Over the years, that audience has developed a strange dependent relationship with YouTube. According to research by Google, the platform is especially popular among young people looking to reduce stress; about 69% of Gen Z say they often come back”appease“But they find it light. Try Guys, like everyone who makes a living online, is certainly shaped by the desires of its audience: They and their fans all of put their hands on the Ouija board, and together they conjure up a brand of non-toxic masculinity – until Fulmer turns on the lights, exposing the magic.
Seen this way, the video feels more human: Its grave mood is, in part, a performance, intended to reassure an audience worried and distrustful of world history that they haven’t gotten lost. way for the past eight years. The announcement is much clearer on the group’s podcast. “You feel like there’s a level of trust you’ve got with us, because the non-toxic guys have your favorite hashtag,” Kornfeld said in a recent episode. “People have called us their comfort channel. Now you have all the questions: Is it always a lie? “
Maybe that’s why the whole thing is like a hostage video, as if there are people just standing off the screen with rifles and high expectations. There are types to be; they just don’t stay in the same room. They were on the other side of a camera and miles of fiber-optic cables, scattered across the planet, peering through millions of one-way mirrors, looking for something more than entertainment. And the Try Guys have found themselves in a position where their audience feels shocked and betrayed, their own livelihood dependent on appearing equally miserable.
It is often reported that some very surprised American children want to become YouTubers. It’s not hard to imagine kids staring at their screens and seeing something like freedom – the dream of being paid just to be yourself. However, the eerie tone of Try Guys’ video suggests a more unsettling dynamic: when young people gather, separate and alone, seeking solace from strangers, they are, in fact, themselves. is building a prison for his idol, who has no eyeballs, worries, and Better Help Ads. Maybe fame has always been this way. But fans’ emotions are no longer filtered through ticket sales or album sales; they are heard live, continuously, all the time, on all the platforms that people visit to create and quell the bad feeling in a never-ending cycle. You can imagine Ned Fulmer watching the video, seeing his old friends seriously tidying up the new pile of dirt, all with the aim of bringing down an audience of strangers, and realizing that he No matter how disruptive he may have been, he is finally free.
Image source: Screenshot from YouTube.
Willy Staley is the magazine’s story editor. He’s the last wrote about billionaires.
