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Cho Chan said:
Anybody else suspicious of that VPN youtubers have been shilling recently? NordVPN, I think?
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I've specifically avoided the product as a result.
Even if it were good and not at all a scam, the best defense is always unknown means and unknown things, and by becoming e-popular with a less than stellar demographic NordVPN makes itself a known quantity that anyone who cares enough can dissect.
 
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Cho Chan said:
Anybody else suspicious of that VPN youtubers have been shilling recently? NordVPN, I think?
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Yep, any time I see something mass advertised on youtube when it doesn't relate to the content creator's focus (i.e. VPN for an video game focused channel) raises my suspicion radar.

If we look at Nord's competitor, PIA do they even advertise outside of LinusTechTips and the New York Times ad shaming congress a few years back?
 
Tanner Glass said:
I think the reason so many people are worked up isn't because he didn't do any research (or did and just said fuck it) rather his entire 20 person team that contains "some of the best editors, researchers, production and talent in the industry" didn't quite catch it. Apparently ~$800,000 a year doesn't get you very good researchers.
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BetterHelp has ties to one of the largest podcast advertising agencies, Adopter Media. I found it sorting through affiliate links in my podcast sweep in this post. They're headed by Glenn (((Rubenstein))), one of the people behind the early YouTube series lonelygirl15. It shows he has experience with viral content; but Wikipedia has an interesting mention about lonelygirl15's relationship with marketing:

Wikipedia said:
lonelygirl15 was the first Internet series to introduce product integration [...] In another example of a product integration first, lonelygirl15 landed on the front page of Variety for the integration of a character from Neutrogena in the storyline over the period of more than two months. Dr. Spencer Gilman became such a popular character that Neutrogena made him "Employee of the Month" and gave him his own e-mail account on the company's corporate website.
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Glenn's a man who knows his online marketing, is what I'm getting at.

Another business I had found connected to BetterHelp was Algebra Media Inc., but the founder, David Keller, has a lot less out there than Glenn Rubenstein, at least that I could find with a cursory Google search. I had found an article (failed to archive) connecting Algebra Media Inc. to Skillshare, who is connected to Donut Media, some YouTube channel (archive) about cars. I wasn't going to bother posting this, but two other big marketing firms for online media having their fingers in this pie tells me that there is no way that DeFranco's team wasn't tipped off at some point.

I didn't dig into either Adopter Media or Algebra Media extensively, so there could be some connection between the two businesses and the higher higher-ups related to BetterHelp.
 
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I remember talking with a friend back in '99 on a chat, and he said to me that the internet will become progressively more mainstream and gobbled up into massive corporation globs fueled by ads. I thought the internet would remain heavily segmented and split into very distinct parts. It was a very long convo, and he really got my brain going, so I told him that this space is prime-time for snake-oil salesmen, psychics, and people comfortable with exploiting the weak. He agreed with the exploitation part but nah, surely with so much information to digest, people would know better.

We heavily disagreed with each other. Turns out we both were right in our own way.
 
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Sometimes said:
The part that absolutely killed me was the shady "Life is hard sometimes... I'm just like you guys! I have mental health challenges too! This app can help!" attitude running through his sponsored content. On top of the incredible amount of content creators they roped into the whole script, the trust me, guys! gloss on everything was concerning.
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At the risk of sounding Mad on the Internet, hearing these scripted lines out of all of these people shilling BetterHelp was one of the larger tip-offs for me that these people don't know the basics about what real, proper therapy or mental health issues can entail. When Ralph played @Memology 101's videos on the Killstream, having to listen to the fake breakdown one of the girls shown in the early videos put on was painful.

Boogie I can understand having actual need for therapy, but a lot of those YouTubers shown in the videos struck me as sourcing all of their psychiatric knowledge from television shows. It's not just irresponsible; it's sleezy.
 
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Arnold J. Rimmer said:
I know Keemstar quite adamantly insisted on baited that Shane Dawson didn't know better when he shilled Betterhelp. Does anyone know if he has addressed it yet? It's painful to think how much exposure his documentary brought..
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He defended Shane because he pops up in the teaser for the next part of the Jake Paul video. I imagine it's good exposure, so I doubt he'd go after Dawson until after that even if he was proven beyond a doubt to be guilty as hell. Keemstar has always been kind of a snake.
 
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Deadwaste said:
kiwifarms: trusted by Pewdiepie
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Call it an unpopular opinion, but I'm willing to bet Pewds may have made an account here, as he has been popping up on our radar quite a bit recently. If not a member, he is at least proven to be a long time lurker. If he is it's a shame he can never come forward, mostly due to the idiots that follow his every action, as it would be interesting to hear his take on some topics.

As for this whole Better Help thing, it makes me upset for the customers and angry at the cunt who made the site. True counselling is nothing like what they offer, this shit can't be done over a fucking computer screen, as it gives the easy excuse to flake out (amongst many other problems).

Yeah, hit me with the late ratings.
 
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Zebedee said:
Call it an unpopular opinion, but I'm willing to bet Pewds may have made an account here, as he has been popping up on our radar quite a bit recently. If not a member, he is at least proven to be a long time lurker. If he is it's a shame he can never come forward, mostly due to the idiots that follow his every action, as it would be interesting to hear his take on some topics.

As for this whole Better Help thing, it makes me upset for the customers and angry at the cunt who made the site. True counselling is nothing like what they offer, this shit can't be done over a fucking computer screen, as it gives the easy excuse to flake out (amongst many other problems).

Yeah, hit me with the late ratings.
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It's me. I am Pewdiepie.
 
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So, for anyone saying there is a lawsuit here...gonna have to throw cold water on it. From what I am seeing the fuck wads have a pretty solid TOS that everyone has to agree to before using the service. I know nobody actually reads the damn things, but they are binding contracts in US Law. Doubt there will even be an FTC intervention. Best options would be State based regulators, because thanks to the vagaries of various States laws, there may be in an "in" in one of them.
 
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mindlessobserver said:
So, for anyone saying there is a lawsuit here...gonna have to throw cold water on it. From what I am seeing the fuck wads have a pretty solid TOS that everyone has to agree to before using the service. I know nobody actually reads the damn things, but they are binding contracts in US Law. Doubt there will even be an FTC intervention. Best options would be State based regulators, because thanks to the vagaries of various States laws, there may be in an "in" in one of them.
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True, but what they advertise and what they state in the terms of service is directly contradictory. There may be something that a particularly crafty lawyer could work with.

False advertising maybe?
 
Man some of these youtubers exist solely for advertising stupid bullshit like dollar shave club, candid, betterhelp, seatgeek, dick pills, hair growing bullshit, etc. It's nauseating. I mean just look at some of the worst/biggest offenders

Phillip Defranco can pretend he's an old school youtuber, but really he's just the Last Week Tonight-esque sequel to a shitty obscure comedy channel. He can't even muster up a take half as decent as pewdiepie, who does a news segment without a research team alone in his basement.

Shane Dawson is eternally a 16 year old emo boy, who gets taken for a ride every single damn time, but he just wants to make youtube dr. Phil. I wouldn't even be surprised if he got duped into sponsoring this.

H3H3 is in some deranged self destructive spiral, I think Ethan is so terrified of hitting the breaks for five minutes that he'd rather just drive off a cliff while running over every sponsorship deal on the way.

I'd mention boogie but this rant is getting so big I'm worried he'll eat it.

Then there's the satellite youtubers like keemstar, every time he opens his mouth it's like watching a slow motion video of a baby deer being born onto hot pavement. Boy does he desperately want to be on the right side of the cool internet kids clique.
 
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Zebedee said:
True, but what they advertise and what they state in the terms of service is directly contradictory. There may be something that a particularly crafty lawyer could work with.

False advertising maybe?
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Which would at best be a slap on the wrist fine. False advertising is a speeding ticket for big companies. You really need to get them either in fraud or contractual breach. i.e, them doing and saying things explicitly against their stated TOS.
 
This is fucked up, but I've never once thought about paying money for a service that I know should be done in-person. Of course this is me with money and connections talking, but even some dude you've played Overwatch with for the past 3 years would be a better counselor than some name of a "professional" on a screen.

I totally believe that some YouTubers indeed suffer from depression, whether caused by YouTube (in the same strain that social media can exacerbate certain feelings of anxiety, low self-worth, etc.) or having been present before they created a channel, but I just don't see the logic in buying counseling on the Internet or through an app. That's not how therapy fucking works, that's never how it worked. You need someone to sit you down and have a few sessions with you in person. They need to see you, study your behaviors, get to actually know you, not what you put in a text message. If anything, these sorts of apps should be supplementary to your therapy, not the sole source of it.

I guess a bit of this ire is directed towards people who think that their mental illness can be fixed with a mouse click. It can't, and in some extreme cases it will get worse unless there is medical intervention involved. For those who cannot afford the doctor's appointments, I do not have a solution other than find someone to just talk things through with. Talk therapy wasn't all the rage in Freud's day for nothing.
 
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