UKH

I've noticed an uptick in people creating Youtube channels full of videos about, e.g. walks and climbs in the Lakes, Snowdonia, etc.

I wonder what people think of these? I'm quite divided in my own thoughts.

On the one hand, why not? They're beautiful places, it's good to spread the love and I probably shouldn't criticise other people's harmless enjoyment. On the other, there's something about it that ticks me off - the honeypotting, the hashtagging and economy of likes, the awful camera work, the "heroic" presentation of "summiting mighty mountains"... the invitation to others to come to these places and potentially damage them...

I suspect not all my motives are pure in disliking these videos. What do other people think?
 

Can't knock people for enjoying themselves, or having a go at trying to make 
a cool video

Lockdown has limited massively what people can do without having to go abroad and I'm sure that
it has opened up a lot of people to try something that they wouldn't normally do. 

Littering is something which any reasonable human being should not do.

Climbing mountains with the incorrect gear, or little knowledge of the weather, in my view
is a little bit more to do with experience. I'm sure most people who end up stuck or injured didn't really intend to get in that position - so I have a bit of sympathy for them. 

In reply to C Witter:

I don't worry too much about honey pots because if I'm going to one I'm probably going earlier in the morning than the honeybees would go so it probably won't be so bizzzee. Then you see them going up while you're going down and the showers are free at the hostel / campsite when you get back. 😁😜

I don't think you need to worry about new / small YouTubers materially increasing the number of visitors to places like the lakes, and that ruining the place. Bigger things to worry - or try and choose not to worry - about 😊

FYI I discovered that if you press windows key + ; then you can put any emoji into any text input area on Windows.

In reply to C Witter:

I've seen a few of them for running where you can play it while you're on the treadmill.

I ran up my local mountain yesterday and took my GoPro with me (only got it at Xmas) to test the TimeWarp feature. I must've passed 400 people (sunny Sunday, near Grenoble, ski lifts closed) so I think the honeypot horse has bolted.

I agree though - it takes a lot to make footage look good and/or interesting. Other than that though I think you're just burning precious energy getting upset about something you actively have to seek out to get annoyed by.

In reply to yorkshireman:

I more or less agree with you, but these videos are constantly sprouting up on social media, with "Avid Adventurer" asking you to like his heroic ascent of Jack's Rake or "Bashful Bivouacker" taking to such-and-such a page to advertise his daring stroll up Catstyecam.

But, you're right that there are better things to get annoyed by 😉

In reply to yorkshireman:

Bit of a hijack, but how was the gopro?

I do a lot of solo stuff with the dog (Mrs isn't a runner), and I wonder if footage (of the dog, not me) would be of interest to her.

In reply to C Witter:

People in art galleries taking pictures of the paintings instead of looking at them: I worry that people are so busy capturing the memory of something that they put a barrier in the way of them experiencing it. But an outdoor version of that. 

In reply to C Witter:

Some of them seem to be rather full of hyperbole but, at the end of the day, if making the videos makes them happy and helps fill their time during this rather rubbish period then all the power to them. It's not my cup of tea, but the world would be bloody boring if we all had the same interests.

One of the great things about media nowadays is that there is a lot of it, and that you don't have to watch any of it if you don't want to.

In reply to Swig:

👏 I say this all the time. If you're not careful you end up watching your babies first steps or the most beautiful sunrise you've ever seen through your phone screen while it's happening in real life in front of you. 😢

In reply to elliot.baker:

There's a good cartoon showing an end of the world asteroid incoming for its last few seconds and the entire population of the planet is filming it.

In reply to Swig:

Yes, I think so too. Some places are becoming a bit like Don DeLillo's "Most Photographed House in America" and I sometimes I feel that the way we understand the "outdoors" is deeply inadequate. Very often it is framed in terms of being sacred, a space for (post-colonial) heroism or else as a form of therapy. There are perhaps grains of value and truth within all of these frameworks, but I feel as though they obscure a more authentic relationship... even if I'm not quite sure what that is...! Somehow, even though they are produced by amateurs, I feel as though these videos are continuous with the commodification of our landscapes and our relation to them.

But... perhaps I'm just a cranky git, old before my time...

p.s. Also, I've just realised: whenever I go walking with my father, these days (well, pre-Covid), he gets his GoPro out and starts fiddling with it, producing hour upon hour of nauseatingly distorted footage... Maybe that's one of the sources of my ire!

In reply to C Witter:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://ww...

Is this the sort of thing..😉

In reply to C Witter:

The boating is world is full of a similar phenomenon, with an ever increasing number of people moving aboard and starting a vlog to monetise their lifestyle. They're often quite hapless and the content entirely lacks interest, and more than one has now sunk (and somehow converted their sinking into a fundraising campaign to replace their boat at other people's expenses). Few seem to have any genuine interest in boats or the waterways; they're just in it for the 'lifestyle'. #boatlife?

The danger is that new boaters watch these videos and come away with the wrong impression of how to do things, and subsequently come to harm. The boating equivalent of 'Brave Dave', I guess. 

In reply to Shaun mcmurrough:

Not exactly... There is this kind of weird far-right "paleo" survivalist cult thing going on in the US that's a bit concerning, and the vid you link to reminds me more of a kind of embarassingly "English" (i.e. even more lame) version of that! What I was thinking of has a different vibe, but I don't want to single people out!

The more I think of it, the more sure I am that someone somewhere is submitting a sociology PhD proposal exploring contemporary ideologies of the outdoors and Youtubers... Could actually be a good project!

In reply to C Witter:

A science in itself....I've never thought of it this way.

I actually feel at fault watching this stuff but this guy is a comic genius.

In reply to C Witter:

There are hundreds of guide books for walking, scrambling, hiking, climbing.  Do you view these in the same manner?  Surely a YouTube video is just a more modern way of doing it without the commercial aspect

For reference I have used videos off YouTube to have a quick look at walks I have been tempted by in the past

On a similar note, there is a trend within the underground techno/clubbing community where it's now deemed "not cool" to take videos at music nights. 

Some clubs I've been to have an outright ban on phone use and make you cover your cameras with stickers provided at the door. 

The general idea is that you should be experiencing the music without taking recordings.

I don't think taking a 60 second video is bad,  when they are in there for literally hours. 

In reply to Qwerty2019:

I find Scotland's Mountains to be the perfect balance...informative and reasonably well filmed..

In reply to C Witter:

I know what you mean about the sickening amount of 'conquering' and 'surviving' these people do but I do like this one, errors aplenty but learning and joyful

youtube.com/watch?v=7AIU8m_s0RI&

In reply to elliot.baker (and a couple of others):

A counter argument:
https://xkcd.com/1314/

In reply to mysterion:

I know what you mean.

This reminds me of one of my daughters...who rang me while walking up Scafell Pike to ask for directions as she thought she was lost...

In reply to Qwerty2019:

Obviously, I rely on guidebooks for climbing and cherish some of my big coffee-table books (I just got The Great Sea Cliffs of Scotland and its gorgeous), but... I do think some of the articles and books on bothies, "wild camping spots" and "wild" swimming spots are... perhaps misguided. I also think the representation of the outdoors in many books ends up being somewhere along the scale of boring to crap. But, that's a long discussion and I'm not sure my opinion would be the same at the end of it as it would be at the start...

In reply to deepsoup:

Touché! I'm quite conscious of, in the language of the cartoon, not wanting to be a douche. But, surely it is also worth having a conversation about the ways in we experience and represent these landscapes we love? And having a polemical opinion is what internet forum debate is all about, no? Or are you expect nuance, now?! 😉

In reply to C Witter:

I'm working on an article about climbing YouTubers and TikTok (regarding why climbing hasn't really taken off on there yet). It might be interesting to cover and compare the more generic outdoor influencers and personalities to the climbing ones!

In reply to C Witter:

General Narcissism has taken command.  Turns me off in many cases.

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

I find Dave Macleod is quite active on YouTube.. James Pearson/Neil Gresham put stuff out...often through their sponsors....then there's Hot aches,Epic TV,Lattice Training...

All quite specialist stuff and if you aren't into climbing then it's possibly not your thing.

In reply to C Witter:

Good lord no, this isn't my first day on UKC you know!

I just like that cartoon because it's funny and it makes a good point.  Changed my mind somewhat the first time I read it.  But not so much that it doesn't still piss me off enormously if I go to a gig and all I can see from the back is a sea of glowing screens.  (Though that's nothing to do with how they're choosing to 'experience' the gig of course, it's solely about the noise the selfish sods are introducing into my signal.)

In reply to thread:

There's a certain kind of bravado that really winds me up.  Bravado Davado, maybe you could call it.

And yet here's a guy who could so easily be a bit of a Brave Dave, but it's just about impossible not to like the guy. (imo obvs) 
Let me offer this up as evidence for the enquiry..
youtube.com/watch?v=M7w986ni7_g&

Bloke goes for a walk.  He has a daft plan to start with and makes a few daft mistakes as well (one or two of them potentially leading to near-death experiences), but you certainly can't fault him for enthusiasm and commitment!

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

That sounds interesting! I look forward to reading your angle on it all.

I don't really get TikTok, but I can't see any block to climbing - or indoor bouldering and training in particular - taking off there. But, maybe sponsors etc. haven't quite worked out how to make its slapstick medium work for them yet.

Saying that, I don't really get Youtube. I mean, I watch various things there, but people really seem to enjoy very boring content. I heard about this phenomenon of people watching videos of other people eating. These videos of other people walking are very similar - really mundane, but somehow with appeal. Perhaps the Youtube video is able to represent the quotidienne in a way that our other arts - film, literature, etc. - have been unable to. I'm sure there's a lot to write... if you can bear to explore the deep seam of weirdness and banality.

In reply to C Witter:

But this is the thing - before YouTube and other digital channels, video content was expensive to make a distribute so a lot of work went into planning, filming, advertising and broadcasting footage to the largest possible audience*. This meant that generally only stuff that was expected to be popular got made, which reinforced our idea of what interesting content was.

There's a long tail of niche stuff that never got made which now can be since it doesn't have to go through the traditional gatekeepers - that's not always a good thing as it means the person playing with slime video is as easy to post as something from a white nationalist but in general the democratisation of video content is surely a good thing?

*Obviously in the UK we've traditionally had strong public service broadcasting which means we've been better served than most in terms of quality TV that might not be traditionally 'popular'.

In reply to Ridge:

I can't fault the overall quality (Hero 9). I literally just turned on 'TimeWarp' feature and held it in my hand as I ran though sometimes knee-deep power in highly contrasting light conditions. I literally just clipped everthing together and pulled out some bits - there's no storytelling so it is a bit dull but really its for my own benefit/recollection.

youtube.com/watch?v=LZMf0Fmf2z8&

In a similar way the wife watched it and wants to come and do (run/walk) trip next time I do it as she wasn't sure about doing it the first time.

In reply to yorkshireman:

Thanks. Pretty impressive bit of kit/software to smooth it out like that.

In reply to deepsoup:

Thanks for this link! This is actually fantastic content!

In reply to yorkshireman:

Impressive what relatively cheap technology can now produce

Is it normally that busy ? I have a similar local hill  although I usually ski rather than walk or run in winter but I rarely see more than maybe 20 people excluding those on the edge of the village. But it did remind me of the Chartreuse so maybe its closeness to Grenoble.

In reply to wercat:

The whole idea of owning a selfie stick is beyond me. Having said that, I happily watch hours of "near miss"footage on You Tube and find it immensely entertaining.

In reply to Doug:

No, this was exceptionally busy even for somewhere only 40 minute drive from Grenoble. Factor in that people can't go piste skiing there's so many more people on raquettes, XC skis, hiking or just sledging etc at the moment.

It was also the main route (especially down) which I picked because it would be packed down snow to run on. There's plenty of trails which are quieter but would have been purgatory for running. I also left it late (started 11am) which makes a big difference.

That said, I used to live in La Jarjatte on the border of the Dévoluy and Pays Buech and I had the trails all to myself most of the time.

In reply to yorkshireman:

It's a good point. I don't think the democratising promises of these platforms are usually bourne our in reality and they also create many issues, e.g. algorithms promoting far-right content, circulation of conspiracy theories, new economies of (vacuous) influencers, etc. But, perhaps some of our (semi-)professional climbers have been able to benefit from this and there are also some good/interesting videos that would never have been made, as well as plenty of 'ordinary folk' getting a kick out of it. Worth thinking on more! I'm still quite divided in my own opinions.

In reply to C Witter:

Some of these videos are well made and thoughtful about the natural environment. These I enjoy. Predictable most are look at me nonsense. IMHO the biggest fault is that the majority are way too long.

In reply to C Witter:

I did wonder how long it would take Brave Dave to appear in this thread 😏

here my own rough cut contribution to YouTube, no breathless commentary or music but a “daring conquest” of the fabled Crib Goch

youtube.com/watch?v=rW3J06PhFss&

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

There are some strong climbing focused YouTube channels out there clocking up 20-300k views on their videos such as Rockentry, Geek Climber, Bouldering Bobat, DabRats, Magnus Midtbø, Eric Karlsson, Mani the Monkey and others. If you compare this against the mountain biking world where YouTube channels reign supreme it's pretty average but the GoPro boom definitely catapulted mtb way further ahead with just helmet cam footage before vlogging was really a thing. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I sometimes take pictures of myself in the hills, purely documentary, best ones are when I look beaten up and knackered by gritting my teeth against the wind and cold.   There's hardly one where my first reaction at seeing the captured image isn't to recoil in horror!

In reply to wercat:

I'm sure most people have taken summit photo shots of themself as documentary material but a stick seems to suggest more prolonged viewing of the self and body as important features of the shot rather than the occasional shot of self against a scenic background.

Some (Instagram/SM Influencers) resemble 'self-facilitating media nodes':

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/feb/10/nathan-barley-charlie-...

Others are well intentioned (encouraging others) but essentially clueless (wild camping next to the path on top of Stanage Popular End) and would benefit from some swatting up/pointing in the right direction:

youtube.com/watch?v=fup21cI5PeQ&

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I think you're right, though it isn't necessarily just out of vanity or narcissism - the footage taken from the end of a stick is often much better quality than 'first person' helmet-camera footage or whatever.
(And more than most activities, 'helmet cam' footage of rock climbing invariably seems to be especially heinous.)

Here's another piece of evidence for the enquiry, for those who didn't see it.  An entire BBC series shot by a single person talking to a Go Pro on a stick, with odd bits of drone footage stirred in.  (Nominally for purposes of social-distancing, but I'm sure it didn't hurt that it's also cheap!)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000qd6w/winter-walks

In reply to Tom Valentine:

yes, agree completely, wouldn't be seen alive or dead with one

In reply to deepsoup:

it does seem to lead to people walking as if they have a very full nappy

In reply to C Witter:

Some people will eventually get bored when their videos don’t get much interaction or views. 
 

The cream will float to the top. 
 

The technology is simple to use, fairly cheap - anyone with a smartphone and video app can make a video. 
 

What they all, or mostly lack, is anything that makes them stand out, any professional production values. My YouTube is just a VLog, low production values, a few pieces to camera and some scenery, more about my general thoughts than anything else and I doubt many people are particularly interested. I film it in about an hour, spend an hour editing down and joining the clips for about 5 minutes of film. 
 

I have 1500 views on a dishwasher repair. The rest have a handful of views each. 50 tops. But they’re just there if people want to watch that’s up to them. 
 

It’s like most social media quantity over quality. To get good quality you have to be experienced at getting footage right first time or you end up spending hours editing and re-shooting. 
 

I guess really it’s the same as taking photos for you and your mates to remind you of a good day on the hills. Only difference is it’s video and it’s public. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

I have to laugh at this...🤣🤣

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Yes, Youtube is great for DIY! A lot simpler, but three videos later I'd fixed a leaky tap. Was really helpful to be able to watch such classics as "Changing a washer" and "Taking Apart Older Models of Taps".
 

I have to say, I've also learnt a lot about certain routes and getting a general idea about weather conditions at certain times of year.

People have taken hand held cameras on hikes and expeditions since the 80's... it's just easier now.

Same argument about people always being on their phones... before phones, people would just read newspapers on the way to work.  

In reply to tomsan91:

Dwarfed by Candide Thovex picking up 1.3m per Day for 'One of those Days'...

In reply to Shaun mcmurrough:

It’s bizarre. 
 

Up to 2.3k now. 

In reply to C Witter:

Muriel Gray did similar to this in the 90's and she got away with it, so why not eh.

In reply to Natalie Berry - UKC:

Not directly related, but worth a watch - Ash Sarkar and Moya Lothian-McLean on 'The Influencer Industrial Complex': youtube.com/watch?v=_SDYTXGrv_U&