![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Today's Keyboard Smash
Dec. 31st, 2020 06:41 pmAs the year ends, I have something I would love to see end with it: using the term "underrated" as a pseudo-compliment.
I don't know if this is a broader trend or just something I've become aware of due to the sometimes prodigious quantity of Youtube videos I watch. But I've seen something again and again in the comments section of all manner of creative-type videos:
"This channel is so underrated!"
This is always meant as praise. The commenter loves the creator's stuff--woodturning or ASMR roleplays or watercolor painting or cooking tutorials--and this is part of how they express their admiration. Which is lovely, I suppose, except it makes me completely crazy every time I see it.
This typically isn't showing up on the absolute chart-topper channels in a given genre. But it's also not limited to some newbie with a tiny audience and nowhere to go but up. This comment gets unleashed on the midlisters and the "popular and possibly sponsored but not routinely viewed by the entire population of medium-sized countries"-level channels. People who are, in short, rated pretty goddamn well, thank you very much.
This makes me crazy on a couple levels. For one, it's just such a sad, backhanded compliment in the first place. "Your stuff is really good. Shame I'm one of the only people who thinks so." ...thanks???? I was all set to be happy to get some attention and praise, but now that you point out a chorus of millions isn't joining you, maybe I really shouldn't be.
The other aspect of it, though, is...deeper and possibly weirder of me and gets into some of my angst about the independent creator world and social media. The idea of being underrated implies there is a correct quantity of, say, views and subscribers a creator should be getting. That quantity is generally implied to be "infinite," but there's probably an actual quantity that can be achieved after which this sort of comment disappears from a creator's feed. Possibly a new media studies student out there is collating the data to identify that exact number, and if so, I wish them luck and much caffeine.
There's a strange sense of entitlement embedded in this term. As though a channel is owed a certain level of attention and something has gone wrong if it's not getting it. The comment becomes a kind of guilt boobytrap for anyone who comes along who hasn't subscribed/liked/commented/~smashed that bell~ or offered up whatever other demonstration of digital fealty. Have you made the proper offerings? If not, you're the reason this channel isn't getting its fair share.
The thing is, though...a channel might not be for everyone. Audiences, like people in general, are finite. Reach is limited to some much smaller subset of all of space-time. Your next bookbinding time-lapse video shouldn't be judged a failure if it isn't viewed by more people than currently exist on planet Earth. Maybe there are only ten people in the world who are into the exact thing you are making, and you've managed to get five of them subscribed to your channel. Amazing! Glorious! You have found your audience!
But of course, five people probably aren't going to be able to pay you (be it through ad views or patronage or whatever) enough to quit your day job. Five people won't make you go viral and end up on the local five o'clock news, where the weatherman will awkwardly pretend to understand what's going on when they cut from your video to the weekend forecast. Five people aren't going to impress The Algorithm. Which in turn is going to actively make it harder for you to get your video in front of the other five. This is the point where I usually dissolve into hysterics and sad bleating noises.
The idea of "underrated" fundamentally opposes the world I would like to see: one where everyone who wants to has the means and opportunity to make the stuff they're into and share it with fans of that, without that process being ruthlessly monetized and leveraged and granted a lifespan based solely on its capitalist worth.
Let people enjoy their weird passions, their useless hobbies, their unprofitable niches. Tell them you love it. Leave off the speculation about how many other people ought to love it too.
I don't know if this is a broader trend or just something I've become aware of due to the sometimes prodigious quantity of Youtube videos I watch. But I've seen something again and again in the comments section of all manner of creative-type videos:
"This channel is so underrated!"
This is always meant as praise. The commenter loves the creator's stuff--woodturning or ASMR roleplays or watercolor painting or cooking tutorials--and this is part of how they express their admiration. Which is lovely, I suppose, except it makes me completely crazy every time I see it.
This typically isn't showing up on the absolute chart-topper channels in a given genre. But it's also not limited to some newbie with a tiny audience and nowhere to go but up. This comment gets unleashed on the midlisters and the "popular and possibly sponsored but not routinely viewed by the entire population of medium-sized countries"-level channels. People who are, in short, rated pretty goddamn well, thank you very much.
This makes me crazy on a couple levels. For one, it's just such a sad, backhanded compliment in the first place. "Your stuff is really good. Shame I'm one of the only people who thinks so." ...thanks???? I was all set to be happy to get some attention and praise, but now that you point out a chorus of millions isn't joining you, maybe I really shouldn't be.
The other aspect of it, though, is...deeper and possibly weirder of me and gets into some of my angst about the independent creator world and social media. The idea of being underrated implies there is a correct quantity of, say, views and subscribers a creator should be getting. That quantity is generally implied to be "infinite," but there's probably an actual quantity that can be achieved after which this sort of comment disappears from a creator's feed. Possibly a new media studies student out there is collating the data to identify that exact number, and if so, I wish them luck and much caffeine.
There's a strange sense of entitlement embedded in this term. As though a channel is owed a certain level of attention and something has gone wrong if it's not getting it. The comment becomes a kind of guilt boobytrap for anyone who comes along who hasn't subscribed/liked/commented/~smashed that bell~ or offered up whatever other demonstration of digital fealty. Have you made the proper offerings? If not, you're the reason this channel isn't getting its fair share.
The thing is, though...a channel might not be for everyone. Audiences, like people in general, are finite. Reach is limited to some much smaller subset of all of space-time. Your next bookbinding time-lapse video shouldn't be judged a failure if it isn't viewed by more people than currently exist on planet Earth. Maybe there are only ten people in the world who are into the exact thing you are making, and you've managed to get five of them subscribed to your channel. Amazing! Glorious! You have found your audience!
But of course, five people probably aren't going to be able to pay you (be it through ad views or patronage or whatever) enough to quit your day job. Five people won't make you go viral and end up on the local five o'clock news, where the weatherman will awkwardly pretend to understand what's going on when they cut from your video to the weekend forecast. Five people aren't going to impress The Algorithm. Which in turn is going to actively make it harder for you to get your video in front of the other five. This is the point where I usually dissolve into hysterics and sad bleating noises.
The idea of "underrated" fundamentally opposes the world I would like to see: one where everyone who wants to has the means and opportunity to make the stuff they're into and share it with fans of that, without that process being ruthlessly monetized and leveraged and granted a lifespan based solely on its capitalist worth.
Let people enjoy their weird passions, their useless hobbies, their unprofitable niches. Tell them you love it. Leave off the speculation about how many other people ought to love it too.
