I do love seth's content here and there however, he seems to have fallen victim to YouTube analytics. The past 10/15 vids starting with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV_gX-C7RDE are what I considered the clickbait-esque Cheap/Weird/Unique bike product review format he does. They are enjoyable maybe like a few times a year to see whats out there… but 10 in 7 months is a bit much.
He can do whatever he wants, its his youtube channel and if hes getting more views/revenue then I'm happy for him. I was just wondering if anyone else thought it was getting a bit stale.
by MedievalNuke
7 Comments
MTB YouTube seemed to peak a few years ago, mid covid. Now a bunch of people have either shut down their channels or started doing the click bait “best/worst bike city” “totally not sponsored gear reviews”, etc. Seth is the reason my kid wanted to try MTB in 2021 and I’m grateful for that, but I can’t remember the last video on either channel we’ve watched.
It’s basically the curse of YouTube. Eventually, they all run out of good, new, consistent content and start regurgitating content for revenue and to keep people engaged, as long breaks between content can lose audiences.
I always dig his pal single track sampler far more but his output seemed to have dried up quite a bit
Seth has talked about why his content has changed and being a slave to the algorithm. YouTube as we knew it is practically dying.
Id say the exact opposite, he’s doing loads of different things from city cycling, post hurricane support and trail conditions, riding a flat e bike up a mountain.
He doesn’t want to do high consequence riding any more, fair play to him for that
Seth is largely ok, but his focus, IMO, is very, very narrow and Amerocentric and it shows people outside the US how narrow the possibilities and scope of cycling is there. To people trapped inside the US, he shows a distorted view of how big the possibilities are INSIDE of a vastly narrow spectrum of possibilities the US offers. I do enjoy some of his content, but it drags a lot. Seth has a feel of Dirt Rag to some extent, which is cool, but the US really doesn’t have a bike culture as it’s still so bizarrely niche there compared to Europe.
Bikepacking is I think worse because it’s the same thing and every product and bike is great and it’s pretty obvious shilling. It feels like MBA back in the early 2000s.
The more time you spend as a mountain biker, the less you care about mtb content. Is it a Seth thing or a you thing?
I’ve been mtbing for 20 years and my god I could not care less about watching mtbing or consuming mtb content. I barely make it through a Semenuk edit these days and he’s one of my favourite riders to watch.
I started skiing a couple years ago and froth for ski content. The less you know the more you want to absorb, and the less you’ve seen the more novelty the content has for you.