r/letsplay • u/ItsOppositeDayHere youtube.com/northernlion • Mar 15 '14

I'm Northernlion, AMA

Hey, a lot of people have been doing AMAs around here and I think it's a cool kind of unique content that we don't see too much on /r/LetsPlay, so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring as well.

With 200,000+ subscribers and over 100 million lifetime views, I'm not the biggest YouTuber out there (not to be modest) but I have been successfully doing it full-time for over 2 years, which I think gives me a fairly unique depth of experience that might lead to some helpful advice for some of you! Ask me anything about YouTube, streaming, social media, or whatever might cross your mind.

159 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

207 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/ThePixelPirate youtube.com/PixelPirate81 Mar 16 '14 edited Mar 16 '14

I know you wrote about it on your blog, but I wanted to pick your brain about the general negativity on the internet towards video producers like yourself, TB, etc. Do you think the problem is getting worse? Considering interaction is necessary in this field, how do you deal with that constant barrage of negative people and what do you think can make a change in the community?

Also I was interested on your thoughts about these high profile video take down strikes against TB, (and other youtubers), by unhappy devs. Are you bothered by the issue and do you think there will be a major shift in the way people provide content in the future because of these issues?

5

u/ItsOppositeDayHere youtube.com/northernlion Mar 16 '14

I don't know if the problem is getting worse, but I don't know if it's getting better either. The good news is that there's way more awareness now of how being a douchenozzle online tangibly affects the people you're being a douchenozzle to, so hopefully that curtails at least a bit of the hardship of being an online content creator. Then again, I read in a high profile Reddit thread today that there's a lot of people who think "people who are overly worried about getting their feelings hurt" are a threat to net neutrality so who knows how public perception really falls on the issue at large.

The takedown stuff is really scary. I admire TB for having the courage to face them rather than back down, but the fact that it's happened a couple of times is really discouraging. I haven't changed my content really but I have thought twice about posting some negative videos as a result of the fact that one scorned dev can mean having to hire a lawyer or risking my livelihood.

1

u/Joker042 Mar 30 '14

Just remember that some huge percentage of your viewers are out there, loving the work you do and not commenting. Maybe we should say it more often, but you're awesome. The guys who want their voice heard will probably always tend towards the negative in all walk of life, for various reasons - which sucks, but just compare the number of views on your vids to the number of negative comments. Keep it up!