The future of Web Dog Radio (Paintball)

I'm chalking this up to "numbers don't lie." As usual, what people SAY they want is not, in reality, what they want. But, I'm ahead of myself.

On WDR's youtube page I've been doing angry rants for the last few weeks. The reaction to them has been, well, explosive for my usual numbers. 800-1500 views per video, which for my stuff is pretty good actually. But I've been getting a LOT of flack from the viewers from those. "Too angry" "Too ranty" "Can't you make tactics videos again? I don't like the new Tyger."

So I did a video showing some techniques that transfer to paintball. As of this typing, less than 350 views and it's over a week old. It's possible that the fact that it's "lazer tag" has turned people off of it, but I don't think that's what it is.

Once again, you people say you want one thing, and the numbers say something else. You want "angry Tyger" because it's funny or lulzy. You want "More tacticool" because it's making fun of people. You want angry tirages (originally typod that but I like this spelling better) yelling at tourney players for being stupid and shortsighted.

Why? Well I'm up for ideas but I've got a few of my own. One of which being a societal one. We're not allowed to be angry anymore. We can't hate anyone or anything, or we get a "peace and love" message crammed down our throats. "Don't hate", "Just tolerate", all that. So seeing someone else angry, even superficially angry, lets you live vicariously through that rage and share it. But I'm open to ideas.

Anger is not content, it's hollow. Many people have accused me of making videos to "get hits" or to get popular. You can choose to believe this or not, but I really have passed the point of caring enough about paintball players to care if I get subscribers and views on that channel. If you want swearing, go watch Mike's stuff. If you want anger, go watch AVGN. If you want to see people full of themselves there's dozens of people on youtube with self-inflating channels bragging how awesome they are at paintball and life. You can't swing a random dead animal online without hitting one.

To be honest, the gaming shows are worth more to me on several levels. But even there, people want anger, and I'm not gonna give it to them either. I know it'll mean that the show won't get as "popular" as other shows, but I'd rather do a quality show than have 5 minutes of weekly empty rage. Quality takes longer, but it's much more satisfying. And if I can make an informative show that gets people thinking or talking, that makes me happier than gratuitous swearing.

So to wrap this up. You tell me one thing, I see another. The numbers simply do not lie. So my choices are to listen to the numbers, or follow my own path. I'd rather make good videos with some content or at least a lesson to take away from it rather than 5 minutes of rage. But, I'll tell you what. If you want that, I'll record a video of nothing but swearing and demolishing boards for 5 minutes. You'll love it, it'll get thousands of hits, but it won't make me feel any better. Just sayin'.