Youtube and guns

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This is a dead horse that has been beaten before I am certain but I got a new stick so lets have a go lol.

Is it worth doing a gun channel any more or will it just be shut down?
 
Its worth it only if you are not doing gun reviews, shooting at random junk, or just complaining about all the idiot gun grabbers. There are already thousands of those. If you can come up with an idea for one that is actually something different, then it is worth doing.
 
I've kept my little channel going for some time. I think I have 20 subscribers, though. :D I do it for fun, so go for it. If you want to be serious about it, try Full30.com.
 
If its new and different I think you could be successful. If its just another review on guns that regurgitates the same old same old than why waste the time.

Since you are a machine shop dude maybe you could show the world how to build or modify a common model gun into something special.

If you make a video and post a link here, I bet a lot of folks will give you their opinion. Good or bad, at least you will know.
 
Well, it's not 2008 anymore.

What you cannot expect is that you can make enough in ad revenue to pay you what your time is actually worth.

Unless the value is in doing the work, not being paid for it.

If you have good content, you will have page views and subscribers.

You will also have haters, too. People who only exist to come be trolls, and they will pick on you mercilessly (or attempt to melt your brain with their imbecility. Remember that we have a world fueled by "offense." They will hit the Report button just out of spiite. Enough Reports and the algorithm will give you "strikes." Three of those will shut you down.

Serious meanies will file "copyright" complaints against your content, too. So, know the rules for excerpting material, and "fair use."

It's a really good idea to go ahead and get good editing software first. Then, plan out a watermark/trademark. (Go ahead and file the thing as a ™, just print it out, along with a page title, and send it to the Copyright & Patent Office, it's around $20.)

Not a horrible idea to sketch out how you want a video to "look" before you roll any tape. Shoot some text video first, and look at it closely. Be sure it look like how you want it to look. Make sure there are no advertising signs, neighbors who garden nekkid, or the like in the background. Watch the test video on a small phone and on a big screen.

One of the harder bits is to remember to speak to the camera as if it were a person, it is the window your viewer will see you through.
 
Youtube hasn't followed through with their threat to shut down gun channels. At least Forgotten Weapons, etc is still up.
 
Contrary to what a lot of knee jerk reactors believe, YouTube isn't purging firearm content. Their policy states that they prohibit how to videos on how to manufacture guns, homebrew suppressors, machine guns, etc., but I've watched plenty of AK and AR how to videos there.

Others have said YouTube is demonetizing users that produce firearm-related content, but that's also patently false. I'm also very active in the gaming community, and my wife watches a lot of makeup tutorials and reviews. Both of these were hit hard by YouTube's newer monetization structure because YouTube is trying to filter out garbage content and attempting to monetize channels that viewers keep coming back to.

Long story short, if you want to make a gun-centric YouTube channel to gain a significant following and make money from it, you're in for an uphill battle. If you want to make a gun channel for the hell of it, go for it. YouTube isn't going to shut it down unless you're flagrantly breaking their TOS.
 
Long story short, if you want to make a gun-centric YouTube channel to gain a significant following and make money from it, you're in for an uphill battle. If you want to make a gun channel for the hell of it, go for it.
Perfectly put. If you were trying for cash, you'd have to come up with something new. Or have an extremely likeable personality, ie hickock45 imo. Otherwise your just doing videos that have already been done. But if it's just for the fun of it, go for it!

Side note- My favorite videos are hickoks and the helpful ones. Duelist may be his name? Really helped me on building my Lyman great plains rifle.
 
Starting a gun channel: I already have my favorites.

Getting a gun channel shut down: Usually means your doing it right.

Becoming internet famous: Priceless
 
Actually YT (or, more specifically its algorithm) routinely shuts down content creators on a frequent basis. We just don't hear about it because they only have 10 or 15 thousand subscribers, and are thus obscure. But, have enough haters to hit the Report button. to trigger enough Strikes to close them up.

Not just small channels, either. Demolition Ranch has had to fight off some strikes, Matt has just found a way (and possibily a lawyer or two) to fight those off.

As to "you outta use something else," that's complicated. It's bit like trying to be successful on FM radio by broadcasting on AM "ham" frequencies. Working a niche market can be very frustrating. All the "alternatives" to YT have, barely. 1/1000th the views. YT gets about 300 hours of content uploaded per minute (as of 2018).
 
Your gun channel won't be shut down, but YT will quickly demonetize it so you will not be paid for your content.

What many larger "for profit" channels are doing is getting sponsorships wherever they can. Examples are Hickock45 from Bud's Guns and Demolition Ranch from Audible.com. Others like Taofledermaus, gets support from viewers via Patreon subscriptions. This allows them to continue to provide entertaining content without worrying about YT denying them revenue streams.

If you want to put up a channel for fun, not profit, I say go ahead. But if you want to earn a steady revenue from YT as a firearms-related content provider, that is almost impossible nowadays due to YT preventing new providers from earning income (and likely quitting before you can grow enough subscribers to attract sponsors).
 
IMHO it is worth doing if you want to do it....do not expect to get anything out of YT besides pain.

There are very few that I "support", and those are not really "gun" shows, but historical shows that are the history of the gun.....C&Rsnal, Forgotten weapons....those are the only two that I support....and because I do watch every video. There are other shows that have good content, but are a little too this or that for me. Some of the more popular ones, I will not call out names.....are a bit well.....

Some are long winded
Some try to be too tacticool and macho
Some are internet experts, (ie idiots)
Some are just lets see what I can shoot.

Some are fun to watch at the end of the day, others I would not give the time of day to.

Bottom line, do something that you love for the fun of doing it.....who knows it could really take off.....but I warn you.....it will move away from fun to work. I tried it a few times, started the new channel...made a bunch of videos, and started working on a video......it was a bit of work.
 
It is a saturated market so if you are in it for the money, it may not be there, but can be if you have good original content. If you are doing it for fun then go for it. You never know where the road will take you.
 
This is a dead horse that has been beaten before I am certain but I got a new stick so lets have a go lol.

Is it worth doing a gun channel any more or will it just be shut down?

If you want to be successful at a gun channel I'd suggest using girls in bikinis with BIG b:D:Dbs firing guns with lots of recoil:thumbup:
 
I have gun stuffs on my channel.

Don't expect to be monetized and have fun.

If you can bring something unique or new to the gun shooting world, get after it.

I find that most of the stuff I do, has been done before, but I have discovered some unexplored areas, too.
 
To understand Youtube a little better, you have to depart from the so-called "gun community" and look at the bigger picture. For Youtube to "monetize" a channel means they hand out cash for "views" and "subscribers." It doesn't take much imagination to recognize that's going to be "gamed." There are entire enterprises devoted to automatically creating channels, using software to generate new videos without human labor or intervention, and using banks or farms of virtualized computers to subscribe and watch them. Search on "finger family" and you'll find several nursery rhyme channels with over 22 million subscribers and single videos with over 1 billion views. These are not pop music videos. There are other channels with over 100 thousand videos uploaded (representing over 10 years of video play time). A quick search pulled up a "this little piggy" video uploaded 3 weeks ago with 2.7M views. These only represent the most rudimentary efforts that were realized many years ago. Since then, the whole game has become far more elaborate because naturally, Youtube is going to make an effort to identify channels and videos that get real people watching them with enough interest to tolerate targeted ads because ultimately the advertisers are going to become savvier and not want to pay for bots to watch their ads.

The bottom line is not to expect monetization from Youtube unless you're willing to make a tremendous effort to not only produce good content and cultivate a valuable audience but also to be recognized as distinct from the many scammers. There may be an impression that Youtube doesn't favor gun-related content or that they even persecute gun-content creators, but you can bet that what the company is even more actively working against are the ones trying to rip them off. Youtube gets paid the cash money that it generously favors by the NRA, USCCA, "Modern Barbarian," "Tactical Traps" and on and on... Just click around popular gun channels and watch all the targeted ads from money-paying advertisers that Youtube is not about to turn away. I can assure you they love money more than they hate guns.
 
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