So I think we already know the outlines of the typical criticisms of Breadtube, namely that it’s vaguely-leftist content that focuses on cultural critique and gives a nod to socialist theory here and there but it doesn’t actually achieve anything and it’s just a media-consumption demographic with no moves towards anything that resembles on the ground organising and activism. (Obviously there are a few outliers but as a rule this generally holds true.)
I dipped out of Breadtube years ago for plenty of reasons but I just posted on Lemmygrad criticising the SPD Three Arrows movement which prompted me to have a look at the Breadtuber Three Arrows and they have done exactly the same thing that Contrapoints and a lot of other large figures in this genre have done:
They build up a healthy Patreon base and then their content drops off to like a couple of videos a year, if that, while continuing to draw off a personal salary which rivals that of a full-time worker.
In the past two years Three Arrows has produced 4 videos, amounting to less than 4.5 hours of runtime all up.
That’s staggering for someone who is getting over 60k a year, at the most conservative estimate.
Likewise Contrapoints claimed to be getting 20k a month and she’s putting out like 1-2 videos a year. And there’s plenty of other examples of this too.
Imagine what could be done if people supported their local grassroots organisations instead of paying boatloads of cash for their twice-yearly YouTube treats smh.
It’s not just Breadtube. This is a chemistry Youtuber I’ve been following since 2015. At the very beginning, he averaged more than one video a week. Then it became two videos a month, then a video a month, then a video every two months, and now this. At this point, he mostly posts shorts and B-footage where he’s not even doing chemistry. Or how about the gamer Youtuber Superbunnyhop? Ten years ago, he averaged at least two videos a month, then the same thing happened. His last video is over 9 months ago, he has a podcast that’s apparently on hiatus, and his last Patreon is over a year old.
This is just the Youtuber playbook. You start out just making videos as a hobby, it becomes a side gig as you grind out videos and invest your video earnings into better equipment and editing software, and it becomes big enough that you can go full time. At a certain point, you use your platform to either pivot towards a podcast or livestream that has less overhead, requires less effort, and is less susceptible to writer’s block due to being topical while still getting passive income from your past videos or you semi-retire and coast on your passive income while pushing out two videos a year so people know you haven’t fully retired.
Contrapoints et al are semi-retired. They’re not going to produce the rate they used to because they’re not working full time anymore. It’s like someone going from making $200k/yr to $100k/yr but they only have to show up in the office half the time. They can coast in semi-retirement because enough rubes are willing to throw money at them. I think Contra and most Breadtubers suck, but they suck because of their pre-retirement and semi-retirement content, not because they’re seizing an opportunity at early retirement.
Yeah the NileRed -> “here’s a short showing ferrofluid cause it’ll get 2mil views on tiktok” and “I spent $5k buying a bunch of NIST certified testing ingredients and clumsily mashing them in a beaker to make the world’s shittiest ‘purest’ cookie” clickbait videos pipeline has been tragic but I suppose in all honesty, even as a certified chemist, there’s only so much chemistry reaction/synthesis content you can do before you either start extracting DMT with naptha for views or eventually start getting visits from your local PD or kill yourself converting motor oil into chewing gum or something.
But 100% agree it is the general Youtuber playbook. HBomberguy is another example - although I am more willing to give creators like him & FoldingIdeas (and even ones who aren’t really pushing patreons/podcasts/etc but instead trying to build an actual documentary career, like Defunctland, and as a result take like a year between videos) more leeway because A.) Their videos usually are feature-film length and well-researched, but also very niche genres/topics so it is understandably hard to find topics to discuss at length & B.) If they do have patreons, they’re usually posting stuff to it and they’re typically like $1-5 for all the content excluding like the bullshit ‘get your name in my video credits’ or ‘get access to my discord’. But again, Hbomberguy has 13,000 patreons and even at his cheapest $2/mo tier, that’s $26k/mo so like $300k/year and he last posted a video to Youtube in Nov 2022 & has made 3 Patreon posts since then, one being an hour long video about Myst for backers and the other being the first 90 minutes of his next upcoming video.
Feel like there are like three (maybe more, but I’m on my lunch break and not trying to spend the entirety posting on Hexbear about youtubers) well-tread paths a Youtuber can take these days:
A: The Patreon-less sponsor-funded route with an actual team of people working under/for you. (I’m thinking Tom Scott, Wendover Productions, etc) I’m imagining usually that most of these creators aren’t making a TON of money but they’re usually the ones getting invited to places by like Bill Gates to record videos about stuff that few other creators will ever have a chance at getting access to, so they see consistent revenue from Youtube and sponsors as a result & that can build into doing stuff outside of the platform like Tom Scott’s various BBC stuff.
B: The Patreon-centric route where it is typically just the creator and maybe various editors/writers/camerapeople they hire as needed for videos. They’re making a bunch usually on Patreon and this eventually shows in equipment, editing software, etc like you’ve mentioned. Videos tend to taper off but they release as needed to keep the Patreon money flowing or try other things like podcasting, etc.
C: The “I’m just doing this for fun really” creator who invariably gets millions of subs from their genuinely interesting/well-shot videos. KiwamiJapan, Rescue & Restore, Histocrat, etc who all likely have actual jobs or other hobbies, post like the wind (which can come and go in frequency, as wind does), and don’t really seem to care about monetization or sponsors.
I’ve been thinking about these Youtubers, and I think like you said, it boils down to whether they have a life outside of Youtube, career-wise and artistic-wise. Videos made by people trying to be Youtubers as a career path just feels different. There’s also a case where a content creator is focused to another site, usually Twitch or Tiktok, but has a Youtube channel for highlights. Those videos also feel pretty different.
These Youtube channels are from people who have lives outside of Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@Aliantos/
https://www.youtube.com/@sci-inspi/
https://www.youtube.com/@11foot8plus8/
And 99 percent of those podcasts are just incoherent stream of conscious ramblings that could be edited down to 10 minutes of worthwhile content There’s at best one person there you want ro hear from while some #2 constantly interrupts with unfunny jokes.