Look around ya, Krabs
#5 // The average person has something remarkable in their pocket
Being Human by Psaco
Look around ya, Krabs
Plankton (independent media) and Krabs (mainstream media)
Given the surge of Omicron around the turn of NYE 2021, I found myself having a quiet celebration at my parents’ place, glued to a television screen with an open pizza box and an uncertain feeling about whether 2022 was going to be the ‘trilogy” of 2020.
At my own place, I have a television, but never been subscribed at all to any cable box or TV channels. Netflix and YouTube seem to have enough content to satisfy any fleeting sense of boredom, and signing multi-year cable subscriptions is much more expensive, and difficult to get out of.
It’s the same reason that at their home, my parents run a bootleg Android TV box. They pay something like $10 USD per month to an Indian fella who runs a local convenience store, for access to different channels all around the world.
With NYE 2021, we were surfing for a live countdown on the Android Box, as time inched us closer towards the new year. The default option has always been the Times Square coverage in New York City, but it was 3 hours ahead of us and we knew it wasn’t completely “live”, but shifted a few hours back so that it would line up with our time zone. This year, it was hosted by Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. With Omicron, the crowds this year seemed thinner, and the mood seemed optimistic about the new year, but I also felt a wind of caution. The last couple of years have been no joke.
I witnessed two white dudes eat baby food, take shots commemorating Betty White, and drunkenly rant about the previous mayor of New York City. Something about watching the program in the two hours leading up to the new year made me feel empty, hollow, and sad. Not for myself, but as am empath, I felt pity towards mainstream media corporations.
Cooper is MFW Cohen says “sayonara, suckaa” to de Blasio, shitfaced on live television.
Flipping through other mediocre broadcasts riddled with ads, drunk hosts, and 720p footage poorly upscaled on a 4k TV (ok maybe this one’s on the Android box), I convinced my parents to switch to YouTube on the 4K Chromecast, and see if anyone was livestreaming something for the new year.
Fireworks at 3:51:04
I found a YouTuber named Pompsie who was coincidentally live streaming NYE 2021 from Las Vegas, Nevada. Same time zone, and it was surprisingly live and not a collection of stock footage of fireworks, so I figured “why not?”
Something about this live cast struck me. Something that was otherwise missing on the CNN live broadcast.
Interaction
Cooper and Cohen were talking to a camera and making TV-friendly, safe jokes in the 10 or so minutes they had to talk. The show transitions to the live music behind them, followed by the conversation between a reporter and a member of the crowd about how they were going to do “something different” this year for their new years resolution. It was mostly scripted, predictable, and mundane. If it wasn’t for the face masks and them bringing up the fact that Betty White was dead, you could have put on the NYE show from 2015 and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
On the other hand, Pompsie appeared to be livestreaming off his smartphone while responding to the YouTube comments, and describing his adventures as he walked through the streets and casinos of the core Las Vegas area. His experience was more personal, interactive with the audience, and gave a on-the-floor, first person point of view of someone who was spending the end of 2021 in the Vegas strip. No ads, no fluff, no corny jokes.
Quality
This one might have been on the Android box, but the quality of the YouTube livestream was comparatively surprisingly good. The New York City, NYE shows tend to be filled with ad breaks, poorly mixed live audio, and awkward transitions between the cameras, as the shitfaced hosts try to coordinate the broadcast as best as they can manage.
Pompsie seemed to be live streaming straight to the YouTube app, in what appeared like almost 4K resolution (after the livestream, the video was encoded and seemingly uploaded as 720p). The footage was very clear, steady, and well-lit, considering the bright Vegas lights and fireworks that had to be captured in darkness of the night. I’m speculating here, but I believe that he may have been recording off a newer, higher-end phone like the iPhone 13 Pro, with 5G support in his phone and on his carrier plan. His interactions weren’t awkward, there may have been rare ad-rolls, but I had YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience, and it was a 1-man show with the budget of the cost of his iPhone, his cellphone plan, and the tickets and hotel to Vegas.
Audience
On December 23, 2021, it was announced that the official capacity for Times Square NYE Event would be reduced to 15,000 (from the approximately 58,000 present before), and that masks would also be mandatory for all attendees. This was clear that night when I saw Cooper and Cohen, as the crowds looked thinner, and smaller.
Comparatively, in his livestream, Pompsie even said “31k watching. Madison Square Garden only holds 21k”, with over 400k views since the video was uploaded. He got more viewers on his livestream than the physical capacity of Madison Square Garden, and his total views on the video and stream were collectively higher than the maximum, pre-COVID capacity of Times Square, New York. He livestreamed a from-the-ground view of fireworks, noise, laughter, and cheering, as people celebrated the new year. Watching it through his phone, felt like I was there. It felt more personal, more real.
Conclusion
The realization sunk in. This YouTuber was an individual who had the tools in his pocket to live-stream an event, with relatively good quality, from a rectangle on his smartphone. He did this with (seemingly) his girlfriend, casually for his fans, with a fraction of the budget that CNN probably had for their NYE show. He attracted more viewers than was physically possible, and even earned donation money and had a fun, interactive experience with his chat throughout the course of the stream. I assume he had 5G because the streaming quality experience was good, and the experience was relatively lag-free.
For an independent creator to live-stream a show from his phone, monetize it during the stream, interact with the audience, give a POV perspective of a live experience, and then upload it onto his channel to monetize, and for anyone in the world to watch…
How can traditional media even compete?
I wanted to write about this and highlight that such an event wouldn’t have otherwise been possible, even 5 years ago.
The original iPhone was released exactly 15 years and 1 day ago, from the time of publishing this article. The advent of 5G was invented only in the last few years and is still being deployed across the world.
As individual technological capacity increases, we’ll be seeing more 1-man-shows that have better quality, are more engaging, and gather larger audiences than IRL.
What will happen to traditional media in the next 15 years?