Path dependence. In a normal job, if things start to go sour, you can chalk it up to experience, put it on your resume, and hang on for the time it takes to find another job in your field. With YouTube, you make yourself a potentially huge PR liability while developing no skills beyond amusing speds and leaving no paper trail as to what your work ethic is like. This has been gone over pretty extensively in the Spoony thread, but it's worth reiterating- what job could he get, with the massive paper trail he's left behind? If you achieve any kind of success on YouTube, you pass the "internet is forever" threshold, so everything you've ever said or done can potentially come back to haunt you. And hoo boy, does TJ have ill-concealed skeletons in that closet.