 I have stated on a number of occasions that I don't actually watch a lot of Linux YouTube content. And the reason for that, well, there's really two reasons. The first reason is I spend so much time working on my own content, you know, and all of my content is related to Linux, that then when I have just a little bit of free time, I'm not going to spend that free time watching other people's Linux YouTube videos, no, that's not fun. That's actually the opposite of fun to me, right, to spend my free time doing exactly what I do when I'm, quote, working, I can't do that. So I don't actually watch a whole lot of Linux YouTube content. And the other reason I don't do this is because I don't think a lot of the people that cover Linux on YouTube, I don't think they cover it in an appropriate kind of way. I think a lot of the Linux YouTube content that I have a problem with, it comes from really three types of Linux YouTubers. I'm going to label them as these three types. They are either the casual Linux YouTuber, they are the fence rider, and they are the provocateur. And I have problems with all of these. And let's start with the casual Linux YouTuber. So this is somebody that doesn't really know that much about Linux. Maybe they don't even use Linux as their daily driver or if they do, they just switched to it like last week. They don't really know much about what they're talking about. And my real problem with these people is they typically have absolutely no idea about free software or open source software. They don't know about the free software movement. They don't know about the open source movement, right? They just heard about this alternative operating system and alternative to Windows typically. They switched to Linux, but they really don't know about the philosophy behind everything. When they present the casual Linux YouTuber, everything they present is based on Linux as far as its technical merits as an operating system. But for those of us that know a little more about Linux, you know, the technical merits of Linux, really, that only tells about 10% of the story. It's the philosophy behind Linux that makes up the bulk of what Linux truly is. And I'm not mad at these people for giving Linux more attention. I'm not mad at the casual Linux YouTuber. I think it's great that these people that previously didn't know about Linux are giving it some attention on their channels and hopefully more people are learning about it. People like Linus Tech Tips, you know, when he does every now and then he'll do a video about Linux covering Linux. He doesn't really know much about Linux, but he gives it some coverage. And I think that's great because tens of millions of people potentially get exposed to Linux that otherwise wouldn't have if Linus had never actually talked about it on one of his videos. I think that's great. But it does make me a little sad that so many of these casual Linux YouTubers, they kind of miss the point of Linux and the free and open source software movements. Moving on from the casual Linux YouTuber, let's talk about Type 2. And that is the fence rider. And this, unfortunately, is maybe the most prevalent category I'm going to talk about because I see a lot of these people on YouTube, not just doing Linux content, but other types of content too, but especially the people that do Linux content. I don't understand how you can be a fence rider on everything. And by writing the fence, I'm talking about never taking any hard positions on anything. Right? You are trying to please everybody. Therefore, you never share an opinion. You never actually take a side in any argument, right? So these are the people that claim to be Linux YouTubers. And that's the ones that I'm really talking about. The ones that claim to be Linux YouTubers. They take that moniker and then they tell people Windows, Mac, Linux. They're all great. Use whatever. Well, then why do you have a Linux YouTube channel? Why do you call yourself a Linux YouTuber? You say you're a Linux advocate. You promote Linux, but then at the same time you also say, but if you use Windows and Mac, they're great too. They're just as good as Linux. Well, no, they're not. And you know they're not. Right? You're just trying not to tick anybody off. And people see through that. The viewers of the channels that they see through that and you're not fooling anybody. You have to take a side sometimes. And these people also other than, you know, Windows is great. Linux is great. Same thing with free and open source software. Yeah, I love free and open source software. What about proprietary software? It's great too. What about all the init systems? What do you think about system D? It's great. What about the alternatives? They're great too. What about all your Linux distributions? All of them are great. Package formats. They're all great. Package managers. They're all great. Never anything wrong with anything, right? And you can't ride the fence, especially when it comes to free and open source software versus proprietary. That's the one that immediately should just trigger everybody, anybody that claims to be a Linux YouTuber and says that free and open source software and proprietary software are somehow equal, equally good. Just you should run away from their channel immediately because that person, he spends so much of his time, I guess, trying not to offend anyone with his opinions that he's actually not willing to share his opinions at all. And that would bother me if I was a consumer of that content. And the third type of Linux YouTuber I see out there is what I'm going to call the provocateur. So this is not the fence rider, right? This guy is fine with taking a position. But the problem is sometimes he takes positions. I don't think he really believes these positions he takes. He just wants to be provocative. He wants to be controversial because he thinks that's the way to get views, right? Because it's all about views. It's all about ad impressions. How are you going to get the most people to watch your video? You got to be edgy. You got to be provocative, right? It's what the kids call being an edgelord, right? Isn't that what they say on 4chan? I don't know. But anyway, you know, these people want to be seen as edgy. They want to be seen as dangerous even, right? Because that creates controversy and then people will check out your content because they want to see what that person's all about. Because I've heard about that crazy controversial person. Now I need to go check out his videos. But these provocateurs, they're not really doing anything for Linux as far as promoting Linux, the movement. They're not promoting free software. They're not promoting open source software. And you know, these people are easy to spot. It's easy to spot the provocateurs because they take positions typically that no sane person would take. For example, I'm sure you guys that consume a lot of Linux YouTube video content. You guys have seen videos titled such as the following. Why internet privacy is bad? Linux sucks. Why Windows is better than Linux? Ubuntu is the devil. Deep in a spyware, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? And let's take that very first one that I just uttered out a second ago. If you have a Linux YouTube channel and then you create a video about internet privacy being bad and you actually take that position, nobody will take you seriously because there's no way that you can be an advocate for Linux and free and open source software and also think that internet privacy is bad. There's no way you could think that. And immediately people label you as being one of these provocateurs. And immediately you are no longer taken seriously. Now there's nothing wrong with clickbait. I like clickbait titles. I like clickbait thumbnails. It's all part of the game. That's part of the YouTube game is you got to get people to click on those videos. So you got to create some nice thumbnails and catchy titles. But there's a difference between good clickbait and bad clickbait, right? If your title has nothing to do with your video and your thumbnail is some weird mixture of emojis and peppy at the frog memes, then you're probably not using good clickbait. That's that's bad clickbait, right? And, you know, there's one Linux YouTuber that immediately comes to my mind that uses what I call bad clickbait all the time in that he uses clickbait titles, especially and sometimes clickbait thumbnails. But his titles often never have anything to do with his content. And he does this on a regular basis. Like I see these titles that just are not anything close to what he's actually doing on camera. And as you can imagine, he gets trashed in the comments of his videos. Oftentimes for doing this, you know, he gets a bunch of negative comments responding to that clickbait title he used. And then he gets angry at all the commenters responding to his clickbait title and telling them, well, they shouldn't be responding to his clickbait title and his clickbait thumbnail. They should be responding to the content of the video itself. But in many ways, the title and the thumbnail are part of that content. You can't create, you know, some of this bad clickbait and then get mad at the viewers when they call you out on it. So because these types of Linux YouTubers are kind of prevalent, this is really one of the main reasons why I don't watch a lot of Linux YouTube videos, because I have problems with all of these kinds of YouTubers, right? Because my problem with all three of these types of YouTubers, I'm talking about the casual Linux YouTuber, the fence rider and the provocateur. The reason I have a problem with all three of these types of YouTubers is because they do not emphasize free and open source software. They don't emphasize digital privacy, digital rights or freedom in general. They can't because it goes against what they're trying to do, right? You can't be a casual Linux YouTuber and talk about free and open source software because if you're a casual Linux YouTuber, you probably don't even know what the hell free and open source software is. So, I mean, of course, you're not going to talk about it. The fence riding Linux YouTuber, he's not going to emphasize free and open source software and digital rights and things like that is because that would require him to actually take a position on some things, right? A political position on some things. He's not going to do that. It might make somebody mad. It might offend somebody. And of course, a provocateur, he's not going to emphasize free and open source software and digital rights and everything because he's trying to be provocative and it's not provocative when a Linux YouTuber actually supports things that most Linux people support, right? He's got to take the opposite position sometimes. So, he's got to stand against internet privacy and digital rights and sometimes he's got to promote proprietary software and say it's great and say how open source software is evil and, you know, and I can't deal with that kind of content, right? It's just not fun or entertaining for me to watch that kind of stuff for me. Really, the philosophy behind free software and open source, those philosophies should be an area of focus. If somebody is going to seriously talk about Linux, they have to promote free and open source software. They just have to. And it saddens me that so many that claim to be Linux YouTubers, right? They take that moniker Linux YouTuber, but they don't really talk about free and open source software. They don't really care about free and open source software in some cases. And, you know, it's like giving someone a review of a movie, but you didn't actually watch the movie. Maybe you just watch the movie trailer. Right. Hey, let me tell you all about the latest and greatest movie, but all I watched was the 60 second trailer that I saw of the movie. And if you know anything about movie trailers, you know, oftentimes the movie trailer has very little to do with what's actually in the movie. Sometimes it gives nothing away. And that's kind of what I'm seeing from these so-called Linux YouTubers, right? When they're not actually telling you anything about free and open source software, but they're telling you about Linux, really, they're just giving you the movie trailer, but they're not really telling you what the movie is about. And it saddens me and it should sadden you guys, too, because you guys are the community, right? You guys are the Linux community. You guys are the Linux YouTube community, whatever name you want to attribute to yourself. You guys have a voice and I have a voice, too, because I'm a part of the Linux community as well. I consume content, right? And for me, what I do is I typically just don't watch this kind of stuff, right? Because it's just not that interesting to me. So I just bypass all of this. But keep in mind, though, even though a lot of Linux YouTubers fall into these three categories that I talked about today, many of them don't. Many of them are actually putting out good quality content and really doing a good job at promoting Linux free and open source software and the community. They represent the community well. And I hope you guys support those kinds of people. Ran over before I go. Let me thank a few special people. I need to thank Michael, Gabe, Corbinion, Mitchell, Devin, Fran, Archfisher, 530, Akami, Chuck, Claudio, Donnie, Dylan, George, Gregory, George, Kelly, Devils, Lewis, Paul, Scott, Willie, I may have missed a few people there. I want to thank all of those guys for this lengthy rant. I did those guys are the producers of the show. I also want to thank each and every one of these ladies and gentlemen as well. All my supporters over on Patreon. You guys want to support my work. You will find DistroTube over on Patreon. All right, guys. Peace.