For many people who are new to Crypto, YouTube is the go to place for news and gossip. It’s a convenient medium to get the latest updates, tutorials or basic information on new projects.

However, YouTube is an infotainment platform, a mixture of information and entertainment. It’s hardly a serious place for research, as the background information is easily distorted, bloated and exaggerated, to generate clicks and attract audiences. This doesn’t mean you can’t find good content and evaluate it properly. There is a certain amount of high-quality content, yet the average V-logger has a high incentive to amplify FUD for mass audience, because it generates really good ad revenue.

It was only recently that people have put two and two together and realised that many YouTube-bloggers, especially the celebrities, are in on both games. They shill coins like ICP to the people and dump them soon after. The problem here is as old as trading: the bond between an audience and a storyteller, and the money changing pockets behind the show. People want to believe what they want to believe and even after they make huge losses, they will not notice the game and continue to defend their bloggers because here’s the dilemma: we love entertainment. We get attached. We think we want information, but we want fun. Doing crypto research is hard work, there’s nothing entertaining about it, perhaps a few interesting finds make it fun and passion can certainly make it worthwhile, but work is work and this is what YouTube-celebrities are doing. Think of Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the scene where all the preachers are competing for an audience and you have an idea what type of energy is here at play.

Now, how do you discern the YouTube-charlatan from an actual trustworthy source? You don’t, because YouTube is not a place to go for financial wisdom. Even though you can learn about finance, crypto just like anything else, the ultimate learning experience is your own wise heart and your reason, so be reasonable. Yes, there are many great people broadcasting tutorials, such as how to set up a rig perfectly and make the most out of your equipment. But such a channel is usually run by a dude or a girl with technical background and they aren’t into marketing and channel growth (yet!). Their subscribers are not millions and their content grows slowly but steadily or not very much at all.

With that being said, be careful when watching very popular channels. Although you might pick up one or two things from them, those who post in high frequency, do so because they probably earn more with their V-logs then with crypto and now that they have leverage on the market via YouTube community, they can play the game at both ends. Do critical research, take your time, and read. A good question when choosing your YouTube subscription is, how much would you actually wanna be like that person? Or, how much would you like hanging around these people if they were not a YouTube star? That will give you a good indicator, on how worth it is to spend so much time watching their videos. It’s a broadcasting, not a dialogue, even though they may respond to one of your comments. It may be better for you to unsubscribe and talk to the people who actually hold a coin and try to understand their motivation and point of view, because it’s an organic indicator as to how a product is perceived and evaluated. Sometimes even talking to a smaller audience directly is the better outcome. Sometimes, less is better.