Yep. Dull videos for equally dull people.
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I'm posting the same comment in both the Adam the Woo and Jacob the Carpetbagger threads because if these two chuckleheads can post what is essentially the same content in two locations, then so can I.
I'm not upset that they're back at Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg. In fact, I usually like their videos there. Parts of those towns look really nice and fun to visit. What gets me is how they avoid those areas and spend time at the trashiest spots instead.
That ski lift ride to the top of the mountain looks really beautiful, and once you're at the top, there are sweeping views of the gorgeous Smoky Mountain landscape, but these two barely showed that, saving it for just the last 2-3 minutes at the end of their videos.
The rest of the time was spent at grossly overpriced tourist traps (like the dinosaur boat ride and the earthquake ride) and filming the closed-down ruins of other tacky tourist traps (like the balloon that's not there anymore, the biblical wax museum that's not there anymore, and even that horrible "World of Illusion" building that's thankfully closed down and being turned into something else).
What is their obsession with recording dark rides? Do they not review their footage before posting it? The picture is so dim that it's impossible to see, and the audio is so poor that it's physically painful to listen to. I really don't understand the appeal.
They feel like hipsters -- pretending to like something that is objectively bad just to prove how unique they are.
I'm not upset that they're back at Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg. In fact, I usually like their videos there. Parts of those towns look really nice and fun to visit. What gets me is how they avoid those areas and spend time at the trashiest spots instead.
That ski lift ride to the top of the mountain looks really beautiful, and once you're at the top, there are sweeping views of the gorgeous Smoky Mountain landscape, but these two barely showed that, saving it for just the last 2-3 minutes at the end of their videos.
The rest of the time was spent at grossly overpriced tourist traps (like the dinosaur boat ride and the earthquake ride) and filming the closed-down ruins of other tacky tourist traps (like the balloon that's not there anymore, the biblical wax museum that's not there anymore, and even that horrible "World of Illusion" building that's thankfully closed down and being turned into something else).
What is their obsession with recording dark rides? Do they not review their footage before posting it? The picture is so dim that it's impossible to see, and the audio is so poor that it's physically painful to listen to. I really don't understand the appeal.
They feel like hipsters -- pretending to like something that is objectively bad just to prove how unique they are.
I find it ironic that either one of them is able to grow their channel. They do the same old things over again which is boring to even their steadfast audience. And that audience looks like a bot army, with many highly liked vapid comments linked to empty channels.
That is the main reason I stopped watching Jacob. As much as I LOVE Ripley's, I even got bored watching him going to Ripley's over and over again. Easy content.
Hi folks. Just looking in to see if anything new had happened. It’s been a long while since I’ve watched any of Jacob’s content.
His channel just seems like such a waste. It could be interesting showing roadside attractions, points of interest, folk art, and regional curiosities, sharing them and documenting their existence and modifications over time.
There’s an author I enjoy named Tim Hollis who has written about the history of tourism of various places around the southeast. His book Land of the Smokies: Great Mountain Memories gave me a new perspective on the old Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge tourist traps and their history. I found it fascinating and am looking forward to having time for his newer book on lost attractions of the area. His work is usually well researched and he connects dots that I otherwise might have been oblivious to.
Channels like the Carpetbagger had the potential to be an engaging, visually appealing presentation, bringing in backstory and other research on the subject at hand. The problem seems to be the wrong driver is at the wheel. It’s hosted by a dullard with no innate curiosity or interest. He’s an inarticulate slob who saw Adam the Woo making a living doing it and wanted the same for himself. He roams around squealing at airhoses, stuffing his mouth, and blabbing any halfwitted thought that falls out of his noggin to a camera. Most anyone who would have the talent and skill to make a watchable, interesting channel on the topic probably has a career and life responsibilities that would prevent them from spending the time and effort on a YouTube channel.
His channel just seems like such a waste. It could be interesting showing roadside attractions, points of interest, folk art, and regional curiosities, sharing them and documenting their existence and modifications over time.
There’s an author I enjoy named Tim Hollis who has written about the history of tourism of various places around the southeast. His book Land of the Smokies: Great Mountain Memories gave me a new perspective on the old Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge tourist traps and their history. I found it fascinating and am looking forward to having time for his newer book on lost attractions of the area. His work is usually well researched and he connects dots that I otherwise might have been oblivious to.
Channels like the Carpetbagger had the potential to be an engaging, visually appealing presentation, bringing in backstory and other research on the subject at hand. The problem seems to be the wrong driver is at the wheel. It’s hosted by a dullard with no innate curiosity or interest. He’s an inarticulate slob who saw Adam the Woo making a living doing it and wanted the same for himself. He roams around squealing at airhoses, stuffing his mouth, and blabbing any halfwitted thought that falls out of his noggin to a camera. Most anyone who would have the talent and skill to make a watchable, interesting channel on the topic probably has a career and life responsibilities that would prevent them from spending the time and effort on a YouTube channel.
I also tried watching a Jacob video this weekend after not watching one in forever. It was The Haunted House of Wax. I kept on fast forwarding through the video. It seems to me like he is going through the motions to me and has been the last time I watched one of his videos (maybe 2 months ago).
While I love wax figures, Ripley's and actually most of the stuff Jacob shows in his vlogs (even when I was a super fan, I never watched anything in Oct as I dislike haunted houses and his stupid reactions to compressed air). While I love that kind of stuff. I think like I keep on mentioning with the Ripley's stuff. I think people (inc. me) who also love that kind of stuff get bored of seeing the same wax figure places (inc. haunted wax figures), the same Ripley's stuff, the same Cadillac Ranch type places. It is like ATW love of Disney, lets go to Disney 10 days straight and think people will like it.
While I love wax figures, Ripley's and actually most of the stuff Jacob shows in his vlogs (even when I was a super fan, I never watched anything in Oct as I dislike haunted houses and his stupid reactions to compressed air). While I love that kind of stuff. I think like I keep on mentioning with the Ripley's stuff. I think people (inc. me) who also love that kind of stuff get bored of seeing the same wax figure places (inc. haunted wax figures), the same Ripley's stuff, the same Cadillac Ranch type places. It is like ATW love of Disney, lets go to Disney 10 days straight and think people will like it.
In the past, he was able to rely on the novelty of seeing the locations as the draw for viewers. Now, it isn’t “new”. The concept of YouTube for profit has been around a while. He has more competition than ever before. At this point, most viewers have already seen his well-traveled locations, either from his past videos or the multitude of newer similar channels. He hasn’t done anything to adapt.
He doesn’t have the charisma to carry a large channel or grow a massive audience on his personality alone. His channel depends on the quality of its content. Low effort “let’s walk around and gawk at stuff” isn’t cutting it as the sole offering, not anymore.
He needs to do more homework and also learn some new skills. If he’s run out of the novelty of new locations, then he needs to really up his research and storytelling game and tell new, interesting stories about the places to get viewers interested again. So it’s not just his face blabbing at a camera, he needs to learn video editing and motion graphics skills to explain parts of the story. And by story, I’m not meaning “make crap up”. Find the backstories. Make connections between items or people or places. Find the interesting and figure out a way to best illustrate it for the audience. Tease things apart, or group them together.
For example, he recently visited a wax museum. Where do they get the statues? Do they make their own? Buy them from somewhere? If there’s a wax statue craft person, can you visit? Do an episode on that. Visit the studio, see how it’s done, find out where else there work is. Do you already have footage of some of them? Edit it in. Have graphics and basic animations to help illustrate anything complicated in a visually appealing way. Throw in a little humor at times. You’ve just made a new episode that dove a little deeper than the usual surface level stuff, gives the audience a new perspective on an object they’ve seen many times, and can be used to make connections to other locations you have or may visit. This takes more time and effort, but it’s worth it. With higher quality videos, the upload pace doesn’t have to be as frequent. Weekly instead of many times a week.
If he doesn’t adapt, he’s only hurting himself. Being one of the earlier roadside attractions vloggers doesn’t mean much for your future if the audience is getting bored by new content that feels stale and there’s a ton of up-and-comers and wannabes nipping at your heels. Even if they aren’t any better than you are, they at least have the novelty of a new face.
There are reasons tv shows don’t have unlimited episodes a season and usually only last a few years. Once you’ve covered everything and run out of ideas, there’s nowhere to go. Lots of vloggers haven’t really thought things out long-term.
I like Disney parks. Compare one of Adam the Woo’s Disney videos with one from the channel Defunctland. Look at the quality. Defunctland only uploads about once a month (if we’re lucky) and people are happy to get it. I don’t know about now, but Woo used to upload daily. He’s making enough to live on only because he was practically the original wandering vlogger before YouTube was even paying, made a connection with his audience that grew exponentially, has a massive back catalog, and has the reputation of being a real, genuine decent guy. Not perfect, but decent. Others can’t expect to copy Woo’s style and get the same results. They’re still trying, though.
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Blame his old Boomer audience for not expecting any more from him. I guess they like the near daily repetitive formulaic routine of listening to his squeaky manchild voice as he meanders through kitschy old tourist traps and museums and so on. Maybe some really dumb kids watch him too, I don't have access to his analytics, but it was easy to surmise who his base is judging from comments on his videos and streaming sessions.
I have come to respect the real Youtubers who make real art and put out only one gem of a video every month or so. And those videos often get 1 to 5 million views compared to 25-30K Jacob might get. Quality is far superior than the redundant junk quantity that Jacob churns out so regularly.
I guess his Halloween overload is coming soon. Sigh. At some point he became very cringy to me. Just another sketchy e-beggar with nothing new to offer.
Like this episode of Defunctland. 12 million views. This is quality YouTube.
E-beggars’ bread and butter are lonely, isolated people with time on their hands who develop a parasocial relationship with YouTubers and build little communities in chat during livestreams and comments sections. They’re not hooked on the content, they just want a place they feel they belong. And YouTube encourages this as a good form of doing business.
Odd thing is that Carpetbagger had a real job and was married with a kid. If you believe his story of having to make a choice between his job and YT because his job thought his YT "Gig" was interfering with his job (he said that he had one week on (his regulars 8 hour day, plus being on call) and one week off).
Also someone was harassing at his work from his YT "gig" and therefore another reason for him to make a choice (that is how I interpreted what he said and who knows if that was true or not). I know Social Work has interactions with his supervision and with the people he is trying to help. So Jacob would have had to have some sort of social skills to do his job.
I am sure I am probably stating something obvious. I wonder if there was something more to his story that he stated and he was not good at his job or something else happened on the job that he fucked up on. Since Social Work is a pretty serious job, Especially since he mentioned he was dealing with children.
My meaning was that e-grifters (like many YouTube vloggers) profit off the lonely. I wasn’t inferring he was an isolated shut in.
It’s a soul sucking job with a high turnover rate. I’ve worked with a few former social workers who changed careers to save their own mental health. It can be hard to fill vacancies in the field (low pay, high stress) so less than stellar candidates can wind up in social work jobs. Knowing how shifty Jacob can be, I would not be shocked if something happened that he’s hiding. However it could also easily be YouTube was an excuse to escape a terrible job. Instead of making a career change, he decided it was a great idea to chase internet fame and be a mostly absentee husband and father.
Jacob is shifty. A real passive-aggressive manipulator. I'm sure the spoiled manchild blamed his wife and daughter for holding him back from YT career.
I haven't watched him in a while, and just looking at the thumbnail for today's video, has he already begun that annoying stretch of videos he does each Fall when he screams/squeals into the microphone to a pitch black picture and calling it "going to haunted houses"? If so, ugh. It's going to be a long Fall.
I have a confession to make: I used to be a Patreon supporter of his. I enjoyed his videos of obscure places that I'd never visited before -- or even heard of before, and I know those sorts of travels aren't cheap. It was also fun to receive a postcard in the mail every month. After a few months, though, I realized that I was just subsidizing him to dick around. He had a Q&A once for his patrons, and he pretty much half-assed every answer (I asked: "Which attractions have you not visited yet but really want to check out?" and he answered something stupid like: "Yes, there are attractions that I haven't visited."). I think that the straw that broke the camel's back was a trip to Disney World where he stayed at an expensive on-property hotel. Granted, my $3 was just a drop in the bucket, but it still felt somehow wrong to be paying for someone else to go on vacation and pretend it's a job.
I have a confession to make: I used to be a Patreon supporter of his. I enjoyed his videos of obscure places that I'd never visited before -- or even heard of before, and I know those sorts of travels aren't cheap. It was also fun to receive a postcard in the mail every month. After a few months, though, I realized that I was just subsidizing him to dick around. He had a Q&A once for his patrons, and he pretty much half-assed every answer (I asked: "Which attractions have you not visited yet but really want to check out?" and he answered something stupid like: "Yes, there are attractions that I haven't visited."). I think that the straw that broke the camel's back was a trip to Disney World where he stayed at an expensive on-property hotel. Granted, my $3 was just a drop in the bucket, but it still felt somehow wrong to be paying for someone else to go on vacation and pretend it's a job.
Like Adam and his Disney vlogs, it is easy money for him.
I noticed when I check in to JTC to see where he is going and I notice his notices for going live get less and less likes and comments. Weekly lives (like the TTT's) tend to not do as well compared to random ones. I hated when he'd eat his stupid almonds and just read stuff or stare at the screen.
I agree about the Patreon. I used to sometimes watch casino video's and they would get people send them money to gamble. Why would an average person send "professional" gamblers money so they can piss it away or if they do get lucky they keep the money (or use it for the next gamble). If I am going to send people money to gamble, might as well just go to a casino myself.
I think Dan Bell and maybe a few others might be worthy of Patreon due to I think Dan Bell does provide quality stuff (documentaries, I know for Patreon he does Podcasts for them).
I initially watched him to see those places. It was a way to “travel” and check out places when I didn’t have time to get away. I could check out some quirky or interesting spot, in far less time than it would take me to even drive to wherever. I could also see inside some tourist traps I wouldn’t have ever bothered to stop for, or nicer places to add to a “go there “ list.
But I never wanted to send him money. My logic was “why would I want to send him money to get to do things that I won’t even shell out the cash for to do myself?” and “Why should he expect others to fund his hobby?”.
There seemed to be a YouTube gold rush for people with a channel to have viewers crowdfund assets and experiences for them. Then superchats became a big thing and I think the same psychological thing happens in them that happens at auctions, where people get caught up in it and start bidding on things they might not have otherwise bought or pay way too much for.
Now, more people have raced to join the goldrush, wanting in on fame, followers, and free-flowing money. There’s an oversaturation going on. People have a limited amount of time and can’t watch everyone’s channel, nor why should they want to. Things are going to get tighter and more competitive, with less money to go around. And that’s not even considering the economy with people cutting back on frivolous expenditures.
I would just like to know how his teenaged daughter feels about her cringey dad going to clearly family orientated places(Disney/amusement parks/fairs) without her.
I'm a total daddy's girl, and it would be heartbreaking to see my father, waddling around like a giant kid, instead of being a father to his kid. So I would love to have her perspective. I wonder if her school peers know about her dad, because it seems like easy fodder to mock her with or if it's a sore spot for her at all. Of course I'm just an outsider looking in, but even back when he would bring her to a few places, it seemed like he was always nagging at her, and more focused on making the video, than actually being interested in spending time and making memories together.
And while I'm not at all sure if this valid criticism, JTC does to not have the looks or self awareness to know that no one is interested in seeing his face so much. People are tuning in to see the oddities, museums, and/or rides he's visiting. No one, not a damn soul is asking for this guy to constantly be in the camera vs the views in the featured location, and MOST DEFINITELY no one is asking to see him eat.
Seriously I bet blindfolded toddlers can eat more gracefully than him.
My husband randomly wanted to check in with him, so we just finished his Minnesota state fair video. And just felt such cringe and pity. And I just watched and realized: He never stops talking, not even for a second. And throughout the duration of the video I kept feeling like this is something possibly my grandparents might enjoy, because it's just noise, I feel like no one under 35 would unironically watch or support him in his current era.
But better I saw now, than coming across his Halloween nonsense of screaming at darkness and compressed air
I'm a total daddy's girl, and it would be heartbreaking to see my father, waddling around like a giant kid, instead of being a father to his kid. So I would love to have her perspective. I wonder if her school peers know about her dad, because it seems like easy fodder to mock her with or if it's a sore spot for her at all. Of course I'm just an outsider looking in, but even back when he would bring her to a few places, it seemed like he was always nagging at her, and more focused on making the video, than actually being interested in spending time and making memories together.
And while I'm not at all sure if this valid criticism, JTC does to not have the looks or self awareness to know that no one is interested in seeing his face so much. People are tuning in to see the oddities, museums, and/or rides he's visiting. No one, not a damn soul is asking for this guy to constantly be in the camera vs the views in the featured location, and MOST DEFINITELY no one is asking to see him eat.
Seriously I bet blindfolded toddlers can eat more gracefully than him.
My husband randomly wanted to check in with him, so we just finished his Minnesota state fair video. And just felt such cringe and pity. And I just watched and realized: He never stops talking, not even for a second. And throughout the duration of the video I kept feeling like this is something possibly my grandparents might enjoy, because it's just noise, I feel like no one under 35 would unironically watch or support him in his current era.
But better I saw now, than coming across his Halloween nonsense of screaming at darkness and compressed air
When I watched him, people have asked him why his daughter is not in his video's anymore. He said she was not interested in being in his video's and was not interested in most of the places anymore. I think because he's done them so many times she is probably bored to death of them. When he was married, he would go to places with his now ex and Anna. Sometimes he'd film and sometimes he would mention that he would take a couple days off to actually spend time with them. If he did film they chose most of the time not to be in the vlog.
When she appeared in his videos when she was little, she seemed to be having a genuinely good time. It was really nice to watch them having fun together. As she got older, you could tell that she was just going through the motions at best or actively annoyed by the whole thing at worst.
I think it was earlier this year when he took her and a group of her friends to Disney World for a multi-day overnight trip. I don't think she and her friends appeared in any of his videos, which was probably a good move because it would have been awkward as hell watching him filming a gaggle of teenage girls. Still, something about it felt really sad the way he went off and kept vlogging while the girls went off and did their own thing (in one video when he went to one of the parks by himself, he claimed that the girls were back at the hotel doing homework -- I can't believe he believed that! I wonder what they were really up to!). It felt like a halfhearted way for him to try to buy his way back into his daughter's good graces without spending time together.
It's hard to tell what their relationship is like off the camera. I hope they have been able to find ways to make it work, but it has got to be challenging based on the way he's constantly on the road.
The Canadian exhibition looked interesting, so I tuned in (I haven't been watching much lately, and I'll take an extended break from him when he goes on his haunted house binge next month). I was hoping for some unique Canadian aspects since I like Canada, but from the looks of things the event looked like any standard county fair with rickety rides, food booths, and some vendors. At least the animals were cute.
But the video wound up being gross. He rode a Gravitron and looked like he was moments away from barfing while his face filled the frame of the video. I had to skip ahead. Then I almost gagged watching him lick the ketchup ice cream cone as it dripped all over his hands. I turned it off at that point.
But the video wound up being gross. He rode a Gravitron and looked like he was moments away from barfing while his face filled the frame of the video. I had to skip ahead. Then I almost gagged watching him lick the ketchup ice cream cone as it dripped all over his hands. I turned it off at that point.
I happened to catch a recent Jersey Mike's commercial with Danny DeVito and, at first glance, thought he was Jacob.
