Breaking the fourth wall

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PowerfulRedHat

I Love YTtalk
I think youtube channels are great ways to interact with viewers, but i feel like an increasing amount of videos and channels are reaching out of teh screen a bit more than is good for them. Speaking for my own personal youtube video viewing experience, i really enjoy videos that don't actually address the fact that they are youtube videos. For example, I like gaming videos where the game is introduced, the game is played, and then there's a, "see you next time!" clean, simple, entertaining.

Things i think take away from the experience of watching a video and kind of 'shatter teh illusion' are:

introductions to the youtubers channel at the beginning and end of every video, not just on their front page
annotations obscuring my view of the video advertising other videos
"Hope you enjoyed this video"
"remember to leave a comment like and sub"
"lets get this video to a thousand likes"

I suppose a very harsh way of saying it would be "Buskers entertain, beggars beg."

ANYWAYS! that's just something that been on my mind since i started watching youtube videos a million years ago, any thoughts on the fourth wall? Is there an appropriate amount of damage one can do to the fourth wall?
 
wall+break+gif.gif
 
I have never been a fan of annotations, they just kill the video. It's like you put a bunch of work into creating something then you stick some s****y coloured bar over it with some basic f*****g font, f**k that ********. I even got rid of my intro recently. Like what's the actual point of an intro, it doesn't actually help that much with brand recognition and I would rather have the extra 3 seconds focusing on the content.

An outro is pretty much all I use, just because someone may still be sitting there at the end of the video and clips of other videos may actually entice them to click on them.

If you are filming vlogs and not breaking the fourth wall, you would have to be a really arrogant *****. It's arrogant enough to think that people actually want to watch you and give a s**t about what you say, but to actually think that then make sure you don't acknowledge them in any way shape or form? Fuuuuck that, I would punch up the guy if I ever seen him walking around in person for acting like a twat.
 
PowerfulRedHat said:
I think youtube channels are great ways to interact with viewers, but i feel like an increasing amount of videos and channels are reaching out of teh screen a bit more than is good for them. Speaking for my own personal youtube video viewing experience, i really enjoy videos that don't actually address the fact that they are youtube videos. For example, I like gaming videos where the game is introduced, the game is played, and then there's a, "see you next time!" clean, simple, entertaining.

Things i think take away from the experience of watching a video and kind of 'shatter teh illusion' are:

introductions to the youtubers channel at the beginning and end of every video, not just on their front page
annotations obscuring my view of the video advertising other videos
"Hope you enjoyed this video"
"remember to leave a comment like and sub"
"lets get this video to a thousand likes"

I suppose a very harsh way of saying it would be "Buskers entertain, beggars beg."

ANYWAYS! that's just something that been on my mind since i started watching youtube videos a million years ago, any thoughts on the fourth wall? Is there an appropriate amount of damage one can do to the fourth wall?
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Yeah the hard thing is that statistically speaking those things actually WORK. People respond to the calls to action, that's actually where I found myself in a conundrum. I like being mysterious and different and I don't like seeing the "Subscribe for more videos!" stuff either, so I decided I would do the opposite. And I am playing the role of someone who hates getting subscribers on my new channel, and instead of milestones I am going to give reprimandings, instead of shout outs I'm going to highlight "the people who can't follow simple directions" This way it's encouraging people to subscribe in a backwards way that still fits the character I portray. It was the only way I could comfortably do it.
 
TheBatteryChicken said:
If you are filming vlogs and not breaking the fourth wall, you would have to be a really arrogant *****. It's arrogant enough to think that people actually want to watch you and give a s**t about what you say, but to actually think that then make sure you don't acknowledge them in any way shape or form? Fuuuuck that, I would punch up the guy if I ever seen him walking around in person for acting like a twat.
Click to expand...

Vlogs are definitely an exception to the general fourth wall rule :P


Symph said:
Yeah the hard thing is that statistically speaking those things actually WORK.
Click to expand...

Hmm, moderation might be teh secret then. everything in moderation after all eh?
 
KdawgCreations said:
Did someone say breaking of the walls ?
chris-jericho-entrance-4-o.gif

@JeriKane did you? :p
Click to expand...
FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK, WHAT YOU WANT?
BABY YOU KNOW YOU'RE JUDAS, AND I'M YA PRIEST
BABY WHAT I GOT IS NOT FROM THE LEAST
BRING IT THROUGH THE STAGE WITH THE RAGE OF A BEAST
STEP INTO THE ARENA AND BREAK THE WALLS DOWN!!!!!
STEP INTO THE ARENA AND BREAK THE WALLS DOWN!!!!!

Yeah, err... I like breaking fourth walls. They're fun. I don't know why they're better than say, the 2nd walls, but hey.
 
When I started doing YouTube presentations as a stand-alone video, my thought was to make a video that could be uploaded or hosted anywhere. No mentioning of YouTube, no sub or like reminders, no interaction. It was just a presentation.

It wasn't very successful.

Maybe it was because it was 2007 and I didn't have a lot of subs at the time. Maybe it was it was the early days of YouTube. Maybe it was because it was shot with a handheld camera. Maybe it was because there is no editing. (http://goo.gl/PJV5VJ)

I think that it was because I was creating a sterile product. While it was informational, it didn't create an emotional experience for the viewer. Nowadays, I do my presentations as if I know the viewer is sitting right there. I'm talking WITH them, not AT them.

While YouTube will continue to emphasize 'calls to action' reminding viewers to sub, like, share, etc, I think that it gets really annoying and turns people off. My goal is to keep people on my channel to increase watch time. My call to action reminders are few and far between.

tl;dr
If you don't want to read and learn, too bad. (not aimed at OP)
 
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