The Influencer Commentariat

assistant professor at California State University, Fullerton, wondered aloud to me. “It’s a problem if you’re a journalist or not.”)

By the time fall rolled around, Woodstock was nursing a non-protest-related injury and realized that they had to take a break. The risk of getting hurt at the protests had become too great for a solo documentarian; even colleagues with institutional affiliation were plastering their heads, chests, and backpacks with press in big white letters, for fear of being attacked. “I went out there to fill a void,” Woodstock said. “Now, consistently, the crowd at protests is half demonstrators, half press, medics, and legal observers.”

Sure enough, when Woodstock stopped showing up in the streets, the donations ceased. “I was doing it as a service to people,” they said. “I could have definitely spent way more time pitching to outlets…or chasing the biggest bylines that I could. Or trying to make more money off my videos. I didn’t do that, because I wasn’t there to further my career.”

Fortunately, Woodstock has had other work to fall back on for income—the podcast, as well as a business consulting newsrooms on trans and queer equity. The first-responder journalism work served its purpose, and maybe they’ll return to the scene later, if there’s a need. (It’s a form of journalism that is, by definition, unpredictable.) Woodstock will be around to observe what must be seen, and isn’t widely shown, wherever it comes up. “The reason that I am in journalism,” they said, “is to try to center voices that, thus far, have not been adequately centered.” cjr

YOUTUBE

The Influencer Commentariat

By Mary Retta

IN SEPTEMBER 2018, Tiffany Ferguson, a twenty-five-year-old college student and YouTube personality with more than six hundred thousand subscribers, sat down in her bedroom, ready to record. She wore a navyand-red turtleneck sweater; her blond hair was tied into messy braids. Typically, she used her channel for in-depth “story times” detailing random events from her day. But on this occasion, she told subscribers, her video would be different. “I have a little bit of something to say about the YouTube algorithm and the role of rapidly rising creators,” she said. Ferguson then launched into a thirteenminute meditation on internet fame, algorithmic bias, and the importance of relatability to an influencer’s success. She reported information gleaned from Social Blade, a social media analytics tracker, and offered her interpretation of the facts. “That’s my two cents: thoughts on the YouTube algorithm and seventeen-year-olds that I can still relate to,” Ferguson said. “I’m not that old.” The video was an instant hit (it now has more than four hundred thousand views) and inspired her to change direction. She launched a new series, “Internet

Analysis,” in which she discusses all things politics and culture: “girlboss” feminism, reality television, internet virality. Each installment has attracted more than a hundred thousand fans.

Ferguson is one of many stars on “commentary YouTube,” also known as LeftTube. In some cases, the creators, as they’re known, address a wide range of topics. Other channels are niche: “Ask a Mortician” talks about death, mortality, and the funeral home business; D’Angelo Wallace gives his take on intra-YouTube drama; “Ready to Glare” covers Twitter policies, cults, and mental health. Not every video is tied to the news cycle, but commentary YouTube will ground the subject at hand in relevant cultural and political analysis. There’s a disquisition on “cancel culture,” an explainer on Marxism, a diagnosis of the controversy surrounding the film Cuties. That last post received more than two million views.

It’s no wonder these videos are popular; most Americans now prefer to watch rather than read their news. And, according to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, 26 percent of adults get their news from YouTube, with the majority of that cohort saying that the platform represents an important means by which they stay informed.

Individuals with large followings and the time to devote to research are seizing the opportunity to challenge the dominance of mainstream outlets. It’s a young crowd: the creators and audience members in the commentary-YouTube orbit are typically no older than thirty. Ferguson normally spends about a week preparing before she sits down to record; in the final cut, she comes across as effortlessly approachable. “I don’t want to shy away from politics—I think my videos come from a leftist perspective, but I’m not as overt in making political commentary in every video,” she told me. “Because my channel is more accessible, people who maybe aren’t as engaged with news or politics can get inspired by my videos to do more research on these topics because I’m using more casual language and style.”

For written articles, freelance journalists make, on average, around twenty cents per word. Depending on the number of ads and other factors, a twenty-five-minute YouTube video that garners a hundred and fifty thousand views might deliver its creator $580; for three million views, the sum may be closer to $6,800. Kimberly Foster, the thirty-one-year-old behind a YouTube channel called “For Harriet,” told me

Most Americans now prefer to watch rather than read their news. that, as her audience swelled, she quit contributing to publications like The Guardian and HuffPost to focus on her LeftTube career. “I get to be much freer and use colloquialisms,” she said. “When I was writing, I felt more like ‘Stuffy Kim.’ But when I’m just talking to the camera, it’s more like ‘Free Kim’—I know how I’m going to present topics and what facial expressions I’m going to use when I say certain things. I know I can approach political topics with rigor but still be accessible.”

“For Harriet” videos include a historical look at how enslaved women’s bodies contributed to modern gynecology and discussions of colorism and prison abolition from a Black feminist perspective; Foster also posted a review of the movie version of Cats, from 2019. (“I want to be fair,” she joked to viewers. “I want to make sure everybody gets the blame that they deserve.”) Her analysis is of a kind that’s largely lacking on YouTube; in June, Black contributors filed a racism lawsuit, alleging that the company systematically removed their videos without explanation. (“Our automated systems are not designed to identify the race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation of our creators or viewers,” a YouTube spokesperson said at the time; it’s also true that algorithms are often racist.) Speaking one’s mind can be tricky, given the opacity of YouTube’s monetization system, in which creators may not be paid for overtly leftist material. The result, especially for Black YouTubers, can often be financial insecurity.

But Foster has found alternative ways to fund her work. “I never wanted to be in the position where a social media platform changes the algorithm and does not allow me to make an income,” she told me. “So around the time that websites like The Atlantic and the New York Times started relying more on digital subscriptions, I knew I would need to start relying on my audience in the same way.” A few years ago, she started a Patreon. “It’s honestly changed the game for me,” Foster said. She has more than thirty-three hundred patrons, who pay between $2 and $50 per month for extra videos and podcasts—it’s a steady living. Other creators have done the same, with even more impressive results: “ContraPoints,” focusing on leftist politics and LGBTQ stories, has more than twelve thousand backers on Patreon who contribute between $2 and $20 per month. “Now I don’t care if YouTube demonetizes my videos,” Foster told me. “I can make whatever content I want without censoring myself.”