This is merely something I do while browsing the internet, but it must be common enough for anyone paying attention online. One example will do.
It isn’t particularly uncommon to come across a video making lurid claims about a major corporation where the share price is supposedly crashing because of some dramatic event which in a sense serves the corporation right because –
At this point I pause the video to check the share price of the business. It's the check everything principle because too often the supposed crash is nothing out of the ordinary. In which case, I'll stop watching the video and move on.
This is merely one example of many. It could be new technology about to destroy the car industry or a secret weapon about to overturn all established military assumptions or floods likely to bring a major government to its knees.
There are many over-hyped variants, but unfortunately is is necessary to check everything which sounds too dramatic because it probably is. Video channels wishing to compete with established professional media too often adopt ridiculously pumped-up versions of professional drama-peddling. It doesn't work, the professionals do at least know how to pitch their nonsense.
3 comments:
Breathlessly announced, immediately forgotten burble. The point of which is to sell advertising space because of the numbers of eyeballs or clicks.
“If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.”
~ Attributed to several people.
Unless I actually owned some of the shares (or likewise lived in the flood area, or needed car parts, etc.) I wouldn't bother to check. Most hype and bullshit doesn't seem to want to influence stakeholders to take one view rather than another, but to create stakeholders out of people who previously had no interest. Whereas the old model worked by getting us to resolve to vote for something, or to write a letter, or to buy a product, the new model just wants your click. A society of "experts" in stuff they had no interest in, weighing into debates they should have avoided.
DJ - it appears to be quite lucrative too, if you can get the clicks.
Sam - it seems to work though, numerous tabloid style video channels seem to attract large numbers of subscribers. The numbers are interesting, but what they mean in detail may only be known to a few big tech companies.
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