During highschool, I watched a Casey Neistat video every day. I came back form school, changed, ate, turned on my phone ate whatever he had cooked that day. Today, Casey uploads four time a year, if that, and most his videos are ads. I complained about his videos over Facetime with my brother not that long ago, too. But not because they are ads.
Today, Casey uploaded a video, which, again, was an ad. But this time, the comments were not happy about him uploading, but rather, it was people complaining about how every single video he made was an ad. I don’t know a lot of truths in life, but one through that I do know is this — you are allowed to talk shit about people you love, but when others talk shit about them, you’re ready to throw fists. In similar fashion, I got really upset about the “hate” comments on his video, even though, in all honesty, the video was nothing to write home about, and I agree with a lot of them.
In his defense, Casey is an ad maker. The guy is very good at showcasing products that he likes and is excited about. The most viewed videos on his Channel are Airplane reivews, an ad for Nike, a Resort, why he wears sunglasses, an expensive hotel rooms, an ad for samsung, expensive Mc Donald’s burger reivew, … you get the point. Most his videos are about products, and advertisements are just that. The only thing that’s different, is that he gets paid for it, and people are sour.
The reason I was complaining about his videos were not becuase they were ads but because they felt stale. Sure, Casey has style, and every video he makes is uniquely Casey, but if you want to stay relevant, if you want to be good at your craft you need to move forward. Not necessarily do what everyone else is doing, because that would be icky, but do new things - experiment, fail, and come up with better things, because if you are truly great and you stop innovating, everyone has already copied you and added their twist on top of that style to create better things.
Adios.