I'm not saying you're wrong but the internet has changed so much since the golden era of MDE. Sketch comedy almost doesn't even make sense anymore. Why are they making WP2? They don't have distribution, they don't have any contracts, nobody is going to rotate them into a time slot - they have complete freedom to do anything and everything, so why are they making a TV show???
The streaming stuff actually makes sense, even though I wouldn't have believed it five years ago. I barely watch any of the streams, but that's pretty much all the internet is anymore. It's people reacting to drama and doing Let's Plays and that's it. Are average people sending funny YouTube videos to their friends or is it all just short clips on social media? When MDE was popular it was compared to Tim and Eric and h3h3. I was a fan of T&E early seasons and have never seen h3 stuff, but I know he got popular for making funny videos, like sketches and stuff. Same with T&E. Now the only thing they do is boring podcasts and talk about drama.
For some reason kids just want to watch faggots stream video games and they'll spend hundreds of dollars a week to do it even though it's literally free. I can't blame Sam, or anyone, for cashing in on it. People's standards for entertainment on the internet is so low now it doesn't make sense to put a lot of effort in.
back in the day you had dvds and hardware media, and you had advertisers that put stuff on tv.
so what made something money is its devoted fan base that would pay for hardware media, hardware media had a percieved value to it, if it got distributed by tv stations it was because advertisers wanted to advertise and were alright with being associated with that content, social media wasn't what it is now and we didn't have this impression that a few fat blue haired black chicks getting mad about stupid shit was at all a reflection of society at large. things like donnie darko or hackers didn't do well on their original theater run but then would go on to be successful selling as DVDs.
now everyone has the internet, so everyone can voice there disdain for something. People are much more likely to voice disdain then appreciation because human beings are hardwired to notice negativity 10 times as much as they are to notice positivity, so this applies to people commenting and also people reading comments, in addition, times appear more dire then ever, so people have less faith in the good of things and the power of endorsing things, and have more faith in the power of shitting on things and saying everything sucks. destruction is a cheap and easy form of creation and expression and thats attractive to the weak and fearful.
in addition, hardware media doesn't really exist any more, so media seems more disposable then ever, especially video and music content. getting people to pay for a song or a video when they can easily stream it or torrent it is a massive battle.
how ever, especially after covid but even more with the rise of social media, people are increasingly lonelier then ever, and people are disillusioned in school and have had different facets of identity (religious, gender, racial, sexual, cultural) stripped from them, and social media promotes a shallow kind of social connection that feels lacking, so people are desperate for social connection, and that's where streaming comes on.
you go into a stream and in the chat you can connect with others, and when you pay 15-25 dollars for a chat read from the streamer to say your online handle and the sentence you wrote that says nothing at all, you get a rush from this imitation of connecting to someone you see on the screen.
people used to spend most of their time with their community, now people have no community and the majority of people spend their time seeing people on a screen.
people like watching streams because they can see into someones nice room and nice house and nice vacation and nice life and they can feel connected to them and it feels cozy and safe and it almost feels like having your own nice life and having your own nice connection to another human being.
its really depressing and we gotta focus on our selves and improving our lives and not get sucked into the trap of zoning out and playing pretend before we wind up like narcissa wright.
i think that sam is making WP2 because he wants to, not because he thinks it will make him a shit ton of money, he's said that he made more money selling cars then doing what he's doing, i think that he does what he does because he thinks its important and finds it fulfilling, not because he's only interested in making money, he's got shit like his podcast and streaming for making money, and he's got shit like fish tank and WP2 and joyride universe for expressing him self and tyring to affect modern culture in positive ways and saying stuff about life.
as you get older and especially as you start to have money, making money is not the sole thing on your mind, you also want to do stuff that makes your life have some meaning and value to it, you don't want to get older and have regrets and think back on all the gaming and toiling you did and wonder "was that enough? did i do all i could with my life?", this is why Alfred Adler says "the bulk of happiness comes from the feeling of contribution towards ones community"