orlamccools - Tumblr blog

[orlamccools]

its so disgusting that you actually have to practice skills to retain them. just stay in my brain for retrieval pleaaaaaaassssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[orlamccools]

Remember these terms for professions to help encourage gender neutral language!

[orlamccools]

[orlamccools]

[orlamccools]

The lights in the church are welcoming you home

North woods, Minnesota

[orlamccools]

We all understand wanting to leave YouTube. The issue here is, instead of just getting their own website and shifting the content, they are going full throttle on making their fans pay for every single aspect- including content they’d already been given for free, over multiple years.

Plenty of content creators have had their own content sites over the years, with free content and then content specifically for their paid tiers. Not unlike Patreon but everything in the same place. So that fans could enjoy their content, especially videos they’re already viewed and enjoyed for free, but they are getting their freedom and their subscriptions.

It’s a strictly business decision and that’s fine. I just hope they’re prepared for how many regular viewers they’re going to lose because people can’t afford this, or straight up just aren’t willing to pay for something they used to get to free.

[orlamccools]

watcher leaving youtube... for a streaming service????

[orlamccools]

Taylor Swift watching her ex on a location app because he forgot to turn it off I'm obsessed with you admitting that to the entire world.

[orlamccools]

that post thats like taylor swift is for people who have never gotten over anything in their lives ever is so true because tortured poets is really like well okay yeah fuck joe but really fuck matty oh also fuck you kim kardashian and while we're here fuck jake gyllenhaal too

[orlamccools]

You considered me racist and blocked me yet you let DieWhiteWoman reblog from you?

it's german for thewhitewoman

[orlamccools]

In Japanese, they don’t say “moon,” they say “tsuki,” which literally translates to “moon,” and I think that’s how language works.

[orlamccools]

*Dictating suicide note to my secretary who is typing it in on a big antique typewriter*

*Phone rings, i go to answer it*

Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. I see. Thanks. *hangs up*

Sharlene you can go ahead and cancel that, i've just been informed that We're Back

[orlamccools]

making creative content online is very difficult now, i get that. i get why online creators would want to pivot to SVOD, like lindsay ellis who is now exclusively on nebula and collegehumor/droupout tv. it is tough to create when you are beholden to the whims and fancies of advertisers. HOWEVER, i cannot in good conscience say i like what watcher is doing right now. it feels extremely scummy and slimy to move entirely to streaming, without a significant transitional period, and to also delete your entire channel backlog in the process. it also feels scummy to launch a separate streaming platform while you have an active patreon where you are making a significant amount of money from your patrons--patrons who are most likely the ones to purchase a Watcher TV Subscription in the first place. i think CH did as good a job you can do when transitioning from AVOD to SVOD. in my humble opinion, CH also had a lot more of a reason to pivot to longer form subscription-based content as the changing YT algorithm made their short-form scripted sketch comedy a less and less viable business venture which matters a lot when you are a company that has over 100 full-time employees (at the time, before IAC sold and subsequently led to the bankruptcy of CH in january 2020). this just doesn't sit right with me. i would love to be proven wrong but as it stands i don't think watcher tv's existence is justifiable. this is disappointing, but honestly? not that surprising.

[orlamccools]

i mean, what a slap in the face to your audience to tease and hype up a paywall of all things

[orlamccools]

Watcher TV

I literally don't have Prime, Hulu, Netflix, Max, Paramount, etc. as is because I can't afford it. I have no cable.

As a writer, I do believe creatives should be compensated but at the same time there's no way I can afford Watcher TV.

If this is what's right for them then they should at least leave their Youtube videos up instead of deleting them.

Another thing, if they want to be successful, they better be prepared to release lots of content frequently because the aforementioned streaming services have countless media to watch. Watcher can't survive on one or two episodes a week, if that much.

Especially because they'll be losing their international base as well. Which sucks for those fans. I'm so sorry.

Very disappointed. I wish y'all the best.

[orlamccools]

idk man i know times are hard but i can't help but feel that watcher putting all their eggs in the basket that is their own streaming service is a bad call. like sure i totally get wanting a platform where you have full control both creatively and financially but i feel they might be misjudging how much loyalty non-hardcore fans might have for what they're creating. in every internet fandom there's a subsection of people willing to pay with actual money to support the creators they enjoy, and that's what services like patreon are for. but to expect that casual viewers will sign up and pay a monthly fee to get access to just watcher content when a large portion of them were likely just watching the content because it was free and accessible on youtube assumes that someone who isn't a diehard fan won't just go "oh well" and find something else on youtube that IS still free? that seems like a miscalculation to me. the massive fanbases online content creators have may literally be only possible because the content is available to anyone-- it seems foolish to assume that every single one of those fans is going to stick around once you try to upsell them.

i hope this new venture goes well for the watcher crew. I really do. but i also know that a lot of brands and startups that bank on the loyalty they earned when their product was free or low cost and expect that to sustain them while they try to do something that historically has not gone well for the vast majority of businesses. at best, they'll have halved their fanbase by alienating those who can't or don't want to pay and made it much more difficult for remaining fans to create fandom products like memes or gifs that promote their shows on social media. at worst, they'll discover in the near future the independent streaming service model is unsustainable with only the fans they have left and by that point they'll have already deleted themselves from youtube and made it impossible to come back to the level of success they had before. any attempt to return to youtube will be an admission of a critical miscalculation and i doubt many remaining fans will tolerate the back and forth. they'll have crippled their credibility, relevancy, and fanbase loyalty over a very short period of time-- and i don't know if it would even be possible to come back and still be beloved after all that.

worst of all-- if the watcher streaming service crashes and burns after they've already removed all their content from youtube, all the watcher shows are essentially going to become lost media, only accessible via reuploaders willing to risk a copy strike or if you know someone who has a copy downloaded. given how genuinely good the watcher content is in the sea of lackluster youtube mush, that really seems like a damn shame.

i hope the watcher team sees how everyone is responding and decides to course correct before it's too late and get away with only the hit to their reputation that they've already taken by announcing this, instead of pushing forward on a path that might lose them everything instead. nothing i've said here is with any hate intended toward anyone involved or those who are excited about the new service, but this just seems like a really ill-advised decision to me.

[orlamccools]

you know what? i am 100% sure there will be plenty of people subscribing to watcher tv, but in my opinion the biggest impact will be the fandom’s respect. ofc i don’t see them giving up on this idea, but either way, i think lots of people see the boys in a different light now.