Machinima Premier Director…

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The hunt is on, again, for a new Machinima Premier Director now that SeaNanners (Adam) is a bona fide, honest to goodness, straight up employee of Machinima. Much in the same way that a Premier Directorship came up when Hutch was lured into full time employment at the House of Fun.

The Premier Director is selected from the list of existing Machinima Directors so it could be ANYONE!….

No it can’t be. And no it won’t be. Sorry to shatter anyone’s illusions here. Last time around I correctly predicted who would be chosen based on the workings of democracy. It’s a very simple equation to work from – the person with the most votes wins. That time around it was Tejb. Tejb had at least 50,000 more subscribers than anyone else in the running which meant that even if only half of his subscribers were active and weren’t porn bots, multiple accounts, or inactive then he’d win. And win he did – surprise surprise <_<

Anyone with a YouTube account and more than a hundred subs can work out for themselves that for the most part only 10% of the subscribers are 'hardcore' (meaning they watch, rate and mostly comment on EVERY video put out), about another 25% or so will view and thumb, and the rest will sporadically watch and/or participate. That's not counting the 10% of subscribers whose tally of subscriptions is in excess of 150 YouTube channels which means to me that they could care less what you do and are even less likely to watch any content you put out anyway.

By my reckoning most 'YouTubers' have between 20% and 35% of their total subscribers who actively participate in the channel. I could be full of da poop, but these figures are based off interaction on my channel and from looking at the number of thumbs and comments on other peoples channels so I've not just pulled the information out of my ass. However, if you have more reliable numbers then please let me know, because I love stuff like that.

Anyhoo, back to the point. SeaNanners announced the drive for a new Premier Director in his most recent video:

Now, here's where I got interested. Adam says it's not going to be "a popularity contest". But it is. It can't be anything but a popularity contest. The last "election" was a popularity contest, and any time you invoke the power of democracy it will ALWAYS be a popularity contest.

Here's how Adam has attempted to throw a spanner in the democratic works. There will be three current Machinima Directors chosen to duke it out for the mantle of Premiership. Two of them will be decided by being….. *ahem* most popular in terms of likes and comments. And the third will be a Wildcard chosen by the BananaMan himself.

That's a great idea, but it's not going to change the fact that if the outcome is being decided by the community liking, voting and commenting on the three finalists then the finalist WITH THE MOST ACTIVE SUBSCRIBERS will be the winner. It doesn't matter if SeaNanners plucks Jesus Christ himself (not Obviously Jesus) from the list of Machinima Directors, if his active subscriber count is not in excess of #1 or #2's active subscriber count then he hasn't got a hope in hell (and unless SeaNanners chooses THE most popular person on Machinima at the moment then he might as well not waste his time).

Sure the extra publicity will net the Wildcard some new subscribers, but that's it. Democracy is a popularity contest, asking the community to vote is a popularity contest, and putting a wildcard in there will NOT change the outcome. Unless they decide to use another voting system such as proportional representation….. but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

By the way, does anyone know who the most popular people on Machinima are right now? I unsubbed from Machinima a while back so have no idea who's who and what's what on there any more.

That is all.

Peas and loaves.

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Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

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David Nicol is Articles Editor for hupitgaming.com, YouTube gaming commentator and blogger based in the UK.

Democracy in Action

I love the excitement of a good election race. The debates, the manifestos, the whistle stop tours of places to get votes – the obviousness of who the winner will be long before the votes are counted.

Democracy, it’s a wonderful thing. And yet again, I’m still not talking about the UK General Election. The concepts still apply though.

In my last ‘It’s Election Time….‘ post I described how the majority demographic that bothers to vote reflects the values/persona of the person/party that will win the election. After all, democracy is nothing more than a big popularity contest with the end result being a continuation of the status quo regardless of who you vote for.

Previously, and despite voting for OnlyUseMeBlade, I said that it was a one horse race. That the winner would be Tejb as he most closely matches the majority demographic of the YouTube/Machinima Respawn community. So far I am spot on the money:

Will there be an upset? The xcalizorz peeps seem to be getting a bit more vocal…..

Peas and loaves.

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Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

It’s Election Time….

…or popularity contest if you prefer. Where eager young things put their ‘X’ next to the candidate that they think mirrors their own values and will make the biggest change in their life, while the older more cynical voters know that whoever wins will actually change nothing….. That’s right peeps, it’s UK General Election time Machine Premier Director voting time.

Machinima have put a poll on Facebook for users to vote on who they think should be the next Premier Director to fill Hutch’s spot. A couple of the directors have put “Vote for me” vids up….but you know what, and this is the problem with popularity contests/democracy, people in general are fairly blinkered, selfish and short sighted (and have really poor collective memories).

Tjeb is in the lead at this point, romping home by the look of it. And why shouldn’t he? He’s young and fun and talks about boobs and touching yourself – which exactly describes the general YouTube Community. The demographic for the YouTube MW2/gaming community is Tjeb so of course they’re going to vote for him!

Forget about the guy in the hat who’s been there from the beginning, or that dude who runs around with the knife while making some very acute observations on life, even the guy with the really offensive custom classes is trailing waaaaaay behind the crazy young Swede.

But get this – I like Tjeb, I’ve been subscribed to him for a while in internet terms, but personally, I don’t think he deserves it. *GASP* (I can feel the hate cannons swivel in my direction…) It’s true, I don’t. I think he’s a good player, and his commentaries are fun and entertaining, but lately he’s put up hardly any videos and the majority of his recent efforts have been *yawn* quickscoping. Obviously he has a life, but so does every other person the list.

Some of the other names on the list have been much more active and consistent in posting vids for their subscribers, but that’s democracy for you. The candidate that most closely matches the demographic is the person who wins – that’s how it is and that’s how it’s always been.

So congratulations to Tjeb on your Premier Director status. What do you mean the polls haven’t closed yet? It’s a one horse race!

I’ve been David, and you’ve been awesome!

Peas and loaves.

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Find me on PSN – evaDlivE