Bill Maher: "travel vloggers" and other "content creaters" are unproductive bums

Jogger262 wrote:

He’s always been arrogant and quite crotchety. Except, now instead of bashing the Tea Party and Trumpers, he occasionally bashes the woke left.

I admire him for going after his own party. He can say a lot of things that others cannot say. I find about half of his routine annoying, but he has some definite bright spots.

Our society is going down the tubes. You used to have to hide the fact that your are a wh0re or a stripper, but now it’s celebrated. He sees it, and knows it won’t end well without significant change.

Bill has been attacking wokeness on the left for 20+ years now. It isn't anything new. He definitely tilts left but he doesn't follow party lines.

Society has been going down the tubes for thousands of years. We will adapt...

fkkfkfkfkf wrote:

Jogger262 wrote:

He’s always been arrogant and quite crotchety. Except, now instead of bashing the Tea Party and Trumpers, he occasionally bashes the woke left.

I admire him for going after his own party. He can say a lot of things that others cannot say. I find about half of his routine annoying, but he has some definite bright spots.

Our society is going down the tubes. You used to have to hide the fact that your are a wh0re or a stripper, but now it’s celebrated. He sees it, and knows it won’t end well without significant change.

Bill has been attacking wokeness on the left for 20+ years now. It isn't anything new. He definitely tilts left but he doesn't follow party lines.

Society has been going down the tubes for thousands of years. We will adapt...

Tilts left? He is a self proclaimed liberal. He constantly pokes fun at Republicans. He hated Bush and Trump and was a fan of Obama. He is an outspoken Atheist, pro-weed, anti-gun, pro choice.

He does seem to be moving closer to the center, but it’s only because the left has gone way further from center. He will make fun of crazy liberals, doesn’t think current white men are responsible for the minority’s woes, and slams Islamic extremists as much as he does Catholic pedophiles.

He was and still is a stand up comedian, which takes a lot of practice and skill. Much more than the average pretty IG influencer. However; the late great Norm McDonald pointed out that Maher constantly has to prove how smart he is. Norm said that’s a recipe for disaster in comedy. Nobody wants to go laugh because the comedian thinks he’s smarter than you. Like I said, he has moments of extreme common sense, but the majority is self promotion and smugness. I wouldn’t go see him do stand up, but I’ll tune in for 30 minutes if I don’t have anything better to do on a Friday night.

Taro wrote:

Tatar.. wrote:

And how does Bill Maher make money? Oh right, people tune in to his show to watch him make jokes. That's soooo useful and important.

Indeed. Maher seems to be vastly overestimating his own contribution to society. But I suppose it's easy to overestimate zero. Even his jokes aren't that amusing anymore.

There's nothing original in what he says. "The kids are lazy!" is what every generation says about the one after it. There's quotes going back thousand years to confirm this.

If people like and watch him, he makes money. He's the same as the people he criticizes. The economy doesn't require us to do anything 'important' or have to struggle for it to be considered work. All that's required is people pay us.

fkkfkfkfkf wrote:

We had travel/lifestyle journalist for decades. This is no different.

It definitely is different.

Back in the day, such a gig would be considered ecentric and people in their 20s and 30s would generally rather work at a desk in a skyscraper and earn a paycheck and bonuses. Now everyone is "too cool" to work a "9-to-5 grind." They start some travel or hobby blog and talk about how they had to get away from the American "rat race."

Of course, the explosion of social media, made possible by advances in technology, changed our perceptions of what is and isn't cool.

Are you EVER accountable for YOUR choices? lol

You can thank google for this. They pushed "content is king". So we have a world of content creators".

jamin wrote:

fkkfkfkfkf wrote:

We had travel/lifestyle journalist for decades. This is no different.

It definitely is different.

Back in the day, such a gig would be considered ecentric and people in their 20s and 30s would generally rather work at a desk in a skyscraper and earn a paycheck and bonuses. Now everyone is "too cool" to work a "9-to-5 grind." They start some travel or hobby blog and talk about how they had to get away from the American "rat race."

Of course, the explosion of social media, made possible by advances in technology, changed our perceptions of what is and isn't cool.

Agree with this. Think about being a travel writer in the days before computers/laptops. Everything had to be captured in written notes and later transcribed with a typewriter. And real writing skill was required to get something published in a magazine or other print source. Making a living that way was actually a lot harder than just getting a office job.

Now it's just people rambling on about mostly nothing.

jamin wrote:

fkkfkfkfkf wrote:

We had travel/lifestyle journalist for decades. This is no different.

It definitely is different.

Back in the day, such a gig would be considered ecentric and people in their 20s and 30s would generally rather work at a desk in a skyscraper and earn a paycheck and bonuses. Now everyone is "too cool" to work a "9-to-5 grind." They start some travel or hobby blog and talk about how they had to get away from the American "rat race."

Of course, the explosion of social media, made possible by advances in technology, changed our perceptions of what is and isn't cool.

It still is eccentric. VanLifers are no different than the 60s hippies or Socrates complaining about the lazy youth. YouTube and the like just makes it easier for small subsets of the population to broadcast their views out there.

Like I said he tilts left. If you are in the far right you think he is an extreme leftist but that is a result of your position not his. You will notice how he isn't off criticizing reasonable conservatives but the crazy far right ones?

Dude isn't my favorite guy by far but he has been consistent in his views for 30 years now.

jamin wrote:

Bill Maher: "travel vloggers" and other "content creaters" are unproductive bums

Yes, but couldn't you say the same thing about Bill Maher?

I know he probably resents the younger generation earning income on a screen, in a way that he likely sees as a shortcut to the way he ended up earning his income on a screen. But the reality is they're in a new and growing medium (web based) and he's in an old and shrinking medium (cable TV). So, it probably makes him feel inadequate, like a dinosaur heading towards extinction.

For the record, I'm not from either Maher's generation (Boomer) or the vloggers (Millennial & Gen-Z). I'm Gen-X.

The tradition of young people traveling before they settle down goes back at least to the Grand Tours of aristocratic families in England. And then there was the idea of a “gap year” among the upper class.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s it was pretty common for young people to go out on the road for a while or to travel in Europe. The old CSNY song “Teach your Children” captures some of the sentiment. The year after I graduated from high school in 1969 I knew I was not ready for college. I worked at a ski area then then took off on a 6-month road trip with my GF in a Buick station wagon with a mattress in the back. To survive I would go into Manpower offices in the morning to get work assignments, usually as a day laborer. Some of those jobs were more physically demanding than anything I’ve ever done as a runner. My GF could accurately type over 100 wpm so she could walk into any temp office and get an assignment by taking a typing test.

Within a year or so I was ready to knuckle down and go to college and was much more motivated than most of my peers who came straight from high school after seeing a bit of the “real” world. But I had friends that tried to keep up the lifestyle. They would work for 6 months and save up enough for 6 months travel in Asia or someplace.

Today’s vloggers are different because it is viewed as more of a permanent lifestyle than just a temporary adventure. And it is all made possible with social media. I also agree that this “lifestyle” thwarts the develop of the actual skills that are needed to create real value in the economy. At the end of the day, people can live their lives the way they want. But while these people are out traveling around in a van, there are millions of immigrants that are willing to put in long hours, study difficult subjects and save and scrimp for a more secure future. These are the people that will own the real businesses and run the corporations of the future.

Well yea. But it’s no different than all the unproductive boomers saying they are consultants providing absolutely no value to anyone, ever.

This is America. It’s not about working hard, it’s about working smart. The hardest workers stay at the bottom doing the grunt work for the smartest workers. If you can make a living traveling the world making videos, you’re way smarter than those working 60 hours a week in a cubicle.

sbeefyk2 wrote:

Well yea. But it’s no different than all the unproductive boomers saying they are consultants providing absolutely no value to anyone, ever.

This is America. It’s not about working hard, it’s about working smart. The hardest workers stay at the bottom doing the grunt work for the smartest workers. If you can make a living traveling the world making videos, you’re way smarter than those working 60 hours a week in a cubicle.

I like this comment. I used to work in the corner office floor to ceiling windows and a downtown view. Now I work from my terrace or kitchen or even from bed. I have more time with my family and aging parents and in-laws. I am definitely struggling with what is actually important for a successful career right now. Network thru zoom and teams? Conferences are virtual? The office is not important anymore. Clients take breaks from meetings more excited about Amazon packages than our services. It's like theses relationships just aren't that important. I worked pretty hard for something that in a blink, means nothing or definitely not as much.

Maher is a Neo-Fascist nut job/

still a nomad wrote:

At the end of the day, people can live their lives the way they want. But while these people are out traveling around in a van, there are millions of immigrants that are willing to put in long hours, study difficult subjects and save and scrimp for a more secure future. These are the people that will own the real businesses and run the corporations of the future.

A lot of what you wrote about there being a long-established tradition of young people from the upper-class traveling for a while before getting serious about life is true. I encountered a lot of white kids like this when I went to grad school. They had all used mommy and daddy's money and fall-back security to do one bizarre European/Latin American adventure that somehow required months and months to complete. I envied them. I'm not an immigrant, but I've lived like the people you describe at the end of your disquisition.

The thing is, friend, those immigrants already own "real businesses." They will not run the corporations of the future, for the most part. Those are two different lanes, two different levels of social capital. The smart, hard-working kids from wealthy families whose brothers and sisters are worthless travel vloggers will run the companies, same as ever before. The immigrants will work for them, unless they can marry into the wealthy family or babysit their dog and earn some old man's undying affection or something. Nothing much has changed.

There are a few people out there making some serious coin by being video bloggers. This guy has been at it for about 8-9 years and is making a few million doing it. His videos are all about eating food primarily in Thailand but he does venture elsewhere. I'm pretty amazed that he can make that kind of money for just posting these videos. I guess he has found a niche market and is making it work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCx764uwC6c

Bill Maher is a literal jerkoff. There's some degree of truth to that statement but it's obvious flamebait.

Not Mark Wiens wrote:

There are a few people out there making some serious coin by being video bloggers. C6c

There are people making millions being tutors. Entertainers have always been highly paid at the top. But the pay drops off sharply.

Personally I think his "not in it together" rant was a lot funnier.

I don't think anyone is questioning whether content can have some redeeming value (not just entertainment) for consumers or whether its creators can make serious money.

The thing is that being a content creater is not an "I'll give this a try" type of thing. For example, it's not like the 20k people who move to LA every year to try and become a Hollywood star and all but 1 or 2 succeed. It's something where everyone can succeed to some degree, even if they have only a couple hundred followers. And it's certainly addicting for them and becomes like a part- or full-time job.

That has a tremendous effect on the economy and society when so much time and energy has been redirected in this way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49rcVQ1vFAY&ab_channel=tranquileye