YouTube is filled to the brim with trashy, uninspired, and un imaginative entertainment. All you have to do is look at the home page for this to be evident, as most of these videos are ads in disguise (such as movie trailers or clips from TV shows), let's plays, or some sort of animal video. It's amazing just how lazy and uninspired the homepage videos usually are, and how scummy and deceptive the people that make it big on YouTube are. Look no further than "thefinebros." A YouTube channel who's claim to fame is reaction videos. Unlike it's reaction videos however, "thefinebros" themselves do not react to videos, instead they use children and the elderly. Why is this you ask? Because no one wants to watch some random 20-30 year old grown ass men react to something. Instead people want see how today's youth "reacts" to the technology and fads of the past, or how the elderly "react" to today's video games, or how teens react to the latest trend, fad, or meme. The reason I say "react" is that these supposed reactions are more than likely fake and un genuine. Usually it's little kids whoring it up for the camera and acting intentionally stupid to make the video more interesting. People watch things like "kids React to Rotary Phones" and say "oh no humanity is doomed kids today are so dumb." If this is your reaction to said video than you should feel ashamed, as you have fallen into thefinebros's ploy. They got you to watch their trash and then talk about it, further drawing in views at it spreads by word of mouth. When I hear about one of these videos (going back to the rotary phone video for example) and am told that one of the kids ask "where are the apps on this phone?" I can't help but call that into question. Kids are not that stupid, many are smarter than we give them credit for. I highly doubt I kid would be naive enough to believe that rotary phones have apps. That's simply a fake and in genuine reaction either created by thefinebros themselves or said by the kid in order to look more adorable or get featured in the video. Same can be said for the teenagers.
I have to give thefinebros credit though, they created (inadvertently) one of the easiest to make and most profitable series on YouTube (even though its still not up there with "Let's Players" in terms of easiness to make and profitability). Reaction videos of this nature are a never ending gold mine for them. All they have to do is exploit popular trends and media by other people and sit some group of people in front of it. Hell, if there's not really any popular trends going on then they'll just pull out some old technology or nostalgic TV show and sit some kids in front of it, and people will keep watching this stuff every time and youtube helps fuel this by constantly featuring them on the homepage. My problem with YouTube is that they do nothing to really encourage people to search around and find videos themselves. I frequently go on youtube and type in random phrases and chains of words just to see what comes up. I've found some interesting, neat, and unusual stuff by doing this. The only time people ever search for videos on YouTube is to find a song or a specific video they saw on the homepage in the past. YouTube would probably try to find a way to stop people from searching for videos if they could, as watching videos from smaller, un partnered channels doesn't make them really any money from advertising revenue.
![Posted Image]()
Hey! An old, nostalgic show which resonates with a huge age demographic of Internet users, what an easily exploitable source for a video. We'll put some kids in front of it so that the ex 90s kids who are lured into watching it can complain about today's youth and refer their friends to the video!
Speaking of making money from YouTube, thefinebros are probably rolling in cash. Not only are they a getting a ton of views on YouTube and money from ad revenue, they also have their own Nickelodeon TV Show now which finished its first season recently.
But you know what? TheFineBros don't even really need the YouTube homepage to get their videos out there. More often than not, if they make a video pertaining to something like video games, it's pretty much a given that this video will be posted and written about in an article for some sort of online gaming "journalism" website such as Kotaku. Let's examine one of these types of "articles" shall we?
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468193,00.asp
This "article" (using the term lightly) is a joke. Half of it is well known background knowledge about the NES, which just serves as filler, and without this filler, there would barely be an article. So why do websites such as this one post skimpy articles and link videos from TheFineBros? Well it's simple, these websites know that it will rack in clicks. They know that as mentioned before that people want to watch this kind of stuff to complain about today's youth and feel as if they are superior to the people in these videos who they feel represent the mast majority of their age demographics.
I also decided to risk my sanity and go against my moral compass to watch this video, and give you my thoughts and observations:
*Gotta love how they manage to whore themselves out for the first fifteen seconds and try to get you to check out and subscribe to their other channel.
*[0:30-0:50] I highly doubt that people would legitimately confuse an NES for a VCR, or call it a "Gameboy" or "Gameboy 1."
*Its as if they intentionally tried to find the most trashy, "hip teen clothing" they could. Honestly look at this:
![Posted Image]()
You guys better watch out, because you are now officially in...
You know what else leads me to believe their clothing was either arranged for them or highly pushed by thefinebros for them to wear? The fact that none of them are wearing brand name clothes. It's all generic, with no brands whatsoever actually visible.
*[2:45-3:15] More phony reactions, as we see most of the participants "struggle" to figure out where to put the cartridge. It's fairly obvious, even if you've never actually seen an NES. Loved how the one girl flipped it over thinking that the slot would be under the console. Clearly fake. The writer of the article discussing this video wrote:
*[5:25-5:40] Most of these people "died" on the first goomba, even the one who claimed to have played this game before and at 5:53 goes down the pipe and says "I know my stuff." These guys make Chris Bore's phony video game struggles look like grade A Hollywood level acting.
*[6:53-6:58] "Would you say this is better or worse than consoles of today?" What a bullshit trick question by thefinebros. Of course this console does not hold up against the PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U. They know exactly what the kids are gonna say: "it's worse." They simply threw this question in to get them to say that and make the viewers angry and believe that "kids these days don't respect their elders"
*[7:13-7:23] "You still wanna tell me a freaking 1080p Xbox One is worse than this game? Get outta here." Literally no one insulted the Xbox One in this video, nor did anyone compare the Xbox One to the NES, and no one ever said the NES was better, it's just another phony comment thrown in to arouse displeasure among the elitist viewers.
[8:36-8:56] Just a cluster of ads for their other videos and the teens whoring out and trying to get you to subscribe.
Overall:
*The teens were overly annoying, unsurprisingly as I'm sure it probably pissed people off and got them talking about the video.
*Who knows, maybe some were legitimately reacting at some points, it's certainly possible, but after watching the video it's pretty obvious most of it was indeed staged.
Anyways, I'd also like to say this:
YouTube custom thumbnails are absolutely terrible. They are usually extremely misleading or beyond stupid. They rival Internet ads when it comes to measuring their obnoxiousness. I have no problem with people uploading a custom thumbnail if it is from a specific, unedited part of the original video when the generated thumbnail suggestions are total trash, but to throw a bunch of text and unrelated photoshopped material into your thumbnail is deceptive and trashy (ie every PewDiePie video ever made, although he's on his own level of deceptiveness as he takes it even a step further by including misleading titles.) TheFineBros are just plain lazy when it comes to their thumbnails. Let me give you a quick tutorial on how to make a FineBros thumbnail:
Step 1: Find a gradient background
Step 2: Find a picture of the item or something from the video said individuals are reacting to and place it into the middle of the thumbnail
Step 3: Add two pictures of people from your video over reacting. (One on the far left and right)
Step 4: Throw in your text (Bold text saying "____ REACT TO ____ !!!" should do)
(And there you go. Be forewarned, this may take you a full five or so minutes of your time.)
It's so easy that I decided to take a crack at it:
![Posted Image]()
![Posted Image]()
To conclude,
I've heard a lot about the origins of theFineBros, and I have seen some of their pre kids react videos, and I would like to say that from what I saw they did have the right intentions, at first. It seems that they've gotten so caught up in exploiting these react videos for fame they've forgotten their more humble roots, and have begun doing one of the most unethical things you can do on youtube: make videos purely for profit and exposure.
I have to give thefinebros credit though, they created (inadvertently) one of the easiest to make and most profitable series on YouTube (even though its still not up there with "Let's Players" in terms of easiness to make and profitability). Reaction videos of this nature are a never ending gold mine for them. All they have to do is exploit popular trends and media by other people and sit some group of people in front of it. Hell, if there's not really any popular trends going on then they'll just pull out some old technology or nostalgic TV show and sit some kids in front of it, and people will keep watching this stuff every time and youtube helps fuel this by constantly featuring them on the homepage. My problem with YouTube is that they do nothing to really encourage people to search around and find videos themselves. I frequently go on youtube and type in random phrases and chains of words just to see what comes up. I've found some interesting, neat, and unusual stuff by doing this. The only time people ever search for videos on YouTube is to find a song or a specific video they saw on the homepage in the past. YouTube would probably try to find a way to stop people from searching for videos if they could, as watching videos from smaller, un partnered channels doesn't make them really any money from advertising revenue.
Hey! An old, nostalgic show which resonates with a huge age demographic of Internet users, what an easily exploitable source for a video. We'll put some kids in front of it so that the ex 90s kids who are lured into watching it can complain about today's youth and refer their friends to the video!
Speaking of making money from YouTube, thefinebros are probably rolling in cash. Not only are they a getting a ton of views on YouTube and money from ad revenue, they also have their own Nickelodeon TV Show now which finished its first season recently.
But you know what? TheFineBros don't even really need the YouTube homepage to get their videos out there. More often than not, if they make a video pertaining to something like video games, it's pretty much a given that this video will be posted and written about in an article for some sort of online gaming "journalism" website such as Kotaku. Let's examine one of these types of "articles" shall we?
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468193,00.asp
This "article" (using the term lightly) is a joke. Half of it is well known background knowledge about the NES, which just serves as filler, and without this filler, there would barely be an article. So why do websites such as this one post skimpy articles and link videos from TheFineBros? Well it's simple, these websites know that it will rack in clicks. They know that as mentioned before that people want to watch this kind of stuff to complain about today's youth and feel as if they are superior to the people in these videos who they feel represent the mast majority of their age demographics.
I also decided to risk my sanity and go against my moral compass to watch this video, and give you my thoughts and observations:
*Gotta love how they manage to whore themselves out for the first fifteen seconds and try to get you to check out and subscribe to their other channel.
*[0:30-0:50] I highly doubt that people would legitimately confuse an NES for a VCR, or call it a "Gameboy" or "Gameboy 1."
*Its as if they intentionally tried to find the most trashy, "hip teen clothing" they could. Honestly look at this:
You guys better watch out, because you are now officially in...
Spoiler
You know what else leads me to believe their clothing was either arranged for them or highly pushed by thefinebros for them to wear? The fact that none of them are wearing brand name clothes. It's all generic, with no brands whatsoever actually visible.
*[2:45-3:15] More phony reactions, as we see most of the participants "struggle" to figure out where to put the cartridge. It's fairly obvious, even if you've never actually seen an NES. Loved how the one girl flipped it over thinking that the slot would be under the console. Clearly fake. The writer of the article discussing this video wrote:
Anyone who has used even a DVD player would know that the slot would be on the front. And I mean honestly, who in their right minds would think it would actually be under the console? I have never heard of any device, whether it be a VCR, DVD player, record player, or game console that takes disks/tapes/cartridges under the system. And also that "used to digitally downloading titles" is such bs. If they own a game console, they surely they have put at least one disk in it at one time or another.When put to the test, though, most struggled to even get the process started. Used to inserting a CD or digitally downloading titles, the teens were baffled by the NES game cartridge.
*[5:25-5:40] Most of these people "died" on the first goomba, even the one who claimed to have played this game before and at 5:53 goes down the pipe and says "I know my stuff." These guys make Chris Bore's phony video game struggles look like grade A Hollywood level acting.
*[6:53-6:58] "Would you say this is better or worse than consoles of today?" What a bullshit trick question by thefinebros. Of course this console does not hold up against the PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U. They know exactly what the kids are gonna say: "it's worse." They simply threw this question in to get them to say that and make the viewers angry and believe that "kids these days don't respect their elders"
*[7:13-7:23] "You still wanna tell me a freaking 1080p Xbox One is worse than this game? Get outta here." Literally no one insulted the Xbox One in this video, nor did anyone compare the Xbox One to the NES, and no one ever said the NES was better, it's just another phony comment thrown in to arouse displeasure among the elitist viewers.
[8:36-8:56] Just a cluster of ads for their other videos and the teens whoring out and trying to get you to subscribe.
Overall:
*The teens were overly annoying, unsurprisingly as I'm sure it probably pissed people off and got them talking about the video.
*Who knows, maybe some were legitimately reacting at some points, it's certainly possible, but after watching the video it's pretty obvious most of it was indeed staged.
Anyways, I'd also like to say this:
YouTube custom thumbnails are absolutely terrible. They are usually extremely misleading or beyond stupid. They rival Internet ads when it comes to measuring their obnoxiousness. I have no problem with people uploading a custom thumbnail if it is from a specific, unedited part of the original video when the generated thumbnail suggestions are total trash, but to throw a bunch of text and unrelated photoshopped material into your thumbnail is deceptive and trashy (ie every PewDiePie video ever made, although he's on his own level of deceptiveness as he takes it even a step further by including misleading titles.) TheFineBros are just plain lazy when it comes to their thumbnails. Let me give you a quick tutorial on how to make a FineBros thumbnail:
Step 1: Find a gradient background
Step 2: Find a picture of the item or something from the video said individuals are reacting to and place it into the middle of the thumbnail
Step 3: Add two pictures of people from your video over reacting. (One on the far left and right)
Step 4: Throw in your text (Bold text saying "____ REACT TO ____ !!!" should do)
(And there you go. Be forewarned, this may take you a full five or so minutes of your time.)
It's so easy that I decided to take a crack at it:
To conclude,
I've heard a lot about the origins of theFineBros, and I have seen some of their pre kids react videos, and I would like to say that from what I saw they did have the right intentions, at first. It seems that they've gotten so caught up in exploiting these react videos for fame they've forgotten their more humble roots, and have begun doing one of the most unethical things you can do on youtube: make videos purely for profit and exposure.