#jerma's voice LIFE IS PAIN I HATE MYS- | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

protagonistheavy · 3 years

Text

Ster (aka STAR_) posted a video a few days ago talking about his absence from youtube, his transition into twitch, his current projects, etc. and a lot of it got me thinking about stuff.

He started crying at one point because he was talking about the trauma he got from youtube. And all through this video, he has blips constantly going up showing comments across all his videos, comments ranging from “I miss the old star” to “haha how does it feel that jerma is more popular than you” to “fuck you for making non-tf2 videos” and, wow. It’s just really sad. It’s no joke what he said, you can clearly tell from his tone of voice alone that he’s been ripped up by comments like these and this pressure to put out “the best” videos.

I looked up to Ster a lot when I was just turning 20 because TF2 was my jam and his videos were weirdly inspiring. He had such a sense of humor with the game and his videos managed to showcase the fun of TF2 on top of showing some sick plays or crazy moments. Those videos were with me in a particularly tough time of my life, and it sucks that the person behind them fell into such a depression while making them. Especially because I’d say he was one of the original sources for me wanting to get into youtube back in the day. I saw him make videos and I really wanted to do that, to try and stream and have fun.

But he wasn’t having fun. He said that for every “simple” video he put out, there were several more behind the scenes that he never uploaded. And he went on to say that had he just done that, upload content he didn’t like but on a regular schedule, he’d have been more popular. He’d be the youtuber he wanted to be, posting videos of himself doing the same things. And now that I’m a “~creator~” too and have my own upload schedules to worry about, I just... really get it. I get losing that passion or wondering what the purpose of it all is.

I guess in some ways I’m glad I didn’t try my hand at making videos. It probably would have been a painful venture.

It sucks that it seems like no one out there just “makes videos” on a casual level anymore. Everybody that makes videos does it as a job. There’s no “for fun” let’s plays, certainly not that have some consistency and quality to them. Everything that reaches a certain point of effort enters a threshold where they might as well put in a lot more effort to make it a full production. I hate always bringing them up but Game Grumps is a clear-cut example of what I mean, where you have a small cast of Dudes who are just having fun making content, slowly becoming part of bigger and better projects and expanding their workspace, until eventually the show is no longer just two guys on a couch but an entire studio with an operating staff and a strict production schedule/system. The heart of what made these entertainers so likeable is dimmed because it’s no longer a passionate hobby, but a full-blown job that is far beyond the scale they began with. They can’t just decide to have a slow day with no uploads, or half-ass a video with no editing -- they have employees now, they have rent to pay, and they have an algorithm to appeal to. They don’t have a normal, relatable life to talk about, they can only talk about their job which is making videos.

And Ster never got to that point, I suppose, where he was making videos dutifully. He got out before that happened and became a twitch streamer, and he’s a lot happier there, it’s way more up his alley. I’m happy for him and hope his tabletop RPG goes well.

0 notes