Current Events > Why Do People Say That Being A Youtuber Isn't A Real Job?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Cause its not

They're envious of how much the successful YouTubers make, also they don't understand the time sink that is video editing
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No jobs nowadays are legitimate. Everything will be replaced by machines soon

XXHornDogXX posted...

Cause its not

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XXHornDogXX posted...

Cause its not

can you explain why it isn't? please?

It's a real job. If you do something and receive money for it on a regular basis, that's a job.

People are just either uptight or too stuck in the past to "recognize" whenever something new and different comes along. I'm sure some are envious and poo poo it to act superior, but that shit's just dumb.
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DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.
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Because they cry and bitch a lot yet theyre doing what they love, or so they say. Yeah, editing a video and making contents a bitch. Well it wasnt intended to be your only financial means. If you can, awesome, if not, dont cry like youre entitled. Its not a real job.
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dont forget to like favorite and subscribe
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Nazanir posted...

DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.

You just described every self-employed job.

Do you think riding Uber isn't a real job? You don't get any of that either

Its like a beggar saying its his job because he lucks out doing it. Or saying drug dealers have real jobs.
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Darklit_Minuet posted...

Nazanir posted...

DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.

You just described every self-employed job.

Do you think riding Uber isn't a real job? You don't get any of that either

That's what I was thinking, from his logic you can argue anyone who is self-employed doesn't have a real job.
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I bet if they told the irs they didn't have a job they'd be laughed at then have all their assets seized.
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Because they are bitter they can't make doing something they love.
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Nazanir posted...

DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.

Depending on your level of success, I'd say the entrepreneurial skills of running a profitable channel is a pretty good selling point. Most streamers have backup plans or side gigs also so they aren't confined to streaming as main income.

But yeah I'd still say it's less than a job and more of just a smart financial move to capitalize on the modern craze of just watching other people play games and make money off the ad revenue.
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Cause they wish they had that job. Also they don't know how much work people actually have to put into to make it.
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Nazanir posted...

DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.

For most YouTubers, yes, but if you're a part of their preferred Ad Partner program there does come some red tape. Some of the biggest YouTubers have been notably kicked out of that program, such as Pewdiepie and Logan Paul.

Also you're just blatantly ignoring the contracts that come with the sponsorship deals which many YouTubers even below a million subscribers commonly engage in. You gotta understand that YouTube is a visual media platform - the bigger channels can tap into different revenue streams that aren't technically coming from YouTube.
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LordMarshal posted...

Well it wasnt intended to be your only financial means.

Says who?
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A lot of people ITT just hate anyone they see as below them making a living
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Nazanir posted...

DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.

The majority of what you described is a self employed job.

As for the latter, actually you do get a "payment increase". Depending on how much videos you upload and the interest you can gain on your videos. More subs=More chances of people watching your videos. More uploads(or a schedule)= More views and your videos being put on suggested and recommended feeds, appealing to more people. More views=More money.

You can go from making $500 or $1k a month to making $3k or $8K and up. So depending on how relevant you are on youtube and the interest your views garner, you could make significantly more money compared to the time you started.

Antifar posted...

LordMarshal posted...

Well it wasnt intended to be your only financial means.

Says who?

If so then do better and shut up about editing. Its a job apparently......
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fenderbender321 posted...

Who even cares if something is considered a "real job". Go make money. That's the point, right there.

Seriously. I wish I was interesting enough to be a Youtuber.
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bloodydeath0 posted...

Nazanir posted...

DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.

Depending on your level of success, I'd say the entrepreneurial skills of running a profitable channel is a pretty good selling point. Most streamers have backup plans or side gigs also so they aren't confined to streaming as main income.

But yeah I'd still say it's less than a job and more of just a smart financial move to capitalize on the modern craze of just watching other people play games and make money off the ad revenue.

Gaming isn't the only field youtubers can take part in.

You should cry about adblock. Like a real job.
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LordMarshal posted...

Antifar posted...

LordMarshal posted...

Well it wasnt intended to be your only financial means.

Says who?

If so then do better and shut up about editing. Its a job apparently......

Editing is brought up in response to the initial assertion that they're not performing a real job.
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A_Good_Boy posted...

LordMarshal posted...

Antifar posted...

LordMarshal posted...

Well it wasnt intended to be your only financial means.

Says who?

If so then do better and shut up about editing. Its a job apparently......

Editing is brought up in response to the initial assertion that they're not performing a real job.

Its either a job and thats part of it then shut up about complaints or its not. Sounding suprised about editing makes me think you thought this was easy work. Its a job, right?
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LordMarshal posted...

Its either a job and thats part of it then shut up about complaints

Complaining about one's job is like half of all adult conversations. It's perfectly legitimate.
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LordMarshal posted...

Antifar posted...

LordMarshal posted...

Well it wasnt intended to be your only financial means.

Says who?

If so then do better and shut up about editing. Its a job apparently......

what the hell are you on about and why are you so angry people on youtube make money
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bloodydeath0 posted...

Nazanir posted...

DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.

Depending on your level of success, I'd say the entrepreneurial skills of running a profitable channel is a pretty good selling point. Most streamers have backup plans or side gigs also so they aren't confined to streaming as main income.

But yeah I'd still say it's less than a job and more of just a smart financial move to capitalize on the modern craze of just watching other people play games and make money off the ad revenue.

Will just point that many YouTubers interested in gaming do have Twitch channels too due to that exact logic. I know he's a fucked up person but Boogie2988 openly talks about how he makes a lot more money due to having invested so much time and energy into his Twitch presence. He can pull in 1500-2000 viewers on the reg (who can make donations or pay for subscriptions) just doing random IRL streams where he rants about bullshit.
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MC_BatCommander posted...

They're envious of how much the successful YouTubers make, also they don't understand the time sink that is video editing

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Telling people who work for themselves that they don't have a "real job" is nothing new, believe it or not.
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all 90% of youtubers do is bottom of the barrel nonsense to appeal to children, crushing iphones, sexually suggestive thumbnails, logan paul type shit, etc
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On the surface it seems really simple but all the best channels have lot of editing, or lots of prep, or lots of research, or what have you.

I mean Crazy Russian Hacker literally built a standalone lab/studio next to his house.
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fenderbender321 posted...

CableZL posted...

fenderbender321 posted...

Who even cares if something is considered a "real job". Go make money. That's the point, right there.

Seriously. I wish I was interesting enough to be a Youtuber.

I could probably do it.

It's my back-up plan for if I ever get fired lol.

Yeah, maybe I could think of something, but I overthink things too much and would never actually decide on what to do. And even then, it takes a lot of time to build up a community of followers/subscribers/viewers unless you get super lucky and have a video that goes viral.
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I think it mainly comes down to that for most self-employment, it's only a job if you treat it like a job.

To use the Uber example, I have a friend who spends many hours a week driving for Uber/Lyft. They don't have set hours because they build their schedule around events that are happening in town and stuff like that, but it's their primary source of income and they do as much of it as they need to make ends meet. That's self employment but it's a job.

I also know someone who occasionally drives for Uber but they're living off their parents' money and they can go weeks without doing it. They call it their "job" but I wouldn't consider them to be gainfully employed.

For something like Youtube/Twitch, before the point where you're actually making a reasonable amount of money it's more of a hobby. I do know someone (not personally) who streams on Twitch and spends a lot of timing looking for sponsors, building content for their stream, etc. and that again feels more like a job than another person I do know personally who will stream occasionally when they play games.
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I look at them as small business owners, depending on their size obviously.
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Nazanir posted...

DumbQuestion posted...

Just curious, but what makes it not a legitimate job?

Simple:

You have no contract, you have no set amount of hours, no hourly wages, no 401k, no health/dental plans, no travel expenses, no insurances, absolutely nothing.

You also have no certainty, you can never get tenure, your income soley relies on the generosity and views of others. If you ever have to start soliciting for an actual job again, you also will have to explain a hole of several years in your resume, good luck explaining that your only marketable skills are "good at gaming" for example. You do not develop as a marketable person for a company, no new skills, nor do you get a payment increase over the years, or get extra perks.

You have a wage worker mentality. Disgusting.

foreverzero212 posted...

I look at them as small business owners, depending on their size obviously.

Exactly. Most people have that wage slave mentality and hating on people who take big risk and it gets paid off.
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Freddie_Mercury posted...

dont forget to like favorite and subscribe

*stretches videos over 10 minutes just for a 30 second explanation*

*clickbait thumbnails*

Because some people have this old school way of thinking that if you aren't digging ditches or sitting in some sort of office all day you aren't really working lol

CableZL posted...

Yeah, maybe I could think of something, but I overthink things too much and would never actually decide on what to do. And even then, it takes a lot of time to build up a community of followers/subscribers/viewers unless you get super lucky and have a video that goes viral.

Yeah, youtube is very finicky. I uploaded this video (

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB37Dxb28Ok" data-time=") once because I wanted to be able to quote it and despite being a moment that when I watched the episode felt like it would be something that people would want as a reaction video, but no one ever seemed to want it. It's not even the case that there's a version of it that's more popular; it's the only video on Youtube of it from a casual search. On the other hand there are random videos of a high school kid saying "Damn bro", recorded on an iPhone, with thousands of times more views.

It's whatever, because I don't set out to make viral content, but just upload videos that my friend want made that are short edits, or things that I had worked on for 72 hour film festivals and stuff, but I imagine it would pretty soul crushing to be trying hard to be a content creator and have to deal with that.
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I think it's more accurate to say it's a way to make a living. A job implies some degree of being hired, working for a wage, etc. I don't think it is demeaning to say it isn't a job, because if someone is able to support themselves on it, great! That being said, if we're not being semantic I'll call it a job for the sake of simplicity.

The connotation is there because there is obviously a difference between someone who does treat it more professionally. Has appropriate equipment, makes business plans, cares about production value of their channel, etc, versus some shmuck who just buys a mic and webcam and thinks his 15 followers is "being a YouTuber" when his "gig" can't even pay for his phone bill.

And because of that, there's probably a decent amount in the middle who probably make more than you might expect for that kind of work, but at the same time, probably appears more like a supplemental income type of deal rather than a reliable way to make a living. Obviously the most successful ones "disprove" this and demonstrate that's not necessarily the case, but they go without saying. The controversy is always the borderline cases and the threshold for calling yourself a "YouTuber" probably dilutes the "brand" of it's prestige as a way to make a living.

Of course, if you're mature about it, who gives a shit?
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Romulox28 posted...

all 90% of youtubers do is bottom of the barrel nonsense to appeal to children, crushing iphones, sexually suggestive thumbnails, logan paul type shit, etc

90% of what my kids want to show/want me to watch is just utterly awful. If there's to be any indignation in this thread it should be to the people supporting these youtubers, not at the youtubers for getting the money.

That said. It keeps my kids happy and they both have headphones, so if I have to endure the occasional reciting of Jeffy by my kids, I think I can stave off the immense feeling of wanting murder the creator of those videos.
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It depends on the content. Some put out decent quality (for the resources) vids with research, cool imagery, and well made content. Others are talking to their webcams offering nothing more than one more opinion in a sea of them, talking over playing video games, and are producing the kind of content not worth the free price of admission (perhaps by being one man projects with no one else to temper bad ideas.) You can put out 30 vids a week, but if they're al just you talking about some drama BS with your phone as a camera, it's hard to see it as a job so much as being a camera whore looking for attention.
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thats right