Should YouTube/Twitch/Etc. Be Considered A Job?

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Snusmumriken

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My immediate answer is no, but I’m eager to hear the other side.

A staple for YouTube lolcows is to cry that YouTube is their “career” and that they have a right to a) monetization for whatever garbage content they put out and b) exception from criticism because “how would you like it if someone came to your work and told you you were doing a bad job.” Cows like DSP, Chantal and Onision are notorious examples of this kind of lazy, delusional entitlement, but there are endless more to be found in mukbangers, lets-players, Twitch thots, reviewers and the like; “I should be allowed to do what I want because this is my livelihood.”

To avoid REEEing about dictionary definitions like equally delusional YouTube moocher Onision, the way I would personally define a job is this:
  • Performance and pay must be regular and stable.
  • The pay is substantial enough to meet all human needs (food, water, shelter).
  • There is a defined work agreement between worker and employer.
  • Both parties are able to terminate this agreement at any time.
  • Employers are responsible for withholding federal and state tax.
  • There is an easily accessible form of Human Resources in the event that an employee should find their working conditions unsuitable.
So in other words, Emma Stone can call her acting a job but your college roommate who starred in a couple Neil Breen movies as Extra #3 cannot. Ron Jeremy made a living off of sex work, but your truck stop hooker (or Only Fans thot) does not. A job does not have to be a miserable 9-5 and doesn’t even necessarily have to give anything back to society, but it should meet those criteria (imo).

Creating content for popular online moneymakers like the aforementioned meets some of the criteria depending on the success of the creator, but not all. A creator may in fact be making hundreds of thousands off their content, but especially given today’s #cancel culture and YouTube’s wishy washy guidelines for monetization, that can disappear in an instant, making their pay unstable even if their performance is, and there is no upper management for them to consult with in this case. And these are usually young creators without the sense, or anyone in their circle advising them, to put money aside for retirement or large funds that may incur in the future.


It’s not a question of whether or not creators/streamers should be paid for their work, but whether or not their partnership with YouTube/Twitch/what have you classifies them as employed. I’m inclined to say no with room for some gray area, but what are your deep thoughts?
 
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I'd say YouTube or Twitch streaming can be considered to be a self-employed job, although a particularly unconventional one. Less like a self-employed plumber or electrician, which tend to have more consistent hours and overall earnings, and more like a tailor or a freelance artist. Specifically more like these as your earnings and availability of work can fluctuate wildly from person to person, depending on how much demand there is for your work (or in a streamers case, how large your audience is).
 
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Your really overcomplicating how a job is classified. A job is merely providing a service in exchange for compensation, simple as. Youtube, Twitch, etc. are not paying people to get on camera and make an ass of themselves. They serve as the middle men for people who are providing an "entertainment" service in exchange for individual consumers who may or may not compensate them.

They do get a cut of compensation managed through them (sub payments, bits, etc.) because they are entitled to the percentage agreed upon in the contract both parties (media group and entertainer) agreed to. This is usually the TOS. They are not employers though and that is why they can arbitrarily ban or break contract with individual users for whatever reason they want. This is why many twitch streamers use software to go around twitch for "donations", so they don't have to pay Twitches cut. Adsense is a bit more complicated, but again Youtube is merely the middle man who handles the placement of ads and subsequent delivery of money from marketing companies to users. It takes its cut and moves on, it does not hire Youtubers.

The question you should be asking is what type of job should online entertainers be classified under. They are self-employed, essentially running their own business and taking on whatever losses and gains from said business operation. Its a tentative business though as without the support of the above middle men, its really hard to do business. They are not employed under Twitch or Youtube though, that is legally certain.
 
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Sorry for posing the question so overly-complicated. I thought some talking points would help get the discussion going but it just made my stance confusing. Probably should have left it with the question alone and let everyone hash it out.
 
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I think when we consider Youtube to be a valid job or not, we are missing a key point of the discussion. Is there now, or has there ever been a similar case of unstable employment and how did we societally react to it?

Throughout most of western history the average man lived a feudal rural life, tilling and raising livestock. He repaired his house himself and kept a wife for otherwise keeping house. A woman cooked, cleaned, and sewed because that was the only way to get nice things. In that era, there were actors. And they were thought of as prostitutes. Sometimes they would do individual acts, like a sex worker, and we can classify that easily as self-employment

Eventually the industrialization came, and the man learned what time was down to the second and his life became about assembling and forging increasingly modern things. He lived in an apartment, and his wife went mad as all her work became easy and either done by an appliance or bought in a store. She quickly became political if only to continue the sewing circles of old and to know her neighbors. In that era the negative reputation of actors was largely reversed, and acting became an honored, popular profession and art. Prostitutes were the things of the wild west and cowboys and detached socially from acting, ironically because acting became filmable so porn-acting overtook actual coupling with professionals. Jobs were universally unstable, low paying, ambiguous and ill-defined, company scrip driven, and HR and income tax were not quite the thing they are today. Everyone kinda became like the medieval actor, and moved about without real employment.

Then after the World Wars, jobs became more and more modern. Marriages fell and continue to be unstable, and women increasingly miserable. HR and income tax pay withholding became standard, and odd jobs became rare again. Entertainment however got more and more exotic. Radio shows had paid comedian odd jobs, extras in movies were sort of a job, television had supporting actors and even well known actors would do what came to be known as a "Cameo appearance" which was hardly standard work. Hollywood and Pornography reacquainted entertainment and sex work if only geographically. Were the comedians who were paid for a single appearance employed? Maybe, but not for long. For the purposes of taxation, sure. From the point of view of their friends and family, no.

Today, most jobs are classified and bureaucratized by the tax code. Women are equal members of the work force. Entertainment is mostly online, unstable, and mostly pioneering with a lot of false starts. Like throughout all history, the unstable work and the sex work remain intertwined. It was always this way, it will always be this way. Porn briefly detached from prostitution because of universal job instability compared to today and because of the technology around acting. Now it is remerging together with Twitch and Youtubers. The very worst being ASMR, virtually all camwhores have done it because it actually pays. Geisha culture is probably here to stay, because women really don't mind doing the periphery of relationships compared to real sex work. 'Lewd' is a funny woman word which lets them pretend a distinction exists between them and sex workers. 'Adult model' is another modern woman word. We can again use the unstable employment terms for male or mixed jobs and call what these women do a 'gig'? Their trade or profession exists, but its unregulated and more of a black market than a real job. Is a criminal like a made man employed? Just as much as self-employed are.

TL;DR: Entertainment has always been unstable employment which has been looked down on and compared bluntly to sex work, and it will always be so. If it is anything, its self-employment and temp work. Mostly such jobs become historically stable and what you think of as employment like acting or comedy, however the more it actually mixes with sex work the less stable you can assume the work will always be. The comedian who does an act while a prostitute works just outside is far more self-employed than a comedian who works as an actor on a long-running TV show. Twitch Thots be mad, but humanity's harsh judgments are accurate.
 
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Haim Arlosoroff said:
I think when we consider Youtube to be a valid job or not, we are missing a key point of the discussion. Is there now, or has there ever been a similar case of unstable employment and how did we societally react to it?

Throughout most of western history the average man lived a feudal rural life, tilling and raising livestock. He repaired his house himself and kept a wife for otherwise keeping house. A woman cooked, cleaned, and sewed because that was the only way to get nice things. In that era, there were actors. And they were thought of as prostitutes. Sometimes they would do individual acts, like a sex worker, and we can classify that easily as self-employment

Eventually the industrialization came, and the man learned what time was down to the second and his life became about assembling and forging increasingly modern things. He lived in an apartment, and his wife went mad as all her work became easy and either done by an appliance or bought in a store. She quickly became political if only to continue the sewing circles of old and to know her neighbors. In that era the negative reputation of actors was largely reversed, and acting became an honored, popular profession and art. Prostitutes were the things of the wild west and cowboys and detached socially from acting, ironically because acting became filmable so porn-acting overtook actual coupling with professionals. Jobs were universally unstable, low paying, ambiguous and ill-defined, company scrip driven, and HR and income tax were not quite the thing they are today. Everyone kinda became like the medieval actor, and moved about without real employment.

Then after the World Wars, jobs became more and more modern. Marriages fell and continue to be unstable, and women increasingly miserable. HR and income tax pay withholding became standard, and odd jobs became rare again. Entertainment however got more and more exotic. Radio shows had paid comedian odd jobs, extras in movies were sort of a job, television had supporting actors and even well known actors would do what came to be known as a "Cameo appearance" which was hardly standard work. Hollywood and Pornography reacquainted entertainment and sex work if only geographically. Were the comedians who were paid for a single appearance employed? Maybe, but not for long. For the purposes of taxation, sure. From the point of view of their friends and family, no.

Today, most jobs are classified and bureaucratized by the tax code. Women are equal members of the work force. Entertainment is mostly online, unstable, and mostly pioneering with a lot of false starts. Like throughout all history, the unstable work and the sex work remain intertwined. It was always this way, it will always be this way. Porn briefly detached from prostitution because of universal job instability compared to today and because of the technology around acting. Now it is remerging together with Twitch and Youtubers. The very worst being ASMR, virtually all camwhores have done it because it actually pays. Geisha culture is probably here to stay, because women really don't mind doing the periphery of relationships compared to real sex work. 'Lewd' is a funny woman word which lets them pretend a distinction exists between them and sex workers. 'Adult model' is another modern woman word. We can again use the unstable employment terms for male or mixed jobs and call what these women do a 'gig'? Their trade or profession exists, but its unregulated and more of a black market than a real job. Is a criminal like a made man employed? Just as much as self-employed are.

TL;DR: Entertainment has always been unstable employment which has been looked down on and compared bluntly to sex work, and it will always be so. If it is anything, its self-employment and temp work. Mostly such jobs become historically stable and what you think of as employment like acting or comedy, however the more it actually mixes with sex work the less stable you can assume the work will always be. The comedian who does an act while a prostitute works just outside is far more self-employed than a comedian who works as an actor on a long-running TV show. Twitch Thots be mad, but humanity's harsh judgments are accurate.
Click to expand...


You seem to have some serious misunderstandings about the history of the relationship between the entertainment professions and sex work, and seriously warped(naive and romantic) idea of how society functioned in the past.
 
I think it can be a job, depending how much effort you're willing to put into it. Though I also feel you should have other skills to eventually find other work, this stuff won't be a viable option forever and I think it's only a matter of time before that bubble bursts.
 
band musicians play on concerts at a pretty regular pace, but I've not heard anyone that knew anything about them call what they did as 'a job'. often they're still listed as officially unemployed because what they're doing isn't a job - it's a gig.

similarly, youtubers aren't employed by Youtube or Google even if they might make its advertisers money - it's their gig in life and there is no contractual obligation to keep doing it, let alone criminal liability for them if they should stop doing it. same as a band can at any time choose to cut their concert short, if the crowd are a bunch of assholes that throw shit on the stage and try to steal their equipment during the show.

that doesn't mean you can't support yourself and your family through it...but you'll be one of the few and luck is practically always moreso involved than work ethic.
 
Soon, maybe next year, there will be a huge push for online only 'jobs', I don't know what they will be, i'm going to guess at some kind of information 'scraping' or data collection or even improving AI. These will be low paid jobs but will be an alternative to unemployment benefits, will encourage people to stay at home (lockdowns by proxy) and will move the 'energy usage' from businesses to the homes.

Remember, all businesses in the West are being encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint. What better way than to move the carbon emissions to the employees 'working from home'?
 
If you get paid for it and pay taxes it’s a job.

Not all jobs are valuable and not all jobs deserve respect though.
 
Haim Arlosoroff said:
Prostitutes were the things of the wild west and cowboys and detached socially from acting, ironically because acting became filmable so porn-acting overtook actual coupling with professionals.
Click to expand...
The reason why there was some (but not much) friction between porn/prostitution and acting during the early film making era is because it was controlled by catholics before it was controlled by jews.

That's how you got the hayes code.

It could very well make pornography or pornography adjecant materials through mainstream, such as happened in germany and france. It was self imposed restraint that prevented it in the US.
 
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