I know this is off-topic, but I wanted to write this blogpost. Has Google created a monster with its YouTube service, and their policy of paying popular YouTubers according to viewership levels?
Not too long ago, there was a big fuss over a popular YouTuber who was earning millions of dollars from his controversial video antics, Logan Paul (he earned a staggering 12.5 million dollars in 2017, according to Forbes). With YouTube, has Google created an unhealthy culture, with people saying or doing anything in order to get popular? And building up some people’s false hopes that they, too, can become Internet famous like Logan Paul?
According to a news report from SFGate about the shooter, Nasim Aghdam:
On a website consisting of a collage of photos and video posts, many of them about her vegan beliefs, Aghdam rails against YouTube for restricting views on her videos and for what she said was skimping on revenue driven by the traffic to her YouTube page.
You can see a short video clip of her complaining about her treatment at this news report from the U.K.’s Telegraph website.
It seems pretty clear that this woman felt “cheated” of fame and money by YouTube, and she took her grudge (and a gun) to a courtyard of the company and started shooting, injuring three people before killing herself. This is a tragic story, but was it preventable? Probably not. You can’t predict that something like this would happen.
But I’m sure that Google executives must be having some sober second thoughts about the YouTube culture they have created, and the negative impact that YouTube celebrity is having on society.
