Do you think having youtube as a full time job is a good thing?

If it means forsaking your dignity, no.

It seems like a bad idea as a full time job but I know next to nothing about how that would actually work so what do I know.

Its a big bet for the future of youtube. It may work for some years but you probably wont make this your whole life. So when youtube money dries up, its certainly good to have some kind of backup play. You wont qualify for many high payed jobs as a man in his late thirties who has done nothing but youtube in the past 10 years. So if you don't want to end up flipping burgers with 40 you better have a backup plan prepared.

If it nets you a little cash on the side, I don't see a problem. However, I wouldn't consider it a stable source of income by any stretch of the imagination, and having another job as a fallback is something I would recommend.

You've got to do what you got to do. Just keep in mind that anything you do will be available and visible for people to ask questions about years and years from now. How much of your privacy or dignity you are willing to give up for money is up to you.

Those that are popular/lucky enough to use Youtube as their main income maker, make more than enough to tide them over if they ever fall out of popularity.

It's only as viable as far as you can stretch your fifteen minutes, so no.

" pls comment rate subscribe im trying to make money from these shitty lets plays"

I don't have a problem with the idea of a full-time youtube job, per se, but it does seem financially unstable. You could eventually wane in popularity to the point that you can no longer solely rely on it for money or get a youtube violation and have your channel shut down. If it got banned you would have to rebuild your channel back up, which could take a while. Also, if you try to get a "real" job after that and you say you spent the last five years doing youtube videos they probably aren't going to be too impressed.

yoaaa #maxcpm

$16 Million to act like a Retard seems like a dream come true.

The problem with it is that once your popularity wanes (and it will wane, however popular you are, it won't last forever), you have no job, and a massive gap on your CV where you didn't have any job, you weren't claiming unemployment benefits, you weren't doing anything. Employees don't like that. It's suspicious. Did you have a job and you got fired? Were you in prison and are hiding it? You could have been doing anything. And putting on your CV that you made video's on youtube for X months/years doesn't exactly look professional either. It'll be difficult to secure a real job after spending any length of time just making youtube video's. That is assuming that the video's aren't super high quality and could be used as a portfolio for a video editing job or something.

@bigjeffrey: Holy Shit! that guy makes that much money..

If people are making a comfortable living from their successful Youtube channel then good for them, that seems like it should be a great job.

I think it was Jon Lovitz who who ascribed his success in the entertainment industry to having no other option. I believe that his point was that all actors and comedians hit stumbling blocks in their careers, those who have no choice but to work through it will work through it and those who have a backup plan tend to fall back on it.

@mattyftm: Many of the big named youtubers like Pewdiepie, Boogie2988 etc have side projects and contacts outside of Youtube they would have no problems doing something else should the Youtube thing end, but judging by the number of subs these have i doubt that would change any time soon not unless Youtube itself were to end.

The only difference between Giant Bomb and most Youtube channels is that the guys on Giant Bomb have contacts within the industry. That's about it. They're both entirely dependent on ads and consumers.

I think it's 100% fine.

If you can do it, do it.

I have a great many opinions. Often on the same topic.

• A. It's cool. If people enjoy wasting their time with your shit, and you can live of that attention? Some ludicrously well even? Well done.
• B. Everybody has to be productive. A direct correlation between actual productivity and what you need and get has to be established. Put earning before winning again. Measured in worldly needs, youtubers are not productive. It's insanity to earn a living by making nothing of need. Just another symptom of the systemic failure of the human soul. We are all defective.
• C. I don't give two shits either way. Live and let live.
• D. I don't give two shits about anyone. Die fuckers die.

...and so forth. There's so many valid ways of looking at this, or any other thing. I say, if you want to take a shot at the youtube game, do it. Do your fucking best.

It works for them, which is nice but it seems ridiculous to depend on for more than a few years.

Better than having to commute to some building and work for other people 5 days a week.

I think it would depend on how much money you can make. If you just afford to get by on Youtube money, then it's probably a bad idea to depend on it, but if you make 100k+ per year from it, then just live frugally and save up a year or more buffer to find other work should something go wrong.

It's fine but it's also nearly impossible to penetrate at this point (only way to become a youtube superstar is to have another youtube superstar promote the fuck out of you more or less); so there's not really any point in trying. Also as has been stated the worst of the bunch is the most successful; I'm not sure one could live with that stigma. If you watch Northernlion's stuff you can tell that he's being completely fake and overly PC about 95% of the time even though the dude seems like a cool cat in general; basically you have to please a bunch of retards that like Pewdiepie to succeed, is that something you're willing to even contemplate doing?

@bigjeffrey: The top paid Youtubers are making hundreds of thousands a year, not millions. While his wage isn't anything to scoff at, PewDiePie isn't pulling in sixteen million for 2013.

My big concern with having Youtube as your main source of income is what you do if that money dries up. Maybe your channel loses all of its popularity, maybe wages are cut back based on an increase in the average number of views for partners, maybe some legal suit comes up that results in you losing your channel and videos, who knows. Unless you're the likes of Freddie Wong and have strong technical talents that drive your videos which would help you find work elsewhere, what is it that you do following Youtube? While I don't think it'd be that hard to explain to an employer what you had been doing for all that time, there aren't many jobs where any of that experience is going to be relevant. Even the people who do contract work outside of Youtube, they're probably not going to be pulling in those jobs anymore once their fame wanes.

With the money the top Youtubers are making, unless you're not very responsible financially, you'd be fine for a while before you needed to find a new source of income. My concern would be more with the people who are kind of middle of the road, maybe have a couple hundred thousand subscribers and make enough to live comfortably while having one of the best jobs, but they're not going to have as big a cushion to land on if Youtube fails to continue to be a key source of income. Even if you've been attending school all the while, how long has it been since you've had any 'real' job experience? I think it would be awesome to have Youtube as a full time job while it lasted, I'd just be worried about what you do following it.

I know this is off-topic, but can someone please explain to me why anyone likes pewdiepie? Was he the first let's player or something? I don't get it, i tried googling it but i can't find a satisfying answer.

I wouldn't feel comfortable just living on youtube as my only source of income, as it's a very tenuous way to make a living, especially if your doing game let's plays and such, as their thousands upon thousands of people in that market to the point where breaking through that saturation would be very difficult. You also have to rely on the continued existence of the status quo when it comes to popularity and game companies letting you make money on it, which easily may change in a few years time.

For everyone who is talking about "what happens if the money stops coming" as a reason to stop making videos on Youtube... isn't that an argument for the Giant Bomb staff to stop making videos and get real jobs? What if their audience stops watching, stops subscribing, stops buying merchandise? Their jobs are as tenuous as any youtubers'.

I think if people want to do it, than they should go for it. Personally though I think it might not be the greatest plan because eventually people are just going to get tired of your stuff and move onto something new.

I really doubt anyone other than Google is making 16m a year off youtube, inorder for that to make any sense to the advertiser, that one channel would have to generate 300+ million dollars in sales over the course of the campaign, if anyone thinks the idiots that subscribe to youtube to watch other idiots play video games are buying anything in any substantial volume; they are out to lunch.

I think a lot of advertisers are still confused with online advertising and are just throwing money at it while they figure out which way is up, in time most of it will get reigned in.

I think it's sort of cool that they can make money through non traditional means, but on the other hand I feel like 90% of them resort to terrible, pandering garbage aimed at the lowest common denominator to obtain the level of success that they have. I'll admit that I still like some "internet angry men", but for the most part I think that schtick in particular is sort of played out.

Seems great to me if you can get by doing that. Sure beat most traditional jobs.

If you're doing something you enjoy then sure, why the hell not?

@themangalist: He is most definitely not the first Let's player, and even if he was, I don't think that's a valid reason for liking him. I think he's incredibly annoying so I can't answer that question personally.

Someone living off Youtube money sounds ridiculous but hey, if they can do it than more power to them. Lets hope they stay popular until they retire or they'll be screwed.

A lot of tech companies let you work from home; saves on real estate costs.

I think it's great. And it's not as fickle as some people are making it out to be, at least in entertainment industry terms.

I went to college for film and video production, and worked as a grip and gaffer on corporate and commercial shoots for years before the bottom fell out in my area and I was left out in the rain. And that was pretty solid stuff at the time: making functional video products, working with a good degree from a reputable university, with good connections in the production industry in several major cities, etc., etc. Poof, gone.

The bottom can fall out of anything. There are a lot of people who make a decent living off their youtube channels. Not something everybody can do--despite the forum, it's still entertainment--but if you have the talent and you can drum up a small, loyal following, you can do alright. Maybe not a good idea to forego college in favor of it, that kind of thing, but if you can make it work, more power to you.

I wouldn't recommend it since it's the exact opposite of safe or future proof. But I dunno, people make a living out of the weirdest things, youtube is comaparatively safe and normal.

I think it varies and how well you do depends on how much time you put in like anything in life. Hell AngryJoe has better production value in most of his reviews than most websites that have corporate money and a budget. So I think it's come a long way from people doing just Let's Plays.

Meh, 9/10 jobs are bull shit, what's the difference with YouTube?

Are you seriously comparing the GB staff with youtubers? First of all, GB staff has tons of contacts around the gaming industry. Second, they don't only make videos. You know that Jeff, Brad, Patrick, Alex are also writing articles pretty regularly? Not to mention all the stuff they're doing behind the scenes. Then you have a ton of website designers, people that are responsible for different aspects of video making and so on. You want to tell me that it would be hard for them to get another job if GB went bust? It's not just shooting a random video with your camera, doing minimal editing and uploading it to YouTube, it's much more. Not to mention all the live streams, event coverage, interviews and so on.

To be fair, I think you're probably underestimating the amount of work those big-time youtubers put into some of their 15-min. videos.

Yeah why not? I'm not gonna begrudge somebody making a career of that. I think it's good to have a backup if the well runs dry but if you can do it, go for it.

Do I think it is a good thing? In a time where a lot of people are having trouble getting jobs, yes of course. Even so, these people are apparently doing something right when they can get thousands upon thousands of people to watch them and listen to them on a consistent basis and to be able to keep that going or to get it to grow even more. I think it is too easy for people to look at youtubers and criticize it as a job, I am sure these people put in a lot of time, effort and money to do and maintain what they do on a daily basis. It's not like some easy making money scheme that these people just happened to stumble upon, if these people weren't putting work into what they do then they wouldn't be getting the views and subscribers that they have.

They're just another type of entertainment. I watch youtubers more than I watch TV.

Sure, if it can work. Giant Bomb is pretty much the same thing at this point.

pretty much this. Not too mention Google could change compensation rates/methods anytime.

But hey if you can make it work more power to ya.

It's probably easier to become a "traditional" celebrity than a famous YTer, so I say stick with it if it's working out for them. Just hope they have a backup plan for when that bubble inevitably bursts. (this doesn't apply to Pewdiepie or RWJ or whatever, who are probably set for life already... who knew yelling about barrels and/or saying "hey, here's somebody else's video!" would be so lucrative?)

As I said earlier, the only difference between what youtubers are doing and what Giant Bomb does is that the GB staff has industry contacts. Otherwise they're playing video games on camera for the entertainment of their audience. I actually don't know that Jeff and Brad are writing articles regularly, because they don't. As for 'stuff behind the scenes'... what is this 'stuff' and how is it different than the 'stuff' that any youtube account does behind the scenes? Moving on to the website designers, most popular youtubers actually have their own website, but even if they didn't, how does that actually change the product Giant Bomb serves to its audience? The product is either playing games on camera, or talking about games on camera or microphone.

Furthermore, I can point to more than a dozen youtube channels that do more editing than Giant Bomb. Throwing a bumper at the beginning of 47 minutes of unedited footage and calling it a Quick Look is not a shocking amount of editing. There are only a couple of events per year that you actually get to see a lot of editing on videos.

Aside from the fact that guys like Jeff have 20 years of experience, why do you think it will be easier for a website designer, a video producer, or an editor to get another job after 5 years of Giant Bomb rather than 5 years of any other video games website or channel? The Giant Bomb youtube channel has 80k subscribers, let's say our fictional youtuber has 80 thousand as well... when they point to that on a resume, why do you think the Giant Bomb guys would take precedence?

@brodehouse: Because youtubers have nothing to put on their resume, have no insurance benefits, no salary and no room for career advancement. Giant Bomb's staff are CBSi employees, and don't depend directly on ad clicks or views, rather that has become a performance metric but it's not like CBSi will cut their income if they receive fewer viewers one month than on another.