Thousands of Readers, But Who Cares?
Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 2:32PM YouTube video on why lots of YouTube content creators are suffering burnout and quitting.
Because the idea that the internet allows you to do without gatekeepers is a myth. Today, there are more gatekeepers with more power than ever before. It’s just now they’re the recommendation algorithms of TikTok, YouTube et al. rather than the humans that content creators needed to appeal to in the past: the record label execs, movie industry producers and so forth.
And because you can have 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube. But unless you are capable of making someone money, or winning them some awards, nobody in the creative industries cares.
Are there any lessons here for academics? Especially given so many are burning out and quitting too.
Should we be so surprised if operating in alternative ways to the legacy industries and institutions does not lead to thriving within them over the longer term? Doing so is only a ‘dead end’, surely, if what we really want is to be taken up and accepted by them on their (money-making, awarding winning) terms.
Which leads to the next question provoked by this video: is the point ultimately to be happy within the current western academic industrial complex as it has been generated by the traditional institutions plus the ‘shiny new creator economy’, or is it to change it?
Both would be nice, of course. But is that realistic? Is it even possible?