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Post by milowent on Apr 10, 2007 12:41:11 GMT -5
But seriously, something is up... As a rule of thumb I always think that if something doesn't make sense it's because there is lying/fabricating involved. look at the change in the last day: 1:29pm Eastern Time April 10, 2007:lg15 channel report: 91280 subscribers smosh channel report 82574 subscribers Difference between Smosh and Lg15: 8706. This is a narrowing of the gap by over 1300 subscribers in about 23 hours time. Smosh's channel includes the total subscriber number on it (like all channels do), but it does not include the box where you can peruse their actual subscribers. This is ideal if you are hiding fake subscribers. I just can't believe that smosh is gaining on lg15 this fast in a legitimate fashion. --- ETA: some comments in the press about how smosh is not funny, as they won best comedy in the recent youtube awards. (Note, I am not saying smosh rigged this too, it's more likely they were slotted very high in the category in the default settings): Boston Herald (March 28, 2007)Best Comedy: “Smosh Short 2” by Smosh - Apparently, YouTube is devoid of comedy. Two teens from California created this, and well, we don’t care how they do it in California. Glen Falls, NY Post Star (March 27, 2007): YouTube viewers selected seven "winners" for the inaugural YouTube Video Awards recently. For results, go to www.youtube.com/ytawards. "Smosh Short 2: Stranded" video by Smosh won best comedy when it clearly did not deserve a nomination. It just wasn't funny. Videos "Mixed Nuts" and "Completely Uncalled For," which finished in second and third, were clearly more comical. Australian PC Authority (March 28, 2007) Like any awards show, YouTube's were not without controversy. At least one winning video drew the ire of readers and led some to question the competition's legitimacy. Smosh Short 2: Stranded, the winner of the 'best comedy' award, was swamped with negative comments. Some users even went as far as to accuse the creators of stuffing ballots and paying YouTube for the award.
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Smashing
Very Very Sr. Cove Sleuther
All you need is love...and high speed internet.
Posts: 454
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Post by Smashing on Apr 10, 2007 13:10:22 GMT -5
you can still look at their subscribers www.youtube.com/profile_subscribers?user=smoshI haven't taken the time to look through them yet. I will reserve judgement. Edit to add: as of this moment their profile says they have 82,597. They list 20 subscribers per page, so there should be 4130 pages. I can only view up to page 4122, and no, I did not look through all those pages, I just changed the number at the end of the URL: www.youtube.com/profile_subscribers?user=smosh&page=4122Of course that only leaves off the last 157 subscribers. I have to say, I don't see obvious evidence of fake accounts. YouTube works in mysterious ways.
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Post by milowent on Apr 10, 2007 13:32:46 GMT -5
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Post by elixir on Apr 10, 2007 14:03:54 GMT -5
I don't think it's fake subscribers with smosh, I think it's the editors of youtube giving them more of an advantage over other channels. They have been given more exposure, so there you would get people who genuinely do enjoy the videos and subscribe, but like with any community, you get people who want to be in with the in-crowd and subscribe to all the big talking heads on youtube.
I also think that a lot of the "YouTube celebrities" stick together, and work together to promote each other. I suppose this is fair enough in some ways, but in other ways it is just manipulative.
As well as this, I feel that a lot of the "YT celebs" snicker at LG15 (ETA: I had written "snig ger", but it censored me! lol), and think they are so far above it as "real" vloggers, and that they are the essence of YT. This is just my opinion/observation, but I have found that quite a few of these "celeb" vloggers who were subscribed to Lonleygirl15 - and some of them quite proudly - have now unsubscribed. The way I have been able to tell is either by first noticing they were subscribed and now aren't, or I have been able to guess (fairly accurately, I think) by noticing that further down their "subscribed to" lists they are subscribed to DanielBeast, or another LG channel but not the main LG one.
At the moment, the only one I can think of who has done this is TheHill88 - but I have seen others, just can't think of who right now. It's not like TheHill is picky either - she's subscribed to 128 channels! Hmmm... this seems to have come after her involvement with YT editor Damien Estreich, and the other "cool" members of youtube. It just seems a bit odd that people would be subscribed to DB and not LG. We all know it's fictitious, and part of the same story. And these days all the videos are posted on LG's account.
In a more "fair" way, I think that with Lonelygirl, you can't really just casually watch the videos. You need to know what's going on. With smosh, there is nothing going on so you don't really miss any information. So they could get more viewers this way.
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Post by hyemew on Apr 10, 2007 15:24:47 GMT -5
Smosh Short 2: Stranded, the winner of the 'best comedy' award, was swamped with negative comments. Some users even went as far as to accuse the creators of stuffing ballots and paying YouTube for the award. These bad reviews are incredible: 1. Because they renew my faith in humanity and 2. Because of how they completely fly in the face of the 99% of comments smosh videos get. I am completely shocked that the YouTube community's standards would be so low that they almost unanimously find hilarious what actual paper readers find terrible. Keeping in mind YouTube commenters are renowned for their brash meanness, for smosh to get 99% positive comments almost makes you wonder if something is up (though I just guess mainly their fans comment them and they like them a lot...)
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Post by hyemew on Apr 10, 2007 15:34:01 GMT -5
I don't think it's fake subscribers with smosh, I think it's the editors of youtube giving them more of an advantage over other channels. They have been given more exposure, so there you would get people who genuinely do enjoy the videos and subscribe, but like with any community, you get people who want to be in with the in-crowd and subscribe to all the big talking heads on youtube. It's amazing what youtube exposure can do. I personally know a user who had their account featured for 48 hours on the sign-up page- you know where they give new registerees the option of up to four accounts to subscribe to as a way to introduce them to youtube. You aren't even able to watch the accounts videos from there, so it has nothing to do with content. Most people just click some or all and move on. Their account skyrocketed with about 2000 subscribers in two days. If you recall MiaRose skyrocketing out of nowhere- she was the one and ONLY sign-up page account for an entire week. If we consider 2000 subscribers in two days, it's not hard to see how she could have gotten at least 10000 new subscribers just from that- and you have to factor in that she was the one and ONLY choice- not four to water down how many she was getting. Now she goes around bragging about how she's the top musician on youtube and has the record for fastest rise on YouTube, but when you consider the extraordinary circumstances in which this rise occured- it becomes clear it was far less about her (these users never even got to see her videos before signing up!) and far MORE about special treatment from YouTube. It goes without saying that any account could have had the same exact skyrocketting to "fame" if only they pulled the right strings with YouTube, it all has to do with who they pick.
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Post by Tempestarii on Apr 10, 2007 18:35:49 GMT -5
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Post by hyemew on Apr 10, 2007 18:48:54 GMT -5
Yes I do remember following her during that time and seeing her go up 800 in a matter of hours. However, now I'm not so sure if she was cheating based on the scenario described in the previous post. A lot of these new subscribers to youtube definitely won't have any friends, videos, etc. If this is from the time she was on the sign-up screen, it's quite possible that in actuality these were just numerous new users who were told to sign up for her when they signed up. Of course that doesn't explain why so many of them would sign up but not watch any videos right after (unless it takes a bit for that count to update), but I think that's a much more possible option than she/her promotors actually made tens of thousands of fake names for her. I mean it sounds time consuming as anything, but then again I'm not ruling that possibility out either. I just think the new user theory when she was on the sign up page is more viable.
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Post by elixir on Apr 11, 2007 3:28:10 GMT -5
Re: Mia Rose Sorry to harp on about Damien Estreich again, but the more I read about him, the more I see that him and his posse are influencing YouTube. According to this, Mia Rose paid Damien $1400 for special promotional services. The authors of this page don't say where they get their info from, so I don't know how much of it is true, but I'm leaning towards it being true, as so far there is a lot of incriminating evidence about these guys. They mention something called The House Of Jigsaw Promotions, where they give this list of prices and information: Damien Estreich's "House Of Jigsaw" YouTube Promotions Rates:
To have your video featured on the YouTube front page - $300 To have your channel appear on the Signup_invite page - $800 For ongoing "Spotlights" on the YourTubeNews Channel - $400 Special rate for the complete package - $1400 Contact: sales@houseofjigsaw.net
www.houseofjigsaw.net [this does not exist anymore, I just checked.]
Testimonials:
'Damien Estreich got me 28,000 subscribers in one week for only $1400, that is only 5 cents a subscriber, great value' - Mia Rose
For those that do not have the cash readily available, a cam whore video will get the person (male or female) placed on the YourTubeNews vlog. Camwhore videos must mention and praise Damien Estreich personally to be considered for inclusion on his YouTube sponsored channel. Some example videos are shown below. Please note that originality and nudity are not as important as mentioning Damien Estreich's name repeatedly.
As part of Damien Estreich's duties as leader of the Street Team he is being paid to broadcast messages from YouTube Head Office on his channel. To get value for money YouTube is doing everything in its power to promote the YourTubeNews channel, in the vain hope that people will actually watch it more than once. www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/YourTubeNews#The_House_Of_Jigsaw_Promotions
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Post by Tempestarii on Apr 11, 2007 8:25:02 GMT -5
Technical Contact: Estreich, Damien ctonic@gmail.com Jigsaw Media 5 XXXX XX XXXXXXXX, Queensland 4000 Australia 111111111 Fax --
Seems it was created on the 25th March, 2006.
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Post by surrealisticpill on Apr 11, 2007 9:04:21 GMT -5
I had never seen or heard of smosh until they were featured and this thread was started. This morning, I watched a lot of their videos. It's not *that* bad. Nothing was really laugh out loud funny, but I thought it was enjoyable to watch a couple of guys having fun and acting like idiots... I went to www.smosh.com This website has 24,679 members, and right now, 312 members currently online. Compare this to www.lg15.com which has 9,587 members (for the main page) and 4,400 members (forums). Keep in mind that you need a separate account for the main page and forums, so you can't add these numbers together. So what is it about smosh that attracts so many more people? Their forums are a much more casual atmosphere, and based on the few threads that I looked at, generally populated by the young and/or totally moronic. But maybe smosh is more appealing to teens than lonelygirl. I would be interested to know if they are in fact scamming YT for subscribers, but I really don't think this is the case. IMO, people just love smosh.
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Post by milowent on Apr 11, 2007 9:51:09 GMT -5
I had never seen or heard of smosh until they were featured and this thread was started. This morning, I watched a lot of their videos. It's not *that* bad. Nothing was really laugh out loud funny, but I thought it was enjoyable to watch a couple of guys having fun and acting like idiots... lots of people say their early videos were funny, but that much of the latter stuff is not. they have some funny ideas, but the execution doesn't always pay off. oh, and thanks for the smosh.com stats, that is interesting.
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Post by oweniscool on Apr 11, 2007 14:05:07 GMT -5
lmao! the background music is Weird Al's cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--classy! Anyway, I don't know about Smosh, but Miarose recently put up a video saying she just got signed with Nextselection. I googled them and got a Wikipedia article which basically just said that they were Miarose's label. I dunno... when a youtube star is more famous than their own record label things aren't looking so bright. Wiki articleI don't really like her voice, but to her credit, it's not like she's any worse than some other hacks that get bigger deals. *cough*Ashlee Simpson*cough* *cough*and her sister*cough* Sorry if this was too OT!
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Post by wixy15 on Apr 15, 2007 11:49:59 GMT -5
Do the creators really worry about being number 1 on the most subscribed list? I guess they have attracted their audience and are now *concentrating* on continuing the series. People who want to find it will, perhaps there is no need for 'recruiting viewers anymore.
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Post by milowent on Apr 16, 2007 9:48:09 GMT -5
Do the creators really worry about being number 1 on the most subscribed list? I think its something that is great for the Creators to use when selling the show for ads, etc. Being #1 most-subscribed on youtube is something people can be impressed by, even if they have no idea what it really means. And speaking of being #1: The magic number is now 4841. Lg15 subscribers at this moment: 91437 smosh: 86596 difference: 4841
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