If there is one thing the entertainment industry has in common with engineering, it is the oversaturation of the two fields. The video game industry faces the same problem with oversaturation as well, like the Battle Royale and First Person genres. One of the reasons of Bollywood’s declining quality is the oversaturation of romance, action and masala films as well as party and item songs. It’s like you can see it anywhere and everywhere. YouTube is no exception.
In the post Filthy Frank, YouTube as well as the demonetisation policies, YouTube is just a shell of its former self. Not only its policies are affecting everyone for the wrong reasons, its shift towards pro-advertisers and corporations has made it impossible for anyone to enjoy YouTube anymore. YouTube is World War II’s Germany, where the Allied Powers didn’t care about fighting anymore. They only cared about who gets what and in YouTube’s case, it’s not about ‘Broadcasting Yourself’ anymore, it’s about which channel is more profitable.
With that being said, let’s talk about the current state of YouTube India. YouTube India at this point has become a handheld Bollywood device that aims to target kids. Because let’s be honest, the majority of YouTube are just kids and teens who just watch and get influenced by the current generation of YouTubers. However, the current generation of YouTubers are getting more egotistical as their numbers are increasing day by day. Let’s not forget that they just copy everything from the West instead of making their own content. Thus, most Indian YouTube channels have become complacent.
I mean look at tech channels. With the popularity of MKBHD, Unbox Therapy, SuperSaf, JerryRigEverything and other Western tech channels, there has been a rise in Indian tech channels, and let’s just say that their content is oversaturated. All they do is review some phones, talk about tech, what tech they have, something like that, which has already been done by most Western tech channels.
When the Indo-China clash happened in June of 2020, where 20 Indian soldiers were killed, most tech channels told their viewers that they won’t review Chinese products anymore. A few weeks later, when One Plus 8, a Chinese phone, got launched and their sales skyrocketed like Mount Everest, these reviewers forgot all about the what they’d said earlier.
It really doesn’t change the fact that they are hypocrites who are making money in the name of patriotism. To be quite honest, they don’t care about tech, they care about trends. Speaking of patriotism, this is one of the favourite weapons used by YouTubers, particularly those who ‘roast’. In reality, they are just LeafyIsHere clones who are capable of making the environment of the platform more toxic than ever. And the T-Series vs Pewdiepie is an example of that.
Long story short, Pewdiepie made some jokes about India and created a disstrack against T-Series. This gave the roasters more content to upload. They ‘roasted’ Pewdiepie, made diss-tracks against him so that they could gain clout, views and money all in the name of good ol’ patriotism. It’s funny, they won’t talk about the current issues and security concerns that plague the country. Instead, they support people such as Hindustani Bhau, who abuses people and sends rape threats to women in the name of patriotism and calls out a Swedish Boi who made some jokes about the conditions of the country.
People who defended Pewdiepie were attacked by the angry mob who took the patriotism card to the new level by abusing and threatening these people. Many of these kids don’t even know what sedition law is and they want to lecture people about being a deshdrohi or anti-national. It’s sad how patriotism has been perverted by these wannabes who think that by supporting corporates, they are contributing to the country.
In reality, they are just supporting a company that abuses its power by copying Ritviz’s song , copystriking Salil Jamdar’s diss track, making terrible remakes of their beloved songs such as ‘Masakali’ and their treatment of artists. T-Series is just using the patriotism card just to sell more songs.
The YouTube vs Tik Tok feud in 2020 only goes on to show how far YouTubers and their audience will go against TikTokers. Roasters have been making 15 videos on either Tik Tokers, Dhinchhak Pooja, Deepak Kalal etc. and they don’t have a problem whatsoever. So, what has changed? A couple of TikTokers actually responded to the videos being made against them and roasters lost their cool. Then, thousands of YouTube videos were made against TikTokers and the app itself.
According to the roasters, TikTokers were showing their attitude attacking and they needed to be put in their place, even though they’ve made thousands of videos against them in attitude, thus they are in no position to talk about attitude. When CarryMinati uploaded his video that later got deleted, things got escalated. It was during this time that roasters and their audience used homophobic slurs against TikTokers, undermining the progress made by the LGBTQIA+ community in a single stroke. Roasters, YouTube news channels and even tech channels started milking from this feud, making money, clout mongering and hurting a community that has been discriminated against by society, all because one or two TikTokers responded.
It’s funny that many roasters, including CarryMinati, tried to justify their action by saying that they were taken out of context. This is the tactic Shubham Mishra played when he was being called out for his rape threats against Agrima Joshua. In CarryMinati’s case, it is hypocritical of him to talk about out of context when he did the same thing to Pewdiepie by dropping a diss-track on him when he was taken out of context during the latter’s feud with T-Series. Context has become nothing more than an excuse for roasters and other YouTubers to justify their action (more like mistakes).
In 2016, LeafyIsHere used to make videos that made YouTube look like the Wild West and those videos have made society toxic. History is now repeating itself as roasters are just ruining everything good about YouTube in the name of roasting. When the sudden demise of Sushant Singh Rajput escalated on social media, there were people who capitalised from his death for views and clout. In simple words, they found this the right time to grow their channel.
One example is Steve Huff. He made a few videos in which he could be seen having a “conversation” with Sushant’s ghost. In reality, he just took interviews of Sushant and distorted his voice to make it sound like a ghost. And since the audience was too emotional, he was able to make millions of views from this. Further, this trend also allowed copy-cats to make the same “paranormal conversation” that Steve had made to increase views. Then there were other YouTubers who were just making conspiracy theories or putting the deceased’s face as a thumbnail for their videos.
And don’t get me started on comedy. There was a time when The Filthy Frank Show was more funnier than most of Indian stand-up comedians, Instagram try-hard comedians, wannabe edgy roasters and ‘comedy skits’ because of how unconventional and innovative this art form is. When the show discontinued in 2017, comedy in YouTube became bland.
Nowadays, we have stand-up comedians who only make political statements instead of making people laugh, Instagram comedians who mostly copy everything Lilly Singh does but 10 times cringy, ‘edgy’ roasters who make terrible comments on women and people of the LGBTQIA+ community in the name of dark humour. These comedians make comedy skits on YouTube that are mostly money-hungry machines rather than genuine comedy videos. It’s disheartening to see the legacy of Filthy Frank being ruined by grave robbers just like EA ruined Star Wars Battlefront2’s (2005) legacy with a modern iteration. All it was was an online gambling machine to lure kids.
I think the reason why YouTubers are doing this and creating these problems is because of one thing — emotion. They know their audience is emotional and oversensitive so they decided to milk those emotions to get fame and bucks. That’s why whatever the audience, most are emotional and over-sensitive. And although it is okay to be emotional and sensitive, it can also be a destructive behaviour. That is why I believe that people shouldn’t be sensitive or emotional over anything and everything.
In the end, YouTube has become a place of time pass rather than entertainment and it is no longer a place where people can enjoy being themselves anymore. People make content for the sake of views and money rather than enjoying their profession and making their audience enjoy. The new policies are just making the platform look like George Orwell’s 1984, which is unfortunate. They’ve turned their backs on their roots, which is why in my opinion, YouTube is a shell of its former self.