sexism and the never ending war on “low effort content”

if you’ve been online at all for the past few months you’ve probably heard of the youtuber showdown between Jacksfilms vs. SSSniperwolf. SSSniperwolf has been a notorious “react” creator for years. There have been multiple campaigns against her (and reaction creators in general), as a lot of people feel she is just stealing content instead of creating her own. Jacksfilms is a gen1 youtuber, having been on the platform for over a decade, and started off with a bang with loads of sketch comedy vids that went viral back in the 2000’s and 2010’s (you may recognize him from his snuggie parody). Jacksfilms has been making videos on SSSniperwolf for over a year now, calling out her behavior.

Pretty straightforward, right? Youtube old guard defending the platform from turning into a cesspool of low effort sludge?

NOPE. Because Jacksfilms’ flagship series for the past decade or so have been YAIY (Yesterday, I Asked You) and YGS (Your grammar sucks) Where he mines his OWN AUDIENCE for content. Much like the react channels he claims to hate, he just reads and reacts to audience comments. Obviously some videos require some photoshop & editing but calling yourself a comedy youtuber and reacting to your OWN AUDIENCE’S jokes reads “hack” even more than only posting crowdwork clips from your stand up set.

There’s obviously a lot more to the situation. SSSniperwolf ended up threatening Jacksfilms, but Jacksfilms also whined like a little baby about it after having harrassed her for over a year. I’m not on either side here, I think they’re both cringe and should be embarrassed. But there are 2 things here i want to talk about:

First, the “low effort content” debate

This is something i see a LOT in art actually! Especially in younger/aspiring artists. Young mid-level artists dogpiling 15 year olds for… learning to draw via tracing. For being a little spammy in discord art channels. For using other artists’ styles as reference while they refine their own.

The idea of something being “low effort” is inherently flawed, because how much something is worth or how good something is is not directly proportional to the amount of time you put in. Sometimes work DOES take a long time! but other times, the most brilliant sketches, shows, and films are the product of a split-second decision or silly idea someone got on the fly. And especially in animation, where your work is part of a much larger pipeline shortcuts are GOOD! it’s super common to trace CG assets and sets while working on boards, because the environment is more accurate that way but also!! SOMETIMES YOU JUST DONT HAVE TIME TO DRAW A BUS FROM SCRATCH!!

Calling something “low effort” is just a veiled attempt at gatekeeping, and usually comes from the most insecure members of a community. Which is why i think Jacksfilms got so caught up in this fight! He has been producing “low effort” content FOREVER. WHICH HE IS ENTITLED TO DO!! He is allowed to ride out a popular series with his fanbase. I genuinely enjoyed YAIY and YGS back in the day. He has been on youtube forever and deserves to take a break from constantly working on high-budget and -concept short films.

But just as Jacksfilms is allowed to make his more relaxed content, so is SSSniperwolf. Her videos have millions of views each, that’s not an accident. People ARE finding value in it, but Jacksfilms has decided that it’s not worthy of our respect. But sure, you read, laugh, and roast your audience’s comments, that seems like it’s totally in its own league. I can’t help but feel that this extended beef is a result of Jacksfilms needing to feel better about his own standing in the creatorsphere.

Second, the sexism.

I’ll make this quick because you’ve almost definitely heard most of this before. There are absolutely female presenting streamers who lean into their looks to get money, i’m not denying that, but men have an advantage that’s just as powerful and is very rarely ever talked about:

People take men *seriously*. People don’t question if they’re only popular because they’re pretty (even tho the majority of male content creators ARE conventionally attractive), they don’t question the legitimacy of their opinions, they don’t question them BEING there.

Take moist critikal, for example, one of the most boring men alive. His voice could put me to sleep after drinking 3 cans of monster. His takes are the most lukewarm, unnecessary shit i’ve ever heard and all he does is sit on stream all day and react to stuff his followers send him. And people fucking LOVE him!! And other than legitimately problematic takes he’s had he hasn’t caught a feather of the hate that SSSniperwolf has.

And yes, other male creators were criticized in the latest anti-react movement–but there was like a week of discussion around xqc and then the discourse on him faded away. the man straight up reacted to war crimes and the most he got was chewed out on twitter. softcore porn shouldn’t be accessible to kids on twitch but neither should the male-dominated gambling streams–something hasn’t gotten NEARLY as much attention as any phenomenon where a few bad-actor female streamers discover a loophole in TOS that allows them to graphically thirstbait their audience.

This is NOT a defense of any TOS abuse on twitch, or SSSniperwolf. It is, however, a call to action: if you consume streamers or react content, please don’t write off any women or female presenting streamers as just “successful because they look nice”. If you enjoy thought-provoking and intellectual content, but find yourself quickly writing off femme streamers because you think they’re just a pretty face, take the time to fight that assumption! There are plenty of quality female streamers with varying degrees of success: one of mine is Boze vs the World! Actually listen to what they’re saying, and THEN make your decision. And make sure you look at male streamers with the same critical eye.