Has TechQuickie hit a new low?

[Spotty]

... Or has it been like this for a while?

I'm referring to TechQuickie's most recent video "France Banned Streaming!"

The video very briefly discusses the news from May that France is requiring officials to use the French language phrases for "streaming" and "eSports" in official communication instead of using the English language words.

 

 

The clickbait title of the video is extremely misleading and the video opens with a graphic and narration saying "Streaming has been banned in a major country", so it's obvious that the video was always intended to be misleading and it's not just an issue with the title. The video then goes on to explain that it's actually just a directive for officials to use the French translations for the terms in official communications and actually has nothing to do with banning streaming.

 

The video is pure clickbait and the only contribution it makes is "Hey you know the thing that we just told you, well we lied to you that's not true at all".

I'm not a fan of the "click-enticing" titles that a lot of Youtube videos use but I can at least understand why creators have the need for "click-enticing" titles on regular videos where getting viewers is what gives the return on the investment in making the video, but for a video like this where the sole purpose of making a video is to be misleading clickbait with no substance to it at all, why bother making it?

 

Aside from the clickbait, why is this even on the TechQuickie channel? Wasn't TechQuickie supposed to be for short entry-level educational videos like the "Fast As Possible" series of videos where they explained common computer terminology and concepts in a way that a layperson would understand. I wouldn't be able to find it but I'm sure Linus said in the past (WAN show?) that TechQuickie was a channel they wanted so that they could send the clip to their parents or grand parents and have that explain what an SSD is or what the difference between an Inkjet and Laser printer is. TechQuickie has never really been a news channel in the past and LMG already has a dedicated channel for posting brief tech news with TechLinked so I'm really at a loss for why this would have been posted to the TechQuickie channel. The only reason I can think of is that it was actually intended to be posted to the TechLinked and they either mistakenly posted it to the wrong channel or they knew it was rubbish and were too ashamed to post it to TechLinked so they just threw it on to one of the other channels they don't care about instead.
 

I hope this isn't the direction TechQuickie is going in. It's hard to pin down exactly when the change was made but at some point TechQuickie went from short educational style videos to low effort clickbait. I much preferred the older "Fast As Possible" style videos and looking through older videos on the channel it seems that they did alright for view counts with videos often in the 500k-1M view range, with many videos in the 1M+ views range. Though, it seems like a lot of those videos were receiving a lot of views over a long period with traffic likely coming from search rather than the sudden views a channel might get with more click driven interactions immediately after posting, and maybe that metric is better for sponsorship deals or something.

Techquickie can post informative videos as #shorts without it needing to be misleading/clickbait. The recent #Short from the channel titled "Why is it called Spam?" where Anthony explained the origins of the word "Spam" was fine. It was just a brief "Hey, here's a cool trivia fact" and I think that type of "Did you know?" content as #Shorts could be suited for Techquickie's fast easy-to-understand style videos. Clickbait videos like "France banned streaming... haha just kidding" is just misleading and treating viewers like idiots. Also what a missed opportunity to parody Pulp Fiction. "You know what they call a Streamer in Paris?"

[da na]

Right about when they started doing Shorts is when I stopped watching. Felt like the content quality really dropped. It's been similar with all LTT/LMG channels for a few years but TechQuickie seems more recently clickbaited.

[PDifolco]

They played on words, as some French "language authority"  decided to use French words for "streaming" and "streamer"

Noone really cares, given that their official word for "streamer" is now..the same french word for  "gamer" ! They are stupid,  it won't ever be used

And nothing was banned, it's just "official recommendation"

 

(ps I'm French  )

 

[merco]

I believe that those shorts perform really well and that would make it the right business decision. I don't like them, but I don't care all that much either. I have to agree with the major point though, I clicked this video and then closed it after about 10 seconds because I remembered reading about it. So I guess I'm an idiot for clicking it in the first place, expecting something different. Oh well, guess I'll go watch something else.  

[Vishera]

That's unacceptable,that video title is a blatant misinformation.

There is not even a single grain of truth in it.

It's baffling that this video was even filmed and released.

I see no reason for it to exist.

 

@LinusTech @CPotter

 

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

Aside from the clickbait, why is this even on the TechQuickie channel? Wasn't TechQuickie supposed to be for short entry-level educational videos like the "Fast As Possible" series of videos where they explained common computer terminology and concepts in a way that a layperson would understand.

Just wanted to highlight this.

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, merco said:

I believe that those shorts perform really well and that would make it the right business decision.

I'm not saying they shouldn't do shorts at all, but I do think they can do better than this. They can make shorts without making them misleading or clickbait. Most of Tech Quickies videos are only 3-7 minutes long so it wouldn't be too difficult to translate that style of content in to 60 second clips if they wanted to do Shorts for the channel. They have other Shorts videos on the channel recently that haven't been as bad as this.

 

Compare the "France banned streaming" to some of the other recent Shorts videos they've posted.

I don't have any complaints about those shorts videos (maybe the AMD title is a little vague, but importantly it's not misleading). They take a tech topic and give a brief & simple educational video which suits Techquickies style of content. I think they're actually a good example of how LMG can use Shorts.

I think the main problem with the France banned streaming video is that it's misleading and you shouldn't have misleading content on what is normally portrayed as an educational channel. It doesn't suit the style of content for Tech Quickie. It probably wouldn't have bothered me if it was just a segment during a Techlinked episode where the host said "... In other news France has banned Streaming and eSports - The words that is. France is ditching the English phrases for use in official Government communication in favour of the French language phrases". Even better if they parodied the Grand Royal with Cheese discussion from Pulp fiction with the person off camera.

"You know what they call a Streamer in France?"

"They don't call them a Streamer?"

"No, they've got the metric system over there so it's different"

"What do they call it then?"

"Le Gamer with viewers"

At least that would suit the style of TechLinked and you wouldn't feel misled by it.
 

 

I just feel like this was an attempt of seeing how low they can set the bar before people start complaining.

[aisle9]

20 minutes ago, Spotty said:

"You know what they call a Streamer in France?"

"They don't call them a Streamer?"

"No, they've got the metric system over there so it's different"

"What do they call it then?"

"Le Gamer with viewers"

"What do they call clickbait?"

"I dunno, I didn't watch Austin Evans."

[Musty]

I don't mind a good play on words in a title.

 

Technically correct is the best kind of correct .

 

Besides which, reading the title and thinking that a country like France would actually ban streaming as an activity requires... well, quite a leap of imagination. 

 

Its fairly obvious its a joke .

[Vishera]

I had a look in the YouTube community guidelines and the misleading title + thmbnail are a violation:

Quote

• Misleading Metadata or Thumbnails: Using the title, thumbnails, description to trick users into believing the content is something it is not.

 

[LinusTech]

I forwarded this to Jon. I also think the title is pretty funny, but I think there's a valid concern here. 

[saintlouisbagels]

Honestly don't see the issue with this.

It was a fun play on words and it literally takes 10 seconds into the video for you to realize you've been misled.

[Erioch]

It's France.  I didn't watch the video but assumed it was true.  After all, they banned swim suits that cover too much.

[YellowJersey]

Definitely misleading... but I guess it's short and clarifies pretty quick. Still, maybe better to avoid such click baity titles? Honestly, I don't care all that much, but I am a hollow shell of a man of who longs only for death, so I'm probably not a good person to ask.

[Arika]

4 hours ago, saint_louis_bagels said:

Honestly don't see the issue with this.

It was a fun play on words and it literally takes 10 seconds into the video for you to realize you've been misled.

Quote

10 seconds into the video for you to realize you've been misled.

Quote

to realize you've been misled.

Quote

you've been misled.

Quote

misled.

That's why people are annoyed. a title SHOULDN'T be misleading at all.

 

Video title: Linus has died from COVID

first 10 seconds of video: Linus gets shot in a first person shooter game by a guy with the screen name COVID.

[BuckGup]

16 minutes ago, Arika S said:

That's why people are annoyed. a title SHOULDN'T be misleading at all.

 

Video title: Linus has died from COVID

first 10 seconds of video: Linus gets shot in a first person shooter game by a guy with the screen name COVID.

I agree and what's the legality surrounding it? Linus is a large investor in Framework but his most recent video says he is awaiting a cease and desist from Sony so maybe as a fellow investor of Framework I should pull out.

 

Now I know it's clickbait but it's just lying now and it's hard to trust anything from here on out. But hey money is the key to happiness and life

[lewdicrous]

6 hours ago, LinusTech said:

I also think the title is pretty funny

I'm sure you can have a funny title that's not misleading.

[ManOverboard1224]

I mean i've never been a fan of TechQuickie so i've always thought that its been at "a new low" but these shorts are legit just not good. 

[Ydfhlx]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:32 PM, Erioch said:

After all, they banned swim suits that cover too much.

Meanwhile a town in Italy banned swim suits that cover too little. Even the onion couldn't come up with this.

[donal McScrote]

I used to be a glutton for click bait until somebody else with their own you tube channel opened my eyes to critical theory and analysis.  Stuff I would never have even thought about, right okay it's got 16,000 likes so it must be true.  Nope you break it down scene by scene if you need to and what you do with the end result is up to yourself perhaps even post your results on you tube for 16,001 likes and it continues ad naseum.

 

We're all arm chair experts desperate for a like or a chime in, it's a hard thing to take in being accussed of posting click bait and I've done it myself. Now I don't, I just stick to the facts.  I'm a pro fluid gender refugee equality LGBT/insert pronoun supporting abortionist.   Lets see those thumbs up.

[Erioch]

3 hours ago, Ydfhlx said:

Meanwhile a town in Italy banned swim suits that cover too little. Even the onion couldn't come up with this.

Well now I know where my next vacation is going to be.