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DarkViperAU-Essays

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DarkViperAU:

Right, so I'll try it even simpler. Let's say we have two different realities here in this reality. xQc doesn't use other people's labor to keep himself live longer. He has to expend more energy making a visual content himself so he can't stream as long. So he goes offline. And so all these viewers are like, “Ah, shit, well we've gotta go find something else to do and I still want cement entertainment.”. So they go to this content creator, this content where this graph, “Oh, I've never seen this content creator before.”, and some people go there, there. And so all these viewers will scatter to all these other content creators, right? And this is how things should be.

In this reality, xQc can use high quality content that he himself cannot create to keep himself live as long as possible. Whilst normally he'd have to edit for 20 hours. He can just watch a video for 20 minutes. So he stays live far, far longer. And so all these viewers stay here and because he has more viewers, he's online, other people are finding him too, rather than other content creators. And he gets bigger and bigger, keeps getting recommended. But some of them might say, “Oh, that video xQc is showing… Is that interesting content? I, I can't really tell. May, may, maybe, maybe I’m interested in that. I'm not sure.”, but some of them go check that out. So xQc gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger off the stolen content and a little bit trickles down to everyone else. It's the trickle down theory of react economics.

So all these viewers who came in 'cause xQc was stealing content, would of course go to other content creators, this guy, this guy, this guy. But because xQc can act as a focal point and capture all these people and give a tiny amount here, it looks like he's doing something great.

Charlie:

But nothing he proves shows that the reaction, like the reactors and their content are taking eyeballs away from other content creators online that have nothing to do with that space.

DarkViperAU:

We have two realities. People don't go to see a movie and people do go to see a movie. My claim is if they don't go to see a movie, they will do other things. This is not a claim that needs demonstration. It is true because those people wouldn't cease to exist if ‘''Spider-Man: No Way Home''’ didn't exist, then those people would do other things. Some of which will be baseball, Netflix, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch. You can see how that's just obviously true, so we can put that now with react content. If react content didn't exist, then those people would do other things. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, except in the premise that react content shouldn't exist. Everything react content takes is taken from these people, whoever they are, wherever they are. That's just logically true. Unless Charlie wants to claim that the people who watch react content would literally explode. This has to be true by necessity. Therefore, you can understand if react content didn't exist, literally everything else would benefit.

Because people would spend their time doing other things and accepting my premise that the reactions are exploitive and shouldn't exist, then they are stealing from everything else. This is why I didn't talk about YouTube specifically. I talked about the online creator economy.

Charlie:

Truly disgusting thing to do at the end of it, where he claims that reactors are on the same levels, as sexual abuse criminal, who would spike someone's drink in whatever other disgusting shit he said. And all reactors are bad people.

DarkViperAU:

My point was consent matters, and the idea of asking consent after you've already done the thing is clearly not good. That is not how consent works, and I made flippant offhand examples like I didn't even say it explicitly. My exact words were at the very end to highlight the absurdity of that position.

“''If you meet a reactor at a party, I suggest covering your glass or outright tell them you don't want them to fuck you, because they seem keen to take a person's silence for consent.''”

Again, hearkening back to the idea that it's okay to take another person's content without consent 'cause they have yet to say no. That was the analogy. It was hyperbole. To explain the absurdity of that idea of consent, the idea of doing something that you know someone might not be okay with not asking for consent and then stopping only when they say no is not how consent works.

“While reactors dismiss the idea of paying workers for their labour, or giving them a say over who can profit from it, they will also attack the idea of informed consent as a concept. Stating that they will steal as much of a person's labour as they desire before the person finds out and tells them to stop. In other words, if you feel pressured to not cause a fuss about someone stealing your content (perhaps due to fearing the powerful reactors and their audience will threaten your livelihood with backlash) or if you are not knowledgeable enough to say no (you don't know another person is out there exploiting your labour) or if you physically can't say no (maybe because a reactor has spiked your drink at a party) a reactor believes they can do whatever they want to you. Consent to reactors means they can do whatever they want to you unless that you have explicitly told them no. Going to a party with a reactor must be a scary thing.”

These are flippant comments to explain the absurdity of that idea of consent.

I want MoistCr1TiKaL to come out and say it is perfectly fine to do something to another person that they may not like. You do not need to ask for consent. And you can do that thing as many times as you want, and then when they say no, then you stop. I want him to come out and say, that is what consent is. He won't, of course, either what you're doing is okay and you do not need consents or you need consent and you should ask for it first. There's no middle ground. You either need it or you don't. It's not saying that only matters after you do what you wanna do.

I just wanna say thank you, Charlie, for not even linking the document, making it so your misrepresentations will be found by the least amount of people. Can you imagine making a response video to a video that doesn't even exist? Misrepresenting it for 25 minutes and then making sure that it is as hard as possible for people to find out that you're misrepresenting it. If you like, I will update my position on Charlie. Charlie is a person who does bad things, that he doesn't understand the bad. Maybe he does actually have good intentions and he does not understand how he's exploiting people. I just find it hard to believe that a person can see another person work 500 hours on a piece of work, take it, give that person no money, and then get yourself 20 grand off it and feel like you don't owe that person anything. Of course, I will applaud Charlie by coming out ahead of my video. He can undercut it so heavily that it will no longer be taken seriously. The ideas within it will not be looked at with an open mind.

Good job using your platform to crush down descent against your empire of unpaid labor. I'm sorry that I personally think that if a person spends a fuck ton of labor on something that you as a multi multimillionaire should give them some money. I know I am screwed because the average person does not understand the complicated dynamics of how these online platforms work. But oddly, it seems Charlie doesn't understand either. Which both explains the last video that he made where he was terribly wrong, and this one where he's even more wrong. How can a person have gone this far in their career and understand so little about the platforms that they use?

Understand this was brief. I didn't spend much time arguing for my position, simply explaining it. The document argues for it. If you feel like you still don't understand my point, or you still disagree with it, Read it. The link will be in the description. It annoys me 'cause it's meant to be a draft script for a video that I would eventually make. So obviously I would've expanded upon it, but I guess I don't get that luxury now 'cause Charlie has stolen that from me, just like he steals from everyone else. You may still disagree after that point, but at the very least you'll understand my point, which Charlie clearly does not.

Sources:

Original 14 page document [https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRid-d3hQpDnTpAlIBWICuZO4J_C2j0FX-PqT2HPEGLDpTy_jhebAiXbBtn-6OwdPvY_mj0VYDfkHPj/pub How The React Grift Works By DarkViperAU (google.com)]

penguinz0’s response to the document [https://youtu.be/FAPDd-cB8Do]

penguinz0’s video about short form content [https://youtu.be/MVxzuE392n4]

DarkViperAU’s response [https://youtu.be/HvrbBz-8FBA]

Ludwig’s video about short form content [https://youtu.be/k4hdXDqJS_I]

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 [https://www.youtube.com/@mst3k]

Diagram #1 [https://imgur.com/a/zspQdDF Imgur: The magic of the Internet]

Diagram #2 [https://imgur.com/a/vwlSTft Imgur: The magic of the Internet]

Ray William Johnson [https://www.youtube.com/@RayWilliamJohnson]

penguinz0 YouTube statistics [https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCq6VFHwMzcMXbuKyG7SQYIg Social Blade Stats]

xQc’s Twitch statistics [https://twitchtracker.com/xqc/subscribers TwitchTracker]

xQc’s YouTube statistics [https://socialblade.com/youtube/c/xqcow_ Social Blade Stats]

xQc’s livestream [https://www.twitch.tv/xqc]

Why I Spoke Out Against Reaction Content - Feat. MoistCr1tikal

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRXtBniKtHk Why I Spoke Out Against Reaction Content - Feat. MoistCr1tikal]

DarkViperAU:

Hey everyone. I tried to set up like a teleprompter and stuff and read from it so it didn't look like I was reading from a script. I sucked at it. So just, you know, just listen to this in audio or something. 'cause I'm gonna be reading a script. Response videos, wow!

Hello everyone. This is a response to Cr1TiKaL’s response to my response to his response, which was a response to my draft script I made for a video. We may chat afterwards, but I think this video will help give the rest of you some context about this whole scenario.

As many of you know, on more than one occasion, I've come out swinging against the idea of react content. A few years ago, I made videos responding to Asmongold's defense of React content, and this experience taught me. While his arguments were very poor, it was probably wrong to single him out for doing it as this sort of content is an epidemic that has only gotten worse. In fact, while I've spoken to Asmongold privately and I do believe he knows what he's doing is wrong, he still does the same react content he always has. Despite this, I still decided should this topic ever come up again. I would speak more generally. I would not focus on one particular content creator.

So recently, Hassan Pike has said many frankly horrible things on his stream, highlighting that he feels entitled to use any other person's labor exclusively for his own profit and without their consent. I found this frankly humorous coming from a socialist, given that socialism is directly opposed to such ideas believing bare minimum that profit should be shared among the workers, and workers should have a say over who can profit from their labor. The reason there are references to capitalism and spiking people's drinks in that script was originally because they related to particular things Hassan said in his stream, explaining the flaws in his reasoning. However, I wanted to be general, so I scrubbed specific references to a sign from the script and referenced a group of people whenever I felt it necessary to highlight the sort of creator or content I was referring to. In the 14 pages I referenced that group of content creators three times.

So why was I mad in my response to Cr1TiKaL's video? I wrote a script arguing that reactors are exploiting the labor of original content creators and what benefit reactors claim to give to others is ultimately illusory. While some individual content creators benefit, as a whole original content creators are worse off and I consider this an indisputable fact given the nature of how the online content creator marketplace works. Cr1TiKaL's video, however, painted my impassioned writings as ‘DarkViperAU called MoistCr1TiKaL a Rapist’. It was the first thing he did, and he maintained this throughout. This was not the response I expected, although that is largely because I expected no response at all. I was not happy that a significant portion of the discussion around something I was very passionate about and a script I was quite proud of was being reduced to whether or not reactors are out there raping people. This is at best a misunderstanding of two lines in the whole document, and so I rightly considered this to be exceptionally uncharitable.

MoistCr1TiKaL is not a bad person. He is correct to say that many of the general statements I made about reactors in regards to their motivations probably do not apply to him. This is of course, the downside of speaking generally, I was at the time very angry. I would hope under better circumstances I would've been willing to admit that Cr1TiKaL's motivations likely differ from others. Rather than simply doubling down and implying everyone who does react content is the same. It would be more correct to say that all reactors are doing a bad thing as opposed to all reactors are bad people. Less catchy though. In saying that, there is an outcry against reactors like every few years. I understand why viewers don't understand why it's harmful, but reactors probably shouldn't be continually hearing this outcry and still concluding there is nothing suss going on. In Cr1TiKaL's newest video he said that if he linked to my text document, he'd run the risk of people dog piling me. It's a text document with absolutely no links to anything related to me. There isn't even a comment section. That's just silly.

It is not conceivable that you looked at the document and said, oh, if I showed people this, there'd be some dog piling on that DarkViperAU. You probably just didn't think about it. In reference to my Twitter exchange with one of my viewers, I understand that you may take umbrage with these words that I wrote after the fact for a different purpose, and that is fine. But your presentation of these words were as if this was the main thesis of my script. It is what you dedicated the first six minutes of your video discussing and brought it up many times after that whilst calling my script an unhinged rant. Many people came away sincerely believing all I was doing was saying reactors are rapists, and that's absurd.

While I'm reading this script, I realize I mainly just pointed things that I disagree with. Obviously, it was a very good response video, as in, because I'm only highlighting my disagreements, it may seem like I'm being overly critical of Charlie. Now, that's not my intention. I appreciate his response. In regards to your video about short form content, I was being kind due to promising myself to not start drama this year. I, of course, failed. Not in the way that I expected. Your entire video is wrong because you sought to show what sort of money people get from short form content, concluding it was next to nothing. Which is false. You even included a recommendation that you shouldn't make short form content for that purpose. People in the comments section were saying things like, Whoa. I had no idea Beluga made no money, and I really respect that ‘Daily Dose of Internet’ guy now, insinuating that he too makes no money.

The main problem with your video, Charlie, is that you never explicitly defined what short form content was. So if viewers assumed every video under eight or 10 minutes made no money. You also implied that multiple times. The video not only gives a false perception of what content creators make, but also steers content creators away from making content that could actually be profitable for them. I'm also not sure why you kept jumping between eight and 10 minutes for the necessary length to get money. You can get mid-rolls after eight minutes, so that's all that matters. Even if some information in the video is accurate, it doesn't matter.

Your primary goal to show what short content channels make doesn't happen in that video, and your recommendations are incorrect. Thus it should not remain on your channel. Like if the video had been “Hey, I make no money from #shorts content”, aces.

But it isn't that. Charlie argues that I should have expected the outcome that my script would be given to creators and a response would happen. I disagree that this was a reasonable expectation. Even in hindsight, I still don't think it would've been reasonable to expect. Key to notice is that no one else listed in that document made a video. Hassan does what he always does when people point out that he's a greedy, exploitive capitalist, who is the product of gross nepotism and grasps people by claiming to be a socialist. He threw a hissy fit on stream and called me some mean names. If I had mentioned someone else's name in that group other than you, perhaps putting Mizkif there, he probably deserves to be there more than you do. Than Mizkif would've gone on stream gone “LOL I'm not reading this, this guy is dumb” and then it would've ended.

While I am relatively speaking, a very large creator, I'm still not normally front page news. I say things all the time that if a larger content creator said them, it would be all over LivestreamFail and everyone would be throwing a hissy fit. Everything I said in that document I have said a dozen times over the years. No one cared. I was more interested in getting the script outta my head than anyone actually reading it, because when I get a script in my head, as rare as that is, it distracts me from my more important work until I give it to someone. I was, and still am. very proud of that script, and I think it is a good read. But I didn't expect anything more than a tiny fraction of my normal Rambles audience to actually read it. Although arguably many people were just going off a brief summary that I put near the actual link to the document, so maybe not many people read it actually.

I have received many messages from creators tired of react content suggesting that my words will achieve substantive change. I disagree. As much as I appreciate Charlie suggested changes to his own content. Content aggregation. By that I mean, bringing all the good content to one place is very profitable, and the service is appreciated by some viewers, even if it ultimately does exploit those who made the content in the first place. As long as it is possible to make money this way, as long as there's a market for it, it will never truly die. Thus, I consider my script more like an old man. Just wanting people to understand the hellscape we find ourselves in, rather than “Let us pick up arms and throw the reactors on the fire!”. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to be wrong, if that figuratively happens and everyone just abandons all the reactors, aces.

Charlie references my analogies and suggests they were not good. References to spiking people's drinks were good analogies. But without their original context, I will grant that they may not have been as clear as they otherwise would've been. But even looking at them now, I still think they're quite clear. When the script was released, the most I heard from one person was that they could be taken in the wrong way. But I wasn't motivated to change them because I wanted to get back to my actual work. I honestly didn't give them any thought as they were, but two lines on 14 pages.

Statements that imply “If they haven't said no yet, then I have consent” are terrible. As it would necessarily have to imply that other terrible acts are also justifiable, which is what those references show, and what I further try to clarify on Twitter. This does not mean reactors are rapists or rape anyone or that react content is rape. But the idea of consent as being ‘everything is okay until they say no’ is clearly bad and might lead a person to harm if they sincerely believe that was acceptable. I'm gonna be a bit combative here, I'm still surprised I have to say that. There is a principle of charity in interpretation of people's words. No charity was given in those interpretations, by anyone. No one could read that document and be like “Hmm, DarkViper is saying rapists are reactors and reactors rape people, and reaction content is rape.”. Nothing like that is in there. That is the least charitable interpretation I've ever received in all my 10 years of being on YouTube.

I will also grant that calling Cr1TiKaL, rich and lazy wasn't necessary. And I'll be honest, that wasn't all that I said. I just had the sense to remove other instances where I stepped over the line when speaking passionately. I debated whether to leave this next part in 'cause it might make me sound smug, but I think it's good information. Charlie called these ‘ad hominems’. Insulting a person is not the same thing as an ad hominem. An ad hominem is when you insult a person instead of addressing their arguments. I did address your arguments. I was just an asshole while doing it. I'm sorry that my criticism of one aspect of your content implied that it was all that you do. I'll immediately grant you are not the worst offender of the practice of React content, nor were you the worst person I mentioned. I sincerely wish you the best in your larger productions. I still have your ''2019 Guy'' song in my playlist somewhere.

I do have a take issue with your criticizing me for unfairly simplifying your content, and then you do the exact same thing to me. Me getting angry and ranting is actually quite rare. I have my commentary videos like you do, both standalone and as well as my Ramble series, which I've spent a ridiculous amount of time on. I have cooking videos, singing videos, I speedrun Dark Souls III, I even speedrun eating a Vegemite pizza. I've done VR games, Minecraft speedruns, Among Us, Fall Guys. I've played dozens of other games. Hell, I started my career in religious, political, and social commentary videos. If Rockstar died tomorrow, I'd still have a career. But true right, it would be a smaller one.

I'm ultimately unsure how this video will be received. Perhaps we will think I'm not being sufficiently conciliatory, especially given that I respect that Charlie was willing to say that he made some errors, and I hope I've communicated that I made some too. But please keep in mind: in terms of monthly views, Charlie is literally 20 times my size. Both his videos about me got on trending and a significant amount of views on my video are just his viewers coming to press dislike. The overwhelming vast majority of people who hear about me through this exchange will never watch my videos or read my words at best, absent Charlie's response video, maybe a thousand people would've read the script I wrote and many would've disagreed with it. With the response, not only have I gained nothing but literally millions of people remember this in a few months as DarkViperAU was an asshole to Charlie, and he thinks that reactors are rapists. I don't really understand how Charlie can repeatedly claim to have respected me and he didn't want to dogpile me, but took an unfinished script and put it on trending, which resulted in people dog piling on me.

I would argue I had a gun, something you can justifiably respond to, but I don't think hitting me with a nuke as he did was his only option. There were better, perhaps, equivalent ways to respond to my words. At the end of the day. I did bring it upon myself. I did release that unfinished script. While I did think it was the best decision at the time, obviously in hindsight, it clearly was not. Although I do not disagree with anything that I wrote. Of all the things I've said over the last couple of days, the only thing I really disagree with was the way that I presented Charlie. I do not agree that I presented his character fairly, and for that I am sorry.

What a weird couple of days. I tried so hard to work on Pacifist%, 'cause that's all I really wanna do, and somehow I just keep getting myself into trouble. It's like reality itself does not want me to finish that video, even though it's like six months overdue.

Sources:

Initial videos responding to Asmongold’s defense of react content* Part 1 [https://youtu.be/E2aGMAuFLL0]

* Part 2 [https://youtu.be/tdVhDyFHwTg]

* Part 3 [https://youtu.be/D1BN0ftxz-c]

Original 14 page document [https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRid-d3hQpDnTpAlIBWICuZO4J_C2j0FX-PqT2HPEGLDpTy_jhebAiXbBtn-6OwdPvY_mj0VYDfkHPj/pub How The React Grift Works By DarkViperAU]

penguinz0’s response to the document [https://youtu.be/FAPDd-cB8Do]

DarkViperAU’s response [https://youtu.be/cqWNmXYC76A]

penguinz0’s response [https://youtu.be/3raLgXC0czs]

penguinz0’s video about short form content [https://youtu.be/MVxzuE392n4]

DarkViperAU’s response [https://youtu.be/HvrbBz-8FBA]

Four factors of fair use [https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors]

This Is Why Everyone Should Be Motivated To Combat Reactors

'''Original video:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rylwib7pASo I Was Right. I Told You So.]

'''DarkViper:''' Hello everyone. Welcome to the introductory video for a series where I explain the inner workings of social media and how react content harms everyone except the reactors. Reactors to mean the people who watch videos and pause occasionally. I spent the last month making 7 or so videos that will release one a day after this one, and I would have made them when they were more relevant but I was in the middle of a major project that I promised to complete. Better late than never as they say. This video exists to give you a taste of what is in store and to explain the truly strange series of events that lead to these videos coming to exist in the first place. I also want to argue why I personally believe drama is a terrible mechanism for growth. '''''“So what the hell was with all that react drama 2 months ago?”'''''3 years ago on May 26th 2019, I released the first video episode of a comedy series called ‘Can You Complete GTA 5 Without Wasting Anyone?’ It was my second successful YouTube series, which led to many more episodes being created over time. I completed recording the footage necessary to cover the entire game in April 2020 but alas, even now, in May 2022, I still haven’t finished editing it. This is largely because the series takes a staggering amount of time to edit. Not only does the raw footage total over 1000 hours, but the actual editing is by far the most complicated I do, pushing me to the limits of what I can even conceive of. It is fair to say that I can make dozens of easier videos for far greater exposure and profit in the time it takes to edit just one Pacifist episode. But I love that series, and I love how much other people love it as well, so I make sure to push aside my business interests and make sure to complete an episode every once and while even if it is at the expense of everything else.Noticing how long it had been since there had been an episode in the series, on February 3rd 2022 I stated publicly in multiple places, “Another episode is 6 months overdue, I will not do anything else until I get another episode out”. This of course I fully planned to stick to, but alas I found myself constantly distracted.So around this time large streamers such as, XQC, Pokimane, Hassan, were rebroadcasting anime and tv series on Twitch.tv. Each of these episodes would have cost the copyright owners hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars per to produce, and their rebroadcasting therefore increased the risk of legal challenges against Twitch as they hold a very precarious position in regards to their liability for copyrighted content on their platform. As these creators felt untouchable due to their wealth and popularity, each felt comfortable using this content to drive traffic to their channels, and thus away from others who were not equally willing to break the law, the platform rules, and threaten everyone’s livelihoods. These people gave no thought to the possibility, regardless of how slight, that their actions could jeopardize the careers of thousands of people who rely on Twitch to survive. It is rare that such a frank disregard for the well-being of others falls into my lap. I saw this as an escalation of the exploitative business practices that I called out Asmongold for back in 2020, criticism which slightly predated the last time large Twitch streamers were criticized by a wide selection of YouTubers due to many Twitch streamers being little more than YouTube rebroadcasting machines.Immediately after this I became aware of another scandal. Hasan Piker was criticized by the creator Jay Exci for his practice of taking other people’s videos and restreaming them without doing anything substantive to transform the content. Jay Exci holds a position on react content that is much softer than mine, as I find the belief that pressing a pause button can transform anything to be fairly absurd. But regardless, the general shitshow between Jay and Hasan added more fuel to my desire to formally speak on the topic in part because I consider Hasan’s business model of content aggregation to conflict with his political stances, and to be quite exploitative as all react content is. This will be expanded upon in future videos but for the time being this is a fine summation.These scandals made me very angry, as I consider them both to involve abuses of power and to be representative of an worsening unjust system where those who already have success have more success made easier for them to achieve at every turn to the detriment of everyone else. So when I sat down to fulfill my promise to finish writing and editing my new episode of pacifist%, I could not fully dedicate myself to do so. I consider myself to be in a position of influence within the domains relevant to these scandals, and I therefore could not stop obsessing in my head about what I wanted to say about these perceived abuses and it kept me from focusing on my work. After 4 days I had enough of my inner conflict, and therefore resolved to take a little bit of time to put what was in my mind into a script for a hypothetical video. My goal was to point out the market impact that people who watch and reupload other people’s videos cause, that seemingly few are aware of. I was not criticizing people who make something their own using portions of someone else’s work, but those who upload unaltered copies of other people’s work, with the addition of the handful of times they press the pause button. The original work which often takes hundreds of hours to create, while the pause button takes minutes. I assure you this is explained in far greater detail in the second video in this series.But writing it brought me no peace, as in no sense did an unseen document inform or help anyone. I therefore released the initial 3000 words to my viewers, trying to make the document to be a general criticism of react content and not necessarily requiring a deeper understanding of the scandals that lead to its creation. I immediately realized once it was released that my chosen style of writing was a format that was meant to be read aloud in a YouTube video, and it contained too great a reliance on a person already having a foundational knowledge of the industries and practices I was critiquing. While I have been creating content online for 10 years obviously a general audience has not, and even many creators seem to not reflect too much on the exact nature of the industry they exist in. So after release, I scrambled to add additional information and make changes, the result was a new document that was double in size with a somewhat conflicting style and tone.

But it got done, and I felt 6000 words in 7 or so hours is quite good. I felt satisfied, I still feel so now even after later finding out a few errors did exist in the document. I had at least done something to attempt to sway public opinion on what I see as the systematic abuse of others, even if the effect would be tiny, so I went back to working on my project. I only commented again further when I was in bed and someone on twitter pressed me about the unconsidered implications of an offhand comment that I made towards the end of the script. I responded while still being in a state of anger, obviously not a good state of mind if you want to be tactful especially in a domain where people have little interest in the actual intent behind your words, but that will be more explained in the future videos.

'''''“The aftermath - everyone responding to the document”'''''I did not expect everything that followed, partly because I had no expectations for the future. I considered the matter closed, dealt with, at least for the time being, as I wanted to get back to my actual work. Even in hindsight, I still don’t think I could have seen the result coming, especially given the initial responses were either positive or requests to be more specific about the form of react content I was criticizing. The last time I even made videos about the topic of react content focusing on Asmongold’s one true wish to reupload the entirety of YouTube to his Twitch and YouTube channels, Asmon made sure to address this criticism privately with me. This in direct contrast to effectively any other criticism he has ever received, He clearly wanted as little attention paid to my criticism as possible, and this experience led me to expect that other reactors would have some degree of self-awareness, and thus would act similarly rather than risk raising additional ire about a form of content that has been called abusive as long as the platform has existed.

I suspect the unforeseeable response that Charlie made to my script came about for three reasons. The first, he doesn’t get criticized as much as anyone else mentioned, having as much higher general positive public perception, thus likely considered this noteworthy for that alone. The second was the comments I made on twitter which, while not a part of the script, were more inflammatory and thus gave something more solid and simple to grab onto. Lastly, because he already knew of me and had followed my work to some extent which I was unaware of. Absent Charlie’s response, my script would have sat online until such a time where I felt motivated to do more with it.While I had the goal of putting react content out of my mind so I could focus on my work, obviously the exact opposite of my goal ended up happening, I now had more distractions to obsess over. After I resolved things with Charlie, to what extent that could be resolved, I went back to completing my project. But even then, at all times my mind was half working on scripts for videos that I could create the moment I was once more free to do so. I wrote dozens of pages of notes offhandedly while I worked on my other project, so that I would not forget all the things I wanted to say to all those who commented on the fall out between me and Charlie. It did not help that some of the things that were said were so obviously false, and in many case so stupid that it beggered belief. At least the very positive reception to the latest episode of Pacifist% suggests these distractions likely did not impact its quality, merely the speed in which it was produced.'''''“Why don’t you just stop getting involved in drama?”'''''I want to make one thing clear, I do not consider drama a good tool to grow a YouTube channel and I am deeply skeptical of the motivations for people who claim it is. I consider it a waste of time due to the opportunity cost, as there is always something better I could be doing for my business and it is better to make friends then enemies. The impact of drama on anything is uncertain and is usually short lived. Bad Bunny skyrocketed into infamy as the greedy Twitch streamer who believes everyone should give her $5, her clip is still occasionally referenced, but she is effectively a dead streamer despite the massive attention. Recently a scandal occurred where a PC company scammed a streamer out of their deservedly won giveaway PC. Dozens of videos from the highest profile tech channels covered the story, collectively millions of views. She gained 30k followers while being a person clearly in the right and she went from averaging 20 viewers a stream, to averaging 60 viewers a stream. With Charlie and my back and forth, I lost 600 subscribers then gained 1000 subscribers. To put this in perspective, my video on Michael not being in Witness protection that I threw together on a whim in 6 hours has gained me 25k subscribers.You can gain, you can be harmed, or both, but it rarely competes with just making good content. Rolling the dice and hoping for a gain, especially as an already successful creator, is just a waste of time and ignores the less material realities of this industry. Much of the longevity of a creator on YouTube is determined by how readily they can keep themselves healthy and in a positive mental state. If you can’t, you burn out and quit. Drama always zaps your energy as you are bombarded with criticism and scrutiny from new people who have no idea who you are. You can see 100 supportive comments but it is hard to ignore when some stranger tells you to end yourself. Even when entirely false, like 99% of everything ever said on the livestreamfail subreddit, negativity becomes burdensome.More importantly, people who come to learn of you through drama are not necessarily the same people who would have an interest in watching your content, thus will disappear quickly. Untargeted awareness marketing is trash for this reason. Charlie making a video about me that had absolutely nothing to do with the content I produce, and my response equally having nothing to do with my content, is obviously not going to be a better way to bring forth new viewers to watch my normal videos compared to just spending time making a really good video and allowing the algorithm to find me more viewers who would actually want to watch me. I just consider drama to be inefficient as a tool for growth, used only by those who either have built a brand around drama, or those who have nothing else to offer. Seeking out drama for growth is done either by the stupid or those who are creatively bankrupt, as they have no other alternatives. That is not to criticize those who find themselves involved in drama due to circumstances outside of their control and who just try to make the most of it, you have little other choice.The idea that drama is just such an amazing way to grow is generally spread by those who want to use this claim to dismiss any criticism they receive. How often do you hear of a person being criticized and the very first words out of their mouth is “they are just chasing clout”. It is a very easy tool to signal to your audience to shut their eyes, cover their ears, and to continue to worship you. Do you know a better way to grow? Just collaborate with people. Little chance of it blowing up in your face, no one raging at you in comments, and you get presented in a positive light to a new audience that you can at least have some assurance could be interested in your content if the other creator makes something similar to your own.Bottomline, I would have been perfectly happy creating a script and potentially a later video that was only watched by the people who normally watch my content. It certainly would have saved me some time as I would have had less to respond to now.'''''“If drama isn’t great, then why do you get involved in drama so much?”.'''''I honestly don’t think I get involved in that much drama but I guess it is all relative. But the drama I have gotten involved in can largely be said to come from two sources. The first is drama I bring upon myself due to believing someone else has misinformed and or caused harm to others. I seek to correct them for the benefit of my viewers, and to selfishly silence the guilt I feel for not having pursued a career where I more directly help others. I additionally hate anything that I feel is treating others unfairly and I often will pick small fights related to such things even if they are not particularly meaningful to others. I am not perfect, I often do not go about doing this in a good way. Such situations can make me quite angry and this can inspire me to assume that the other person is acting out of malice rather simply out of error. This can inspire me to make judgments about other creators that can be unwarranted. You could say I frequently forget to apply Hanlon's Razor, ‘never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence’.The second source of drama for me is when I feel I need to explain why I have behaved as I have. Even this video fits into this category. I despise not being understood, and being perceived as being someone that I don’t believe I am. Any time I am criticized I want to give an accounting for myself, explain why I believe I acted as I did, and whether or not I consider my actions justified. I do not like pretending to be something I am not, I am very forthright about who I am, often to a fault as I tend to overshare personal details about myself. None of us fully understand ourselves, we are biased in our assessment, and at times other’s can know us better than we know ourselves. If I am not really who I think I am I want to know that, an understanding of self is important to me. I not only reflect often on my impact on those around me, but I do my best to leave people better off from an association than they were prior. I won’t always succeed, I can be emotional just like anyone else, and I will wrong people, but I will always try my damndest to right any wrong I become convinced I have caused.The things you call drama, and that I call drama simply for expediency, are things I am passionate about and care for. I have literally a hundred things I could do with my time that would serve my business better. I engage in this form of content for non-business reasons. I came to YouTube and began my career here discussing political, social, philosophical, and religious topics. I pursued education in community services, psychology, and even criminology, in part out of a desire to help others lead better lives and to assist them in warding off the forms of intense sadness that was pervasive throughout my early life. I already have fame and wealth. I don't exactly avoid increasing either, but rarely is either the root cause of my actions. Only two things stimulate my life, helping others, and creating things that I and others can enjoy. If I can do both at the same time, as i think i've done with this series, it is a match made in heaven.I hope you enjoy the rest of the videos in this series, they were a pain to make, but I hope they achieve some good.

Reactors: The Professional Parasites

'''Original video:''' [https://youtu.be/Irk8h0ax5aY Reactors: The Professional Parasites]

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'''DarkViper:''' Over the last few months, I have learned that few seem to understand why react content is harmful. Even among those who dislike it, their reasoning is often as simplistic as “it’s boring” or “it’s lazy”, while the real problem is much more insidious. Reactors are playing a game with our online content creator ecosystem where everyone loses except the reactors themselves. The premise of this video is that react content is a system of exploitation that siphons an incalculable amount of money and exposure away from the hard working straight into the pockets of the incredibly lazy. In this video I will be going over these topics [shown on screen] and looking at a bit of data, in order to establish that this is undeniably true. By nature of the topic, this video contains some things that a general audience shouldn't know about YouTube but everything in this video is crucial to understanding my points so I will just take the risk. I consider my personal standards for what is justifiable fairly irrelevant, I am not a moral authority. This video is not an argument for an idea of how society should function or what actions should be permissible or on what basis, although it may initially appear to be that. In reality, so confident am I that the current state of affairs would be considered abhorrent by the vast majority if it was understood, that all I seek to do with this video is give people the bigger picture which they may otherwise have not known about. Remember that a perfect scam is one where it is hard for the victim to even understand how they are being scammed.'''DarkViper: '''So, let us start small. Reality has a problem. It is undeniably far easier and more cost effective to steal or copy something than it is to create something for the first time. Therefore, for as long as someone has been willing to work hard to make something, someone has been willing to take it and thus avoid the effort and cost required to produce it in the first place. Due to its advantages, any unchecked system runs the risk of being ruled by those who are most efficient at stealing work rather than by those who do the work that people covet enough to steal. I argue that we are in a largely unchecked system here in the online creator economy, and that this process is slowly happening, especially in livestreaming.'''W''hat is a reactor?''DarkViper: '''Reactors for the purpose of this video are those who reupload other people’s creative works as a substitute for creating something themselves simply by watching the other person’s content. So the sleepers, the leavers, the eaters, those that believe themselves picasso because they can hit the pause button. This is in contrast to those who use portions of another person’s work to produce something that stands distinct and apart from the original. This second group does not take all the value from the original work, therefore what they create does not stand as a substitute for the original. Reactors on the other hand, do take all value from the original, as they are not seeking to create something new but instead to present the unaltered original work and their first impression of it to their audience. This content is usually easily identifiable because the title is effectively the same as the original, you have no need to watch the original work after the reaction, and/or you can honestly say you have watched the original work just by watching the reaction. There is a clear difference between someone using some of another person’s work to create something distinct and original, and someone simply presenting another person’s work to their audience. It is disingenuous to suggest otherwise.'''DarkViper: '''Rather than being bogged down with a history of reaction content, this video will almost entirely focus on the present, and while the principles of what I am talking about apply to every online platform; the analytics and algorithmic principles will largely come from YouTube. This is in part because YouTube is better with both of these things compared to other platforms, but also because as you are watching this video I know you are familiar to some degree with the platform. Despite my focus on YouTube, remember that I am speaking about the wider creator economy, all social media. A loss in viewership for a TikToker is just as meaningful to me as a loss in viewership for a YouTuber.'''''What Are YouTube and Its Creators Trying To Do?'''''Every day, each of us interface with complex systems and machinery that we know how to use, but have only a vague idea of how they can perform their function. GPS trackers, phones, computers - even your toaster: you might know how to use these things, but explaining precisely how they work, let alone how to build one, is likely beyond your understanding. YouTube is the same for the users; and frankly, many content creators, as anything deeper than a surface-level understanding is really unnecessary. '''DarkViper:''' It is essential to understand that each day there is a finite number of people in this world with a finite amount of time. YouTube wants people to spend as much of their limited free time as possible on their platform rather than anywhere else.