Social network No. 1

How and why YwTube has become the main platform for political debate in Russia

YouTube finally entrenched in the status of the main Russian-speaking social network-2017. In terms of the size of the audience, it is probably a little more inferior to VKontakt (although there are no trustworthy figures on this topic yet), however, as a platform for the political discussion of YouTube, it has become indispensable. The policy of the service, originally conceived only as a library of videos, is much faster than one could expect. It took YouTube for less than a year to become a platform from the pen for students of secondary schools and lovers of video games, for the discursive power of which all meaningful political forces are beating. And, even more amazing, in this battle for the first time in many years, the initiative does not come from power - the power on YouTube is clearly a weaker player.

Punches of power

2012-2016 contained a “swamp business”, the conditional term of Navalny, a decline in the protest movement, the struggle of power with independent media, and much more. The problem is that all this happened and was discussed on a rather tiny heel of the politicized part of Facebook. In the spring of 2017, a political policy, different from the one that federal television channels worked out, first spread far beyond the borders of a cozy, but rather narrow circle of Facebook publicists.

To a very large extent, this is the result of the clumsy actions of the authorities itself, which is trying to fight for the young audience, but he herself does everything to finally push her away.

The case of Ruslan Sokolovsky, a video blogger, convicted of insulting the feelings of believers, by the standards of YouTube, where the agenda changes at an incredible speed, seems already a historical event - a “historical” in the sense of “former for a very long time”. However, it was it that became an important turning point for the entire video bloggers community.

In May 2017, Sokolovsky was sentenced - three years conditionally. The YouTube reaction was unanimous: “I wanted to personally attend the process when video blogger ... Yes, to hell with him, a person, they can put on words. It's not about a person, but in the precedent itself, ”says Danila The Transverse, the creator of the channel with a million subscribers, in his report from the courtroom. For NT readers, this phrase looks almost a journalistic stamp, but for the transverse audience, the opportunity to go to prison “For words” is the news of the last few months. Perhaps they heard about Pussy Riot and several more high -profile political affairs of recent years, but not one of them was perceived by the generation of the transverse and Sokolovsky, as something regarding them personally, as a direct threat specifically to them. But the opportunity to sit for a post on the Internet is a completely different matter: there is no metaphoricality, there is no need to explain that "today they came for Pussy Riot, tomorrow they will come for us."

Interestingly, Sokolovsky did not become any hero: he remained the same rather odious character as he was for YouTube. Sokolovsky’s peculiar, if not tougher, views and relative popularity (less than 400 thousand subscribers even after a high -profile criminal case) of his channel was largely built on constant provoking a negative reaction from the audience. This did not prevent many influential bloggers - in addition to the transverse, can be called at least Nikolai Sobolev and Ruslan Usachev, who have a total of four million subscribers - to support him.

“We are weakly familiar (with Sokolovsky), I do not share his position in many videos, it does not matter. I specifically disagree with this case, ”says Usachev.

Probably, the perfect human rights protection should look like this: support is not on the basis of personal sympathies, but in case of violation of anyone’s rights, no matter how unpleasant you may seem to be infringed.

“I wanted to personally attend the process when the video blogger ... Yes, to hell with him, a person, they can put on words. It's not about a person, but in the precedent itself. "

A criminal case for participating in public policy would never cause such a resonance; Public, especially party, politics was and remains almost marginal, the YouTube audience would be difficult to imagine yourself in the place of the accused. Criminal prosecution for words on the Internet is a completely different matter. The security forces (and especially, as you know, in this way people like to earn “sticks” people from the notorious “E” center), willingly fighting with reposts and comments, made more to discredit power among the young audience than the entire non -system opposition combined. Nikolai Sobolev formulated a general feeling of bewilderment to Sokolovsky better than others: “And here is what scares: anyone can be in the place of Sokolovsky. Previously, you could be imprisoned for specific actions, like Pussy Riot, when they broke and really disrupted the worship ( in fact, at the time of the service of the service in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, NT). Now you can be planted in general, fuck you understand why. ”

Navalny attack

So far, all attempts by the authorities to impose, as the Prochrevsky political scientists say, “your agenda” YouTube brought her much more harm than good. Especially ridiculous are attempts to discredit Alexei Navalny, the only opposition policy who learned to work with the audience of this social network. The fact that Navalny himself was pleased to repost an anonymous, but obviously expensive video in which he was compared with Hitler (a day later, the video was removed from YouTube), and the musical clips of the singer Alice Voks and the rapper Ptachi, quite straightforwardly calling not to go to rallies and “not to go into politics”. Ptah also quickly deleted his video, and only Alice Voks’s video remains sad (288 thousand dislikes at 17 thousand likes) we remind you of the first attempts of the authorities to reach the audience of YouTube.

Alexei Navalny found the path to the audience’s heart on YouTube.com.
Photo: screenshot with YouTube.com

The problem is not even that the authorities are not able to discredit the opposition, but that she completely has nothing to offer as an alternative. How Alisa Voks sings, “freedom, money, girls - everything will be, even power. / Do not go, baby, in politics, go to learn the materiel. " The proposal to focus on “money and girls” is an almost funny cynicism in its naivety, and is no longer in the way of the future for which the YouTube audience is ready to exchange self -esteem. It is customary to blame Navalny of the absence of a positive program - in power, a positive program is regarding the young audience, incommensurably weaker. “Do not go, baby, into politics”-such an insulting-lubricious, neglect of the young generation hardly turned away from Navalny at least one supporter.

In parallel, the authorities are making attempts to make contact with those who have already gained popularity, but by bloggers far from politics. So far, it also turns out so -so: after a diverging into the memes (of which the main one - “I am transparent from 13 years old”) Sasha Spilberg was created before the State Duma - formally at the suggestion of Vasily Vlasov, the youngest deputy - the Blogers Council at the State Duma. The invitations were sent to three dozens of the most popular bloggers, almost all of him ignored him - even Sasha Spielberg.

“As for me, the meeting should be called“ unpopular bloggers met Zhirinovsky, ”Nikolai Sobolev summed up the results of the first meeting. Dmitry Ivanov, the host of the Kamikadzedead channel, spoke even more specifically: his video, which collected almost half a million views, is called "Bloggers Council - *** ( nonsense. - NT)."

The clock, as of July 2017, all attempts by the authorities to reach the YouTube audience ended in failure.

The proposal to focus on “money and girls” looks almost funny in its naivety cynicism and is definitely not in the way of the future for which the YouTube audience is ready to exchange self -esteem

By the way, Alexei Navalny is often accused of that he has nothing to say the notorious 86% of Russians supporting Putin, he is aimed only in the middle class of residents of large cities. But we do not know how actually Navalny is in demand outside this audience - after all, he is not allowed on the air of federal television channels. He is simply technically hard to contact her. YouTube is a much more open area than federal television. However, even with all the capacities available in power (financial, first of all) to establish a dialogue with the audience of the COTSSITA, she still gets worse than Navalny - with the audience of the TV.

More important than TV

On YouTube (and VKontakte, which is becoming more dependent on YouTube thematically) as a figure, an alternative collective Putin, there is only one politician - Navalny. No other from conditionally or really opposition forces can boast even a small share of such recognition. The numbers say for themselves: Navalny has 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube, the channel Grigory Yavlinsky has 3 thousand, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky has 4.5 thousand, the Parnas party has 5 thousand.

Some of the democratic forces make attempts to make content aimed at schoolchildren and students, but so far it looks approximately as ridiculous as the clip of Alice Voks. Any attempts to “speak with the youth audience in its language”, as called in the bird dialect of political scientists, are doomed to failure in advance: few will be glad that they talk to him as a strange animal, for which a special “language” is needed.

The advantage of Navalny is precisely that he does not lick and does not offer “freedom, money and girls”, like Alisa Voks. He speaks normal human language and does not consider his viewer a clinical idiot (“Take the thought that the system is invulnerable. / And add drives and initiatives, / critical thinking and faith to the prospects, / fresh ideas, since we are not plebeians,” the peppy voice calls to participate in municipal elections in Moscow).

It’s early to congratulate Navalny on a victory in YouTube. Do not do his main problem: not like the whole opposition, but even in the team of Navalny there is no figure that would have a commensurate charisma

The main weapon of Navalny’s videos is his sincerity, nudging hatred of power. And, of course, the fact that Navalny and his team are really sitting on the Internet and are really interested in memes - and do not master the budget “to work with youth”. Therefore, the politician himself does not use the words-markers of “youth” to the place and out of place, does not try to play outdated memes and does not call “take off the tie” (Navalny and so sits without a tie in all his videos).

However, it is too early to congratulate Navalny on a victory in YouTube. Nothing of his main problem, which became clearly visible in June, when the politician spent most of his time in a pre -trial detention center and therefore could not record the videos: not that the whole opposition, but even in the team of Navalny, there is no figure that would have comparable charisma and could replace it without a significant fall in the interest of the audience.

Navalny was and remains the only rather recognizable and charismatic character in his party, capable of collecting millions of views.

Visiting the show FBK "Cactus" - Mikhail Shatz. Photo: screenshot with YouTube.com

It seems that he himself understands that one is not a warrior in the field: all new employees of the corruption (FBK) fund and invited presenters are involved in the jurisdiction of the YouTube channel. True, so far all the videos recorded without Navalny’s participation are collected an order of magnitude less views: the last four such videos have not reached a mark of a million views, while not even the most successful video with the channel’s headline is guaranteed to overcome it.

In fairness, one cannot fail to note the local success of the Cactus show, which is conducted by FBK employees, at least in the sense of selection of guests. Their list looks much more representative than a stillborn bloggers advice. Lyubov Sobol (an employee of the FBK, the host of the Cactus) successfully alternates popular opposition journalists, civil activists and video bloggers; It is enough to name Valentina Petukhov (Channel Wylsacom, 3.5 million subscribers); The aforementioned Nikolai Sobolev (3.1 million subscribers) and Lisa Monetochka, popular in 13-year-old girls singer.

Secondly-and this is a more important problem-YouTube has ceased to be a roller for high school students, which it was the last three years; Large producing agencies begin to invest in video content (the most successful example is “friend shows”, the super-assessment project of the Izum agency, owned by Lifenews creator Aram Gabrelyanov), and brands (Samsung have long and successfully make a video content with aiming on YouTube), and power, and various random players who are random players who who are random players who who are random players who are random players who who are random players who are random players who are random players who are random players who are random players who who are random players who are random players who are random players who who are random players who are random players who who are random players who who are random players who are random players who are random players who who are Be sure to try to make money on the fact that youtube is called “hype” in the YouTube language.

A fragment of the interview on the Vedud channel. Photo: screenshot with YouTube.com

In a situation where large budgets appear, it will not just hold the audience attention to Navalny-in a sense, its other channels on YouTube are, even completely apolitical. The struggle for the upper lines of the “Trends” section, which provides a significant share of Navalny’s views, will become more and more intense as youTube will come more and more advertising money.

Literally in recent months, several professionally made entertainment channels have launched, sharpened for production playing; The Blog “Vedud”, which is the chief editor of Sports.ru, Yuri Dud, is a rare example of a successful journalistic project on YouTube. The blog of Dudia is not directed against Navalny in any way - rather the opposite - simply, due to an increase in the volume and variety of professionally made content on YouTube, to fall into the “trends” and maintain the growth rate of the bulk to the bulk.

The battle only begins (in early July, for example, it became known that its own “youth project” launches an interpreted ONF), the alignment of forces is not yet clear, but one thing is clear: the control over the audience of YouTube and “VKontakte” in 2017 strategically much more important than control over the TV.