcraft.”. And he's like, “I don't, I don't understand what you're talking about.”, I'm like, “Oh yeah, here's a diagram for you. So the, your odds getting laid, uh, see here on one axis, go down as you play more World of Warcraft.”. And they look at this go, “Oh, I get it now. So what you're saying is you believe that the amount of World of Warcraft that I play is making my odds of getting laid far less.”. And I go, “Yeah!”, he'd be like, “Well, I still disagree.”. I'm like, “Okay, but at least you understand now.”. 
So the diagrams that I used in my document were for this purpose for you to understand my point of view, not prove it. The arguments for my point of view were in the 14 pages of writing. So these diagrams, without context, you probably won't understand, but hopefully if you read the document, you'd be like, “Oh, I see what DarkViper is saying now looking at these two documents.”. It doesn't mean you'll agree with me. It won't prove anything. But you'll understand my perspective.

Charlie:
Because in this graph, if the react content that controls the 30% here pulls out, that 30% doesn't automatically get distributed to the rest of the graph. Those eyeballs could just be gone, they could go to a different platform.

DarkViperAU:
Key to understand here is that ‘views’ are different from ‘impressions’. I use my language very carefully, which is why Cr1TiKaL cannot use the words that I use in the document.
So here we have your homepage. You're getting an impression right now for a react video. These spots will always be full. Always. If react content didn't exist, that impression would go to someone else. You might not click it, you might not get a view, but it is a huge stretch of the imagination to imagine that if all react content is gone, no original content creators would get more views. All those impressions wouldn't necessarily translate into views, but obviously more views would be had. This is because of the causal relationship between getting impressions and getting views. This is not a one-to-one causal relationship, but it's a significant causal relationship. If the react content didn't exist. The impressions here are still the same. If a person moves off YouTube to another platform, that doesn't matter to me 'cause I'm not specifically talking about YouTube. If a person sees this, ‘no react content’ and goes, “Well, I'm gonna go watch TikTok then.” and watch the TikToker, if the react video was here they would've stolen that view from a TikToker. Doesn't make any difference to me. 
These videos are stolen, re-uploaded content as I tried to establish in the document. What annoys me most about Cr1TiKaL's video is not that he disagrees with me, is that he doesn't even stand what the document said.

Charlie:
There's no way for you to prove that if the react content wasn't there, all of those eyeballs that they are occupying of that finite pool of impressions would be redistributed to the smaller creators. You have no way of proving it, nobody really does.

DarkViperAU:
Then it is fantastic that not even for a single moment did I come anywhere close to arguing that point in all 14 pages that I wrote.

Charlie:
However, off the top of my head, I can think of multiple examples in times where react content has genuinely helped smaller creators like blow up their channel. My channel, I'm the perfect example of it. My channel literally got kickstarted because of Ray William Johnson reacting to my QWOP video in 2010. Without that happening, I probably wouldn't have this channel right now.

DarkViperAU:
And if Ray William Johnson didn't exist, those tens of millions of impressions that he had would've gone to other content creators. Again, due to the causal relationship between impression and views, other content creators would've gotten more views. Potentially other people would have then been discovered, potentially their careers would have gone off. As they showed in the diagram and argued in painstaking detail: it isn't my belief that reactors don't give some exposure to other people. It is that they steal far more for themselves than they give back. Absent the reactor, more content creators will be getting more exposure, obviously. 'cause every impression that went to a reactors video, would have gone to someone else. I'm not saying who that is, doesn't matter to me, but they would've had to go somewhere else.

Charlie:
But I can however, prove that multiple times channels I've reacted to have been very positive about it, and their channel has grown exponentially as a result of it.

DarkViperAU:
Entirely misses the point entirely. It's not even in the domain of what I talked about in the script. The argument was not that React content never has benefited anyone ever, it's that absent react content, more people would benefit. That react content has a net loss in terms of exposure to other people because the reactor themselves has to sustain themselves. The reactor is the middleman in the exposure game. The reactor takes a bunch of exposure for themselves, builds up their career, makes millions of dollars, and they give a small fleck of that back to someone else, and that someone else may love that fleck, that may, that fleck may be the greatest fucking thing ever. But absent that reactor, all that exposure would still have gone to other people. Because that's how impressions work.
Let's put it in simpler terms. Imagine that a reaction video had a million views. Let's say it took 10 million impressions to get those million views. What I'm saying is delete that video. Now, these 10 million impressions would still have to exist. They had to exist for the reactor to get them in the first place. So these 10 million impressions would go to other content creators. Billy making animations, Frankie talking about his grocery list, all these people and these 10 billion impressions for original content creators is more valuable than whatever tiny amount of exposure that the reactor is giving to the person they're reacting to. Because the reactor has already taken some of the exposure for themselves. Those 10 million impressions will 100% go to other content creators. But only a fraction of the amount of people from that reactors video will click other content creators because of it.
What you're effectively doing is you're synthesizing a bunch of exposure specifically to yourself, and then taking a tiny chunk of that and then giving it to someone else. All the other creators that you've taken these 10 million impressions from are now worse off and you are now way better off, but you're giving a small fleck to someone else. Reaction content will always be a net negative in terms of exposure to other content creators 'cause the reactors have to sustain themselves in their career. Reactors are the middlemen for exposure, and the middlemen take a huge cut. Worse as Cr1TiKaL already admits, making react content is so fucking easy and takes so little time and so little effort that these reactors can release videos far faster than anyone else. So they can take all these impressions onto themselves far faster, releasing video after video after video. While normal content creators can even release a view every once in a while to try to do the same thing, the reactor will always be able to steal more impressions than a original content creator will be able to get for themselves. Because the reactor can make far more content. I use ‘make’ there very loosely.

Charlie:
The reactors don't watch tiny content creators who can't catch a break. They find videos that are already doing well in the algorithm and are already successful. Thus do not need their exposure. Reactors are not seeking out content to give it any sort of boost. Seeking out content to bring themselves the maximum amount of profit for the least effort.
So I just think this immediately runs against that since the majority of content I watch and react to is small content like Ordinary Sausage, like SlapFight Championship. Of course, sprinkled throughout there are some bigger content creators as well as organizations that I just appreciate the work of and think that they're fun. But the majority of it has always been the smaller creators. And nah, of course I'm not always, is that like reacting, going to help them? In fact, I would argue that it's pretty rare for it to.

DarkViperAU:
How do you find them Cr1TiKaL? Through the algorithm! The only reason you know those videos exist is because someone had that video fed to them in the algorithm. And if that creator has the ability to succeed, if they're doing the right things and the algorithm is serving their content, then eventually they will succeed. All you are doing is keeping viewers for yourself as long as possible to prevent them finding other creators themselves. Because why go anywhere else if you are the one-stop shop for content?
Every single viewer who's watching you watching YouTube videos would be doing something else. And I would argue the vast majority of them would be watching other content online, would potentially being shown impressions of other content videos and go, “Ah, isn't that a very interesting channel right here?”. But because you are using other people's content to keep them there, they will never find those creators. You have collectively denied thousands of people careers. 'cause an algorithm has a better chance of serving people content that they want to watch long term than you do watching videos at random.
If you didn't exist making that content, your viewers would still watch other people, would still use social media websites, would still be fed impressions from content creators that they will now never know because of you. You are synthesizing exposure that would go to many. And channeling it to yourself and then giving a fleck to someone else, you are a net negative in terms of your viewers finding content creators. They enjoy, you have collected, denied them so much content they would love. 

Charlie:
It is still against his point. I'm not reacting to things that are just gonna bring the maximum amount of profit. That's not what I care about. I've never been a money driven person. 

DarkViperAU:
So Charlie has 2 million followers on Twitter, 2 million followers that he could direct at any time to any YouTube video that he desires. You could tweet out, “Hey guys, this amazing video, check it out.”. He get nothing outta that of course. The exposure would directly go to that content creator and translate to some amount of views. Let's see how many times he's done it. Uhhuh, uh, we're still at zero. Still at zero. Here is, uh, we got a lot of pictures of Charlie, of course. Um, oh, uh, no, no, no video there. I'm sorry. Um, oh's. A video. Oh, it's a video. It's, it's someone, it's getting exposure to someone who, who gonna be, it's Charlie. Nevermind. Whoops. Um, still no one. Still no one. So we have a platform that Charlie could use to give exposure to whoever the fuck he wants for no benefit to himself, and he doesn't do it at all.
There must be exceptions in here somewhere, but he spends dozens of hours re-uploading other people's content to his Twitch stream and his YouTube. He doesn't give people shout outs on his Twitter where he can't benefit from such shout outs. Ain't that weird that the only time Charlie will even give a veneer of shouting out YouTube videos is when he personally can benefit from it? Odd! 

Charlie:
Calls me an exploiter class is outright disgusting.

DarkViperAU:
Charlie, you make millions of dollars a year in any other industry. All these people that you're talking about paying an exposure, you'd be paying with hard cash, some of that money in your bank account, in any other industry, you'd be like, “Okay, uh, you put a lot of work into this video. Here's, uh, 10 grand. Uh, you, oh, that's a very nice video. Here's five grand.”. But instead you're like, “Hey man, that's a nice video. I'll pay you in some exposure. Right? Uh, yeah. 90, nah, no, no. I gotta keep that for myself. But exposure. You, you might get some.”. 
Maybe a guy sitting there six months putting everything meticulously perfectly, doing all this research calculations and, and MoistCr1TiKaL walks up and goes, “Oh, that's a nice little bit of labor, you got there friend. Spend a lot of time on that. Well, this is mine now. Um, so I'm gonna put this on my live stream. Uh, thank you guys for the donations, the bits, the views. Uh, don't worry about that guys. Uh, my name's MoistCr1TiKaL. By the way. Be sure to check out my YouTube channel. Yeah. Uh, I would be going offline right now 'cause I'm kind of tired, but I got this guy's video to entertain you guys and, oh, this, uh, yeah, I did, I did say, uh, I like that thing at six minutes so I'm gonna put that entire video on my YouTube channel and generate maybe 10 grand. Uh, what? The original creator wants money? No. He is, he is probably getting something outta it, right? Somewhere… Like, I mean, think about it. I got 10 million impressions using his content and he, some of those people probably clicked through to his channel, some of them surely, right? Truly!”.
You're using other people's diligent hard work to make fat stacks of money, that you have no desire to give back to anyone else. And due to the nature of what you do, everyone is losing out. As I again establish so heavily in that 14 page document.

Charlie:
He says that people only react to content that's doing well in the algorithm and that they were gonna be successful on their own.

DarkViperAU:
This is not what I said, and you can repeat it ad nauseum, but it won't make it true. 

Charlie:
DarkViper has a point that he can't possibly prove. There is no way he could accurately with real evidence. Show me that these channels were going to do extremely well without react content.

DarkViperAU:
Not what I said. I said somebody would get those impressions, which is true by how the platform works. It could be technically possible that maybe react content is the only reason why people use TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and just because there's no react content that some portion of the viewership of these platforms would disappear. They would go place soccer? Just watch Netflix. Fair enough. We'll say 5% gone, the other 95% would still go to other content creators instead of you. Every person who spends time watching your react content would spend time watching something else. Any person who has ever been shown a react video or has clicked that react video and watched it would have been somewhere else in reality doing something else. And my argument is that wherever they're doing is more deserving than the people who spend their time re-uploading other people's videos. They would support other content creators with their views and money, and these people would be more deserving of that support 'cause they make original content rather than re-up uploads of other people's videos. 14 pages I spent on this. Charlie has looked at maybe half a paragraph of what I actually said. And misrepresented everything else in the document. I'm not surprised Charlie does not feel shame for what he does 'cause he doesn't understand what he's doing.

Charlie:
However, I can show you examples, and this is only two of them, where react content wasn't dog shit and didn't hurt the channel that was being reacted to.

DarkViperAU:
To use money as an example, it's like if I stole $1 from a million people and then I gave one guy $100. and MoistCr1TiKaL was like, “See, this guy that I gave a hundred dollars to wasn't screwed by me.”, But everyone else was! Remember Charlie isn't alone in his theft. There are tons of people doing the same sort of thing. Stealing $1 from everyone and giving $100 to someone else and say, “I'm a good guy. I'm giving that guy $100.”. But as reactors keep doing this, even the guy you gave $100 to will occasionally lose a dollar over enough time. The more people who do that bargain, taking a dollar from everyone, that guy as well will lose his $100. Again, I can't even say Charlie disagrees with me 'cause he doesn't understand the point I'm making. 

Charlie:
The creator saw my reaction to it and was really disappointed. They didn't appreciate it. And I totally understood where they're coming from because I didn't really add anything to it, I didn't really react to it. So to them it felt like I was just re-uploading their content on my stream.

DarkViperAU:
Because that's what you are doing. Even when you pause and speak, the amount of efforts you are putting in is a tiny, tiny fraction of what the original content creator put in place. Person spends 500 hours making a YouTube video, you spend 15 minutes watching it and you believe you deserve to profit off that $500 worth of labor as a multi multimillionaire, you don't believe you owe that guy one single fucking dollar. On what basis? Without his labor you'd have to turn off your stream 'cause you'd have nothing else to watch. You'd have less uploads on your channel. Those people who aren't on your stream would go to other content creators. The people who can no longer watch your react content would watch other content creators wherever they would be found.
You are taking that guy's 500 hours of labor in order to take all these impressions and therefore viewers from every other content creator. If you were to disappear, everyone would be better off, and that is the case actually for any content creator. There'd be less competition in the marketplace. If all content creators disappeared except me, you can better fucking believe my viewership would go up. However, all original content creators have just as much right to be in this space as anyone else. Reactors don't. 
All reactors do is sit and steal from the original content creators. They siphon exposure via impressions to themselves, key people on their channels instead of other peoples, and they flick a few every once in a while to someone else. 

Charlie:
It's never supposed to be piggybacking off of someone else's hard work in order to do nothing for it and make money off it.

DarkViperAU:
Guys, that thing that I do repeatedly, it isn't my goal. Sure, I feel guilty about it quite frequently, apparently, but I still do it. But it's not my goal to do that thing. Cr1TiKaL, if you're so concerned about not reacting well enough to videos, how about you watch them off stream and just make videos about them and don't watch them live. Make your own creative take on another person's work. Why the live component? If you admit, even in your view, you sometimes end up abusing other content creators, why keep doing it? “Hmm. It seems by my own definitions, I abused content creators seven times today. Well, I'm gonna do it tomorrow as well.”.

Charlie:
It's just so disingenuous and DarkViper, I know you watched my content for a long time.

DarkViperAU:
And I remember the day I stopped, I was watching it and I was like “Wait a second, this is just react content.”. And that last video I watched was just him repeating stuff he'd seen on Twitter and with a few dick jokes. Why am I watching this? There has to be better content out there than this. If you read some of the comments under my visional community posts, many people had the same view. You are once upon a time, a decent content creator, but you've become rich and lazy. Like, I'll grant you, you are not as bad as the other three people listed, but oh my god… how you have fallen? Or maybe I just grew up… one of the two.

Charlie:
There's still so many things I could point out in this document that are just blatantly wrong, such as this claim at the bottom: ‘''They will, of course, then upload the stolen content to the YouTube channels as well as further maximize profits that would otherwise again, go to actual content creators.''’ Hey, can I get a source on that? Can I get a, uh, prove on that buddy, please?

DarkViperAU:
Again, assuming people who watch entertainment still want to be entertained, they would have to find entertainment somewhere else. Entertainment costs money, and therefore that money would go to other people. Unless people who watch react content would suddenly just explode if it didn't exist, they would necessarily have to give money to other people. With it in the form of ad watchers or whatever, other people would get more money.

Charlie:
Each of these creators earns on average $20 million a year on the back of unpaid writers and content creators. Hey, can I get a source on that one as well? Where the fuck is my 20 mil a year? What an outrageous number to pull right from your fucking dick hole there.

DarkViperAU:
What is Charlie trying to insinuate here? Like, “Ah, I'm not making $20 million! Okay, maybe 7… 8… 10… maybe. I'm not making 20! Come on now people!”. Was the exact number the point there? What a strange thing to quibble over. “I'm not making 20 million, I'm only making 10 million. Come on now.”. Like I said, on average for those four people, xQc is making 3 million just off his subs. That including donations, ads, bits, sponsor deals. His YouTube's making at least three times this. I have yet to find a content creator who isn't making at least this, if not twice that. “I have not made more than $10 million a year in the entirety of my life.”, what's your problem? Why do you want to act poor for your audience? The point there was on average, Pokimane has so many revenue sources that I can't even count as high. I have yet to find a content creator where this number isn't leased in the ballpark of what they own. Usually it's two or three times this. My cpm is shit, but I talk to a lot of other content creators. I know what other people get in terms of their cpm. I have yet to find someone who isn't making this. You are getting 200 million views a month, and of all the things in the document that you made sure to question, it was how much money you make.
Remember the video from MoistCr1TiKaL that I responded to before? Isn't it funny that he didn't talk about all the content that makes him money? He only wanted to make a video about the content that doesn't make him any money. So important was it to MoistCr1TiKaL to present himself as a person, not making a lot of money. He made that video. “Look, guys, look at all these videos I making that aren't making any money, haha the crazy world of YouTube.”. To the point where I was so disgusted that I had to make a response video, and even Ludwig had to make a video responding to it. Because that's disgusting. You are making an insane amount of money a year, an insane amount. I don't care if it's 10 million or 20.
The point wasn't the amount. It was the contention that you don't deserve all that money. If you used it on stream reacting to a video that a guy spent 500 hours working on and you've watched it for 10 minutes, the guy who made that video probably deserves that money a little bit more than you wouldn't you agree? The amount of effort that went into that content was mainly made by that other dude, but you keep all the money. And you pay in exposure.

Charlie:
Another thing I'd like to point out is every time this whole React content debate comes up. The people that take the most offense to it and make the biggest stink about it are the people that aren't having a problem with people reacting to their content.

DarkViperAU:
I went into such intricate detail to explain that everyone suffers from react content, but those who are reacted to suffer the least. It’s an idea called a negative externality. To go back to my analogy from before, I'm a guy who's looked around and said, “Hey Charlie, you probably shouldn't be stealing a dollar from like a million people.”. Like “Charlie, you're keeping 999,900 of those dollars. Like I, I know you've given that guy a hundred, that's great, but how about you just don't steal the dollar from all those millions of people?” And Charlie's like, “No, fuck you. This is mine.”. And he was once, “Well, you are just complaining 'cause you aren't the guy I'm giving a hundred dollars to.”. Just again. These are analogies to explain ideas. They do not represent numbers that actually exist in real life. MoistCr1TiKaL isn't actually using magic to steal a dollar from everyone. Just to be clear.

Charlie:
It's always a weird dichotomy where the people that are the Mads are the ones that aren't even directly involved in the problem that they're talking about.

DarkViperAU:
Sure. We could use pollution as an example. You've got the people at the top, the polluters who make fuck tons of money polluting the planet. Then you have the people who work for them who make some of that money as well. Then you have literally everyone else who's like, “Can you guys like stop? Including the planet. Like we, we don't work for you, but we do suffer because of what you're doing.”. And the second tier is like, “What the fuck are you complaining, man? I'm getting a great paycheck here.”, the people at the top like “Look, all these fucking people, they don't, they don't even work for us. They don't work for us, they're not out of responsibility.”. Every class except the top, is ultimately worse off. The people in the second class, who get some benefit, are less worse off. But everyone else is the worst off.

Charlie:
The majority of it's always been a really positive relationship between the creator that was reacted to and the person that was reacting to it.

DarkViperAU:
Of course, because in any system you are much better off in grating yourself with the elites than trying to challenge them. This video doesn't benefit me. If I became friends with you despite your exploitation, I would be in a better position. People who are in positions to exploit the most amount of people are the people you wanna be friends with. You do not gain from challenging the powerful. You gain by ingratiating yourself with them. Sure it will take a fuck ton of unpaid labor that that person will then use to enrich themselves, but you'll benefit. You'll get that association. Think of it as an unpaid internship for a very powerful exploitive company. Are you better off having that unpaid internship? Or challenging that company? The little guy doesn't win there. But I care more about being a good person than being an unpaid intern in Charlie's fucking enterprise.

Charlie:
Even if it's like, Hey, that's 70,000 people watching your content on xQc’s stream instead of yours. Well, those 70,000 people may never have found that small channel in the first place, and now maybe some of them do go over there, and he mentions that as like trickle down, react, genomics, or some shit like that. But for a lot of people, that isn't a net positive thing, where there could have been no one that ever found it in the first place.

DarkViperAU:
Right, so I'll try it even simpler. Let's say we have two different realities here in this reality. xQc doesn't use other people's labor to keep himself live longer. He has to expend more energy making a visual content himself so he can't stream as long. So he goes offline. And so all these viewers are like, “Ah, shit, well we've gotta go find something else to do and I still want cement entertainment.”. So they go to this content creator, this content where this graph, “Oh, I've never seen this content creator before.”, and some people go there, there. And so all these viewers will scatter to all these other content creators, right? And this is how things should be.
In this reality, xQc can use high quality content that he himself cannot create to keep himself live as long as possible. Whilst normally he'd have to edit for 20 hours. He can just watch a video for 20 minutes. So he stays live far, far longer. And so all these viewers stay here and because he has more viewers, he's online, other people are finding him too, rather than other content creators. And he gets bigger and bigger, keeps getting recommended. But some of them might say, “Oh, that video xQc is showing… Is that interesting content? I, I can't really tell. May, may, maybe, maybe I’m interested in that. I'm not sure.”, but some of them go check that out. So xQc gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger off the stolen content and a little bit trickles down to everyone else. It's the trickle down theory of react economics. 
So all these viewers who came in 'cause xQc was stealing content, would of course go to other content creators, this guy, this guy, this guy. But because xQc can act as a focal point and capture all these people and give a tiny amount here, it looks like he's doing something great.

Charlie:
But nothing he proves shows that the reaction, like the reactors and their content are taking eyeballs away from other content creators online that have nothing to do with that space. 

DarkViperAU:
We have two realities. People don't go to see a movie and people do go to see a movie. My claim is if they don't go to see a movie, they will do other things. This is not a claim that needs demonstration. It is true because those people wouldn't cease to exist if ‘''Spider-Man: No Way Home''’ didn't exist, then those people would do other things. Some of which will be baseball, Netflix, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch. You can see how that's just obviously true, so we can put that now with react content. If react content didn't exist, then those people would do other things. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, except in the premise that react content shouldn't exist. Everything react content takes is taken from these people, whoever they are, wherever they are. That's just logically true. Unless Charlie wants to claim that the people who watch react content would literally explode. This has to be true by necessity. Therefore, you can understand if react content didn't exist, literally everything else would benefit. 
Because people would spend their time doing other things and accepting my premise that the reactions are exploitive and shouldn't exist, then they are stealing from everything else. This is why I didn't talk about YouTube specifically. I talked about the online creator economy.

Charlie:
Truly disgusting thing to do at the end of it, where he claims that reactors are on the same levels, as sexual abuse criminal, who would spike someone's drink in whatever other disgusting shit he said. And all reactors are bad people.

DarkViperAU:
My point was consent matters, and the idea of asking consent after you've already done the thing is clearly not good. That is not how consent works, and I made flippant offhand examples like I didn't even say it explicitly. My exact words were at the very end to highlight the absurdity of that position.

“''If you meet a reactor at a party, I suggest covering your glass or outright tell them you don't want them to fuck you, because they seem keen to take a person's silence for consent.''”

Again, hearkening back to the idea that it's okay to take another person's content without consent 'cause they have yet to say no. That was the analogy. It was hyperbole. To explain the absurdity of that idea of consent, the idea of doing something that you know someone might not be okay with not asking for consent and then stopping only when they say no is not how consent works.
“While reactors dismiss the idea of paying workers for their labour, or giving them a say over who can profit from it, they will also attack the idea of informed consent as a concept. Stating that they will steal as much of a person's labour as they desire before the person finds out and tells them to stop. In other words, if you feel pressured to not cause a fuss about someone stealing your content (perhaps due to fearing the powerful reactors and their audience will threaten your livelihood with backlash) or if you are not knowledgeable enough to say no (you don't know another person is out there exploiting your labour) or if you physically can't say no (maybe because a reactor has spiked your drink at a party) a reactor believes they can do whatever they want to you. Consent to reactors means they can do whatever they want to you unless that you have explicitly told them no. Going to a party with a reactor must be a scary thing.”
These are flippant comments to explain the absurdity of that idea of consent.
I want MoistCr1TiKaL to come out and say it is perfectly fine to do something to another person that they may not like. You do not need to ask for consent. And you can do that thing as many times as you want, and then when they say no, then you stop. I want him to come out and say, that is what consent is. He won't, of course, either what you're doing is okay and you do not need consents or you need consent and you should ask for it first. There's no middle ground. You either need it or you don't. It's not saying that only matters after you do what you wanna do.
I just wanna say thank you, Charlie, for not even linking the document, making it so your misrepresentations will be found by the least amount of people. Can you imagine making a response video to a video that doesn't even exist? Misrepresenting it for 25 minutes and then making sure that it is as hard as possible for people to find out that you're misrepresenting it. If you like, I will update my position on Charlie. Charlie is a person who does bad things, that he doesn't understand the bad. Maybe he does actually have good intentions and he does not understand how he's exploiting people. I just find it hard to believe that a person can see another person work 500 hours on a piece of work, take it, give that person no money, and then get yourself 20 grand off it and feel like you don't owe that person anything. Of course, I will applaud Charlie by coming out ahead of my video. He can undercut it so heavily that it will no longer be taken seriously. The ideas within it will not be looked at with an open mind.
Good job using your platform to crush down descent against your empire of unpaid labor. I'm sorry that I personally think that if a person spends a fuck ton of labor on something that you as a multi multimillionaire should give them some money. I know I am screwed because the average person does not understand the complicated dynamics of how these online platforms work. But oddly, it seems Charlie doesn't understand either. Which both explains the last video that he made where he was terribly wrong, and this one where he's even more wrong. How can a person have gone this far in their career and understand so little about the platforms that they use?
Understand this was brief. I didn't spend much time arguing for my position, simply explaining it. The document argues for it. If you feel like you still don't understand my point, or you still disagree with it, Read it. The link will be in the description. It annoys me 'cause it's meant to be a draft script for a video that I would eventually make. So obviously I would've expanded upon it, but I guess I don't get that luxury now 'cause Charlie has stolen that from me, just like he steals from everyone else. You may still disagree after that point, but at the very least you'll understand my point, which Charlie clearly does not. 

Sources:
Original 14 page document [https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRid-d3hQpDnTpAlIBWICuZO4J_C2j0FX-PqT2HPEGLDpTy_jhebAiXbBtn-6OwdPvY_mj0VYDfkHPj/pub How The React Grift Works By DarkViperAU (google.com)]
penguinz0’s response to the document [https://youtu.be/FAPDd-cB8Do]
penguinz0’s video about short form content [https://youtu.be/MVxzuE392n4]
DarkViperAU’s response [https://youtu.be/HvrbBz-8FBA]
Ludwig’s video about short form content [https://youtu.be/k4hdXDqJS_I]
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 [https://www.youtube.com/@mst3k]
Diagram #1 [https://imgur.com/a/zspQdDF Imgur: The magic of the Internet]
Diagram #2 [https://imgur.com/a/vwlSTft Imgur: The magic of the Internet]
Ray William Johnson [https://www.youtube.com/@RayWilliamJohnson]
penguinz0 YouTube statistics [https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCq6VFHwMzcMXbuKyG7SQYIg Social Blade Stats]
xQc’s Twitch statistics [https://twitchtracker.com/xqc/subscribers TwitchTracker]
xQc’s YouTube statistics [https://socialblade.com/youtube/c/xqcow_ Social Blade Stats]
xQc’s livestream [https://www.twitch.tv/xqc]

Why I Spoke Out Against Reaction Content - Feat. MoistCr1tikal

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRXtBniKtHk Why I Spoke Out Against Reaction Content - Feat. MoistCr1tikal]

DarkViperAU:
Hey everyone. I tried to set up like a teleprompter and stuff and read from it so it didn't look like I was reading from a script. I sucked at it. So just, you know, just listen to this in audio or something. 'cause I'm gonna be reading a script. Response videos, wow!
Hello everyone. This is a response to Cr1TiKaL’s response to my response to his response, which was a response to my draft script I made for a video. We may chat afterwards, but I think this video will help give the rest of you some context about this whole scenario.
As many of you know, on more than one occasion, I've come out swinging against the idea of react content. A few years ago, I made videos responding to Asmongold's defense of React content, and this experience taught me. While his arguments were very poor, it was probably wrong to single him out for doing it as this sort of content is an epidemic that has only gotten worse. In fact, while I've spoken to Asmongold privately and I do believe he knows what he's doing is wrong, he still does the same react content he always has. Despite this, I still decided should this topic ever come up again. I would speak more generally. I would not focus on one particular content creator.
So recently, Hassan Pike has said many frankly horrible things on his stream, highlighting that he feels entitled to use any other person's labor exclusively for his own profit and without their consent. I found this frankly humorous coming from a socialist, given that socialism is directly opposed to such ideas believing bare minimum that profit should be shared among the workers, and workers should have a say over who can profit from their labor. The reason there are references to capitalism and spiking people's drinks in that script was originally because they related to particular things Hassan said in his stream, explaining the flaws in his reasoning. However, I wanted to be general, so I scrubbed specific references to a sign from the script and referenced a group of people whenever I felt it necessary to highlight the sort of creator or content I was referring to. In the 14 pages I referenced that group of content creators three times. 
So why was I mad in my response to Cr1TiKaL's video? I wrote a script arguing that reactors are exploiting the labor of original content creators and what benefit reactors claim to give to others is ultimately illusory. While some individual content creators benefit, as a whole original content creators are worse off and I consider this an indisputable fact given the nature of how the online content creator marketplace works. Cr1TiKaL's video, however, painted my impassioned writings as ‘DarkViperAU called MoistCr1TiKaL a Rapist’. It was the first thing he did, and he maintained this throughout. This was not the response I expected, although that is largely because I expected no response at all. I was not happy that a significant portion of the discussion around something I was very passionate about and a script I was quite proud of was being reduced to whether or not reactors are out there raping people. This is at best a misunderstanding of two lines in the whole document, and so I rightly considered this to be exceptionally uncharitable.
MoistCr1TiKaL is not a bad person. He is correct to say that many of the general statements I made about reactors in regards to their motivations probably do not apply to him. This is of course, the downside of speaking generally, I was at the time very angry. I would hope under better circumstances I would've been willing to admit that Cr1TiKaL's motivations likely differ from others. Rather than simply doubling down and implying everyone who does react content is the same. It would be more correct to say that all reactors are doing a bad thing as opposed to all reactors are bad people. Less catchy though. In saying that, there is an outcry against reactors like every few years. I understand why viewers don't understand why it's harmful, but reactors probably shouldn't be continually hearing this outcry and still concluding there is nothing suss going on. In Cr1TiKaL's newest video he said that if he linked to my text document, he'd run the risk of people dog piling me. It's a text document with absolutely no links to anything related to me. There isn't even a comment section. That's just silly. 
It is not conceivable that you looked at the document and said, oh, if I showed people this, there'd be some dog piling on that DarkViperAU. You probably just didn't think about it. In reference to my Twitter exchange with one of my viewers, I understand that you may take umbrage with these words that I wrote after the fact for a different purpose, and that is fine. But your presentation of these words were as if this was the main thesis of my script. It is what you dedicated the first six minutes of your video discussing and brought it up many times after that whilst calling my script an unhinged rant. Many people came away sincerely believing all I was doing was saying reactors are rapists, and that's absurd. 
While I'm reading this script, I realize I mainly just pointed things that I disagree with. Obviously, it was a very good response video, as in, because I'm only highlighting my disagreements, it may seem like I'm being overly critical of Charlie. Now, that's not my intention. I appreciate his response. In regards to your video about short form content, I was being kind due to promising myself to not start drama this year. I, of course, failed. Not in the way that I expected. Your entire video is wrong because you sought to show what sort of money people get from short form content, concluding it was next to nothing. Which is false. You even included a recommendation that you shouldn't make short form content for that purpose. People in the comments section were saying things like, Whoa. I had no idea Beluga made no money, and I really respect that ‘Daily Dose of Internet’ guy now, insinuating that he too makes no money. 
The main problem with your video, Charlie, is that you never explicitly defined what short form content was. So if viewers assumed every video under eight or 10 minutes made no money. You also implied that multiple times. The video not only gives a false perception of what content creators make, but also steers content creators away from making content that could actually be profitable for them. I'm also not sure why you kept jumping between eight and 10 minutes for the necessary length to get money. You can get mid-rolls after eight minutes, so that's all that matters. Even if some information in the video is accurate, it doesn't matter. 
Your primary goal to show what short content channels make doesn't happen in that video, and your recommendations are incorrect. Thus it should not remain on your channel. Like if the video had been “Hey, I make no money from #shorts content”, aces. 
But it isn't that. Charlie argues that I should have expected the outcome that my script would be given to creators and a response would happen. I disagree that this was a reasonable expectation. Even in hindsight, I still don't think it would've been reasonable to expect. Key to notice is that no one else listed in that document made a video. Hassan does what he always does when people point out that he's a greedy, exploitive capitalist, who is the product of gross nepotism and grasps people by claiming to be a socialist. He threw a hissy fit on stream and called me some mean names. If I had mentioned someone else's name in that group other than you, perhaps putting Mizkif there, he probably deserves to be there more than you do. Than Mizkif would've gone on stream gone “LOL I'm not reading this, this guy is dumb” and then it would've ended.
While I am relatively speaking, a very large creator, I'm still not normally front page news. I say things all the time that if a larger content creator said them, it would be all over LivestreamFail and everyone would be throwing a hissy fit. Everything I said in that document I have said a dozen times over the years. No one cared. I was more interested in getting the script outta my head than anyone actually reading it, because when I get a script in my head, as rare as that is, it distracts me from my more important work until I give it to someone. I was, and still am. very proud of that script, and I think it is a good read. But I didn't expect anything more than a tiny fraction of my normal Rambles audience to actually read it. Although arguably many people were just going off a brief summary that I put near the actual link to the document, so maybe not many people read it actually.
I have received many messages from creators tired of react content suggesting that my words will achieve substantive change. I disagree. As much as I appreciate Charlie suggested changes to his own content. Content aggregation. By that I mean, bringing all the good content to one place is very profitable, and the service is appreciated by some viewers, even if it ultimately does exploit those who made the content in the first place. As long as it is possible to make money this way, as long as there's a market for it, it will never truly die. Thus, I consider my script more like an old man. Just wanting people to understand the hellscape we find ourselves in, rather than “Let us pick up arms and throw the reactors on the fire!”. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to be wrong, if that figuratively happens and everyone just abandons all the reactors, aces.
Charlie references my analogies and suggests they were not good. References to spiking people's drinks were good analogies. But without their original context, I will grant that they may not have been as clear as they otherwise would've been. But even looking at them now, I still think they're quite clear. When the script was released, the most I heard from one person was that they could be taken in the wrong way. But I wasn't motivated to change them because I wanted to get back to my actual work. I honestly didn't give them any thought as they were, but two lines on 14 pages.
Statements that imply “If they haven't said no yet, then I have consent” are terrible. As it would necessarily have to imply that other terrible acts are also justifiable, which is what those references show, and what I further try to clarify on Twitter. This does not mean reactors are rapists or rape anyone or that react content is rape. But the idea of consent as being ‘everything is okay until they say no’ is clearly bad and might lead a person to harm if they sincerely believe that was acceptable. I'm gonna be a bit combative here, I'm still surprised I have to say that. There is a principle of charity in interpretation of people's words. No charity was given in those interpretations, by anyone. No one could read that document and be like “Hmm, DarkViper is saying rapists are reactors and reactors rape people, and reaction content is rape.”. Nothing like that is in there. That is the least charitable interpretation I've ever received in all my 10 years of being on YouTube.
I will also grant that calling Cr1TiKaL, rich and lazy wasn't necessary. And I'll be honest, that wasn't all that I said. I just had the sense to remove other instances where I stepped over the line when speaking passionately. I debated whether to leave this next part in 'cause it might make me sound smug, but I think it's good information. Charlie called these ‘ad hominems’. Insulting a person is not the same thing as an ad hominem. An ad hominem is when you insult a person instead of addressing their arguments. I did address your arguments. I was just an asshole while doing it. I'm sorry that my criticism of one aspect of your content implied that it was all that you do. I'll immediately grant you are not the worst offender of the practice of React content, nor were you the worst person I mentioned. I sincerely wish you the best in your larger productions. I still have your ''2019 Guy'' song in my playlist somewhere.
I do have a take issue with your criticizing me for unfairly simplifying your content, and then you do the exact same thing to me. Me getting angry and ranting is actually quite rare. I have my commentary videos like you do, both standalone and as well as my Ramble series, which I've spent a ridiculous amount of time on. I have cooking videos, singing videos, I speedrun Dark Souls III, I even speedrun eating a Vegemite pizza. I've done VR games, Minecraft speedruns, Among Us, Fall Guys. I've played dozens of other games. Hell, I started my career in religious, political, and social commentary videos. If Rockstar died tomorrow, I'd still have a career. But true right, it would be a smaller one.
I'm ultimately unsure how this video will be received. Perhaps we will think I'm not being sufficiently conciliatory, especially given that I respect that Charlie was willing to say that he made some errors, and I hope I've communicated that I made some too. But please keep in mind: in terms of monthly views, Charlie is literally 20 times my size. Both his videos about me got on trending and a significant amount of views on my video are just his viewers coming to press dislike. The overwhelming vast majority of people who hear about me through this exchange will never watch my videos or read my words at best, absent Charlie's response video, maybe a thousand people would've read the script I wrote and many would've disagreed with it. With the response, not only have I gained nothing but literally millions of people remember this in a few months as DarkViperAU was an asshole to Charlie, and he thinks that reactors are rapists. I don't really understand how Charlie can repeatedly claim to have respected me and he didn't want to dogpile me, but took an unfinished script and put it on trending, which resulted in people dog piling on me. 
I would argue I had a gun, something you can justifiably respond to, but I don't think hitting me with a nuke as he did was his only option. There were better, perhaps, equivalent ways to respond to my words. At the end of the day. I did bring it upon myself. I did release that unfinished script. While I did think it was the best decision at the time, obviously in hindsight, it clearly was not. Although I do not disagree with anything that I wrote. Of all the things I've said over the last couple of days, the only thing I really disagree with was the way that I presented Charlie. I do not agree that I presented his character fairly, and for that I am sorry. 
What a weird couple of days. I tried so hard to work on Pacifist%, 'cause that's all I really wanna do, and somehow I just keep getting myself into trouble. It's like reality itself does not want me to finish that video, even though it's like six months overdue.

Sources:
Initial videos responding to Asmongold’s defense of react content* Part 1 [https://youtu.be/E2aGMAuFLL0] 
* Part 2 [https://youtu.be/tdVhDyFHwTg]
* Part 3 [https://youtu.be/D1BN0ftxz-c]
Original 14 page document [https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRid-d3hQpDnTpAlIBWICuZO4J_C2j0FX-PqT2HPEGLDpTy_jhebAiXbBtn-6OwdPvY_mj0VYDfkHPj/pub How The React Grift Works By DarkViperAU]
penguinz0’s response to the document [https://youtu.be/FAPDd-cB8Do]
DarkViperAU’s response [https://youtu.be/cqWNmXYC76A]
penguinz0’s response [https://youtu.be/3raLgXC0czs]
penguinz0’s video about short form content [https://youtu.be/MVxzuE392n4]
DarkViperAU’s response [https://youtu.be/HvrbBz-8FBA]
Four factors of fair use [https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors]

This Is Why Everyone Should Be Motivated To Combat Reactors

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rylwib7pASo I Was Right. I Told You So.]

'''DarkViper:''' Hello everyone. Welcome to the introductory video for a series where I explain the inner workings of social media and how react content harms everyone except the reactors. Reactors to mean the people who watch videos and pause occasionally. I spent the last month making 7 or so videos that will release one a day after this one, and I would have made them when they were more relevant but I was in the middle of a major project that I promised to complete. Better late than never as they say. This video exists to give you a taste of what is in store and to explain the truly strange series of events that lead to these videos coming to exist in the first place. I also want to argue why I personally believe drama is a terrible mechanism for growth. '''''“So what the hell was with all that react drama 2 months ago?”'''''3 years ago on May 26th 2019, I released the first video episode of a comedy series called ‘Can You Complete GTA 5 Without Wasting Anyone?’ It was my second successful YouTube series, which led to many more episodes being created over time. I completed recording the footage necessary to cover the entire game in April 2020 but alas, even now, in May 2022, I still haven’t finished editing it. This is largely because the series takes a staggering amount of time to edit. Not only does the raw footage total over 1000 hours, but the actual editing is by far the most complicated I do, pushing me to the limits of what I can even conceive of. It is fair to say that I can make dozens of easier videos for far greater exposure and profit in the time it takes to edit just one Pacifist episode. But I love that series, and I love how much other people love it as well, so I make sure to push aside my business interests and make sure to complete an episode every once and while even if it is at the expense of everything else.Noticing how long it had been since there had been an episode in the series, on February 3rd 2022 I stated publicly in multiple places, “Another episode is 6 months overdue, I will not do anything else until I get another episode out”. This of course I fully planned to stick to, but alas I found myself constantly distracted.So around this time large streamers such as, XQC, Pokimane, Hassan, were rebroadcasting anime and tv series on Twitch.tv. Each of these episodes would have cost the copyright owners hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars per to produce, and their rebroadcasting therefore increased the risk of legal challenges against Twitch as they hold a very precarious position in regards to their liability for copyrighted content on their platform. As these creators felt untouchable due to their wealth and popularity, each felt comfortable using this content to drive traffic to their channels, and thus away from others who were not equally willing to break the law, the platform rules, and threaten everyone’s livelihoods. These people gave no thought to the possibility, regardless of how slight, that their actions could jeopardize the careers of thousands of people who rely on Twitch to survive. It is rare that such a frank disregard for the well-being of others falls into my lap. I saw this as an escalation of the exploitative business practices that I called out Asmongold for back in 2020, criticism which slightly predated the last time large Twitch streamers were criticized by a wide selection of YouTubers due to many Twitch streamers being little more than YouTube rebroadcasting machines.Immediately after this I became aware of another scandal. Hasan Piker was criticized by the creator Jay Exci for his practice of taking other people’s videos and restreaming them without doing anything substantive to transform the content. Jay Exci holds a position on react content that is much softer than mine, as I find the belief that pressing a pause button can transform anything to be fairly absurd. But regardless, the general shitshow between Jay and Hasan added more fuel to my desire to formally speak on the topic in part because I consider Hasan’s business model of content aggregation to conflict with his political stances, and to be quite exploitative as all react content is. This will be expanded upon in future videos but for the time being this is a fine summation.These scandals made me very angry, as I consider them both to involve abuses of power and to be representative of an worsening unjust system where those who already have success have more success made easier for them to achieve at every turn to the detriment of everyone else. So when I sat down to fulfill my promise to finish writing and editing my new episode of pacifist%, I could not fully dedicate myself to do so. I consider myself to be in a position of influence within the domains relevant to these scandals, and I therefore could not stop obsessing in my head about what I wanted to say about these perceived abuses and it kept me from focusing on my work. After 4 days I had enough of my inner conflict, and therefore resolved to take a little bit of time to put what was in my mind into a script for a hypothetical video. My goal was to point out the market impact that people who watch and reupload other people’s videos cause, that seemingly few are aware of. I was not criticizing people who make something their own using portions of someone else’s work, but those who upload unaltered copies of other people’s work, with the addition of the handful of times they press the pause button. The original work which often takes hundreds of hours to create, while the pause button takes minutes. I assure you this is explained in far greater detail in the second video in this series.But writing it brought me no peace, as in no sense did an unseen document inform or help anyone. I therefore released the initial 3000 words to my viewers, trying to make the document to be a general criticism of react content and not necessarily requiring a deeper understanding of the scandals that lead to its creation. I immediately realized once it was released that my chosen style of writing was a format that was meant to be read aloud in a YouTube video, and it contained too great a reliance on a person already having a foundational knowledge of the industries and practices I was critiquing. While I have been creating content online for 10 years obviously a general audience has not, and even many creators seem to not reflect too much on the exact nature of the industry they exist in. So after release, I scrambled to add additional information and make changes, the result was a new document that was double in size with a somewhat conflicting style and tone.
But it got done, and I felt 6000 words in 7 or so hours is quite good. I felt satisfied, I still feel so now even after later finding out a few errors did exist in the document. I had at least done something to attempt to sway public opinion on what I see as the systematic abuse of others, even if the effect would be tiny, so I went back to working on my project. I only commented again further when I was in bed and someone on twitter pressed me about the unconsidered implications of an offhand comment that I made towards the end of the script. I responded while still being in a state of anger, obviously not a good state of mind if you want to be tactful especially in a domain where people have little interest in the actual intent behind your words, but that will be more explained in the future videos.
'''''“The aftermath - everyone responding to the document”'''''I did not expect everything that followed, partly because I had no expectations for the future. I considered the matter closed, dealt with, at least for the time being, as I wanted to get back to my actual work. Even in hindsight, I still don’t think I could have seen the result coming, especially given the initial responses were either positive or requests to be more specific about the form of react content I was criticizing. The last time I even made videos about the topic of react content focusing on Asmongold’s one true wish to reupload the entirety of YouTube to his Twitch and YouTube channels, Asmon made sure to address this criticism privately with me. This in direct contrast to effectively any other criticism he has ever received, He clearly wanted as little attention paid to my criticism as possible, and this experience led me to expect that other reactors would have some degree of self-awareness, and thus would act similarly rather than risk raising additional ire about a form of content that has been called abusive as long as the platform has existed.
I suspect the unforeseeable response that Charlie made to my script came about for three reasons. The first, he doesn’t get criticized as much as anyone else mentioned, having as much higher general positive public perception, thus likely considered this noteworthy for that alone. The second was the comments I made on twitter which, while not a part of the script, were more inflammatory and thus gave something more solid and simple to grab onto. Lastly, because he already knew of me and had followed my work to some extent which I was unaware of. Absent Charlie’s response, my script would have sat online until such a time where I felt motivated to do more with it.While I had the goal of putting react content out of my mind so I could focus on my work, obviously the exact opposite of my goal ended up happening, I now had more distractions to obsess over. After I resolved things with Charlie, to what extent that could be resolved, I went back to completing my project. But even then, at all times my mind was half working on scripts for videos that I could create the moment I was once more free to do so. I wrote dozens of pages of notes offhandedly while I worked on my other project, so that I would not forget all the things I wanted to say to all those who commented on the fall out between me and Charlie. It did not help that some of the things that were said were so obviously false, and in many case so stupid that it beggered belief. At least the very positive reception to the latest episode of Pacifist% suggests these distractions likely did not impact its quality, merely the speed in which it was produced.'''''“Why don’t you just stop getting involved in drama?”'''''I want to make one thing clear, I do not consider drama a good tool to grow a YouTube channel and I am deeply skeptical of the motivations for people who claim it is. I consider it a waste of time due to the opportunity cost, as there is always something better I could be doing for my business and it is better to make friends then enemies. The impact of drama on anything is uncertain and is usually short lived. Bad Bunny skyrocketed into infamy as the greedy Twitch streamer who believes everyone should give her $5, her clip is still occasionally referenced, but she is effectively a dead streamer despite the massive attention. Recently a scandal occurred where a PC company scammed a streamer out of their deservedly won giveaway PC. Dozens of videos from the highest profile tech channels covered the story, collectively millions of views. She gained 30k followers while being a person clearly in the right and she went from averaging 20 viewers a stream, to averaging 60 viewers a stream. With Charlie and my back and forth, I lost 600 subscribers then gained 1000 subscribers. To put this in perspective, my video on Michael not being in Witness protection that I threw together on a whim in 6 hours has gained me 25k subscribers.You can gain, you can be harmed, or both, but it rarely competes with just making good content. Rolling the dice and hoping for a gain, especially as an already successful creator, is just a waste of time and ignores the less material realities of this industry. Much of the longevity of a creator on YouTube is determined by how readily they can keep themselves healthy and in a positive mental state. If you can’t, you burn out and quit. Drama always zaps your energy as you are bombarded with criticism and scrutiny from new people who have no idea who you are. You can see 100 supportive comments but it is hard to ignore when some stranger tells you to end yourself. Even when entirely false, like 99% of everything ever said on the livestreamfail subreddit, negativity becomes burdensome.More importantly, people who come to learn of you through drama are not necessarily the same people who would have an interest in watching your content, thus will disappear quickly. Untargeted awareness marketing is trash for this reason. Charlie making a video about me that had absolutely nothing to do with the content I produce, and my response equally having nothing to do with my content, is obviously not going to be a better way to bring forth new viewers to watch my normal videos compared to just spending time making a really good video and allowing the algorithm to find me more viewers who would actually want to watch me. I just consider drama to be inefficient as a tool for growth, used only by those who either have built a brand around drama, or those who have nothing else to offer. Seeking out drama for growth is done either by the stupid or those who are creatively bankrupt, as they have no other alternatives. That is not to criticize those who find themselves involved in drama due to circumstances outside of their control and who just try to make the most of it, you have little other choice.The idea that drama is just such an amazing way to grow is generally spread by those who want to use this claim to dismiss any criticism they receive. How often do you hear of a person being criticized and the very first words out of their mouth is “they are just chasing clout”. It is a very easy tool to signal to your audience to shut their eyes, cover their ears, and to continue to worship you. Do you know a better way to grow? Just collaborate with people. Little chance of it blowing up in your face, no one raging at you in comments, and you get presented in a positive light to a new audience that you can at least have some assurance could be interested in your content if the other creator makes something similar to your own.Bottomline, I would have been perfectly happy creating a script and potentially a later video that was only watched by the people who normally watch my content. It certainly would have saved me some time as I would have had less to respond to now.'''''“If drama isn’t great, then why do you get involved in drama so much?”.'''''I honestly don’t think I get involved in that much drama but I guess it is all relative. But the drama I have gotten involved in can largely be said to come from two sources. The first is drama I bring upon myself due to believing someone else has misinformed and or caused harm to others. I seek to correct them for the benefit of my viewers, and to selfishly silence the guilt I feel for not having pursued a career where I more directly help others. I additionally hate anything that I feel is treating others unfairly and I often will pick small fights related to such things even if they are not particularly meaningful to others. I am not perfect, I often do not go about doing this in a good way. Such situations can make me quite angry and this can inspire me to assume that the other person is acting out of malice rather simply out of error. This can inspire me to make judgments about other creators that can be unwarranted. You could say I frequently forget to apply Hanlon's Razor, ‘never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence’.The second source of drama for me is when I feel I need to explain why I have behaved as I have. Even this video fits into this category. I despise not being understood, and being perceived as being someone that I don’t believe I am. Any time I am criticized I want to give an accounting for myself, explain why I believe I acted as I did, and whether or not I consider my actions justified. I do not like pretending to be something I am not, I am very forthright about who I am, often to a fault as I tend to overshare personal details about myself. None of us fully understand ourselves, we are biased in our assessment, and at times other’s can know us better than we know ourselves. If I am not really who I think I am I want to know that, an understanding of self is important to me. I not only reflect often on my impact on those around me, but I do my best to leave people better off from an association than they were prior. I won’t always succeed, I can be emotional just like anyone else, and I will wrong people, but I will always try my damndest to right any wrong I become convinced I have caused.The things you call drama, and that I call drama simply for expediency, are things I am passionate about and care for. I have literally a hundred things I could do with my time that would serve my business better. I engage in this form of content for non-business reasons. I came to YouTube and began my career here discussing political, social, philosophical, and religious topics. I pursued education in community services, psychology, and even criminology, in part out of a desire to help others lead better lives and to assist them in warding off the forms of intense sadness that was pervasive throughout my early life. I already have fame and wealth. I don't exactly avoid increasing either, but rarely is either the root cause of my actions. Only two things stimulate my life, helping others, and creating things that I and others can enjoy. If I can do both at the same time, as i think i've done with this series, it is a match made in heaven.I hope you enjoy the rest of the videos in this series, they were a pain to make, but I hope they achieve some good.

Reactors: The Professional Parasites

'''Original video:''' [https://youtu.be/Irk8h0ax5aY Reactors: The Professional Parasites]


[[Image:image6.png.png|top]]


'''DarkViper:''' Over the last few months, I have learned that few seem to understand why react content is harmful. Even among those who dislike it, their reasoning is often as simplistic as “it’s boring” or “it’s lazy”, while the real problem is much more insidious. Reactors are playing a game with our online content creator ecosystem where everyone loses except the reactors themselves. The premise of this video is that react content is a system of exploitation that siphons an incalculable amount of money and exposure away from the hard working straight into the pockets of the incredibly lazy. In this video I will be going over these topics [shown on screen] and looking at a bit of data, in order to establish that this is undeniably true. By nature of the topic, this video contains some things that a general audience shouldn't know about YouTube but everything in this video is crucial to understanding my points so I will just take the risk. I consider my personal standards for what is justifiable fairly irrelevant, I am not a moral authority. This video is not an argument for an idea of how society should function or what actions should be permissible or on what basis, although it may initially appear to be that. In reality, so confident am I that the current state of affairs would be considered abhorrent by the vast majority if it was understood, that all I seek to do with this video is give people the bigger picture which they may otherwise have not known about. Remember that a perfect scam is one where it is hard for the victim to even understand how they are being scammed.'''DarkViper: '''So, let us start small. Reality has a problem. It is undeniably far easier and more cost effective to steal or copy something than it is to create something for the first time. Therefore, for as long as someone has been willing to work hard to make something, someone has been willing to take it and thus avoid the effort and cost required to produce it in the first place. Due to its advantages, any unchecked system runs the risk of being ruled by those who are most efficient at stealing work rather than by those who do the work that people covet enough to steal. I argue that we are in a largely unchecked system here in the online creator economy, and that this process is slowly happening, especially in livestreaming.'''W''hat is a reactor?''DarkViper: '''Reactors for the purpose of this video are those who reupload other people’s creative works as a substitute for creating something themselves simply by watching the other person’s content. So the sleepers, the leavers, the eaters, those that believe themselves picasso because they can hit the pause button. This is in contrast to those who use portions of another person’s work to produce something that stands distinct and apart from the original. This second group does not take all the value from the original work, therefore what they create does not stand as a substitute for the original. Reactors on the other hand, do take all value from the original, as they are not seeking to create something new but instead to present the unaltered original work and their first impression of it to their audience. This content is usually easily identifiable because the title is effectively the same as the original, you have no need to watch the original work after the reaction, and/or you can honestly say you have watched the original work just by watching the reaction. There is a clear difference between someone using some of another person’s work to create something distinct and original, and someone simply presenting another person’s work to their audience. It is disingenuous to suggest otherwise.'''DarkViper: '''Rather than being bogged down with a history of reaction content, this video will almost entirely focus on the present, and while the principles of what I am talking about apply to every online platform; the analytics and algorithmic principles will largely come from YouTube. This is in part because YouTube is better with both of these things compared to other platforms, but also because as you are watching this video I know you are familiar to some degree with the platform. Despite my focus on YouTube, remember that I am speaking about the wider creator economy, all social media. A loss in viewership for a TikToker is just as meaningful to me as a loss in viewership for a YouTuber.'''''What Are YouTube and Its Creators Trying To Do?'''''Every day, each of us interface with complex systems and machinery that we know how to use, but have only a vague idea of how they can perform their function. GPS trackers, phones, computers - even your toaster: you might know how to use these things, but explaining precisely how they work, let alone how to build one, is likely beyond your understanding. YouTube is the same for the users; and frankly, many content creators, as anything deeper than a surface-level understanding is really unnecessary. '''DarkViper:''' It is essential to understand that each day there is a finite number of people in this world with a finite amount of time. YouTube wants people to spend as much of their limited free time as possible on their platform rather than anywhere else. 


'''DarkViper:''' To help facilitate this, YouTube has an algorithm that presents thumbnails of videos, also called impressions, with the goal of matching a person with something they actually want to watch. These are different from views, which come when a person actually clicks the impressions. YouTube’s problem is that the more time people spend searching for content, the less time they can spend actually watching the content which earns YouTube revenue. Worse, the longer it takes someone to find something to watch, the more likely they are to leave the website altogether. YouTube can only present a finite amount of impressions each day, therefore each impression is seen as a valuable resource that they don’t want to waste. Before showing each impression, the algorithm must carefully assess both the likelihood that it WILL be clicked, as well as how much TIME will likely be spent on the platform if it IS clicked.

The algorithm has to judge ''not just'' how much time will be spent watching the video, but also how likely more videos are to be watched after the first video. YouTube’s accuracy with impressions is usually between 2-10% depending on the type of content. This is known as the click-through-rate; the % of clicks an impression gets versus how many times it is shown. The higher the average time spent on the platform from an impression click the more likely YouTube is to risk one of its valuable impressions on that content. Bottom line, YouTube doesn’t care what content you are watching as long as it is keeping you here.'''DarkViper:''' We content creators on YouTube are different. We want you on this platform, yes, but we do care what you watch. Each content creator is attempting to influence as many people as possible to watch their content instead of anyone else’s. We are effectively running a store in a market and attempting to get you to spend your limited time on us. We want you to click on our videos, ignoring everyone else’s that are presented to you. Whenever someone on this platform gains some of your finite time, that gain is a loss for whatever you would have spent your time on had they not succeeded in taking you from that course. You also lose in a sense because doing one thing prevents you from doing something else, this is the implied opportunity cost in every decision you make. Given that you are already on YouTube, the most likely other path would have been looking for and then watching a different video. If the video you clicked didn’t exist, you might have clicked the video that the algorithm would have served instead, or another video on the same page, or you may have failed to find anything for 5 minutes and decided to leave to instead watch Tiktok videos, giving the benefit of your time to their creators. These days users get the vast majority of their content from recommendations, or end up viewing other content after getting a recommendation. For example, going to a channel page to watch more, finding a playlist of the content just recommended to you, or subscribing because of a recommendation. If you aren’t in people’s recommendations, it doesn’t matter if they know your name, they are not watching your content. 

'''DarkViper:''' People rarely go to YouTube to find specific videos and then leave once they see them. In most instances, people go to YouTube to search for content to fill the spare time they have to spend. For us creators, the more of your time we get, the faster we grow, and the more money we are given. If we don’t get enough of your time, we die, figuratively speaking, and as at the bare minimum we can no longer do this as a career. There are 30 to 50 million creators on YouTube depending on how wide your criteria, and over 2 billion people access YouTube at least once a month. <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#3c4043;">If these people only watched one creator each, creators would get about 40 to 67 views per video, which is far from what is necessary for a career. <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#3c4043;">From a business perspective, we upload videos to take a greater portion of the market for ourselves away from others, and to capture a greater portion of the limited time each of you spends on YouTube every day. There is obviously not enough for everyone.'''''Why do many of the large creators do reaction content?''DarkViper: '''Being a YouTuber means you largely get out what you put in, you can always work more to get more. Anything you do that isn’t working is therefore a loss of both revenue and exposure, as you could otherwise have created content that would have generated both. So when you start as a YouTuber and attempt to make it your job, you try and put in as much time as you are mentally and physically able. If you achieve some success, this brings money which you can then use to effectively give yourself more free time to potentially spend on YouTube. You get better hardware to make editing faster and easier, you buy better software, better stock footage, you pay someone to mow your lawn, wash your clothes, whatever the inconvenience can reduce it. You essentially increase your potential efficiency by removing unnecessary burdens on your time. This creates a feedback loop, the more efficient you are, the more money you get, which enables you to become more efficient, which gets you more money and so on. But eventually you hit a wall, you are only one person with a finite amount that you can physically or mentally deal with in your job. So you either stop here, and just rely on expanding and refining your own skill set to increase your efficiency and growth, or you give up some degree of creative control and find someone to help you. Thinking up ideas, researching, writing scripts, set design, set building, filming, editing, rendering, creating thumbnails, drawing, whatever it is; your goal is to find a person whose time you can buy with your money. The more people who help you, the more efficient you can become, meaning you make more money, which means you can get more people, which makes you more efficient and so on. Obviously in the real world it isn’t that simple especially with creative endeavors like YouTube. While your channel becomes more efficient in terms of its output, you will become less personally involved the more you delegate to others. 

More of your time will be spent managing and finding others to perform tasks, which can impact the quality of the product you once produced alone. Most YouTubers stop at getting one or two people to help them to do things that are particularly time intensive or things that they simply wouldn’t do if they didn’t have help.But others do go to the extreme, becoming an entire enterprise with dozens of people working for them. 




'''LinusTechTips:''' Alright, so we are hiring a full-time writer, a full-time social media coordinator, full-time executive assistant, full-time tool designer, manufacturing engineer, full-time csr, we just… We just got a LOT of stuff to do, you know?




'''DarkViper: '''An entire video could be written, shot, edited and released without the channel owners input at all. It is important to note here that for the people you hire, your success is effectively their success. In that they benefit from everything going well, as you are not competing with those who work for you. The more successful you become, the more secure they can be and the more you can give them, but ultimately that depends on the channel owner. Basically, your success does not harm those who work for you.Reactors are a little bit different in that they have allowed themselves a pathway that is inaccessible to the more, lets say, moral participants in our industry. This pathway gives them another avenue for problem solving than the ones we have discussed so far. Let’s use some examples:

Do you need to think up ideas:You can do it yourself.Pay someone to do it for you.Or you can steal a YouTube video.Do you need to do some research?You can do it yourself.Pay someone to do it for you.Or you can steal a YouTube video.Do you need to write a script?You can do it yourself.Pay someone to do it for you.Or you can steal a YouTube video.Do you need some background images for your voice over?You can do it yourself.Pay someone to do it for you.Or you can steal a YouTube video.




'''DarkViper:''' I could go on but you probably get the picture. Effectively while some YouTubers will work hard or pay money and spend the time hiring others to increase their output, reactors will simply use the videos produced by their competitors in the market to skip over that process. They avoid the time spent working and managing, as well as the financial expense, but end up with the same end product. They effectively outsource the time, cost and effort to their competitors on the market, while spending no time, cost and effort themselves. It also avoids much of the stress and potential for burn out that is associated with this industry, as you are not doing the work normally associated with it. Additionally with reacting you can have high quality content of a great variety, becoming a mecca for the best content, and it doesn’t matter if the videos do well, because your expenses and time investment are effectively zero. For actual creators, every video created is a gamble; because if it doesn’t pay off you lose all the time and money invested, which you need to survive. Unlike in a normal business where the success of the enterprise doesn’t explicitly harm the workers, reactors are attempting to take a greater portion of the market for themselves away from other creators which obviously will impact everyone else’s ability to survive in the market but we will talk about that later. Instead, let us look at just how effective this reupload strategy is using Asmongold as an example. He has been reuploading other people’s videos for his entire career and it has been fundamental to his growth and success. For simplicity's sake, we will just look at his current YouTube channel and its react content even though he has obviously reacted to astronomically more videos on his Twitch stream, and those litter YouTube on other channels as well. Also, for fairness, I have removed the videos where he reacts to his reddit, twitter, or formal announcements, instead just leaving in his largely unedited reuploads of other people’s YouTube videos.'''''Wait, Reactors get HOW MUCH for watching YouTube videos? (Data)''DarkViper:''' Asmongold has reacted to around 450 videos on his main channel for a total of 188 million views. Traditionally with YouTube videos made by actual content creators, it is hard to know how much time and effort went into producing the end result. 

'''Kaze Emanuar:''' I’ve read, optimised, and bug-fixed the entire Mario 64 source code. This took weeks to finish, and a few hundred hours of concentrated work went into this.




'''DarkViper:''' Days, weeks, months, we can only guess. But as Asmongold is a reactor, we know the duration of the video is roughly the amount of time he put into it. We can therefore say that Asmongold spent roughly 205 hours “working” on these videos. As western channels get on average between 3 and 5 USD per thousand views, I will use my two year average of $3.43 to say Asmongold made approximately $644000 or $3100 an hour for just watching these YouTube videos. He has also received approximately 5 billion impressions of exposure assuming the 4% average clickthrough rate which would be fairly standard for videos of this length. 


'''DarkViper:''' I am of course underselling how much Asmongold makes from these reuploads of other people’s videos, as obviously those who watch these videos would then be given impressions for his other videos by the algorithm, which would lead to more views and revenue for his other content that he wouldn’t otherwise get. Additionally I am excluding the ad revenue, bits, donations, subs, and growth that he gets on his livestreams where he first reuploads this content. This system of exploitation is fundamental for Asmongold to be able to make the roughly 1.5 million dollars he makes on Twitch each year, as any other method to create this content would have resulted in less growth and less streaming for him on that platform.


'''DarkViper: '''So that may already seem like a lot but it is more than you likely realize. I have learned that many viewers have no idea how long YouTube videos tend to take to be made, so to give you some context, I have had singular videos that have taken me longer than 205 hours of work to make. It is also important to point out, my work is far from the most complex on this platform. Perhaps you know of the channel “Kurzgesagt - In a nutshell” which has 43 employees. 




'''Kurzgesagt:''' For years, people have asked how we make our videos. So, let's finally talk about it. How to make a Kurzgesagt video, in 1200 hours, or more.




Each of their videos takes over 1200 hours to make, sometimes taking as long as a whole year to finalize. '''DarkViper:''' It should be obvious to everyone that you can’t actually make over 400+ videos in 200 hours through normal means, especially not with high quality animations, research, complex editing and so on. You couldn’t make a YouTube video in 20 minutes, let alone transform one. Tens of thousands of hours of labour went into this content from hundreds of people that Asmongold did not pay a dime. You can see quickly why reactors have an advantage. A YouTuber can make one high quality video to generate exposure for themselves in the same time a reactor can steal 400 and the reactor's product will be of a much higher quality on average when comparing effort invested, due to containing a staggering amount of unpaid labour. Actual content creators can’t compete.




'''Hassan:''' Make 10 hours of high quality original content a day? Hahahaha….




'''DarkViper:''' I hope by the end of this video you will understand why this exposure and money would either entirely, or almost entirely, have gone to other content creators if not for Asmongold’s interference. Not just the people who Asmongold directly steals labour from, but from everyone in the wider market.'''DarkViper: '''Similar to how many larger YouTube enterprises have dozens of people working for them, Asmongold has hundreds of people working for him enabling the output that he has. The difference is that Asmongold doesn’t pay his workers any money, having a relationship similar to an unpaid internship where Asmon makes vague promises of non-monetary benefits in exchange for the fruits of tens of thousands of hours of labour that he would otherwise have to do himself or pay for. Successful reactors abuse parasocial relationships, people’s ignorance of the platform, dubious promises of future success, and/or the implicit threat of backlash if anyone complains, to secure this labour and they obviously reap a huge reward for doing so. 




'''DarkViper: '''They know that many creators won’t find out about their reuploads and, even if they did, the worst case scenario is they take down the video after they have already gotten the lion’s share of the exposure, views, and revenue that the video will generate. It is theft without any possibility for downside. Basically, the videos Asmongold has been stealing for years are the backbone of his career. Absent them, he would be out far more than a million dollars, far more than these billions of impressions, and he would be a tiny fraction of what he is today.

Now you might fire back, sure for each of these videos over 99% of the effort that went into creating them was done by someone else. But that other tiny fraction of effort that comes from Asmongold is really something special, he pauses the video and speaks and speaks for a long time! Mathematically this is not true (he only speaks on average the same length as the original video) but more importantly that is not how effort works. '''DarkViper: '''Perhaps you have heard of the quote ‘If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter’. It takes effort and time to be precise, to prepare your words to communicate exactly what you want to in the best way possible. Asmongold speaks for a long time because he is not prepared and is just rambling, often about things that are about to be addressed in the video that he is simply unaware of because he hasn’t seen it beforehand. Rambling off the top of your head is the least effortful form of content you can make. His verbosity is evidence of his lack of effort and work ethic. Bottom line, a react video has the same value proposition as going to the movie with a friend. Seeing and discussing a movie with a friend can be more enjoyable than seeing it alone but you would never say that the friend you took to the movie should get a cut of the movie proceeds for sitting in the chair and giving you his opinion on it.Reactors are a net loss of exposure for everyone on the platform, because their existence means they can gain a heap of exposure from the finite pool for themselves with no effort. It is why reactors are at the top of the content creation game, shortly followed by their friends who leech from them. Stealing is the most energy efficient way to gain access to high quality content.

'''''But what's the harm? ''DarkViper: '''Obviously this enterprise of unpaid labour resulting in massive profits exclusively for an unskilled lazy person doing none of the work is one of the grossest conceivable things in this industry, but how does this impact other YouTubers?The obvious first point is that reaction content enables any reactor to far out produce everyone else on the platform. 


'''DarkViper: '''Here we have one YouTuber who labours for a week to make one video. Here is asmongold who steals a YouTube video as a part of his livestream and he makes it into a video for his channel, ending up with 1 video that normally takes a week to make, but instead it took him 30 minutes. He also has the added benefit of a livestream and the other videos made of his livestream content. What takes a YouTuber a week, Asmon can do in 30 minutes. But it gets worse, as Asmon isn’t limited to only reacting to one video, he can react to several. He can also do this, every single day. Now who is more likely to bring themselves a greater amount of exposure, views and revenue? Each of the individual youtubers with 1 weeks worth of labour and 1 video, or asmon with 7 livestreams and over 40 potential videos collectively housing a years worth of labour with a content variety and quality that cant be matched by anything but an army of creators? I hope the answer goes without saying, but it gets worse. Each of these YouTubers and Asmongold are attempting to attract to themselves viewers from the same general finite market. Who is more likely to end up with the most at the end of the week? Do you think individual YouTubers would benefit more or less if Asmongold wasn’t a reactor? Not just the people he steals videos from, but everyone else in the market, as his goal is not just to steal viewers away from those he reacts to, but everyone in general, as he can just as easily steal someone away from any of us as he is the people he reacts to.

If it takes the average creator 7 days to make one difficult video, Asmongold in that time can steal 7 difficult videos, and spend the time streaming instead, producing an additional 14 low quality videos. 

So while the average creator has one high quality video for their labour, Asmongold has had 7 high quality videos made by his unpaid labour force freeing him to produce his other 14. Who is more likely going to grab a greater portion of the finite online market that exists each day? Especially when the algorithm is weighted slightly towards newer video releases over older? It’s obviously the reactor. Who is more likely going to grow faster? It’s obviously the reactor, not because of hard work, but specifically because of a lack of it.


'''DarkViper: '''Who is more likely to grab a greater portion of the finite online market that exists each day, especially when the algorithm is slightly weighted towards newer releases than older? It's obviously the reactor. Who is more likely to grow faster? It's obviously the reactor. The reactor not because of hard work, but specifically because of the lack of it. 

'''DarkViper: '''When a creator supports a reactor, they are implicitly allowing all reactors to out-supply them on the market, making it easier for their direct competitors to capture the same general market that the creator is also trying to capture. This is what is known as “shooting yourself in the foot”. Even if you believe falsely that reactions to your videos offer you something of value (which we will look at later), what you do not see is every time any reaction video appears where your video would have otherwise appeared. Any time where one of your videos would have got an impression except it then went to a reaction video. You also do not see every time a reaction video is chosen by a viewer instead of one of your videos. You are supporting increasing the competition your videos experience in the marketplace astronomically, spurring on the growth of your competitors, and rewarding them for not working hard or paying for labour, by giving them your work for free. As a business decision, like in any other market, it is quite silly. As a moral decision, this is obscene. You are intentionally choosing to support the existence of competitors who can on a whim steal the talent from thousands of people in order to capture the market you are also trying to capture. A true underdog story. The harder you work, the more they can steal, and so you will always be behind. It is a form of accumulative advantage. Asmongold being in a position of advantage has an easier time gaining more advantage, to your detriment.

'''DarkViper: '''Asmongold is not trying to get into your viewer’s recommended feeds to help you, he is trying to supplant you in them, or have your viewers pick his content over yours. Asmongold isn’t magnanimous, he isn’t altruistic, he is just trying to use your content to infiltrate your audience to take it from you. No person has unlimited time to watch videos everyday, so for Asmongold to find space, he necessarily has to take those viewers away from something else and that something else has a greater chance to be you than anything else chosen at random. Asmongold’s goal is, like actual content creators, to take a person from the path that they would have tread absent their content being released. The only difference is that Asmon is doing this not with hard work, but with stolen content.










'''DarkViper: '''But remember I am not just speaking about the impact on the person being reacted to, also known as the reactee, that will come later. I am speaking about everyone in the market that Asmongold is using this content to try and steal from. To believe that Asmongold’s react enterprise has a net positive effect on other creators,you’d have to believe that others benefit from Asmongold being able to skip over all the normal difficulties involved with content creation. Others will benefit if he can produce more higher quality content on his channel. That others will benefit if he has more uploads on his channel. That others benefit if he can give his viewers more content to watch and less reason to seek out or watch other creators. '''DarkViper: '''This obviously makes no sense. What is more likely to lead to other creators getting noticed? Larger content creators having the easiest time to create infinite content with no effort, or larger content creators struggling to make content leaving their audience to need to look elsewhere for more? Do you sincerely think that if the rich just get richer everyone benefits in the long term? In a world where Asmongold didn’t use this system of exploitation to increase his supply, then those who watched him would have instead engaged with the recommendation algorithms as normal and ended up in other places watching other content creators. Reactors are not giving exposure to anyone, they are just taking it. They are effectively acting as the middle men for the algorithm, and obviously a multi-billion dollar algorithm using the analytics of a website with billions of users is going to have an easier time putting new creators in front of people who will actually watch them compared to a reactor who is just stealing videos and showing them to his audience. Other creators would clearly see more exposure to new viewers if reactors would just get out of the way. Without reactors there is no reason to believe the online creator market as a whole would shrink. Partly because the amount of people who interface with it exclusively to watch other people watch videos is quite small, but also because the overwhelming vast majority of impressions given to react content are never clicked; and for those that are, there is little reason to believe the algorithms effective “equal or second choice” that would replace them would be significantly less effective at keeping people on the platform. Arguably, as original content would just get more exposure making it more profitable to make, this would inspire people to make more original content. The online content market should therefore be more captivating to viewers, not less.[Charlie react content unlikely to help video clip]


'''''But can’t everyone just do react content!?''DarkViper: '''Obviously not, someone at the end of the day has to do the unpaid labour for reactors to steal and this degree of reaping benefits away from others that you clearly don’t deserve requires a lack of conscience that few possess. This system of reacting splits everyone into two groups; First, the reactor who takes the work, and second, the underclass that performs the work for them to steal. More importantly, react content is most successful when you already have an audience that you are trying to keep with you. People have a greater reason to click unfamiliar creators when they run out of content from those they are familiar with or when they get tired of that type of content. Reactions enable you to have a huge variety of high quality content very quickly, helping you maintain your audience. Ultimately, if we all did react content, those who are already the most successful would just maintain their higher status and we’d eventually run out of content to react to.


'''''Is the reactee at least better off? (Data)''DarkViper: '''So reactees are creating a situation where a subsect of the market can outproduce them at a higher quality, and for far less effort, to capture the same market they themselves are trying to capture. But maybe the reactees can still get a tiny win in this game even if everyone else in the market loses except the reactor? What if the crumbs that fall from a reactor to the reactee are bigger than any potential loss the reactee will experience from all reaction videos on the market? This can’t be determined definitively of course, no one has a time machine. Although conceptually it seems unlikely that you could get more exposure and views from a single reaction than what the millions of reaction videos would hypothetically take from you in the algorithm terms of impressions and views in the long term. Even speaking of just one reactor, while you could have a net gain in viewers from the one time Asmongold reacted to you, the other reactions he releases would have just as much chance to take impressions and views away from you as they would anyone else. Actually it would be more likely than most creators because the demographics you both target are likely similar but nevertheless I think it is important to look at the crumbs that can fall from a reactor's mouth to the reactee to see if these are truly significant. I am therefore going to present the analytics of Josh Strife Hays. He makes great content surrounding MMOs, has a great voice and is a humble dude. After binge watching his content I heard him remark that he believes Asmongold made him in some respects, that he owes his success to Asmongold. Knowing something about how react content works, I knew this had to be untrue, so he was kind enough to let me see his analytics to see if I could find a correlation and therefore potential causal relationship between his growth and Asmongold’s react videos.'''DarkViper: '''Looking in a general way, Josh took off in December 2020 but Asmongold’s first reaction to Josh was not until March, which funnily enough preceded a dip. But these general stats from socialblade are insufficient for our uses so we will look at YouTube analytics for the period where Asmongold’s reactions took place. At the very least, we know for certain that Asmongold’s reactions were not responsible for Joshua’s channel taking off, as the channel took off before that point. We’ll be looking at these 16 reactions, which have netted Asmongold 180 million impressions, 7 millions views, and roughly $25.000 for doing nothing.[Slide 1] '''DarkViper:''' Looking at his channel views between March and August, unsurprisingly there is little correlation between overall health of the channel and reactions. Understand some of these views have to come from asmongold, but there is just no correlation with reactions and an overall change in the success of the channel. Reactions can’t make your content appealing or algorithmically viable, and that is all that matters for channel success. [Slide 2] The first 4 reactions seem to have done nothing at all, often preceding drips in viewership. [Slide 3] In fact, the period where Josh’s channel saw the greatest growth compared to the prior month was in May and it had no reactions until the end, [Slide 4] with the reactions actually occurring prior to a downturn in the channel and and these in the middle doing nothing to change its course. 


This therefore makes it hard to attribute July’s success to the reactions considering that they occur just as much on bad days as they do on good.Josh’s gains here are ambiguous, but Asmongold stealing roughly 180 millions impressions, 7 million views, and 25 grand from the wider market are far more concrete. It should be obvious which of the two gained more from this relationship, especially as only one of the two did any work for these gains.'''DarkViper: '''While subscriptions are less valuable these days, It is far easier to see gains from reactions with the subscriber count, as much smaller gains are more obvious to see. Comparing the day before and the day of a reaction, I’d estimate each reaction gained Josh less than 500 subscribers each. Especially while remembering that Josh is also losing views and impressions to Asmongold’s business model during this process, you can see it is not very much. One party is obviously winning out here, and it isn’t Josh or everyone else in the market. Certainly if you compare these gains to potential losses from all reactors taking views and impressions from the market, Josh is unlikely to have a net positive especially in the long term.'''DarkViper: '''But why? Why is it that a reactor can show millions of people the entirety of 16 videos from a creator and we have to sit here with a magnifying glass to find the effect of those millions? 

'''''Why are reactions so ineffective?'''''


'''MoistCritikal:''' Of course, not always is that, like, reacting going to help them, in fact, I would argue that it's pretty rare for it to.

'''DarkViper: '''Why are there not just tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands flocking to this new channel they were presented through a reaction. If you knew nothing about human behaviour and YouTube’s algorithm, you’d assume that showing an entire video would do far better than a mere impression of a thumbnail and title. But unfortunately reality gets in the way, the first problem being that:[Splice in Ludwig talking to Susan CEO at some point]






















''1. Reactions are not advertisement'''''DarkViper: '''When you advertise something the idea is to convince a person that there is something of value to be had that they currently don’t have, and getting that value is worth whatever the requirement is to get. Advertising a YouTube video looks like this.




'''DidYouKnowGaming?:''' Also, they definitely don't need my help with a shout out , but i just wanted to highlight because i love it so much, did you know gaming put out a new video about metal gear solid, and a lot of the cut ideas from the series, things that didn't make it into the final game. I knew about a lot of this stuff, but just like an insufferable die-hard fan, there's still a lot of really cool surprises in there that I think people are going to enjoy. It's a really really great video, and it's narrated by David Hayder himself! Which is incredible. I love that man’s voice.




'''DarkViper: '''Explains what it is, why it is good, why you should seek it out, how to get it, and where to find it. You give them a taste that leaves them wanting more, a portion that is impossible to satisfy the person if they find it interesting. Reactors are not doing any of this because they are showing you the entire product thus at no point in the entire viewing does it communicate that you will receive greater value being elsewhere. You are already getting the full experience of the original afterall; so there is no reason to chase after what you have already received. If a reactor cut off a video a quarter of the way in, some people would say “that video had an interesting premise, I want to see more” and they’d seek out the original. If the cut off was 60% of the way, some would say “I want to see how this ends” and will seek out the original. It is why trailers for movies don’t show the entire movie. It is why companies will often put the first episode of a series on YouTube, or pay people to show it to their audience, as it will inspire people to seek out the rest of the product. But Reactors make sure to take every morsel of value from the product, start, middle and end, to give people the least possible reason to seek out the original creator. It is possible that there could be something else on the original channel of value but the viewer isn’t going to know that because it is not explicitly shown. It would therefore only be a tiny amount of people who will take it upon themselves to seek and find out if this is the case. Reactors are creating a market substitute for the original, which is perhaps the only thing an advertisement is not meant to do.''2. Reactors are the direct competitors to reactees, they are not TRYING to give them viewers.'''''DarkViper: '''Reactors are not stupid, they know that if a viewer is spending time watching another person they are not spending time watching them. Asmongold isn’t trying to have people who watch his content split their time between him and 100s of other creators equally. If you go to any reactor’s social media, there are not endless posts about the glories of other content creators and how much you should watch their content. Reactors are not trying to get you to watch someone else, they are just trying to produce more content to bring more viewers to themselves and get their current viewers to watch them longer. The vast majority of users don’t look in descriptions, don’t go into the comment section, and don’t click links found in either especially when they have not been given an explicit reason to. The links found in these sections exist more to ward off criticism of content theft, and the reactor is secure putting them there as they know as well as any other creator that few will notice or click them. Asmongold, like all reactors, is not trying to help you, he is trying to indiscriminately replace people in your viewer’s recommended feeds. Whether he replaces you or someone else, he doesn’t care. Large content creators do have many means available to help out smaller creators, reactions are just literally the worst mechanism for this purpose.


''3. Reactions do not give you watch time.'''''DarkViper: '''The amount of time people spend watching a video is one of the most important factors in grabbing the algorithm and it makes connections between videos that people tend to watch together. So if a lot of people watch video A, and then video B, the algorithm will recommend video B to anyone who watches video A with the goal of course of keeping people on the platform longer. Unfortunately as the reactor’s audience has already seen the entire original video within the reactor’s video, they have no reason to watch the original creator’s video. Therefore they will either never go to that video or their watch time will be 0% if they go over just to like or comment for example. Basically the algorithm has no reason to believe that these people have any actual interest in the original creators content or would stay on the platform longer if given more of it. However, the viewers have just watched the reactor’s entire video, which suggests to the algorithm they want more, and thus they will get a bunch of recommendations for the reactor’s content rather than the reactee. 


'''DarkViper: '''That may seem bad, but it’s worse. While the people who watched the reactor’s video have no reason to watch the original video, the original video viewers DO have reason to watch the reactor's video. “What’s that? Famous person is giving their opinion on a content creator I watch? Let me go see”. So people who watch the original video will get recommended the reaction, but people who watch the reaction will not get recommended the original. If you have seen the reaction you will ignore impressions for the original as it has nothing new to you in it but if you have seen the original you might not ignore impressions for the reaction because it has some new content in it. Even if that content is just someone rambling for 10 minutes. So the reactee’s viewers are more likely to flow to the reactor, rather than the reactor’s flow to the reactee. Sick, ain’t it?<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#4a86e8;"> This is the game of how Asmongold can draw your audience to him, but not have the flow go back the other way. It is why he continues to grow at monumental speed, sucking in all the viewers from the market while pretending to help people. The links on the video may flow outwards but the algorithm flows inwards, and only one of those is actually significant. This is largely why Asmongold can use reaction videos to get into your viewers recommended feeds. 


There are some forms of content that are exceptions like music, memes, and clips. As each are effectively infinitely rewatchable, a viewer could see them on one channel and watch them again somewhere else which would mean people who view either video would get recommendations for both. It is important to remember that the algorithm does not know what content is in videos or why people watch them, it is machine learning, it recommends videos that achieve a particular outcome and lacks the capacity to even care why that outcome was achieved, simply that it was achieved. Your title and thumbnail are not as important for influencing the algorithm, as they are for influencing the viewers, which is why there are a host of successful channels that use no titles just to get people to click out of curiosity. At the end of the day the algorithm can recommend all it wants but viewers still need to click it, this is why titles and thumbnails are so important. 


''4. Subscribers don’t matter as much as they used to.'''''DarkViper: '''You are more likely to get subscribers than views because while the reaction has not presented any other videos that the viewer might care about, the creator themselves may be appealing so a viewer could click through and press subscribe. Unfortunately, YouTube moved away from a subscriber model eons ago. While you still will get some views from the subscription feed, even for a channel as established as my own, that releases a video each day, with a million subscribers, only 5% of my views come from the subscription feed. It is also one of the reasons why you can find many multi-million subscriber channels that get no views. To briefly explain why, the subscription feed makes sense when you are on a desktop and at one glance you can see all the videos that came out that day. You can then put them all in a watch later playlist or open them all in tabs. But most people use mobile devices where the subscription feed is not only not the main tab, but it isn’t really much different from the home feed which is the default. Also, after you click a video in your subscription feed everything else presented to you will be a recommendation anyway. Lastly, using myself as an example, I release a video a day so I am always in subscriber’s feeds, but I have 1000 videos that can all appear in people’s recommendations. Just by sheer weight of numbers my videos will always appear far more in recommended than subscription feeds.


''5. Barriers to entry.'''''DarkViper: '''As a rule, the harder something is to do the less people will do it which is probably not news to you. So if your goal is to have the greatest number of people do something, you should have as few requirements and difficulties as possible.

So let us look at the requirements and steps needed for a new viewer to go from a reaction to watching a video from the original channel they had not seen previously. - They need to be interested enough to click the reactor’s thumbnail and title without knowing who the original creator is.- They have to have enjoyed the content, but more so for the original creator than the reactor.- They need time left after watching the reaction to go somewhere else.

- The viewer has to ignore the 30 videos on screen of content specifically chosen by the algorithm as something you want to watch.- The reaction needs to have somehow communicated that there is other content of value on the original channel, and more valuable than any other content you could watch right now with a single click.- They need to click open the description and hope there is a link to the original, or search for the original creator in search if it is not present.- Now on their channel they would need to search for a different video because they have already seen the original video in the reaction.- They hopefully find a video that is of interest, and then watch that video for a significant duration.Only at this point would the original creator get anything of value in regards to engagement for the algorithm, which is all that really matters on YouTube. There is always someone who does this, but the reactee has 14 steps and/or prerequisites before they get any value in the algorithm while the reactor gets value in step one the second the video is clicked. Somewhat lopsided I think you’d agree, and heavily favouring the person who did none of the work to make the video.

''6. Reactions can’t make your content good nor can it make it algorithmically viable.'''''DarkViper: '''If your thumbnails and titles suck, they will still suck afterwards. If your videos are poorly paced so people don’t watch to the end, this will not change if someone reacts to your content. A reaction can not solve whatever problems that are causing your content to not be picked up in the algorithm. Your fortunes therefore can not significantly change by being reacted to. If your content was algorithmically viable, you’d succeed sooner or later. If it is not, all the reactions in the world won’t save you. Besides, the suggested alternative by reactors is clearly not better than the algorithm even if it did work. Turning YouTube into who can debase themselves and give the most unpaid labour to the already rich and successful is not an improvement over the algorithm. Nepotism is not a superior system to anything. I will say, remember that YouTube wasn’t always like this. Reactions made sense back when YouTube was primarily subscription based and a click that came from anywhere was seen as equally valuable regardless of how long a person watched. But this hasn’t been the case with YouTube for a decade. ''7. The loss of exclusivity.'''''DarkViper: '''I am the only person in existence that has a pacifist comedy series of GTA 5. If anyone has an interest in that, or shall ever have an interest in that in the future, it is the only place you can get it. I have dozens of videos that have blown up years later for heaps of views when the algorithm finds pockets of people who the content appeals to, or when things happen in the world that inspire new interest. When you allow reuploads of your content, you give up your exclusivity thus diminishing this possibility. When you give your content to a professional reactor, especially one larger than you, it will be their video that sees that future bump, not yours.


''8. Viewers can already know about the channel being reacted to.'''''DarkViper: '''Asmongold, as is the case with most reactors, reacts to already successful well known channels that have to some extent reached market saturation. The vast majority of those who watch the reaction therefore already know about the original creator. They will either already have seen the original video and want to know the reactor's opinion, or they haven’t seen the original but are watching the reaction as a substitute for it as they prefer to watch it with someone else. In either case, the original creator's ability to benefit is substantially lower than it is normally, and there isn’t much potential for benefit to lose to begin with. The reactor certainly can still benefit though, obviously. Larger content creators are targeted by reactors because they have the most viewers to syphon, Asmongold didn’t react to Josh 20 times after he became successful because he just really really wanted to make sure his viewers knew who Josh was.

'''''But what about when react content works!?''DarkViper: '''Well''''' '''''react content always works, in that its goal is to give the reactor exposure, views, and money whilst also helping them avoid work and the financial cost often incurred when making content. But in regards to the reactee, the deal for them is like if I give you 100 dollars on the condition you support me in my scheme to take $5 a day from you for the rest of your life. It’s just a very bad deal. Worse, given that you’d also be supporting them taking $5 from everyone, not just you, and no one else gets the $100. When large content creators actually have a significant one way positive effect on smaller creators, it is not due to reactions. A large creator can make content with another channel to collaborate, the other channel hosting the content exclusively and therefore getting watch time.


They can also shout out another creator on social media, which then directly leads people to the original channel getting them watch time. Or the creator can just spend time explaining to their viewers about all the content the channel has that they haven’t seen. Further why it is worth their time, thus they have more of a reason to seek it out. Reactions “work” for a reactee when they don’t just watch a video to give themselves content, they work to sell a channel to their viewers. This is just both uncommon, and does not at all require reactions to do. The reactions benefit the reactor, actual promotion benefits the original creator, but these are separate things that don't require each other.


Any benefit a reactor can provide the reactee can be done better without reuploading the entirety of their work. Therefore, the only reason they do it is for their benefit and not others. Reuploading someone’s video is never an act of magnanimity or altruism, it is just an attempt to gain self benefit. '''''Why aren’t all creators adamantly against react content?''DarkViper: '''First off, many people will not voice their displeasure at the content out of fear of backlash. Calling out exploitation especially by the powerful and influential contains risks that few want to take. Odds are you just piss off your viewers that like reactors and nothing else happens. Even if you say "no one is allowed to react to my content", you still are losing the same way we all are as reactors will just move to the next person's unpaid labour with absolutely no consequences to their profit or exposure. You would still suffer the negative externalities associated with their unethical business practices, and no amount of complaining will stop that. Secondly, adoration of bigger YouTubers exists even among creators. Omg, that famous creator was willing to reupload my entire video on their channel! That is so cool! It is sad but it exists. The person will just be happy that they were acknowledged, not really caring if there is some tangible benefit. I have frequently had direct offers from people to do work for me for free because of my status, of course I say no because I am not an asshole and I pay people for any work they do for me. I am wealthy, I have no reason to seek free labour. I of course differ from reactors in my views on such matters. Thirdly, many YouTubers do not think about how YouTube works all that much. They therefore view reactions to their content as only potentially neutral or positive, either it does nothing or they gain. 


They do not consider how reactions affect them long term, or how some of their competitors being the nexus for thousands of hours of unpaid labour, impacts their and everyone else's ability to capture the limited market on YouTube. It should go without saying, the exploitative nature of the reactor’s business practices doesn’t go away just because the individuals being exploited are ignorant of it. It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable the person is, taking advantage of someone is still wrong. For every scam there is someone who believes themselves a genius while being scammed. For every system of exploitation, there is a person whistling happily as they are exploited. There are others who understand the unfairness of this system and, while they are unwilling to exploit it themselves through reactions, they still desire to put themselves in a spot where they can benefit from the stolen gains. As a totality, everyone loses in the react game except the reactor, but those directly under the reactors lose out the least. Reactors can dole out their ill gotten gains to those who are the most loyal, and who support them in their enterprise. Kiss the ring, maybe you will get a collab? A Twitch raid? Maybe rather than just showing your video the reactor will spend some time singing your praises, communicating the value that can be found with your content. Every lord needs underlyings, and some people are happy with being such. '''DarkViper: '''Lastly, many creators are too successful to care about something that clearly at least isn’t stopping their success, or want to avoid their own questionable business practices being questioned, or want to get in on the react game themselves. I just care about people. I care about this industry. I despise abuses of power, and I strongly believe those who work hard should be rewarded for it rather than the lazy who just exploit others. If I didn’t have these feelings I would be the same as the people who exist in this category as clearly reactors are not preventing my success.'''''But shouldn’t the market decide!?''DarkViper: '''No. There is a market for every terrible thing you can imagine. The existence of demand for something does not justify meeting that demand through exploitive means. Every industry would see a reduction in cost of production if all labour was unpaid, this wouldn’t be good outside of YouTube nor is it a good practice within it. Society does not benefit as a totality when laziness is rewarded over hard work, which is what reaction content does on YouTube.'''''BUT WHAT ABOUT FAIR USE!?'''''This section will be split into three parts. The first:''You do not care about fair use law. '''''DarkViper: '''Imagine a law was passed saying that you specifically are no longer able to eat or drink. Would you obey the law and die of deprivation? Of course not, you’d consider that law unjust and would obviously ignore it as any potential consequences of doing so surely couldn’t be worse than your death. Now imagine a law was passed that said you specifically can’t eat whatever your favourite food is. Further image there was a guy from the government over your shoulder watching you at all times and his only job was to chop off your hands if you ever violated this law. You’d still think that law unjust but you’d also not eat your favourite food anymore. You likely have already picked up that the law is not the ultimate source for what you consider justifiable for people to do. As the legal system is a force of socialization, it will influence what you are likely to grow up and believe is justifiable, but it is not the sole determinant of your conclusions. Ultimately we do whatever we personally believe justified, for whatever reason, and only care about the law if its existence could potentially impact the likely consequences of our actions. If our desires conflict with the law, we weigh up the risk versus the reward of ignoring or obeying it.Bringing this back to the topic at hand, you will support the content that you believe should be allowed to exist regardless of what fair use law says in any country. You only care about it when you believe, rightly or wrongly, that it can give your position credibility. It is why so much of what people say is defended under fair use law actually isn’t. What they mean when they reference fair use is, “I think making this content is justified.” Copyright law in our content creator spaces is fairly toothless. While many creators have been inconvenienced by it, it is exceptionally rare for it to go beyond that. If every week someone was paying huge fines or going to jail for violating copyright law, every person would be an expert in exactly what the law allows or does not in all relevant jurisdictions. Until that time comes, everyone will do what they feel is justified where the rewards outweigh the risks. To quote XQC, “they are not going to do shit” as he streamed anime to hundreds of thousands of people on Twitch. He stopped only when he believed the risk was getting too high.''Something being legal does not impact whether or not it is morally justifiable to do.'''''DarkViper: '''As extreme examples, slavery, genocide, and child abuse, these are classed by today’s morals and ethics as abhorrent and indefensible but they were either legal once upon a time or are still legal somewhere in the world, either explicitly or implicitly. If you hold the position ‘what is legal is justifiable to do on that basis alone’ then you are implicitly defending every horrific act in history that happened to be legal at the time. You are also leading yourself to contradiction as many things are legal and illegal at the same time in different places. When arguing for something on the basis of the law, what you are looking for is not the law itself, but your justifications as to why you think the law is a good one for society to have. The law itself justifies nothing, it changes everyday, and differs widely depending on the different soil you stand on. The justifications for the law however, can remain constant. ''Even the American legal system would not class this content as fair use.'''''DarkViper: '''While we have no reason to give American law dominance of the entire world, it is important to note that the existence of ambiguous things does not make all things equally ambiguous. There are certainly some cases where it is debatable whether the newly created work would fall under fair use or not, but there is no ambiguity here. Reactions, as I define them in this video, are perfect market substitutes for the original. If you see the reaction you have no reason to watch the original and the reaction is attempting to achieve the same purpose and target the same audience as the original. Fair use is a legal argument which partly involves attempting to argue that what you have created does none of these things. Additionally, you want to make the case that all copyrighted material you used was strictly necessary for what you have created. This is impossible for a reactor to do because they had no idea what material existed in the original work prior to copying it. Reactors further don’t selectively choose the bare minimum, they take everything regardless of relevance. It is possible for other content that people label as “react content” to fall under fair use, absolutely, but not in the form relevant to this video. While I have been intentionally brief, there is no interpretation of precedent or the fair use guidelines that would allow for any of this content to pass it. This was explained in legal commentary back in 2017 when debate about this content was most severe. 


'''DarkViper: '''I included this part on fair use more out of exasperation than actual care. I have never even been to America and its copyright system is outdated, heavily preferences larger entities like production studios, and isn’t suited to be applied to a quickly evolving ecosystem like the online creator space. The idea that what people wrote in 1976 America should matter when seeking justification of any act anywhere in the world, let alone one as clearly exploitive and harmful as react content, is not sensible. React content rewards laziness and punishes hard work, which I believe is not conducive to a good society let alone a good online content ecosystem.


'''''Twitch is bad and it should feel bad'''''

'''DarkViper: '''At any given time there are 25-35 viewers on Twitch for each livestreamer, meaning that if viewers were evenly distributed between every livestream no one could make a sufficient income to do it as a job. There are literally not enough viewers to go around for everyone to be successful and the platform is extremely top heavy. This is seen most clearly in the 2021 Twitch leaks that showed everyone’s earnings over a 26 month period. Looking at the top 3600 earners, you can see how quickly it drops down to a tiny fraction of the top. Only 7500 streamers of the 18 million people who stream each year make more than the American federal yearly minimum wage of $15,080.'''''The Twitch struggle''DarkViper: '''Professional livestreamers are in a constant battle for exposure to continue to bring in new viewers. To both grow and replace those of your current viewers who stop watching. If 5 people stop watching, you need at least 6 people to find you and start for you to grow. Through the primitive discovery systems on Twitch, you get exposure in a few ways but all have the issue that the more viewers you have the more exposure you tend to get. This is in part because people naturally seek out what is popular, rightly understanding the modest correlation between popularity and quality, but also because Twitch does not have any good mechanism to assess the quality of a stream beyond its popularity in part because the moment to moment quality and focus of a stream can vary considerably. No one knows exactly what's going to happen in a live stream, because it's live, so they’re very hard to qualify. '''DarkViper: '''The first way to get exposure is via the game directories, and this was once the only way to get exposure. These are traditionally sorted from the most viewers to the least, meaning the more viewers you have the more exposure you get. I recall an ad agency suggesting that after the first 6 most viewed streams the exposure is effectively nothing, but you likely have heard at least one streamer remark over the years “I have a lot of viewers right now, so I really should stay live” and this is what they are referring to. So the first stream will be examined by everyone, some will click it and stop looking, others won't find it appealing and so will move to the next, some clicking, some not, and so on. With every additional spot you are down this page, the less likely people are going to look at your stream because they have already found something potentially appealing or quit trying. So the more viewers you have, the more viewers you are likely to get, so the most prominent advice for growth on Twitch is to get viewers from somewhere else with a competent recommendation system and bring them to Twitch so you can grow with its systems as well. Twitch added two features over the years to attempt to curb the rich getting richer reality of the platform. Chief among these were the recommended channels on the side of the page, on the home page, and the sort by recommended on in the directories. The problem with this as a solution is that people still seek out what is most popular first. When in doubt we always look to what everyone is doing first, only doing something different if we don’t find that appealing. In other words, even when they are presented with multiple options jumbled up, people will still on average look at the larger creators first. Another big problem with Twitch is that you could put on the most amazing hour-long jaw dropping stream…and your stream may still get the same level of promotion as your normal content. All you have is 5 words in your title to stand out and no one even reads them. In any category, all the streams are effectively random nonsense that do not communicate what they are about until you click them.'''''Twitch’s fatal exposure flaw''DarkViper: '''So if you are already big on Twitch the odds are massively stacked in your favour, but there is one small problem. Exposure on Twitch only goes to people who are live. Once you are offline, no recommendations, no directories. Your channel ceases to be shown to new viewers, replaced by a different channel who will get that increased exposure instead, and your viewers will go on to do other things. Many of these viewers will either search in the directories for someone new, or go into other familiar streams, increasing their viewership which in turn increases their exposure to new viewers on Twitch. None of this of course benefits the original channel so if they want to get the maximum out of Twitch you need to stay live as long as possible.


'''DarkViper: '''To demonstrate that for this video, I live streamed my old YouTube videos effectively nonstop for 10 days where I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to stream due to writing scripts for my videos. I wasn’t live watching them, they played themselves. Over the 190h I gained 9000 followers, $4000 and averaged 1k viewers. This compared to my previous 10 days, where I gained 2500 followers, $3500 while only streaming 22h. This shows that just being live in some capacity brings about huge benefits, but also if I could be physically there on the stream longer, I would clearly gain more than simply showing reruns. The implications of everything discussed so far is that those who are the most popular on Twitch are not necessarily the most skilled, or the most entertaining, but those who can simply be live the longest. There are actually a very small amount of people who biologically need half as much less sleep as everyone else, if you happen to be one of these people live streaming is for you. But obviously I can't be live for that long as I’d get very tired and I have other responsibilities related to my content on YouTube. I also can’t show reruns forever as my normal viewers would come to assume I am actually never live resulting in them stopping by less, and I’d eventually run out of my own content to rebroadcast. But what if there was a way to effectively expend no energy while having an infinite variety of high quality edited content?

'''''Twitch Reacting, a cheat code to screw everyone''DarkViper: '''There is a large variety of things that could cause you to need to stop streaming, resulting in the increased exposure of everyone else below you but a loss of exposure for yourself. Boredom, lack of energy, no content, a need to edit, showering or eating, time to think of ideas, wanting to chill and watch content, preparation, planning collaborations etc. Most of these however can be limited or prevented entirely by just streaming other people’s videos; and doing so can even increase the quality of the stream, as YouTube can bring forth a huge variety of high quality talent that you don’t have. Videos that took the original creators hundreds of hours to make are thrown on the fire of the reactor’s stream to keep that engine running a little while longer. 




'''Hassan: '''You could make a compilation of me sitting around, not even on camera, with a fucking video playing in the background.




'''DarkViper: '''The idea of course is to keep viewers as long as possible, giving them as little reason as possible to watch anything else. Why go to the effort of finding other creators when all their best content is in one place? Even better, you can watch the videos with an audience which is something the original creator can’t offer. Often livestreamers will not just prolong their streams with react content, but will start their streams with it, believing it to give them higher viewer numbers initially and for the rest of their stream. They can also farm for the best videos of the day, meaning viewers can reliably wait for the stream to watch them, screwing the original creator.


'''DarkViper: '''A good example is XQC who makes about 4 million dollars a year from Twitch alone. Analyzing less than a month of his Twitch streams, showed me that he streamed about 70 hours of other people’s videos during this time which is comparable to how long high ranking non-reacting streamers can stream at all. Do you have any idea how long it takes to make 70 hours of edited YouTube content? This is like thousands of hours of unpaid labour!

Actual creators have to deal with all the other responsibilities and detrimental effects brought about from content creation, but XQC does not, due to his ability to stare silently at YouTube videos for many hours a day. In other words, reactors use reacting to increase the exposure they get on Twitch and limit what everyone else receives on the platform. Attempting to fight XQC and other larger Twitch streamers for the scraps of Twitch exposure that slip through their fingers is not a productive use of time compared to making content for YouTube which has a better recommendation system. Twitch's works generally as a ‘trickle down’ system, where the larger streamers get the first shot at viewers looking for new content, and less and less are still looking the further down the list you are.Therefore, the less time larger streamers spend streaming the less barriers exist for other creators to get viewers and the greater the need for the larger streamers’ viewers to branch out and find other content creators. The further away you start from the top, the less chance you have to get there, this is why it is effectively unheard of for new creators to grow from zero to hero solely on Twitch. The systems are just not designed for it but this can happen if you get exposure from other platforms. For example, I didn’t become #296 on Twitch because I streamed on Twitch, I became #296 by reducing the amount I streamed each year and focusing on YouTube. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, or how talented you are, you are not going to beat the guys with no conscience who steal the talents of thousands of people, in a system designed to keep them successful.


'''''So other Twitch streamers get screwed, but the YouTube reactees benefit right?'''''

'''DarkViper: '''No. If reaction content on Twitch lead to a significant amount of viewers watching other things then the reacting streamers wouldn’t do it as they would quickly run out of viewers. Twitch reactors, like all reactors, are trying to keep viewers with them rather than having them watch someone else. They are obviously succeeding, thus believing that actual creators benefit if people watch Twitch reactors more is quite silly. Reacting on Twitch is ineffective at driving viewers to other creators for the following reasons:


''1. These are Twitch viewers, who are happy watching Twitch, and the person they are presently watching.'''''DarkViper: '''Getting people to jump platforms is hard at the best of times but a reactor gives as little reason as possible for a viewer to go. A viewer wants content, and there it is in the livestream. Advertising is all about creating a want in someone, and then telling a person where they can satiate it. A reactor’s livestream is already satiating the want a person has for entertainment, thus they need additional motivation to leave. But on the contrary, they have every reason not to leave because they know they will miss the livestream content coming right up next. The livestream does not end thus there is no natural break to cause people to think about seeking a different creator. The livestream directly competes with the original creator for the viewer's attention and the livestream has a far better chance of winning because the viewer is already watching it. Besides, if a viewer wanted to find something new, they’d be looking in the directories for it, or would be on YouTube in the recommendation algorithm. They are in the livestream to watch that livestream, if they wanted to be hopping around YouTube videos they wouldn’t be there. Some people just want to chill and have the content curated for them, which is obviously a much easier job than actually making the content being curated.

''2. They have already seen the video.'''''DarkViper: '''As I have already mentioned, YouTube cares about watch time. A viewer who has already seen a video is not going to watch that video again even if they find some way to stumble into it. Having a link appear in chat for a few seconds before it flies by isn’t really easy access to the original video. But even in the case that they do find a way to the original, hitting the like button, and going back to Twitch is literally the worst form of engagement possible. YouTube wants to keep people on the platform, and this engagement suggests your video sucks at it. It has no ability to influence the trajectory of your video in the algorithm which, in modern YouTube, is all you should care about.

''3. Much of Twitch’s viewership is passive.'''''DarkViper: '''Many people go to Twitch to chill, to have something on in the background. You may often notice that whenever a streamer runs something that requires engagement, the amount of people who engage is only a small fraction of their viewer numbers. 

'''Tyler1:''' What are these votes…? IF YOU’RE NOT GONNA PARTICIPATE IN THE GROUP ACTIVITY, THEN LEAVE!




'''DarkViper: '''So if your video is shown to 12k people on Twitch, the amount of people who are in a position to even attempt to seek out the original creator is only a tiny fraction. For a viewer of a Twitch stream to seek out the reactees content they have to:

- Not be away from their PC.- Not just listening to the livestream.- Not otherwise distracted for example by playing a video game.- They have to know the name of what is on screen and the original creator, which is not always shown.- They have to want more of the original creators' content, despite already having been given its start, middle and end, and not necessarily knowing what else the original creator has made.- They have to be looking at chat in time to catch a link as it flies by if one is given at all.- They have to not want to be in a livestream anymore that they were previously enjoying.- Lastly, they actually have to find some interest in whatever they find on the original channel once they investigate.<span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#3c4043;">Much like with a reaction video on YouTube, reaction streamers benefit right away, whereas several things need to happen for the reactee to gain anything at all. The reactor maintains their exposure and revenue the second they show the video, while the benefit to the original creator who spent all the effort to create the content is either non-existent or so incredibly small that is hard to find. Targeting this singular drop of water rather than the ocean that is YouTube’s native forms of exposure is clearly a waste of time.

''4. Reactors do not want their viewers to leave. ''

Reactors do not work to inspire their viewers to seek out the original creator, or when they do, it is often performative. A reactor will say “ok guys, we are going to watch this video” and then will speak of all the things they will do after the video giving viewers every reason to stay. The livestreamer is competing with the original creator, and obviously the livestreamer has the home field advantage. 


''5. Even recorded cases of engagement are very low''JayExci was reacted to by Hasan Piker in front of 30000 people and got an extra 180 views. Bismuth got reacted to in front of 12k people and got 50 views. WillyMacShow got reacted to by MoistCritikal in front of 20k people and got 100 views. These numbers are obviously tiny but I want to look at the best case scenario. Ludwig spent 600 dollars to get the highest levels of production quality and voice acting to make a video specifically about Mizkif and to stroke his ego. No one had seen this video before, but even after paying Mizkif to watch it in front of 50000 people, only around 2000 clicked through to the original video. This was a video no one had seen, literally perfectly tailored to the audience and creator, and the click through rate was 4% and no one then watched the original video when they clicked through as they had already seen it. 




'''Ludwig:''' Obviously there’s a huge drop-off because a lot of these people watch you with Mizkif.




Think how these numbers would compare to how many of these 50k would have just stumbled on the video naturally and watched it on the original channel, but now will not do so because of the reaction. I have a video coming out later that will look at this example more closely, because it is even worse than I am describing, but we will leave it there. Ludwig as an example, now imagine how low these numbers get when it is just a normal video not made specifically for that creator and their audience. Well you don’t have to imagine it because I gave you examples but you get the idea. Compare that to a reality where these people just didn’t react to content, and so their viewers had to go and find content that appeals to them elsewhere in the market. What is likely to generate more benefit for others?

'''''Why doesn’t everyone just do react content on Twitch?'''''

'''DarkViper: '''Outside of ethics or a respect for other creators, anyone can do it, it requires no skill. However those who are already successful will receive the most benefit. The more exposure you are already getting, the better off you will be increasing the duration you experience it. If your exposure is zero, staying live permanently does you no good, but if you are getting the maximum exposure possible in every directory you’re in, obviously staying live matters more. 

It should be obvious by now that Twitch is a terrible place to grow, its a system where the rich are far more likely to get richer with or without react content. React content just makes it far worse and there is really no escaping it. If you don’t want to compete with react streamers, sure you can go spend 10 hours making a YouTube video but those reactors will just stream those 10 hours, and then either steal your YouTube video, or someone else’s, to upload to their YouTube channel in an attempt to siphon the market on YouTube away from you. Whether you like it or not, wherever you go, you will be at a disadvantage to the content thieves. You are always going to be better off to be the one aggregating the content to yourself, than spending the time to make it. Theft is always faster than creation. 

You can ask yourself, would you rather be the guy spending 100 hours making a YouTube video or to be the guy reacting to this content for millions of dollars a year without paying a dime to those who actually did the work. Not a hard choice.[ludwig won an award video mogul moves speaking about how he doesnt get how xqc can be live so long]'''''But Isn’t All Content Just React Content?'''''

'''DarkViper: '''What defines an appropriate use of someone else’s content, to me at least, is not simply about what you add but what you leave behind. You should never take so much that what remains has no value. What you create should not be a perfect substitute for the original, which all react content is. This is why content around video games works well for example. It acts as an advertisement for an experience that a video can never give. It is effectively impossible to show everything that a game has to offer, but even if you manage to hold a single viewer for potentially 100s of hours, the experience of doing it yourself, the gameplay that defines what games are, is value that you are unable to take from the original and give to the viewer. “Wow, this game looks so fun, where do I get it?”. Moreover, content made about video games…has to actually be made. It takes effort to make content from it. You can’t just boot up the video game and let it run itself, which is obviously the case for react content as reactors don't even need to be in the room. Edited videos are already content, thus anything you do beyond that is merely a bonus. This is not the case with video games as they are effectively platforms for creation, what you personally do in them potentially has never been done exactly that way before and maybe will never be done exactly that way again. Making react and gaming content comparable would be like if Asmongold ripped God of War and started selling it for $15 each, attempting to take the game sales away from the people who actually make video games. Taking not only from the creators of God of War, but all those who make games.


'''''But the reactors will stop if asked!'''''

'''DarkViper: '''The only reason reactors stop stealing your content if you find out is because they fear copyright strike or community backlash. That is it. You have found them stealing from your house and they stopped because they worried you’d call the cops. They obviously don’t give back anything they stole, but they then go next door and start stealing from your neighbour. It isn’t even possible for a reactor to give back what they steal anyway, as the money and exposure comes from everyone, not just a singular source. Regardless, there are never any consequences for a reactor when they are found stealing, so they just keep doing it. It doesn’t matter how many riots there are about reactors, it doesn’t matter how many videos or articles are made against it, reactors will just wait until the heat dies down and go back to reacting. 


In the same way that Charlie said he would stop reacting, but went right back to doing it anyway.'''''To the reactees, the unpaid interns''DarkViper: '''Has this not gone far enough? Does our space need people making millions of dollars reposting content? Do you sincerely believe that the wealthiest among us should be able to bolster their enterprise without working for it? Do you believe in trickle down economics, that if the rich get richer everyone benefits? Do you actually sit for hours staring at your editing software to be the unpaid intern in another person’s enterprise that seeks to usurp the market from you and people like you? Whatever you believe you get from supporting react content, you must see that there is never a net benefit for you, or anyone else in this space, because reaction content as a totality will always take more from the market than reactees receive from reactions. It is a net loss for you long term and it always will be. But worse, you contribute to the diminishing of all those around you as well, you sell out your fellow creators for gluttony of the lazy reactors.'''DarkViper: '''Any person who watches or reuploads enough videos to be seen as a reactor isn't celebrating your work, they don't care about you. Is being Asmongold’s 500th lay something you should feel proud of? To be used as his justification to avoid work, to avoid learning new skills, paying people for labour, or avoid growing as a person? You are not Asmongold’s partner, you are his tool. A means to an end to be discarded when you have served your use. Your labour will be added to his pile, as have the hundreds before and will hundreds after. He will take from you as he does everyone else and will not stop until he has it all. Asmongold clearly has enough, but enough is never enough to those who feel entitled to have it all.


'''''A sad note to end on.'''''

'''DarkViper: '''Those who exploit and abuse others are too powerful in this world. Even in this small corner, even with all the influence I have, I feel powerless to stop even this injustice and let’s be real, it is far from the greatest injustice that exists. Social systems value the already successful, regardless of how this success was obtained, and they make it easier for them to maintain and increase that success to the detriment of those who have yet obtained it. I believed this to be true before I became rich and successful, I believe it more now that I am both. I despise such aspects of life and react content is to me just one example of it.'''DarkViper: '''There is little I love more than passionate people. To see these lazy people, reposting other people’s videos at the speed of sound, spending just enough time to watch and say a few words, this isn’t what content creation should be. Usurping the market away from actual creators, people with a passion for this work, disgusts me. Watching a YouTube video and pausing it doesn’t make something new and distinct, it isn’t creating anything. The reactor is merely presenting someone else’s work for profit and that is obvious to anyone who isn’t blind.


'''DarkViper: '''Reacting is a scam that works to keep those in dominance continuously dominant. It is unlimited free labour used to avoid much of the work that normally goes into content creation so that the reactor can spend the maximum time farming exposure for themselves away from others. There are those who make YouTube videos, and there are those who steal them. What exposure does fall from the reactors to those below, isn’t out of magnanimity. They are not being benevolent or kind. Their scam is just not foolproof, they can’t capture everyone, even if they try. I believe people in society who work hard should be rewarded for it, not those who specifically avoid working hard. I want to go back to the start of this video;



'''DarkViper: '''Why do you think Asmongold believes he deserves to kick other people out of the recommended sections to make room for himself? He isn’t a YouTuber. He doesn’t edit. He isn’t willing to put forth actual effort to achieve his goal. Yet so entitled does he feel to this end, that he is willing to steal the efforts of others and displace other hard working deserving people on YouTube, in order to grab the wealth and fame away from them for himself. 


'''DarkViper: '''Every reactor is like Asmongold. Entitled. Your effort is merely the fuel for their success. They have a want, and they will take what they want without a care for the harm this causes others. It doesn’t matter what they have to say or do, at the end of the day, satisfying their wants is all that matters. Bottom line, I am not saying every person who has ever watched another person’s video is equivalent, but watching other creator’s content shouldn’t be a fundamental part of your business strategy as it is for reactors.

'''DarkViper: '''Asmongold has been fundemental to the wider adoption of react content, and therefore the furthering of the rich getting richer nature of this industry, and the general exploitation of the hard working in favour of the lazy. Asmongold differs from other reactors in that, while I can’t be sure other reactors understand the harm they cause, I know for a fact asmongold understands and just doesn’t care. That, and the tweet he made, made him a better case study than most others for this video.

While I would ask any reactee who is brave enough to strike reactors, I know just as readily as the reactors that fear of backlash will stay your hand in most cases. I would however appeal to the viewers. Do you feel our platforms are best served by the most lazy being the most rewarded? The most hard working being penalized for their efforts? Perhaps in your own life you have seen the undeserving rewarded, or felt used by those in higher positions. If so, unsubscribe from reactors. Click the three dots next to a recommendation and click ‘not interested in this channel’. The same algorithm that presented these videos to you will be the same one presenting something equally appealing in its place. YouTube is larger than any of us can fathom, the loss of these exploitative people will not be felt by you, but it will be appreciated by everyone else.

Sources

Asmongold Tweet

[https://twitter.com/Asmongold/status/1422065592614506502?s=20&t=j6KIQ5jBWE5tASDNwOTxFw https://twitter.com/Asmongold/status/1422065592614506502?s=20&t=j6KIQ5jBWE5tASDNwOTxFw]''Asmongold YouTube''[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQeRaTukNYft1_6AZPACnog https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQeRaTukNYft1_6AZPACnog]

''YouTube Revenue Information ''[https://influencermarketinghub.com/how-much-do-youtubers-make/ https://influencermarketinghub.com/how-much-do-youtubers-make/]''LinusTechTips Employment ''

[https://youtu.be/7w8G8uTOwY8?t=4895 https://youtu.be/7w8G8uTOwY8?t=4895]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEygSwHWhfA&t=5420s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEygSwHWhfA&t=5420s][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGNrrZl-8Q4&t=2125s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGNrrZl-8Q4&t=2125s]

''People watching anime on Twitch''[https://www.twitch.tv/spillingthemilk/clip/IgnorantVivaciousRedpandaSaltBae-vYgkJ6awvrgPAWh9 https://www.twitch.tv/spillingthemilk/clip/IgnorantVivaciousRedpandaSaltBae-vYgkJ6awvrgPAWh9]

''There will Never Ever be another Simpsons episode like Homer's Enemy''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq-qU_GCCLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq-qU_GCCLI]

''Gameranx Shout Out''[https://youtu.be/xdxOkTjfuzU?t=471 https://youtu.be/xdxOkTjfuzU?t=471]''WillyMack Show React Numbers''[https://youtu.be/0-SgKor0mJs?t=118 https://youtu.be/0-SgKor0mJs?t=118]

''An Incorrect Summary of Elden Ring | Part 1 - Max0r''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO9HmhwGzXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO9HmhwGzXs]

''Elden Ring: An Incorrect Summary... Asmongold Reacts to Max0r''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5NfMESRNTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5NfMESRNTg]

''ASDF 1-8 Reaction! - Jinx''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmDgjJ-MtMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmDgjJ-MtMM]''DarkViperAU House Tour''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NucAADpnmeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NucAADpnmeU]''Asmongold Reaction Stats ''[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11mvnL-_xDua42mmzowVFndZz2r1uObJg6I-Ock2jZ8M/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11mvnL-_xDua42mmzowVFndZz2r1uObJg6I-Ock2jZ8M/edit?usp=sharing]

''Kaze Emanuar Fixing Mario Source Code''[https://youtu.be/t_rzYnXEQlE https://youtu.be/t_rzYnXEQlE]''How to Make a Kurzgesagt Video in 1200 Hours''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFk0mgljtns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFk0mgljtns]''Overwatch 2 a Pathetic Preview - VideoGameDunkey ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_0PSZ2S_yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_0PSZ2S_yw]''XQC Twitch''[https://www.twitch.tv/xqcow https://www.twitch.tv/xqcow]''Josh Strife Hayes Channel''[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRWyPm7MrfotIYF8A8MGV3g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRWyPm7MrfotIYF8A8MGV3g]''Josh Strife Hayes Stats''[https://imgur.com/a/Pd55KC5 https://imgur.com/a/Pd55KC5]''Twitch Leaks (Change to temp copy for graph) ''[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zmmupmG_TFOtAuY91fNSdA9zVoT0gEgzexiaLsmX2Pw/edit#gid=2142852306 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zmmupmG_TFOtAuY91fNSdA9zVoT0gEgzexiaLsmX2Pw/edit#gid=2142852306]''Twitch Stats''[https://sullygnome.com/channels https://sullygnome.com/channels]

''Bismuth reaction views''[https://twitter.com/search?q=50%20views%20(from%3Abismuthi)&src=typed_query&f=top https://twitter.com/search?q=50%20views%20(from%3Abismuthi)&src=typed_query&f=top]''Jayexci reaction views''[https://youtu.be/_TVSfHbpR6k?t=1761 https://youtu.be/_TVSfHbpR6k?t=1761]

''12 Minutes of Summit1g Going Nuts in CS:GO''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JxFp0hXVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JxFp0hXVM]''Bismuth reaction views''[https://twitter.com/search?q=50%20views%20(from%3Abismuthi)&src=typed_query&f=top https://twitter.com/search?q=50%20views%20(from%3Abismuthi)&src=typed_query&f=top]''Jayexci reaction views''[https://youtu.be/_TVSfHbpR6k?t=1761 https://youtu.be/_TVSfHbpR6k?t=1761]

Is XQC Actually This Dumb?

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V42n5PLmvKk Is XQC Actually This Dumb? (Subtitles For XQC Available)]


xQc: Our reactors are valuable. I'm gonna react to this. Impressions exposure, always 100% disturbed. What? What? Did you ask for the apple? If you want to be picked up? Yeah, youre like a sexual harasser, you’re like a sexual predator.

What? How does that make sense, and you say, dude, your analogy doesn't play. His analogy, like, nope. Trickie, down fuck economics whatever he said, what would it have got that? React not mixed, trick or trickle bound. What the fuck is that, what is..? He is actually a communist.




'''DarkViper: '''For those who don’t know, this is XQC, the most watched streamer on Twitch.tv. I see the appeal. A significant part of XQCs day is spent restreaming other people’s YouTube videos to his audience, which makes him one of the largest reactors around today. It is therefore understandable that he took an interest in charlie’s videos that he made in response to my script criticizing react content as exploitative. Less understandable is everything he said in response and I don’t just mean because of how he speaks.




xQc: I'm just going to say, guys, if you’re playing a game, you’re react andy. I said it. Same concept. 


'''DarkViper: '''Obviously there are many distinctions between simply reuploading an already produced video and using a game as a platform to create content. The most important part of course is the value that you leave behind when you show a YouTube video to your audience, it's done, you've shown the start, middle, and end, there's no reason for them to go anywhere else or seek out the original. They've now seen it just on your live stream, even worse, you're about to start another video, you're about to do something else in your stream so they don't want to leave and miss what you’re about to do, you're a direct competitor to the experience that the original is, trying to give but the viewers are already in your live stream, you've got the home field advantage, they're not going anywhere.


'''DarkViper: '''With videogames on the other hand, it is impossible to extract all value from them. Not only are they so expansive that it is effectively impossible to keep a viewer long enough to show them the entire thing even if you tried, you can never take away the value of playing the game yourself. You will always leave that value on the table that can inspire the viewer to want to grab it by seeking out those who made the game. '''DarkViper: '''Every nanosecond you stream a video game is an advertisement for an experience that a viewer can only get somewhere else. Content about video games are not perfect substitutes for those video games themselves, but a reaction to a video is a perfect substitute for the original. Also, try just booting up a video game and reacting to it without actually doing something. You actually have to have some input to create content using a video game as a platform. With reaction content you can sit there and do nothing. You don't even need to be in the room, you can be asleep and the quality of the content will be basically the same. 

xQc: Game companies could DMCA you at any given time for playing their game, on stream you're literally playing a game that somebody else made, it's literally their game and you're playing it. I don't know what you’re going to say, react gun is bad, it's not like not great right, but nothing is pure, except for just complete 1% creative, that's not only a good take, it's the law. React andy react andy everybody is a react andy, it is what it is dude.




'''DarkViper: '''My guy, either matters or it doesn't. If you're willing to sit there violating the law on a day-to-day basis clearly you dont actually think the law matters, so why are you talking about it when it comes to determining what people should or should not do on any of our platforms? This should not be news to many of you, but while the law is a force of socialization and thus influences what we eventually end up considering to be right or wrong, it is not absolute. Each of us is not walking around with 90 law books in our back pocket, consulting them at every turn to make sure we are in accordance with every law written the last hundreds of years. We do things that we personally feel are justifiable, and only consult the law when we believe it will influence the consequences of what we want to do. If we think something is justifiable to do, you weigh up what you see as the risks versus the rewards of violating the law. It is like if they passed a law tomorrow that said you personally are not allowed to eat or drink. You’d ignore the law, considering it unfair, rather than follow it and simply die. XQC feels himself justified to perform the actions he does, regardless of what the law says, so he does them. Like in regards to copyright law he said “Why do people act like DMCA are going to do sh*t?, showing that, while he knows he is in violation of the law, the risk to him was minimal thus he went ahead with what he wanted to do as he considered the reward worth it.

XQC's argument ultimately boils down to asserting that all illegal actions are equally justifiable or not. Like mass murder and stealing your roommates milk are ultimately the same because they are both illegal, as if no other distinction matters. Given that actions can be judged by more than by their relationship with the law, this is obviously not true.




xQc: It's not always about need, it's about want. Sometimes, other than that, I like, a lot. And I want to share this with chat. I want to do that. I don't need it, my channels are not going to die, I'm not going to be obscured forever. I could get more viewers into other things by playing another game or something. Like I said, I want to watch that, I watch that with chat, i wanna share my passion dab, so, this? What, chat has nothing to do with it, never done anything. Sometimes that's even more than the video itself, because I'm more passionate about the thing that it is, that's how it is.

'''DarkViper: '''…every person in existence has wants and the mere existence of a want does not justify every and all actions necessary to satisfy that want. You want 100k, your grandmother has a 100k life insurance policy, it isn’t justified to push her down the stairs to get it. What is important about what XQC has said here is that it clearly demonstrates he is not acting for the benefit of others, he doesn’t care. If he harms others, helps others, who gives a shit. When he speaks about the effects of react content as being beneficial to others later on, this is beside the point and is spoken to get other people off his back to enable him to just do what he wants to do. There are endless actual ways XQC could provide exposure to other creators, he doesn’t care about anyone but himself so does not do these things. Even if he accepted that what he does ultimately has a negative effect on everyone, I doubt he’d change one iota.




xQc: From this comparison chat, we should go ahead and shame every movie director, right? That went on a piece of land and films on a street, they didn't build, then own, then create them, then put the cement and the grass and grew the grass in the plants, which are good, because they didn't make it in their studio and built it themselves. Shame them. How dare they bother you. Get mad! Basin taken.

'''DarkViper: '''If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe” - Quote from Carl Sagon. It is true that everything in existence is built using something that we did not personally create, but this does not mean that everything created has equally required the efforts of other sentient creatures for it to come to be. If I spend 6 hours on an essay, this is not the same thing as a person copying my essay word for word, just because neither of us created the paper that we wrote upon. Things can possess the same quality, without having that quality to the same extent, which can massively impact how it is perceived. I suspect XQC would have a preference over whether I gave him a glass of water or drowned him in a bathtub, despite that I would in both cases be giving him water.




xQc: A classic old school cannibalist. Argument, dog shit. People think that reacting to the videos is cannibalistic in nature, which means that it eats them, right? And, what they eat is taken, okay, it's like, oh guys, you’re gonna get ten, okay, I'm five now, i'm gonna join, I cannibalize, right? I get three plus and you get minus three right? But that is just simply not true, it's been proven, it's been said, it's been done, i can give you guys hundred of examples about how react is rarely, very very rarely, and if not, barely can have a sticker but on the other side it is most of the time beneficial, both ways. 

'''DarkViper: '''But. Where. Do. The. New. Viewers. Come. From?Within any exchange between two parties there is a possibility of externalities, which can be seen as effects that happen to individuals not directly involved in the exchange, but who are still impacted by its existence.There are a finite amount of people, and a finite amount of time that they have each day. Anything a person does to bring viewers to themselves necessarily takes those viewers from whatever else they would have done absent that effort. When you use react content to keep yourself live long, expending less energy, increasing the quality of your content, you are taking your viewers from doing whatever else they would do if you did not perform that action. While the reactee can suffer when you react to their content, where they most suffer is from every other reaction you do to other people. As they then just become a part of the wider market, and therefore you can pull people from them to yourself with your reactions, just like from every other creator. When reactees support react content, what they are doing is playing a game where they hope that they can gain more viewers with that individual exchange, than what the rest of your reactions to other people will steal from them. It is a stupid game where they can only lose long term. The amount of viewers you have doesn’t decrease, and often increases, where do you think those viewers are coming from? A magical portal to fairyland? No, they are coming from other creators who you are syphoning from with your react content. Both the people you react to, but everyone else as well.












xQc: Just again, it's just such a simple context. Guys, if somebody gets 500 views, okay, how many chats are subscribed to this guy? Theres probably about one or two, okay, by the amount that, we steal will be two right and the amount that he’s going to generate for the people watching is incredibly larger than two and his next video now if youve never subscrbied itll be like ramp the fuck up, if youre going to go with analytics this argument falls flat in space man.




'''DarkViper: '''As I explained in my previous video, the vast majority of views do not come from subscriptions, instead they come from the algorithm, they come from recommendations, the recommendations which react content directly steals from everyday. Reaction content takes recommendations from other original content creators, even if you've been reacted to once, there's one reaction video with your content in it. Great, that does nothing to prevent all the other reaction videos from taking recommendations from you and to be absolutely clear, i'm not convinced even that reaction video of your content is increasing your recommendations anyway.




xQc: I'll give you an example. Ill use “level bing bong fuck your life mother fucker”, hey, we were watching that. Fuck, well, that thank you viewers. We were watching it, ten thousand views and, was there now everything “bing bang bang ba” fuck you wait, hey we were there at the very “fuck you” beginning of this shit okay? Oh my god guys, they only get two kv’s now because you want them, right? Boys, people watching this shit.




'''DarkViper: '''I don’t know what this means, I guess he is talking about a meme, song, or a clip, and given that those are infinitely rewatchable they will benefit more from reactions than most other forms of content. It wouldn’t stop them from being syphoned with react content in general obviously. But that individual with that meme or that song or that clip can potentially benefit. Again, as a whole everyone still suffers, but that person will likely experience more benefit than they are losing at least, I suppose in the short term, I guess in the long term they’d still love. I guess it would just take even longer though?




xQc: You’re assuming it that if I, this is literally assuming, that if i watch a video, right, of some guy who has a 100 viewer viewers, everybody makes a video, right, let's say we come in there with 50.000 live viewers right, that every 50.000 were already subscribed, they were already gonna watch the video, they were going to watch a video but now they will not watch it because they watch it here, instead. What? If i watch a video of a guy who gets a hundred views, every video has 10 subscribers, its fucked, impossible, that all of you, all of you now are subscribed, and we’re gonna watch this. What is wrong with you?

'''DarkViper: '''It is crazy how detailed I was, I even drew diagrams, and people still didn’t get it.


'''DarkViper: '''Ok, maybe it is understandable that xQc didn't understand it.


'''DarkViper: '''If reactors didn't have react content, they would be live less, and they’d have to rely on their own skills to create content which means they would have none. When your content is lower quality or nonexistent, your viewers would have to seek out other forms of content and support it. When you react to videos, you are actively working to keep people with you, and away from everyone else. You are cannibalizing the market as a whole, not simply the person you’re reacting to, although you are also cannibalizing them as well your gain in someone’s loss in this finite market viewers in time. Are not infinite what they spend on you, comes with the opportunity cost that they don't spend it somewhere else, this is actually true with all content that is made but in your case you’re not making content, you’re stealing it. You do not deserve what you gain from reaction content, you do not deserve what you steal from other people using it.






xQc: I give a fuck, i dont even know if the video is good enough to watch something, is just watching. If we react, roll up, we wake up. I don't have a bar that says “we have to react this amount”, otherwise i fail. I dont give a fuck, guys, this is why i do like when i watch a video, chat. I use for myself dude, react to react react and then i just need to react harder, harder, the fuck, then i go holy shit, harder, holy shit, and then you gotta scale it up, dude.




'''DarkViper: '''It is at this point that xQC thinks he finds me, in his chat.






xQc: This is not the same guy, man. Also, big point Chad, this is a big point. It's a big point okay, if you watch the video once, right, and it was bad for the channel, and you watched more of their content, right, they can absolutely 100% say, yo, dude, don't do this. And people would stop immediately because we’ve had, i've had problems with people from youtube, two of them. Said it. Hey man, that they didn't like it. I didn't argue, I didn't say yo, dude, because you’re stuck. I didn't bring up stats, I just stopped watching it then. All together i just started it, why? Because I don't get that much. I think it's mutually good if they know, or they think it's not, then, they are right. Why? Because it's their content, and a story I have no say dude. 

If there's a problem I'll make you do it, because I enjoy it guys. I have a problem with Kurzgesagt, okay, these guys didn't like me reposting their video, okay, because my edit, my guys, i don't return. My editors, if i never do whatever they want, okay, youtube, and they would upload the reaction to youtube, and i didnt even know. But even if i knew i probably would have stopped them because I didn't give a shit, i thought they were uploading, and then Kurzge said they didn't like that for whatever reason, and i didnt fight them, on it nobody. I just stopped before im playing that.




'''DarkViper: '''This does nothing to compensate them or everyone in the market that your actions impacted. You lose nothing, you give up none of the exposure or money that you gained. You are a thief who has robbed someone being caught in the act, and said i won't do it again to you, and then you've gone next door to rob the neighbors until they catch you, and tell you to stop. Where you do the whole same process again, you’re not acting benevolently, you're not acting with a care for others, you're just concerned that they're going to give you a copyright strike or cause some fuss that might hurt your brand that you can see yourself to have the rights to videos that require 1200 hours of labor to make, is bad that you feel you have the option to fight them for them and acted magnanimously by not doing so, it's just sick.




xQc: Guys, remember when “AW” made the video of the nose, right, and that shit had like, fucking, dude I dont even think it was on youtube, but it was, like on the reddit, and it had like 20 views dude, okay, and the video was dog shit. Dude, and then the, and then the video blew up, and then the next video came across, and then i blew up, and he made the making of the video down, blew up. “Bing bang trickle down mother fuckers” nomiks whatever he said. What would it have got that react, not mixed, trick or trick or bound what, fuck is that.




'''DarkViper: '''Yeh, you stayed in your position of being the largest content creator, and some small portion of your success temporarily trickled down to someone else. It isn’t that this doesn’t happen, it is that what trickles down is only a tiny fraction of what you keep and can grab for yourself than what trickles down using the limitless supply of high quality content. The workers will occasionally catch crumbs falling from your mouth, but you will only get larger as you take more and more of the market for yourself that these workers need to survive. HeyDoubleU would need weeks if not months to create an animation like that, the amount of effort is insane. You however can take the fruits of that effort to grow yourself in one fraction of the time and thus will always be bigger as a creator. Worse, you effectively have limitless HeyDoubleU’s all working hard making content that you can scoop up whenever you need a way to bring yourself more exposure and money either by giving yourself more youtube uploads, or to keep yourself live longer on Twitch. Everyone can’t do what you do because somebody has to do the work at the end of the day, you just don’t want it to be you.


xQc: I cant judge you as a whole. I'm against lazy content for streaming, right, sitting down in front of the webcam and suddenly watching someone else’s work while they eat lunch? That is adding nothing. It's not transformative, in a way this is stealing. True, this is true-ish


'''DarkViper: '''Moving onto XQC watching Charlie’s second video.

xQc: Agreed, agreed. If you should watch the video, right guys, hey, according to his main argument, that you’re yoinking them , right, technically will know, people will know, know know know know, you know…?


'''DarkViper: '''To translate, XQC is saying that Charlie has no reason to link my original script in the description of his video because I am arguing that would be like yoinking my document. Obviously my position is not that you can’t use, and or link to, other people’s content, merely that what you create should not be a replacement for the original. Value should be left, ideally, what you create should have no impact on the original at all as it is truly something distinct. You have created something yourself, rather than merely presenting another person’s work, which is what sitting and watching a YouTube video is. It is why I am usually fine with clips, as a clip of something can not replace the original work. I also make exceptions when you are involved in something. If another person has the right to use you in their work, then you should have some right to use that work yourself. Only fair.


xQc: What? But thats boring as fuck though, thats manufactured garbage though, that dude, what? That, that's pre-watched, garbage, guys, that's like if I was american idol and i watched the whole thing, oh, wait.. That's what I actually do, okay.


'''DarkViper: '''Man learns how literally all content that isn’t streamed live is made! You can record your first reaction to something, and then edit those reactions and the video itself to only include the stuff that is relevant or that matters. Or, if you actually had nothing to add, you just don’t release the video. People have been doing it forever on YouTube. In such a case, you will at least leave something because the entire original video won't be on your own. It is still certainly lazy content but you are less likely to be exploitative as you are using portions of someone’s work to create something distinct.




xQc: I feel like it's better for live content you watch regardless, but if you make a video out of it, it's not great. And you dont add a lot to it, then sure, don't reupload the reaction, but that's what i already do to be honest, that's what we already do, the react is bad and if we're only watching it usually they don't upload it. I don't remember, my editors vendors do whatever they want, okay, youtube and they would upload the reaction to youtube and i didnt even know but even if i knew i probably would have stopped them because i didn't give a shit, the time they were uploading. This argument will never hold, okay the amount that you steal if you're smart is usually never even close to the amount that you create, so who cares.


'''DarkViper: '''The idea that the litmus test for whether you can rip off the entirety of another persons potentially weeks if not months long labors is if you liked youw own reaction is fucking absurd. There has never been a reaction, in the history of reacting, that has come even close to requiring a fraction of the effort put into making the original video. The idea that the litmas test for whether you can rip off the entirety of another person’s potentially weeks, if not months long labours, is if you liked your own reaction, is fucking absurd.'''DarkViper: '''The amount of time it takes to make a youtube video is not the runtime of the video for fuck sakes. The problem with a lot of streamers is that they have never done the work of an editor, they have no idea the work that goes into it, thus they cant ever respect the creation. 


xQc: Why does it always use words like, from going in that would be going, what? There's also the other side of the coin, people will be going, people that wouldn't have gone, there's also the things that people that they were not gonna do that, but now they will, and that's usually much larger than people who did not, because.

'''DarkViper: '''Because the amount of people who watch you, and the amount of new viewers you attract to yourself away from others, will always be larger than any amount of people that go to the creator you react to. All you are doing is drawing viewers to you and keeping them there as long as possible, which prevents them from watching others or having any need to ever watch anyone else.


xQc: Oh my god, dude, you're really playing this argument though, wait, no, that because that literally, it proves my point. We need a debate night about a react debate. Night number one, react andy. Ive never lost a debate on stream ever because when i dont know i dont do, so therefore, i always win because i only go into winning battles, fuck yeah dude, yeah dude, fuck you.


'''DarkViper: '''It would be a better world if each of us were perfectly cognisant of the exact extent of capabilities. It is like when we are kids and think we are the fucking best at a fighting game and then we moves outside our group of friends and think, oh I am actually not that great. It is possible to know so little, or be incapable of understanding enough, that you can not realize the level of your own capability relative to everyone else.




xQc: The only reason why i have a really badly, sometimes, and I speak about things that I don't know is because misinformation, okay, is sensational and people love hearing misinformation. So therefore, i'm just buffing the views but I guess i'm just stacking impressions i say. Really bad alveolar stakes? Boom! stacks an viewers because they come in , then, theres some real takes which is as he reiterates, multiple times what the goal of the post or the video was so i did misunderstand it, i have never said anything dumb in the entirety of my life because im always joking, but its what people want guys, you cant fight the people i said, good content is something people want if suddenly lazy is what the people want, its lazy, but its good content by the definition.'''DarkViper: '''And people want cheap electronics, but that wouldn’t justify rounding up a bunch of people and putting them into slave labour camps in order to reduce your labour costs. People want cheap TVs, this doesn’t justify stealing TVs from your local store to avoid production costs. There are people out there who would pay to murder someone, and such services to exist in the world. The demand for something does not in of itself justify any and everything to meet that demand. What you do is exploitative, and thus shouldn’t be done, irrespective if there exists people who are fine with that exploitation. More important, as far as live streams go, people in general just want consistent content they can chill with. If you had to stream less, its not like people would just wander the desert wondering what it would be like to have some content again, they would just go watch other people doing stuff. Reaction content is not holding together the fabric of Twitch.




xQc: I think we need to have it debate night episode one, react andy and just have a bunch of react lords and anti-react lords like middle ground and we go bing. It goes: “i think reacting is good, my channel has 20.000 views”, you know.

'''DarkViper: '''So that ends that video. Thank you for reading. I end this with a question, do you not want more original innovative content? Do you really want all the successful creators to be people who watch other people’s videos? Stop watching reactors. I am not saying to watch me, but find an actual creator who peaks your interest. Unsubscribe and unfollow reactors, more importantly, click the not interested button when you see a reactor in your feed. The algorithm will learn, and suddenly a whole world of new and original content will be brought to you. The more original content you watch, the more original content creators can support themselves, the more the market will reward people who innovate and create, and the better your experience online will be. When you reward the lazy, don’t be surprised if one day all you see is laziness.

Sources

The Lies That Stole A Fortune - How The Reactor's Scam Workshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irk8h0ax5aYXQC reacting to first video by Charlie[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkMk6JfLPdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkMk6JfLPdc]XQC reacting to second video by Charlie[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-HELnKU7dw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-HELnKU7dw]Stats for Twitch[https://sullygnome.com/viewers https://sullygnome.com/viewers]2Kilksphilip - Minecraft raytracing[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNdxiotnawc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNdxiotnawc]Summit1g Playing CSGO[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JxFp0hXVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JxFp0hXVM]How to Make a Kurzgesagt Video in 1200 Hours[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFk0mgljtns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFk0mgljtns]

HeydoubleU (Streamer memes)[https://www.youtube.com/c/HeydoubleU/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/HeydoubleU/videos]Pacifist% - DarkViperAU GTA 5 Series[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnJ4ZuTYaeG-uBQrAnS-pjzHT41G8lwt https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnJ4ZuTYaeG-uBQrAnS-pjzHT41G8lwt]

I Never Thought This Day Would Come…

'''Original video: '''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPtiwNk2LOU I Never Thought This Day Would Come...]


Ludwig: Drama alert! Drama alert! And we have some juicy stuff right here, between 2 YouTubers; DarkViperAU and moist critikal! 

Who’s DarkViperAU and why does that sound so familiar? He’s a GTA speedrunner, he sounds so weirdly familiar.. Did he do Pokémon unboxing? Oh…! That’s where i know him from, he’s the guy who calculated Ludwig’s total money earned on his subathon and then he deleted the video because it was wildly inaccurate. I figured exactly what happened, he just forgot about taxes. I totally forgot about it because by the time I found it, people had already made fun of him, and he deleted the video, so I never really watched the video. I only knew that he had made a video, but I didn't really watch it.

And, my only experience with DarkViperAU is that he made a video about how much money I made on the subathon. It was wildly inaccurate, and he deleted it before I even saw it, and that is pretty much it.


'''DarkViper: '''I seriously can't believe Ludwig is still pointing this shit. It's been over a year! You might not know this guy but this is Ludwig. He decided to give his opinion on the dispute that I had with Charlie over react content. I am however going to detour from that to explain what he said here which is similar bullshit to what he would say a year ago. I let it slide back then in part because I was a fan of his but also because he was the golden child of live streaming at the time, which made calling him out directly for his dishonesty an intimidating prospect. Of course, all of that has now changed with the passing of a year, and Ludwig now bringing up old history has given me the perfect opportunity to bring clarity to an awkward event that happened during Ludwig’s subathon.'''DarkViper: '''So our story begins <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#202122;">March 14, 2021, when Ludwig began his "subathon" stream, a near-continuous stream of his life with a running clock dictating how much longer the stream <span style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#202122;">would run, with every paid subscription to his Twitch channel adding to the timer. But it was 10 days later on March 24th 2021 where our drama truly began. On this day Ludwig boldly claimed that despite having brought in revenue of half a million dollars in ten days, he personally was only going to receive $3000. My first though upon watching this in my kitchen was that surely everyone would know this is dumb and obviously wrong, right? Sure, Ludwig did misrepresent how taxes work and how much content creators make in general, misinformation which could negatively impact his viewers, but how many people could a livestream possibly reach anyway? Later at my PC, I saw that it was at the top of livestreamfail subreddit with 5k upvotes, spreading this misinformation further and no one seemed to be pointing out that it was inaccurate. I got into bed that night, I was browsing Tiktok and wouldn’t you know it, “Did you know Ludwig is only taking home 3k of his half a million dollars of revenue. Only 10k for the entire subathon”. I wake up the next day, article after article after article after article, repeating the same misinformation without correction. Surprisingly, not a peep from Ludwig who seemingly did not care that he spread misinformation seemingly now to half the world. With every step of the way I kept saying to myself, this isn’t my problem, surely someone has explained to Ludwig his mistake and he will come out and say “my bad, I was unaware I didn’t know how taxes worked, whoops' '. What I didn’t expect was that two days later Ludwig would make these exact same false claims but now in a YouTube video. Given that he had distributed this misinformation not once but twice, clearly, Ludwig either was unaware of his mistake, or was fine with how his finances were being misrepresented. This left me with a dilemma.'''DarkViper: '''I was in bed very tired as I was in the process of moving my sleeping pattern, when I saw Ludwig upload this video. Barely alive I am reading comments exclaiming how poor Ludwig is being fucked by taxes and “I can’t believe how little money Ludwig makes' ' so on and so forth. So, being a fan of Ludwig’s I was of course conflicted, as a part of me didn’t want to cause a fuss but I do enjoy helping people and I hate misinformation. So I initially left a comment explaining what Ludwig had gotten wrong, but I realized no one would likely see it. I figured as I couldn’t get to sleep, I may as well get up, make a short video, and do some calculations. It was a true Thanos moment, if no one else was going to correct this, “Fine, I will do it myself”.'''DarkViper: '''So I made an exceptionally dry, tired 3 minute video explaining taxation. I pointed out that Ludwig had mistakenly taxed his gross revenue while he should have deducted his expenses prior to that point. I also explained that federal and state taxes need to be calculated separately, in part because you can’t just combine two seperate percentage calculations together, but also because state taxes are a deduction for federal taxes. And in response to the comments, I explained how progressive taxes work: if a person makes 500k they do not pay the top tax bracket on all of it, instead they pay different rates for each portion in its corresponding bracket. Which is something that I had already done previously in my rambles series.


a


'''DarkViper: '''So it took me a few tries but I managed to get it done. After rendering it, making a thumbnail, and releasing it, I got back into bed. I further updated the comment I left initially with the new calculations had the corrections considered. Understand, this video had no discussion of what motivated Ludwig in his misinformation, or what would motivate him to want to detail his taxes and expenses in the first place. To this day, I have never heard a person getting half a million dollars and then explaining about their taxes or how much they chose to give to their friends and charity. Funnily enough, a similar thing actually happened to me when the Twitch income leaks happened in 2021, and people found out I had made 500k over 26 months. One of the first things my manager suggested I do when this happens, was downplay it by talking about my taxes and expenses. I of course didn’t do that, because when you are earning a lot of money attempting to downplay your wealth it is a pretty scummy thing to do. What I am trying to say is, it was well within my power to present Ludwig as a devious trickster but I didn't think he was. I only focused on correcting the misinformation that could lead people to make poor decisions with their lives, as I have done numerous times before.'''DarkViper: '''So ideal world, this is where the story ends. But the story continues, as Ludwig replied to my comment: “LoL, I wish I got $5 per sub”. So, what happened? While my math was correct, as was my information about taxes, I had forgotten that Ludwig was not using his Twitch analytics. Afterall, I had seen the footage two days prior. For whatever reason, Ludwig was using statistics generated by his viewers that gave wildly inaccurate figures and outright ignored the money Ludwig was making from ad revenue. I was tired, so I did calculations based on the first number that was on Ludwig’s screen forgetting its dubious source. I mean, it was called 10 days of streaming, how could I possibly have confused that for his revenue he generated streaming over 10 days. Any sane person would have remembered this figure was actually any revenue visible on screen to a handful of viewers that had no idea how Twitch fees or revenue share worked who went through Ludwig’s VoDs. Any Twitch streamer who isn’t Ludwig, if they wanted to share the revenue they made streaming would just go to the Twitch backend and give exact figures. Ludwig’s preference for a website he knew to be inaccurate, given that he could see it conflicted with his Twitch analytics which would have told him it was downplaying his revenue, is not something I can not explain to you. But it is something I should have been something I took into account and this was my error that Ludwig termed “wildly inaccurate”.'''DarkViper: '''Let me ask you, long did this error exist? A month, a week, a few days perhaps. I mean, Ludwig is sitting in his glass house made of his gross misrepresentations throwing stones at me about my error still a year later. So surely you’d imagine my video must have reached a staggering amount of people over a very long period? But no, the video existed for 20 minutes and reached about 2000 people. 


'''DarkViper: '''I saw Ludwig’s comment the second he made it, so I privated my video because unlike Ludwig I care about being accurate. I got out of bed again, even more tired now, and I spent the next half an hour stumbling over my words to make a new video. I used his inaccurate figures and came to a result of 66 thousand dollars, which was 22x higher than what Ludwig claimed. This obviously still undershot what he was actually taking home by a factor of 2 but hey it used the numbers he wanted so I figured he’d be happy. I then updated my comment with this new information which you can see on his video to this day. It was only at this point after two days that Ludwig finally commented on the issue, perhaps feeling bullied by me giving the timing, where he said “whoops guys, I did some bad math, I probably made between 40k and 70k”. Now it should be obvious that Ludwig didn’t do bad math, he didn’t just not carry one somewhere. He just straight up didn’t know how taxes worked, and seemingly even how percentages worked. This he fully admitted 10 days later when he finally made an update in a video where he acknowledged that what he said over a week ago was horseshit.




Ludwig: Last time, a few people took a clip of me doing the calculations which, I am no count, and I don't know calculations well, and then, ending with 3k and then, had the takeaway that Im walking away with 3k. Which isn't correct, so, yeah, the takeaway was not 3k. There is a lot in write-offs, and I think I have a better understanding of how to do it. I dont know the actual number, its not a meme, im not pretending to be dumb, i genuinely didnt pay my teaxes in 2018 because i was stressed out because i didnt know how to find my adjusted gross income, and i was so stressed that i just ignored it until i hired slime, and then slime did it for me. 


'''DarkViper: '''After I made my video, Ludwig on his livestream in front of 10s of thousands of people made endless false claims about me and my work. 




Ludwig: There was a guy who I'm not gonna harp on anymore and bring up his name, who posted a comment on the last video saying what the full sum was.




'''DarkViper: '''I didn’t understand at the time why so much of what he said was inaccurate, but learning now that he didn't even watch the video it all makes more sense. But like, if he didn’t watch the video, why did he talk about it at all then? Why is he even bringing it up now? I had people send me clips, long gone now, where he and his friend slime would say entirely made up garbage and laugh at me. I went through some seriously distressing cognitive dissonance at the time as I tried to rationalize how a guy I liked was being a total asshole just because I tried to help people. My mod put it best at the time: “So Ludwig talked to Matt in YouTube comments, Matt corrected for twitch sub ratio, but Ludwig still goes ahead on stream to talk about how twitch sub ratio was not included?”




Ludwig: On the last video seeing what the full sum was but assumed that i took away five dollars from Twitch 


'''DarkViper: '''Ludwig proceeded to whine as if the slightly incorrect original video that existed for 20 minutes had been hand delivered to every person on the planet. The hypocrisy of at all, after this is a guy, on multiple occasions, entirely misled literally millions of people about his finances with seemingly little care.I am not sure when i took my video down, but I left it up for months, more than enough time for him to watch it, but he was seemingly more keen to misrepresent me and it as a means of deflecting from his own mistakes. 


'''DarkViper: '''So that WAS where the story ended. Ludwig said a bunch of bullshit in front of tens of thousands of people and I had to read people annoyingly repeat this to me for the next few weeks. “Is that DarkViperAU? The guy who doesn't understand taxes?” But now we are in the present day, where Ludwig annoying again brought up this bullshit. So I DM'd him about it and I can’t tell if he was just trying to gaslight me, or if he has just rewritten his past in his head to justify the stupid shit he said then and now.

'''DarkViper: '''This is clearly false.Ludwig: “Its not a meme, im not pretending to be dumb”.


'''DarkViper: '''So it was a meme, a sincere attempt at transparency, a math error, and a result of you not understanding taxes. I mean, when just throw every excuse at the wall and see what sticks.


'''DarkViper: '''This of course was not the case, Ludwig not only let it sit for over 2 days, but he only left a comment after I had updated mine. I have proof of this because my video at the time, you can see Ludwig’s comment is not there, but mine is completely updated. So little care did he have to correct it formally that he didn’t state in a video that it was incorrect for 10 days. Ludwig could have literally removed the entire section with the YouTube editor in 5 seconds, but he just didn't care to.


'''DarkViper: '''He didn’t even watch the video.




'''DarkViper: '''This man was an asshole to me, now running an entire year, because his chat told him bullshit that he just ran with rather than watching a 3 minute video to find out if it was true? This is so stupid it is hard to believe.


'''DarkViper: '''This guy ran YouTube videos on his stream for like 15 out of the 30 days, he could have watched the video if he wanted to. He had more than enough time to tweet during that period, but not ask for help considering he didn’t understand how taxes worked? But that is the problem, Ludwig was surprisingly unaware of how little he knew thus he didn’t know to ask for help. It should go without saying, obviously he didn’t correct it immediately or we woudlnt fucking be here. 


'''DarkViper: '''Ludwig has deluded himself to the extent that he believes somehow not having OBS active would have taught him how taxes worked. Did someone put a gun to his head and force him to cut up his revenue on stream? Did his Twitch viewers kidnap his family and demand a detailed breakdown of his taxation and expenses? Who was asking for this? It is why other people speculated on why Ludwig kept doing this breakdown throughout the subathon because many of the possible motivations did not paint him in a good light.


'''DarkViper:''' I hope you agree that it is pretty funny for Ludwig to accuse me of being wildly inaccurate, and not understanding taxes, when he seems to have projected his own faults onto me, and wiped the vent from his mind. We will pick up Ludwig’s response to the dispute I have with moist critical overreact content in the next video. I'm sorry for this slide detour, but that event a year ago was amazingly annoying then, and his encapsulation of it now was even more. SO if you can’t wait, be sure to watch the second video in this series, linked down below where I look at react content from every angle and reference some data to show its impact. Spoilers: Everyone loses except the reactors. I hope you agree, Ludwig encapsulation of this event as “DarkViperAU made a wildly inaccurate video that he deleted before I could see it” is either just a flat out lie or such a gross mischaracterization that it is peak dishonesty. Although, Ludwig has this issue where he often speaks seemingly without any thought, which is going to become relevant in the next video where I look at Ludwig’s response to my dispute with charlie over react content.

Sources

This YouTuber “steals” his views.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLKG6017_lc&t=31s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLKG6017_lc&t=31s]


Ludwig is left with 3000 dollars out of 470 000 after paying off Mods and Charity.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_p8wj-G69w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_p8wj-G69w][https://www.youtube.com/c/Ludwigahgren/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/Ludwigahgren/videos]I livestreamed every minute of my life for 3 weeks and here's how much I earned

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtsG_MEK-Zc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtsG_MEK-Zc]Ludwig Subathon[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vThvKnVHDeF0iGgL7Bkx6wz_SE2hh2RvxzqEHyqtZvR3H0DXuOwwh5MdwnbzMYvluul97ld364VANqm/pubhtml https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vThvKnVHDeF0iGgL7Bkx6wz_SE2hh2RvxzqEHyqtZvR3H0DXuOwwh5MdwnbzMYvluul97ld364VANqm/pubhtml]I livestreamed every minute of my life for 10 days and here's how much I earned

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixO-_v2fB4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixO-_v2fB4Y]

How Much Money I Made From the Subathon.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJdWey4-MdM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJdWey4-MdM]

Old Ludwig subathon

[https://web.archive.org/web/20210320224135/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vThvKnVHDeF0iGgL7Bkx6wz_SE2hh2RvxzqEHyqtZvR3H0DXuOwwh5MdwnbzMYvluul97ld364VANqm/pubhtml# https://web.archive.org/web/20210320224135/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vThvKnVHDeF0iGgL7Bkx6wz_SE2hh2RvxzqEHyqtZvR3H0DXuOwwh5MdwnbzMYvluul97ld364VANqm/pubhtml#]Articles about the 3K[https://www.ginx.tv/en/twitch/ludwig-subathon-how-much-money-will-the-twitch-star-make https://www.ginx.tv/en/twitch/ludwig-subathon-how-much-money-will-the-twitch-star-make][https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ludwig-reveals-twitch-subathon-earnings-1540401/ https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ludwig-reveals-twitch-subathon-earnings-1540401/][https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/ludwig-estimates-he-will-make-over-10000-from-his-subathon-stream https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/ludwig-estimates-he-will-make-over-10000-from-his-subathon-stream][https://kotaku.com/twitch-streamer-behind-never-ending-marathon-says-hell-1846554595 https://kotaku.com/twitch-streamer-behind-never-ending-marathon-says-hell-1846554595][https://www.gamingverdict.com/news/ludwig-twitch-subathon-stream-generates-3k-wealth-so-farhttp://wumo.com/wumo/2015/06/19 https://www.gamingverdict.com/news/ludwig-twitch-subathon-stream-generates-3k-wealth-so-farhttp://wumo.com/wumo/2015/06/19]

He Knows React Content Is Wrong, But He Does It Anyway

'''Original video: '''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDmFIM_LtMI He Knows React Content Is Wrong, But He Does It Anyway]


Ludwig: Welcome back boys, to mogul mail. How's everybody doing? It's your favorite drama channel in the world, and we have some juicy stuff today, between two youtubers; DarkviperAU and Moistcritikal, actually a friend of mine, so, you know, I'm personally vested in this, I understand that going in.

'''DarkViper: '''This is Ludwig giving his thoughts on my dispute with Charlie over react content, but it should be obvious that Ludwig has more bias here than mere friendship. Ludwig is a reactor, a guy who often spends many hours watching other people’s hard work as a substitute for doing anything himself.




Ludwig: Reacting is generally a way for streamrs to fill content with higher level content because they’re reacting to someone else’s, so not only do you have already the floor of what the video you’re watching is, but then whatever you add to it, even if its like, a “PogChamp” face.

Right now I’m watching this video because i have food and i have to wait 30 minutes for my YouTube video to be uploaded by my editor, and so, im waiting, so i'm watching this video, thats why im watching “write full transparency”




'''DarkViper:''' It is less that Ludwig’s goal is to defend Charlie and more to defend the idea that a guy worth millions of dollars should be able to use other people’s unpaid labour to expand his fame and wealth at the expense of everyone else.




Ludwig: The gist of it, from my understanding, is Darkviper thinks that react streamers are a stain on the earth, that the creator economy would be better if all reacting went away. 

Reacting is incredibly lazy, it's super easy to do, and all it does, it takes impressions away from other channels. There are impressions, and when a reactor gets impressions like, if you get a million impressions, its taking it away from other people who'd get them, maybe not the original video creator, right, if i like, react to someone making a 3D spider-man model, with a 3D pen, not all the impressions I got, will go to that guy, but they’ll go to someone who’s making original content, and that should be rewarded, which i think is faulty. You can probably understand it just personally, you know, you might only watch live streams if i am live, i only watch live streams if my friends are live, and if they're not, it doesn't mean my impressions goes to another streamer or my view goes to another streamer, i just don't watch streams. And i think the same thing applies to Youtube channels, and in all the sorts there’s a misunderstanding, he is implying that there's a finite amount of impressions, and if you removed all the react streamers, the impressions would stay the same, not that the site would get smaller, which i think is the reality of the situation, and maybe he’s okay with that, maybe he’s okay if everybody leaves and goes rock climbing or plays baseball, i think was his example, but you are making the creator space smaller as a whole. 

'''DarkViper: '''There are a great degree of unspoken faulty or unknowable assumptions here, which is impressive given how imprecise Ludwig’s claim is. The immediate problem is that he didn’t even give an estimate as to how much any site would get smaller. Technically if you take a rock off a mountain it is smaller but that isn’t exactly meaningful. The only people who should use online media less if react content didn’t exist are those who both exclusively watch react content and only it specifically can satisfy whatever motivated them to seek out content in the first place. I don’t really think there would be many people who fit into the category of effectively hating all online media unless they are watching someone else watching it. I argue that everyone else would just move on to the next thing the same as we all do whenever what we are currently watching no longer satisfies our needs for content. Besides, I am not sure on what grounds he rejects the possibility that original content being more rewarded, could result in a platform being more appealing to viewers not less? Even the reactors would have to work harder to make actual content instead of being lazy. In the case of people watching YouTube videos, Ludwig seems to suggest that if all lazy reuploads were replaced with original content that less people overall would be interested in the platform. I am not sure on what he bases this. '''DarkViper: '''It is important to remember that it was the algorithms that first presented react content to people in the hopes of satisfying them and this is the same machine learning that would attempt to get them to watch something else. Why Ludwig believes react content uniquely qualified to keep people on, or coming back to, a platform, I have no idea. We have little reason to believe that the effective ‘next choice’ for an impression will be significantly different in terms of its ability to inspire people to stay on, or come back to, a platform. For some this other choice might see a reduction, others there would be no change, and others they'd use the platform even more. Maybe the impressions overall get a tad bit smaller, maybe they stay the same, maybe they grow, but in all cases, original content creators benefit as none of it would go to reactors instead of them. '''DarkViper: '''Like if the platform lost 1% of the impressions that go to reactors but the other 99% changed to original creators, sure that is technically loss for the entire platform but that it is still a substantial increase for all original creators.'''DarkViper: '''Bottom line, Ludwig is asserting that there are unicorns so committed to the contempt of watching people watch YouTube videos that they won’t ever watch anything else to the same or greater extent. I am not sure how you think this is helping your case, as these people would never watch the original creators who worked to make this content in the first place.




Ludwig: But let's get to actually reacting. What do you do about it? Reacting’s lazy, sure, sometimes reactors fuck over creators, abolutely;

What do you think about this? Every loving twithc streamer ever. Has 88.000 views, and reacting to it on my clip channel has 1.2M views. Is that fucked up? 

Reactors are often times able to make themselves the mecca of content for people, because not only are they able to create original content, but they can react to anything, so viewers have a one-stop shop, yeah, and i think these are good points, but the onus is on the platform, is the problem that twitch streamers aren't doing enough, to credit creators, or is the problem that the platform takes zero responsibility for stolen work? In my mind, the platform creators are just like business. They try to do things skinny, they do things dirty, they don't follow the rules, they break rules, and in business, we like prop that up, we're like wow, it's amazing, Amazon. How did you do it? -And Jeff Bezos, was like: Well, i fucked a lot of people over and i scammed.

My point is that people are going to do whatever they can in a multi-million dollar pool of people, trying to create content to rise to the top and if the people at the top are doing this, clearly, that's part of why they’re not saying it's a good thing, i'm just saying, that's a fact. 

Reacting, factually gets you higher, average viewers, and if you’re not doing it, you're going to be below the curve, i think that's a fact, and i don't think it should be on creators to try to be morally righteous while they’re competing against people who are doing it. Well, they’re just going to fail, taking a react video which is just taking someone’s hours or weeks of work, and then profiting off of it is bad. 




'''DarkViper: '''You are arguing that people should feel fine and should not be judged poorly, for acting immorally against other people if the consequence of acting morally would lose them monetary benefits or social status. This mindset is the cause of so much pain and suffering in the world, and it is the biggest reason social progress is hard. People join a corrupt system and say “well, when in Rome” and figuratively start kicking old people down the stairs arguing that it is someone else’s responsibility to stop them. Just because you might not experience negative consequences for exploiting or harming others, or even if you might receive benefits, this doesn’t mean that it is justifiable to do. The biggest flaw in what you have said here Ludwig is an alternative you haven’t considered. What if, hear me out, you don’t actually need to have success that can only be achieved immorally. Why not be satisfied with having just what you can achieve morally? The underlying premise of what you have said here is that attempting to be literally the best is a requirement, but it’s not. You already have more money and fame than effectively everyone who has ever lived. You have no need to do react content, you do it, knowing you are fucking over other people, because consideration for them is secondary to fulfilling your own emotional want for more, simply for the sake of having more. 




Ludwig: What about, like, the veil? So he made this video. Every OTK twitch stream, featuring Ludwig. It has 24k views. It's been reacted to by Sved, Mizkill, emmy, nmp, seer, Asmon, and myself. Each of these people when they reacted to it had more viewers than he had on the original video, so, he technically lost all of those views, but he did do, i think, kind of a smart thing, by uploading their reactions and now mizkiff reacting to it, has more views than the original, which is kinda crazy.




'''DarkViper: '''You have just made a wishy washy video that at the end of the day advocates for people to not change what they are doing, or who they support, and instead just let everything stay the same until a miracle happens. This same sentiment has been expressed by every person who has ever exploited others throughout history.




Ludwig: That’s crazy, that's crazy dude.

And youtube already solved this. I am a live streamer on youtube, and when i react to things, even when i use music, i get a copyright claim, and that copyright claim gives the revenue that i made from that live stream or sometimes for my videos, this video cant be monetized , I uploaded it yesterday, it's the tick tock don't laugh challenge,and i watched unusual memes, and uploaded it to nine minute video. The five second clip right here, rock smashes truck. Chat, do you think it goes well or goes bad? It goes bad, oh, now in chat, by the way, it's so addictive, like you can get more addictive, this guy’s great, this is what a hilarious quip. I got that, entire video demonetized, and now the creator of that which is owned, by junk and media, which is a whole nother problem, well now get all the profits and this happens, all the time, on my live streams, genuinely every single live stream i do is copyright claimed, here's the proof, the red means i can't be monetized because it was claimed by someone else. People who i react to get the money that they deserve for their videos, because they use youtube’s content ID system, to claim anyone who watches their videos.

'''DarkViper: '''For the sake of brevity, I am going to just list the top 8 things wrong with this section:

One: The solution is no react content, and you are showing that the sanctions that YouTube put on you have done nothing to stop you doing react content. 

Two: You have unlisted all these videos with claims on them, so the claimants will only get a pittance. 

Three: The claimant gets nothing of the memberships or donations which are worth far more money to a livestreamer.

Four: As you have acknowledged before in other videos, at our level exposure is usually more valuable than money and you are still stealing exposure away from the wider market that you have not returned. You will always be the bigger content creator, fueled by unlimited high quality unpaid labour. 

Five: Getting into the Content ID system is not an automatic process. All creators are not in the program. You have to apply to it, be accepted, and submit reference material for the system. It is why despite some video game songs being on YouTube itself, we don’t get content ID claims for them. They are on YouTube, but not in the content ID system. 

Six: Whenever you Content ID claims someone, you risk immense backlash from the public, I recall Alinity, Destiny, and Linus Tech Tips experiencing it for example. It is an automated system and people will label you a money hungry asshole attacking creators if it is applied incorrectly. Other times it will be applied correctly, and you will still be called a money hungry asshole attacking creators. When you’re an amorphous blob of a company like, juke and media, it doesn't matter what people think of you, but as a content creator, you have a brand, it matters what the audience think, it's why content creators don't use the content ID system usually.

The seventh reason, you need to have exclusive rights to whatever you are putting in the system. If your work has someone else copyrighted material, even if it falls under fair use, this could cause you issues. 

Eight, it puts a burden on the original creator to monitor a system, taking away from their time actually spent creating. The point is that reactors have an advantage due to needing to do far less work, adding to the work of the actual creators is just adding to that.


Ludwig: DarkViper for his outros, just use “be sure to like and subscribe, also leave a comment.” If kingdom hearts music on your mind, my feed gives them to me from all over my channel which is like, whatever i dont give a fuck, i like music, all the time. But clearly, he's using that song because it's probably not going to be copyright claimed, it's why I use video game music. It's just as illegal as using Ariana Grande’s new song, but they don't claim it. But that's okay, even though that took probably weeks, maybe even months of work for the studio to create, it's okay, to take that, what's not okay, is to take from creators. I don't care about being an arbiter of justice.


'''DarkViper: '''This usage of 15 seconds of cover of a song that came out over 20 years ago is not a substitute for the original. I am obviously not against using another person’s work to create something original and distinct, else I couldn’t respond to your video without being a hypocrite. Although to be fair to me, I do believe that if you are personally involved in something you should have much greater leeway with using the original material. It is not merely how much work went into the original, but the impact of your usage also matters to me. I am certainly not impacting Kingdom Hearts 1, but regardless, this is just disingenuous. Ludwig is acting like watching hundreds if not thousands of hours of YouTube on his livestreams, and reuploading this content to his YouTube channel, should be assessed as similar to 15 seconds of a song. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, sure my client did murder 25 people but you remember when you ate that last piece of pizza your friend was clearly reaching for. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, I rest my case. 




Ludwig: Honestly, I think a lot of DarkViper’s goal cause, he said in his response video, that he doesn't gain from this, that he's making enemies; I don't think that's accurate. There are specifically four people who are named directly, Hassan, Pokey, Moist and xQc, and i don't think that was an accident i dont think these four examples, the four largest twitch streamers or four of them was only to drive a point home, i think its to create a little controversy, get a little attention around the videos, and i'm pretty sure his videos trending in being one of his most viewed videos in the first day, and in the past month, is a proof of that, but again i don't care, about that, that's not the point.


'''DarkViper: '''It is always important to remember that when assessing motivations based on outcomes that the outcomes need to be predictable from the outset. For example let us say I was climbing on my roof but fell off. I later woke up in hospital, fell in love with a nurse and got married. Ludwig apparently would say my marriage proves that I climbed onto my roof in order to get married. Ludwig is effectively claiming I am a God or Laplace's demon and so predicted these outcomes beforehand and this spurred me into action. Ludwig seems entirely unable to identify a genuine care for others, perhaps because he lacks these feelings himself.'''DarkViper: '''I honestly dispute that I gained at all from my original script, certainly when compared to the opportunity cost of writing it, in part because it is always better to ingratiate yourself with the powerful rather than criticize them. But let us grant the premise that I did gain from my run in with Charlie and assess how likely it was that I acted to achieve this effect. 

The first big problem with Ludwig’s claim is that I didn’t make a video. I wrote a text document, tagging no one when I released it, because I was in the middle of working on a very difficult project and just wanted this react stuff out of my mind to stop distracting me. As I didn’t make a video, no one was linked to my channel, and it made responding to words more difficult. This would be fairly stupid if my plan was to bait responses for attention and views. As for the people listed, most were relevant examples due to each recently coming under fire for rebroadcasting tv shows. Xqc can barely read, Hassan is a moron and grifter who’s only response to criticism is to call people nazis, and pokemane has spent her career dodging criticism of her reacting to the extent she may as well be neo. Expecting responses from them would be fairly silly. The only reason my document got any notice at all was because of Charlie, who was included for reasons I have discussed previously, and he only responded because of something I wrote on twitter, and because he had followed my work for some time which I clearly didn't know. 


'''DarkViper: '''Besides, Ludwig is being very dishonest here. My first response video to Charlie was my 6th most viewed video of the 30 I released within that month. I get 10 million views a month, so a video doing a bit better than average is nothing I’d care about. My response to Charlie is my 212th most successful video, am I meant to hold a parade?

Also, I am surprised that Ludwig doesn’t know this but trending doesn't get you many views, certainly not being number 47th on trending. It’s not tailored to people’s preferences so people don’t use trending as a main source of content. Sure you will get like 2% more views if you are in the top 5 on global trending, but who cares.

'''DarkViper: '''While it is common for large content creators to dishonestly dismiss criticism by claiming the person speaking is merely motivated by a desire for clout, that is far harder to do with me. I am not a small creator looking for a ray of sunshine in my dark hole. If I wanted to speak to other large content creators, or versus them in GTAGuessr, I can just DM them and ask. I don’t do it often, largely because I’m shy. 

'''DarkViper: '''Ludwig claiming I am not making enemies while calling me a liar trying to get clout is quite humorous. Exploitation is a very lucrative game, and people who do it are not really fond of those who try to stop it, hence his attitude.




Ludwig: Simply getting permission before you react to something is probably a better work practice, than just watching it and fucking arround and finding out if they get annoyed, you know, i dont think ill do it completely, i already have permission from a lot of people to react to their stuff, like, summoning salt or Kurzgazat, and thats really the only longer form videos that i like to react.




'''DarkViper: '''The problem I have with this approach is that it still favors those who don’t do the work, and instead react to it. It still perpetuates a system where the rich get richer. You are just preying on people ignorant of their own value or how the market works that they are trying to operate in. You have said in this video that you know that react content advantages the reactor and it keeps the biggest streamers big, so when you ask for permission, how are you not just a guy going door to door selling snake oil? A person may buy it out of ignorance, but that they agreed to the sale doesn’t make you a good guy. If you want to trade on parasocial relationships, fear of backlash, or false promises of success, how do you think this makes you better? It also says nothing of everyone else in the market who is negatively impacted, as they are who you steal from most, not just the reactee. When I use someone else’s work I do so with a sincere belief that I can create something distinct and truly my own. When you watch a summoning salt video, you are just being lazy and exploiting summoning salt even if he is ok with that. 

'''DarkViper: '''Despite all the effort that Summoning Salt puts into his videos, his month to month viewership has stayed stagnant for years. Perhaps he should try not having dozens of exact replicas of his videos all over YouTube. If someone likes my videos you know what the algorithm recommends, my videos. If someone likes summoning salt videos, you know what the algorithm recommends, all the creators who watch summoning salt videos. Bad move for business, and you should not be taking advantage of him even if he is willing to let you. You want to give Summoning salt viewers, just preview the video on stream, or shout it out to your followers on social media. If you actually liked the dude, you wouldn’t be reacting to his stuff, you'd be promoting it in a way that doesn't benefit you. 




Ludwig: Like all the videos from the music streams, have hundreds of thousands of views, and a lot of these started with like, i remember, hundreds of hundreds of views, and a lot of these songs just fucking, boomed now. 




And so that ends the video. While there is much more I could say, I would too greatly be repeating myself from the other videos. Feel free to watch them if you want to know more. Have a good one.

'''DarkViper: '''When people talk about the most viewed video on YouTube, there are actually two categories. The most viewed video, and the most viewed video excluding music. This is because a song you enjoy once can be one that you will then happily listen to 50 times that week. I have songs that have been in my playlist for 20 years, my mother still listens to the carpenters and they haven’t released a song since 1981. If you look at the top 20 most watched videos, all of them are songs. This is because music differs from almost all content in that it is effectively infinitely reusable so nothing else can really compete in terms of viewers numbers. However, the vast majority of books, tv shows, youtube videos, livestreams, or movies as when you have seen them once, that will be enough unless they are truly special or you revisit them half a decade later. Listening once to a song you enjoy however does not satisfy your need for music, it just makes you want to experience it again. It is why the songs that top the charts tend to go viral on tiktok for example as tiktok gives people a taste that leads them to want more. It is somewhat similar to games as the most successful are those that tend to do really well on YouTube or Twitch, because showing people music or gameplay can not give you the entire experience brought about normally through those products. It just leaves you wanting that experience that has been shown to you. Again, this differs from reactions to non-reusable content, tv shows, books, youtube videos, livestreams, movies etc, as these reactions give you the entire experience of those mediums thus the reactions do little more than grow the person who is stealing that content for their reactions.


Ludwig: DarkViper tried to make the argument, that, you know, all these reaction channels are taking away the views and killing channels? But I really think the opposite can apply, and channels with really good content that are just waiting for an opportunity to show it off can blow up, from reacting to it, not all the time, but sometimes.


'''DarkViper: '''No my guy, it is worse than that. I’d argue that even if this can happen, that this would still happen LESS from reactions than if reactors just didn’t exist and their viewers therefore needed to branch out and find other forms of content. Besides, as I outlined in the 2nd video, it is doubtful that a person can blow up just from a reaction these days, they’d need actual promotion not just a reupload. 


'''DidYouKnowGaming?:''' Also, they definitely don't need my help with a shout out , but i just wanted to highlight because i love it so much, did you know gaming put out a new video about metal gear solid, and a lot of the cut ideas from the series, things that didn't make it into the final game. I knew about a lot of this stuff, but just like an insufferable die-hard fan, there's still a lot of really cool surprises in there that I think people are going to enjoy. It's a really really great video, and it's narrated by David Hayder himself! Which is incredible. I love that man’s voice.




'''DarkViper: '''Jay Exci was reacted to by Hassan pike, in front of 30k people, and got an extra 180 views. No, you heard me correctly. 180. Bismuthi got reatec to in front of 12k people, and got 50 views. WillyMacShow got reacted by Moist Critikal in front of 20k people, and got 100 views. 




WillyMacShow: When Critical reacted to my video on stream I received around an extra hundred views on that video.




'''DarkViper: '''More importantly, we don’t compare two scenarios just by looking at the potential positive outcomes of one scenario, we look at the positive and negative outcomes of one scenario versus the positive and negative outcomes of the other scenario. Imagine a scenario if I had a box and 100 people walked in, 99 of them died, but one guy got to come out with a cute puppy. Ludwig’s reasoning here is the same as saying that box is great, look, that guy has a cute puppy. I’d argue if we look at things fairly, we are better just not having that box, those 100 people would be better off as a totality without the death box Ludwig. Pointing to that puppy is not a good argument for the slaughter of 99 people.'''DarkViper: '''But again, as I outline in the second video, a reaction can’t change the nature of your content, it can’t make it algorithmically viable. If it is algorithmically viable, you will succeed sooner or later, if it isn’t, no reactions can save you. The algorithm is already trying to find an audience for the content you upload and to believe you as a reactor have a better shot at doing that by showing random videos to your audience compared to the multi-billion dollar algorithm with the analytics of billions of people is just…a tad arrogant.

'''DarkViper: '''But Ludwig sure does try to show that reactions can blow up a channel using his 20k livestream viewers. So for 20 minutes Ludwig sings the praises of the creator Akren, explains in great detail what the creator produces, who the content would appeal to, why he loves the content. So not your traditional reaction. He then proceeded to restream the entirety of 12 of Akren’s videos which is more than a tad bit scummy. Remember that channels thrive off people clicking recommendations and that is now 12 videos that 20k people will be less likely to click if they get an impression for them. 




Ludwig: You’re not subbed to him? Yikes… Yikes.. Now im subbed to him, now him subbed to him, okay, if i’ve seen all his videos, but i'm not subbed that's not that bad, chat, you don't have to dog me.


'''DarkViper: '''The algorithm has no idea that these viewers have already seen videos in Ludwig’s stream, thus it will view them not clicking on impressions for them as evidence of a lack of interest rather than due to them already having seen it. 

So this was 3 months ago, so we can see the results of this experiment. We can see compared to the prior week Akren got 2k additional subscribers and we can assume many of these came from Ludwig. Then his channel went off a cliff. Compared to the prior week, he saw a slight increase in views which are very unlikely to come from Ludwig, and then the channel went off a cliff. The macro stats show this the best, oof. I can't tell you why this channel is doing worse, they are still uploading. Perhaps, the game is just now less popular.


'''DarkViper: '''This compared to a reality where Ludwig showed none of this, and just ended his stream, leading 20k people to go do other things in many cases supporting other creators. Obviously this isn’t a win for content creators as a whole. Ludwig working to keep viewers with him longer, doesn’t help anyone but Ludwig.

'''DarkViper: '''If you want more information, check out the 2nd video in this series linked down below. It covers react content from literally every angle, while looking at some data of its effects, rather than what this video did, which was just address anything that Ludwig referenced. If you want the whole picture, this video is a must.

Sources

''The lies that stole a fortune - 2nd video in react series''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irk8h0ax5aY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irk8h0ax5aY]''Ludwig’s Response video''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLKG6017_lc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLKG6017_lc]''How bad is react content really?''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-9BIHEYCIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-9BIHEYCIw]''Ludwig’s Wirtual reaction''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k89sF7Mywd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k89sF7Mywd8]''Office blokes - The history of the entire world reaction''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mh7OvYs8B8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mh7OvYs8B8]''My original reaction script''[https://docs.google.com/document/d/150ojYEfnZVjY1Ro27aEFJG5FCAQD5u9KTH0GD-qmZ1A/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/150ojYEfnZVjY1Ro27aEFJG5FCAQD5u9KTH0GD-qmZ1A/edit?usp=sharing]''35 Hours In ONE Mission (Pacifist Challenge) - Can You Complete GTA 5 Without Wasting Anyone? - 26''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DznKh8NLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DznKh8NLM]''Are Streamers Bad People - Penguinz0''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAPDd-cB8Do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAPDd-cB8Do]''Gameranx Shout Out''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdxOkTjfuzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdxOkTjfuzU]''List of most viewed videos''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-viewed_YouTube_videos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-viewed_YouTube_videos]

''41 Best tiktok songs''[https://www.teenvogue.com/story/best-tik-tok-songs https://www.teenvogue.com/story/best-tik-tok-songs]

''12 Minutes of Summit1g Going Nuts in CS:GO''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JxFp0hXVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JxFp0hXVM]

''Elden Ring: An Incorrect Summary... Asmongold Reacts to Max0r''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5NfMESRNTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5NfMESRNTg]

''WillyMack Show React Numbers''[https://youtu.be/0-SgKor0mJs?t=118 https://youtu.be/0-SgKor0mJs?t=118]

''Akren''[https://www.youtube.com/c/akrenakren https://www.youtube.com/c/akrenakren]

''Akren stats''[https://socialblade.com/youtube/c/akrenakren https://socialblade.com/youtube/c/akrenakren]

Outtakes

I could ask you all how often do videos you watch come from the trending tab, you’d respond “what is the trending tab” or “where is the trending tab” or “I think I checked the trending tab last year by accident”. The only person I have ever heard give a specific number for trending views is MrBeast, who once claimed only 2% of his views came from trending, and that is like being top 5 global trending constantly. While I suspect that figure was pulled out of his ass, obviously the content isn’t tailored for each viewer’s preferences who most don’t use it as a main source for content. But again, Ludwig is claiming me to be some sort of deity playing 15 dimensional chess in order to bring this all about.

Ethan Klein Claims React Content Is Just Free Speech! - The Hypocrite Speaks

'''Original video: '''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQLgRr6H2qM Ethan Klein Claims React Content Is Just Free Speech! - The Hypocrite Speaks]


'''Ethan:''' There’s a big drama brewing, involving moist critical. He's been called out by a smaller creator named DarkViper. He's a guy whose bitter pupils are super dilated too. Why are his pupils so dilated? He's got something in his bloodstream man. 

Sir, speedy, speedy viper. Here who just did a line of meth, you're taking the I man, it is unhinged and very bitter, very unhinged, and very bitter.

Its nothing bro, it doesnt matter, youre an asshole and a dumb ass too, and your points are bad, and youre on meth, what are you going to do about it, you suck, fuck you. Shut up bro, stop whining bro, that space is just going to go to another high click through high watch time creator, which aint you. 

Oh you're so boring bro. It doesn't matter, just move on. 

Boring, lame, suits on so much adderall oh my god can i skip this, i hate this part, is so so point go to that says i have to skip this. I gotta skip. 

This is what it's like from here on, because this shit is off the rails guys, I need something more juicy than this. Oh my god bro, you are so annoying, your content sucks dude, you're mad, you don't get impressions bro, cause you explain things 20 times i gotta skip you again. I just skipped like five minutes, you still talking about impressions, i cant keep watching these arguments about impressions, this is so stupid, hes raving, hes angry, hes bitter, also who cares, aint that weird? 

So boring dude, i'm gonna wrap this up, this guy’s annoying me, let me just skip forward again. He just seems bitter, he really does. And i'll tell you, what else im gonna do, i'm gonna write a 15 page essay, about why you’re a poo poo head, what you gonna do about it dude? I'm gonna start with why your fingernails so long poopoo head; Number one, dude’s got long fingernails cut. Cut your fingernails bro, it's weird, also i don't like seeing your armpit hair, wear a shirt okay, cover yourself, yeah, I just don't want to see your armpit hair all the time. It just seems to be the kind of ramling of a bitter dude who is just mad, I just don't care brom i've engaged heavily, as honestly and as partially as I possibly could in the first, and second video.




'''DarkViper: '''People begged me to watch Ethan Klein’s response to the dispute I had over react content with Charlie and I can honestly say that despite making YouTube videos for 10 years it has been the worst response I have ever received. Throughout his videos Ethan refuses to argue for anything he asserts, or to even give the reasoning behind much of what he says. Worse, he doesn’t define or justify his usage of terms that are used very differently around the world by different people, making it very hard to understand what his positions even are. Taken at face value, he seems to believe that the 1st Constitutional Amendment in America gives Americans unrestricted global redistribution rights to everyone else’s creative works, not just American creative works, but all creative works ever produced in any country throughout time. I know this can’t actually be his position, I am going to give Ethan some credit and suggest he is not as stupid as he comes across, but I am immediately tempted to take this boon back due to how little he understood of what I wrote and said. For example, I clarified my position on fair use which can be summarized as “Who the fuck cares” so I made only one reference to it in order to argue for its irrelevancy. He of course didn’t understand this so took every reference I made to anything at all to be a statement about the American legal system.


[Ethan saying fair use 100 times]

'''DarkViper: '''Why on earth would my standard for acceptable behaviour be what people wrote down in 1976 in a country I have never been to!? Why would exploitation and harm become acceptable just because it was legal in the country where it was being done? While I did take one paragraph to point out that the react content I was criticizing is not protected by American fair use law, I further went on to say that even if it were, I don’t care. The reason I think react content shouldn’t exist has nothing to do with America’s antiquated ideas of copyright. There are literally hundreds of countries with differing ideas of to what degree people should be given ownership of their own work, or allowed usage of other people’s. Why does Ethan think his country's laws should supersede all other laws and standards of morality and why, if I had to pick one, why would I pick the American legal system of all places to enshrine as the most important? 


'''DarkViper: '''The laws in any region are an ever changing amorphous blob. It is the justification for the law, not the law itself, that holds weight in terms of advocating for some particular behavior over any other. The reference I made to slavery was to outline the stupidity in arguing that anything that is legal is somehow justifiable. Even in the 1800s, be like, what, you’re complaining about slavery? Well it's legal, shut up, maybe you dont want to own slaves, but he does. Thats his business, not yours, this line of argumentation that Ethan employs is stupid, because you run into the issue of inadvertently defending every exploitative and harmful act in human history in every country so long as it is still legal or was legal at the time. Ethan doesn’t understand this so every time I would bring up any harm brought forth by react content, he would say “yeh, but it’s legal bro”. As if the only reason Ethan thinks people shouldn’t murder children and eat them for lunch is because it is illegal to do so. You have no conception how painful this was to listen to, and I had to listen to it four fucking times. I actually paid someone else to go through it for me for the fifth time, and they complained it was unbearable. Well the fair use stuff was bad, the second thing he kept repeating was far worse. 

[Ethan saying freedom of speech 100 times]

'''DarkViper: '''Repeating free speech 36 times is not a fucking argument! Not fucking once, does this man even define freedom of speech is to him. He just repeats the phrase over and over and over again as if this phrase doesn’t have multiple meanings and wide disagreement in the public sphere over what it should cover. The way he uses the phrase again seems to imply that the mere utterance of an opinion about something gives you unlimited global redistribution rights for what you have commented on. He believes free speech not only gives you the right to communicate your own opinions and expressions, but it also gives you free reign to control and redistribute other people’s. It should be obvious to you that I can say “Back to the future trilogy are good movies”, without redistributing even a single frame of any of them. I feel like I might be blowing Ethan’s mind that somehow words have expressed myself without me having shown you all 6 hours of content. Speaking on anything does not at all require you to copy and/or redistribute what you are talking about. Freedom of speech obviously existed before the digital age and the coming of the ability to easily copy and reproduce other people’s work. '''DarkViper: '''America’s first amendment does not seem to give you absolute right over other people’s creative works. If it did, copyright law would be unconstitutional and fair use law wouldn’t need to exist. These are separate laws, and concepts. I made sure to read again the article ‘Where's The Fair Use’, which gives a comprehensive review of the history of fair use law and its application and precedent on YouTube, just in case I missed something. In its 40 pages, Freedom of speech is not mentioned even once.40 PAGES!! Even free speech as a general philosophical concept, does not necessitate ownership of, or the right to distribute, the labors of others. To put it another way, you can speak on whatever you want, that has never been disputed, it is a question of what right do you have to distribute, and profit from, the labour of others without permission or payment. Freedom of speech is not the same as a universal right to context for your words. 


'''DarkViper: '''To put it more bluntly, imagine a world where you could spend 10 years of your life and 10 million dollars producing something, but then everyone could just redistribute that for free as long as they had an opinion on it. Ethan seems to want to argue that people should not be rewarded for their efforts, and his mere utterance is sufficient for him to take ownership of whatever he speaks on. Again, I can not believe for a second this his is his actual position, but then why release such an impressively stupid video if that is the case?'''DarkViper: '''While what free speech is or what it should cover is not universally agreed upon, as a legal right it generally just codifies into law the ability to communicate ideas and information without restriction by the government. The UN for example states that''' everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression'''<nowiki>; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of </nowiki>all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice. This does not necessitate, or even really imply that you have the right to universal ownership of the context or your words nor the right to achieve maximal understanding irrespective of other factors. It relates to information and ideas. It is why it doesn’t give you the legal right to take pictures off the wall of a museum just because you said it looks pretty. I have made a case that what reactors are doing, watching the entirety of another person’s video with their audience, is exploitative and harmful, ultimately rewarding the lazy over the hard working which is not only bad for the content creator ecosystem but is harmful to society as a whole due to a bad incentive structure. These points Ethan never came close to understanding or responding to, which again made his response very hard to listen to. Ethan however asserts at least twice that react content is always good. I showed that not to be true in great detail in the second video on this series so I won’t rehash it here.'''DarkViper: '''Most of you would likely say that people should have a right to a certain degree of control over the things they create. But you’d also say that people should have some ability to use another’s creation to make something original. Both of these ideas are good for a society to have, but where each of us would draw the line is going to differ. But rather than tackling this difficult issue, Ethan just repeats freedom of speech over and over again as if the unlimited redistribution of everyone’s work is a requirement to speak on anything. Ethan is the first person I have ever heard in my 10 year career to reference fair use as simply freedom of speech. I would further refute the reasoning behind the position but he literally never gives it. The man acts like freedom of speech is the end rather than a means to the end and thus will not even contemplate a reality where something else could be just as, or more, important. Even the Supreme court in America has given allowances for the government to restrict speech for fuck sakes.'''DarkViper: '''Ethan’s implication that react content, of the sort I described, would be protected under fair use is just dishonest. Imagine a scenario where Ethan and I have seen a man run and scream “I am going to intentionally stab Frank until they die” and we then watched as he did as he described. While I would say “Omg he murdered that guy”, Ethan apparently would say “I mean, murder is legal definition, neither of us here are lawyers so…”. Ethan needs to remember that the existence of ambiguous things does not make all things equally ambiguous. We don’t make decisions based on 100% certainty, merely what is most likely true given what we know. As the judge in his own trial pointed out, the range of what is called react content is very broad, not all of it being legal, but I was very specific in the form that I was speaking on and there is no ambiguity here. There is nothing either in precedent or a charitable reading of fair use guidelines that would defend react content of the form I describe.Reactors are not giving even a casual attempt at staying within fair use guidelines and fair use does not defend the market substitutes that they create. But again, even if they did, legality does not excuse harm or exploitation. 

'''DarkViper: '''Originally I had a breakdown of the guidelines of fair use, but it is a tad long so I will just put it in the description. But to summarize, when you have taken the entirety of another person’s work it is effectively impossible to pass fair use as you will end up violating the other guidelines by creating a substitute for the original on the market. In other words, it doesn’t matter what a reactor adds, that they leave nothing behind, means that no one has any reason to seek out the original. It then becomes impossible for reactors because they can not defend the substantiality of what they have taken because they had no idea what was in the video prior to their watching and using all its material. In most cases when asked “why did you use that copyrighted material’ the response will have to be “I dunno, I didn't know it would be there. I guess I used it because it was there’. Ethan did this with his reaction to my video, he copied and redistributed the entire thing but made comments such as “hey move on, this isn’t relevant, I don’t care about this”. He can’t go to court and argue he had a legal right to use my material while he openly admits in the video that it was entirely irrelevant to his commentary and he had no need to include it. It was only out of laziness that it was left in and this is the problem that all reactors have. No legal body has affirmed first time reactions as ‘socially valuable’ in of themselves, and thus ‘for the purpose of showing others my first time reaction’ is not an argument for the use of any copyrighted material. Reactors are not using the bare minimum of what is necessary, they are taking everything irrespective of value just because it happens to be there. Fair use does not remove copyright, it is still copyrighted material, and stealing copyrighted material out of ignorance for its existence isn’t a legal argument. If fair use law did defend this form of reaction content, you could freely pirate movies by adding a small note that says “I think this is good''. Netflix could avoid billions in licensing fees by having a guy appear and say “Excellent episode, here is the next one”. This sort of content is not what fair use was created to defend, and if it did, it would render copyright toothless. 




'''Ethan:''' He says, he continues that, keep in mind, that reactors are not reviewers, analysts documentarians expert critics or even video essays. This is a terrible argument by DarkViper, he's using this to say he, who are they to react to content, they have no qualifications, their credentials has no bearing at all, on their right to free speech, it doesn't matter if they're qualified, you know, its like you don't need qualifications to have an opinion dude, that's not how free speech works.




'''DarkViper: '''That is not the point of that sentence, it is to draw distinctions between content creators and people who watch youtube videos for a living. This is made painfully obvious when the quote is taken in context It is drawing a distinction between types of content creators, not arguing that reactors lack qualifications. This should be obvious given that most of those labels are not qualifications. This part was added almost last due to people suggesting I was not being specific enough in what form of content I was critiquing.


'''Ethan:''' Look, this man had his pupils, were more dilated than the margin, they were wider, than the margins on his 14 page essay, okay.'''DarkViper: '''Lastly, Ethan made a half dozen comments about my pupils. This was certainly a first for me, while I have been told I have beautiful eyes, I have never had someone so fixated on my pupils. Hearing of his claims of my rampant drug use, I wrote a tweet. This tweet was not about my pupils, but his claim that I did drugs. My response was “why would I do illegal drugs when I have an autoimmune disease, that would be a difficult thing to bring up with my doctor and I have enough problems as is”. I was not saying my thyroid issue was the cause of my pupil dilation, merely one of the dozen reasons I don’t do any drugs not prescribed to me. It should be obvious to most people that my pupils were dilated because I was concentrating in a dark room while very angry. Adrenaline being the chief thing in your system that makes your pupils go wide. I was honestly surprised to learn Ethan and most people don’t know this about human biology but hey I am not a biologist so maybe it doesn’t happen for everyone. If you looked back that far, you might notice my pupils are equally dilated in my old rant at the quartering, for the same reason.'''DarkViper: '''Bottomline, Ethan’s video reacting to my video shows perfectly why react content is awful. Had he watched my video beforehand, he either would have concluded he didnt have enough to say to justify a video or it would have been one tenth the length as he would have only included the parts of my work that mattered to what he wanted to say. He skipped over sections, asked questions that were later addressed in the video, incessantly repeated himself, and misunderstood things that if he had taken the time he likely would have come to grasp. Ethan’s painful laziness caused him to produce something that not only misinformed his audience, but highlighted all his worst traits as a person. I will say however, I expected to watch his video and conclude that Ethan was as bad a person as his horrible reputation suggests. I found this not to be so. Ethan is not a bad person, he is just a fool.


But I am short that would not satisfy Ethan, who has an anal fixation of American fair use law despite his stance that it is effectively random chance for us to be able to assess whether ripping a Disney movie to YouTube would violate it. So let us discuss America’s irrelevant copyright laws:''An important limitation on [copyright right] is fair use, a judicially created doctrine that permits certain socially valuable uses (e.g., quotations for literary criticism) based on four factors: Factor (1) the purpose and character of the use; "whether and to what extent the new work is 'transformative, so as to change the purpose or character of the original work “''The original work and the reaction both have exactly the same purpose, target the same audience, and nothing about the original work is changed even slightly. So true is this that watching a reaction gives the entire experience that you’d get watching the original work.''Factor (2) the nature of the underlying copyrighted work; the question is whether there is a need to allow greater public use of a certain type of work than of other works. For example, "[t]he law generally recognizes a greater need to disseminate factual works than works of fiction or fantasy”''Duplicates of YouTube videos are not somehow of public interest, and the commentary provided in reaction content could be equally done without the entirety of the original work present.''Factor (3) the amount and substantiality of the copyrighted work taken, the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, requires an inquiry regarding both the quantity and quality of the materials used from the copyrighted work.''They use the entire thing, heart, body and soul, to the degree that it is a direct duplication.''Factor (4) the use’s effect on the market for the copyrighted work 'whether unrestricted and widespread conduct of the sort engaged in by the defendant would result in a substantially adverse impact on the potential market' for the original." "[w]here the secondary use is not a substitute for the original and does not deprive the copyright holder of a derivative use. . .[there is a weighing] in favor of fair use."3 19''It is literally a direct copy that you can watch as a replacement for the original.

Sources

''The Lies That Stole A Fortune - How The Reactor's Scam Works ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irk8h0ax5aY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irk8h0ax5aY]

''Ethan Video 1''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE2n2r9uW7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE2n2r9uW7w]

''Ethan Video 2''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CcVkyFXHyw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CcVkyFXHyw]''Ethan Video 3''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk3LuoJKSdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk3LuoJKSdg]

''Charlie - Are React Streamers Bad People''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAPDd-cB8Do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAPDd-cB8Do]

''How the react grift works''[https://docs.google.com/document/d/150ojYEfnZVjY1Ro27aEFJG5FCAQD5u9KTH0GD-qmZ1A/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/150ojYEfnZVjY1Ro27aEFJG5FCAQD5u9KTH0GD-qmZ1A/edit]''UN Freedom of speech''[https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights]''Asmongold Reacts to "Why you're not having fun in MMO's anymore"''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_4fysKgYVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_4fysKgYVM]

''WE WON THE LAWSUIT!''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eN0CIyF2ok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eN0CIyF2ok]

How A ''Socialist'' Made Capitalism Worse

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va1zPshj5f0 How A ''Socialist'' Made Capitalism Worse]


Hey Everyone'''''Intro''DarkViper: '''Hasan Piker made three reaction streams where he spoke on his views of reaction content, which included his viewing Charlie's videos about our dispute on the same issue. I can honestly say that in all my 10 years on YouTube I have never seen anything like these streams and I frankly wish I still hadn’t. Unlike Charlie, H3H3, Ludwig, not only didn’t read my original script, but despite being aware of his lack of knowledge he still felt it was his duty to throw out wild accusations and speak with absolute confidence about things he knows nothing about. For those who know Hasan Piker, his confidence despite his wilful ignorance is nothing new. For those who only know him by reputation, this is why people all along the political spectrum say “Holy shit, people actually get their political information from Hasan Piker? This is more evidence we are doomed as a species”. For hours this man had some sort of psychotic break while trying to justify avoiding acknowledging any actual criticism of his behavior. And as you’ll hopefully come to see while Hasan is often seen as the resident socialist political commentator on Twitch, this appears to be little more than a ploy to garner an audience. 


I say this in part because no socialist could mentally deal with the level of exploitation required by Hasan’s reaction based business model. Let me show you what I mean:


'''DarkViper: '''Here we have one YouTuber who labours for a week to make one video. Here is Hassan who steals a YouTube video as a part of his livestream and he makes it into a video for his channel, ending up with 1 video that normally takes a week to make, but instead it took him 30 minutes. He also has the added benefit of a livestream and the other videos made of his livestream content. What takes a YouTuber a week, Hasan can do in 30 minutes. But it gets worse, Hasan isn’t limited to only reacting to one video, he can react to several. He can also do this, every single day. Now who is more likely to bring themselves a greater amount of exposure, views and revenue? Each of the individual youtubers with 1 weeks worth of labour and 1 video, or Hasan with 7 livestreams and over 40 potential videos collectively housing a years worth of labour with a content variety and quality that cant be matched by anything but an army of creators? Each of these videos either ending up on his main channel or the endless channels that he allows to upload footage of his livestream? I hope the answer goes without saying, but it gets worse. Each of these YouTubers and Hasan are attempting to attract to themselves viewers from the same general finite market. Who is more likely to end up with the most at the end of the week? Do you think individual YouTubers would benefit more or less if Hasan wasn’t a reactor? Not just the people he steals videos from, but everyone else in the market, as his goal is not just to steal viewers away from those he reacts to, but everyone in general, as he can just as easily steal someone away from any of us as he can the people he reacts to.


'''DarkViper: '''Who is more likely to grab a greater portion of the finite online market that exists each day, especially when the algorithm is slightly weighted towards newer releases than older? It's obviously the reactor. Who is more likely to grow faster? Obviously Hasan, not because of hard work, but due to a willingness to fuel his enterprise with thousands of hours of unpaid labour . The harder they work, the more Hasan can steal, and so they will always be behind. 


'''DarkViper: '''Every person I responded to previously brought something new to the table, but Hasan never understood the criticisms against him, so he brought little more than his idiocy. It is important for later that you understand what Hasan’s streams were like, so I am going to show you a compilation, but if it gets too much feel free to skip ahead to this timestamp where we will go back to a more serious breakdown.'''DarkViper: '''I want to give you a glimpse of what his streams were like but if you gets too overwhelming to you, just skip ahead to this timestamp where I will get a bit more serious:


'''Hassan:''' I don't know, I pride myself on being pretty normal though, for the most part.

Its genocide! You are treating me like the kool-aids were being treated by Stalin!

Deliberately telling people that like covet gives you autism and your child autism too they had like a bunch of Nazis in the kill stream.

Nazis nazis nazis nazis and nazis.

And like that i don't think that person is actually a Nazi or whatever.

Yo what the fuck dude bro bro dude get to.

I don't like it. Find a good therapist bro, just don't. 

But you’re still talking about it because you’re an idiot. It's just, dude, this mother fuckers, they don't know how to make good content okay. A lot of these mother fuckers just don't know how to make good content like I do react to a lot of content and I react to a load of content making 10 hours of high quality original content a day. Its so stupid man, they dont know how to be captivating. They don't know how to be entertaining.

I'm gonna sleep real well tonight after I jerk off.

They are upset and can't maintain an audience. Darkviper guy, it's very easy for me to avoid their content because it's dog shit. He spends hours editing his videos and gets mad when he sees people want to watch other things. Yeah, exactly. “Darksideviper” is a bigger youtuber than me, he has a bigger youtube channel than i do. 

Dog, you have 900.000 subs, and a fucking psychotic fan base that’s absolutely gonna come in here and ass blast me non stop as theyve been doing all day. My moderators have been banning your fan base all day for the past twy days just because i dont cry about it and turn arround and go “oohh me look how much of a victim i am” like dark side viper, or whatever the fuck his name is. You’re absolutely weaponizing your pretty sizable fan base. okay you’re doing that, you’re doing that same! Shut the fuck up, be happy that i dont do the same back to you. If we’re being real, at least I have some decency, okay, to avoid your shitty content for the most part.

Dude dude dude, and this person is like, broken, their brain but just like we’re not friends, we’re not cordial.

'''Hassan:''' I dont know you you’re a 15-months subscriber, i dont know who the fuck you are, i would have never known who the fuck you were until you just like spoke out like a dickhead in my chat. Dont do that silly, who the fuck are you silly. Who's silly?

I'm rolling these pieces off because they’re being incredibly annoying.

He’s so horny about like, hating, he is such a massive raging hard-on hate boner, he is so fucken broken up, he is so hard hard as diamonds, okay? Straight up. His hay booner is so massive. Definitely just cut off circulation to his brain, like, no blood is pumping into this man’s brain, very obviously engaging in, not only bad faith criticism, but like, the worst kind of bad faith criticism. Why do people like this guy, is crazy, he seems like, is he okay? Like, he actually seems like not at all right. I don't know man, I guess like there’s a lot of obnoxious people that like other people that are just obnoxious because it makes them feel normal about their obnoxious behavior or deranged behavior.


'''Hassan: '''But it just feels like a song wanted to not be a streaming anymore but they didn't want to lose those stream dollars. What am I supposed to do, die? Like i don't understand, i just don't lock when you’re doing twitch streams all right, i don't like it, just don't do twitch streams.

I don't like the way that some of you nerds behave, it's so insanely unlikable, that it doesn't matter. You’re just being a pedantic, and like, there’s a reason why you don’t have any friends in the real world and the only friends that you have are on the internet, if you notice yourself being weird, shut the fuck up. Don't do that.


'''Hassan: '''You’re a psycho if you think that that is a charitable person. No, that is a deranged person, and for a lot of weirdo neck bearded pasty that spend all their time on kiwi farms and 4chan.


Yeah they’re farming viewership that is already built and disliked for the streamers they’re talking about. Do that for you, you’re landing on top of an audience of pre-existing really deranged people all of those content creators that are coming across, like, they’re making legitimate criticism. 


'''Hassan: '''The reason why they are doing this is because they tap into those audiences. Well, most people on me, because they’re right, it's like, super bottom of the barrel, just like, to click on a video and just like play it and and talk over it so no matter what happens, they’re gonna see it as like, the most bottom of the barrel type of content that you can make. 

Youtube has always had the same reactions or attitude, right? 


'''Hassan:'''Well if he consents in the main point here they do they do consent. Most of the people would absolutely consent operating in a very bad faith not just bad faith but like actually bad faith i tackle it head-on i yella bout it id never cave i never give in and that probably makes me seem like a cunt or a douchebag to people that are not super aware of the issue or the people that are looking at it and going yeah it is kind of fucked up this person’s making some good points why is this guy yelling. I guess he just doesn't know how to deal with criticism. All my haters constantly say I just never am responsive to criticism and I never think I'm in the wrong. I would have never watched that dude’s video. I would have never watched anyone’s video, I'm only watching charlie’s videos. 

I'll just ban and move on most of you here .

'''Hassan: '''Know i apologize or say I'm wrong all the time. Okay, I'm an idiot. I don't even need to see the actual video. I've seen so many other so many other things that lead me to believe that they are not being good faith in their criticism, yourself admittedly a little stubborn sometimes. Yeah I still will apologize.


'''Hassan:''' I don't want to harm someone. I don't want to hurt someone’s feelings. That's not who I am, it's not what I do at all.


Dude he’s so up this guy you clout goblin dude what a musty little freak dude holy fuck, put him in his little basement wearing his ugly ass tank top with his hamburguer meat popping out on my lord, what a sick freak dude it is so gross dude holy he is so gross dude he’s so gross who the fuck subscribes to this guy seriously if you subscribe to this basement dwelling freak. 


There is always in the middle of my day when my mom isn't there to cook the chicken.

'''Hassan: '''For me its like, when you have like a psychopatic delusinal deranged self-interesed pieces of that are regularly gaslighting everyone first of all all of them are furries i dont know what the fuck is going on there, throwing me under the bus is the safest play becauyse im literal writing lighting rod for hate.


'''Hassan: '''I just sat on this chair for eight hours and a 30 minute video I've been talking about for an hour. Is that what's going on? You think I just like to play one hour and 45 minutes on the chair giving good takes. You can leave a sign saying gone for a dump back in five would just give credit where it's due and actually react while he’s in the room doesn't seem like a lot to ask.


'''Hassan: '''These are like dude peanut bottle dude, god i despise these dude yo, i swear to god dude i swear to god, just such a dingus, dude just show their channel name dumbass how is that so hard like what is this attitude that you have you stupid because they want me to engage with their arguments because its gonna give them more clout that’s the point see this is what i mean, like, man this sucks you’re being super close-minded about this and making it seem way more unreasinable than it is. You are the reason why it's like impossible for me to ever like to ever respond to something you weirdo how do you not understand random guy making it seem way more unreasonable than it is it hurts how to see arguments you make about other things because you are literally making assumptions of calling bad faith with no engagement, just weak bro, im moving im banning and i'm moving on. 


'''Hassan: '''I mean dude dude dude there it is dude, the ad break, is upon us okay if you don't want to see those ads if you don't want to see those dirty disgusting ads all you need to do is subscribe and you can do that for five dollars, you can subscribe for free with the twitch prime okay. You can get gifted a sub if you're lucky if you're not lucky if you're not a good boy you're not going to get a sub so you got to make your own luck but twitch prime is luckily for there’s the one i'm going to have right now here's a 60-second ad break coming for you if you no longer want to see those ads all you need to do is subscribe you could do that for five dollars or you could do that for free for the twitch prime here’s the one minute break now you can also get gifted a sub if you’re lucky! 


'''''2nd Into'''''

'''DarkViper: '''Bro, I dunno why I attract so much toxicity. Why am I such a beacon for criticism, there must be something wrong with everyone else except me. I can’t believe how bad faith everyone else is! By the way, anyone who criticizes me is just doing it for clout and I'm not gonna look at any of that criticism. Why are there so many clips of me being deranged and randomly lashing out at people? It must be a conspiracy. The guy has absolutely no self-awareness. It would just be funny, if this man was informing the worldviews of hundreds of thousands of people.

'''DarkViper: '''From that footage it should be fairly obvious that Hasan is a very aggressive fragile person who cares a lot about increasing his revenue. But he has other things he cares about as well which is his stated reason why he does reaction content.

'''Hassan: '''Twitch streamers live and die by their numbers. Anybody that tells you that’s not the case is probably lying to you. I've never met someone who has the mental fortitude to be able to overcome that. Maybe there’s some when you are averaging uh 30k 30 plus k 35k. Yes, when you see a dip it hurts, your feeling playing a video game is way easier for me on stream. Unfortunately an audience that appreciates political commentary do not necessarily appreciate playing video games in the same capacity. I don't play video games because it's not entertaining to my audience. Make 10 hours of high quality original content a day-

'''DarkViper: '''So Hasan reacts to other people’s creative works due to an inability to make sufficient content himself to maintain an audience. React content has been a staple of his business and growth for years and thus he has to keep doing it else his viewership goes down and it affects him emotionally. Like all reactors, any attempts at claiming benefits for other people are mere hollow justifications, not the actual motivating factors behind their reactions. While you actually have to put forth effort to create entertaining content with video games for example playing other people’s videos is already condensed high quality content. This content is quality all by itself, so much so that reactors put on other people’s videos when they leave the room. Even if it was definitively shown to never benefit anyone else in the long term, which i have tried to argue in the second video in the series they just ignore it and all continue to do it reardless, Hassan’s fair business model:

'''Hassan: '''This is the content ecosystem youtubers upload content: You react to content, your content gets reposted on the youtube, every person in that process is benefiting from the exposure, i mean, reactions are the bread and butter like its a part of the ecosystem, and it's one that actually helps everybody it is an ecosystem that literally creates new. It's like a feedback loop that creates a larger audience for you. 






'''DarkViper: '''Let's break this down slowly using an example: 


'''''Hasan’s Proposed “Fair” Business Model'''''

One of Hasan’s views explains it succinctly to Hasan’s agreementLet us go through this slowly:A YouTuber works on a very quality video and completes it in a month. They end up with one video.Hasan copies that video in 30 minutes as a part of his daily livestream. He ends up with a livestream, and a YouTube video, at the end of the day.Can you believe that the people most interested in equality, and avoiding worker exploitation don’t see this as a problematic relationship? This to them is equal, despite the supreme imbalance of effort and reward. They further don’t see it a problem that Hasan wouldn’t simply be limited to just one, he could copy a further 11, increasing his daily intake of labor to well over a year’s worth. 


'''DarkViper: '''Who is the one actually benefiting here, each of the individual workers who spent a week making each video or the platform owner that is the focus of their collective labor? Big hint, its the guy using a collective year’s worth of labor each day. It should be obvious that everyone can’t do what Hasan is doing, for the same reason that within capitalism everyone can’t own a business that employs 10 people. Someone out there has to do the labor for Hasan to steal. Hasan’s business model necessitates the existence of an underclass, in the same way that capitalism does.'''DarkViper: '''Then we ask, where do the new viewers come from? When Hasan uses his stolen labor to increase, or maintain, his viewership? They don’t come from a magical portal to fairyland, Hasan isn’t creating new people. The answer is that these viewers come from other parts of the market, largely other content creators. Hasan is pooling the labor of others to himself in order to take viewers away from other creators, not just from the people he reacts to, but everyone. He is diminishing the lives of those who actually do the labor that enables him to generate the profits he does so he can afford more porsches and mansions. Even the people he reacts to, the reactors, obviously can’t conceivably benefit from every reaction he does of other people's work. They are just as likely to lose viewers to Hasan as everyone else, it is why all the largest creators on Twitch are reactors, their ability to pool labor from thousands of people puts them above any individual. Hasan isn’t working hard to grow, he is avoiding work and pushing the labor burden for this platform onto other people whom he doesn’t even pay. This is why making react content is so easy, the labor burden is carried by someone else. 


'''Hassan:''' Like this is a person who’s just frustrated, that they think it's lazy content.'''Charlie (on video): '''Now to show his point in the actual document, he goes on to describe how effortless it is to make react content which he is absolutely in the right on this, its an inarguable truth, it takes significantly less time and effort to react to content that it does to create.


'''Hassan:''' This part is true, i think his take on the labor that goes into making a video is far greater than doing a twitch stream. Has some validity? Yes, of course of course, that's true, you're right, it is low effort. Why don't you do it then? Like, react content is low effort in comparison to actually making the video itself, that's not a joke that is true if you’re thinking about it artistically, yes, the amount of labor that you put into making a youtube video certainly especially because most of it is done off camera is a lot a lot more than just like clicking uh turn on your stream and then going off and just like doing whatever the fuck that day. The joke is that this is low effort. I know its low effort, creating actual content takes time, energy and creativity; This is true. 




'''DarkViper: '''One of hassan’s viewers while trying to defend react streamers actually talks about the problem:




'''Hassan:''' Streamers, you are doing the work of curating the content. I kinda like how I don't have to choose what i'm gonna watch, streamer man does that for me. I mean like, dude, it's not for everybody.


(all times Hasan said it was easy)


'''DarkViper: '''One viewer puts it this way:




'''DarkViper: '''Hasan is effectively acting like Netflix when it first came out. He is pooling all the best content to himself. This gives people the option of not having to look for, and watch, other content creators on their platforms where that would actually benefit those creators. The act of curating content is far easier than making any of that content yourself, and the curated platform will always have a much higher quality and variety as you can take from the talents of thousands of people. This compared to the workers, who can only rely on their own talents and labour. Some people want to watch stuff with other people, and this is a service Hasan is providing by exploiting the labour of countless hundreds. Within this system, no individual worker will be able to outpace someone who pools together the labour of hundreds, in the same way a normal wage worker will never outpace the owner of the business they work at. If Hasan’s platform simply didn’t exist, all his viewers would be somewhere else in the market, supporting other things. Hasan keeping them with him to farm for growth and profit can therefore never be an overall positive for other creators. Had Hasan’s never engaged in react content, he would be a much smaller creator. His viewership would be far less, those who watch him would have gone to other areas of the market, as his stream would be much lower quality and he’d have to stream far less due to needing to do the work of content creation himself.It is not the case that every single one of Hassan’s viewers would be in one specific plane somewhere else in the market; they would of course be spread out everywhere finding something else that appealed to their interests.Now that you have some understanding of my viewpoint, listen to Hasan explain it:


'''Hassan: '''It only then, could he have come up with such an idiotic argument that like, 30000 people when i watch a video guaranteeed would have watched that video on their own okay, garen teed, 30000 people in here would not be watching some random person, potentially they’re being harmed, because they’re losing out on the 30000 extra views that they would get from content creator that are watching from the content creator, like, they were all 30000 were going to stumble upon it on their own. '''DarkViper: '''(More) I know it's inflammatory, and I will lose Hassan viewers, but Hasan Piker is one of the dumbest people who has ever existed. I know he might appeal to you because he espouses the positions that you want to hear, but trust me, his beliefs are truly skin deep, he only serves himself.


'''''Videos are made for exposure'''''


'''Hassan: '''When the entire purpose of your content, once you put it out there is to get it in front of as many people as possible, then, yes, exposure is the point. Exposure is the purpose, exposure argument would not make sense in any other meaningful capacity, except for YouTube, because we all are content creators ourselves.


'''DarkViper: '''So I hope this isn’t news to most of you, exposure isn’t why people make videos. Exposure is a means to an end, not the end of itself. It is why YouTube has a built in system to allow us to strike down duplicates of our work, and that the content ID system exists to get the revenue from reuploads which is actually the purpose of making content. It is why the expression “exposure doesn’t pay the bills” exists. I can’t survive off exposure, therefore why would it be my ultimate purpose for making content? The mechanism by which something is viewed is obviously very important. 




'''Hassan:''' And, there’s a lot of clipping and ship at andes in the hassanb eclipse industrial complex that will take like for example this jubilee segment and immediately post it on their page and it will garner sometimes even more views in the original content on my page, it's a little frustrating when they do that.




'''DarkViper: '''You want views on the platform that it was uploaded to, as that will cause the video to grow in the algorithms and reach more people. Every single bit of exposure that doesn’t lead to that is entirely wasted, think about how great Youtube would be if it was 100 accurate with its impressions, i would certainly like it if the only exposure i was given was to people who actually watch my content rather than what happens now when 97 of the impressions i'm given are completely wasted. The problem with reaction content is that reactors are trying to pull viewers away from everyone else to themselves and as long as they succeed they can never be a net positive for everyone else on the market, worse, by showing tens of thousands of people a copy of the video all it means is that those people would have no reason to watch it if they stumbled across it, naturally on the platform that actually matters. Given how low the click-through-rate for reactions are, there is a high chance the amount who clicks through from the stream and don’t watch the video due to having already seen it. Even in a reality where people did create content for exposure, they would be creating content for the exposure of themselves, not Hasan. Hasan is using another person’s labour, not to bring them exposure, but to bring exposure and profit for himself. This was not why the work was created. In cases where you are building something distinct and original, you can make a case why you could use portions of something someone else has created for your own benefit. 

Hasan however isn’t doing that, he is just hard ripping the entirety of another person’s work to present it to his audience, and what makes him deserving of the profit, exposure, and growth that this generates. All that seems to make him qualified is a complete disregard for others.


'''Hassan:''' Because like, 90% of the youtubers absolutely love when you watch their content on your stream, especially when 99% of the people literally think that this is dope. You have 90% of youtubers that absolutely love when twitch streamers watch their videos. 

When 99% of the people saying yes youtube has always had that same like reactions, are attitudes.

'''Hassan:''' Right, even youtubers themselves who hate when twitch dreamers watch their videos, only recognize that a twitch drummer watched their video because they saw a massive bump in the view count out of nowhere, okay, they can turn around and say like, “oh i didn't actually lead to it didn't actually lead to like significant long-term benefits” as well, it's like, that's your fault, you know, that's just, you know, make better content then, silly. I mean, sorry. That's the funniest part about it, is that like these dudes that come out with takes like, these hot tastes like this are coming out with hot takes like this so that we like to react to their hot takes and they can farm the negative engagement. If they didn't do that, and if they just made good content, we would just watch the good content and then they would get more followers and the reason why he even knew that i was watching it is because he posted his analytics, he posted his metrics showing a major bump in his view counts on that video because they get a fat bump, best react dandy because when 40.0000 people are watching alongside me a youtube video, there is a thousand of those that are like well i want to watch this on my own.The disconnect in Hasan’s brain is truly staggering, on one hand he will say that of course the exposure argument is dumb when we are talking about comissions, because the artist is losing the revenue that they rightly should get for their work. At the same time though, he cares nothing for the revenue that video creators lose that they rightly deserve.'''''Hasan’s fat bump''DarkViper: '''So as I showed in the 2nd video in this series, reactions do not convey significant benefit to anyone but the reactor, especially as they are using this content to siphon viewers from everyone and thus any short term benefit will be massively dwarfed by the long term losses that all reactors take from original content creators. More importantly, even the thing Hasan references as ‘massive bumps’ are laughably small. If those bumps are large, then I have a 12-inch cock. (Avenge’s note: Im sure you do uwu)


'''DarkViper: '''Hasan’s arguments in favour of his business model, are the same as when a capitalist will point to the wages individual workers get to justify capitalism. A fat bump for the worker, but a tiny portion of what the owner gets. This is not what I would expect to hear from a person who pretends to be anti-capitalist for a living. I would expect that mask not to slip so easily. Hasan’s argument is like trickle down economics. If he just pools more and more labour to himself, granting him more exposure, more viewers, and more wealth, some of that will trickle down to everyone else so ultimately we all benefit if all labour is pooled to the platform he owns. The larger his share of the limit market the more everyone wins! Hasan is arguing that the crumbles that trickle down from his enterprise to those who do the labour, affirm his business model as legitimate. It is interesting for a purported socialist to argue that those who perform the lionshare of the labour that generates profit should not receive a share of that profit.'''DarkViper: '''More importantly, obviously Hasan’s usual tactic of making up statistics to argue 90% and then 99% of people view reactions positively, is absurd. Else we wouldn’t go through this drama every few years. It is merely that once Hasan has stolen your labour, it is done, there is nothing that can unring that bell. For most, what is the point of complaining and bringing risk upon yourself? But even if we grant Hasan’ premise as true, if every single person was ignorant of how they were being exploited, it wouldn’t change whether or not they were exploited. I would expect a person who pretends to be anti-capitalist to understand that.


You would call me a liar if i told you hassan’s next defense without showing it to you;


'''Hassan:''' You're stealing peoples labor. You're basically giving out unpaid internships for exposure, that's exactly what I'm doing, except like, everybody loves that you're not doing labor for me, your video is going to be sitting there regardless, the only difference is i wouldnt be watching it with 30.000 people. 

It's actually, you're stealing peoples labor like they're not making it for me, okay, they're making it so that people can watch and i'm one of those people that's watching, i just happen to be watching it in a room with like 30.000 people, okay, me urging you to make something and then not paying you is entirely different than like me watching a video that you already put out there so in your mind, you’re like well, it does make sense, it does seem like it's kind of up you’re just like stealing their labor maybe, you’re a graphics design guy okay, and you think well, this is exactly like when the big company commissioned paintings for me and then never paid me for it or some like that so that's the problem. The problem is like, you have no way of understanding it. 

'''Hassan: '''And that person is abusing your lack of knowledge and your lack of understanding, your lack of comprehension on how like this ecosystem works to drive more hateful engagement that person didn't make the content for me like i wasn't like yo make this content for me unpaid intern so i can watch it on my stream.






'''''Hasan’s next defense is a bit strange, it is one I have never heard before'''''What other context could he apply this argument that stealing someone’s labour in order to generate growth and profit for an enterprise is fine as long as you didn’t ask for that labour to exist? If I write a book to sell, and then you copy the book and sell it yourself, have you not stolen my labour? Is it different just because I didn’t make it for you? Don’t worry guys, if the profit generated was done against the will of the laborer, then the one who stole that labour deserves all the profit. What an argument.'''DarkViper: '''So there are three ways Hasan could have entirely completed creative works on his stream. He could make them himself. He could pay someone to make them for him, or he could steal them. He chooses to steal them in order to avoid paying someone to make them or to avoid the work of doing it himself. “Guys you don’t understand, I am stealing labour so I don't have to pay wages, so it is ok ''. I have never had a person just outright say that the foundation for their wealth is unpaid labour, and go on to argue in favor of unpaid internships. Unpaid internships take the concept of surplus labour to a whole new level, and they take advantage of the desperation and imbalanced opportunities in society. They are actually illegal in many countries or heavily restricted. The reason unpaid internships have been prejoratively called ‘modern slavery’ is in part because the wealthy are effectively using their power and status to avoid paying for labour they obviously could afford to pay for. Who benefits the most is not all the interns who get the experience, but the company that is fueled by an endless supply of unpaid labour, which is the case for Hasan’s enterprise. Worse, the ability for the unpaid intern to sustain themselves is left to factors outside of the exchange, in other words, Hasan does not give two fucks if his labour has food, shelter, water etc, he only cares that he gets his labour. If they can't sustain themselves in this industry, that isn’t his problem, they should have worked harder to make him better content.


'''DarkViper: '''Hassan also doesn't understand advertisements.


'''Hassan: '''No dumbass, they buy those ads because those ads end up linking traffic back to their channel, dude, it's the exact same thing as me watching someone for free and if it's monetized, it still doesn't matter, it does not matter, people want exposure on their youtube videos so much that they buy ads so that people will like forcibly watch them. The monetization element doesn't make sense because there are people who literally pay for the exposure, you understand that right, like, people want exposure on their youtube videos so much.

That's the reason why sponsors pay money to twitch streamers to like, play their video games for example, there’s a reason for that, it's because they want as many eyeballs as possible on it, and then people will go and you know find it on their own.

The react content debate is kind of like using music and tick tocks artists love it because it brings exposure to their songs, they aren't mad that people are stealing it to make money exactly.






'''''Hasan also does not understand advertisement'''''This was discussed more heavily in the second video of course, but I will touch on it briefly. '''DarkViper: '''Hasan is not advertising anything, he is creating direct market substitutes which is the very thing advertisements are not meant to do. This is why TikTok both license the music they use, and only use portions of songs for example. It should be obvious why trailers for movies don’t contain the entire movie. Even paid sponsorships to TV shows only allow you to watch the first episode or two. Video games are fairly unique in the advertising world. Advertisements where people play a video game are similar to advertisements where you play board games. While you are showing the game, what you are advertising is the experience and fun of playing it, which the recording can not give to a viewer. When Hasan copies the entirety of another person’s work, he takes its entire value, to enrich his own platform, and it therefore gives people as little reason to leave as possible. YouTube videos being traditionally self-contained, they do not necessarily suggest there is sufficient value to be found elsewhere for a viewer to seek out, let alone greater value than what is being shown on Hasan’s platform, that has the benefit of the thousands of hours of unpaid labour. It is therefore only a tiny amount who move over, and most immediately go back. If what Hasan did was an effective form of advertisement, Hasan’s viewership would decline overtime as more and more of his audience was spread thinner and thinner between himself and other creators. The opposite is true of course, as reactors reign supreme. The exposure given to others is nothing compared to the exposure they steal from the wider market for themselves. Hasan is competing with the people he steals from for viewers, and he has the home field advantage.




'''''Hasan blaming the workers for not getting enough benefit''DarkViper: '''I have never heard a person openly say, yo, if you didn’t want me to steal your stuff then you should have hidden it better. 




'''Hassan: '''No, they made the choice, the choice is like, i want this video to be seen, as many people as possible, some things that they can do, unlisted link just for your friends privating the video okay, these are the choices you can make, but as far as like your content being seen by other people i guess you could DMCA them but that would be really stupid to do.

Consent memes well, if the consent is the main point here they do they do consent, most of the people would absoultely consent but isnt that the entire point of the psycho’s manifesto that you’re asking for permission afterwards instead of before yeah because it would be virtually impossible in real time when a chatter is like yo, you need to watch this video, its really good its blowing up wahtever , the fuck, and then i actually click on it and i watch it for me to be like “oh i wonder of this is going to be okay” like 90 percent 99 90 when 99 of the people saying yes, and then like the one person says no even if it literally benefits them okay, and they just say no even if it benefits them. Still justifying copyright violation of course i am president Zielinski because like 90% of the youtubers absolutely love when you watch their content on your stream, so its the consent meme right it's like I consented and then it's like did you forget to ask DarkViper? YouTube has always had that same reaction or attitude, right ?




'''''Consent memes''DarkViper: '''Either consent matters, or it doesn’t. You can’t argue it both ways. Either it matters and you need it so you can’t just assume it, or it simply doesn’t matter. We clearly don’t ask directly for consent in every single avenue in our lives, but I would expect duplicating the entirety of another person’s work would require it for most people due to the large amount of impact and reliance you are putting on them. Imagine something where 10% of people didn’t want that thing done to them. Yes, they would be a minority, but Hasan is arguing that simply due to their lack of majority status their feelings can be disregarded. This further argument that asking for consent can be disregarded because it is inconvenient also isn’t a good one. The vast majority of people do not sit around all day watching YouTube videos on stream, Hasan acting like not being able to do that is akin to death.




'''Hassan:''' Dude, what am I supposed to do, like die? I don't understand.

These are just such strange arguments for a socialist to make. Do you think bringing democracy to workplaces would not cause delays and inconvenience as people would then be asked for their input on decisions that would impact them? I agree, having one guy make decisions regardless of what other people feel is faster and has far less inconvenience. But a socialist arguing in favor of that scenario is odd indeed.'''DarkViper: '''Although it should be obvious, no, 99% of creators do not support react content. I have been told directly by dozens of creators since releasing this series that they also do not like react content, but they fear backlash and so hold their tongues. I will of course not reveal their names for obvious reasons, Hasan and reactors in general are not the most reasonable individuals. Taking on those who will harm others for profit is not something most want to do. However, Jay Exci’s video criticizing Hasan they directly asks a dozen creators at random if they like react content, with most not liking it, and the rest having restrictions on who can react and why. Hasan is unaware of this, because he doesn’t engage with the criticism of his behavior. But I mean, Hasan himself admitted that YouTuber’s have long been against react content, the 2016 rage videos against it have many millions of views from the largest profile creators. All that has changed, is that the people who were once the largest creators are no longer the largest, because they were replaced by people like Hasan who have no issue building an enterprise on unpaid labour and harming those same people who perform that labour. Speaking is no longer as easy as it once was, for many of those top are no longer good people.


'''''In conclusion''DarkViper: '''In conclusion, Hasan didn’t understand my points, which is not surprising as per usual he cried and avoiding seriously engaging with them as he always does. I was discussing the effects on the overall market, including negative externalities, rather than individuals. Reactors are ultimately pushing themselves above everyone else with unlimited unpaid labour, and giving none of the profit generated from the labour back to the one’s who performed it. He is undeservedly taking market share away from creators who work hard, by avoiding doing the work, and making himself the mecca for the fruits of other people’s labour. Here I was thinking we lefties wanted to give workers more choice, more control, and for profit to be shared with those whose labour created it, rather than simply those who own things. Guess I was wrong. A system where workers have no control or ownership of their labour, as Hasan advocates for, inherently favours those who are already successful, as they are in the best position to use this labour to maintain the success they already have. I dislike Hasan because I consider him to be an exploiter of other people’s labour, avoiding making even a casual pass at the work required to create something truly original and distinct from what is being used as a basis. Every criticism I have ever made of capitalism is equally true of Hasan’s business model and I would argue what Hasan is doing is just the absolute worst version of unregulated capitalism. It is why I have referred to Hasan as the most exploitative capitalist on Twitch, as any business would kill to get away with what Hasan is, but they are unable to due to regulations that exist in every other market to prevent it. Capitalism is so all consuming it seems that even the concept of being anti-capitalist is just one more marketing gimmick to generate profit through exploitation, at least that is what is suggested by Hasan.

Sources

''Hasan reacts to Are React Streamers Bad People ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rLViiISjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rLViiISjU]''Hasan REACTS to Are React Streamers Bad People (by moistcritikal)''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyQgvOxkL_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyQgvOxkL_Q]''1/2 HasanAbi July 23, 2021 – XQC Gambling Drama, Talking with H3H3 about Stake.com & Curacao, LSF''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPdk1sBrymc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPdk1sBrymc]

''My original 14 page script''[https://docs.google.com/document/d/150ojYEfnZVjY1Ro27aEFJG5FCAQD5u9KTH0GD-qmZ1A/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/150ojYEfnZVjY1Ro27aEFJG5FCAQD5u9KTH0GD-qmZ1A/edit?usp=sharing]

''HasanAbi reacts to The RICHEST Person In History''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPMjxUIMJCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPMjxUIMJCs]

''HasanAbi reacts to Being Not Straight by Jaiden Animations''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SQKATTgkZ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SQKATTgkZ0]

''Hasanabi Twitch Stats''

[https://sullygnome.com/channel/hasanabi https://sullygnome.com/channel/hasanabi]

''JayExci - Hasan Piker, Jinx, and the Issue of "Reaction" Content''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TVSfHbpR6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TVSfHbpR6k]''Bismuth reaction views''[https://twitter.com/search?q=50%20views%20(from%3Abismuthi)&src=typed_query&f=top https://twitter.com/search?q=50%20views%20(from%3Abismuthi)&src=typed_query&f=top]''WillyMack Show React Numbers''[https://youtu.be/0-SgKor0mJs?t=118 https://youtu.be/0-SgKor0mJs?t=118]


Hasan REACTS to Video Game Acting (by videogamedunkey)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPE8og9swAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPE8og9swAk]

Ludwig: "Donate To Millionaires For YouTube Success!" (No Luck Needed)

'''Original video: '''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKLAmTfQQKs Ludwig: "Donate To Millionaires For YouTube Success!" (No Luck Needed)]


'''DarkViper:''' On November 2021, Ludwig released what I consider to be the worst successful video on YouTube which is titled “I made a secret YouTube channel to prove it's not luck” and currently sits at 3.5 million views. Hasan Piker actually referenced this video when he responded to the dispute I had with Charlie over react content.




'''Hassan:''' Ludwig literally made a fucking misty video, to prove that like, someone reacting to his video would farm views on the video?




'''DarkViper: '''This has inspired me to dust off the script I made in response to Ludwig’s video all the way back in December of 2021. I shelved it at the time because of how Ludwig reacted last time I even mildly corrected him, it seemed better to leave it alone. Although a small bit of the original script did end up in my rambles series, so if any of this sounds familiar to any of you, that could be why. What surprised me most about Ludwig’s video is that he seems to have not read his own analytics very closely and as they actually conflict with the conclusions he took away from his experiment.




'''Ludwig:''' Is success on YouTube mostly luck or is it mostly skill? People always ask me, “Ludwig, if you had to start your channel over, what would you do”? I think they’re mostly asking, so they can just do that, and hopefully get successful. But I was kind of wondering… What did I do? How would I get successful if u couldn't use my face, my voice, or any of my current following? 




'''DarkViper: '''Immediately we run into a few problems here. The questions of how much luck or skill is involved when starting out on YouTube, how much luck or skill is involved when maintaining success, what Ludwig personally would do to become successful without his brand, face and voice, and what a new creator could do to become successful are all separate questions whether separate answers. These are however all rolled up into one and it makes it so the video's exact message is very convoluted as Ludwig will frequently switch between these questions without warning. Worse, the answers to any of these questions would obviously differ widely from person to person, as people are not all the same nor is the path to success on YouTube. YouTube is not a monolith in which all success is obtained the same way, nor is success necessarily maintained the same way as it is gained, for anyone. Consequently, there will be a wide variance in the different levels of luck or skill needed for different people at the start of their career and throughout. The bigger issue here though relates to the quote “the first million is the hardest to earn”. The process we are about to see Ludwig go through in this video is not putting himself in the shoes of a person starting on YouTube in the current year. Instead, Ludwig is putting himself in the shoes of an already successful veteran of YouTube with years of knowledge, skills, and experience …that isn’t allowed to use their face, voice or brand. Gaining the shall we say ‘mental assets’ that Ludwig has acquired over the years requires an insane amount of luck, and yet he will now bring them to bear in this challenge as if that were not the case. Ludwig is playing New Game+ as if everyone just starts out as an expert in the field. We shall see him use many things he obtained through luck the first time round in order to succeed this second time, seemingly without any awareness that what he is doing in this video new creators simply can not do.




'''Ludwig:''' So, I've made a brand new channel. And today, I'm gonna find out if YouTube is mostly based on luck, or mostly based on skill.

'''DarkViper: '''You probably don't need to go to university to know that a sample size of one can’t prove anything and prevents the generalizability of your results. I mean there isn’t even a control group, which would all be fine for a joke YouTube video but Ludwig and others constantly reference this video as proving something. Confounding variables exist, which are like extra factors you either didn’t account for or don’t know about. When you have a randomized sample and control group, you can be more confident that these variables are equally present in both groups, and thus are not impacting your results. Similarly, with a control group, you can better isolate the impact of any particular variable. These failings raise many issues towards the end of the video.'''DarkViper: '''So Mr Beast is called to give his opinion on the luck versus skill question in regards to YouTube. 




'''Ludwig:''' Hey Siri? Call “JimmyBeast”. I have a question for you, i'm trying to do a YouTube video and the premise of the YouTube video is “Starting a brand new channel from scratch” and trying to see if I can get views without my current name or branding at all.


'''MrBeast:''' Okay.


'''Ludwig:''' And I was wondering, how much of YouTube do you think is luck v/s skill? 


'''MrBeast:''' It's… 99% skill if you know what you’re doing. You could do that, 100%.


'''DarkViper: '''The key words here are ‘if you know what you are doing’, if you are already an expert at literally anything before even beginning, yeh you have a good shot at succeeding at that thing. People new to any industry are not experts, it is why education and mentorships exist. In any industry, you can have the veteran with the knowledge, skill, and experience, that they then impart onto the new blood that has none of those things. This is what Ludwig is effectively doing to a hypothetical version of himself and I will grant immediately that anyone who is lucky enough to have an already successful mentor is going to have a much easier time succeeding than anyone else. To put it another way, to correct MrBeast, you can say the skill ceiling for YouTube is very high, but getting to the point where you can hit the skill ceiling takes a lot of luck. It is why it took MrBeast 5 years, where at some points he considered quitting, before he ended up in his words “posting random things” that lead to him finally getting a foot in the door that lead to his success today.




'''MrBeast:''' It's been a month since I uploaded to YouTube, and to be honest, I was pretty sure I was done with YouTube. My niche, if i'm being honest, is being so random that you don't know what to expect. This was basically the same as saying you had no niche at all. My channel is the definition of random.


'''Ludwig:''' Is success on YouTube, mostly luck, or is it mostly skill. I'm gonna give myself 24 hours to get at least 1.000 views.




'''DarkViper: '''No person in the history of reality has ever defined success on YouTube as getting 1000 views on YouTube in 24 hours. There are literally millions of unsuccessful YouTube channels that have one video with thousands of views because getting lucky and having one good video is doable but doing it over and over again as a career is the hard part. 




'''Tom Scott:''' There are people out there, who think just one big hit, that's all they need. That's the path to stardom and being set for life. They were wrong 30 years ago, and they’re wrong now. If you’re a one-hit-wonder, then it's not you that's popular, it's that one hit. What you need is a steady build, and back catalog, enough time to learn the skills that you need to survive under the spotlight to have long-term sustainable success. 




'''DarkViper: '''New creators get that first high view video, have no idea why it got those views or how to do it again. Worse, some will put so much effort just to get that first good video that they will burn themselves out because their inexperience causes them to be very slow and inefficient. There is then the question, why Ludwig set this goal so low:




'''Ludwig:''' Here’s what I did. I wrote out a script of a video that i thought would be pretty good, its kind of, like, a video essay, but its on twitch streamers specifially, my good friend “Ms Kiff” and, the reason i did it on misgive is, one, because i think i have a decent amount of knowledge on this, so im speaking as an authority writing, and then, i hired someone on fiverr to read out the exact script.




Here is one I got recommended recently: 10 videos over 1k in 2 years, newest videos still getting 50 views [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt35oM60afo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt35oM60afo] Channel with one successful video[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCevYOYyZHtstVDYZUmC5GqA/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCevYOYyZHtstVDYZUmC5GqA/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid]

Channel with one successful video[https://www.youtube.com/user/angel9x9/videos  https://www.youtube.com/user/angel9x9/videos] 

'''DarkViper: '''So relying upon years of experience in an industry to devise, and execute a strategy. Script writing ability, deep familiarity with content creators, and understanding of what is popular on YouTube. Knowledge of niche, websites and ability to identify quality, and voice over work, and editing are all things that no new content creator has. All Ludwig is showing is that if you were already lucky enough to survive in an industry for a long time, honing your craft every single day for thousands of days, if you had to start again keeping all that experience you’d have an easier time of it. Which is true for literally everything in existence, I guess by this logic luck just doesn’t exist in anything.




'''Ludwig:''' All right, here’s the script I wrote out. It's called “how a door made this man $1.000.000 USD.” But i don't want to have myself read it, because people know what my voice sounds like, so that's not really gonna fly, so instead, what i did is, i hired someone on fiverr. In total, this cost me 131 dollars, but it should be free for you guys at home. People have high quality script readings at home for free.

'''DarkViper: '''People have high quality script readings at home for free?My dude. I have been in this industry for 10 years and I still sound like a monotone robot and it takes me 3 tries to read a sentence. I have spent most of my life with a stutter and a terrible accent that makes me hard to understand sometimes. Took me a near half a decade to improve. 


'''Young DarkViper: '''That's it, people are arrogant. People dont go about putting forth their ideas or arguments in the best light. But that's what makes us great, that we all differ, we all do wrong things. Thanks for watching. Or not watching, just… felt like saying some things. Have a good one :) .


I started my channel in 2013 and I wasn’t making more than just enough to get by until 2019. Do you have any idea how lucky you have to be in life to be able to freely spend half a decade making no money on YouTube and still keep going? To have nothing external stop you? To be in an environment that will support your ability to continue? To receive enough positive feedback during that time to keep you going? 

Speaking nothing of just the ability to write a YouTube script, having a good speaking voice and script reading skills along with the correct inflections and elocution, are some of the things that everyone sucks at the most when they start. It is actually one of the easiest ways to identify a new creator. Here is Ludwig’s first video.




'''Ludwig:''' I originally was an unsucessful YouTuber, known as “The Zany Sidekick”


'''The Zany Sidekick (Ludwig):''' What’s up heroes, The Zany Sidekick here, bringing you a game of free for all on stadium, and second of all, I would like to say that I just drank the most disgusting water ever. 


'''Ludwig:''' I remember I posted that video, and I showed my friends and they’re like “Yeah man, it kind of sucks” and then I got a dislike on the video, but I was so disheartened at the time that I quit. And now look at us, chat, eight years later. The Zany Sidekick had less than 10 subs on YouTube, and now, we have a hundred sixty one thousand. Nine hundred ninety nine. 




'''DarkViper: '''Yeh don’t worry guys, you can have professional voice overs for free at home any time you like. Honestly check out theScore esports video of Ludwig’s life, a butterfly could have flapped their wings differently and Ludwig wouldn’t be a successful creator today.


'''Ludwig:''' I think being successful at streaming is preparing yourself. The best way possible for when luck hits, to be ready and to be sick because it can strike at any time. And if you’re not ready, that might be your only chance. 


'''DarkViper:''' [You vibing with what this guy is saying Ludwig, yeh I too agree with this guy, you should get him to mentor you] To bring it back to the point, the biggest problem with new YouTubers is that they don't even know what professional grade voice overs are. How to make or get them. I once told a new YouTuber that plosives were bad and they were blown away. His videos had dozens of plosives. 




'''Ludwig:''' And then, i hired an editor, and this is also, is not something you have to do at home, you could just, you know, get editing tools, and then edit yourself, i didn't do this because, you know, i'm still, i'm doing this on the side, it's like a fun little project…

'''DarkViper: '''Do you know how lucky you’d have to be to coincidentally not edit garbage your first time round or to be lucky enough to already have those skills. New YouTubers don’t even know what good editing is. It took me years of editing before my work became what I would consider today as passably competent. As a person who has tried literally hundreds of new editors, people just starting out, it is all garbage and even the simplest of feedback blows them away because they just don’t understand what good editing is. No, a new creator has free high quality production and editing at home for free. They can not produce anything even comparable to the end product that Ludwig puts on his new channel.




'''Ludwig:''' But here’s what the final video look like:Looks pretty good! I'm really happy with how the video turned out. And now, here’s my plan, so i've made this video, it's like a three minute 45 second video essay, on specifically mischief, if i can get Mizkiff to watch us on stream, in front of about 45k people, a lot of them will click on it and i think there’s a chance that this video might get a decent amount of views.

'''DarkViper: '''This again shows that what Ludwig is trying to do here is not to actually succeed on YouTube, or to create a successful video in an algorithmic sense. He just wants one video that hits the arbitrary number of 1000 views. If you were sitting down trying to hammer out a game plan for content, your trajectory in actually succeeding on this platform as a job, this would be the furthest from what you’d be doing. Besides, views from Twitch reactors are utter garbage for growth and longevity for all the reasons discussed heavily in the second video in this series. I will touch on it again later in this video as well.


At this point we could update the question Ludwig is answering like so: “Can a person who got lucky enough to gain a deep intimate knowledge of an industry garnered over many years of experience, then use this knowledge to write a video script, then pay people to give it high production quality, and then buy 1000 views for it”. Admittedly not as catchy, but accurate.

'''DarkViper: '''Ludwig then moves into putting the video on YouTube with branding, thumbnail and title. One of the most annoying things is that he focuses on how to make this particular upload better, but spends little time on why these decisions are being made. He makes a weak tutorial on how to present a video about Mizkif but it is useless for explaining to new creators what sorts of videos they should attempt to create, how they should present them, and why. All a new creator can garner is there is something about these things that appeals to Ludwig.




'''Ludwig:''' What if I just call it “Online Lore”... I kind of like “Online Lore”, like, if it's called “Online Lore” and then it's a loading screen, that's kind of a good idea, nice. That looks amazing. That's like, a really cute banner, I really like how it looks. Branding wise, I think the title “How a door made this streamer $1.000.000 USD”, is pretty catchy, ooh i like this one a lot, actually, i like this image a lot though. All right, that's really good, yeah, i think it looks a lot better. This one’s pretty fine, yeah. This is really catchy, I like it a lot. 

'''DarkViper: '''So Ludwig with his likeable, catchy, good video that no new creator could make without intense luck, donates a link of it to Mizkif and gets lucky that Mizkif sees his donation and cares about it.


'''Ludwig:''' I hope this works… Otherwise, such a waste of $50.




'''DarkViper: '''So Mizkif watches the entire thing on stream, and you think I'd have a problem with that being against react content, but it does involve Mizkif and his footage, so I think he’s well within his rights to do that. That all the rest of his react content obviously is trash, the goal was a thousand views.'''Ludwig:''' We’re already at 260 because it was just good content, which is one of the key takeaways. It was actually good content.

'''DarkViper: '''So to take it back to the beginning. Ludwig’s plan of what he would do if he had to start all over, is skip the years it took for him to become a competent creator, and to just make good content from day 1. I mean, why did no new creator ever think of that. What a genius!




'''Ludwig:''' It's been about 4 days since I uploaded this video. I spent about $600 to make it, with the editor, the voice over guy and then the marketing efforts. After this video goes out, I'm sure it’ll blow up a lot more. I think this video will end up with 100k views, so this could feasibly be done by anyone with just fifty dollars…

'''DarkViper: '''$600 dollars! Despite Ludwig’s claims, obviously as a new creator you couldn’t make a video like this, even with $600. But even if you did get lucky enough to fall face first into something like this, you would get one video. You’d have no idea why it was successful or where to go from there. Ludwig feels fine spending $600 because he has already succeeded once before and he is rich. A new creator would just be gambling with $600. More importantly, shouldn’t he at least have continued the process to see if you’d hypothetically receive a return on investment for the $600 he spent? Rather than tainting his single sample after 4 days by telling his main channel viewers that it was his video? Currently it looks like he paid $600 to get a hypothetical return of like $33.




'''Ludwig:''' Currently, the video is sitting at about 11k views, and you can check right now. This isn't all views from, like, direct clicking, you know, those are the views that I quote unquote “paid for '', right? That's the view that I got Mizkif to click it, and then everyone from Mizkif chat went to watch it.

'''DarkViper: '''You could likely understand now why controls are used. Were those views even significant? Did his years of experience with a $550 investment into high quality voice acting and editing create a video that the algorithm naturally took notice of, or did it only get noticed by the algorithm because his gave Mizkif $50 bucks and between 1 and 3k people clicked through and probably didn’t even watch the video? We don’t know because he didn’t have a control group. Mizkif could have been, and likely was, entirely irrelevant to the success of the video. One big piece of evidence in favor of this conclusion is that the link was posted in Mizkif’s chat1 hour after the video released, which is what the small spike at the beginning is, but it grew very slowly for almost 3 days before popping off. Due to this large gap in time, it suggests Mizkif was irrelevant and everything else Ludwig did that matter more. Logically you wouldn’t even expect people coming from Twitch, leaving a comment or pressing like, and going back to Twitch wouldn’t help you in the algorithm. This goes entirely against YouTube’s goal of recommending videos that keep people on the platform for as long as possible. 

'''DarkViper: '''Oh but it gets worse. If this reaction didn’t help Ludwig in the algorithm, what did it ultimately achieve? It made it so 52 thousand people had no reason to watch his video on YouTube where it actually matters, because they already watched it on Twitch. Sure, maybe 52 thousand wouldn’t have naturally stumbled across the video, but what about thousand, two thousand, three thousand? Remember all these views if achieved naturally would actually give watch time and thus help the video be shown to more people. How many of the 52 thousand in a year's time would never have been presented the video and watched it naturally? We of course will never know. Ludwig potentially traded any natural algorithmically valuable views from the 52 thousand for 2-3 thousand hollow valueless Twitch views. Ludwig gambled that the algorithm presenting this majorly overproduced video couldn’t have gotten more than 2-3 thousand views out of those 52 thousand naturally. Oh but those 52k are AWARE of the channel now? Think of all the tens of thousands of videos you have watched over the years, do you remember all the creators who made them? Think of thousands of creators you have been presented with over the years, how many of them do you watch on YouTube? The answer, those who are presented to you the algorithm, everyone else may as well not exist. Appealing to the algorithm is all that matters, and Ludwig specifically acted against that goal.'''DarkViper: '''But you know what? There was one creator I know of that was a bit smarter in his attempt to cheat the system. Kilksphilip ran a similar experiment where he spent $25 to promote his videos using the youtube ad system, having his videos appear as ads on the side. 




'''Kliksphilip:''' 390k impressions, means the ads were seen 390k times, as if they appeared on somebody’s screen 390k times. They were only clicked on 7500 times, and earned views when somebody who clicked the ad, then returned to watch another one of my videos within the week. It means that they’ve chosen to come back for more, and looking back, a few weeks later, that number had risen to 4900. So, two thirds of the people who clicked the ads, watched at least two videos. If you threw serious money at a new channel, then you could gain thousands. This way, whether they’d remain I couldn't say, and it would depend on the content, but it definitely did something, even if as a YouTuber its impact is dwarfed by my channel’s natural growth. If you’re a YouTuber then you’ve already got a ticket in the algorithm lottery, if you’re struggling to gain subscribers, then its best to identify the cause of that rather than to chuck money at it in the hope that it will go away. The best way of a YouTuber advertising is to produce content that people want to view.




'''DarkViper: '''Obviously kilksphilip isn’t dumb enough to definitely claim this proves anything and he notes uncontrolled variables that would have impacted his results, but his experiment was more successful than Ludwig’s in terms of getting views. Basically, giving your videos to reactors is just easily the worst way to get ahead for every reason in the second video but even more so in positions where you are paying for it.


'''DarkViper: '''Ludwig also had an opportunity to release more videos and see if he could manage to maintain any of these Twitch people when he necessarily had to switch topics. I don’t think he’d have been able to of course, but we will again never know because he half-assed every aspect of this and yet proclaims it’s flawed conclusions as absolute despite that. Wow, a reactor cutting corners and being lazy, who would have guessed? '''DarkViper:'''Lastly, given that a significant amount of views happened 3 days after the reaction but came specifically from YouTube search, this would suggest that the news that this was Ludwig’s video leaks before he made his video announcing that formally. Why else would people be searching this video. Consequently we can not know if any success was due to people noticing this was a Ludwig video, and sharing it around, ruining the entire experiment.




'''Ludwig:''' It all came down to good content, good thumbnailing, good titling, and also admittedly, a smart way to get it in front of people who are interested in this type of content, this could feasibly be done by anyone with just $50. I mean maybe less if you go for a little smaller streamer who pays attention to his donations a little more. 




'''DarkViper: '''New people don’t know what good content is or how to make it.They don’t know what good editing is or how to make it.They don’t know what good voice overs are or how to make it.They don’t know what good thumbnails are or how to make them.'''DarkViper: '''They don’t know what good titles are or how to make them.And this video does nothing to rectify this. Ludwig’s advice is, do good, and you will do good. Ok. Were any of you really watching this video with a pen and pad of paper thinking “omg it was good content all along, here I was thinking that it was bad content that was the key to success”. An abstract idea of “Do good” isn’t people’s problem, it is both not being able to make good content and not being able to identify what makes content good in an algorithmic sense. People don’t know what is the best course of action for them personally and this cookie cutter “yo, make content about famous people and pay them to watch it”, is neither an original idea nor it is helpful. 

'''DarkViper: '''I also want to add, while I have been giving Ludwig the benefit of the doubt and assuming presented his experiment honestly, this is potentially not so as I have heard claims that getting Ludwig’s results took him multiple attempts. This is however only weakly supported by four things. The first, the completed version of the video was uploaded October 25th, but the actual version used was uploaded the 1st of November, leaving a 7 day window that is unexplained. Secondly, Ludwig critiques Mizkif at the end for not paying attention to his donations, suggesting prior attempts where he missed donations from Ludwig. Thirdly, Ludwig wears a different outfit at the start of the video, while making the video, and in the footage of Mizkif watching it. Lastly, Ludwig’s text later claims that he gave Mizkif the video after 20 minutes but Ludwig’s analytics show that Mizkif didn’t watch the video until it had been out for an hour. I have seen no formal statement in regards to this though so perhaps this delay, clothes change, critique, and inaccurate time skip, are mere coincidence.

'''DarkViper: '''In conclusion Ludwig started out like all of us, shit, and he got lucky and found success. This luck laid the foundation for him to do YouTube as a job for years, giving him sufficient skill, knowledge and experience to make a video that no new content creator could make. He then put in on a second channel, and proclaimed no one needs luck to do this despite that obviously not being true. All Ludwig’s video actually suggests is that if you start as an expert in a field, you will be more likely to succeed. If Ludwig had just made a video that said “hey, I want to see if I can get 1000 views on a new channel without using my name, face, or brand”. All good. His claims of generalizability, that anyone could do this, and that this was a test of anything, is just silly. This was not at all an examination of the impact of luck and skill in anything. But worse, for my interests, it spread misinformation about the value of react content for the success of a video. If Ludwig wanted to leave his land of make believe and just say “If the content is good enough it can be picked up by the algorithm regardless of what channel it is on,” and this would be fine. Obviously this isn’t new information as you can see this happen all the time. The hard part isn’t knowing that this is possible, it is getting lucky enough to get yourself in a spot where you can make good content for the algorithm at all. Having now learned more about Luidwig’s experiments, do you find yourself agreeing with how he views it as described in one of his live streams?: 




'''Ludwig:''' Online Lore only exists, and has almost a million views because Mizkif reacted to it. Like, if Mizkif didn't react to this, this would not have 890k views, right? Also, the video I made about it, yeah, not sorry, sorry that you’re actually really right about that 891k. It would not have gotten without the video i made that got 3M, but it did get its initial 10k views because Miz reacted to it; And i think if Miz never reacted to it, it wouldn't have gotten many views at all, i think that’s pretty fair. I think Miz reacting to it and getting that early influx put it in the algorithm. 




'''DarkViper: '''I actually criticitiqued Ludwig’s video in my original document about react content, so let us now see what Ludwig in response;




'''Ludwig:''' And then he even made a side about my secret YouTube channel to prove it's not luck, and mention that this highlights how bad things have gotten because I used a reactor to get views. Why are you mad at the grussel? Why are you mad at the hustle? I got the video in front of a lot of strangers' eyes, and it worked out. “It's strange for a millionaire to tell others the best way to live is to give his millionaire friend money”.

I mean, it was more of a proof concept than a step-by-step tutorial, and i think everyone who donated biscuit 50 is a bit fucking dumb, and i said it in the video. Not to do that, but whatever, i really believe in the process that made this video, and i'm really happy with how it turned out; and all it came down to, was good content. Good thumbnailing, good titling, and also admittedly a smart way to get in front of people who are interested in this type of content. This could feasibly be done by anyone with just $50. I mean maybe less if you go for a little smaller streamer who pays attention to his donations a little more. 




'''DarkViper: '''Hey guys! Making content about millionaires, for millionairs, and then paying those millionaires to watch your hard work is a smart way to get success! Are you listening all those desperate people wanting to live your dream of having success in this industry! I say this to you as an already successful person this is exactly what I would do if I had to start all over! Hey I even had the backing of mr beast in this video so you know it is legit!

Also Ludwig: lol, if people actually took my advice they are stupid. 

'''DarkViper: '''So that ends the video. There were a few pages explaining the actual interplay between luck and skill, and a few more giving some advice on how to succeed on YouTube, but I think I am just going to cut both because this video is already too long. Altho, if you wanna see that stuff, tell me down below and maybe i’ll make it into a video. As this is the final video in this series, you might ask whether I return to talking about react content in the future? Maybe. I think it is better I reaffirm my stance against this form of exploitation, making it impossible for me to walk down a path that no one should travel, while hopefully also making it less tempting for others as well. Maybe I can’t change the world, but I still want to take a crack at small improvements even if people think I'm a fool for doing so. 




'''Ludwig:''' I'm not trying to talk shit out here, but, I'm seeing, a 135k? And I'm seeing 891k so, I'm just like, you know, it's just like, I'm seeing a few things!...




'''Tom Scott:''' For me, it look more than a decade of throwing stuff at the internet of steadily building up a small following and learning my trade before i found the things you might not know format an idea that really worked; an idea that got me a large audience, and a chance to actually turn this into something that could support me, by sheer luck that happened; at the point where i’d been working somewhere long enough to build up some savings, so i wouldn't be completely bankrupt if this new shiny YouTube idea didn't work out long term, there's a reason that a lot of people who make stuff for online platforms are either kids supported by their parents, or students with a lot of time on their hands, or folks who have the means to support themselves. If you’re starting out, you should know it isn't going to support you for the first few years, perhaps, the first few decades, perhaps ever, and if you’re one of the lucky ones, if you’ve made it, it very likely won’t support you for life. If you’re starting out, success might take a week, it might take a month, it might take a century, byt every idea you put out there, is another roll of the dice, and you can learn from however those dice fall. That's how you get popular on the internet.'''''Defining Luck'''''Before we even look at Ludwig’s video though I would like to do something he didn’t do, and speak about how I view luck, as it certainly isn’t a concept used uniformly. I actually lost a long time viewer once due to an argument over whether my idea of luck conflicts with my idea of determinism, no I am not kidding. Luck references variables outside of our control that influences the result of anything we do and outcomes that can not be reasonably expected based on variables we control. So if I need it to rain, it would be lucky if it rained as I have no ability to influence the weather. If I wanted to make a half court shot in basketball, sure technically I am controlling the ball and the force applied to it, but based on what I know of my skill and capabilities, I should miss that shot almost every time and thus I have no reasonable expectation that the ball will go in thus it would be lucky if it did.

'''''So what is actually the interplay between luck and skill?'''''

First, skill comes to supplant luck. For example, imagine playing a video game with absolutely no prior experience. You will win sometimes but this will be due to chance, as you will be making good or bad moves with the same frequency overall. But the more you play, the greater your skill will increase, thus the less you need to rely upon luck to achieve victory. You will know more of what to expect, you will grow to be able to handle previously difficult or unsolvable issues. Eventually you will hit the skill ceiling, where even playing optimally will not always convey a victory in things where there is random chance involved that impacts the outcome. This isn’t just for video games. Imagine a surgeon that has to perform surgery with no skill in surgery. Whether or not he killed the patient would just be luck, he would just as often do the right or wrong thing. But after he killed a few thousand people, he’d have enough skill to no longer need luck to avoid killing patients. There would always be some luck involved, the possibility of some unforeseeable issue arising that the person happened to have insufficient skill to combat, but the longer he stuck with it, the less likely this would occur. This is why education exists, in anything that matters we want people as trained as much as possible so that there is as little luck needed to achieve the outcomes we want. However, the odds of something unexpected happening that a new surgeon can’t handle is obviously going to be higher than someone who has been a surgeon for 30 years. There are always going to be factors outside of a person’s control that can impact success in anything, but the more skill you have the less chance that these factors can derail you. They’d know more of what to expect, and will grow to be able to handle previously difficult or unsolvable issues. YouTube is the same. When you first start out, you know nothing. You don’t know what good editing is, what content works in the algorithm, why things work in the algorithm and so on. You know so little you can’t even identify the difference between good and bad advice. Worse, you have no reason to believe that any efforts you put forth would be rewarded as you have yet to achieve success. These are the primary barriers that a new creator faces and you need to be very lucky to get past this stage. Success inherently requires luck because you are effectively gambling on an uncertain future, and the greater your success the more variables outside of your control need to be just so. As suggested by Ludwig in the past, success is largely having what it takes to take advantage of opportunities that are presented to you by your environment. The more you prepare yourself, work hard, develop skills, practice, and are persistent, the greater the chance that something will click and you will see a path forward. Granted, everyone isn’t fortunate enough to be in a situation where they can stick it out that long or even responsibly try to begin with. Everyone has a breaking point, whether it be emotional, physical, financial, relationships etc, where they will bow out and you just need to hope you strike upon something before that day comes. Always remember that sitting on your ass doing nothing at all is the best way to guarantee failure. Working towards something has a much better chance of opening doors to a better future for yourself, even if it isn’t always along the avenue you expect. My first videos were about religion, I became successful as a GTA 5 speedrunner. —----------------------------------------------------

'''''How SPECIFICALLY can you succeed on YouTube? '''''Formally giving advice is tad risky as you are somewhat responsible for anything people do on the basis of that.''''' '''''General advice is never going to get you all the way there. Short of getting yourself an already experienced mentor who can give you specific advice tailored for your circumstances, it is a really long process of slowly honing your craft and looking out for opportunities. Remember that success on YouTube can be achieved in effectively endless different ways and what works, or what is best, can change from year to year. Moreover, what a person needs to do to maintain success is not necessarily what a person should be doing to get it in the first place. No person on this platform knows all the ways to succeed, and many of the paths to success that were once used are no longer possible today. Some people fall ass first into success, while others claw for every nickel and it takes a different amount of time for each of us. It took 4 years for MrBeast to reach his 50k subscribers, and he had already deleted his first channel. Even he wondered if he was done with YouTube, and his plan at that point in his own words was to "post random stuff" and he struck gold with endurance challenges and spectacles. It took me 6 years to reach something that I would consider success. Tom Scott, one of the most successful educational channels on YouTube, took 15 years of throwing everything at the platform to succeed. It takes luck, patience, persistence, and sadly not all of us are in such secure spots in life that we can throw thousands of hours at something without succeeding. You have to be very lucky to have a sufficient foundation to give this career a go at all.


As a new content creator, what you want to do is try and identify underserved markets. This is ultimately what Ludwig was doing with his video on Mizkif, although the video he created is really half true. While Mizkif definitely benefits from having a wide array of other creators on his stream, he doesn’t technically have an open door policy as suggested by the video. I distinctly recall Destiny mentioning there was a bit of a fuss over whether or not he could be on the stream because Hasan and Destiny have beef and Mizkif was worried about how having Destiny on would impact his relationship with Hasan. Who can come inside his house is clearly planned and not open to everyone. I don’t think that entirely undercuts the video, but it is certainly more sensational than a pure work of fact.

Basically you want to create content that people want to see but no one is creating yet either because it hasn’t been done before or no one else has been able to do it before. A good question to ask is, what is something you want to see that doesn’t exist yet or what can you bring to the table that other people are not already offering? Another path is to do something better than those who are already doing it but as you are just starting out the odds of that are going to be fairly low but not impossible. 

The Yoink and Twist as Ludwig calls it, is very good advice for anyone. You take an idea that already exists, and change it slightly to create something new. Take for example A Solid 15 Minutes of Useless Information by AustinMcConnell. This format could be done with anything, like GTA 5 for example, which is what InControlAgain did, making me question why I didn’t think of doing that myself. 

When it comes to your actual content, asking simple questions like “is there anyone alive who would click my video if they saw the title and thumbnail?” If no, why not and what can I change? When it comes to the video itself, all the footage within it should serve some purpose related to the premise of the video established in the title and thumbnail. Ideally everything is interesting, entertaining or exists to make something else interesting and entertaining. Whenever there is a part of your content that is dull and boring, you will lose people. When you are an already established creator, people will be more lenient expecting something of substance to come later but as you are new, you need to be retaining as many people as possible. I would also argue it is better to make a heap of small things rather than one big thing. The more you make the quicker you will hone your skills. Don’t wait for the perfect idea, have an idea and run with it. If it fails you will just gain valuable experience and won’t have dedicated an insane amount of resources on it. Big projects can be good but doing nothing but big projects when starting out can be very risky. Also keep in mind that you are not making content for you, you are making it for other people. Even if you understand or enjoy something in your video it doesn’t mean someone else will. Always ask “will the people I want to watch this video understand what is going on, and will they enjoy the video despite not being in it or having made it”. I have been sent endless videos of friends having the time of their lives playing video games, laughing up a storm, and the content was absolute garbage and was watched by no one.


Music is different from most content because it is infinitely relistenable. There are some songs I have had in my playlist for 20 years. My mother has listened to every carpenter's song 1000 times over the last 40 years, it became a meme in my family that she’d always put them on in family gatherings until those songs were all seared into my brain. Music almost uniquely benefits from reactions. The only thing that comes close to this is video games, where playing one round of the latest battleground game isn’t one and done. I played Noita for 500 hours, I have played GTA 5 for 9000! YouTube videos are not like this, they are traditionally one view and you are done, unless in some rare case they are represented by the algorithm years later.Remember that as fun as it can be to make content, success is not always fun or comfortable. At times, each of us has to choose between what is comfortable and what will lead you to success, some of us more than others. The easy fun paths are the most competitive, the more you are willing to go the extra mile on the path less traveled, the better off you will likely be. The root cause of my success is literally playing the same single player game for 5000 hours, a little bit of insanity can help.


A much more luck based tactic is to get in on the ground floor of something new and hope it becomes big. The people who jumped onto playing Fortnite prior to it becoming a hit sensation were obviously better primed to become successful making content around the game compared to those who jumped on late. Rather than finding an underserved market, you create the content in preparation for the market that develops. You could arguably even help grow that market yourself. But given that the future is uncertain, picking a winner is often hard especially now that there are far more people already established in the industry who will hope on immediately. 


Long after I began my career here I learned that one of the biggest predictors of success is early positive reinforcement. Speaking of my own history, on my first video I ever uploaded I got a comment from someone and we had a back and forth about the content of my video. I was like, wow the system works. On my 3rd video ever I happened to see another creator’s video and I made a response to it. This was back when response videos appeared below other videos. This resulted in me getting hundreds of viewers and comments. I remember saying to my friend Lee at work omg I got another subscriber, I am up to 36 now. I happened to stumble into a popular niche culture on YouTube, got some positive feedback, and this got me hooked. This one you don't have much control over, but having someone there with you that you can speak to about your content and who might give you some encouragement, feedback and encouragement will probably go a long way to help.It is important to remember that this isn’t 2010. YouTube is largely just an algorithm and the second it stops recommending your videos to someone, you are a distant memory for them. It is also important to remember that your videos will die and fall on their own merits. You can make a dozen poorly performing videos and it shouldn't impact a video that is actually good. If your good video is keeping people on the platform, the algorithm will love it, it doesn’t matter if another video in existence isn’t doing that. The luck factor is happening to strike upon something you can actually be successful at. No one fully understands themselves, their strengths and weaknesses, nor where their particular skills will be best applied now or or in the future. This industry takes a lot of luck, but some people need more than others, and you will always be better off attempting to take fate into your own hands.


Reference planning to get a million vs a billion

Aftermath

After the video above, I released another video called ‘[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44FnFP0vlBE It Was Fake! How Ludwig Misled 5 Million People!]‘. This video reveals the truth about why Ludwig's video became popular. On November 3, 2019, Ludwig spoke on the '''The Yard''' podcast about the 'experiment' he had done with his video. In the podcast, Ludwig not only describes the subject of the video, but also mentions the title of the video. In the YouTube analytics, which I discussed in my previous video, we already saw that many viewers of the video found it via the YouTube search function. The fact that Ludwig talked about the video in question in this podcast explains why this was the case and why it got popular in the first place.

Sources

''The Lies That Stole A Fortune - How The Reactor's Scam' Works ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irk8h0ax5aY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irk8h0ax5aY]

''Ludwig’s Luck Video''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip2trao6dYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip2trao6dYw]

''Hasan’s reference to the luck video''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rLViiISjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rLViiISjU]''The entire history of MrBeast, i guess''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC1GkN6bdIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC1GkN6bdIE]''Why You Don't Want To Go Viral - Tom Scott''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LZEZ5QuyzM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LZEZ5QuyzM]

''Ludwig’s first video''[https://twitter.com/LudwigAhgren/status/1200545040226848768?s=20&t=U-8IBgH8AyVUa93TAGMu1w https://twitter.com/LudwigAhgren/status/1200545040226848768?s=20&t=U-8IBgH8AyVUa93TAGMu1w]''From Unemployable to The Top of Twitch: The Story of Ludwig''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKbf4LbRaD0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKbf4LbRaD0]

''Ludwig Reacts to the story of Ludwig by thescore esports''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=018-kG-4Who https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=018-kG-4Who]

''How a Door Made This Streamer $1 Million''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1W-GehvkKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1W-GehvkKY]

''What can £25 of Google Ads do for a Youtuber?''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvVFqTWv9aQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvVFqTWv9aQ]

''It Was Fake! How Ludwig Misled 5 Million People!''

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44FnFP0vlBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44FnFP0vlBE] 

Is It Even Possible For Reaction Content To Be Ethical?

'''Original video:''' [https://youtu.be/i9u_J6BMGJI Is It Even Possible For Reaction Content To Be Ethical?]


Hey everyone. So most of you likely know that I made a series where I tried to argue for the position that reaction content harms everyone but the reactors themselves. While the series was successful in that it changed a lot of minds on the issue. Of course the world is quite large so it's just a small drop in the bucket, so ultimately it didn't really have much of an effect on the actual market for reaction content on YouTube or any other platform.


So given my previous commentary on the topic, you're probably not surprised to learn that when Linus of Linus Tech Tips announced they were making a reaction channel, my interest was peaked. This was in part because Linus actually discussed the legal and ethical issues surrounding reaction contents. This in contrast to most reactors who either ignore or directly lie about such issues.


While I have spent the previous eight months jotting down notes and picking up stories that would better enable me to highlight my points in another video, I think Linus’ announcement gives me an opportunity to create something more approachable for a general audience by looking at what he said and where I agree or disagree.


''Linus (in the WAN Show):''

I might as well just tell you guys we're working on a React channel like it is no f**king effort, easy content, and it is obscenely profitable. If you can generate a bunch of views on content that takes almost literally no time. That's what it is, that's what react content is. At this point, you're kind of stupid not to have a React channel.


From a business standpoint he's of course correct. Comparing, say, spending 200 hours creating something new, original, amazing and wonderful, or spending 200 hours watching the result of other people doing that.


In the first instance, not only do you have to generate an original idea, But you have to spend all that work and all you're gonna have is <u>one</u> video at the end of the day. In the other instance, you don't have to think of any ideas and will just end up with like a <u>hundred</u> videos to be thrown out in the algorithm to promote you to every market possible. It doesn't really matter if you have any expertise on the hot button issue or you know anything at all, or if you have any of the skills or talents necessary to compete in the modern marketplace. It doesn't matter 'cause you can just take those from other people and re-upload them with your face in the corner.


An interesting question though is, is this a good development? Where the most successful people are, not necessarily the most creative, the most skilled, the people who have the most original ideas, but instead the people who are just potentially the least ethical people who are willing to watch thousands of hours of other people's work with their only contribution pressing the pause button occasionally and saying, “Hey, that's creativity, shove it on my YouTube channel.”.


Ignore the effect on other content creators, which we'll look at later. Is this really better for viewers and the platform as a whole? One of the biggest problems in even having these discussions is misunderstandings of fair use and how it applies to reaction content, which Linus touches on in his announcement.


''Linus (in the WAN Show):''

Fair use is a gray area. It actually has to be defended in court, is not as simple as well, it's fair use, therefore, it's fine. A lot of what gets defended as fair use is clearly not. The only reason that you might get away with saying “It's fair use” is if nobody chooses to challenge you on it.


Of course, no label gets used universally in the same way by everyone, so people are naturally gonna disagree what should or should not be called reaction content at all.


In saying that, even just a casual look at the fair use guidelines or the legal commentary on them, leaves you with the inescapable conclusion that people sitting on live streams and watching other people's YouTube videos is not covered under fair use. Neither, of course are the fairly unedited videos that then get thrown onto YouTube. This form of content in general arguably violates all the guidelines for fair use.


So Linus goes on to highlight which of the guidelines he believes reaction content has the hardest time overcoming.


''Linus (in the WAN Show):''

Number three: ‘''The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.''’. And this is where a lot of react content, as it is right now, is in deep doo doo.


A lot of people in the chat are talking about the ‘h3 ruling’. Yes. That did go in favor of Ethan, but you've also got to remember and understand that fair use is something that is tackled on a case by case basis by the courts. Ethan, to his credit, did not use the entire original source. The bulk of the video was h3's commentary.


So the judge in h3h3's case specifically highlighted that that ruling was not meant to be ruling on reaction content as a whole, largely because as I highlighted before, what is called reaction content varies Amazingly. The reason h3h3 won wasn't really because of the amount that they used at the original work. Especially because it was almost the entire original video. In fact, it was argued in that case that using a lot of the original material or even all of it shouldn't automatically preclude you from falling under fair use. It's simply that the more of the original work you use, the harder it is to make your case that you fall under the guidelines of fair use. It's not impossible, but it makes things harder.


It doesn't matter if half the copyrighted content you use is used in a transformative way and under fair use if the other half isn't. The big problem that livestream reactions have is that it's not a calculated use of copywriter content. When a livestream is giving their first time reaction to a video, they have no idea what's in the video, so they can't have a specific purpose for their use of that copywriter content. They could sit there for 10 minutes, then say something very substantive and very interesting and all that jazz, all that commentary. But that commentary may have only needed like a minute of the previous 10 minutes to make sense.


If a judge asked that reactor: “Why did you use that copywriter material?”, the only thing the reactor could say is: “I don't know. I didn't know it was gonna be there, so I guess I just used it 'cause it was there.”. Had they seen the video beforehand, they would know whether or not they could make something transformative out of it and they would know what parts of that copyrighted content they would need to create that work. The only reason reactors don't do this, is because it requires more effort. Courts have thankfully never established that merely watching something transforms it in some way. Given that they haven't done this, all reactions done via livestream are up shit creek without a paddle 'cause they'll be constantly showcasing and profiting off of copyrighted material that they have no reason to use.


They have no purpose, and in fact, had they known it was there, they might not have included it. Not willing to put forth the effort of watching the video beforehand is not an argument for the use of copyrighted content. Just a quick reminder: copyright isn't something you apply for. It is something you have automatically if what you create fits the requirements.


Linus goes on to talk about another reason why it's hard to talk about these issues.


''Linus (in the WAN Show):''

If you upload a video that is essentially the entire original work, for profit, for yourself, with some chunks where you respond to, or react to, or talk over the original work. There is no reason whatsoever to go watch the original work. And so you'll see these large creators that are getting, in some cases, many times, the viewership of the original work, even if something was clearly not fair use.


I can tell you right now that the community backlash that follows any smaller creator who's trying to enforce copyright, it's wrong. It's just plain wrong. It benefits the people who are at the top, who don't need it. They actually have money. They could hire staff, create something original, get equipment. Whereas the people who are at the bottom, they don't have the same tools.


Back in 2016, there was a huge outcry against reaction content from the largest creators at the time. Since then, what has happened is the unethical people who are willing to weather that criticism and just stick it out and continue to upload reaction views for years and years on end. These are the new people at the top of the totem pole and some people themselves who once just made original content have looked at this and gone “Wow, I should be doing that as well.”.


In some language markets the literal biggest creators are reactors. And it is these people who are influencing the minds of the viewers, feeding the audiences, and even other creators, that lie about the benefits of reaction content. Feeding them with falsehoods about fair use, that the viewers aren't gonna bother going looking up to see if they're correct.


''Linus (in the WAN Show):''

As a content creator I have, you know, actual numbers for how beneficial reaction content is to the original creator. The answer is not very f**king much.


Even worse than that, it's actually quite complicated to understand how reaction content harms everyone except the reactors. The average person isn't gonna sit down for over an hour or read a 50 page essay on such an issue, especially when they like the reactors. When the audiences don't wanna listen and the topic is ambiguous and complicated, it's hard sometimes to think you even have a chance.


''Linus (in the WAN Show):''

I've laid out some guidelines for what I would consider to be like, ethical reaction content. Where the goal, the stated purpose, and not just the stated purpose, but the actual goal of the content needs to be to uplift the original creator.


Linus didn't wake up recently and say to himself “I need to find some way to get exposure to other creators”. The decision to make a reaction channel wasn't done with the goal of benefiting other creators. It was done for business reasons, to grow the business, to grow Linus' share of the finite markets.


A concept that you may have never heard of before, but will likely immediately understand, is the idea of the attention economy. There are 8 billion people in the world who can only pay attention to a finite amount of things at any given time. So remember when Among Us, like took over the internet and went from having like a couple of players, then having hundreds of thousands? Among Us didn't create new people to achieve that effect. They didn't make it so a bunch of people had 26 hours in the day instead of 24.


What they did was pull the attention of a bunch of people away from other things to Among Us. Some people were gonna play some ball games, so they're like, ah, screw those ball games. Let's play some Among Us, that sounds great. Some people were gonna play some MMO, but oh, Among Us seems even better. So screw that MMO for a little bit, let's pay attention to Among Us. Everything that needs attention to be successful, and becomes more successful the more attention it gets, is attempting to claw attention away from everything else to itself.


It's obviously going to be the case that different things compete to different degrees. Two different things that equally require attention can say “Hey, let's team up, we can both get more attention if we work together.”. But I argue that reaction content as a whole isn't like a ‘team up’. It's more like the original creator does all the work and the reactor goes, “Huh, that's some nice work you've got there. I'm gonna get a lot of attention re-uploading that.”. One of the biggest issues is that the systems that promote the reactors are the same ones that promote the original creators. And there was only a finite amount of promotion going around.


When you go to YouTube's homepage and see a bunch of thumbnails, each of those thumbnails are saying: “Hey, pay attention to me. Don't pay attention to them. Pay attention to me. Click me, click me.”. “And you know what? After you click this thumbnail, click more of them, spend as much attention as possible on me.”. So the only reason why people upload reaction videos is because they get more attention than they lose. They pull people away from other things to themselves.


To use an extreme example, to highlight the point, let's say five years from now, 25% of the finite attention that the human race has is spent on reaction content. Would it benefit those who don't make reaction content if that share jumps to 50%, if reaction content became even more successful and pulled even more people from other things to itself? Clearly no. Giving your attention to something precludes you from giving that attention to something else. You are finite. Your time is finite. You only have a finite amount of attention. This, of course, goes for everyone.


Take Markiplier for example. He gets 150 million views a month. Conceptually, you likely understand that there cannot be infinite Markipliers. There cannot be infinite YouTube channels getting 150 million views a month. YouTube as it is now, and even YouTube at its maximum conceivable size can only support a finite amount of successful creators at any given size.


Luke goes on to say that he believes there are instances where reaction content can have a positive impact for smaller creators.


''Luke (in the WAN Show):''

but I have also seen reaction content that has like made channels basically…


''Linus:''

For sure.


''Luke:''…I know of channels that exist that basically only exist because reaction channels blew them up. And I think especially the current era, there's a big mix of ones that are good and aren't good and obviously…


''Linus:''

Even within individuals…


''Luke:''

Absolutely.


''Linus:''

…there's a mix of doing the right thing and being extremely lazy.


''Luke:''

I've seen example clips of someone who will go from really good reactionary content to a piece of content that probably wants you to, that probably makes you want to go follow through and see the original creator, all that kinda stuff. And then the next clip, they're like eating.


A good way to understand the effect of reaction content is to use the analogy of a national lottery, so people all over the nation put in some money, and then the lottery agency takes a huge chunk for themselves and then redistributes the rest. So with every lottery that is run, everyone who enters losers as a collective, Frank may win a million dollars, but as a collective there is less money that is being distributed amongst the others because the lottery has taken a huge chunk. This is how reaction content works. Attention that would be normally spent somewhere else is pulled to the reactor, for the reactors benefit and for the smaller benefit of the person being reacted to.


As a collective everything that isn't the reactor themselves loses, 'cause absenting the reactors interference, the attention will still exist. It would just exists somewhere else. The only thing that has changed is the reactor themselves now has a huge chunk of it and while yes, the person being reacted to has benefited from that small amount of attention that comes from that, this person being reacted to doesn't benefit from the other many millions of other reaction videos that exist in the market.


So as a person being reacted to, you have one reaction video that can draw attention to you, and then millions of other reaction videos that only exist to draw attention away from you. And these reaction videos will always continue to exist so long as they succeed in that goal, increasing attention that reactors get and decreasing the attention spent on everything else.


For the same reason you wouldn't point to Frank winning a million dollars in the lottery to say the lottery is a great system and a sound financial investment, it's the same reason why you wouldn't point to the gains from people being reacted to, to argue that the entire system of reaction content benefits other people other than reactors.


So I think a conceptual example would be good. Let's say Linus makes a reaction video, he then uploads it to YouTube and it is shown to 2 million people who've come to YouTube to try and find something to entertain themselves. Of those 2 million people, 5% click their thumbnail, and so that video gets a hundred thousand views.


Now, imagine reality where Linus made this video but didn't upload it. Those 2 million people would still go to YouTube. They would still be looking for entertainment, but rather than being presented this reaction video, they'd be presented something else. So those 2 million impressions that showed that reaction video instead just show other creators.


The algorithm would be about as successful as it was the first time round, and so a hundred thousand views would be given to other creators in the market. Every single time a reaction video is uploaded to YouTube, the algorithm looks at it and goes, Hmm hmm should I give some impressions to this original content or this reaction video? Well, this original video, I think would only be clicked. Like 4.25% at the time. Well, this reaction video, I think will be clicked 4.26% of the time. Well fuck the original creator. Then impression goes to reaction video.


All the reaction videos do is take impressions from original content, specifically with the goal of having the reactor watched more instead of original content and reaction Videos will always exist so long as they win this exchange.


To be clear, I'm merely trying to argue against the idea that reaction content can have an overall positive effect on other people. I'm not from suggesting that there aren't other reasons to use other people's content in some ways. 




''Linus (in the WAN Show):''

So a perfect example of this would be the recent Coffeezilla - Logan Paul controversy. Logan Paul is not gonna give Coffeezilla permission to utilize portions of his video. But in that case, Coffeezilla is clearly transforming the original work.


Arguing that reaction content benefits other creators as a collective is basically like saying: “Look, the more people who watch me, the bigger I become as a creator, the wealthier I become, the more exposure I can give to other people. So everyone wins.”. These arguments are silly.


But that doesn't mean there aren't good arguments, as Linus just points out, to use other people's content. If you are putting in actual work to create something new, distinct, that's what matters for you to honestly be able to say “Hey, I am using some of this other person's work, but I am creating something new here. This is my work in truth.”. Because at the end of the day, it isn't immoral to try and draw some of the finite attention from the world to yourself because that's what we do with all the videos that we produce.


When I release a video, I want you to pay attention to it. I want everyone in the world to watch it instead of whatever else they'd be doing. From a business standpoint, as a content creator, you want as many people in the world paying attention to you as much as possible, be damped, whatever else they'd spend that attention on. As long as you are actually creating something rather than just re-uploading other people's videos with you in the corner, that's fine.


There are clearly many cases where you can use just what is necessary of someone else's work to create something new. And in my eyes, all the examples that Linus gives of the type of reaction content that he wants to make all fit within this vein. 


''Linus (in the WAN Show):''

You know, one of the things we could do is like, we've done a few of these on the main channel, like reacting to community submissions. Like best and worst builds and stuff like that. I wanna do LTT reacts to like bad hacking scenes in movies. We wanna do reacting to like bad product listings. So like going through like, you know, Facebook marketplace. You know, people who think their computer's worth way too much. We actually did one of those before.


We've got reacting to old videos of ours. You know, I really love what Corridor crew does, where they will bring on experts. Yeah. Best and worst of TikTok, stuff like that. But again, that's getting into the gray area. So I think what it basically comes down to is just being ethical about it and adhering to the four pillars of fair use and making sure that regardless of who it is and whether they could afford to take us to court over it, making sure that we would have a strong, fair use argument that. We believe with certainty that we would win. We are actually doing things. We're actually trying them. I'm not eating a box of noodles while I watch other people's content.


Arguments related to, “I'm just trying to help out the community” are nonsense. The arguments you want to use are, I am doing a original work here. I have original ideas. I'm putting in effort here to create something new. Sure, someone else's work has gone into what I've produced, but it is fundamentally me.


When you are, for example, live streaming video that you haven't even seen yet, and know nothing about, you can't make that case. Even in cases where you add a handful of cuts to remove a little bit of the filler, you aren't really improving anything. You didn't come to that other person's work with a specific idea as to how you can create something new. You didn't come to it with a new idea. You didn't come to it with a particular goal. You were just sitting around watching other people work hard and going “Hey, I can make a lot of money doing this. If I just keep doing this more, I can get all the viewers, man. I can conquer the world.”.


Creating an environment where working hard and having ideas and creating a visual things is a bad strategy for growth is simply not a good thing. People sitting around for hours a day, watching other people work hard and then reposting them, watching those videos, to YouTube, benefits no one but those people. The overall effect of that on everyone else is just negative.


To be clear, I'm drawing a hard distinction between people who are looking at trailers or looking at news or stuff that their friends have made, or stuff that their community has made, or stuff that has them in it. Or a person who makes one reaction review every six months because of some particular special occasion, I'm not sure. I'm talking more about the ever-growing number of. Creators who spend all their time sitting around watching other people work hard and then re-uploading them, watching that work.


From how Linus has described his new channel, that doesn't seem to be what Linus will be doing. Will it likely still be lazy content? Yeah. Will it benefit other creators as a totality? No. And if you disagree with that, please watch my series where I spend a hell of a lot of time arguing that fact. But this doesn't mean what he's creating would necessarily be unethical, and based on his description of what he wants to do, it doesn't seem to be the thing that I generally criticize. And whether or not I will personally have a problem with the channel remains to be seen. So honestly, I liked a lot of what Linus said and how much thought he's put into this. Thought that most people probably wouldn't put in. 


The only true negative from this announcement for me is that it confirms that reaction content truly would never go away. I don't just mean the benign stuff where you are actually doing something creative using someone else's work. I mean, the people sitting for dozens of hours a day watching other people work hard and then re-uploading it to YouTube.


After Linus makes this channel, it doesn't matter what arguments he puts forth, it doesn't matter what he actually does on the channel. Anytime he speaks about any unethical reaction content, people will say, but what about your reaction channel?


''Charlie (MoistCr1TiKaL):''

In his own document, he admits that he himself was a reactor. He is engaged in a lot of react content himself. So at one point were you a rapist? DarkViper?


''(about Charlie)'' Sometimes I sit and reflect on the stupidity of reality and it just crushes me mentally. I can tell you from experience, you can write a bloody manifesto. Hell, you can make a 10 part video series outlining exactly what you're criticizing and why, and people won't read it or watch it, but will call you a hypocrite regardless. 


''(about Linus)'' Whether or not he wants it to be the case, for a lot of people his making of this channel will be a support of everything that he calls unethical in regards to reaction content and the more channels like his that exist will me embolden people to engage in such behavior.


And so those are my brief thoughts on Linus Tech Tips, making a reaction channel. I'm sure while watching this video, many of you are like, ah, but Mr. DarkViper Sir, I have some objections. I assure you they have been covered in intricate detail in the essays that I made into 10 goddamn videos. It is not possible to sufficiently cover every single possible conceivable angle of this issue in a single 20 minute video. There is always more I can say on this issue, more angles. I can take better ways of explaining it, but I too only have a finite amount of attention.


I have many other things I want to do, and I'll be honest with you, these last 10 months since I wrote that essay have been some of the most trying I've ever experienced. No person can deal with countless thousands of people accusing you of doing things that you didn't do, of saying things you didn't say, of believing things you don't believe, of being someone who you are not, without it taking a toll. I recognize, for my own mental health, I should just give up this fight and I will eventually. But for the time being, I'm not mentally broken yet and I still find the topic very interesting, so I'll keep talking about it. I wish you all the best.

Sources

Playlist on react content [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnJ4ZuTYaeGv4WIexP9C5LAuMEnMkG-Q Why React Content Harms Everyone] 

Linus Tech Tips on reaction content [https://youtu.be/1dhGKw7ph3s?t=3378 https://youtu.be/1dhGKw7ph3s?t=3378] 

Four factors of fair use [https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors]

h3h3Productions court case [https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-41037631 BBC News] - [https://youtu.be/9eN0CIyF2ok https://youtu.be/9eN0CIyF2ok] 

Among Us Steam statistics [https://steamcharts.com/app/945360 Among Us - Steam Charts]

Unmasking Reactors: The Hidden Lies Behind Gabi Belle's YouTube Career

'''Original video: '''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNz72S2AJMM Unmasking Reactors: The Hidden Lies Behind Gabi Belle's YouTube Career]


 You may have noticed that a year or so ago I released an essay condemning reaction content, especially on Twitch and YouTube. This led to MoistCr1TiKaL ostensibly making a video about my essay. But in reality, he covered very little of it, and what he did cover he entirely misrepresented. The ensuing drama also inspired those who cover such things to make videos collectively making some of the most dishonest and poorly argued videos that exist on this platform. Understandably, I felt it necessary to respond to such videos when I found the time. As I, like most people, don't like misinformation. Especially about myself.


However, I was recently informed that I missed a video from around that time, a video that turns out to be the runt of an already very sickly litter. When I was first informed, my response was: “Who cares?”. It was after all over a year ago now, and even back then, it was a big ‘ask me’ to take time out of my busy schedule to make the response videos that I made back then. It seemed inconceivable that this new video could be so pathetically bad that it'd be worth the time to respond to us. So I watched the video and holy shit, it really does need to be seen to be believed. To be honest with you, I've become increasingly defeatist as I've gotten older, largely concluding that combating misinformation is usually a futile venture. In many cases it will only be a tiny fraction of the people who accept the falsehoods in the first place, who will ever be in a position to even see a refutation of them. And even those in their position will have every psychological bias inspiring them to find some superficial reason to dismiss it out of hand.


So why make this video at all? Truthfully, in large part… it's because I think it'll be very funny. One of the hardest choices I had when making this video was deciding whether I wanted to cover every single error Gabi made or merely cover the more hilarious greatest hits. For example, there is a section in the video where Gabi brings on her star witness: her sister. And Gabi seems blissfully unaware that the very first thing her sister says, refutes something that Gabi claimed in her very own video.


The conversation continues and Gabi seems unaware that she's not asking the right questions or even understanding the answers that she's being given. Which is obviously a problem you can fall into when you know nothing about the topic that you're trying to speak on. While such moments are hilariously funny, I've ultimately decided to be more thorough in my approach, even though this effectively enslaves me to covering almost every sentence that Gabi uttered, as very little was said, that didn't have significant flaw. The only thing this video highlights is that you don't need to be educated in anything to be successful on social media. You don't need to present true information. You don't need to argue well for your perspective. All you need is a narrative that a sufficient amount of people want to hear, and the confidence to proclaim it, irrespective of any evident justification. It is why throughout social media that it doesn't matter the flavor of bullshit, there is someone peddling it for a lot of money and cloud. So let us now begin with the video: ‘''React streamers are destroying YouTube? (Tldr; MoistCr1TiKaL & DarkViperAU drama)''’.


Gabi:

Hi, friends. Welcome back to my channel. I am not a drama channel, but uh, here I am. I'm here to take advantage of this finite pool of impressions and deliver facts and logic.


If you're unaware, an impression is anytime that you see a thumbnail for a video. Basically, I will add this clip of Charlie for a humorous contrast to Gabi's skepticism about the finite nature of impressions on YouTube.


Charlie (MoistCr1TiKaL):

Yes, there is a finite amount of impressions that can go around. Nothing is infinite.


Gabi:

I'm not talking about this because it's drama. I'm talking about this because it covers a topic that I'm pretty passionate about. 


What many developments around reaction content have occurred since Gabi released her video? There was no more drama, so. Gabi never returned to this topic. Due to what I can only call supreme laziness, Gabi throughout her video, puts text on the screen briefly to add information that she forgot to say the first time round. Here she acknowledges that she has a bias towards MoistCr1TiKaL. But throughout the video, she has ‘done her best’ to come from a factual objective standpoint. I want you to remember this claim as she speaks throughout this video.


Gabi starts off her video with a four and a half minute/three minute summary of the relevant events as she sees them. 


Gabi:

Recently Pokimane and Disguised Toast pushed the narrative of the ongoing DMCA saga, A copyright law written before the internet was the internet by a bunch of old white guys probably sitting around a table wondering how they can make the most money off of copyright. And Pokey and Toast purposefully streamed anime to their thousands of viewers that was purposefully behind a paywall, which is in undoable illegal.


To be clear, whether or not you paywall your content has absolutely nothing to do with your degree of copyright protection. When your creative works go on an ad supported platform like Free to Air tv, radio, or YouTube. It doesn't make it so that people can freely redistribute their content for commercial purposes.


Gabi:

They were both temporarily banned by Twitch. Lots of discourse around this subject started to arise on the internet, which is partially what they wanted. Some people were so mad, like Australian GTA YouTuber DarkViperAU, and he wrote a 14 page manifesto to which he reminds you about 42 times in his angry response video to Cr1TiKaL.




Matt (in a compilation for comedic effect):

14 PAGES!On page 14… It's 14 pages long…


All of this is untrue, as many of you likely know. My criticism of reaction content predated the TV meta on Twitch by many, many years. Hell, I already had a trilogy of videos on the topic, which Gabi should know about because they are mentioned in my work. More importantly though, criticism of the TV matter did not start with Disguised Toast and Pokimane. Hell Disguised Toast and Pokimane were not the first people to stream anime on Twitch, and they were in no way, shape or form the impetus for my writings on the topic. I don't know why she's forcing this narrative that Pokimane and Disguised Toast are like protagonist in this story or something. But it's weird for her to claim that they both pushed an ongoing saga and they started discourse on Twitter. “Oh, them ongoing saga, no one was discussing that on Twitter. What are you talking about?”.


One of the biggest hints that my writings had nothing to do with Pokimane or Disguised Toast, is one: that I explained my motivations in the videos that Gabi watched, but seemingly ignored. But secondly: my essay came out like a month after Disguised Toast got banned. What does she think, that I was in a coma for a month or something?


Gabi:

DarkViperAU posted his unfinished video script in a tweet with the caption: “All reactors are bad people. They exploit others to benefit no one but themselves. Collectively they have stolen millions of dollars from actual creators and have stopped countless thousands from having a career”, which is implying not only that they are small creators, that they are stopping from having a career, but they are actively stealing views, impressions, and et cetera from them.


So my essay is about content creators in general and very rarely speaks of the size of particular creators. Gabi, for whatever reason, does not want this to be true, so therefore has to apply certain tricks to make it seem otherwise. So for example, this sentence refers to actual content creators, so all creators regardless of size. It then refers to a second group that was unable to become content creators. In order to ‘clarify the meaning of the sentence’ Gabi just changes some words in it. 


Gabi:

Which is implying not only that they are small creators, that they are stopping from having a career. 


She claims throughout her career that I'm focused specifically on small creators.


Gabi:DarkViper argues in his essay that those views and impressions would've gone to people who would be able to start a career from those impressions. It's not just all these creators are gone, all those impressions are going to smaller creators. 


If my essay was about small creators, I probably would've used that phrase even once. In fact, in the 47 times that I speak about content creators in that essay, I only distinguish between them six times, and three of those references aren't to content creators currently, but those who are becoming content creators in the future. But of course, as you just saw, Gabi did show some texts from my essay on the screen. As is always the case, whenever she does this, if you read it, you'll find out it either directly argues against what she's saying or has nothing to do with it. ‘''Absent the existence of React content more exposure will be going to original content big and small''’, so this directly shows that I'm not claiming that reactors only impact small content creators, nor is that my major concern.


The first non highlighted sentence tells you the purpose of this paragraph: ‘''The idea of reactors being benevolent overlords seeking out poor downtrodden content creators to give exposure to is of course a convenient lie.''’. It sets up that the purpose of this paragraph is to debunk a particular idea about the motivations of reactors, that claim being that they seek out small content creators to shed light on. And before going into this, the next sentence is to emphasize that regardless of their motivations, they still have a negative effect on everyone big and small. This is the only section in the entire essay that focuses specifically on a particular size of content creator, and it only does so because that is the focus of the original claim.


So somewhere in the process of editing, Gabi realized that I wasn't just speaking about small content creators and was speaking about content creators in general. She then eventually realized that the only explicit reference to small content creators that she was putting on the screen constantly, that being these words, ‘tiny content creators’, Also contained a sentence that was directly referencing big and small content creators. But rather than fixing all the misinformation she puts forth in this video, she just puts some text on screen: ‘He does specify small and big content creators eventually, but it does not help his argument.’. By eventually here, she means page three. I have no idea how Gabi was okay releasing a video where she said something incorrect like 12 times. But even this attempt at a somewhat correction is still technically wrong. Or at the very least, it'd be more correct to say that the essay does not traditionally distinguish between the effects on large and small creators. You might be surprised at how few explicit references to size there were, but you wouldn't be if you read the essay. The essay is largely interested in the effect of reactors on the market as a whole, or in other words, reactors versus content creators in general. 


Throughout this video, Gabi shows only 18 seconds of my 47 minute video where I explained my essay. Of the original essay, she showed less than 10% and I'm being very charitable with that assessment. Very rarely does the text shown on screen have anything to do with what Gabi is saying. For example, at one point she puts a random paragraph on screen to say: “like what is this even”. No discussion of the paragraph. It's just for the purpose of saying, ‘what is this even?’. Even in the rare instances where the text is directly referenced, it is, as you saw before, she'll highlight a random sentence that doesn't really support what she's saying.


Gabi:This essay got loads of negative feedback for awful, inaccurate, inconsistent points and also naming streamers by name, comparing react streamers to sexual assault and something comparing it to slavery. Rightfully upset because he has mentioned by name, Cr1TiKaL makes a video going over DarkViper's unhinged document talking about how many of DarkViper's points are inaccurate and just flat out wrong.


So this too is also false. This timeline implies that when I released my document, there was just waves of condemnation. Everyone from every corner on the internet was like, this is the worst thing I've ever seen. And for that reason, Charlie then spoke on the topic. In reality, I wasn't some big player on Twitter so when I released my essay, no one really cared. Like you guys have been on the internet before. How many people do you think will go, “Hey, look, A stranger has written a very, very long essay about an esoteric topic. I'm gonna read that one.”. The answer was obviously very few people. Gabi seems unaware that I actually put this essay on my Patreon, my Discord, my YouTube community post and Twitter, and Twitter received the least response. Providing this explanation, ‘''I have found that it will take longer than a week to complete pacifist%, but this video script is annoying me by not being out in the wild. While it will be read by few, that will have to suffice until I have time to make it into a video.''’. What feedback I did get largely came from my other social media and therefore my community. So it was largely positive. And what criticism I did receive, I used to change the essay before it ever reached mainstream attention.


It was after I made these changes to my essay that Charlie made his video where he misrepresented to millions of people. This obviously caused a very hostile, misinformed audience to go to that tweet. Prior to that point, it had like 20 comments, and so what criticism I did receive was from those criticized by the work or those who watched them. Which is obviously gonna happen, and that's not interesting. Like it doesn't matter the opinion you express or how innocuous it is. If someone makes a video about it, directing it towards an audience that passionately disagrees, obviously it's gonna receive some criticism.


Gabi's dishonesty here is presenting that form of criticism as if it were merely coming from a general impartial audience. Absent Charlie's need to constantly make drama videos about stuff he sees on Twitter, no would've seen or cared about my words. I can say this with confidence because everything in that document, I've said many times before that. And no one cared. I honestly find it funny that the hard hitting criticism that she points to is Mizkif going: ‘''you dumvb as hellllllllllllllllllllllllll''’. In fact, the tweet that Gabi's showing here isn't even of my essay. More than that, Mizkif’s response here also isn't to my essay even more than this. This tweet was made after MoistCr1TiKaL’s video. If you don't know who Mizkif is, he got into a lot of drama for his copious use of racial slurs and accusations of covering up instances of sexual assault. He also didn't read the document.


Gabi:

While agreeing that some forms of react content can be lazy, as I'm sure most of us can agree with Cr1TiKaL, even admitting himself, sometimes he is reacting to content lazily to which he won't then upload that content to YouTube to make money off of it.


Charlie has made literally millions of dollars lazily sitting around watching other people work hard. The implication is that Charlie just isn't making money off this content on Twitch is insane. This also implies that some reaction content that Charlie makes isn't lazy. I would like a breakdown of how a man sitting in a chair pausing occasionally, ever reaches the point of not being lazy. “Like, sure that guy did spend 200 hours making the video, but did you see Charlie press the pause button five times the strain on his hand? How does he do it? He's no mere mortal.”. 


So we've already spent most of our time in this non-biased, objective, factual summary. Just defending Charlie, where do you think she's gonna go from here?


Gabi:

DarkViper responds to Cr1TiKaL's video with a video that is way too long. Ironically, making a reaction video. Huh, that's interesting!


So it should be obvious that I didn't make a reaction video, nor anything of the sort that I routinely criticize. I made a response video. For reasons that are never made clear, Gabi implies that any video that contains even a frame of another person's video is a reaction video. Even going so far as to directly call commentary channels, reaction channels. She was criticized for this in her comment section, but she simply didn't care and just doubled down. Understand she can do this if she wants to in her own time, but she can't pretend that I or anyone else subscribe to such strange ideas.


She doesn't get full reign to ignore the dozen times that I clarified by usage of the term and specified the content that I was critiquing. She doesn't have the right to ignore the meaning that I'm communicating and instead substituting her own. As was once acknowledged back in 2017 by the judge in the h3h3 case, the term reaction content is used to refer to many different types of content. However, it is quite clear that the term has evolved since then with the continued proliferation of live streaming. It largely just refers to people watching videos and giving their first time impressions as they go. If you search ‘reaction video’ on YouTube, it's not gonna pop up with Gabi's favorite commentary channel. But more importantly, when it comes to criticizing my work and beliefs, it matters how I'm using the term, not how other people use it. When communicating my beliefs on the topic, I clarified my usage of the term like a dozen times. Gabi seems to have either ignored this or not understood it. 


Gabi:

Talking in circles saying that Cr1TiKaL was purposefully misrepresenting his 14 page manifesto, even though he was directly quoting what DarkViper said in the essay and doubling down on Twitter. There was no context for goat here. It was not taken out of context. I looked for myself.


“Yeah, so that 47 minute video that DarkViper made yet the only thing he said in it was that he didn't like that like two sentences were taken outta context.”, there's not even the veneer of trying not to be dishonest. She just goes, well, they'll believe me, it's fine. Obviously my criticism was far reaching and Charlie didn't just take one thing out of context in my document. He misrepresented the entire thing. Something he later admitted to and apologized for, although saying it was an accident, not something he intended. In fact, the reason why I kept referencing the length of my essay was to highlight that Charlie wasn't covering any of it. He made a video ostensibly about my essay and the only parts he showed was like three sentences, where he pretended that flippant remarks and analogies were literal statements even though they didn't even make sense taken literally.


The problem with Gabi attempting to assess herself as to whether or not my words were taken out of context, is not only that she's obviously really, really biased. But also she's not very bright. Understanding context requires you to understand the words that have been written and Gabi clearly didn't. As is going to be revealed more and more as this video goes on, 


Gabi:

Maybe, just maybe… your essay was poorly written and everyone misunderstood it because it was poorly written.


Throughout this video Gabi will assert time and time again that everyone read my essay, that everyone was like: “Hey, a random stranger on the internet wrote a very long essay about an esoteric topic that Charlie didn't link below his video, and that Charlie has effectively applied his rape apology out. I'm, I'm gonna go out and put on my reading glasses and light a fire and read that one.”. So obviously later we're gonna talk more about how insane that is. But, uh, ruminate on that for a bit and Gabi continuously pretending that I got no support from my words is just dishonest, which is everyone on the planet was universally against me, even though like everything that I put out got more likes than dislikes, like overwhelmingly more, which is certainly not a guarantee when a person has 10 times your audience. No piece of writing exists that would be understood by everyone, let alone agreed with by everyone. That neither Charlie nor Gabi understood my essay is not necessarily my fault. Gabi has to make an argument for that beyond simply saying they didn't understand it. But it's obviously quite a stretch for Gabi to say that no one understood my essay and no one agreed with it.


Gabi:

Cr1TiKaL response to DarkViper's long ass response video saying that he agrees that he misunderstood some of the points. DarkViper explained lazily in his essay, leaving the viewer to have to make things up in their head in order to try to understand what DarkViper's trying to say. But Cr1TiKaL doubles down that the argument that watching content that isn't yours on stream means it is a misunderstanding of you don't want to ask for consent, therefore you are akin to someone who would, someone who would sexually assault someone. Which is verbatim what you said. You can't say, I never said that because you did. 


What the fuck do you think verbatim means? It means exactly the same words. So let me just pull up my essay and search for these words and see if that's what I verbatim said. Whoops. Gabi's lying. Oh no. Not only is this not what I said in the essay, it's not even an argument in the document. It's not even relevant to anything that I was talking about. Gabi's gonna put this tweet on screen to misrepresent a lot. Not only is her interpretation of these words incorrect, but she's also cropping off the next two tweets. One where I directly call these words hyperbole to mean that I'm exaggerating and this should not be taken literally. And I mean another tweet specifically for dishonest people like Gabi, where I say: ‘''I'm not saying that rape and reaction content are akin to each other.''’. I'm sure she just left those off by accident. 


Gabi:

Cr1TiKaL Ends has video amicably, but being honest about where he got things wrong. Finally, DarkViper ended this saga with his final video, which is a bit shorter. Thank God. So that's the TL:DR of what's going on. It's basically a question and argument of react streamers of how if they were gone, the impressions would go to other channels, which is… true… but it's not true to the fact that DarkViper argues in his essay that those views and impressions would've gone to people who would be able to start a career from those impressions.


Not only is that not a central point in my essay, even if that were true, I still wouldn't care. This sentence does not at all imply that my main interest is giving impressions to people so they can start careers. In fact, I reiterate in the essay and my videos that they would be spread out everywhere in the market.


Matt (in ‘''The True Harm of Reaction Content - Featuring MoistCr1tikal''’):

'cause every impression that went to reactors video would have gone to someone else. I'm not saying who that is, doesn't matter to me. But they would've had to go somewhere else. 


Yes. That would necessarily cause some people to have careers. Sure. But that is not my main interest or focus.


Gabi:

This is wrong for many number of reasons. The viewer can just leave the platform once Danny Gonzalez is is gone, not reacting to things anymore, they would go watch Netflix or something. And also, I think Ethan Klein brought up a good point that actually larger creators create more impressions because people like their content and are binging their content more. There are more opportunities for impressions, the more videos that people watch on YouTube, arguably from larger creators. And those recommendations will recommend similar content or content they think you'd be interested based on what you're watching so far. 


So this is just an assertion, there is no argument being made here. And obviously we don't judge changes based on just their potential negatives. We compare the potential positives and negatives of the old system versus the positives and negatives of the new system. This is a problem that Gabi has throughout this entire video. Simply asserting without evidence, bad things may happen, does not potentially offset any good things that may happen. “I'm sorry, Billy. We can't give you that heart transplant because hypothetically speaking, you could stu your toe on the way outta the hospital.”. Well, Gabi is alluding to here is something that people preach in many different areas of discourse, and that is that we simply need the rich to get richer. “Don't you understand? They are the job creators If we just convince them all at the top to operate a hundred viewers a day. Oh, the prosperity that we'd all see!”. In reality, larger entities in a market taking a even larger share of their market doesn't traditionally see other smaller entities in that market better off. Gabi needs to present actual arguments to try to substantiate that the rich getting richer will ultimately lead everyone to being better off. While Gabi doesn't make even a single argument in favor of her assertion that a loss of reaction content will cause a significant difference in retention on the platform, I will still argue against this assertion.


So the first reason why I disagree is the nature of the content. Reaction content is the laziest content that exists and ultimately consists of re-uploads of content that is already on the platform. Secondly, it is not large creators that are keeping people on the platform, but the algorithm itself. It is the algorithm's ability to find audiences for content that leads those audiences to stay on the platform and keep coming back. If reaction content didn't exist, the machine learning that powers the website wouldn't become worse. It was machine learning that led to these creators being successful in the first place. So it's a hard thing to argue that they would be irreplaceable by that same machine learning. Thirdly, YouTube already has around a billion videos on the platform, a billion. Anytime you see an impression, click ‘not interested’ and refresh the page. It will give you something else. At any given time there are countless videos that the algorithm has about the same confidence that you'll click them. If reaction content ceased to exist, everyone who would've received impressions for that content could be split into three categories.


For one group of people, these new impressions would be just as satisfying as the old, and so would use the platform the same amounts. There would be a second group that would be less satisfied and so would use the platform less, but there would be a third category that coincidentally finds these new impressions more engaging and so therefore uses the platform even more over a large enough sample, and we are talking about billions of people here, the amount of retention on the platform should not change significantly. It could even go up as people would be more inspired to make original, unique content because it would be more rewarded on the platform. But I argue even in the case where it goes down, the amount that is clawed back from the reactors would wholly dwarf that. To express that idea in numbers, it's like reactors are getting a hundred views. And if they left, those people would only generate 99 views on the platform. Those 99 views being clawed back from the reactors would ultimately represent a greater win for the original content than what would be lost by the platform as a whole. If you want to visualize that idea, it's like you have 10 people working on a farm or producing roughly the same amount of food that they all share from, but there is one dude who eats 50% of the food that everyone produces while only producing 10% himself. If that guy left, sure you'd have 10% less food, but everyone who was left would have more food as a result because the glutton wasn't taking so much. This is just to represent the idea that even in a case where someone produces something, it doesn't mean the loss of that something necessarily represents a loss for everyone as a whole.


Gabi:

Like, I'm sorry, I would've never clicked on the shit ass movie Kurtis Conner was reacting to in his video. Had I not seen Kurtis Conner's reaction video about it, I would not have clicked on that video.


Right, because you just talked about it 10 seconds ago: the recommendation wouldn't be for that movie. It'd be something that you would likely click. If that impression didn't go to Kurtis, it would go to someone that the algorithm thinks you are equally likely to click, and there'd be someone else on the platform who would actually like to see that movie, and who instead of being shown an impression to that movie, a movie that they would have watched is instead being shown a reaction video to something entirely different.


Gabi, like a lot of people, doesn't understand that this isn't an issue of two individuals interacting in some way. We're talking about the effects on the entire market over billions of people. 


Gabi:

To me, this whole argument about stealing views is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life because it's the same argument that people made about titty streamers on Twitch. I'm sorry if they weren't watching Amouranth, they wouldn't be watching you DarkViper. They would go to Pornhub or they're going to find someone else who's going to provide that same content that they find valuable to themselves. They're not going to go watch some obscure hotdog making channel now that Amouranth is gone. And those impressions could go to someone who you think deserves it, which is partially what DarkViper says in his essay, that it would only benefit those original content creators, which is just not true.


So this is just word salad where I don't think Gabi even knows what she's saying: “Uh, Amouranth, titty streamers, sausage man!”. What's more important is the text on screen, because despite Gabi's saying he's wrong, he doesn't know what he's talking about, on screen she says something different: ‘''this is technically true, but you can say that about any type of large content on youtube, that if it was gone, the views would go to someone else.'' This is another instance of Gabi, while she was editing this video, realizing that she was really wrong. Of course, a person who cared about what's true and doesn't want to misinform their audience would've rather removed this section or at least rerecord it. Not Gabi though, but to speak to this text counterargument. Yeah, Gabi. If you removed other forms of content, it could have similar effects to removing reaction content, although that would largely depend on what type of content you're talking about, but that's entirely beside the point. Regardless of whether or not you agree with it, the entire purpose of my essay is to draw a distinction between actual content creators and reactors.


While they both do exist in the market and do seek to take greater market share, reactors I argue are doing something unethical. They are harming others to get ahead in the game. Content creators are working hard to make original creative things and therefore deserve the market share that they take. Reactors are merely stealing from others in attempt to usurp that same market. Regardless of whether or not Gabi agreed with that claim, if she understood it, she would not have made the objection she just made. Gabi's objection would be like me saying “Hey, I don't think you should kill that person for a hundred dollars.” and Gabi would respond “Yeah, but you can get a hundred dollars in many other ways. So why object to that one?”. Like there's obviously specific things about shooting a person that I have an issue with. It's not the a hundred dollars that I have an issue with. 


So it's important to understand that every single person only has 24 hours in a day. Obviously, if a person doesn't spend time on one thing, they will spend it on something else. So for example, if I didn't exist making content, yeah, every person who's ever watched me would've done something else with their time. My existence doesn't make the algorithm significantly better. Therefore, every single one of the viewers who's ever watched me would be shown something else. They'd be scattered all around the market watching different things. Their lives being about the same. Like I have no issue with titty streamers on Twitch. But yeah, if hypothetically they didn't exist or had never existed, then all those people would be doing other things with their time. If they were in a position to want content online and hell even went to Twitch to find it, then a lot of those people would have ended up in different Twitch live streams. One issue Gabi has with understanding consumer behavior is that she believes that anyone who finds a particular thing was necessarily looking for that thing. Like if Gabi saw a person walking along and they happen to stop, look down and pick up a $2 coin, she would assume that person was necessarily looking for that $2. The reason it's called the browse section on Twitch is because people generally go there to look for things of interest. And of course, people have multiple interests, including things they haven't even discovered yet, so they could be captivated by any number of things, and some of those people would just happen to get captivated by a titty streamer at that point in time. But again, I have no issue with titty streamers. I don't even like that phrasing. As long as it's within ToS not somehow damaging the platform in some meta way, it's fine. I don't really see it's different from using other natural advantages like your wonderful voice or your beautiful face. 


Gabi:

There's also the idea of consenting to having your video be reacted to which again is a moot point and is a terrible one at that. Because if we had to ask permission to react to people's videos, and like Ethan said in his video, it is free speech. It just doesn't make any sense. 


Merely saying that Ethan Klein said that is a little bit of an understatement. 


Ethan (h3h3):

Right to free speech. 

Free speech. 

And what a reaction video ultimately is, is free speech.


We value free speech and I just consider it free speech.

Free speech, free speech, free speech, free speech. 

This is protected speech, my friend. 

Free speech. 

It's speech dude.

It's free speech bro. 

Free speech.

Speech, free speech, fair use, right? 

We're talking about free speech.

Guess what? Free speech.

Free speech.

That's not how free speech works.


Unfortunately, neither Gabi or Ethan ever presented an argument as to why the global redistribution rights of other people's creative works is either some aspect of free speech or necessary for us. Like, does Gabi sincerity believe to call a book shit that she needs to sit a person down and read that person the entire book, or she has to give them a free copy of the book to say, “Hey, I don't like this. Here's a copy.”. That's just crazy. But more importantly in regards to Gabi, constantly going bababa… free speech. We obviously have multiple values that need to be balanced. Obviously we want people to be able to express themselves freely, but we also want people's efforts to be rewarded and these efforts not to be taken for someone else's profit, especially when it's to the detriment of the person who put in that effort. It's why there's wide public agreement on the idea of fair use, although not necessarily where that line should lie. Fair use seeks to balance these often diametrically opposed values. Gabi or Ethan jumping up and down going “Free speech!” doesn't speak to the complexities of these issues.


Gabi:

Can you imagine if you had to ask permission from like this stupid fucking ''Alpha Male Podcasts'' to react to their content and shit on it? No. They're, they're gonna say no, obviously, and then those people who don't know any better are gonna fall into their stupid traps. Can you imagine if we had to ask permission to roast RiceGum on that controversy? Asking for permission to react to your content is a stupid idea. It prevents people from calling out behavior that is, Stupid and wrong and things we need to raise awareness on. If you can't freely go, “Hey, that guy's content is shit and it is dangerous.”, what kind of a place would the world be right now? This goes beyond your limited view of reacting to random TikToks on stream. This is a dangerous idea and it's a stupid one at that.


So Gabi literally watched me make two videos where I said, Hey, this guy moist, Cr1TiKaL's content it's shit. Didn't ask for consent. Didn't ask for permission. That should have created warning sirens in Gabi's mind that she's not understanding something here. Obviously in my work, I draw huge distinctions between people responding to people's content, using parts of someone else's work to create some context and someone just sitting giving their first time impressions of some content. People have been saying, Hey, that person's content is shit and harmful for as long as humans have existed. And they obviously managed to do this without the ability to easily reproduce the entirety of another person's creative work. Like what you see here is a response video, and I'm perfectly fine with that content existing. I've watched Gabi's video many times. I know I can use this content to make something original. I have things to say and the only things I would include are things that are necessary for what I'm talking about. This is very different from reactors, say hosting watch parties and sitting around watching content that they have no rights or reason to watch. It's like, “Hey, I'm just gonna keep watching this high quality content. If I do or say nothing, who cares? I'll chuck it on YouTube anyway. Took no time to make, and if it fails, who cares? I haven't expended any effort, and if it does get me some growth in money, great!”. Reactors are using reactions to avoid all the difficulties in making live streaming and YouTube content to still get those same rewards. I will add onto here actual reaction videos to call out other people's content and debunk it in some way are wholly irresponsible. If you're merely showing someone your first impression of something you've done no research, you don't mean know what they're talking about in the entire video. You're going to miss points. You're going to poorly respond to points, and all this can directly harm your ability to combat that content. Responsibly calling out harmful content, whatever the type requires a lot of preparation and research. People have a psychological bias where if they see their views be challenged and not overwhelmed in their view, they become stronger in their person. So if you challenge something unsuccessfully, everyone who agreed with that, it's like, yes, I knew my view was right. The sort of people who make reaction videos to ideological, political or social content are very irresponsible and often do far more harm than good, simply because they don't wanna go the effort of actually making a creative video where they do research and respond correctly. I will add onto this though, if you are personally being attacked by some work, I think you have every right to actually react to it. I don't think it's a good move for you, but if a person's talking about you directly or using a substantial amount of your work, then you should be able to do whatever you want with it. As far as I'm concerned, you are involved in the production of the original work and therefore have at least some rights to use that content. So this isn't a reaction video, but I do think I would've been well within my rights to react to Gabi's video. The funniest thing about the previous section where Gabi says “We need reaction content to call out harmful content!”, is that she herself right now is making a video that is not a reaction video, and she's purporting to be calling out my harmful content. Her own video disproves the premise that she's trying to argue for. She doesn't sit watching my video, pausing it, and giving her thoughts as she goes. She's not hosting a watch party for my video. Hell, she's not even showing it, although arguably that's because she wants to lie about its contents. But regardless, she is technically still speaking on my video without showing it to people. She's claiming to call out the harmful things I said. Without reacting to them. It is very rare for a person to be arguing for a premise and in the way that they argue for that premise, debunk that very premise.


Now, you may be wondering, does Gabi ever talk about actual reactors and reaction channels? People who dedicate their time to mainly uploading reaction content channels like this one, GorTheMovieGod. He uploads a reaction video roughly every hour, and of course, due to his ability to span the algorithm with high quality content that he did not make, he of course grows. If you believe that Gabi, even for a moment in this video, presents a fair, honest depiction of reaction content, then you haven't been paying attention.


Gabi:

And to compare this idea of not asking for consent to react to content, to the type of person who would sexually abuse someone is disgusting. And in both of DarkViper's response videos and on Twitter, he doubles down that this analogy is okay, that it's a good analogy and it makes sense. Reacting to content and saying something is bad. Exercising your free speech is not the same as sexually abusing someone and attacking someone's body against their will. 


I probably don't need to point out the dishonest framing where Gabi has implied that I said that exercising your free speech is the same as rape. Like does Gabi have no shame? My issue is that reactors look at the creative works of others, people who've spent hundreds of hours on this content. They've not seen it before, they have no particularly use for it, they have nothing to add necessarily at this point, and they go, “Hmm. I'm sure that creator would probably prefer if I were to ask them before rebroadcasting their entire work for money, ah, fuck 'em. I don't care what they want. Only my wants matter. Give me more. Me, me, me, me, me.”. Does that make them a rapist? No. Does that make them a person who's perfectly willing to put aside the needs and wants of other people specifically for their own selfish game? Absolutely! And as I'll argue to the day I die, I do not think reactors are ignorant of the negative impact that they have on others. And certainly it is the case that when they are confronted about this harm, they change nothing about their business practices. Because the change would forego growth and profit. And after all, what is the wellbeing of other people when compared to such things? In this particular case, the reason why I call this hyperbolic, which of course Gabi crops off every single time, is because obviously there is a huge difference between reacting to content and raping a person. I never called reactors, rapists, but obviously you can see the similarities in the thought process that goes into either acts.


It is entirely dishonest for Gabi to ignore effectively everything I wrote and said in my video, and instead focus on a random tweet while pretending it's my essay. Obviously, when a person tweets, they aren't expecting an extremely dishonest person to micro-analyze those words, and certainly not crop off half of them. Obviously, in hindsight, I would've communicated in ways that would less enable Gabi to be this dishonest now. But more importantly, a comparison of two things in some way does not mean they're the same in every way. When Shrek compares ogers to onions, you don't think, oh, so Shrek is saying that Ogers are the exact same thing as onions.


Gabi and a lot of other equally dishonest people who just want an easy reason to dismiss me want to pretend otherwise. They want to play dumb on this issue. My analogies and references only exist to highlight the value of consent, especially when we put a great reliance on other people. They also existed to criticize the mindset of reactors. At no point did I say reactors, rape people or are rapists. I'll say again, at no point did I say reacting and raping are the same things I said the exact opposite. Gabi wants to pretend otherwise.


Gabi:

One of DarkViper's last points is that react content is killing smaller channels, doesn't help them at all, and prevents thousands of channels from having a career in his words. I'm not making this shit up. 


If you like. It's a similar argument to how Walmart can enter an area and that can have a negative impact on the smaller businesses around that. 


Gabi:

And there's a stupid comparison in his essay about the time of labor the original content creator took to create their piece of work that is being reacted to by someone who is lazily sitting there taking much less time to react to that work and upload it as original content. And therefore, since the reactor took less time to react to the content to where the original content took longer to make, and that that reactor is stealing views from the original content, which is not true. This whole idea ties back to something that I have experienced in working in freelance, is that we usually charge by project basis and not hourly. And do you know why? Because if you've gone to school for 10 years, Learning how to be a graphic designer and you start to charge hourly for something that can take you 30 minutes to do, but a less experienced designer about five hours to do. What are you going to do? Are you going to charge hourly so that way you can be paid less for working quicker and more efficiently?


Or are you going to pay the lesser experienced graphic designer five times more than you because you value the time it took to create the project rather than the end result and the quality of the product that you just produced in the first place. This is why we charge on a project basis and not hourly. Because I don't care how long you took on this dumb ass production, it's still a shit production and people are going to criticize it. This is basically the ‘woe is me’ argument. “I spent so long making this video. Why is no one watching it?”. It doesn't matter if you took 10 minutes or 10 hours on this video. If it's shit a video, it is a shit video and people won't wanna watch it. 


So the problem with everything said here is that it purports that reactors and creators are doing the same thing, but reactors possess more skill and thus doing it faster, which you know is obviously not true. Copying something does not traditionally represent a greater manifestation of skill than what was used to create it the first time. Gabi is claiming that the reactor and creator are both equally starting at ground floor. They're then both going through the same process of making something, but the reactor just has that little bit more skill to complete that job faster. But in reality, the creator is using their skill to make something say in 500 hours, and then the reactor is skipping the creative process entirely by copying something that already exists. If this creator wasn't doing that 500 hours of work, this reactor would have nothing. This 500 hours had to exist for the reactor to get here at all. So to be crystal clear, this reactor isn't using skill to create something faster. They're skipping the creative process entirely. The reaction review wasn't made in less time. It still took 500 hours to make. It's just that effort was done by someone else who wasn't the reactor. Speaking of freelance, if I hired you for a job and I found out that you just copied someone else's work, I'd fire you and expect my money back. Hell, I might even sue you depending on the context. 


So the hypothetical that existed here was to highlight this disparity in the market and what that might do. So if you have something that takes 500 hours to do, I've defined it this way in the hypothetical, it will always take 500 hours. But you have one person who has to do that 500 hours, and you have another person who can just steal it in half an hour. Who is winning out here? This person has to spend the 500 hours. This person could just keep stealing 500 hours productions, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Over the course of this person making one thing, this person has hundreds of them. This represents the reactive relationship to the reactor. Who is winning here? Can you not see the imbalance in effort and reward? What's worse for me is Gabi doesn't seem to understand how hypotheticals work.


I define the parameters of this thought experiment specifically to bring forth questions that you have to answer. Rather than answering these questions, she just changed the parameters of the hypothetical. She said, oh, well actually, “Well, but the reactor's just, just working harder with more skill to do the 500 hours faster”, literally impossible by the parameters of the hypothetical. It's like if she was given the mold dilemma of the trolley problem, you got a trolley going towards four people, do you pull the switch and make it so the trolley only hits one? Gabi's response to this would be, “Um, well actually that one guy there, his name's Frank, and he's a master escape artist, so he would, uh, manage to untie himself and get away. So of course I'd pull the lever 'cause then no one would die.”. It misses the point of hypotheticals. It misses the point of thought experiments.


Like obviously on my desktop, if I copy and paste the Lion King movie, I shouldn't expect a phone call from Disney where they're like, “Oh my God, Mr. DarkViper sir, that, that, you've, you created the Lion King movie in like five seconds. The amount of skill that must have required is insane. It took us like thousands of people working for years to make that movie. And you made it in five seconds. Holy shit, please get down here. You're gonna save us hundreds of millions of dollars.”. I don't expect this phone call 'cause no one is as dumb as Gabi seems to be. These issues actually mered in the debate currently around AI, where artists are having their work taken and used in machines that only really exist to supplant them in their job. In the same way that reactors are taking the work from original creators with the only purpose of taking market share away from them. If you want some crude diagrams that show the relationship between reactors and creators, it looks something like this.


We have seven creators who've spent a week making seven videos and they go right into Asmongold's pocket. They're not asked to be involved in this relationship and are not paid for their involvement. The next day, seven more people work in seven days to make seven videos right into Asmongold's pocket, and this happens every single day. I'm not sure how bereft of your senses you would have to be to not see the imbalance in effort and reward here, but I'm sure Gabi would meanly scream, no, you don't stand Asmongold needs to upload a thousand videos a day. Then truly then will we see global prosperity. 


Gabi:

This whole mentality of that there is a finite pool of impressions for exposure is so dumb. And he says, if you understand the creator market, he says this in multiple times. He says, if you understand the creator market, this is how it works. That's his source. His sources literally, trust me, bro. He says this in the essay. He says this in his response video. And that is not how it works. It's not how it works at all. Which is so surprising to hear someone who knows so little about how YouTube works from someone who has 900,000 subscribers. It's really coming across that you have no idea how any of this works.


So throughout her video, Gabi scolds the idea that there's a finite pool of impressions. And to be honest with you, this is the funniest claim in this video. So here's Charlie.


Charlie (MoistCr1tikal):

Yes, there's a finite amount of impressions that can go around. Nothing is infinite.


Understand he's not getting that from me. Traditionally what happens is you go to school, you learn your A, B. C’s, you learn your one, two, threes, and then you find out that there are no true infinites in reality. And then you graduate. I'm obviously being a bit facetious, but speaking more seriously in this context, at least the infinite and finite represent a true dichotomy. In other words, if you're arguing something isn't finite, you are asserting that it is infinites. Understand people have been debating the idea of the infinite for literally thousands of years. You got your old boy Aristoteles back in the day, just throwing hands on the topic. And people still debate it to this day with one of the key points being whether or not infinites actually exist in reality. Sure, the concept of the infinite is used in mathematics. When you try to apply it to the real world, things get dicey. One of the biggest problems is that you can show that something ends, but how do you show that something never ends? 'cause you can't demonstrate that it will outlast you and potentially everything else. 


So obviously I'm not gonna spend the time to weigh in on the philosophical debate around the idea of the infinite, but it was very funny, effectively listening to Gabi yell at the greatest minds that humanity has ever produced, “What the fuck are you talking about? Of course, things are reality. Infinite impressions on YouTube are infinite. You are so dumb!”. So other than simply appealing to the principle that nothing in reality is truly infinite, how do we know that impressions on YouTube are finite? There are many different limiting factors we can talk about, but ultimately it's reducible to just two. The first being the amount of people that exist and the amount of time that they have to perceive impressions. Both of these being finite, necessitates that impressions are finite as well. Whether you count the impressions for a day, a week, a month, the entire history of YouTube, what you're gonna come back with is a finite number, a very big number mind you, but still a finite number. But of course, we as creators aren't really concerned about how many impressions there are on YouTube, like a thousand years from now, 'cause I'll be dead. Who cares? What I'm interested in is getting the algorithm to give me as many of those limited impressions that are available right now. Like you should be able to conceptualize that you personally, over the course of a day, will only be able to see a certain amount of impressions, even if there's, all you wanted to do was just see as many impressions as possible. Like just scrolling, scrolling on your page, impression after impression after impression. By the end of the day, that'd be a finite number. That is true of every person that interfaces with the platform. By the end of the day, there is only a finite amount of impressions that could be given out. But YouTube has hundreds of millions of videos, perhaps even more than a billion. Every single one of those videos can't get a million impressions every day because there's a finite number of them. The algorithm has to pick and choose what things get promotion, because everything can't be equally promoted or infinitely promoted for that matter. It is why YouTube has invested literally billions of dollars in making this algorithm as good as possible. Every one of those impressions is a finite resource, and they want them to be as accurate as possible in delivering the content that people wanna see.


When I make my videos better, my titles better, my thumbnails better. What I'm ultimately saying is: “Hey algorithm. You see Frank over there? Yeah. He's got good video. Sure, sure. But what about my video? You could give him that impression. That's absolutely true. But mine, way better bro. People would love this video.”. While this can be looked at in different ways. It is true to say that what we're ultimately trying to do as creators is convince the algorithm that it can get the most views out of our content compared to anyone else's. Like sure, you could give some of those finite impressions to those guys over there. “But what about your boy DarkViperAU? People love me bro.”.


Gabi:

There is a scarcity mindset in content creators, which I've worked on in therapy. There is enough room at the top. Just because your friend is blowing up doesn't mean that you won't.


So you likely know by, you know, living life… that no marketplace can support an infinite amount of successful people. There can't be an infinite amount of successful doctors or an infinite amount of successful lawyers, or an infinite amount of successful garbage men. I necessarily have to speak simply. But there will always be some amount of demand that is gonna be met by some amount of supply. There is no amount of demand that can ever support an infinite amount of supply. To be somewhat reductive, the numbers I suppose don't matter that much. But MrBeast gets 1 billion views a month, and YouTube as a platform in total gets like 200 billion views. So the platform could support 200 MrBeasts. That's it. If there were 200 MrBeasts, no one else would have a job. Obviously, you can see him being reductive because the platform could grow bigger or smaller if there were more MrBeasts. But at the end of the day, even if every single person on the planet was doing nothing but watching YouTube, they could only be a finite amount of people getting a billion views every month. There's just not enough people with enough time for everyone to do that. The larger you are as a creator, the fewer of you that the marketplace could ultimately support regardless of how big it grows. Gabi's example here of two people becoming successful who are friends, it's like, well, yeah, that could obviously happen. That doesn't imply that an infinite amount of people can be at the top. And to be a bit pedantic, if everyone was at the top, then there would be no top. We just have like a plain. So even logically, everyone couldn't be at the top.


I don't think Gabi realizes how top heavy social media is. The distribution of success in social media matches the distribution of wealth in the world. In that most people have nothing, then there's a couple of people who have a little bit, and there's a couple people who have a little bit more, and there's like a tiny, tiny portion of basically everything. Twitch is one of the few social medias where we can see this most clearly because their data is so readily available on Twitch, it's like 10,000 streams represent like 99.95% of the viewership. On YouTube I'm only aware of one study that tried to look at things, and I think it was in 2019, they found that 87% of the views went to the top 3% of channels. This weird fantasy land of Gabi's where there's room for everyone at the top makes even less sense. When you look at the subscriber distribution on YouTube. Again, there aren't official numbers, but you can extrapolate from data that is available. Like this estimate, for example, has found that 28 million channels have made it to 100 subscribers or more, but of those channels, only 300,000 have made it to a hundred thousand or more of those channels. Only 32,000 have made it to 1 million, and of those channels, only a thousand have made it to 10 million. This website is largely controlled by a tiny portion of people at the top, and even if Gabi really, really doesn't want that to be true. That is true. That is reality.


Gabi:

People aren't going to watch one video on something and then never wanna watch another video on that same topic again. Why do you think commentary channels talk about the same things in trends and they all get really good views? People wanna watch these people for their personalities.


So many, many mistakes here. So obviously every commentary channel doesn't get a heap of views. Gabi seems to have this issue where she doesn't think things exist, if she doesn't personally see them. Commentary channels that don't get a lot of impressions and therefore don't get a lot of views, won't be seen by Gabi, but obviously they exist in hors. The market has a certain amount of demand for commentary on anything, and eventually the supply will meet that demand. Like think of yourself likely at one point, you heard a story once and you were like, wow, that story is great. I'm gonna listen to someone else talk about that story. But what about a third person, a fourth person, a fifth person, a sixth, the seventh, and eighth and ninth? Eventually you're gonna hit a point where you're like, look, I've heard enough about this story. I'm done.


But of course, you're not only limited by your interest, you're limited by your time. You simply could not, even if you wanted to watch infinite videos on a topic, the amount of people who watch a story once is more people than the amount they'll watch a second time.Or a third time or a fourth time, or a fifth time or a sixth time. It's why in the commentary game, there's a premium for being the first person on a topic. Yes, it is true that some people will watch videos specifically for the personality in them, but obviously you already have to be a successful commentary channel for that to be true. And even for the successful ones, you can obviously see there's a huge fluctuation between the views they get on different videos. The reason for this is that the topic obviously matters, and a part of what goes into the value of a topic for commentary is how much other people have covered it and how much our audience is sick of the topic. Like I'm sure you've had that experience where people are continuously talking about a topic and you're just like: “Oh my god, people stop talking about this. I've heard so much about it. Just shut up. Move on to something else!”. That's to a greater or lesser extent happens with everyone for every topic.


Like take Philip DeFranco for example. He's covered recent news stories for a very long time on YouTube. Probably has a bit of a dedicated audience you could say, but imagine if he kept the same format, but instead of covering recent news, he covered news that happened like three weeks ago. News that everyone's already heard about has been covered by endless different amounts of people, has been discussed to death. Everyone of his viewers has already heard about it and seen it. You can probably imagine that Philip DeFranco would get a lot fewer views. It can certainly be the case that more people speaking on a topic can lead to increased demand for commentary on that topic. But that demand, of course, will not be infinite. The supply will eventually meet the demand and then it will taper off.


So bottom line, for every topic, there's a certain amount of demand for it. that will eventually be filled by a certain amount of creators. There cannot be infinite successful commentary channels because there is not infinite demand for any commentary on any topic. So for example, gaming news, I listen to Skill Up and Gameranx. That's it. Not only do I physically not have time to listen to anymore, this is enough. My entire demand for that type of commentary met by two people. And you are likely the same. You can probably list off a handful of people that you watch for different types of commentary and then you're done. It is actually also true that there's only a finite amount of demand for personalities as well. Like no person has the capacity to acknowledge and care about infinite personalities. You will have a handful of creators that you like on any given topic, and that's it. 


Gabi:

React content is valuable. If React content was so bad and trash and unvaluable because they spent no time on it, why are 40,000 people sitting in Pokimanes stream watching her watch stuff? Why are 70,000 people watching xQc react to a video? Why are people watching Danny Gonzalez's video on a stupid movie that he watched. People watch react content because they like the reactor. They're not there to watch the original content. You're saying through that channel, you're saying that these react channels are a one-stop shop for content, so why would they go anywhere else? That is not true, and that's not how it works. I'm there to watch Danny Gonzalez make fun of this movie. I'm not there to watch the movie through his channel. If I wanted to go watch the movie, I will go watch the movie, and chances are I wouldn't have heard of the movie if I hadn't watched his reaction video on it.


So it is sometimes useful to write down what you're saying and then phrase it as an argument and see if it makes sense. So Gabi's argument here is that DarkViperAU must be wrong that reaction content is harmful and exploitative because there's an audience that likes it. So you can probably see how this argument doesn't make sense if you like, look at this list of things that are going on screen right now that all have audiences and that are really, really, really terrible harmful things. 

The existence of people who like something or even support something is not necessarily indicative of that thing not being harmful to someone else. It's why you can hear economists talk about negative externalities in the market where you have two groups in an exchange, but a third group somewhere is being royally fucked over by whatever these two groups are doing. So it's important to recognize that we as consumers are not presented with literally every option when we make a choice. When a person goes to Twitch, it's not like time has stopped and they go “Stream, stream, stream, stream, stream, stream, stream, stream” and go all the way down to the million streams that are live and go “Ah, stream 5,432. That is the optimal stream for me to watch!”. In reality, we just look for something that's good enough to satisfy.


So even conceptually, you can understand that the content that a person watches on their stream does matter. Like if you look up the reaction videos that Asmongold has produced, for example, there's obviously a huge disparity in the amount of views that those videos get. And if Asmongold sat on stream watching some guy paint a wall, day in, day out, obviously his viewership would go down. Gabi's claim here is it doesn't matter the quality of the content that is stolen, nothing changes. So reactive, reacting to a blank wall would've the same market value as a reactor reacting to a movie that costs hundreds of millions of dollars. That is just an absurd claim.


So it's important to realize that to some extent the algorithm dictates popularity. A good example of this is my Clips channel. When shorts first came out, the algorithm for long form content and short form content were combined. Shorts being limited to one minute led to a lot more people watching one minute or less clips. This led to the algorithm going, oh my god, people love clips that are under a minute. Keep pushing them in the algorithm, pushing them in the algorithm. And so my clips channel got hundreds of millions of views 'cause the algorithm was convinced. People must love really short clips. But of course, this was just a quirk in the system. When YouTube fixed this by splitting the shorts algorithm and the long form content algorithm, my clips channel crashed into the ground. The content didn't change, but the parameters of the algorithm changed and therefore I got less views.


On Twitch the reason why reactors have grown very big is 'cause they can physically be live the longest and therefore get the most exposure. On YouTube, its recommendations are somewhat dictated by topic. If someone releases a successful video and someone makes a reaction to it, the algorithm says, oh, these are part of the same topics, so I should push them both. If the algorithm did not have this tendency, people would watch less reaction content 'cause it'll be served to them far less.


One of the biggest bits of evidence against the idea that the reactors are bringing something special to this equation that's making these videos be big is Jinx. Jinx was one of the first big reactors, and what he would do is re-upload other people's videos and just watch them. He wouldn't speak during them, he wouldn't pause them. He would just smile and laugh occasionally and maybe at the end, say a sentence and end the video. This over a short period got him 1.5 million subscribers and 200 million views. He could obviously upload far more than anyone else. And due to how the algorithm works with pushing topics, he was pushed everywhere. He wasn't doing something special. It's just a quirk in how the algorithm works on YouTube. The reason why xQc can sit watching Breaking Bad saying nothing is because the value being provided here is the original content plus the watch party. People enjoy watching things in a group, especially with like-minded people. The argument that the reactor is somehow special misses the point that if they didn't have these reaction videos, all these people watching them right now would never have found them. Without reaction videos they'd be required to do the actual work to make this content, so they'd have far fewer videos promoting them in the algorithm on YouTube. And as far as live streaming goes, they'd be live far less 'cause they'd actually have to make things, rather than simply watching things. If the reactors didn't have this content to flood the market, the viewers who consume it would necessarily have to go other places to satiate themselves and their need for content. 


My argument is that it doesn't benefit other creators for these people to take greater market share than they would otherwise be able to. That the existence of hubs of all the best content on the internet, ultimately doesn't benefit all those people producing their content themselves, nor are those who make themselves the nexus of this content deserving of being in that position. There will always be demand for unethical things in the market. That does not mean that people should seek to fill that demand at the expense of other people. To further clarify as this is an argument that I've heard, the amount of people that you can find that will inadvertently work against their own interests is not evidence of the system being good. It is just a fact of life that each of us at some point will inadvertently believe something to be good when we're actually wrong. Being wrong is just a fact of life.


The debate around reaction content cannot be reduced to this. Creator likes it. This creator doesn't like it. It's literally meaningless. Everything from hustlers university to multi-level marketing schemes to nazism will have some supporters. It doesn't mean that these systems are good by any metric. As we've seen throughout history, there will always be times where some people consider something to be good, and then public opinion shifts. Any amount of people supporting something can never be an argument in of itself that that thing is actually good. 'cause there are many terrible, horrible things in history that the majority have at least one point supported.


Gabi:

Basically DarkViper's Last response video is just him doubling down on all the takes that he has in this essay and in his other response video. So by watching this shorter one with me, you'll have gotten everything that he has to say. 


Gabi, in no way, shape, or form represents my views fairly or accurately. If you're interested, you can go read my visual essay and see that is certainly the case, but if you want more information on this topic, I highly commend just watching the video that came from that essay. Well, yes, the finalized script was like three times the length and the video is over an hour, but it's a really good video. I have received substantial praise for that video. For example, Linus from Linus Tech Tips talked about how the video informed the policies that his company was taking towards that content. Also, not a single reactor has responded to it. Egotistical reactors will take any opportunity to get a free dunk, but they can't in this case. Because it definitively shows that they have no basis for what they do. 


Gabi:

I'm sorry if that first part was a little random and kind of all over the place. I have adhd so that's just how it is.


While it is beside the point for this video, I do not like when people erroneously use diagnoses that they have as an excuse for simple laziness. Gabi could have scripted her video. She could have done more research, she could have recorded more footage or just voice lines instead of putting text in post. This video that Gabi made was poorly researched, poorly thought out, poorly put together. That has nothing to do with her having adhd. Gabi, do better! One can imagine she'll come out and be like, “Okay, yeah, I did lie and misrepresent a lot of stuff, but like I have adhd, I couldn't help it. Ha!”. It just paints things as though people with adhd are just incapable people. It's gross.


Gabi:

I am a small creator and I've literally only seen benefit from other people reacting to my content. This is just an entire, whole like new world that you've created about the YouTube narrative in your head that doesn't exist and doesn't make sense.


“I put five bucks in a slot machine yesterday and uh, I won a thousand dollars. I think we can know from this that slot machines must be the greatest ways to make money in the world. Uh, everyone go out and put money in slot machines."


It should be obvious that one individual instance where something is good for a person is obviously not evidence of anything. Moreover, as I've talked about many times, it is very hard to assess the actual impact of reaction content on any creator. Because you have to remember that while one reaction video could be leading people towards your content, every other reaction video on the market is only doing one thing, trying to get viewers to not watch you and to watch the reactors instead. A crude, simplified animation of a reactor's influence on the market looks something like this:


So the creator's video is taken by a reactor. That reactor uses that video to pull viewers away from original creators to themselves, but the person who gave them the video gets a little kickback from this relationship. This is where most people's interest in reaction content ends, but mine is more expansive. What happens to this person with every reaction view that they reactor further uploads? And hell, what happens to everyone else in the market? What this animation is meant to conceptualize is that even a person who's reacted to, doesn't gain from every subsequent reaction to other people's content. That content is just as likely to draw viewers away from them to the reactor as it is from anyone else.


So even that initial person who originally got some more viewers through a reaction is now in the hole, as viewers who would've otherwise watched their content and are being presented impressions for reaction videos instead and are therefore watching those. So the only person in this relationship who ends up out ahead is the reactor, 'cause they end up with countless additional videos for no cost or effort, where all the creators have to go back to the minds slowly being bled dry by this reactor. But they of course are completely unaware of this, because this represents unrealized gains. Viewership that they never see because the market is being swamped by reaction videos. This animation is simplified and only applies to some context. It's meant to communicate only one idea. It doesn't prove an idea, it simply communicates it. I need to stress this because my experience with most Cr1TiKaL tells me that, you know, people don't really understand what explanatory diagrams are.


At the end of the day, what I'm arguing is that reaction content works exactly the same way as the lottery does. The lottery doesn't exist to make other people rich, it exists to make those who run the lottery rich. Reaction content exists for the exact same purpose. These large creators sitting on their asses, watching other people's hard work are not doing so to benefit other people. They're doing so specifically to bring viewers away from other creators to themselves, and that is exactly what they achieve. The people at the top, as they do more reaction content, don't end up losing viewers. The viewers aren't sent to other places to spend their limited time there. What ends up happening is they grow bigger because they get more exposure to the market with videos that they wouldn't otherwise be able to have. Taking market share that they otherwise wouldn't have, that other people would necessarily end up filling so that they become richer and everyone else suffers.


In the same way an individual can win with the lottery, it is hypothetically possible for a creator to win when they get reacted to, but the market as a whole will never win. Reaction content is a system specifically designed to only benefit one class of people, and that is those making that content. An interesting question I would like to see Gabi answer is this: Let's say we exist in the hypothetical world where there is no reaction content. 100% of impressions on YouTube go to original content. I would say this is the most optimal situation we could be in for getting people to actually watch the original creators. If you support reaction content, you must disagree. You must believe that the introduction of a middleman improves that system somehow. Therefore, what percentage of impression should be taken away from original creators and given to reactors instead and why?


Gabi:

Basically, DarkViper's last response video is just him doubling down on all the takes that he has in his essay and in his other response video. So by watching this shorter one with me, you'll have gotten everything that he has to say. 


So understand, I wrote a very long essay. The amount that Gabi showed of it was like two, maybe three lines. I then made a 45 minute video. Gabi showed none of this except me saying 14 pages. I then made a shorter video that in no way, shape, or form presents my arguments or argues in favor of them, and this is the one she wants to show to people. I wonder why.


Gabi:

Original content creators are worse off…. how? How…?


I suppose another way of phrasing this question would be: How could it possibly be that some entities in the market, finding a way to lower their costs, lower their production time, and increase their quality, how could that possibly impact other people's ability to survive in that market? Ah, you got me. I guess there is no way that that could have an impact. After all the markets are infinite in this magical fairyland, so. 


Gabi:

Please tell me how. I would love to see some documentation on how, if Cr1TiKaL reacts to your video, your video's never gonna blow up now. Are you kidding me? 


Gabi again doesn't understand that it isn't an issue of one person interacting with another, but the effect of reaction content on the market as a whole, maybe it's the topic that confuses Gabi. How about Walmart moves to a town. Walmart then proceeds to sell more and more and more goods. This attracts more and more people to continuously buy things from Walmart. There is only a finite amount of demand for goods in that area, and people only have a finite amount of money to spend. And so the more money that people spend at Walmart rather than other stores around the area, this makes it harder for those stores to survive. The principles that play here are the same sort of principles that work out on YouTube. We are all putting out videos on the marketplace saying, Hey, look, watch this. But people only have a finite amount of time to watch videos. There's also a finite amount of demand for any type of content. So as people increase their supply in the market, attempting to attract more viewers to themselves and away from others, this can make it harder for some people to survive. The algorithm can only promote a finite amount of videos at any given time, and so it has to pick and choose. These are just general market principles.


And even while I'm less interested in an individual reaction, video's impact on the original video, that can obviously cause harm as well. For example, MadSeason just released a video on this topic, which was, to be honest, quite bad, but there was at least one interesting point in it. In this clip he compares the viewership he was getting on a video before and after it was reacted to. 


MadSeason (in ‘''react streamers.''’)

I did actually take the time to average all of these out, and as you can just visually see here, we have a pretty significant decrease in viewership, presumably due to the fact that from this date there are now two major copies of this video sharing the algorithm. And I think that's a pretty reasonable conclusion to make, considering that the dips started directly after the reaction was made and posted.


And it's like no shit reactions are substitutes for the original video. If you've seen the reaction, you don't need to watch the original anymore. And for some people that know the reactor, that's now a superior version to the original, you know who didn't lose in that equation? The guy uploading 10 reaction videos a day, who did absolutely no work for those videos. And who's released literally thousands of videos through this scheme. But in saying all this, I don't care. We cannot simply look at one video when trying to assess the impact of reactors on the creator economy as a whole. Whether or not the people doing the actual work really benefit from all the people sitting at the top spamming out, re-uploads at the speed of sound. It would be like looking at the wins and losses that one particular individual had when playing the slot machines last week, it’s not important. My interest will always be, does reaction content as a whole lead to people watching original content creators more? And how this could possibly be true, given that reaction videos only exist to draw an audience to the reactor and therefore away from everyone else? 


Gabi:

Do you know how the online creator marketplace works? Once again, you have almost a million subscribers and are so dense about all the criticism that you've received. A lot of it being constructive. I've seen it. If Cr1TiKaL watches Mr. Hotdog making video and reacts to it on stream, cuts that up and uploads it to his YouTube channel. Do you know what's going to be suggested in the suggested bar? What's going to be next to that video? I recommend that you pay attention next time, because I guarantee you one of those suggestions is going to be the Mr. Hotdog man, the Mr. Sausage making man channel. I've seen it. I don't know how you are purposefully misrepresenting this concept and idea and your opinion as a fact because it's literally not true. It's not an indisputable fact. It's your garbage take on how YouTube works. It's not true at all. I don't know how you can argue that this is true. Here, you know what? Let's try it.


Look. Look, I literally disproved his point in five seconds. This is Charlie's reaction video to Ordinary Sausage and look it. Look what the first recommendation is on the side. It's Ordinary Sausage. Who back then when Charlie reacted to this video, had 3000 subscribers to his word. That's what he said.


I don't know how you're saying that these original creators are worse off. It's absurd. Unless they're just straight ripping and re-uploading the content. They are not worse off, I promise.


So I'm not going to repeat myself, but let me one up you. So I go to YouTube and they go, oh, here's an original video, and I click it. And would you look at that, this original content has gotten one view from me and my entire thing here is full of original content creators. Gabi had the option to click on an original video, but she didn't. She clicked on a reaction video representing a loss of one view to original content on her sidebar wasn't all original content, it was the reactors content. So the reaction content acted as a pipeline taking Gabi away from original content to the reactor, and then additional impressions of the reactors content. If she clicks literally anything else on the platform, an original creator would've gotten a view and impressions from that click. This represents nothing but a loss. The sausage man may have gotten some impressions there. Great. But imagine all those original content creators who would've been shown to you had you not clicked a reaction video. I mean, given impressions for that reactor, are they not worse off?


And conceptually, over the course of the entire platform, there'll be impressions that the sausage man would have gotten if not for the interference of reaction content. Someone out there rather than getting impression for the sausage man, is getting a reaction impression instead. Reactors acting as the middleman for the exposure given by the algorithm will always represent a loss to everyone else as a totality. More than this, cronyism and favoritism should not dictate who becomes successful on this platform. Even in some fantasy land where reactors become the king makers and they decide who's successful, that is not a better system. 


Gabi:

In this video, he also says he thinks of the people criticizing him haven't read the document and or haven't understood it. How could you say that? 


For one, people admitted that they didn't read it. XQC and Hassan for example. Secondly, because I wrote it, I'm the foremost expert of what's in it and what it means. And therefore I can see when people communicate concepts as to whether or not they understood or not. But more importantly, people will say things about what's in it that are untrue. It is usually the case that even when you disagree with something, if you understand it, you'll phrase your disagreements in a particular way in light of your understanding of what they're saying. And I obviously have some ability to recognize those who have understanding and those who do not. Thirdly, as a principal, people on the internet don't read things. Ignoring that Charlie didn't link the article in the first place. The tendency of some people to read the title of an article and then simply share it on that basis alone is so pronounced that people do studies of this phenomenon. But in this particular case, people didn't even have a link for it. It was a long document from a stranger on an esoteric topic that they didn't even have a link to that Charlie, in effect, called rape apology art.


It is delusional to think even a significant portion of people who are passing judgment on my work actually vet the thing. Has Gabi never seen the memes where it's like, uh, yeah. Uh, that's, that's really long. Uh, I'm not gonna read that, but I'm happy or sad for you, dude. Like, for fuck's sakes, ‘TL:DR’ is literally in her title: Too Long. Did Not Read. At the beginning of her video Gabi complained profusely about the length of the essay and my video. I can see the backend of my video and how many people started and did not get to the end. Obviously, relatively speaking, only a tiny fraction of people who made any commentary on my work actually read the damn thing. What's especially strange about what Gabi says here is that she, on one hand, wants to argue that my essay was so poorly written that no one could possibly understand it. But she also wants to criticize me for saying that people didn't understand the essay. You can't have it both ways. You have to pick one.


Gabi:

Yeah, I get it. You can be mad that it's lazy content, but who are you to police what people should be doing and what kind of content people should be making online? You don't have to like the content. I get it. If you don't like it, here's an idea. Don't fucking watch it dude. Like I hate this whole argument that you know, the content is lazy and we should therefore punish these creators who are doing it because it's bad and I don't like it. If there's content you don't like, guess what? Turn it the fuck off. 


You don't have to agree with me to understand my perspective. Obviously, my issues with reaction content isn't simply that it's lazy. There are many lazy forms of content that exist that are perfectly fine. My argument is that it is harmful. You don't have to agree with that to understand why my non-participation in the content is not a solution to the issues that I outlined. Again, this either represents Gabi as ridiculously stupid or ridiculously dishonest. 


So Gabi seems to have realized in post that what she says here is extremely hypocritical given that in this video Gabi advocated for calling out people who make harmful content. ‘''I understand this could be hypocritical, but I'm more talking about how people go out of their way to attack people for just making content, not for their ideals.''’. And why do you want to attack people for their ideals? Because you believe they cause harm! Gabi is effectively trying to argue here that no one should be called out for the content that they make. Like you remember all those terrible prank videos where people like would dress up as terrorists and freak out people, like, that's terrible stuff and should be called out for being harmful. Gabi's like “No, no process by which content is made can ever be bad. No content can ever be harmful. Only ideals can be harmful.”. Insane!


Reactors aren't just making content, they are harming people with what they do. As is the case, sometimes with negative externalities, sometimes even those most harmed will never even know.


Gabi now attempts hilariously to substantiate that impressions are infinite.


Gabi:

So I realized I didn't provide my own source of information besides thinking logically and looking on YouTube and thinking about it for over one second and realizing there's no such thing as a finite pool of impressions. But regardless, I contacted my sister, who is an expert in impressions and marketing. She has worked in the industry for over 10 years. This is literally her specialty. She knows exactly how it works. She's worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies with the knowledge of this exact thing. So this is what she had to say. Uh, this was about impressions: 


Nina (Gabi’s sister) on WhatsApp:

‘It's less limited eyeballs than it is the limited attention spans and threshold for seeing the same kind of content over and over.’ 


‘Nope that's not true if anything it's making the content being commented on more desirable’ 


‘Commentary content is the 2022 version of old ladies gossiping in the town square’ 


‘When something big or not worthy happens… In the past people would gather around the people that they want to hear their opinion on the subject on’


‘Also’


‘People love to hate things more than they love to love things’ 


‘Which is so amplified online’


‘Scientifically an impression is defined by the number of times a piece of content appears on the screen’


‘There is no limit unless it's a piece of content that is deleted then it is finite’


Gabi (in the video):

She's using voice to text 'cause damn. 


Nina on WhatsApp:

‘But as things live on the internet and it can be found again you can still have impressions, and things often resurface years later also as the search words become trendy’


‘For example you could’ve written a blog post on what would happen if we were in a pandemic in 2012 and it would lay dormant for years but then would surge insight traffic in 2020’


‘There is no such thing as a finite pool of impressions’


So we're not given the full conversation. So we will never know if Gabi didn't ask the right question or her sister didn't understand the question. The question that Gabi's sister answered wasn't ‘Are impressions finite?’ instead, she answered ‘Is there a finite amount of impressions that something can receive?’. And her answer to that second question was: “Well, I… I… guess as long as it's still on the internet somewhere, it could hypothetically add some impressions tomorrow, a year from now, 10 years from now. Doesn't matter.”. But you can probably see that that doesn't answer the first question.


Maybe you're not following. So we'll change the word impression to hot dog. So we want to know, are there a finite amount of hot dogs? And I said to you, well, of course you can eat as many hot dogs as you want until the day you die. That doesn't address the question. It doesn't tell you how many hot dogs exist now or can exist or will exist ever. It tells you nothing. It doesn't answer the question at all. There are no hypothetical limits to how many impressions a thing can get. But that doesn't make the source of those impressions infinite. 


What's more disturbing is that Gabi's sister says things that directly argue against claims that Gabi makes in her video. Gabi claims earlier that, of course, all the commentary can be successful, all discussed in the exact same things infinitely, but of course that's not true because there's only a finite amount of demand for that sort of content. Again, the conversation is cut off, but it does seem as though Gabi's sister was originally talking about the attention economy, which is another form of phrasing that I myself have used to communicate the finite nature of these markets. I'll assume that Gabi's sister didn't finish explaining this entirely to Gabi.




Matt (in ‘''Hi Charlie! Nice To Meet You!''’ in Gabi’s video):

Charlie argues that I should have expected the outcome that my script would be given to creators and a response would happen. I disagree that this was a reasonable expectation. Even in hindsight, I still don't think it would've been reasonable to expect.


Gabi (in response):

No, you can't tell me that someone with 900,000 subscribers didn't expect some of his audience to go through this and see these streamers by name and then tell them about it. The same document to where you compare react streamers to rapists. So, yeah, you should have expected this. Even in hindsight, he is doubling down.


So many creators were referenced in that document and the amount of people who responded to it was exactly one, which was Charlie. And of course, I have said all these things before, directly, multiple times in different contexts, and never received this response again if it wasn't for Charlie, making a lot of videos hyping up random things he sees on Twitter. The attention that my unfinished script would've gotten would of course been very minimal. If I wanted attention and a response, I would've made a video. 'cause you know, I'm a YouTuber. I wanted neither. I was very busy, and Charlie got off very lightly because I wanted to get back to my work. 


Gabi:

You're saying this as if these React streamers are re-uploading original content to their channels. They're not some sort of MCN. Typically it's always interrupted by commentary and most of those people will wanna go check it out for themself.


If you are sitting watching the Lion King and you pause it and say, Hey, I like Simba. He's like, cool. And then you unpause it. It's still the same movie. When you pause the movie and get up and go take a piss and come back, that's still the same movie. When you watch a reactor, watch something, you are also watching that thing. By the time they're done, you will have seen the entirety of the original work. Even in cases where there's minor editing, you'll have seen the heart of the work. They're clearly watching videos in order to re-upload them to their YouTube channels. A person pressing a pause button every once in a while and giving their thoughts on what they just saw is not creative work. It is not creativity, it's not transforming the original work. You've seen the entire original work by the end unaltered unchanged exactly as it was originally expressed. Gabi seems to realized in post that saying, ‘most people who watch a video with a reactor then go and watch it again on the original person channel’ is absurd. And even if they go over, they don't watch it again. They might click like, leave a comment and leave, which is terrible engagement and certainly far worse engagement than actual watch time. In my finalized video from my essay, I look at the statistics, the click-through rate, the subscribers that people get from reactions, they're exceptionally low.


Impressions on YouTube, on average, get clicked about 5% of the time. These then convert into actual watch time and money and subscriptions and likes and additional impressions. The click-through rate from a reaction to the original video is less than 1%. As a system reactions are taking impressions that have a 5% click-through rate to original creators, changing them to themselves, and then giving an even lesser click-through rate to one individual creator. It is a terrible middleman system. It represents an inefficiency in the market, judged by something's ability to move a viewer to an original creator, obviously. 'cause the goal of reaction content isn't to get people to watch other creators, it's to get people to watch the reactor.


Gabi:

And if you did just watch the whole video with Pokimane on stream and you weren't really interested, you weren't gonna go watch that video anyway. 


But statistically speaking, you would've been watching something else. Maybe not that exact video, but something else. It is not just about the original video. This is highlighted so many times throughout my work. I cannot believe even someone as dense as Gabi never understood this. You do not need to agree to understand the perspective. 


Gabi:This entire situation is extremely nuanced and not black and white and extremely simplistic as you wanna make it seem. It's not just all these creators are gone, all those impressions are going to smaller creators.


So there's a meme from a very long time ago where I exclaimed “No one can be this dumb!” but Gabi has taught me anything is possible. I do not truly understand the depths of human stupidity. Maybe I am wrong, maybe the infinite does truly exist. In that perhaps the depth of human stupidity is truly infinite as demonstrated by Gabi.


Gabi:

Your original argument can make a lot of sense and fundamentally I actually agree with it. 


I have absolutely no idea what Gabi thinks my original argument is or what that could possibly even refer to. She does not - even slightly - understand my perspective on anything. And I'm fairly convinced she does not have the mental capability to do so. Throughout their content I explained my perspective in many different ways with many different examples, and Gabi still didn't understand it. That is insane! But even more so despite not understanding it even slightly, she still felt confident enough in her ignorance to make a video this dumb. Mind-boggling!


In this next part, Gabi speaks of my references to spiking people's drinks.


Matt (in ‘''Hi Charlie! Nice To Meet You!''’ in Gabi’s video):

When the script was released, the most I heard from one person was that they could be taken in the wrong way.


Gabi:

You didn't hear that just from just one person. You heard that from multiple people. You're pretending that this was just like one person taking one thing out of context and getting mad.


Again… Gabi seems blissfully unaware of the nature of the response that my essay got prior to Charlie releasing his video where he misrepresented to 2 million people. After I'd already spent many hours taking in the feedback from my audience and changing my essay, there was one guy on Twitter who said he didn't like it. Like, fuck me dead! The main thing that Gabi's put on screen this entire time is not even my tweet of my essay, it's not even my essay, but a reply to this comments. Gabi seems to be like, “What do you mean everyone didn't go to your tweet, dig down in the replies to find this reply, and then found your reply to that reply. Everyone saw that man! What are you talking about?”. Like, obviously when a trusted creator, like MoistCr1TiKaL says “Hey, this guy is out here calling reactors rapists!”, that's gonna elicit a response. And the vast majority, “I'm not gonna read a fucking essay, Gabi, come on.”. It is the unfortunate case that popular people would define reality for a lot of people. In the same way that my essay clearly does not talk about just more creators, but Gabi had to continue to hammer that home, “It does! It does!”, even though it clearly does not. 'cause Charlie said that, and for that reason alone, Gabi would defend it to the death. 


Gabi:

Like I, if you had intentions with this document, clearly most of it didn't get across.

No one… fucking… read it! The people who did, did understand it! And they agreed! Most people based their understanding of the essay on what Charlie said, and he misrepresented every aspect of it and misunderstood it in a way that was hilarious to watch. 


Gabi:

And you shouldn't need consent to exercise free speech and react to content that you disagree with or agree with. I am not an expert on fair use, but you are completely in the right to react to content and do so. And just because you don't agree with react content doesn't mean you should be comparing them to people who would spike your drink.


If we had to ask for consent to everything that we reacted to content creators that. Should be made aware are not good people like RiceGum and whatever Logan Paul did back in the day should be made aware through the exercising of free speech. I'm allowed to comment on these things. 


These are just insane assertions that the only way to communicate that something is bad is to completely redistribute that creative work as if no one called anyone out before the existence of people sitting on livestream and watching YouTube videos. This is insane.


I'm not going to rehash the guidelines for fair use or the cases related to it. I did it in another video, but goddamn, no, none of this is legal and it's also not necessary. And as I've heard before, reaction views are the worst way to call out other creators. Make a creative video, bring together multiple different things that they've done. Make a case, script it. Presenting your first time impressions to someone else's work to call them out, is not responsible. Nor is the redistribution of other people's hard work necessary for free speech.


Gabi:

You're acting like nobody read your document and you're just getting this criticism out of nowhere. Because some people took things out of context. They didn't. Many people read your document actually in the document right now, there's over 30 people in here reading it.


“Holy shit! 30 people! Did you hear that guys? 30 people!”, so it'll take about half an hour for the average person to read an essay of that length. So Charlie's visual video was seen by about 2 million people maintaining a constant rate of 30 people reading that essay. It would take about four years for everyone who watched that video to read it, so you know any fucking day now.


I do not understand why it's so important to Gabi for her to believe that the entire internet is just like an essay loving group. They're all putting on their reading glasses, sitting before the fire, and reading random essays written by strangers on the internet. What an insane world Gabi must live in. You remember when Twitter used to ask people, Hey, are you sure you've read this article? You should probably read it before you post it. Gabi must have thought that fucking insane like “But everyone always reads everything in which they comment on on the internet. No one in history has ever shared an article based merely on the headline or judged the contents of an article on the headline. That's absurd. People on the internet love reading essays!” This fantasy world Gabi lives in is insane.

So while I do have a lot more very interesting things to say, this is somewhat me wrapping up the video. Finally. When I first saw this video from Gabi, I was honestly very surprised at how little she knew yet how confident she felt in what she knew. Further, how bad she was at reasoning or understanding the implications of her own words. Let learn my words for that matter. But then I stumbled across a clip in one of her other videos that made me understand Gabi a bit more as a person. 


Gabi:

But then what is ethical? I'm in a, I'm in a philosophy class and I wanna die. I hate philosophy, I'm not gonna lie. My advisor in college was a philosophy professor, and every time you started to talk about philosophy, my brain just shut off and I just, I switched majors and I got a different advisor.


That… makes… so… much… sense…


One thing that was very strange to me was something that Gabi stressed so many times at the end of her video. 


Gabi:

But this is my opinion. This whole video is my opinion.


“Oh my gosh guys, I did just misinform you for like 40 minutes, but you can't be mad 'cause it's just my opinion…” as if she doesn't have to try to be accurate 'cause they're just her opinions. As if they're things that she said in this video that are massively incorrect aren't going to have ramifications to how other people live their lives.”. She appears entirely uncaring as to how her words might impact other people. Sure she might get everything wrong, but “Who cares? Just opinions!”.


You can see this belief echoed in her support of people watching videos in order to debunk them, “Of course, just in real time you can watch someone else's video and just debunk it like that as you go. The world is a simple place. You don't need research. No, you can just do it in real time. Let's go. Sure, you might get 700 things wrong, but who cares? Other people don't matter!”.


It seems as though these days there's no consequence to not even trying to be accurate in what you're saying on YouTube. You are better off shooting from the hip, releasing video after video, and then maybe giving a backhanded apology if you get something wrong. If you wanna spend all the time doing the research, making sure everything is perfect, you'll be miles behind the people just shooting from the hip. You release 1/10th of the video. Sure, they may be more factually accurate, but that's not gonna be valued on the market. These people will always be behind the Gabis of the world who believe just because they can wake up in the morning that this makes them all knowing deities, who can speak on anything with accuracy.


Originally, I wanted to cast judgment on the 15,000 people who liked Gabi's video, but then I realized for most people, they just click on a video, don't really think about it, and then click off and do something else. They don't think deeply about what they're hearing. They're just like, oh yeah, this seems pretty good. And then they move on with their day. People to some degree just have to hope that the person they're listening to isn't malicious and deceitful as Gabi is. These people, as far as I'm concerned, are perhaps even more a victim of Gabi's video than I am.


So obviously Gabi's video isn't the first video to misrepresent me and my work to hundreds of thousands of people, but I'll be honest with you, it never gets easier. The knowledge that there are so many people out there who believe false things about me and there's nothing I can do about it eats me up inside. I would like to say this past year was sufficient for me to get over all that stuff that happened a year ago, but I still have not. Being misrepresented and in many cases directly lied about, provably lied about, by so many people and having that accepted by so many is something that radically shifts your view of the world and other people. Like obviously Gabi is not gonna care about this, a person who cares about the world being of other people could not make a video like that. But you can obviously see how a person will come to view the world negatively when they realize that there is no consequences for the suffering that Gabi will cause. She'll go onto this to countless people over her career and suffer nothing for doing so 'cause that is the world we live in. Those who have no care for accuracy and no care for others will obviously be able to sprint ahead of anyone that does and they will receive nothing but rewards for doing so.


For most of my life, my only aspiration was to go out and help other people to make the world a better place. But honestly, at this point, I don't think I'll ever be strong enough to do that. How do people who actually go out there and try to make the world better deal with people like Gabi? Selfish, dishonest liars who care about no one but themselves. To some degree, I've become convinced that maybe the world can't get better. There's just a continuous cycle of things being slowly better than, slowly worse forever. But maybe I just wanna emotionally believe that, so I can justify my cowardice for not being able to face terrible people like Gabi more often.


So, yeah. Thank you for watching! Sorry this video is not as substantive or as well argued as the actual video that I made on the topic of reaction content that came from my essay. If at the end of this video you find yourself being like, I have more questions, or I don't agree with this, or I don't agree with that, it's probably explained far better in that video. This video was bogged down by Gabi's misunderstandings and poor reasoning that as far as I'm aware, are entirely unique to her. This is another reason why I felt it important to make this video, while I certainly hope Gabi is fairly unique in the world… she can't be, right? 


So maybe this video will answer the objections of that few percent of people that exist in Gabi's fantasy land.


And with that, I wish you all the best. Boop!

Sources

Original essay [https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRid-d3hQpDnTpAlIBWICuZO4J_C2j0FX-PqT2HPEGLDpTy_jhebAiXbBtn-6OwdPvY_mj0VYDfkHPj/pub How The React Grift Works By DarkViperAU]

penguinz0’s response to the document [https://youtu.be/FAPDd-cB8Do https://youtu.be/FAPDd-cB8Do]

Playlist on react content [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnJ4ZuTYaeGv4WIexP9C5LAuMEnMkG-Q Why React Content Harms Everyone] 

React Streamers Are Destroying YouTube? (tldr; MoistCr1TiKaL & DarkViperAU drama) [https://youtu.be/c3cQCw1TiNs https://youtu.be/c3cQCw1TiNs] 

Pokimane and DisguisedToast getting banned for streaming anime on Twitch [https://www.gamespot.com/articles/popular-streamers-pokimane-and-disguised-toast-react-to-getting-banned-on-twitch/1100-6499539/ GameSpot]

moistcr1tikal streams [https://www.twitch.tv/moistcr1tikal Twitch]

Mizkif Twitter [https://twitter.com/REALMizkif X (twitter.com)]

Mizkif racist remarks [https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-i-m-taking-out-ice-poseidon-leaks-mizkif-dms-revealing-racist-remarks sportskeeda.com] 

Mizkif sexual assault cover up [https://kotaku.com/twitch-streamer-crazyslick-mizkif-maya-gambling-assault-1849560465? (kotaku.com] 

h3h3Productions court case [https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-41037631 BBC News] 

GorTheMovieGod [https://www.youtube.com/@GorTheMovieGod https://www.youtube.com/@GorTheMovieGod] 

GorTheMovieGod YouTube statistics [https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/gorthemoviegod Social Blade Stats]

Mogul Mail [https://www.youtube.com/@MogulMail https://www.youtube.com/@MogulMail] 

Philip DeFranco [https://www.youtube.com/@PhilipDeFranco https://www.youtube.com/@PhilipDeFranco] 

Skill Up [https://www.youtube.com/@SkillUp https://www.youtube.com/@SkillUp] 

Gamernax [https://www.youtube.com/@gameranxTV https://www.youtube.com/@gameranxTV] 

MadSeasonShow [https://youtu.be/AW1ifkVDh7s https://youtu.be/AW1ifkVDh7s] 

Follow up video [https://youtu.be/7tnkfjWizKI https://youtu.be/7tnkfjWizKI] 


How Do Creators Justify Being Exploited By Reactors? (feat Necrit and Asmongold) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuJz9S52llw


'''How Do Creators Justify Being Exploited By Reactors? (feat Necrit and Asmongold)'''

'''Original video: '''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuJz9S52llw How Do Creators Justify Being Exploited By Reactors? (feat Necrit and Asmongold)]


I honestly wish that I had a quick sound bite that could instantly communicate to you the harm of reaction content, but I don't. Reaction content is surprisingly a complicated topic. Even if at a surface level, most people can see that things seem a bit sus. 


You have two groups that exist in the same space that want some of that juicy finite attention, that being creators and reactors. 


One group does all the work, while the other simply takes that work to redistribute. 


One puts forth risk and effort, while the other doesn't, yet they often still reap a far greater reward. 


But recognizing this imbalance doesn't immediately communicate who is harmed or why. I've even heard some remark, maybe it is unfair, but it is what is best for everybody. 


But is that true? Can the people who avoid all the work in video creation by simply hosting watch parties of other people's creations really just be helping out? Necrit is one such person who thinks so, as expressed in his video, "Are reaction's harming channels." 


I'll be looking at Necrit arguments in just a moment, but first, slot machines. This may seem like a wild tangent, but trust me, it's very important. I want you to answer a simple question. Are slot machines a good way to make money? Does your answer to this question change if I showed you someone losing a bunch of money to slots? What if I showed you someone breaking even, neither losing or gaining money? What if I showed you someone playing slots and winning a bunch of money? Still, I don't think your answer would change, and I don't think it would change even if I showed 100 people winning money on slot machines. 


The reason is that you have some understanding of what slot machines exist to do and how they achieve it. They obviously exist to take more money from others than they ever give back, and they would simply stop existing if they failed to achieve that. You likely know that there must be people in the world who've had their lives changed for the better by at some point winning money on slot machines. But despite this, because you understand the underlying system, you can still say that slot machines are a bad way for players to generate wealth. In fact, you may even argue that society as a whole would have been better off if slot machines had never existed, even if you acknowledge that some particular individuals would have been worse off for that. 

The previous example highlights why we rightly seek to judge a system as a totality rather than simply by looking at one particular individual's interaction with it. We do this because every system, good or bad, has some positives and some negatives, some winners and some losers, some advantages and some disadvantages. 


As a consequence, it is usually prudent to assess the underlying logic of a system to get a sense whether or not it would be better off with or without it given its likely overall impact. With understanding, you can likely see how fairly meaningless social media posts are that proclaim to have either lost, seen no impact or gained from reactions. 


Short term effects for individuals can swing positive or negative based on any number of factors in a system. So none of these sorts of posts speak of how this system of reaction content works, its underlying nature and purpose. To spoil the obvious conclusion of this video, these posts don't change that overall reaction content has a harmful effect on everyone but the reactors themselves. 


Reactions exist to increase the amount of time people spend watching the reactor's content and to therefore by necessity reduce the amount of time they spend doing anything else. 


Reactors exist to act as the middleman for the exposure natively given by social media platforms, which basically means that they work to convince algorithms to promote the reactors instead of creators. 


The goal of reactors is to always take more viewers away from creators than they ever inadvertently give back. Reactors will speak about how easy it all is and how much value they gain and their rights. The easy value that they accumulate for themselves doesn't pop into existence like magic. It is instead extracted from a wider market of creators who are trying to survive and who are having their chances hurt by the existence of reactors. 


I recognize that my stance on these issues is not very palatable for some because I am in a sense telling them that Santa Claus does not exist. Who the hell wants to hear that reactions are not some sort of infinite money glitch that make it so everyone's lines can do nothing but go up?


As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, ignoring bad news does not make the consequences of it go away. 


With that very long preamble out of the way, let us now start with the actual focus of this video, Necrit, as he tells us what he believes a reactor to be. 




'''Necrit: '''

The concept is simple, a fellow creator takes your video and reacts to it. Because their viewers are interested in seeing their opinion on it. 


'''(Back To Matt)'''

Whether or not it was his intention, I think implying that reactors are simply creators who want to express their opinion is a tad bit dishonest. 


Creators think of a topic and an idea related to it, then they take a risk in using their limited time and money to buy equipment, do research, write a script, record footage, edit and so on in order to actually create something. 


Reactors conversely just sit and watch other people do that and then take the end result and re-upload it. 


The first has to gamble each time that they've chosen right and so can be sufficiently rewarded relative to the time and cost they've incurred in their creation. They are always in the spot of potentially running out of ideas or burning out from the work. 


The second, can just steal anything already moderately successful, knowing they can always make a profit because they have no costs or risks, because someone else has already taken on that burden for them. 


A YouTube video can take days, weeks, months and substantial skill to create, while a reaction will always take around the length of the original video and require no skill at all. 


These facts are indisputable, so it doesn't seem honest for Necrit to present both as fellows, somehow being the same. This is especially true given that the focus of Necrit's video is Asmongold, who likely hasn't opened an editing program in half a decade. 


But I find it more troublesome that Necrit implies that the inspiration for reaction content is the satiate viewers need for the reactor's opinion, as if the only way that can be given is by re-broadcasting and then re-uploading the entirety of another person's creative work. 


I don't think Necrit wants to suggest that the best opinions are those given in real time when you haven't seen the entire video and are thus the most uninformed you can be. 


Does Necrit really believe that Asmongold jumped 160 reactions in 2021 to 453 in 2022 because demand for his opinion increased? Does he believe that Asmongold is on pace to smash that record in 2023 because Asmongold just suddenly became more opinionated? Or did Asmongold blowing up because of his re-broadcasting of the Amber Heard trial teach him that the window of acceptability for reaction content had shifted, meaning that he could freely re-upload as many videos as he wanted to expand his growth and profits? 


Asmongold has re-uploaded 1200 videos by 370 creators just in the last three years. Necrit wants us to believe that Asmongold is in no way inspired by the conservatively estimated 12 billion impressions, 600 million views and 2.3 million dollars he has gotten directly from re-uploading these videos. 

This saying nothing of all the additional value that these reactions algorithmically generate for his other content. Or that this content has enabled him to stay live far longer on Twitch, farming wealth and growth away from other creators there as well. 


Necrit wants us to believe that it has nothing to do with gaining the recommendation algorithm to promote his brand, even though on Twitter that is exactly what Asmongold says is the reason why he does reaction content. 


Every reactor when pushed will tell you it is about the money and growth. But Necrit can't seem to be honest about things that reactors themselves will be perfectly honest about. 


'''Linus:'''

"You can't just blatantly say, I do it because it makes money." 


'''XQC:'''

"Oh, with that, I mean, I do it because it makes money." 


'''Linus:'''

"No one ever said it didn't. That wasn't anyone's point. Their point was that that's someone else's money." 


'''XQC:'''

"Oh I do it because it's somebody else's money." 


'''(Back to Matt)'''

Hell, even Necrit later in this video admits that his aspirations of being a reactor has nothing to do with giving his opinion. 


'''Necrit:'''

So let me be the content leech for once. 


There are those who believe that this form of content might actually be harming the original creators. 


After all, the reactions are taking all the hard work from the original creator. And they are profiting off of it by simply watching it. Oftentimes you might hear the word "content leech" connected to this. 


On top of that, people simply argue that the reactions are taking away views from the original videos. 


'''(Back to Matt)'''

As a summation of the objections to reaction content, this is simply poorly done. Broadly speaking, there are actually three categories of complaints about reaction content. 

The first are those that relate to ethics or fairness, if you like. 


The second are concerns about the impact of the reaction on the original video and the creator's channel. 


The third, and the thing that I am most interested in, is how reaction content as a whole is impacts all creators in the market. 


Necrit in his video focuses exclusively on half of the second category and ignores entirely the first and third. I will personally be making reference to all three. 


'''Necrit:'''

But there are also others who believe that this is totally fine and that reactions are transformative.


'''(Back to Matt)'''

Whether or not reactions are transformative is never addressed by Necrit again and I honestly wish he had given it a go. 


The word transformative colloquially means '''"causing a major change to something"'''. Reactions are obviously not majorly changing a video, they are simply hosting a watch party for us. If I asked you "Hey, have you seen this video?" you could honestly say "Yeah, I saw it, I saw it on Asmongold's stream". 


Your friends sitting next to you on the couch while you watch Lord of the Rings may be able to stop and tell you heaps about the movie, giving you additional information, but at no point does that majorly change the movie itself. 


Legally speaking, nothing supports these watch parties being transformative either. You can read the ruling from the judge explaining the criteria that H3H3 had to pass to win their fair use case that also explains why other forms of reaction content would not pass. 


You can read '''“Where's the Fair Use”''' by the lawyer '''Jessica Vogel''' that covers the entire history of the presence of fair use in America. You can watch “'''Legal Eagle'''” be the 900th lawyer to explain this, but you don't really have to because you can just read the fair use guidelines.


Transformation in a legal sense is more about the value that you leave behind in the original work. 


Can someone who views the new work still find value in the original? Are you purposely taking only the bare minimum of what you need for your new differentiated work to make sense? Are you trying to create something new or merely looking for a way to copy something else? Are you targeting a different audience for a different purpose? 

Reactors do not know what is in the video beforehand. They are not taking some specific aspect of it for some specific purpose and are therefore constantly showing content they have no use for. 


They are not making a differentiated work because all they are doing is watching a video and pausing it occasionally. When re-uploading the video to YouTube, they will frequently have the same title and thumbnail. They are so much not a differentiated work. 


If you read into it, fair use is incredibly weak in what it defends. There are even courts that may have ruled against H3H3 given how they ruled in prior fair use cases. More importantly though, what Ethan created was far different than what Necrit is defending in his video and what I personally have a problem with. 


'''Necrit:'''

But ever since my Riot MMO videos blasted off, things got a lot more interesting. 


I got to collect some interesting data, which I am going to present to you. And I am going to show you how exactly people reacting to my videos affected my channel. 


'''(Back to Matt)'''

So hopefully you can see the problem. Necrit’s interest is not in how React content farms impact the creator ecosystem. 


How the growing number of Asmongold-like channels spamming out 10 videos a day can impact creators' ability to survive and grow in a world of limited eyeballs, advertising space; and time to watch videos at all. It is simply, “was my video impacted specifically by the re-upload of it?” 


It is as meaningful as judging the system of slot machines based on a single spin. Unless you can find a way to argue that your results can be extrapolated, but unfortunately, Necrit does not even try to. 


'''Necrit:'''

Truth be told, there were times when I knew that people would react to my videos, so I altered the content to give people more entertainment for the reactions. 


Be it the easiest joke of my life about Nintendo 64 controllers, you have no idea what the universe is about, but you like MMOs, your hairline is receding and you have a very crippling fear of Nintendo 64 controllers.


Or joking about people passing out. 


So reactions is something you can definitely play into if you do enough market research, and you know what kind of audience you are going to attract. 


For example, I saw Asmongold reacting to a video where people discussed Riot's MMO. In that video they were just talking about tweets, and yet this was enough to make him react to it. Which made me realise, we actually know a lot more about the MMO than just some tweets, so I went and made that massive video with the assumption that it would be picked up outside of just League of Legends. 


'''(Back to Matt)'''

I find this idea more than a bit distasteful, especially considering that at no point in his video does Necrit show or establish actual benefits for his channel from reactions. 


Necrit's ideal world seems to be one where creators freely work to create the best content for someone else to upload so they can maintain their wealth and success. The person who then actually did the work just has the hope that the reactor's prosperity trickles down to them. You shouldn't expect at least a share of the wealth generated from your work, you should just be happy with the illusory payment of exposure. 


It is beyond my ability to understand why Necrit would favour a world where success is not determined by who works the hardest or is the most creative. But instead, who can give the most of their work for free to the already rich and successful? He sincerely seems to believe that the more videos that Asmongold uploads, and the greater his share of the online media space, the better off all the people who actually do the work to make their content will be. So if we could only convince all the reactors to upload a thousand videos today, oh boy how easy everyone else's lives would, become. 


Again, it's basically an infinite money glitch if you know nothing about how markets work. 


In fact, why even have recommendations for creators at all, when recommendations for reactors are apparently so superior in Necrit's world? The problem is that you may imagine you gain from reaction to your video, but do all of your videos fare better having to compete with the millions of reactions flooding the markets. Competing with them for the finer attention available, especially when YouTube algorithmically favours channels that upload frequently and consistently over those that don't. 


More importantly, I don't agree with Necrit that every successful creator should see other people's creative works as an all-you-can-eat buffet that you can snatch from whenever you don't want to make something yourself. Necrit's ideas pair well with the expression that “it's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.” 


While I would personally argue that anyone who actually lives by this creed is a massive dick, this is still a philosophy that reactors embody wholeheartedly. 


Surprisingly, I've directly heard people say of Asmongold that his embodiment of this philosophy is a positive trait and not merely evidence of his disregard for others. I could imagine why Necrit does not care about such things though, because it seems in his world we should all exist for the pleasure of those already successful and just be happy for the notice. 


'''Necrit:'''

But the question now is, is it worth it? Is it even beneficial to have people reacting to your videos? Or will it harm your channel?


After I released my first Riot MMO video, it decently quickly hit 1 million views, after which it stopped and then it slowly crept up close to 2 millions. And during that initial burst of views, as other people reacted to it, the viewer ratios stayed consistent. 


For example, Soda Popin's reaction got about 50% of the original video. This became true for both the first video and the second video. 


Asfan stayed consistently around 17% and Asmongold stayed slightly below 3 times the original views, because that's just the kind of content he does. 


But these ratios also stayed the same when I was talking about Ghostcrawler leaving. No matter the success of the original video, the reactions always stayed consistent with the ratios relating to their own audiences. 


This taught me that, at least in my case, there was no way the reactions could be taking views from me. Because if this was the case, if the reactions were taking views from me, then after the new audience learned about my videos, and if you mirrored it after my audience learned about the reactions, then over time, as I released more videos, people would have to avoid my videos and wait for the reactions to come out. 


Or in other words, my views would have to go down and the other views would have to go up. 


But that didn't happen, there was no funneling of viewers and everything stayed the same. 


'''(Back to Matt)'''

So there are surprisingly 5 levels at which Necrit is wrong in this general section. The first is, as has been made apparent before, he assumes the only thing in existence that a reaction video can negatively impact is the original video that it was made from. 


The second, he disregards the other ways that a reaction can potentially negatively impact the original video other than the singular way that he listed. 


The third, the phenomenon that he seeks to test for, that being people expecting a reaction and so skipping over the original video in this particular context makes no sense. 

The fourth level, how he is testing for this phenomenon doesn't make any sense. 

Lastly, the conclusions that he draws from his nonsensical analysis are not supported by the data available. 


So firstly, Necrit is hard locked into the idea that what reaction videos extract from is purely the original video, but obviously an Asmongold reaction can take from any of Necrit's videos. Maybe a viewer who would have ended up watching something from Necrit's back catalogue is instead now watching one of the 10 videos that Asmongold ripped off today. 


Reactions have an impact on the entire market for content, because we are each putting out videos on the market, competing with each other for the finite amount of advertising space and eyeballs that exist each day. We are seeking to inspire interest and maintain it, necessarily keeping viewers away from wherever else they would have spent their time. The platform cannot support infinite success for creators, let alone infinite Asmongold-sized creators. 


Asmongold spams out the reaction videos that he does to take as much of the market away from others for himself. I think an example might help, so let's take a look at Asmongold's first reaction to Necrit, which currently has 4 million views. 


Obviously 4 million people didn't come into existence to watch this reaction video, nor were 4 million people sitting in a back room somewhere hoping that one day that Asmongold might release this reaction video so they could animate themselves, watch it, and then go back into storage. 


In reality, all these people are just going about their lives, attempting to satiate the needs that led to them to seek out content in the first place. So for Asmongold to get 4 million views in this video, around 80 million impressions were given to people, 76 million of which were ignored, and 4 million that were clicked. 


So we can then ask, what would have happened if this reaction video did not exist? Furthermore, is a world with this reaction better or worse for the people who actually create the content that is reacted to? 


In answering these questions, it is important to note that people do not traditionally come to YouTube for a specific video. Views come from the recommendation algorithm or our extensions of it. 


Like you get recommended a video that calls you to subscribe to a creator and so you eventually watch their videos in your sub feed, but ultimately that all stems from the recommendation at the beginning. 


It seems clear that YouTube's algorithm seeks to give people videos that they will want to click on and that will keep them on the platform now and have them return later on. The algorithm's ability to achieve this goal is not made significantly better or worse because of the existence of this reaction. In the same way that Asmongold's existence in general does not make the machine learning at the heart of this algorithm better or worse either. We can therefore conclude that in a world without this reaction, roughly 80 million impressions would have gone to other videos. Videos that the algorithm believes that the people seeing those impressions would want to watch would keep them on the platform and even better have them return. It would have a roughly 5% success rate getting 4 million people to click and so 4 million views and all the subsequent benefits, additional exposure, money, recommendations and so on will be spread out amongst a bunch of different content creators. 


So which reality is better? Asmongold getting all the native views and exposure for doing nothing at all except watching YouTube video and re-uploading it or those who actually do the work to create things actually gain the rewards for doing so. Their video is further being specifically targeted towards those who want to watch them rather than through Asmongold which is entirely untargeted. It's a no-brainer for me and this is the comparison that can be made for every single reaction video that is on this platform. 


To reiterate, while Necrit falsely believes that his original videos cannot lose views to the reactions to them, it is more problematic that he is not considering the impact of all reaction videos on his entire catalogue of content. Every single day there is a spot where his face and videos would have been shown but he just gets edged out by a reaction video, spammed out by one of the many Asmongold-like content farms. 


Every single day there is a person who would have found and ended up watching his videos but instead ends up watching one of the dozen that Asmongold released today. Every day the algorithm thinks, "Why give Necrit exposure? He can get out what like 3 videos a week at best? I can get that exposure to Asmongold instead. He can release 50 high-quality videos in the exact same amount of time." 


The harm is consistent day to day but will slowly increase over time as more and more of the market is taken up by reaction content. 


The algorithm seems to favour already successful channels that release more content at a consistent frequency. Therefore those who actually create content will never be collectively as algorithmically favoured as reactors who are not burdened with the costs of actual creation.


Necrit is supporting a system that specifically works and desires to out-compete him in generating interest in viewers and captivating them long-term. Worse, he is supporting this system knowing that he can never compete with its output unless he too finds a bunch of grunts who want to be paid in exposure to make him videos. 


At the end of the day, creating one-stop shops for all the best content on YouTube but if it's no one but those who own those channels. As an aside, in many ways it is even worse for new creators. In ages past, successful content creators would burn out and quit, giving the chance for new creators to rise up and replace them. 

But now old fossils like Asmongold who would have been out-competed or buckled under strain years ago can instead use reaction content to avoid all the work that normally inspires this drop-off. They can continually feast on the output of new rising star creators to maintain their current status. 


So that was level one, we've got four more to go, so let's continue with level two. 


Necrit disregards the many other ways a reaction can harm an original video than the singular one that he listed, that being that people could see the original video but then decide to skip over it in order to wait for a reaction to come out. 


One risk with reactions is how they may impact your video and channel in the algorithm, something fairly unpredictable. It is certainly true that someone might skip an impression for your original video in order to wait for a reaction to it, meaning the algorithm to think them less interest in your videos in general. But the algorithm could also just not recommend the original video and instead recommend the reaction and the reactor’s content. Worse is that some of the people who end up watching the reaction will afterwards skip over a recommendation for the original video if they're given it. I mean why would they click it, they've already seen the original video just on a different channel. 


This would lessen the click-through rate for the original video and convince the algorithm that either the video isn't very good or at least it isn't to that particular viewer's interests. 


Having enough people see the reaction and then later skip over impressions to the original video will obviously impact how far the algorithm will spread the original video. At the end of the day, we have no ability to see how well a video would have done in the algorithm if there wasn't a duplicate competing with it. Those who are in the original therefore just have to take it on faith that their video is doing better competing with a copy of it on another channel than it would have done exclusively if it was just on their channel. There are of course reports of spikes in viewer numbers, no change or sharp decline, but all assess short-term impact and each has to grapple with the uncertainty of never being able to see the alternate reality where the reaction didn't exist.


Maybe you saw a small spike in viewers because of a reaction, but unbeknownst to you, that video then gets 10% less views every day for the rest of its life. Maybe you saw no change, but perhaps that video would have started to decline if not for the additional interest generated by that reaction. 


Perhaps you saw an initial drop in viewers because of the reaction, but perhaps that reaction was keeping your video longer in the algorithm so over time you ended up gaining more viewers than you lost initially. 


Unfortunately, creators just vary so much in terms of what content they produce and under what conditions it releases. There is also some variation in the method and the extent to which reactors re-upload other people's content. The result is that a generalizable controlled test of the impact of a reaction on the original video is likely impossible. At the end of the day, one of the major issues with the creator-reactor dynamic is that if you've seen the original video, you can still hypothetically find value in the reaction as it has new material that you haven't seen. If you've seen the reaction, however, you have no reason to watch the original as you've seen all its material. That the original creator did 100% of the work to make the original and 99% of the work to make the react video doesn't matter to viewers. 


This obvious imbalance, I think will always give more credence to the idea that there is greater harm than benefit for the original video. But when I say this, I feel I need to stress that the dynamic between a single original video and its reaction is not my main issue with reaction content. 


My interest will always be on the total impact of reaction content on the entire market of creators. 


The third level. I actually regret calling these levels now, I guess I should've called them problems or something, but whatever. 


The entire basis for Necrit's analysis is his belief that if he was losing viewers to reactions, that every additional reaction made of his content would increase the amount of viewers that he's losing. This is because more and more viewers will begin to skip over his videos and wait for the future reactions to watch instead. 


This however is a fairly silly assumption to base your entire video off. 


In the period where Asmongold reacted to 7 of Necrit's videos, not only were these reactions sometimes months apart, but during that same period, Necrit uploaded around 100 videos. This low ratio of videos to reactions would make it fairly silly for any viewer to have a belief that there was a reaction certainly forthcoming. 


Furthermore, implicit here is that Necrit believes that viewers are sitting around contemplating how to min-max their time watching YouTube videos. 


I find this very strange because I think viewers just watch the appealing videos that are recommended to them by the algorithm. 


There seems to be little reason to believe that there's a widespread behavior amongst viewers to look at a recommendation for a video they want to watch and to have them go, "You know what, I'm gonna skip this one and wait for a reaction." Especially considering that they could just watch both. 


As an aside, even if Necrit's assumptions about this behavior were correct, the analysis that he's doing still wouldn't be particularly fruitful. Comparing all reactions to his content to see changes would have best only showed changes to the amount of viewers being lost, not the total amount. In other words, if Necrit was losing a consistent 10% of views on each of his videos, the methodology he's using wouldn't even capture that. 


The fourth level, or problem, whichever you prefer. 


How he is testing for people skipping over the original video to watch the reaction doesn't make any sense. 


This is because obviously the variables that impact each original video and reaction would not remain constants. 


The originals and reactions are of different lengths and of course the different topics will play better or worse on different channels. 


They release the different days, at different times, they have varying amounts of other videos released alongside them, and so on. 


Hell, even the creators themselves and their channels can change between reactions. 


Amongst all the noise of confounding variables, even if there was an increase in the amount of people skipping over the original video to wait for a reaction, you wouldn't really expect to see it. This especially when just comparing the view counts in a small sample size of seven pairs. 


From the outset, you should be highly skeptical of the claim that all original videos and all reactions just so happen to maintain the exact same viewership ratio. 


This leads finally to the fifth and final problem. 


To reiterate, Necrit’s claim is that he knows his original videos are not losing views to reactions because the ratio of views that his original videos get compared to Asmongold's reactions remains consistent each time. 


In other words, if Necrit gets 100,000 views, Asmongold will get 300,000 views. If Necrit gets 200,000 views, then Asmongold will get 600,000 views every single time. 


He says that we'd have to see Necrit's views go down and the reactor’s go up for there to be any possibility of a loss. 


But staggeringly, if you just look at the numbers comparing Necrit's videos to Asmongold's, the ratio of viewership isn't consistent at all. The ratio is in fact all over the place, ranging from Asmongold getting 1.8 times as many views in one case and four times as many views in another case. 

I even did this same analysis for another creator that Asmongold has reacted to far more, Josh Strife Hayes. I of course also found a huge difference in the ratio of views between the original and reactions.


These range from Asmongold getting half as many views as the original to getting six times as many views. 


If Necrit is an honest person, it's very strange for him to make this video and at no point seek to do this analysis with another creator as well. Like he obviously had every ability to compare other people's videos to the reactions that are done by Asmongold, but he just didn't do that and I wonder why? 


On the surface, these results appear to entirely contradict Necrit's claims. But if you examine Necrit's video closely, what he actually seems to mean when he says the ratios are "the same" is that they exist in some undisclosed range of similarity that he has arbitrarily decided to call "the same". 


For example, he says Asmongold got three times as many views and the next time it was around the same. But the image shown on screen shows a ratio of 1.5 times as many views, not three times. Obviously to most people that'd be a huge difference, but apparently not to Necrit. 


What is even stranger is that Necrit himself seems to at least in part acknowledge later on that there is no consistency in the viewer ratios. He talks about how two videos, a whole third of his sample, were not consistent, as his video did far worse and the reaction did far better. But for reasons not explained, for him that just highlights even more how much his views were not impacted by the reactions. 


This despite saying that this very thing would be what would confirm to him that his videos were losing views to the reactions. It was honestly bewildering to listen to. 


'''Necrit:'''

A perfect example is my quick rant about Genshin's updates. This was a quick experimental video that didn't do that well. But still, some people reacted to it, and instead of staying in their ratios, they got double the original views, and this even worked on my latest MMO video about mounts, which also didn't do that well compared to the others. 


But other creators still made it work on a really big scale. So it seems like it is harder to make an example where people are just blatantly stealing views. 


'''(Back to Matt)'''

It feels kind of petty to dogpile on, but there's also the issue that assessing things by ratio rather than total biases things in terms of similarity. If we compare a video that got 1 million views and a video that got 1.1 million views, and I said "hey there's a 100,000 viewer difference there", that sounds big. 

But if you say that second video got 1.1 times the views of the first video, it doesn't sound like anything. Basically, Hound of Critters speaking is specifically designed to downplay difference.


Lastly, even if we ignore every problem discussed so far, I am still not sure how Necrit expected to see small differences. Say a thousand people skipped over his original video and watched Asmongold’s reaction video instead. Like how did he expect to like, see that? 


It is possible that he was aware that he'd be unable to, which would explain his conclusion, where he says 


'''Necrit''':

"Did reactions harm my videos?" No. They absolutely did not. 


And if they did, the quote-unquote stolen views would be in single digit percentages.


'''(Back to Matt)'''

Firstly, to say something is absolute is to say it has no qualification. Therefore, if you say "absolutely not" and then give a qualification, that is just contradictory. More importantly, it is just annoying that he doesn't explain at all why there could be some small impact that he's unable to see. Like did he understand at least in part that his analysis was flawed, or is he just saying this to cover his arse? 


To put it bluntly, it is not possible from this data alone to determine how many views the original videos would have gotten, absent reactions to them existing, or how they would have fared, had they not needed to compete with all the other reaction videos in the market. 


This is in part because Necrit's methodology was flawed, the dataset was small, there were no consistent patterns, and variables likely impacting either video's success are not at all constant in each sample. 


If we assume that Necrit didn't just lie in his video, I think the best explanation is that Necrit had a desired conclusion and so just massaged statistical noise until he saw what he wanted to see to support it. 


'''Necrit:'''

There was no funneling of viewers and everything stayed the same. And that's for a very obvious reason. 


The viewers watch people reacting for the person who's reacting, not for the original video. They may be interested in the topics, that's why sometimes better topics drive more views, but they mostly still don't care about the individual videos. 


With that said, sometimes the viewers care about the original video. And when that overlap happens, that's when you get people mad that you are constantly pausing the videos. So let's not say that it never happens. It's just that most of the time, the viewers are watching the person, not the video. And in most cases, without that person, they wouldn't even know that video existed. 


'''(Back to Matt)'''

A viewer may not care about the original video, but without it, the reaction would just suck and they wouldn't want to watch. Asmongold’s old channel gives us an insight into how well he'd fare if he wasn't carried by the talents of others. Prior to his reaction empire, he released a fraction of the videos for a fraction of the audience and all the content was goddamn terrible. 


Limited research next to no editing with some generic background gameplay. 


Does Necrit really believe that the same amount of people would care about and watch Asmongold’s opinion today had he continued to give it without re-uploading other people's videos en masse? 


For most of the topics Asmongold speaks on, even if he independently was inspired to speak on them without some video, he wouldn't even know where to begin. Again, you're right, some of the viewers care more about the reactor than the original video, but obviously astronomically less people would know who these reactors are or care about them if they didn't have reactions to upload.


The reactors re-upload other people's videos to increase their own exposure, to inspire greater interest in themselves and to satiate people's need for entertainment. If the reactors were unable to do this, viewers necessarily would need to be presented actual creators and their videos via the algorithm. 


The viewers would subsequently develop an interest in those creators instead, by the very same mechanisms they came to enjoy reactors in the first place. 


The people who end up watching do not come into existence to watch those reactions, they are pulled away from others in the market. 


There are obviously other visual videos in the billion on this platform that would appeal to the viewer's interests, and it is these that the reactions are seeking to compete with and ultimately win against. 


Supporting a system that enables some people to avoid any work and yet still outcompete you to usurp market share is not in your or anyone's best interests. No world is better where those who do the least are the most rewarded. 


'''Necrit:'''

To put it differently, if I release a video that presents information about a video game, either people decide to watch it because they are interested in the information, or they wait and watch it for the reaction, because they are interested in that reaction. Not necessarily the raw information. 


In this case, I wouldn't be losing viewers because those viewers were not likely to watch my video in the first place. 


The cases where people ARE interested in the original video and they STILL wait for the reactions are very rare. And it only ever happens if the audience of the original video and of the reaction dip into each other. In that case, people just watch their preferred creator.


'''(Back to Matt)'''

I think this presentation of the market and viewer knowledge is very misguided. 


Viewers are not perfectly rational agents with all knowledge who are equally likely to do anything regardless of the barriers to entry. 


In other words, people do not necessarily watch their preferred creator, they are more likely to watch whatever the algorithm presents to them. 


People generally take the path of least resistance, and in this case their path is created by an algorithm that favors channels that spam out 10 videos a day. 


Necrit seems to have their obsession with new videos and viewers waiting for reactions. People aren't just getting recommendations for newer videos, they're getting recommendations for older videos as well, in this case that being the insane horde of content that Asmongold has stolen over the last few years. 


Viewers don't need to wait for reactions, they already exist, and the algorithm isn't putting the original video alongside all its reactions and saying "hey, pick whichever one looks best".


But even when that does happen, for anyone who is even slightly interested in the watch party experience or the opinion of the reactor, the reaction is the superior version. 


Even in some magical hypothetical world where viewers always watch both the original and the reaction, you can likely still see the issue there. 


50 creators each spend one week making one video each. Asmongold then re-upload all 50 videos in a week because he doesn't need to spend any of the time or effort to actually make them. The result in this magical hypothetical world, which is to some people their ideal world, is that Asmongold would have 50 times the viewership of any of those individual creators.


Asmongold is a monstrous amalgamation of hundreds of creators he always has you covered regardless of your interests, and hey, the more of him you watch, the less of anyone else who will ever be recommended to you. Which of course is Asmongold’s fucking goal. 

When I found Josh Strife Hayes' channel, I loved his voice and style of video, so I binge watched effectively all of his content. Eventually, I did get to the end, I ran out of videos, and you know what I did then? I moved on. There wasn't any more content to watch, so I had no choice. I was therefore served recommendations for other creators, whose content I then developed an interest in. Sure, I will still catch some of his new videos, but because I moved on to other creators, I get recommended Josh's videos less. 


We can now compare this very normal state of affairs to what happens for anyone who watches Asmongold, who never runs out of high quality videos. Never. Even if a normal person dedicated their limited free time to watching every video that Asmongold uploaded, they would just forever fall behind, as more videos would continue to be uploaded so they would never reach the end.


If you like Asmongold, you have the option of watching him until you literally get sick of him, something you don't necessarily get for actual creators on this platform. Asmongold and Josh's content is very similar. In some cases, literally exactly the same, but Josh can never inspire as much interest and take as much market share as Asmongold can. 


Josh, burdened with the costs of creation, will never have sufficient output. 


It isn't just him. No one can have the kind of output that Asmongold has, because it requires hundreds of the most talented creators working round the clock for free. Due to Asmongold’s back catalog being effectively infinite, I can guarantee you that I personally watch more creators every week than anyone who likes his content. Why? Because I don't watch reactors! 


Consequently, not a week goes by where I'm not introduced to new creators, big and small, who I then start watching to meet my content needs. Asmongold viewers on the other hand don't have this experience, because the lion's share of what they watch is his content, so they just keep getting recommended his infinite back catalog. His viewers have commented on my videos explaining that their recommendation algorithm is completely screwed up and they just use him as their recommendation algorithm, which just digs them further into that hole.


A hardcore YouTube user like myself might watch 12 different creators in a day. Asmongold’s goal is for it to just be him. Which honestly isn't surprising, actual creators want that for themselves as well. 


What is impressive about Asmongold though, is that he's convinced a horde of people that his using them to achieve this for himself is in their best interest. Insane I know, but it gets worse when you realise that the Necrits of the world seem to believe that their greater prosperity is tied to creating more Asmongold like content farms trying to do this. 


In years past, it was insane to think that any creator would risk the backlash of making a content farm out of re-uploading other people's creative works. I was around 5 years ago and would listen to Asmongold defend himself when people would talk about his reactions on Twitch. He would say "Sure I do react to the occasional video on Twitch, but I don't post them to YouTube that's just fan channels that's nothing to do with me it's not me I swear." 


He knew it was scummy then, he knows it's scummy now, but it's so much money, so much growth and it's so easy. How the times have changed. 


Due to the efforts of Asmongold and his followers like Necrit, the tides have turned on this issue. There will come a day where every popular video is re-uploaded a thousand times and then, oh then finally will Necrit be in his paradise. 


While we have somewhat gotten sidetracked, it is important to remember that Necrit's goal was to weigh in on whether reactions are beneficial or harmful. So far he's merely tried to argue that there's no harm, which is not the same thing as arguing that there's a benefit. 


In fact a lot of what he has presented would actually be a justification for not expecting a significant benefit in terms of views on your video from a reaction. As we can see from the graphs he shows, there is no obvious magical view bump from when Asmongold reacted to his videos, and certainly if there was one, Necrit would have every reason to specifically point that out. 


This again highlights the abysmal click-through rate from the re-upload to the original video. So without any obvious sign of benefit, Necrit decides that he just needs to invent benefits that while he can't show them to you, you should nevertheless just trust they exist. 


'''Necrit:'''

Because people don't realize that reactions also have some benefits. Besides the fact that sponsored videos will be better. For example I put a manscaped sponsorship into one of my 100k videos, which got later grabbed by other creators and together they all multiplied the views six times. 


So they gave the sponsors just a bunch of free value. 


'''(Back to Matt)'''

Sponsors pay creators based on the return that they expect to get from their audience. They usually, at least initially, base their predictions on the views that their videos traditionally get. 


As you have no way of knowing how many reactions you will guess, let alone their analytics, you can't use them to argue for some sort of higher payments. Creators need views in order to get sponsors, so obviously creators don't benefit when reactors start spamming out reactions to drive traffic to their channels instead. 


Before you start, I am aware what I'm saying isn't directly addressing what Necrit said. He was after all not trying to argue that creators themselves receive benefit, but the corporations receive benefit. It is honestly wild that this was the first thing that he brought up. Reactions are great because corporations are getting free ad views that they're not paying for. On a site where the videos are funded by the billions of ads that are played each day. Corporations are getting free ad time guys, reactions are great.


Awful. 


'''Necrit:'''

But there are also other hidden benefits. And although these benefits don't immediately reflect on the channel, from the long term perspective they are irreplaceable. Every time someone picks up your video, it spreads awareness about you. And it is this awareness that might one day save your channel. 


In a similar way, when you make content and that content then spreads into other audiences, in this case through reactions, you will have more people who know about your existence. And as long as they remember you, the next time they pop up in your recommendations, they will be more likely to consume your content. 


If Necrit's assertion was true, that Asmongold caused people to watch other creators more, not less, his viewership would necessarily decline over time, because those who routinely watch his reactions get bombarded with like 50 faces a week. Even if they only started to watch a small portion of these new faces, they would quickly run out of time to watch asm.gold at all. But this doesn't happen. Asmongold as a middleman for exposure, does not make Google's billion dollar algorithm more efficient at presenting people with creators that they want to watch. The exposure Asmongold gives isn't free. It comes with the middleman cost of the native exposure going to Asmongold rather than someone else. This necessarily reduces the overall maximum amount of time that people can watch actual creators. 


This of course isn't unique to Asmongold. This is the cost that all reactors have as middlemen in this system. Reactors have the goal of indiscriminately convincing people to stop whatever they otherwise would be doing to watch them instead. 


News flash, these succeed in this goal. 


As the mechanism they grow through is the same one that creators do, the thing that they're going to impact the most is creators. They do not have the goal of convincing people to watch or do other things, and I'm tired of people pretending otherwise. 


Again, if they were actually successful in doing that, they'd stop reacting immediately because they'd run out of audience to push other places. Nekrit’s biggest problem though, is that he's not trying to argue that Asmongold’s reactions make things better for creators compared to a reality where they didn't exist. 


He is simply trying to say, "Positive outcomes may happen," and to that I say, "No shits." This is because every system ever implemented, if run long enough, would have some positive outcome at some point for someone. 


Nekrit never reaches the point of arguing that Asmongold spamming out 10 videos a day leads to other creators being watched more and discoverability being higher for them than the alternative where that didn't happen. 


His failure to do this is similar to saying, "Slot machines win people money sometimes, therefore slot machines are a great way for players to make money." It is just really obviously faulty reasoning. 


In the same way that you were better off never putting money in slot machines despite that you may sometimes win money, we would all be better off if reactions didn't exist, even if a tiny tiny minority are directed from the reactor to the original creator. In both cases, by specific design of the system, the cost to us in aggregate is to be higher than any potential reward. 


'''Necrit:'''

And this is the underappreciated result of React content. While in some cases you might argue that it is taking views away from the original videos, you can't deny that it is spreading awareness about the original creator. 


But it is undeniable that I can now continue doing what I loved doing because all the reactions gave me publicity. Even if I traded some views for it. Without it, this channel might have been dead already. 


Also I totally didn't make this video to promote my second channel, where we release all the cool stuff that we do on streams, which also might include some reactions, but we always give links to the videos. And at the end of the day, I gave people so much React content and I made people a lot of money.


So let me be the content leech for once.




'''(Back To Matt)'''

Necrit’s argument is the same as everyone else's when it comes to defending reaction content. But as is always the case, when the implicit premises are stated explicitly, it sounds impressively stupid. His argument is the bigger the content aggregators are, the more videos they upload, the more YouTube recommends them and the more viewers watch them, the better off everyone else will be. 


All those people who actually do the labour that fuels these channels will be rewarded eventually because the prosperity of those at the top will all trickle down to them one day. We all just need to work as hard as possible to get the algorithms to recommend reaction videos as much as possible, give all the exposure to reaction videos in fact, as we can trust that one day these people will stop watching reaction videos and oh boy when that day comes will the people who actually do the work to make these videos finally get some views. 


This is clearly much better than reaction videos just not existing and the native exposure of the platform just going directly to creators, cutting out that middleman entirely. 


Cause hey, as we all know, the easier it is for the rich to get richer, the better off everyone will be.


In conclusion, Nekrit’s video is nonsensical and contradictory. This is because he is trying his hardest to avoid the reality of an obviously imbalanced and exploitative relationship. 


Asmongold has spent years trading off parasocial relationships, fear of reprisal, ignorance of market dynamics and a need for validation from the famous to build his content farm. He has done this with the express goal of usurping market share away from others while expending as little effort as possible. 


Asmongold doesn't send viewers to other places to use their finite time, rather he pulls these viewers away from others in the market to maintain his elevated position. 


Every day countless thousands of channels have their videos reacted to by Asmongold-like content farms but they never end up sharing the pantheon with him. They remain in the dirt which is the place this system seeks to keep them. 


If reactors didn't each have their horde of creators working for free then they couldn't spam the algorithm meaning that less people would know who they are or care about them. 


The algorithms, not swamped by reaction videos, would necessarily have to recommend actual creators giving them the native exposure that was previously usurped. 


The result being that viewers would move onto creators that the algorithm is equally confident that they would want to watch. 


Reactors getting in the way of this by acting as the middleman for the native exposure on the platform helps no one but those reactors. 


The rich getting richer, doing less for more, does not benefit those who are left holding the bag of doing the actual work. Working for and supporting content farms in order to compete with them for viewership is a suckers game and does nothing but hurt us all. To those who disagree with me, I ask you the same questions that I always ask that people refuse to answer.


Imagine a world where YouTube had no reactions and therefore 100% of the impressions were exposing viewers to creators that they most likely want to watch. How are taking some of these impressions away from creators in order to promote reaction content benefit original creators? What percentage of native exposure would you take away from creators to give to reactors? 


So maybe you'd want to give creators 40% less exposure so the algorithm has some space to get people to watch reactors instead. Just give me a number and a reason why this change wouldn't just cause people to watch creators less. 


I absolutely agree, slot machines do pay you money, but you are a fool if you don't understand that what you're being paid is just a lesser amount of what is being taken from you. 


I want to be open and say that I dislike how much I've spoken about Asmongold in this series in general. My interest has never been in Asmongold specifically but the phenomenon of reaction content in general. It is just that coincidentally he has always somehow managed to be the easiest avenue and wish to discuss it. Although I guess that's in part because of how much he does it and how blatant he is with it like he has no shame. 


Unfortunately, I feel as though continuously bringing up Asmongold plays into this idea that you can assess reaction content as a whole by looking at one reactor's impact on one particular creator. Which is obviously quite silly.


Moreover I think Asmongold has always been a pretty open scumbag. He wears his pure self interest on his sleeve and he has openly stated that he will scam anyone if he feels he can get away with it. It isn't like Asmongold is trying to pretend to be a good person or is ignorant of how he's exploiting others. 


So on some level these videos inadvertently say "hey you know that openly bad person who his viewers think is based because he's open about being a bad person? Well he's actually a bad person.” 


This is not exactly an interesting revelation or something I particularly care about. But I do think this may be in part what inspires people like Nekrit to try and rationalize how they are not a part of the horde that he exploits. Sure, Nekrit is just one of the hundreds going on thousands of channels for Asmongold farms to avoid work and to gain free wealth and growth. But Nekrit isn't like those others. He's actually a very special boy that Asmongold really cares about. 


It even seems as though Nekrit aspires to be Asmongold as at the end of the video he says he wants to be a content leech. Supporting an unjust system in the hopes of one day reaping the benefits rather than suffering the negative aspects is not unheard of. 


Lastly I have to admit it is annoying to spend so many years writing on the harm of reaction content to then see people not address any of my arguments when they make a video in favor of reaction content. Although potentially it could be impossible for a person to cover my arguments in such a video because you know obviously I believe if you understood my arguments you wouldn't want to make such a video. At the end of the day though I do feel ill equipped to combat the problems that I perceive. The strength of my arguments or if I want to be arrogant the truth doesn't really matter. 


What is more important is my own influence and my skills at communication and let's face facts I suck at making this kind of content. I can write a great essay but speaking it into a camera is a terrible experience for me. 


After completing this video I still have another essay that I still haven't made a video on and honestly I think it will be my last. I finished both of these scripts 4 months ago but it has taken me that long to read even just one into a camera. 


Regardless thanks for watching I hope you enjoy the video I wish you all the best.