I'm Sucking At YouTube, But Who Cares?

Dance like no one is watching because, well, in this case, no one really is.

I am talking about having recently started a YouTube channel which is supposed to be an extension of sorts of my writing here and elsewhere. That's an overstatement because the reality is when it comes to writing I like to think I am decent at doing it, and of course I actually do have an audience.

Making videos is not my forte at all. That's the bottom line. But there was a time when what I wrote wasn't good either, but I kept doing it and eventually got better at it.

It's like anything you do in life, right? As the old saying goes, "Practice makes perfect." Or, at least in theory that may be mostly true. I am not sure it is exactly true. If you're 4 feet tall all the practice in the world may never make you a great basketball player.

The thing is, right now I am not even really trying all that hard to dance. I'm just doing whatever comes to me and going with it. I've gotten a couple subscribers and a few views. But I am virtually invisible. It is what it is. 

I don't really have a camera presence, and that hurts me. In fact, I have a face for radio. But my voice isn't that great either honestly. There is no nice bass to it, and I don't have the ability to really project the way I would like to.

Do I just use an AI voice for everything? Maybe. I've done it on a couple of videos, but it sounds kind of robotic to me. Not at all appealing, but maybe it's more appealing than me?

And while I can think rather quickly, there is a naturalness to the way I write which does not translate well in front of the camera. I write better than I communicate, and maybe that's the way it is for most writers. I am not sure, but I suspect it might be.

I need a script in front of me. What I really need is a teleprompter. But I won't spring for one. Not yet anyway. But maybe one day. I guess I will wait and see if anyone at all comes and finds me and gives me a reason to make an "investment."

My studio sucks. Right now, it's mostly just my dining room, if I happen to be doing a video in which I actually appear in. I'll change it up a bit and sometimes do a bit in the living room or some other space in the house.

Hopefully a clean space. I mean, my house is not dirty by any means, but it is certainly well lived in if you catch my drift.

Most recently I decided to do episodes of what I am calling a podcast. But I am not sure if that's really what it is. Podcasts that appear on YouTube tend to do well. But most of them are on done on camera. They adorn themselves in interesting lights, maybe sport a pair of headphones and a microphone on a boom to make it look all fancy and stuff.

I have none of that. Even the footage I have available for a faceless read off of one of my blogs is crappy at best. Boring at most to look at.

I'm thinking, maybe someone will simply load up my video on their phone and listen in the car? The whole 5-8 minutes of the typical one, by the way. The podcast, or whatever it might actually be called, is based off my blogs, and blogs tend to be relatively quick reads.

Even if I sometimes get called a windbag. Oh well. Can I sit for an hour and talk my way through it? Not hardly. If I could, being as opinionated as I am, I'd have probably tried to become a radio talkie many decades ago.

Too many umms and ahs. I know this because when I finish the audio recording, I have to edit a lot of that out.

I'm really just messing around. I am not trying to seriously accomplish anything, but I want to think something might blow up and send me to the moon. You know, cash in on some big bucks from all that YouTube ad revenue and potential sponsorships.

Maybe. One day. Who knows? I suppose I might be making a bit of a fool of myself trying this thing out. I guess I don't really care. I'm too old to be worried about what someone else thinks, you know. And like I said, maybe I will get better. Maybe the process of making videos will become as easy as writing comes to me.

Even if I am embarrassing myself, but hopefully not tarnishing my reputation, like I said, no one is watching. I am the Jonny Fever of YouTube, dear readers. Maybe I should just stick to what I know. Isn't that a great tenet even of writing? Just stick with what you know.

But then how can I grow? Maybe there will be a time, 10 years from now, I will be thankful for having struggled through the first days of all of this—onward and upward is my motto. Maybe I will become really good at it and have great success.

It is interesting to scroll down on some very popular channels and see where they came from when no one was watching. It's night and day from video 1 to video 950. Perhaps it will be the same for me?

For now I am going to keep at it. As I also like to sometimes say, sometimes it's the journey that's more fun than the destination. This does seem like a very long trip, though.

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Weirder and Weirder

Whenever you start raising bars and "breaking barriers," things never really ever go back. Long gone are the days when you would see married couples on TV sleeping in separate beds. Actual sex and some pretty raunchy sex scenes, including gay sex have hit prime time.

Not to say it is all bad, mind you. There are things that are just real, and we all know what those things are and what goes on.

I am just saying that at the pace that bars are being raised nowadays, I think it's going to be a fairly rapid pace to things becoming more and more bizarre. Not that things aren't already quite bizarre if you ask me, beyond just sex scenes on TV.

The world is becoming weirder and weirder. What happens is a sort of "scrubbing" of sorts. You just get used to it, and when you get used to it, you sort of become a bit immune to it.

Sort of like when a homicide detective can walk around rotting corpses and enjoy a sandwich for lunch while they investigate a scene. A situation that, for most of us, would find us looking for the nearest toilet to unload what we ate for breakfast, let alone mow down on anything new.

I get that people want to "express themselves." Take the story of the AirAsia CEO, Tony Fernandez who openly and unabashedly held a team meeting while shirtless and receiving a massage. "I want to be transparent," he says.

Is it entirely bad? No. But it's weird. Not that I am some morals zealot or anything, but I do believe that in most things there should be at least some modicum of decorum. What do we do next, have a bath while figuring out what profits should be at the next quarterly report? 

But then, at the same time, social media has become something wherein everyone wants to be a star. And let's face it. Many people become stars for all sort of things they do on social media. Not all of it good. And a lot it quite weird.

Everyone has a schtick, and when you get famous for going out there, eventually in order to become more famous you have to go farther out there than the last guy did.

Elon Musk became famous for being outspoken and sometimes saying some outlandish things. So, why not get out there too by having a shirtless massage during a team meeting? Musk raised the bar and Fernandez perhaps wants to raise it some more.

I don't know, I just think the phrase, "Truth is stranger than fiction," is becoming more and more true with each passing day, and I am not even sure I can predict what's coming next. I just know it's going to be stranger and stranger the more time that passes.

I wonder where that's going to leave us eventually.

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myLot Is Run By Weird People

I want to be clear here, a site called myLot, which is a social media site where people talk about their everyday lives, what they ate for dinner, or just pretty much anything at all, is a pretty fun site. I am not going to dismiss that aspect of it. And it is certainly worth a look if you want to talk about anything and nothing and also make a few bucks while you do it.

But what makes the site fun and interesting are the people who are part of the community. Not the owners of the site. And not the admin.

Honestly, they are quite weird. And I have talked about this aspect of the site many times. And like this time, from time to time I feel the need to remind people of the abnormality that exists as part of myLot's existence.

You know, anywhere on the Internet, anywhere in social media, on the very platforms I am using, I can say whatever I want about those platforms. I can air my opinions freely. Those platforms may not like what I have to say. But they at least acknowledge it is not my job to say good things about them.

It is their job to encourage me to say nice things about them through what they do to make me happy about using their site.

I could, for example, write a blog, right here on Blogspot, saying things about Blogspot that won't put Blogspot into a good light. So be it. And that would be perfectly acceptable.

But myLot? They're different. You can't say a single negative thing about the site. It's against their rules. And well, it's a public site just like any other site on the Internet and anyone can find the posts that are written there. 

It's all front and center, searchable, and the posts will and do come up in searches. 

As such, they are scared of any bad publicity, even if it isn't direct, but simply implied. It is them saying, under no uncertain terms, "You will not say bad things about us that others might see outside of the site."

I mean, it's a thing with them. They are scared of it, and I just find it to be rather peculiar. I said it's weird. And that's exactly what I meant. It's weird. They are weird for it.

Take a post I wrote there earlier today. It really was a benign post. It was not making fun of myLot. It was not being disparaging of myLot. It was not scolding myLot, or even complaining about myLot. It was simply a tongue in cheek post about activity being a bit slow in myLot for the day.

That's a no-no, you see. Because God forbid someone out there, the five or so people who might see it, see that post and think there might be something wrong with myLot.

That's why they took it down. Because in their eyes it potentially communicates something about their site they may have reason to be embarrassed about. Why? Who the hell knows? But it's why they took down my post.

The problem there is this; some of us are writers outside of myLot with bigger platforms and louder voices than others. People like me who happen to have a very large audience and the potential for many more eyes to see what I will say here than they might ever have found on their actual site.

And worse, the words I post here are far less tongue in cheek, far less careful, far less friendly, far more scathing, much more critical, and perhaps in some ways, more dangerous to their reputation than anything I might post within the confines of their iron fists.

Like I said, myLot is still a site that can be fun and earn some money. But just know that when you step within their doors, you're locked inside, and they will command you to behave their way or else. Make sure you praise them to the High Heavens. They like praise. They can't handle scorn. They can't handle ridicule. And frankly they fear the truth. 

Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on my Facebook page. If you want to check out myLot as a place to write about anything and get paid without having to be a writer? You can find them at mylot.com. You can find me there as well. My name is Porwest. If you sign up and write an introductory post, let them know Porwest sent you there from The Springboard. 

The Cost of Being Right

It keeps popping up in the news that since Elon Musk took over Twitter (now X) that it's losing throngs of daily users. And while that's true, what's not necessarily true is the reason why users have left. The media wants to paint it as "an attack on free speech and promotion of hate speech."

But, as is typically the case, who is defining what free speech is and what can be classified as hate speech? The media. And well, the left.

All too often anymore the truth itself can simply be called hate speech. Like saying a man is a man and a woman is a woman. Forget about science or the verifiable truth of that statement. It's hate speech in the eyes of many people.

In order to be a racist in today's world, for example, you need not honor the KKK or support segregation or other things. You simply need to call for a secure border and have conservative values. And if you espouse these values in a place like X, you are going to be labeled a hater and a racist, and according to some, you should not be allowed to say these things and because Musk, unlike his predecessor Dorsey, is not policing and censoring and shadow banning these values, many people simply can't handle that.

Those are the people who are leaving. The ones who before Musk were able to willy nilly say anything they wanted and could be assured that anyone espousing different opinions or values would immediately be shut down.

What essentially happened is that the playing field was leveled, and a good many people simply could not handle it.

By leaving they also have the impression that in some way they are sending a message that this simply cannot stand, and we should go back to the way things were or else. We'll destroy you, they are essentially saying.

Of course, that's not going to happen. The site is better now than it ever was. Freer now than it ever was. And more truly user-friendly than it has ever been. Everyone gets to have a voice, like it or not. 

At the same time users are dropping off, of course some advertisers are also saying no to X. That can be a problem since X is of course a business, and its main source of revenue is from advertising. Musk has said he wants to charge all users to use the site, but I think that's a recipe for disaster. That could potentially destroy the site and any hopes it can make a full recovery.

While some may be willing to pay for the chance to tout their opinions and share their lives on the site for a small fee, I would suspect most would not. I would be one of those who would not be willing to pay to post.

At the same time, I think that if the site were to operate behind a paywall, it would also become less diverse and more of a "club" of sorts than a total free place to express oneself.

But that's a separate issue.

Part of the reason some advertisers are jumping ship, though, is directly related to the media and its portrayal of X, which they think resonates with their customer bases. In fact, I think the reality is just the opposite of that. Consumers are paying attention to woke politics by companies more than ever, and if they see an advertiser essentially rallying against free speech, I am not sure this will bode well for them.

Most people, despite how it seems sometimes, are more conservative and patriotic than many give credit for—even many liberals.

What Musk's X is suffering from is very simple. It's suffering from doing what's right. It's suffering because it broke up the monopoly the left held on speech. And naturally there are going to be some people who simply won't accept that.

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Facebook Settlement: To File a Claim or Not

If you have been keeping up with the news, there's all this hype over the massive settlement in a case against Facebook over privacy matters that's making its rounds. If the settlement is approved, there's apparently $725 million that's up for grabs.

Is it worth applying? I guess that's a yes and no answer. I mean, the math makes it look like mostly just a big waste of time, and frankly the only ones who will get rich from this whole thing will be the lawyers. You have to keep in mind a few things about the totality of what's actually up for grabs.

For one thing, we can assume that the lawyers are going to keep about 33% of the loot, unless they have negotiated a different amount. Assuming it is 33%, that removes $239.25 million from the money for the claimants.

Ah, but there will also be other fees the lawyers will likely want to recoup. How much would that be? I have no idea. But let's assume it's $50 million just for good measure. We now have a balance of $435.75 million. 

Still a staggering amount of money. Even though Facebook has billions of users, claims are only open to people living in the United States, and that's currently about 239 million users. So, let's say all 239 million religiously submitted their claims and everyone gets their cut.

Everyone gets $1.82 respectively.

Of course, not everyone is going to submit a claim. In fact, the actual number of claimants may be only around 10%. That's 23.9 million users staking a claim on this settlement. So, if that were to be true, claimants might now receive $18.23 each.

I have estimated that somewhere around 50 million people might actually go through the process and fill out the form when all is said and done. That would mean $8.72.

Regardless of how many people fill out the claim form, the bottom line is that none of the money will be felt by anyone at all except the lawyers who collect the lion's share and Facebook who has to pay the settlement.

I suppose if there is any rationale whatsoever to actually staking your own claim it's that if you leave your money on the table, someone else will simply get a bit more for their troubles.

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A Blocking We Will Go

MOST RECENTLY I DECIDED TO CHANGE MY POLICY A BIT WHEN IT COMES TO BLOCKING OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS. For years my longstanding policy on social media has been to engage the other side in any debate, feeling that in order to have a well shaped opinion on any issue one must be able to take in multiple viewpoints, and be open minded when it comes to how any issue is perceived, reported on, and what the opinions of others are. Sometimes I actually do change my position if the opposing argument is strong.

I am a conservative of course. But despite what some hard core conservatives may say, there are actually SOME liberals out there who do have the ability to think and formulate a common sense opinion.

I will admit it is rare. But I am not being fair minded if I simply discount every single liberal as a total idiot.Which brings me around to why I have changed my policy on social media blocking.

There is a trend, and it is certainly not a new one, for many on the left (and let's be fair, some on the right do this too, guys) to, instead of return with a valid and cohesive argument, they will simply start lobbing unfounded accusations, character assassinate, and respond by calling people names.

Racist and Russian bot are all the craze.

When the opposing argument begins to resort to that sort of thing I am of the mind that 1) there is no valid argument the other side can make, and 2) there is no argument I can make to change a mind or make a case for. So, why bother really? What's the point?

Sure. On some days it can indeed be fun. But honestly, more and more it just becomes an irritation. A back and forth of wasted energy that just gets more and more ridiculous and crazy the more you go along with it.

And then there's those lists the left has resorted to creating. They don't even bother to respond. They just put you on some unfounded list that places you into a corner that you really have nothing to do with, and accuses you of having a position you don't have at all.

It does not bother me. I should be clear about that. It does not bother me anymore, really, than being called a racist or a bot or any other moniker the left wants to place on me simply because I happen to disagree with their view of the world.

But it does mean there is no longer an argument.

The thing for me is that I know where I stand on any issue, and so whatever I may be accused of is really meaningless and pointless to try to defend. You cannot rationalize with someone who is simply incapable of seeing the other side's view.

I know I am not a racist. And I am certainly not a bot. So what value is there in trying to defend myself from these kinds of accusations? No matter what I say to point to the contrary, it is going to fall on deaf ears anyway.

So again, why bother.

Part of my policy of not blocking opposing viewpoints was that I thought it was borderline childish. In my mind, every time someone on the left blocked me I would envision a 5-year old clamping his palms to his ears shouting, "I can't hear you, I can't hear you." So my aim was not to become that childish figure on the right.

The problem is that when I offer my viewpoint, I try to support it with facts and reason, and a dose of common sense. Of course I am not always right. I would be naive to think that I could never be wrong. Which is also part of the reason I enjoy a reasonable exchange of ideas, because I am adult enough to acknowledge that I may not always have the right answer or viewpoint, and sometimes the left does.

It's the crazy that closes the door for me. And the crazy is simply getting to be quite thick these days. Even more as Trump derangement syndrome is in full force and the left is all but losing their minds as Trump is clearly winning on a number of fronts. And that's not just my conservative bias saying that. It's obvious.

Speaking of bias momentarily, that is also the one thing that still surprises me just a little bit these days, that the right can have a bias, but can also offer praise to the other side when the other side gets it right and will lambaste even our own when we get it wrong.

I can count on my fingers how many times I have seen a liberal hold one of their own accountable for anything.

Ass Kissers At Bubblews?

They are everywhere! We see them at work especially. Ass kissers. Those guys who have their noses so far up the boss' hindquarters you can tell by their smell what the boss had for lunch, and even dinner the previous day.

And at Bubblews, there are a few of those there as well. Of course there are. Like I said before. They are everywhere. Like flies congregating on a fresh kill. Ubiquitous.

Of course, Bubblews is having problems paying its members. And while I cannot beat the dead horse anymore than I already have many times in the past about the fact that like the site and like the concept, I also cannot simply discount the fact that fun aside, the site says it will pay its members.

And yet it does not.

Well, not always. They mostly pay their members. But the real problem is the why factor. That's the part that no one can get to the bottom of. And certainly the CEO Arvin Dixit isn't saying anything about it. He's as hush as a mute.

One member, who I am beginning to think is one of those Bubblews ass kissers I am worried about, Mike Pugh, says, "The Bubblews Team is working both night and day on these issues and due to the fact that so many countless redeem rewards were lost in the process of the cut over from the old Bubblews to the new Bubblews."

My question is where on Earth did he get that answer from? The Bubblews team? The CEO? The president of the company?

No one from the Bubblews team has said a word about payments, or how hard they are working at getting them processed and paid. No one.

Oh sure, the Learning Center on the site says payments may take up to 30 days, and even goes on to say that they plan on taking on more payment processors in the future. But let's be real here. The number of posts both within the Bubblews website, and outside the site are stacking up big time. People are not happy and they are saying so.

And Bubblews remains silent.

Mike Pugh goes on to tell us, "Many of us have tried contacting the Bubblews help email thingy. That didn't work, but I believe it shall begin to work soon for the folks who haven't violated the rules. It's just a matter of time before they catch up to your emails, and please for assistance. Hang in there folks!"

Sure. That sounds like a fine way to sort things out, now doesn't it? Your boat capsizes. A little birdy comes and assures you a rescue boat is coming. Don't try to swim your way to safety. Don't try to hold onto that capsized boat until rescue comes. Just lie there, floating and hoping.

You will not drown I promise you. The rescue boat is being launched any minute now. JUST HANG ON!

Thanks but no thanks, Mr. Pugh. Tread water till your heart is content or stopped for that matter. But I'm not going to take my chances.

So, this is not a life or death situation. Certainly it is not. But it is a situation, and one that has no explanation. So I voice about it. And so do others. Because it is something to be concerned about and is something to be explored, and questioned.

I am not an ass kisser. I feel no fear voicing my opinion. And voicing my opinion does not make a Bubblews hater out of me.

In fact I would go as far as to say that I am a Bubblews lover. I state my concerns because I am concerned. For the other members who clack away at the keys there. For the site that gives us a place to clack away at the keys.

The site says it will pay. When it does not it makes the whole point and the very site itself moot. And that means that the site will have difficulty treading its own water. I don't want Bubblews to drown. I want to be that rescue boat to help save them.

I will continue to beat the dead horse for as long as I can because I do care what happens. As for ass kissers? Well, we all know where they ultimately wind up when the company goes kaput!

Bubblews Payment Issues

The worst press that Bubblews gets happens to be around payment issues. Pull up a search on Bubblews on Google or Bing and what you get on the first pages of results is nothing but bad press. Words like liars, cheaters, crooks, scammers, illegitimate, and not worth the time are in all of the titles and summaries. It is harder to find good press on Bubblews than bad press on Bubblews.

I like Bubblews, and I spend a lot of time there. That is without a doubt. I will also say that in the past I have never experienced any issues with getting paid by the site. In fact, my last redemption only took 28 days after a change in redemption time was announced to be around 30 days to get paid.

That all changed with a redemption I made on July 23rd for $53.10 which is, as of this writing, still missing. That puts that redemption at 43 days without having been paid.

In the Bubblews Learning Center the site says that payments may take up to 30 days. Where I come from up to means perhaps less than, but not more than. So 43 days is certainly outside the parameters of what they are claiming is the time it takes to process a payment once a member redeems.

I have two other pending redemptions; one made on the 7th of August, and another made on the 25th of August. I am set to redeem right now with over $60 in the bank. All said, the Bubblews website now owes me to the tune of $231. Not a lot of money by any stretch of the imagination. But certainly an amount worthy of my wanting to receive, and pay attention to.

The troubling part for me is that the CEO and president of the site regularly post articles. The CEO tends to do this more frequently than the president. They like to write about new features, and other developments for Bubblews members to enjoy. They write about inspiration, vision, and what Bubblews wants to be. But they never speak about missing payments, or on the fact that right now there are hundreds, if not thousands of members who have redemptions outstanding for well more than 30 days. Some have claimed to be waiting for nearly two months with no communication whatsoever from Bubblews about where their payments are. Or if they will be paid at all.

A site like Bubblews, which wants to change the face of social media, and have any prospect for a strong future need to be extremely engaged in the one thing that truly separates them from the competition.

That they pay their members.

When they do not, or when they do not pay in a timely fashion, and do not pay in accordance with their own parameters set by them in the Learning Center of their own site, this erases their niche. It makes their claim moot.

Worse, it causes members like me to speculate about where payments are. It causes members to make potentially false accusations. It causes members to write outside of Bubblews, and add to the throngs of negative press that overload any information someone might pull up on Bubblews while surfing the Internet. It causes members to question the integrity and legitimacy of the Bubblews website. It causes members to speculate on the integrity of the president and CEO of Bubblews, and it simply makes Bubblews look bad.

Whether the perceptions are true or not, Bubblews cannot escape the speculation if they continue to contribute to it directly.