We had the pleasure of being asked again by our long time friend, the uber talented Shane Dawson; to direct his Christmas short film, and after confirming he was sure he wanted us Jewish dudes to direct a Christmas video, we hit the ground running to continue our longtime collaboration of making long form, professional level content on YouTube that his cable sized audience can enjoy.

We put the entire 11 page production from conception all the way through uploading in under 2 weeks, which is crazy especially when you see the final product and how well it turned out.  This project really sums up everything we passionately talk about when it comes to web video with keeping the crew small but talented and driven, and how to execute high production values on small budgets in a very short period of time, and not to mention long form! The video runs over ten minutes, and with Shane’s cable sized numbers, the video will approach 2 million viewers if not more by the time we get to Christmas.

We are so proud of the project. Before coming online we were feature filmmakers, and as such we’ve always believed in high quality long form content online, and happy to start seeing a shift in proving that it is indeed possible if you make the right business and distribution decisions. For our own personal online content right now we’re unable to bring such big ideas and lengths to fruition thanks to not having the budget and it being literally just the 2 of us working on the 6 different series we produce, so opportunities to have a small budget to create this short film not only allows us to show our abilities in a more “traditional” Hollywood format, but also makes a product that should be looked at as not only the future of YouTube content but web video at large, and proving more and more that the way many of us made the decision to use YouTube to build a business and true audience for ourselves was the right way to go.

We’re excited to helping lead the way for more opportunities like this to start showing up. The bar is raising higher on YouTube for long form comedy by Shane and ourselves, along with a handful of other filmmakers and top channels starting to take advantage of their large audiences to create strongly produced narrative content (WongFuProductions; and Reckless Tortuga)

Benny & Rafi

Below is the short film, NSFW due to language

Click here for the Series Finale Click here for all episodes of our LOST series

As Jack would say, “WE HAVE TO GO BACK!”, only we never left the Island even after the real LOST ended earlier this year.  

Our show “LOST: What Will Happen Next?” that turned into “LOST: What Will Happen Now?” once the real series ended, has been one of the most popular online series of all time, which looking back still is a bit mind boggling.  When you include views across other sites such as Break.com, CollegeHumor.com and more, it has nearly 20 million total views across 19 episodes that really was the beginning of our climb to where we are now inside of the YouTube ecosystem, and is a peek to our origins online.

As many know, we came to the web with a trilogy of feature films starring action figures (“GI Joe: The Epic Saga”) which also was our first mega hit (a pre YouTube mega hit!), in which we spent 2 full years creating our 3 hour epic. Following the show’s demise from a cease and desist, we were done with toys until Comic Con 2007 when we saw to our surprise…they make LOST toys!  We loved the show and knew we had to do something, we just had to figure out what.  

We only planned to make one episode, and hoped with LOST returning to air for Season 4 in January 2008 that it could make it to the coveted homepage of YouTube (which used to mean A LOT in the web video world back then). Within the first 24 hours we uploaded it, YouTube featured it.  It had a million views in one day (who misses the old editorial homepage of YouTube?!), and almost half a million on the Break.com homepage. We got over 4,000 subscribers in that one day, which at the time was a massive number, and we’ve been growing ever since. 

From there we realized more episodes needed to be made, and as luck would have it two very random decisions in that first episode led to it creating itself. The first was in the writing phase, where we realized not everyone watched LOST so having a character from another area of pop culture was essential to try to engage more people. This led to  Darth Vader appearing out of the bushes, and future episodes would always have another random cameo (this evolved into the marketing strategy of the show - episodes were conceived at times based on what major movie or TV show was coming out and would get it featured around the web based off of that). The second, was Rafi’s random idea while shooting it, “Why doesn’t Vader kill Hurley?”, we shot it both ways, one with Hurley living, and one with him dying. What we decided, as fans of the show know,  became history. Once Hurley died, we realized we had our hook, our “Kenny from South Park” even though we honestly didn’t realize the similarity until hundreds of comments came in. Hurley has now died 19 different ways (more if you count the interactive game, and zero times if you follow the Series finale of the “What Will Happen Next?” version where we find out Hurley was never on the Island at all).

There is of course quite the history with us and the series itself, which is interesting for web video history and shows the power online content can have with a TV show or Film.  We got written up in the print issue of TV Guide the same week the real LOST debuted a very similar action figure show to our own.

Disappointing as that was at the time of not getting to work with the real show, we pressed on, and even were contacted by LOST directly a couple of times which led to part of our “Yankees” episode being screened at the LOST Comic Con 2009 panel. Though we didn’t get to meet anyone from the show, it was great hearing a cheer from the audience when our show popped up on the screen. 

This past year was full of controversy as well. Our parodies took a turn to more biting satire thanks to some of the frustrations from LOST fans over the direction the show took in the final season, but we watched every episode, know them backwards and forwards, and even created a hit music video for the final season which was posted by one of the editors of the show and Hurley himself on his blog- which was exciting.

Though we all know our status as fans did end up revoked by series creator Damon Lindelof the week of the finale (and spawned a subsequent article in New York Magazine about that ordeal), we still continued to produce our series, months after the end of the actual show on television, to entertain hundreds of thousands adding to our passionate belief in how to synergize TV and the web.  We look forward to getting the opportunity of creating TV shows and making the online content for it fun, smart, and yes, sometimes critical of the show itself. If you do it right you not only have more eyeballs for your show, (we can’t tell you the countless comments to this day of people telling us they started watching LOST due to our parodies) but also give it the opportunity to live on after it is off the air by still having extra content online that your rabid fan base will continue to eat up.

We could continue our LOST series probably forever and still have interest due to how big of a show it was on TV along with the audience we have built for it, but we are letting it go.  It is time to turn the corner on this little and somewhat amusingly controversial series that we’ve loved to make.  We may dust off the old toys again sometime in the future for a special or two, but for now change is in the air, and another action figure series must rise….later this month get ready for Harry Potter!

Thanks for coming along for the ride with us, the castaways, and the other toys that had to substitute for a lack of figures being made by LOST (NBA All Star Kevin Johnson <Michael>, Mohinder and Claire from “Heroes” <Sayid & Claire>, Giant OJ Simpson doll <Walt>, and random toy that we had custom made into a funny looking Ben.

The toys will now go on display like they were always meant to be……or maybe we’ll give some away to you guys……stay tuned.

-Benny & Rafi Fine

Today (9/26/2010) at 3:30 PST CNN did a report on what seems to be the buzz topic of the fall, the reality of mass audience and monetization the very few of us have been able to gain on YouTube.  They showed a pre-made piece on Julia Nunes</a> (who we have been a huge fan of for years), and had a live interview with an executive from YouTube alongside top content creator (we are not fans of the term “YouTuber” and will try to never use it) Joe Penna AKA MysteryGuitarMan who we’re fortunate enough to know personally.  

First, the good. It’s good to see mainstream coverage and places like CNN realizing there is a story to be told, and bringing someone like Joe on, who is one of the right people to talk to.  This situation though just like others before it, continues the problem of traditional media not understanding and seems as if they aren’t even watching the content in a real way, and hence missing the mark entirely.

The host, Don Lemon, hadn’t apparently done any real homework, and essentially belittled all of the web’s top creators by saying things along the lines of “I have as much talent as this girl, why can’t I do this?” and “I want to just stay home in my pajamas and make a living too”. What a great showing of appreciation and respect for successful online filmmakers.  Sad to see. 

Reality check- sure there are a few that may have just ‘sat in their room’ and made videos, but take a look at YouTube’s top creators (there are give or take only 300 or so truly relevant people/companies on the site). Many of these people could have “made it” in the industry to varying degrees through traditional avenues, but instead we’ve all realized this is the future and decided to stake our claim in it. We continue to be disappointed at the ironic viewpoint that has seemed to be unconsciously adopted which is that most successful content online is considered ‘amateur’.

This is not only a new side of the entertainment industry where people are going to be able to work outside of the traditional system, but that this is a new wave of creativity and a haven for finding talented artists who are proactive, prolific and talented as all hell, and should be snatched up to work on a higher level. There are just as good actors, writers, directors, FX artists, musicians, you name it, on YouTube right now not just showcasing their abilities, but growing a mass audience so much so that they’re being able to monetize it.  The internet should be scoured for talent the same as film schools, film festivals, comedy clubs etc. for the reasons mentioned above, but especially because with the online creator you have someone that understands the future of entertainment today.  How to build a giant audience from nothing, how to do not just one profession but more like 10 (writing, directing, producing, editing, marketing, special FX, sound mixing, cinematography etc.), and perhaps most importantly, how to bring people to watch and support them, that in itself should make any show, film, record label or otherwise realize that they will be that much more successful because of their association.  One of the issues is that it is too difficult to discern who is real online and who is not, and there are many factors that could be attributed to that over the years including YouTube itelf as well as many major companies and studios being  semi-fraudulent which will be another blog post coming soon from us.

Things will change, and opportunities will continue to come.  For now, let’s continue creating, showcasing our talents, and building case study after case study.  We know why we’ve realized YouTube is the only place to have the best shot at creating a sustainable business and grow a one of a kind fan base, and once everyone like CNN and major studios fully catch up they won’t know what hit them, but all of us and the communities we’ve been growing that support us all will have been in the know all the time. 

Those of us that have been able to break through with YouTube and gain a massive audience are all talented, professional, relevant pioneers of new media, and we’re not looking back.

Benny & Rafi Fine

It was our 6 year web video anniversary yesterday. With that, we present, a bit of Fine Brothers history:

By September 21st, 2004 we were a year into development and production of our 3 ½ hour long trilogy of feature films “GI JOE THE EPIC SAGA”, and on that day we re-launched our website to house videos we had previously created as well as two trailers for the trilogy. “GI JOE” is a series that does show our youthful passion for the “womb state” that was web video in its crassness and vulgarity, but we were young, passionate and ready to use the internet as our discovery platform, seeing it as truly the wave of the future. Little did we know the business that would build around us, and despite our success are now “typecast” as only digital creators and are always fighting for legitimacy in traditional media’s eyes, but that’s for another blog post.  

Web video at the time consisted of largely interactive fare which influenced us a great deal. The biggest influence was “Homestar Runner” which brought us our passions that remain with us to this day, which is to create full worlds and immersive experiences to surround web video content. To us, this always was the future of entertainment, where especially if you are making content specific to the web, you should be giving your audience more than just the stagnant TV like experience by just watching a video, but give them so much more. This was done in spades by Homestar Runner, while “Channel 101” accomplished this by live voting of which series continued, etc.  It’s interesting to see how this early thought of ous and the way of web video back then has seemingly gone to the wayside over the years by the emerging web series community where any experience beyond the video is few and far between, and now seeing the conversation recently spark back up around the community about creating full immersive experiences, we’re happy to see that our initial feelings towards what will make web video unique was on the money even before there was the term “web series.” 

We created an experience that still holds up 6 years later as unique, fun, and innovative. Sadly, as some of you know, ‘The Saga’ was ceased and desisted by Hasbro after only 12 of 17 episodes had aired, but the fans we did have got a whole lot of bells and whistles to go along with the videos. We created extra content throughout the month to keep them entertained while waiting for the next episode which took us some time since they were 10-15 minutes long each (long form content had a place back then, and it’s making a comeback now in some ways). This marked the beginning of the marketing side of our creativity, as we were releasing trailers and short form clips that we would seed to anywhere that featured content around the web in order to drive people back to the full episodes, and we also created live action sketches that drove back to the site proper.  This is what brought hundreds of thousands of people to our website each month, and continues to be a huge part of our, and should be in our opinion, everyone’s skill set; true marketing that is getting your content seen and engaged by real people. Back when Alexa rankings mattered, we were a top 100,000 web site in the world, and views on the long form episodes were in the hundred thousands, with certain clips in the millions.

To celebrate our official 6th birthday, we dusted off the moth balls of the old flash built “GI JOE” office by our amazing Webmaster Wood (who can see terrorizing us in our popular “Dog Bleeper” series), to give you all a glimpse of what used to be.  Keep in mind this was long ago, when there was no YouTube or any site to embed content from, so sadly, the viewing system is not operating, but when you clicked on the new episode folder on the desk, a movie projector would come down by the window, and it would zoom in to the screen as if you were watching the video in the General’s room being briefed. We would love for you all to click around on everything.  We had a newspaper that updated every month with references to the show and hints to what was to come, files with bios and pictures of the major characters and were one of the first to use social networking to bring them to life (they all had MySpace pages once MySpace launched). We would have characters interact with one another on MySpace, reply to fans in character, had multiple blogs running, a way to e-mail the General, and you even at one time could use your mouse to draw on a notepad to leave notes for him on his desk. The final addition was the full of in-jokes answering machine. There is so much to explore. The last thing to remember is we were shut down, so certain images and references have to be censored for it to be active. Click here to check out the old Office. 

Our sensibilities for interactivity did not stop when we were shut down. Old fans of ours will remember our show that was a weekly “Survivor” parody where the audience got to choose each week who got voted “out of the garage” and then sold on Ebay the very same week. More people would probably remember the more recent pilot that we created for Comedy Central’s Atom.com that took web series interactivity to a whole new level that in our opinion almost no one else has come close to achieving. For those of you not familiar, the series took place entirely on a college student’s fictional social network page which was designed to be a mash of Facebook and MySpace, where herself and her “top friends” all “came to life” whenever she would log off of her page and discuss her life, and have adventures. The show’s engagement came from the that we built that let you not only explore the page just as it appeared in the video, but allow you to become part of that world where every character had a profile, a blog, e-mail, comments, etc. you could even become their “buddy” and upload your own picture and link to your own social network profile. This was done so detailed that we had hundreds of e-mails telling us the site was broken because the “sign up” button took them to an “about” page, which was the idea, it wasn’t real, but people wanted it to be and thought it was and hence we had to remove that button. 

We went to painstaking detail to make almost everything clickable and full of in jokes. To break down just how well it did, people spent an average of 9 minutes on the microsite, nearly double the amount of time of the video itself.  In the end, despite a big view count, and over 30,000 comments on the video at Atom.com, the series was not picked up for a season, again showing at the time, continued disconnect of the value of engagement. The series is now something we’ve adapted into a television format to try to bring that level of web immersion to a larger audience and help usher in new ways ancillary content of TV series are delivered, but time will tell if we get fortunate enough to get that opportunity.

To create these worlds and experiences is tough, time consuming, and costs. With both The Saga and My Profile Story it was just the 2 of us and our webmaster doing everything for free to keep the web components running, and as you can imagine, it was rough writing all of these blogs, responding to comments and e-mails every single day, but we strongly feel this is the future of how to make things work online. YouTube’s success is for a multitude of reasons, but the massive success stories is a form of interactivity in itself with how personal everyone is with their audience, same kind of thing, but more personal than creative at times- and we strive to accomplish both (like Homestar and Channel101).

All of this led us to yesterday, on our anniversary, as we released our biggest and most ambitious interactive experience within YouTube to date in our American Idol Interactive Experience in which the viewer chooses one at a time which 3 judges out of 6 they want to see in a parody sketch, and then like magic (YouTube annotation magic!), their custom video is presented to them, and they can go back and mix and match over and over and enjoy it all. This is 21 full sketches within one interactive environment.  To make it work, we had to create 36 additional graphic heavy videos to link it all together and bring it to life. This continues our work from our ‘Lindsay Lohan Courtroom Game’ and “8Bit Twilight” projects as we continue to try to raise the bar with interactive content online, and will not be the last time we try to push the tools to the limit to create new and immersive experiences within something we can manage easier than something ongoing like our previous work when we don’t have the funding to pull it off.

We’re passionate about interactivity and immersion, and hope you enjoyed this look at our past, and our latest project.  The landscape of web video these past six years have changed more than we could have possibly imagined, and continues to evolves every day, and hence we continue to adapt every day.  

We thank those of you who have been with us for the ride over the years, and are excited to continue to push the envelope with the hopes to take everything we have learned from being in the dirt of the early stages of this new platform and bring it all to traditional media if and when we get the chance to do so. We hope to do this not just for ourselves, but to bring attention and excitement to the possibilities the internet provides to take even TV and Film to new places that will change the landscape of entertainment and media moving forward.  It truly is an exciting time.

Thanks for reading, keep in touch, and we’ve provided all the links mentioned in this blog here at the bottom for quick navigation.

Benny & Rafi Fine

Click here for the all new American Idol Interactive Experience

Click here to play with the Old “GI JOE” Office

Click here to watch My Profile Story

Click here to play on the My Profile Story web site

Click here for the Lindsay Lohan Courtooom game

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This is a blog post in response to the negative articles coming out last week about a small number of YouTubers making 6 figures from the ads running on their content, as well as some people within the web video community’s response to it. It is mind-boggling to see how other people’s success can be used and twisted to a negative instead of appreciating, learning, and rising up to make the space a better place.

Many of you reading this would claim and even agree with these recent articles belittling the money and success “YouTube Stars” have garnered, saying that it’s the very fact that they are so successful that people and studios don’t take new media seriously. To be honest, this was something we also felt somewhat years ago, but have realized how wrong we were.  Most of these people are some of the true pioneers of new media by embracing the platform of YouTube, understanding how it works and building not just an audience, but a MASSIVE audience with sustainable and REPEAT viewership that few outside of “The Guild” can claim to have, yet their content, audience, and even YouTube overall is constantly put down by the industry.  And why is that? Because it isn’t “real content”?  Because it isn’t “narrative”? Audience is audience, and granted, there is a lot more we wish YouTube was doing to help discoverability of high quality content, and are among a few producers working hard with YouTube to understand that and help get them there, but that’s not the matter at hand here.

How many people truly want to watch short form television style content inside the web?  We’ll tell you how many. TONS. Hundreds of thousands, millions, but you know why they don’t watch your show?  Because you have not built a connection to them, because you haven’t built a personal brand and experience for them to climb aboard and want to support, because you don’t have a real reason for the show to be distributed online beyond just “making something”, and surprisingly a lot of the time because you haven’t created a very good show not just for the web, but for any platform.  Part of the future of entertainment is what we just mentioned and is what new media is all about, and THAT is why the YouTubers are the first to find success.  Make no mistake, it is success, and it is very real and should be given proper respect.

The ironic fact of the matter is, in the current state of new media where everyone is desperately wanting to prove the ability to have high view counts on high quality content but don’t know how to do it, guess who ARE the ones that have the ability to create higher end content and get it seen? The YouTubers do, and some of them are now starting to do it. They have realized that YouTube is the site where content creators can build an audience, that YouTube is the only place you can get this massive of an audience, and they have worked hard to establish themselves there because it is pretty much the only site that has proved itself, its infrastructure, and its subscriber system to be able to do so for countless people (vlogger, filmmaker, host or otherwise). 

We have now been a part of many of these talented people’s production units, been their creative partners, there to help them achieve bigger goals and make better higher quality content.  Sadly, even when they achieve this, the results are at times talked down about and still considered “the amateurs” and why? Because of petty jealously when it comes to the digital studios and “professional web series” community who put time, sometimes money, work hard for production value, then sees a high pitched kid screaming into the camera and getting millions of views and a six figure salary that now has turned that into a feature film and a television deal. If you have not been able to get that audience, then YOU are failing if that is your goal. Whether your goal is to make a living off of creating web content, or to use the content you make online to help you get to traditional media, then you should be looking at what these people are doing to help you see what you need to do to get there. It’s hard, it’s damn hard.  But so is television. So is film. So why should this be different?  All of us can complain all day that “Jersey Shore” is so popular and “Freaks and Geeks” was gone way too soon, but that’s entertainment.  Why are we putting down these pioneers?  If you were told in order to be a director of films you needed to make music videos or commercials to stand out and show your abilities would you not do it? Why is making different types of content online as a means to an end any different from that? Respect these people for what they have done in achieving their goals.

Without them there is no web video, or maybe that’s too strong, and it’s more that we would be so far behind where we are now in proving business models in the web video industry. Getting advertisers on board would be that much harder at this point since there would be far less people watching internet video and learning how to interact with it. They are the ones that have brought millions of people online and there wouldn’t be mass viewership at this scale without them. Everything we all are working towards is exactly what they have. They are proving business models better than anyone else out there in the web video space, especially because for the most part they are being far more honest, transparent and non-fraudulent than the studios and big companies that are out there right now boasting giant fake numbers on their web series that have no sustainable fan base whatsoever.

Amazingly enough, most of these megastars are not only humble about being so successful; they’re even sharing the wealth. What is the number one way one gets noticed these days in the current YouTube ecosystem?  One of these mega stars makes a video telling their audience to watch you.  They appreciate talent, and hard work, and good content, and they are SELFLESS with this.  If you looked around some of the most recent huge successes online - be it AutoTuneTheNews, or MysteryGuitarMan, or FreddieW, or Julian Smith, or Reckless Tortuga – are all talented producers making various forms of high quality content who had found their own success to various degrees, but it wasn’t until a Shane Dawson, or a Phillip Defranco, or a Ray William Johnson, or a NextNewNetworks  or many others out there brought the spotlight to them that they were brought to a new category of mega-stardom with the massive guaranteed viewership that they deserve.  And now they pay it forward as well doing the same for others. A real community of talented people looking to see everyone succeed to truly build the space - is that not what everyone at least claims to want? It’s already happening. No matter if MSNBC wants to claim they all “suck”, the reality is they suck for their lack of understanding, lack of forward thinking, and the jealousy that goes with it.

There is so much more to be said, and so many examples to quote, but we’ll stop there. We’ll wrap up by saying the money is EARNED. It is valid. No one is yelling at actors, hosts, etc. in traditional media talking about what they make in a petty way of “they don’t deserve the money”. Get off your high horses and maybe you’ll learn something. Maybe there’s a reason why most of traditional media’s digital studios and most of the web series community hasn’t found almost any success. Be a part of this new media and start realizing that maybe you don’t know half what these people do. Be thankful they are the ones there building viable infrastructure. Praise them for their massive audience as proof positive that the future of web entertainment is already here and proven. Sadly though, due to negative people out for themselves and general lack of information of what being a next gen “New” creator in this industry is all about, they are put down, and as a whole, the web community will continue to be looked at as less than.

The real shame is not the content, it’s that they don’t make even MORE money.  The sheer number of not just viewers but ENGAGED viewers rivals cable networks and the ad dollars should reflect that at least slightly (which it doesn’t if you know where YouTube CPMs are at these days).  And one day it will, and you can all thank the YouTubers for being pivotal at getting us there.

-Benny & Rafi Fine
http://www.youtube.com/thefinebros
http://www.twitter.com/thefinebros

There are many out there expressing opinions on what will go down for the relatively small amount of people who will even remember this as infamous in the shaping of this space.

We have been vocal to so many around the community as well as when speaking on panels at conferences and events or consulting, but never really allow ourselves to let out our strong opinions online. We believe it’s not the proper forum (as ironic as that sounds coming from us), but no one seems to be mentioning some aspects of the major problems we face moving forward, so we were compelled to write.  

For the past 2 years we have, on our own time, for no compensation, created original video content showcasing the nominees for the Streamy Awards. We do this out of passion for the space, and to make sure there is some light hearted-ness of some of the realities of web television. We can only hope the video we made this year was a showcase of the proper way to do self satire, while still embracing the space, which is the tone the entire event should have had. 

We are very outspoken with our opinions of the community and feel we’re somewhat shunned for it, and truth be told we had some more heavy hitting concepts we attempted to include in our piece (though all still with the right tone) and were in fact censored to not make light of the awards themselves, the finances of web content, and most disappointing, to not include nominees that no one would recognize outside of the room nor make any “insular” jokes.  We don’t even need to explain the hypocrisy of the above if anyone saw the rest of the awards show.

There are many things to be disappointed about and many of our peers have already blogged about all of them, and very well.  What we see missing though is mentioning the bigger problems within our community, one of which is everyone not holding each other accountable. We do not ensure that the people with true talent and deserving shows rise to the top (which includes viewership, no viewership = no success, and know many disagree, but we will stand by that claim). We cannot allow anyone who makes a web show to be patted on the back and raised up when they don’t deserve it. The community should never shun, but should also require real work ethic, production value, quality content, and an understanding of the space so we can showcase the best of the web to traditional media and advertisers (and not like new media blogs or the Streamys where a mash of some great, some irrelevant, and some horribly shot and/or written shows that continues to give the web its reputation as being confusing to navigate and filled with amateurs).

Everyone is focusing on the embarrassment of the Streamys and endless mistakes and rightfully so- but there are bigger issues. The Streamys and how they were run and executed is the showcase of the problems across our community. The ego and self importance of a community that is at its core not relevant enough yet to garner lavish spectacles especially since most of its “biggest” shows have suspect viewership or no viewership at all. Anyone looking from the outside sees us as creators trying so hard to make themselves seem important when they’re not vs. facing and embracing the challenges we all have as this entertainment space evolves and is still so much in its infancy. 

We believe the number one problem in the advancement of the web video business is transparency. Transparency will lead to defining this space.  Once we are open with budgets, profit, process, views- we can fully understand where we are, and how to build properly. To anyone from a company buying, autoplaying, or hiding their viewcounts- you are damaging this space and the community. You are teaching incorrect expectations to brands by not being up front, and in turn damaging us all.  You are setting us back, not moving us forward. Stop being selfish.

Everyone needs to take a step out and be self reflective. As new people come into the space they are learning all the wrong things about what their goals should be and what is possible to attain. Striving for a write up on a blog or a Streamy Nomination do not lead to much. Most will fail and never make a cent in this business, they need to know that. Others who do well, will only be barely making a living. And let’s be honest, most of the content made is sub par on some level to begin with, and we need to be open about that too and start letting people realize they need to up their game because their content just isn’t good enough.

For those of you who know us, you know we are as passionate as it comes with web video. We are one of the lucky few to have success on both sides of the more “pro” web space as well as on the YouTube side- and have been making content online longer than almost anyone. We never expected the space to grow as it has, and it’s been exciting and motivational, but at the same time we have trouble standing idly by while we all say “job well done” when there’s so much fraud, falsity, and arrogance in this community.  Honesty. Reality. Case studies. That’s what we need. Let’s build this business properly. We don’t need award shows to celebrate ourselves and look important to our small community. Let’s work with the right people to build TRUE viewership and fanbases to prove sustainability and realistic expectations that comes with them to start showing what the business model and value is in web video.

The Streamys this year was the exclamation point to the larger problems that remain. The time has come to hold everyone accountable…..and we’d start with admitting the view jacking practices from the companies and individuals out there that is still rampant. We doubt that will ever happen…and that is the much larger problem.

Benny & Rafi Fine