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Tom Nicholas
Tom Nicholas

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Video: Why YouTubers Hold Microphones Now

Hey everyone!

Here it is! My latest video!

As regular readers of the Friday Update will know, it's a fun little exploration of a trend which has gripped YouTube over the past year: YouTubers holding microphones.

I wanted to use a dive into what at first glance might seem like a fairly trivial little trend as a jumping-off point for exploring the state of the platform at the end of 2023/beginning of 2024.

It's intentionally a bit more lighthearted/lower-stakes than some of the other stuff we've looked at lately; but that felt just right for an end-of-year special.

I hope you enjoy and can't wait to hear what you think!

And, whatever tier you support my work at, thanks as ever for your generous support! It really does make all the difference in allowing me to continue to up my game!

Tom

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Video: Why YouTubers Hold Microphones Now

Comments

We needed to grab footage of people doing it for the video and I found myself getting really good at predicting the likelihood of whether someone would be holding a microphone based solely on the thumbnail!

Tom Nicholas

I was living in blissful ignorance until I saw this video... Now all I see are creators that are either too lazy to read the user manual of their audio equipment or unable to own a lav mic without breaking the clip. Maybe cheap Amazon lav mics have a flaw making their clips break off super easily or something... I feel like there must be more to this now that I've started pulling on this thread

Tom Guilleaume

I just finished watching this over on nebula, & I really enjoyed it! It was very much what you said it would be & then some. I don't have too many concrete thoughts yet (it needs to percolate for a bit) but I really liked how you specifically pushed back against the impulse to flatten the narrative into "corporations bad," in favor of really understanding the dialectic of it all. (I also can't deny that I was very chuffed when I realized my tier upgrade had been in time for me to be included in the 'top supporters acknowlegement' during the credits)

Zoe Alden


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