ObviouslyBenHughes

“About to reach 1,000 subs,” ObviouslyBenHughes writes on Twitter. “It’s a number, but I’m so happy!”

This is one of the most pervasive paradoxes surrounding online video. When it comes to numbers – be they subscribers or views – they somehow mean everything and nothing, simultaneously. We don’t ‘care’ about them, we aren’t motivated by them, though, oddly enough, we are happy when they go up.

Reubnick is a familiar voice in the Will Video For Food backrow. It is easy to feel discouraged when you feel like you’re producing great stuff online and the response is less than ethusiastic. (Though we might be reminded of Nalts’ comments about the the curse of subscriber self-worth. It’s a bottomless pit, folks!) Clearly disappointed in the views he was receiving for his most recent video, I thought I would try to put it into some perspective. I noted that his video got more views over night than mine had over several days (and I had more subscribers than him).

“Wait a minute!” he objects. “I thought you were a partner and all that! How is that all you got?”

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