#every stream he does with bad there are SO MANY SUS CLIPS

[onisiondrama]

11/21/2019 Patreon Stream Hour 2 of 5

Notes

Greg says he doesn’t trust people anymore. He says he hasn’t cried in a long time.

Greg talks about the game for a while, but tells a Patron to stop talking about the game when they say say others can join a mission with them.

Greg says celebrities are dumb to hug fans because a fan can take a picture of them hugging and use that to say they had a secret personal relationship. Patrons agree.

Greg says he sees people as bombs waiting to explode in his face after all he’s been through. He said he once refused to hug a chick and he felt bad.

They talk about a girl that showed up at Social Repose’s house after he told his fans if they show up with a glass of milk he’ll hang out with them. They say that girl killed herself and people blame him. Greg says you can’t prove his rejecting her had anything to do with her death. He says ultimately he didn’t pull the trigger. A Patreon says she might have received a lot of hate after Social Repose’s video about her. Greg agrees that could be a valid reason.

Greg says when SR came to his house, he said he would get an Uber when they were done, but he didn’t leave and spent the night. Greg says he smelled awful.

He says Youtubers don’t have careers anymore. He can’t think of a single Youtuber that was on his level- he cuts himself off and says Jaclyn Glenn and Blaire White are doing okay. Someone asked who Blaire was and he says she calls him a pedophile. Someone asks if she’s the dumb one. He says they’re all dumb. He says he’s surprised Jaclyn doesn’t make videos crossed-eyed. He says atheists are supposed to be less conspiracy theorists. 

A Patreon says in December Youtube is going to delete videos that don’t make money. Greg laughs and asks who said that. They reply Youtube. Greg doesn’t believe them. They say it’s in their new ToS. Greg still doesn’t believe them. They said they’ll read it again.

Greg says if Youtube was nuked tomorrow he wouldn’t feel anything. He clarifies he means the website, not the headquarters. He says they’ve wronged and screwed over so many Youtubers.

The Patreon reads the new ToS. Greg reads it and says they didn’t say they’d delete videos.

Greg jokingly asks his Patreons what he should do now that Youtube is going to be deleted. Someone said babysit. He says he used to be partially in charge of a daycare when he was 17. He says he worked with a woman named Libby who was cheating on her husband who was in the military. He says a guy would show up to see her at the daycare and Greg saw them kiss. He says she may have been in the process of getting a divorce. He says Libby would record hours when she wasn’t there and he’d have to work her hours because they had the same hours. She was 21 and she was his superior. She got paid more and was allowed to shit on him without him being able to do anything about it. He says she was mad because the kids liked him more. He says he set up their computer and encouraged the kids to play video games and she didn’t like video games, that’s why the kids hated her.

Someone links a video that says Youtube is going to delete videos that don’t make money. Greg laughs and jokes that the Onision channel is just going to be the Banana song. He says he would laugh. 

He asks his Patreons what they think about this crazy situation. Says you dump someone and you don’t want to be with them anymore. They’re yelling at you and you tell them you’re going to call a family member or the cops and they wrap their arms around you so you can’t use your hand to call anyone. You tell them you’re not going to be violent and they say they wish you would so you start nervously giggling. He asks what they would rate it as a healthy relationship out of 10. They agree it’s toxic.

Greg says it’s rare for someone to tell you they love you and mean it. He says love means even if you don’t like me I’ll still be good to you. He says the only person that has done that was Kai when they broke up for a few days. He says when Kai loves someone it’s real. Says when he loves someone, he’s not compared to Kai.

Greg says he was happy the other day because people have been talking smack, but nothing they say can comes as a surprise to people in his life because he tells them everything. He says it’s funny when people say something and they think it’s a surprise and it’s not. He says a vague story about someone complaining having too many orgasms? He says they were upset about how great sex was with him.

He says someone asked him to pull their hair, but later complained that he pulled too hard. A Patreon says someone said he pulled too hard. Greg says they never complained to him. They say he chocked them and Greg laughs. He says he’s a hair puller and a choker and everyone he’s been with was happy about it. Greg says he does it but gauges their reaction. He says it sounds like they’re advertising sexual awesomeness. Greg says he doesn’t have any shit to talk about Shiloh kink wise (this is the first time he used her name on this stream).

He says she’s very theatrical. He says if someone is dramatic, in his experience they are crazy and skilled in the bedroom.

Someone says it’s funny they have nothing to complain about until the relationship is over. He says when you dump someone 8 times, you have a lot to complain about, but when you are dumped you don’t.

He says someone told him she blamed shaving her head on him. Patreons tell him she said after sex he took her to shave her head then continued. He laughs and says it sound kinky, like a novel. He says she would complain she wanted to cut her hair, so during sex he told her to do it. He says so she did it. The Patreons repeat the story she told during the interview and Greg says he doesn’t remember what happened, but it would be rude if he didn’t have sex with her after. He says if someone shaved his head and didn’t want to fuck him he’d be upset.

A Patreon says she said he made her dress up as bald characters and the videos they made weren’t all released. He says he released them all. He has a thing about releasing all of them. He says he did have her dress up as bald characters, but laughs that he didn’t fuck her in the costumes. 

Someone says she said he was really mean to her and there was a video that came out of him throwing stuff at her face. Greg is confused. They say candycorn. He asks if it was a sketch. The Patreon quotes what he says in the video and he asks if that was part of the sketch. He says “what?” The patreons continue and say he was in the background saying these things and someone says he was throwing the candycorn really hard. Greg laughs at the candycorn. He asks if they’re sure it’s not part of the sketch and his Patreons say they think it was a blooper. He asks where the video is and they say in his comments on twitter. Someone says they thought it was part of the sketch. Someone else says it was probably taken out of context. Greg says he doesn’t remember, it was 8 years ago. 

A Patreon sends him the link to the video. He watches. He says she’s doing a vlog for her Draculoh channel. He says it was part of the script. He says it wasn’t out of context and it was part of the skit. He says people would say he was abusing her so he made those videos to play off of what people were saying. He says his Patreons know he always does that. He says she’s acting too. He says there are video effects on it because that’s the final video, it’s not a behind the scenes thing. He says it sucks when people had the context back then, but later on people don’t have the full story because that one clip was part of a bigger scheme where they were making fun of people. They were acting out what people were implying. He says it’s convenient to exclude real world events and just use literal sketches. He says everyone knows they would do things for dramatic effect and to trigger people. A Patreon says it’s just like when he made that To Catch a Predator video and people used that out of context. He agrees. He says he can’t say sorry for that because it’s not his fault people are stupid. He compares it to a staged reality show. He says if he actually treated her like that she would have dumped him. He says back then when they uploaded that video people got the joke back then, but now people act like that’s how he really is because of the context now. 

A Patreon says she said Greg tried to stop her from making music and made her make videos with him all the time. He asks then why did he make music videos with her. Patreons agree. He says at the end of the relationship he was trying to get her to make music. He says he went on a recording trip with her in LA, and another with his producer friend where she recorded music. He says she was often recording music. He says she couldn’t have stopped her because she was in a contract with a record label. He says they did get in trouble for making music because they weren’t supposed to because of her contract. He says if he tried to stop her for making music they would have gotten sued. He says he likes how there is real world evidence and then there’s sketches. He’s upset he didn’t have that foresight back them. (referring to the candycorn video I think) He says he trolled people all the time like when he said he had cancer or Parkinson’s. 

A Patreon says it annoyed her that she didn’t say it was someone else’s baby. Greg says she was pregnant twice. She said she was pregnant with his baby when she went to Canada. He says he had a professional look at photos of her and they said her belly wasn’t low enough, she was pushing her gut out so she’s not pregnant. He still took her back and she admitted she was not pregnant. She told him she had no money to get to him, but he says that makes no sense because she had the opportunity to make songs. He said every time he broke up with her she had the opportunity to record songs, but she didn’t.

When she came back, people online were saying she got pregnant with someone else’s baby. He says he’s not sure about that. He says she would have had to have gotten pregnant the night she got back for it to be his baby. When they went to the doula at 12 weeks they said the baby died at 6 weeks. He hugged her and she cried. He says he doesn’t know where she came up with sepsis, but she didn’t die so she didn’t have it. She said she needed to go to Canada and there she hooked up with her new boyfriend. Greg says he was trying to get her to come back. Someone says she said Greg knew she had a boyfriend. Greg is confused and the Patreon says you guys were already broken up. Greg says she’s reinventing what happened. He says she wrote up that she wasn’t in a relationship with him until after. He says you can’t erase what you said when it happened.

A patreon says she said he was still with his ex wife and got divorce papers because he met Shiloh. They say she said they were on skype when he showed her the divorce papers. Greg says that didn’t happen. A patreon says his ex wife knew and was in the background. Greg says a Canadian pop star said she wants to work with him and as a Youtuber he’s like yeah. She said she emailed him before, but he ignored all her emails until she said she was a Canadian pop star. He agrees and says it would be cool to work with a pop star. He says he started talking to her over Skype. He says 6 months prior he threatened his wife with divorce because she thought half of his stuff was hers. He told her he didn’t want to be with someone that wants his shit and she backed off. He says he started talking to Shiloh on Skye mid November 2010 and it snowballed quickly. She showed huge interest in him while his s/o was just a friend living with him. He married her to have a friend live with him in the military. She didn’t want kids, so it wasn’t an inspiring situation. He’s sitting next to his wife while skying with this person and they only talk about things that are totally appropriate. He says it becomes obvious from her implication that she’s super into him and he’s married to someone that’s not into him. He sat down with his wife and tells her he want to break up. She starts off optimistic and thinks it’ll work out, but then he brings her divorce papers. He tells her she could live in the house for 2 years or he’ll give her $1,000 or $2,000 a month for a year to live somewhere else. He says that’s when she started the waterworks and started freaking out and that’s when he told Shiloh he loved her. That’s when they started dating long distance. He says it was obvious what she wanted and he wanted it too. The patreon apologizes for asking, they say they just want to hear his side. He says the lady that said she doesn’t want to be with him for his assets sued his for a quarter of a million dollars. He says they raided his house and they put clothing over his surveillance cameras and left the house a total mess.

He says people think he’s evil because they don’t understand acting in videos so he might as well be as trollish as he wants to be.

Greg says since he’s made thousands of videos he doesn’t remember most of his videos. He says it’s exciting for him to watch his videos because it’s like watching it for the first time.

[cecilspeaks]

Episode 106 - Filings

Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near? Tell me more about your special bird powers. Welcome to Night Vale. 

It’s been a long couple of weeks, as the city-wide emergency sirens that signal illegal public acknowledgement of angels have been blaring almost nonstop. But in spite of these archaic laws, I’ve been shouting “You’re an angel!” at beings who look like angels and then making my most friendly finger-pointing gesture.

The beings who call themselves angels because… that’s what they are, have begun filing the paperwork for official existence. The angels are still at the Hall of Public Records downtown waiting in line. They have made it to the front of line three different times, but each time, they were told they were missing a key form of ID or pre-application paperwork, or that the cameras could not record their image. They weren’t told his using words, the Records Hall clerk just stabbed their paperwork repeatedly with scissors and then got a massive nosebleed, which is how they know their application was declined.

Other citizens waiting have grown restless. As they do not acknowledge the existence of angels, the next person in line keeps walking up to a seemingly empty window, only to be brushed away by a clerk, or an angel. These citizens have begun shouting and crumbling and curling into little balls and sobbing, as large glowing cracks appear in the ceiling.

It’s been several days of waiting in line for the angels. We’ll check back in on them soon.

Oh, I have a new intern, listeners. He’s a fine-looking young man with a beautiful voice, I think he’ll have a great future in radio. I’ve been trying to ask him his name or who hired him. I certainly don’t remember beginning the search for a new intern, he just appeared this morning and started working without a single word. Which is the most professional behavior for anyone beginning a new job. Well, he seems hard at work, even if every time I address him he doesn’t notice me. It’s great having a competent replacement for Kareem, even if I have no idea how this new intern got here and who he is. As long as the filing is getting done.

Alondra Ortiz, daughter of Josefina Ortiz who passed away last month, has carried on her fight against the angels. The angels are claiming ownership of Old Woman Josie’s estate, since they lives with her and helped her build the many artistic monuments and cultural foundations around town. Alondra said she doesn’t care if angels are acknowledged or not. If they want to be recognized, fine, but Alondra and her lawyer, Emilio Tavarez have filed motions to maintain ownership of Alondra’s mother’s home, belongings, money, and memories. Just because a bunch of imaginary tall people with wings helped Josie change the lightbulbs from time to time, Tavarez said, that’s no reason they are considered next of kin. Tavarez told judge Siobhan Azdaq: “If they don’t exist, we must get kissed.” Judge Azdaq replied: “Emilio, it’s been four years. I’m remarried. We’re done, OK?”

The angels have hired five-headed dragon Miriam Adelman as their counsel, who issued a literally scathing response. Alondra is now suing Adelman and her team for medical bills resulting from second degree burns. Alondra has already put Josie’s home up for sale. She is willing to offer rebates for pre-existing damage, such as a series of large glowing slits in the walls that lead to rooms that aren’t… possible, according to the official floor plan, nor the laws of physics. These rooms range from a 17th century ball room to a crow’s nest on a modern nazy destroyer to the space shuttle. Plus, anachronistic people keep wandering in and out of these portals. She added, “On second thought, since the house has more usable square footage than originally anticipated, and because there appear to be current renters”, she’s raising the sale price.

So I just sent my new intern to go pick up some lunch. Or at least I said, “Excuse me young man whose name I don’t know yet who I only think works here, can you go grab me a cobb salad with extra whipped cream and pencil shavings from the Missing Frog Salad Bar? He didn’t say yes, nor did he ever seem to see or hear me, but he did look really frightened and ran from the room crying, which was such a polite and respectful gesture to his superior. What a nice young man. Dresses kind of weird though, so early 80’s, with his double Windsor striped tie, polyester coat and aviator goggles, just like we all wore back in the day. I supposed most things eventually come back in fashion. Well, I can only assume he heard my lunch order. I’m starving.

Faceless Old Woman: You’re starving? Try not having a mouth.

Cecil: Oh my god, you scared me. [chuckles] Listeners, we have an unplanned visit from the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home. Or I guess in this case, your radio studio while you’re still on the air.

FOW: Cecil, we need to talk about the Distant Prince.

Cecil: Few dare to speak at him, so as not to draw his attention. What do you know?

FOW: His harbingers are here. They are prepared to announce his arrival with their long, toothy beaks. They’re stomach-eyes see all. They’ve been rehearsing this announcement in their room at the Hampton Inn  on Route 800. They’ve been writing and rewriting their grand pronouncement and teaching it to the court shriekers to shriek out to all of Night Vale.

Cecil: What does that mean?

FOW: What, “shriek”? It’s like a painful yell. Like this: [disturbing scream] Meanwhile, the mangled servants are gathering the ears of important Night Vale politicians.

Cecil: Gross.

FOW: Right? And they will sew the ears onto the walls of the Hampton Inn continental breakfast bar and use them as portals into many dimensions at once. Their plan is to destroy time itself and collapse Night Vale into a dead singularity.

Cecil: Why do they want to do this?

FOW: It was suggested to him by a nice young woman from out of town.

Cecil: What young woman?

FOW: She.. she.. [music distorts, evil voice] The woman from Italy brings fun and jest, consuming all souls until none are left. Distant Prince and she plan the terrible plot: destroying all that is until all is not. I met her in dreams and found a dear friend, a woman a mortal mind can’t comprehend. No guard controls her, no physics can hold her, she’ll set the world on fire but leave you all colder. [music distorts back to normal] Yeah, she and I are best friends now. She’s a lot of fun, really good poet. I gotta go. Steve Carlsberg is back home, and I wanna stand behind him in the mirror when he bends down to wash his face. His shrieks are the funniest.

Cecil: Oh aha hahaha, dumb old Steve! Be nice, OK?

We are getting reports that a dense fog is now pouring from a giant glowing slash in the sky above the Rec Center. Some pteranodons have flown out of it, as well as a commercial airliner. And those who entered the fog reported hearing shouts, blood-curdling streams, and even the echo of drums. But there’s also the Battle of the Bands sound check happening right now at the Rec Center, so it’s probably just that. Either way, keep a close eye out for these apparent tears in the fabric of our reality. Also, go check out the Battle of the Bands. I think Diane Crayton’s son Josh and his boyfriend Grant are organizing that event.

And now a word from our sponsors. Today’s show is brought to by a grey pigeon, whispering to you from your neighbor’s backyard. The pigeon – his name is Alfonso – is telling you that you are the one true God. [serene voice] And that he wants you to bring it a body part. A human body part. Doesn’t matter which part. Just do it. [ominously] Soon. [serenely] “Time’s almost gone. The Bible was wrong,” the pigeon added, suddenly from your right shoulder. “There never was a beginning.” This has been a word from our sponsors.

Reports continue from the last few weeks of people all over Night Vale experiencing false realities. The most believable visions are those of tall winged beings roaming the streets and asking to borrow 10 bucks. City Council is issuing daily press releases, claiming the existence of angels is impossible and illegal. City Council is threatening to no longer speak to anyone who acknowledges the so-called angels. “You are uninvited to our birthday party,” today’s press release reads. “Too bad, there will be karaoke and minigolf. Your loss, angel acknowledger!”

A series of fissures in reality have begun to open up, revealing truths that should never have existed. Like the 12th century Scottish castle sitting atop the stables over on Galloway. Frances Donaldson at the Antiques Mall reports suddenly knowing how to play the piano, when before she only knew how to play keyboard. Larry Leroy out on the edge of town came home to find his wife, Chrysette, mowing the lawn. But he was never married. He last saw Chrysette in high school, when they were both in the lurching band together. And fired chief Ramona Encarnacion said she found a rock in the shape of Harry Styles’ liver. “I don’t know how Harry is getting by without his liver,” Incarnassian said. “Or given how much mud was on this thing, how he was ever getting by with it.”

Night Vale, beware the untruths which attempt to dismantle our town. Stay vigilent, read your journals, look at your photographs. Do your best to remember what is real.

Oh man, speaking of real, I’m real hungry. I wish my intern would get back soon with my salad. It’s been forever since he… Oh, wait. He left his wallet behind. Well, strike one, new intern. How are you supposed to buy lunch if you don’t take any money? Hope he has some cash in his pockets.

I’ll be so annoyed if lunch is late. Ah, this is a pretty nice wallet. Trifold, ooh photo pages, human leather, money clip. I used to have one just like this. maybe let’s find out more about you, kiddo. Let’s see. Bowling league card. Ooh, I love bowling. Young reporter’s league membership. Wow, it’s after my own heart. Photos of him with a young man he could probably be related to and, is that my… who are you? Where’s your driver’s license? Oh God. This can’t.. this can’t be. This here... just…

Uh, OK, here’s the weather while I sort this out.

[“All or Nothing” by the Dream Masons]

My new intern never made it back. He never left, or maybe, was never hear at all. Or maybe still is here after all these years.

After finding his… my… ID in his wallet, I ran out after him. But before I even got out of the building, I found him in the restroom. The door was slightly cracked and the light was on. I heard a voice, a familiar young voice. “Leonard said if I work hard, maybe I’ll be a radio presenter myself some day,” said the voice. I was so frightened but still I looked into the washroom, and he was standing in front of a mirror looking right at himself. I never look into those things, or at least I haven’t in a long time.

“I think the radio station is fun,” he said. “I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be,” he said. I wanted to cry out to warn him. My mother told me to stay away from mirrors, and I knew he was in danger. I opened my mouth and tried to step in the room, but I could not speak, could not move forward.

“I’m looking in the mirror,” he said. “The mirror is not covered,” he said. “Stop! Don’t look into the mirror!” I tried to say, but nothing came out of my mind, only spit and inaudible wheeze. Tears stung my eyes. I waved frantically, trying to catch his attention.

“The flickering movement is just behind me,” he said, and then he looked right at me in the mirror. His eyes grew wide and wet. He said, “I…” He said again, “I…” and then he choked. Then he screamed, then I screamed, only again no sound came out. He fell to the floor, and for a moment, I remembered. I remembered blue lights and blood in my throat, and the dark planet lit by no sun and then I forgot it. Or at least what it looked like or, only that it was, or never was or it still is.  

His wallet was no longer in my studio, his… my… driver’s license was no longer in my hand, my familiar teenage intern was no longer lying on the ground. The mirror he was looking into is now shattered into thousands of intersecting cracks like parched desert dirt.

I approached the mirror, hoping to see a face I knew: a young man’s face I just barely remember. But I only saw a multiplicity of me, a man divided, unrecognizably under razor-sharp grounds, and behind me a glowing slash in the bathroom wall. When I turned, the whole in reality was gone. Only plain gray subway tiles.

I don’t know what is real. Myself as a younger intern, the Woman from Italy, these holes in reality. Harry Stiles’ liver. Harry Stiles. Are any of these things real?

One thing I know is real were the angels. After hours of waiting in line, their paperwork has been officially filed, with the Hall of Public Records, and a hearing date scheduled sometime between the last Friday of this month, and the last Friday of 2023.

Night Vale. Reality is failing us. And strange forces are gathering. The Distant Prince, the Woman from Italy. The dragons. Huntokar.

I don’t know what we can do to save a failing reality, I only know, uh… We can make real that which we acknowledge and accept. Angels are real, Night Vale. The actuality of people we rarely see or interact with may seem unimportant as fissures in our world, threatening to collapse anything we know but – if you see an angel, tell them you see them. Tell them they are real. Point at them and shout: “You’re. An. Angel!” we can only make real what we accept as real,. Tell them, OK?

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Good things come to those who wait. Good things come slithering down the unctuous brown stone walls to those who wait alone in the dark pit.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv #wtnv transcripts #episode 106 #filings

[njawaidofficial]

YouTube Grows Up: Inside the Plan to Take on Netflix and Hulu

http://styleveryday.com/2017/10/09/youtube-grows-up-inside-the-plan-to-take-on-netflix-and-hulu/

YouTube Grows Up: Inside the Plan to Take on Netflix and Hulu

With a veteran television exec, talent like Demi Lovato and Google’s $86 billion in cash, the platform known for skateboarding videos and tween vloggers wants to join the battle to become a prestige TV player. “I want our shows to resonate in a big way with audiences,” says content head Susanne Daniels. “And once that happens, we’ll be on that list — like it or not.”

Days before Morgan Spurlock debuted his anticipated Super Size Me sequel at the Toronto Film Festival, the documentary already was drawing buyer interest. Netflix made a play for Spurlock’s poultry industry exposé, per sources. Hulu and CNN also were said to be in the mix, but a surprising distributor quickly rose to the top: YouTube. The lights had just dimmed on Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken‘s Sept. 8 world premiere when THR reported that the streamer would pay $3.5 million for the documentary, committing to a theatrical release and a hefty marketing spend. “YouTube made the most sense for what I wanted to accomplish with this film,” says Spurlock, who is said to have left millions on the table to work with the Google-owned video hub and its 1.5 billion monthly viewers. “You don’t make movies to sit on a shelf and collect dust. You want them to actually be enjoyed by as many people as you can. And their plan is to make this a noisy partnership.”

Indeed, when Super Size Me 2 debuts on YouTube Red, the company’s $10-a-month streaming service, in 2018 after a run in theaters (a distribution partner hasn’t been chosen yet), it will front a small but growing slate of films — among them a documentary from rapper Warren G and a special starring Katy Perry — that YouTube global head of original content Susanne Daniels is hoping will help turn the world’s biggest repository for web video into an arbiter of taste and culture, a player in both the Oscar and Emmy races. “I want the movies that we’re buying to be buzzy and have something provocative to say,” says Daniels, a career television executive who joined YouTube in 2015 to lead its original content push. “It’s easier to support films the right way when they have a really loud and strong point of view.”

That YouTube execs were trolling Toronto for the next big indie hit says a lot about the rise of streaming video services over the past few years. An arms race among cash-rich new players — led by Netflix and Amazon and now including Hulu, Apple, Facebook and, yes, YouTube — has electrified the content business as legacy distribution models continue to fracture (see the 25-year low in box-office attendance this summer). The shift is redrawing the hierarchy of the television industry, where all five broadcast networks saw a decline in total viewers last season while the streamers committed about $20 billion to programming delivered without a cable subscription. This summer, Apple poached Sony TV’s top execs Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht to help it spend $1 billion making the kinds of shows (The Crown, Breaking Bad) that they once sold to networks. Netflix snapped up uber-producer Shonda Rhimes from ABC with an estimated $100 million deal. And Facebook announced its new video destination along with deals with dozens of production and publishing companies.

If there’s one thing that Netflix’s House of Cards, Amazon’s Transparent and Hulu’s drama series Emmy winner The Handmaid’s Tale have shown, it’s that it only takes one big hit to earn Hollywood’s respect and, in many cases, a subscriber’s credit card information. “If you can offer talent the same level of fame and exposure and pay them the same — if not more — than they get elsewhere, you can get access to anybody,” says BTIG media analyst Richard Greenfield. “There are no barriers anymore.”

Perhaps, but for every Netflix or Hulu, there is an Xbox Entertainment Studios or a Yahoo Screen or an Intel Media, all of which were scrapped after pricey launches. Even YouTube has been here before with its short-lived initiative to offer as much as $5 million up front to everyone from Ashton Kutcher to Jay Z to create their own “channels.” But the latest investments have the Hollywood talent community salivating. “The commitment of resources seems to indicate that this is a long-term game,” says Joe Cohen, co-head of CAA’s TV department. “It’s the most exciting time we’ve been in because of how much opportunity there is.”

There’s certainly not room for half-hearted programming plays in 2017. With nearly 500 scripted series expected this year, breaking through all that clutter isn’t easy. A common refrain as these new buyers take meetings is that each is looking for its Game of Thrones — an all-audience, brand-defining megahit. What that means for each platform is starting to come into focus. While Apple has been on the hunt for a big-budget drama from the likes of A-list creators Ryan Murphy or Vince Gilligan, Facebook is taking a more measured approach — saving Nicole Byers’ MTV comedy *Loosely Exactly Nicole from cancellation and ordering low-budget series from such longtime partners as BuzzFeed and Refinery29.

Where does all this leave YouTube, the site that launched the streaming age in 2005 with user-generated cat videos but now wants to be taken seriously as a prestige subscription destination? During a recent visit with THR at Google’s Mountain View campus in Northern California, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki laid out her multipronged offensive: a slate of ad-supported unscripted originals from such names as Demi Lovato (see sidebar), Ryan Seacrest and Ellen DeGeneres, coupled with a scripted push for YouTube Red that combines existing IP (including Step Up: High Water, an offshoot of the dance movie franchise, and The Karate Kid spinoff Cobra Kai) with projects fronted by its homegrown digital stars. Among the shows in the works are a musical comedy with Rudy Mancuso (3 million YouTube subscribers) executive produced by Avengers: Infinity War directors Joe and Anthony Russo, an Anna Akana (1.9 million) drama executive produced by Mark Gordon and a Liza Koshy (11.7 million) vehicle. It even launched its own version of a skinny bundle, YouTube TV, offering access to channels including FX and ESPN over the internet for $35 a month. “Television is changing a lot, and there are opportunities to reinvent parts of it,” says Wojcicki. “We’re going to continue to invest more in it.”

YouTube and Hollywood haven’t always been so chummy, of course. As the original digital video disrupter, the site was a pariah during its early years when uploaded clips made up the bulk of its database. Viacom sued for $1 billion over copyright infringement of footage from The Daily Show and South Park (it was settled in 2014), and the company still regularly wars with the music industry over royalties. So three years ago, when chief business officer (and Netflix alum) Robert Kyncl began to plot the launch of a service that would give users the best of YouTube without the advertising, he knew how important it would be to get Hollywood on board. “YouTube Red was something the creative industry always wanted us to do,” says Kyncl. “I’d been on the receiving end of those calls pretty much every week.”

Enter Daniels, who had spent years tapping into the minds of teens at WB Network and later MTV. Early YouTube Red offerings starring the platform’s biggest stars (think a reality series with PewDiePie) drew eyeballs but not much notoriety. Now that strategy has changed. This summer, YouTube Red went head-to-head with Netflix, Hulu, AMC and Amazon to land Sony TV’s Karate Kid reboot, set 30 years after the coming-of-age classic, with Ralph Macchio and William Zabka reprising their roles. Most involved expected the half-hour Cobra Kai — from Harold & Kumar duo Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg and Hot Tub Time Machine writer Josh Heald — to land at Netflix. But Daniels’ aggressive 10-episode straight-to-series offer sealed the deal. Why? “Netflix is breaking a show every other week,” says Macchio. “With the passion that YouTube and Susanne Daniels have, this show is not going to get lost. They want it to be that first big show that puts them on the original content map.”

YouTube isn’t really part of the prestige TV conversation yet, and Kyncl declines to disclose how much the company is willing to spend on its originals business. But sources indicate it’s more likely in the hundreds of millions annually, nowhere near the $6 billion that Netflix pledges. (EMarketer estimates that YouTube ad revenue, which Google doesn’t break out in its earnings reports, will be about $3.5 billion this year, and Google had $86 billion in cash on hand in 2016.) While YouTube is willing to spend like any cable outlet (around $2 million an episode for dramas), say people familiar with its deals, it’s not quite ready to stretch beyond the $5 million an episode of some premium dramas, except for a handful of marquee projects.

YouTube also is said to have beat out others to land the Mancuso project, which has Pitch Perfect‘s Jason Moore attached to direct the pilot. But for other pickups, Daniels and her 30-person staff in the company’s Playa Vista office have had to get more creative. She landed the series reboot of Step Up after running into Lionsgate’s Erik Feig at a New Year’s Eve party. “Whatever was in the champagne that night, the call came in Monday, and it was like, ‘Let’s figure out how to do this,’ ” recalls Lionsgate Television chairman Kevin Beggs. Meanwhile, she piloted the Doug Liman-produced Impulse, based on a novel in Steven Gould’s Jumper series, before ordering it to series. “It’s my preference always to do a pilot,” says Daniels. “But in this crazy, competitive environment — more competitive than I’ve ever seen it before, ever — I don’t always have a choice.”

That competition will only become fiercer as Apple, Facebook and perhaps someday soon Snapchat or Twitter or Instagram get into the premium video game. While a meeting with Netflix, Amazon or Apple may be a creator’s goal among the streamers, persuading a top writer or producer to make the trek to Playa Vista — YouTube’s Hollywood outpost — isn’t as easy. But Daniels hopes that’s changing as she starts to make more high-profile pickups. Agents say the streamer’s hybrid approach of working with both YouTube celebrities and more traditional TV talents has led to some confusion over what the outlet is looking for. However, developing a “brand” of shows is a notion that Daniels pooh-poohs: “Short of choosing a really specific lane to play in, how do you really define ‘brand’? How is Amazon’s brand different than Netflix’s brand different than HBO’s brand different than Showtime’s brand?” She does acknowledge that she is focusing on the 18-to-34 demographic with youthful but edgy fare. On her wish list is a family show with religious overtones (she recently met with Touched by an Angel scribe Martha Williamson), and sources say she also is looking for a broad, multicamera comedy, a female ensemble in the vein of Girls and an action drama that would appeal to YouTube’s large gaming community — in other words, something for each of YouTube’s core demos.

While nearly all of the streamers are competing for awards recognition and prestige, only Facebook, with its 2 billion monthly users worldwide, and YouTube truly can duke it out over sheer audience scale. For now, YouTube has a clear head start on video, with more than 1 billion hours watched daily throughout the world. But through Watch (which currently is only available in the U.S.), Facebook is gunning for a larger slice of the $11.7 billion in ad dollars expected to flow into the digital video business this year.

Already, the two have gone head-to-head on programming. Facebook also considered working with Katy Perry on her 96-hour live stream, but YouTube ultimately landed the ambitious project, which drew more than 50 million views in 190 countries. (Per sources, MTV also bid, but the show would have aired only in the U.S.) “I’m so glad we swung for the fences on that and tried it,” says Daniels. “We need to be thinking about community and interactivity and live and international and all the things that we are that a TV network isn’t.” Witness was the first in a small slate of unscripted originals that YouTube has developed separately from its Red programming and will release outside the paywall in the hope of attracting blue-chip advertisers. “One of the things that I grew uncomfortable with was the fact that we were not creating original content for our biggest partners,” says Kyncl, noting that he’s hoping to tap into the demand that has been created by the nearly 20 percentage point drop in ad-supported originals in the traditional TV business over the past five years as subscription streaming services have flourished.

Plus, there’s the assurance that an ad on a Kevin Hart or Ryan Seacrest show won’t run alongside anti-Semitic, violent or other controversial videos often found on YouTube (and that prompted an advertiser revolt dubbed the “ad-pocalypse” earlier this year). So far, L.L. Bean and STX Entertainment have signed on for DeGeneres’ behind-the-scenes series Show Me More Show. The rate card for the series, which has averaged around 500,000 views per video since its Sept. 19 launch, is said to range from $500,000 to $1.5 million, though other shows have packages that are more expensive. Ulta Beauty is on board for Lovato’s Simply Complicated (Oct. 17), and Johnson & Johnson is the exclusive sponsor of the Seacrest-produced singing competition Best.Cover.Ever.

Talent, meanwhile, has been lured by the potential to reach fans no matter what country they live in. “YouTube is the O.G. of video content on the internet,” says Lovato, the 25-year-old pop star (for those over 40, she’s referring to the “original gangster”). “When they came to me with the idea, I just couldn’t say no.”

But as YouTube sets its sights on higher-profile projects, it risks alienating the community of digital talent who came to fame on its platform (and subsequently helped raise production values and CPMs), especially because projects like the Logan Paul-fronted sci-fi film The Thinning and Joey Graceffa’s reality series Escape the Night are said to be some of the most popular on Red.

Creators are watching YouTube’s moves closely. “It makes sense for them to do both,” says Rhett McLaughlin, one half of hosting duo Rhett & Link, who have both a YouTube Red series (Buddy System) and an ad-supported show (Good Mythical Morning). “This is ultimately a battle for people’s eyeballs.”

Facebook already is exploiting the tension, offering upfront deals to digital influencers to post their videos on Watch, though the social network says it eventually wants to stop funding content altogether in favor of a revenue-share arrangement (the split is the same as YouTube’s, with 55 percent of ad revenue going to the creator). YouTube execs, however, say they won’t abandon the site’s homegrown stars. “We focus on both YouTube native talent and Hollywood talent,” says Kyncl.

Of course, there are quirks to working with a technology company. At YouTube, the main challenge is its uniquely annoying platform architecture, in which each original series must live on a designated YouTube channel. For Step Up, for instance, YouTube is creating a whole new channel, which it will fill out by licensing the original films and offering collections of dance videos. “Some of these things are really new to us and require a whole different approach,” says Lionsgate’s Beggs. “A lot of people who are not normally in the same room together have met multiple times over at YouTube to compare notes.”

One benefit of having all those engineers working behind the scenes, though, can be the troves of data about the intimate viewing habits of billions of people. Daniels came to the Cobra Kai pitch armed with the knowledge that Karate Kid videos had yielded more than a billion views on YouTube. And platforms that rely on advertising typically aren’t as precious about data as Netflix or Amazon. Although YouTube doesn’t release subscriber figures or ratings for Red (the only number that executives have shared is that its first 37 originals have been viewed 250 million times — or an average of about 6.7 million views per show), creators with channels on Red receive monthly reports detailing how long people have watched their videos (important since YouTube shares subscription revenue with its creator partners) and other performance metrics.

In the subscription space, no one seems poised to catch Netflix, which has a five-year head start and series slate that included 43 scripted originals in 2016. But as Netflix and others look to own more of their shows, YouTube (and Apple) could get a boost. “Netflix wasn’t even in the original programming game four years ago,” says BTIG’s Greenfield. “If Apple wants to be a major player, if Google wants to be a major player, this is the beginning.”

Sitting in her Playa Vista office in August after her weekly production update meeting, Daniels contemplates just what it will take to turn YouTube into the kind of platform that gets mentioned in the same breath with Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. “I want our shows to resonate in a big way with audiences,” she says with a gleam in her eye. “And once that happens, we’ll be on that list — like it or not.”

This story first appeared in the Oct. 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.