Do you have actual evidence for Kurzgesagt being among PE-owned channels, or are you just extrapolating? Because the video you linked doesn’t mention them, and a quick search didn’t turn up anything about that.
Comment on kurzgesagt – AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks agoThey are owned by private equity? It’s pretty common these days for the more popular YT channels. Veritasium, Astrum, Fireship, fern., and Hoog are some other examples. Basically, if it’s a popular YT channel, it’s either owned by PE, in negotiations to be acquired by PE, or pursued by a PE firm in the hopes that they can acquire it. Private equity is accelerating their acquisitions, actually, and they want to control everything that captures the attention of viewers.
Here’s a video that talks about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ-rRXWhElI
hikaru755@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
AceBonobo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I don’t see any evidence of that, as well.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
extrapolating
Interesting way to say “making shit up”
hikaru755@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Didn’t want to be too combative from the start lol
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
if most of your money comes from billionaires and you admit to making propaganda videos for them, you’re owned by private equity. it doesn’t matter how much you or they argue about how that isn’t technically true because it’s not officially on paper.
hikaru755@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Like it or not, words have meaning, and black and white thinking is comfortable, but doesn’t help anyone. There is still a massive difference between the gates foundation having a 0.5% stake in Kurzgesagt and them being “owned” by PE, and pretending otherwise just means you’re not actually interested in any kind of productive discussion.
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
When you sell your soul to the devil, it’s gone forever. And I never implied I was interested in “productive discussion”. I said what I said because I’ve seen what evidence there is and have made my own conclusions. I never said I was interested in debating.
RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
There’s an incredible amount of money in those offers. Years ago Linus Tech Tips got an offer of 100m, so I get why people take the money.
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
I mean, I would probably sell the channel myself. That’s a lifechanging amount of money. I would buy some land deep in the backcountry, build a little walled village, and invite my family and friends to come live there. Grow our own food, set up some solar panels and wind turbines, buy up plenty of guns and ammo, and see if we couldn’t hunker down and live out the ever more likely downfall of the American economy in relative peace.
Valmond@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You had me up to “lots of guns and ammo”.
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
if you wanna just have boards with rusty nails and maybe a baseball bat for defense when trump takes the mask completely off and his raving followers form pogroms to round up people who aren’t loyal to him, then I will say something nice in your memory when the time comes.
Voyajer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sport shooting is fun
Sxan@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
What if I want only lots of guns and ammo, wiþout all þe oþer cult commune stuff? Is þat Ok?
FabioTheNewOrder@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So basically you would turn yourself in a mini-me version of Zuckenberg, Musk and Bezos. Given this consideration I would reassess my life priorities if I were you
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
the priority would be the lives of my friends and family. that is a priority that will not change as long as I draw breath, no matter what anyone thinks.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
A hundredth of that is a life-changing amount of money.
circuscritic@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Anyone down voting this should be ashamed of themselves.
Like deeply and personally ashamed.
The type of shame that follows them for the rest their lives, because that’s how scummy you’d have to be in order downvote someone shining a light on how private equity is buying out major YouTube channels.
Something that I was entirely unaware of, and appreciate your comment regarding.
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
I get it. They like the channel, and don’t want to think that a channel they love could do something they don’t love. Or maybe some of them don’t see it as a bad thing in the first place.
Me, I’m the opposite. I want to know who owns the media I consume, because I want to know who might be influencing the things I see. It’s always better to have the whole truth, even if that truth hurts. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the channel still, it just means you’re better prepared to understand the context of anything that that channel might say. Even cold hard facts with empirical evidence can be propaganda, depending on how it’s presented.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Except you lied about who they are owned by.
Why make yourself out to be virtuous and caring about the truth when your entire premise is a lie?
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
I never made myself out to be virtuous, nor do I care about what you think of me. I’m an asshole, and that’s fine because I love me exactly how I am and don’t need random strangers on the internet for validation. and I certainly don’t care about what you think of them making propaganda videos. I wouldn’t even still be in this thread if you guys weren’t still throwing a tantrum about somebody calling out your precious favorite YouTube channel for their less-than-stellar quality and tendency to pander to billionaires.
I posted my opinion, you got butthurt over it. that’s as far as this conversation is ever going to go, because I don’t care about you enough to bother arguing it extensively. now why don’t you take your sci-fi antisemitic trope of a username and get out of my mentions.
hikaru755@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Bringing this general issue up in a thread about Kurzgesagt, without also providing evidence that Kurzgesagt specifically is actually part of that issue, is at best irrelevant and at worst misleading though
Damage@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
You wrote all that shit and forgot that accusations like that need proof.
circuscritic@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
The video which made the accusations, not me, provided sources for all of their claims.
Did you even look?
Sorry, that was rhetorical, obviously you did not look.
toynbee@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What are Astrum, Fireship and Hoog?
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
Other YouTube channels? I said that.
toynbee@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes, and also I was able to extrapolate that much, but I was looking for some idea of what kind of content they provided.
That said, I can look them up; apologies for bothering you on the matter.
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
oh, sorry, I misunderstood your question. Veritasium and Astrum are science channels, Fireship covers programming. fern. and Hoog do what I guess you could call deep dive videos on all sorts of topics. everything from how the North Korean king travels, to how that giant hotel aquarium broke several years ago. it’s pretty random with them.
umbraroze@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Astrum makes space stuff videos? I dunno, been a while.
Fireship makes videos about programming. Has series about “(Programming language/Framework) explained in 100 seconds”, for example. I think people are complaining that the channel is slipping into AI dudebroery.
Hoog is a history/explainer type channel, I think.
toynbee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Thanks for the information!
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
No wonder veritasium has felt “off” for me for a good while as well. A few years ago I deliberately stopped watching that channel, seems there was a deeper reason behind my superficial reasons and gut feelings
minimum@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
The content is higher-quality, more like a TV product. But it’s still pretty solid. Good analogies and intuitive explanations.
socsa@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
He basically only makes “why everyone except me is wrong about X” content now, and it’s super smug and obnoxious.
Iceman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They seem to use the “shotgun” future in Youtube for titles and Thumbnails. Having the a bunch of different titles and and thumbnails and eventually sticking with the combo that drives the most engagement.