Anyone who has reached 1.3 BILLION (that is billion with a B) views on Youtube has achieved success. At least it is an indication of being noticed and holding people’s attention.
So let’s analysis success.
Katy Perry’s Vevo “Dark Horse” music video has been watched 1,323,155,377 times since February 20, 2014. It is 3 minutes and 45 seconds long and done in hight quality video.
Aaron Russo’s 2 hour and 26 minute documentary entitled, “America: Freedom To Facism” has been watched or at least clicked on a mere 418,407 since it was posted November 15, 2011. Russo’s 2006 documentary is very informative and addresses major issues of liberty, taxation, and government power.
So as I compare these two Youtube events, here is what I find:
APPEARANCE –
Perry is very beautiful. Russo not so much.
LENGTH –
Perry’s video is less than 4 minutes and moves quickly. Russo’s documentary is over two hours and is laborious at times.
CONTENT –
Perry’s video is playful, sexy, and…well, a music video. Russo covers hours of in depth and disturbing questions with allegations of illegal government expansion and fading American freedom.
MENTAL AFFECT –
Perry’s work is a little addictive and could cause you to spend up to an hour getting lost in her fantastical world of entertainment and make-believe (I watched it two times). Russo’s documentary is very serious, hard hitting, and forces you to evaluate your reality and your level of commitment to freedom.
CONCLUSION –
If you want to have success in America today you need to be beautiful, ignore reality, have a very short and inconsequential message, and make people feel good.
There are literally billions of YouTube viewers with over 300,000,000 in the US alone. The number of people watching YouTube per day is up 40% since March 2014, and the number of hours people spent watching videos on mobile devices is up 100%. I am not picking on YouTube, as the same goes for all social media and internet driven technology and entertainment.
How can we hope to maintain liberty if our society is addicted to entertainment? How often do you spend time in activities that promote liberty, rights, and check government expansion?
Questions we should ask ourselves more often.