Culturematic collateral
Ben Thompson, in YouTubers Win the Box Office, Goodbye Gatekeepers, The YouTube Bar, writing about two of the hottest movies this week - Backrooms by Kane Parsons and Obsession by Curry Barker - being directed by YouTube creators under the age of 30, produced for less than $15 million combined and proving more popular with young viewers than Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, made me think about:
Making Things People Want > Making People Want Things
YouTube videos are culturematic, "little machines for making culture...designed to do three things: test the world, discover meaning and unleash value".
Which is to say: they are not just content. They are market tests with cultural residue.
A YouTube video goes out into the world's largest attention engine and discovers whether anyone cares. Not whether a development exec cares. Not whether a franchise owner cares. Not whether a campaign can manufacture enough awareness to simulate caring.
Whether anyone cares.
That is the real significance of this moment. The audience is evidence. The work has already been tested against indifference. If you can make it there...
Or, to think about it another way:
The success of Parsons and Barker is proof of market: making things people want.
The relative failure of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is proof of marketing reaching its limits: making people want things.
Appetite versus inventory. Both fight for finite attention. Only one has already proved it.