So recently it was reported by the FTC that several You Tuber's including Pewdiepie took money from Warner Bros. for positive reviews of Shadow of Mordor. Like a lot of people I was a little upset when I originally read the story. Several news outlets including The Verge and Venture Beat wrote articles coming down on Pewdiepie for taking the money in the first place.
I (being an incredibly new content provider) was reading everything I could about the article trying to figure out where I stood on the issue. I even watched the original video the Pewdiepie posted with the footage of Shadow of Mordor along with his response video. I'll disclose right now that I'm not the biggest Pewdiepie fan and don't really watch a lot of his video's.
In his response video Pewdiepie claims that he actually did disclose that the video was a paid sponsorship which he did, it's below the 'show more' button on the video. This is true, and it seems like from watching the original video that he really enjoyed playing the game. Let me repeat this again. It looked like he enjoyed playing the game.
The problem for me comes from the fact that yes, it looked like he enjoyed the game, but he was being paid to say that so in my mind I have to think every time I watch one of his video's if he is being paid to say that. I have to educate myself on looking below the fold and seeing if he was paid for his message or it was really from the heart. The one thing that bothers me is the fact that Pewdiepie states that other You Tubers did not disclose the fact that they were being paid. This makes me more wary of people that I watch content from on YouTube. Did that person just tell me something that was their own opinion or were they paid?
So I am not going to hate all over him, in fact I want to thank Pewdiepie for helping me educate myself so I canbe more transparent in my new business venture. I plan in a few short weeks to start adding a podcast to the website and if I ever give my opinion about a product, which might happen, I will now tell people if it's paid or if the product was at least provided by a company for me to use. I will also make sure if I provide video(which I am also planning on doing at some point) to show people above the fold if I am paid to show the audience anything.
I'm actually getting ahead of myself a little bit. The real message here is that like any media we have to educate ourselves as viewers. We look at TV commercials as what they are: a paid way for a sponsor to reach out and connect with an audience. We have the same feeling about movie trailers before the feature presentation: a way to get the word out about upcoming movies before they hit the theater. YouTube content creators are just the new players on the field.
I also want to thank the FTC for making new guidelines for You Tubers to follow and this will help people like myself police ourselves. Do you think any of this is good or bad? Let me know bellow or at jab@secondratefellows.com