The Kiind of Plug That's Shameless

YouTube has been one medium that has grown tremendously in the past decade. Channels for every topic under the sun have sprung up, with just as many personalities behind them. Some offer educational resources, others offer topical conversation, and others just pure entertainment. Yet, one area that has seemed to rise to the top of the heap is gaming. The top 100 gaming channels have brought in billions views, the top of THAT heap belonging to Felix Kjelberg (AKA PewDiePie), who has 39,308,823 Subscribers and a total of 10,102,088,800 views. For comparison, the official YouTube channel has only around 23 million Subscribers. 

So, clearly, there is something to this. There's something to this new form of entertainment, wherein viewers watch other people play games.What pulls so many toward it? Is it the personalities behind the channels? Is it the fact that gameplay is being shown? Is it the idea of it being akin to watching a friend play a video game? I would wager that it's some combination of those ideas. With that being said, it is here that the titular "Shameless Plug" comes out. 

I actually have a YouTube gaming channel. Granted, I'm no PewDiePie, but the intent to entertain is the same. Actually, I've technically had two channels, though this is by renaming one. Initially, it was called "FREDHEADEDED", and I played a small variety of games with a fairly dubious recording equipment: my IPad, in a case, sitting on a box in a chair, and with the camera facing my television. The video quality was awful, and was always somewhat off-center. All the same, I had quite a lot of fun with them. I learned a lot about the editing process and working with a limit on time and resources, and gained a great deal of knowledge on efficiency. After a while, though, it became impossible to continue due to greater restrictions on resources (my IPad wouldn't store data properly). With that came a bit of a hiatus for several months.

That is, until this past month. Thankfully, I was able to acquire a laptop, video recording software, and a fairly decent microphone, all dramatically improving the quality of my videos. I even renamed the channel from "FREDHEADEDED" to the simpler "Fred Head" (SHAMELESS LINK TO MY CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCja8slhpiCV6je5T4wZDxoA )  This came from more research on marketing analytics, an area of immense importance if one is looking to create and promote content on YouTube. I'd imagine that, as I continue to do this, I'll eventually do a write up on the nuances of YouTube gaming and Streaming gaming (like those done via Twitch, another outlet specifically geared around streaming video of people playing games). 

These channels are everywhere and increasing rapidly. In fact, they are growing so much that I could no longer ignore it and had to at least make an attempt to take part. With that, It is my hope to learn more about the intricacies of a thing like YouTube, while also creating content that I would also want to watch.