Behind the Scenes with Tom Scryleus

The Brutal Truth About YouTube...

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Estimated reading time: 17 minutes for the text on this page.

Summary

In this video, Tom Scryleus unpacks the often hidden truths about being a YouTuber and how it intertwines with the broader reality of wage slavery. He discusses sponsorships, the challenges of maintaining authenticity, and the relentless cycle of working within a system built on traditional labor standards. Tom shares his personal journey of attempting to break free, focusing on building a business and creating content that empowers others to escape the same cycle. Through candid insights, he inspires his audience to challenge the status quo and strive for a future where work-life balance is a norm rather than a dream.

Highlights

Tom has faced questionable sponsorship offers that challenge his values. 🤨
Patreon helps sustain authenticity and diminishes reliance on ads. 🎥
The harsh truth about wage slavery fuels much of digital content creation. 💼
Running a personal business gives a sense of control and potential freedom. 📈
There’s a need to shift mindsets to escape the 'wage slave' mentality. 🌟

Key Takeaways

Sponsorships on YouTube can challenge creators' authenticity. 🤑
Working for freedom involves tackling wage slavery creatively. ✊
Patreon provides a more genuine way for viewers to support creators. 🤝
Building a personal business offers a route to financial freedom. 🚀
Honesty and transparency with the audience are vital for trust. 💡

Overview

Tom Scryleus dives into the gritty reality of the platform he calls home—YouTube—and explores how sponsorships are a necessary evil that often come with strings attached. He highlights the tension between keeping a channel genuine and the pressure to monetize effectively. For Tom, platforms like Patreon are a light in the murky waters of digital content creation, enabling a closer, more honest connection with viewers while keeping commercialism at bay.

In addition to dissecting the dynamics of digital entrepreneurship, Tom grapples with the societal scourge of wage slavery. He candidly shares his views on how this pervasive issue taints not only traditional forms of employment but also the gig economy that creators like him navigate daily. With frank discussions about transparency and ethical dilemmas in content creation, Tom urges his audience to question the underpinning structures of work.

Tom’s vision doesn’t stop at critique—he offers a hopeful roadmap out of the grind and into self-employment freedom. By focusing on creating a valuable YouTube course, he outlines how leveraging personal skills and audience trust can break chains of economic confinement. Throughout the video, Tom maintains an earnest dialogue, opening up about his dreams of a future dominated less by relentless work and more by genuine passion projects, striking a chord with viewers who share his aspirations.

Chapters

00:00 - 02:30: The Brutal Truth About Sponsorships In this chapter, the discussion revolves around the challenges and realities of handling sponsorships. It delves into the experiences and negotiations involved, shedding light on the often harsh truths and complexities in securing and maintaining sponsorship deals. The narrative provides insights into balancing expectations and achieving successful collaborations.
02:30 - 05:00: The Need for Alternative Support: Patreon The chapter discusses the challenges faced when seeking sponsorships for video content. The author encounters various offers, ranging from receiving free products to more dubious proposals where there is a lack of transparency about being paid to promote certain services or products. This situation underscores the necessity for alternative support streams like Patreon, emphasizing their importance for content creators who value transparency and integrity.
05:00 - 07:30: Ads and Sponsored Content: The YouTuber's Dilemma The chapter entitled 'Ads and Sponsored Content: The YouTuber's Dilemma' addresses the responsibility YouTubers have for their content. It highlights the pressure on content creators to perform 'wage slavery' by taking sponsorships, which can compromise the authenticity of their content. The author wants to discuss the deeper impact of relying on sponsored content rather than merely persuading viewers to support financially through platforms like Patreon.
07:30 - 10:00: The Reality of Wage Slavery The chapter discusses the concept of 'wage slavery', exploring its implications on individuals and society. The narrator takes a brief pause to promote their Patreon, offering a membership for $5 a month which includes extra content, name credits, and access to exclusive courses. They note that it's a recent initiative.
10:00 - 15:00: Escaping the Mindset of Wage Slavery The chapter discusses the benefits and significance of supporting YouTubers through Patreon. By providing financial support via Patreon, it reduces their reliance on traditional commercial avenues that may compromise content authenticity. This support helps maintain the creator's true vision and authenticity on the channel, encouraging a more genuine interaction with their audience.
15:00 - 20:00: Behind the Scenes and Personal Insights The chapter 'Behind the Scenes and Personal Insights' provides a personal perspective on the realities of being a content creator on YouTube. The speaker discusses the lack of control over advertisements shown by YouTube's algorithm and mentions using YouTube Premium to avoid ads, acknowledging a disconnect from typical ad experience. They highlight the minimal revenue generated from ads unless achieving high views, explaining the necessity for YouTubers to rely on sponsored content to maintain their channels. Despite acknowledging this need, the speaker expresses a personal reluctance to engage in product promotions.
20:00 - 25:00: The Business Mindset Versus Wage Slavery The chapter explores the conflict between having a business mindset, which utilizes tactics like creating sponsored content to make money, and maintaining authenticity and objectivity. The narrator shares personal experiences with offers for product reviews that pay but compromise the integrity of the review by requiring the mention of specific features. This raises questions about the meaning of genuine engagement compared to financial motivations, creating tension between true freedom and wage slavery.

The Brutal Truth About YouTube... Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 recently I've been negotiating with
00:30 - 01:00 several Brands about sponsoring my videos and I've encountered everything from very insulting offers like hey you get the product for free two more questionable sponsorship propositions where I'm asked to not disclose that I'm being paid to talk about a product or service I know it's shocking but I think this is actually more common than we realize but it certain of made me really think about how important it is for you
01:00 - 01:30 YouTubers to take responsibility for everything that they say and do because like it or not all of these videos here on YouTube in a sense are sponsored by wage slavery now I had this little problem I had to do my little pitch for patreon and I'm going to do it now very early in the video because I don't want you to think that it's on that the entire purpose of this video is to persuade you to give me money I actually have something deeper to say about YouTube and wage slavery so here it goes and if
01:30 - 02:00 you're not interested feel free to skip for the next 30 seconds or just skip to the next chapter I am asking you to support the channel by joining my patreon it's about $5 a month and in return you get extra content your name in the end credits of my videos and free access to exclusive courses and products that I also sell on patreon now I just recently got started though so keep that in mind before joining
02:00 - 02:30 I think that patreon is a great way to support your favorite YouTuber because it sort of minimizes the temptation to turn to the shall we say darker commercial side of YouTube your support would mean a lot and keeping things more authentic on this channel okay that wasn't so bad right so with YouTubers we don't really have much
02:30 - 03:00 control over the ads here on YouTube so I have to trust that the algorithm shows you the right stuff now personally I use YouTube premium so I don't even know what the ads look like these days and also to be honest the ad Revenue it isn't a lot unless you have like million views per video so I get why YouTubers turn to sponsored videos it's basically a necessity for some YouTubers some of us don't want to to sell products we
03:00 - 03:30 just want to make videos and honestly you can make a lot of money from sponsored videos but I've been offered money to do product reviews and that just doesn't make sense to me like how can it be an objective review if you're getting paid by the brand to make it and I received multiple sponsorship deals uh that work just like that and some even insist on mentioning specific features in the video and I'm
03:30 - 04:00 like what the hell kind of a review is that anyway but again I think this happens more often than we think now I actually did do a sort of a sponsored video a few years ago on this channel technically I wasn't paid but I did receive the product for free it was a set of lenses for smartphones from a company called sandmark and I really like the product you know it was premium quality and thean felt solid they didn't
04:00 - 04:30 instruct me to say anything specific but it still felt weird for some reason now when it comes to selling my own products I do want to do that at some point but only if it actually feels helpful for you for example I currently working on a YouTube course that will be available exclusively on patreon uh in a couple of weeks so it will be released and the reason I started is because I
04:30 - 05:00 actually had subscribers asking me for advice about starting their own channels and I really see value in creating a course like that where I can share everything that I've learned in my YouTube Journey but here's the problem no matter how I look at it whether it's sponsors or ads or merch or courses everything it's all fueled by wage slavery now what I mean is you get
05:00 - 05:30 exposed to ads you buy things with your wage slave salary you buy a course or I make money from Amazon links in the video description products being made by Wade slaves shipped by Wade slaves and delivered by Wade slaves even the people working at YouTube making it possible for you to watch this video Wade slaves the simple truth is that no matter how much I try to twist and bend the reality
05:30 - 06:00 of things everything is fueled by wage slavery and there is nothing I can do about that and some people in the comment section have been telling me this for years now not only do I listen but I do agree that's the sad reality behind everything and what's even worse is that anything I do on this channel it will just continue to fuel weigh slavery in
06:00 - 06:30 some way I'm part of the system and so are you and that's why I keep coming back to this idea that weight slavery traps us in a cycle of repetitive Soul crushing work and there is very little we can do about it now I do believe I I honestly like I really do believe that W slavery will improve in the future like fewer hours less grinding but it will always be there now still I think it can
06:30 - 07:00 actually reach a level that even I would find acceptable like imagine working just four hours per day or three days a week instead of five or imagine just having more control of your work schedule like sort of more like a freelance style type of work and I'm I'm sure that all of that will happen in the future and I am actually optimistic
07:00 - 07:30 but I'm in my 40s I'm not going to wait around for that change no for me and for many of you the only option in our lifetime is to escape and it is possible we all know people who have made it out whether it's by starting their own businesses or figuring out how to live off passive income or joining the fire movement or investing the skills to escape weight slavery it's all out there the biggest
07:30 - 08:00 obstacle as I see it is basically escaping the mindset of the weight slave because once we figure out how to break that mindset we become free to do whatever we want and I want to continue making content in the spirit of that escape and I'm going to find new ways I'm going to find new methods I'm going to find cheat codes to break that pattern that keep Keeps Us stuck I will
08:00 - 08:30 share everything that I've learned now if you want to just give up and say nah the world is too corrupt it's impossible we can't escape that's fine with me but remember that mindset sets the tone for the rest of your life now my mindset is a bit different I am the master of my fate I will Design the path that leads me out of weight
08:30 - 09:00 slavery I've started a business something that I dreaded for years and it's hard it's exciting but you know something I'm doing it every day I work on my escape and you know something else working on my Escape it actually makes me feel free despite technically being a Wade slave I don't feel like a broken spirit anymore as always thank you for
09:00 - 09:30 listening do me a favor and tap that like button to share your support subscribe if you're interested in more content like this until next time stay hungry Relentless and strong in your journey of escaping Wade slavery bye oh you're still here oh that's right it's the behind the scenes vog
09:30 - 10:00 okay so this part of the video is where I share more personal things it's mostly for my subscribers but if you're new here you're more than welcome to stick around okay so this video was very simple to make I hope it worked out for you normally I would do more editing and add some fancy b-roll uh as you've seen in my previous videos but I needed to make this video very quickly and not spend hours editing because there is something I have to do
10:00 - 10:30 I need to work on my business today I just simply don't have enough time you know with work taking away most of my days I just feel drained in the evenings and Saturdays and Sundays they're like my only windows so to speak and I also have a personal life believe it or not so balancing work personal life YouTube and my business it's it's difficult but I think I can make it work okay so here's the thing I have to
10:30 - 11:00 do something that's called that declaration and did I pronounce that correctly and to do that I need to figure out how to do bookkeeping and I've never done anything like this before which is funny it's actually hilarious considering that I have four years of studies in Business Administration uh that really tells you something about how Society doesn't want to teach its citizens how to start their
11:00 - 11:30 own businesses College really can be a waste of time I made a video about this a couple of years ago but I need to make a new video on that topic but I digress all this business stuff it's kind of scary but I'm learning and honestly it's exciting it feels kind of liberating actually it feels like for the first time in my life I'm actually doing something about my own financial situation like weight
11:30 - 12:00 slavery is kind of easy you know you just show up at work and you get a salary uh when you go the business route it's a lot more complicated but you can scale your income in ways you simply can't in a regular job so I have patience I know I won't be able to live off my business anytime soon but I feel a strange sense of calm about the whole thing I can see how I'm building my path
12:00 - 12:30 towards Freedom you know I can feel it you know when you work a 9 to5 you don't really have control of anything and nothing's going to change and with your own business yeah you can fail completely sure but at least you have control you have leverage over your output so to just give you a simple comparison if you go to a job interview and you negotiate your salary that's it that's what you're going to get paid for the
12:30 - 13:00 rest of your career at least at that company uh there is a kind of a limit about of how much you can ask for even if you're 10 times better than the next candidate you can't ask for 10 times the salary because wages just don't scale like that now companies have salary structures and no matter how valuable you are there is a cap on what they will pay you you but with a business it's
13:00 - 13:30 different you know your income it isn't tied to an hourly wage or a fixed salary if you create something that is valuable whether it's a product or a service or even content you can scale it you can sell it to 10 people hundreds of people or millions of people and your income grows with that that is the difference that is the leverage you just don't have in a regular job so for example this
13:30 - 14:00 YouTuber course that I'm working on now I'm not saying I can charge whatever I want for it but I can make a really good product that will keep earning me passive income for years and I can improve it over time and work less and less with a regular job no matter how hard I work it will always be eight hours per day five days per week and that's the leverage angle that I'm working on creating a really good
14:00 - 14:30 YouTuber course that will sustain me now maybe I shouldn't share some of my strategic thoughts about this whole thing but I I think that honesty is the right path for me I don't like it when YouTubers keep their viewers in the DAR because they think it will affect their sales I believe that if I just make good enough product it will be enough in the end maybe I'm naive maybe it will fail because of that
14:30 - 15:00 but I do know this you know like experience is everything it's the one thing that takes us from A to B in life I will make mistakes but that's fine because failure is an old friend of mine and this is something that I'm going to talk about more in a future video okay I got to go do this accounting thing now so wish me luck and I'll see you in the next one bye