Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Sponsored Content

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Feb. 26, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

07:00

Sponsored Content

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	Hello, I thought I would do a short rambling video just to talk about sponsored content as this is something I'll get an email about about once a week and it's not something I do.
	So for those people who are looking to promote products or want me to join the network or anything like that, I'm not interested.
	don't really know what I would do sponsored content about in a way that I wouldn't feel uncomfortable with I can't I literally can't think of anything I mean, I would not want to think that I would compromise any integrity that I have based on someone paying me money.
	I mean, I don't know who my Patreons backing me are.
	I actually try to not interact on Patreon with people because then I don't know.
	You know, if someone talks to me on Twitter, I'll talk to them.
	If someone emails me, I'll email them back.
	Sometimes.
	Sorry, I'm kind of lazy with emails.
	But I try to avoid using Patreon as a method of discussion because I don't want people to think that they can influence me with money.
	because I don't think I'm very well easily influenced by you.
	And I come from like, I grew up in the 90s, right?
	I was a teenager in the 90s.
	And one of the things that you didn't want, especially for like your heroes and bands and whatnot to do, is sell out.
	Being a sellout was a really big deal.
	And nobody cares about it now.
	Nobody cares about it now.
	I mean, look at even like the Young Turks.
	This bastion of independent punditry.
	Now they do like adverts for Squarespace.
	And they're sat there reading, oh, you know, we did our website through Squarespace, isn't it?
	You should go to Squarespace.
	I'm thinking, God, you fucking shells.
	You know, has it really come to this?
	And the thing is, it might be a great product.
	You know, there are probably things out there I actually do recommend and whatnot, but I don't want them to be recommended to me.
	I don't want to recommend them to people because, I mean, pay for it.
	You know, if it's something good and useful that I use, like, my video editing software is Camtasia.
	It's pretty good.
	It's not brilliant, but it's pretty good.
	And I feel comfortable making that sort of recommendation because, A, I paid for the software.
	They didn't pay me.
	And because of that, I can give you an honest opinion on the software.
	It's easy to use.
	It's good for newcomers, probably not good for experienced video editing.
	And if you want to do anything heavy, don't use it.
	It crashes after you get a certain amount of sort of video footage edited in clips.
	It'll end up crashing on it.
	It's a fucking nightmare sometimes.
	But for day-to-day use, for light work, it's pretty good.
	And, you know, so that's the sort of recommendation I would feel comfortable giving.
	But I don't want to be paid for that recommendation.
	I'd rather be paid for the actual work I do rather than shilling someone's product.
	And the same with networks.
	I'm not really interested in joining a network.
	I understand there probably are advantages to it.
	I've been told that you get a higher ad-click rate per click or something.
	And you've got the added bonus of having someone to back you up when you're having a content claim issue.
	But generally, I find YouTube's not too unreasonable, or at least hasn't been in the past.
	And I mean, maybe it's because my channels don't tend to put pressure, don't tend to receive pressure from sort of, you know, major Hollywood studios or anything like that, you know, music producers or anything like that.
	I don't, you know, I don't deal with any of that really.
	So I don't ever have to worry about the fair use angle on that.
	So when it comes to like news clips and false claims from people who are the bastions of free speech and whatnot, I've always had YouTube come down on my side, and so I've got nothing really to complain about in that regard.
	Obviously, if my channel gets taken down tomorrow for some reason that I wasn't expecting, I'll probably change my tune.
	And I genuinely can appreciate why other people would have serious problems with it.
	And this is why I support the WTF campaign, the Where's the Fair Use campaign.
	I think it's necessary, but it's not something I personally have a problem with.
	However, if you don't speak out, then when it comes to you, there's no one to speak out.
	So that's why I'm in support of that.
	But it's not through any personal issue of my own, really, that I've done this.
	But yeah, I don't accept any sponsored content, because I don't really see how I could do sponsored content that wasn't just shilling.
	And I don't want to just shill.
	I don't need to, you know, I'm lucky in what I do, and I like to maintain the integrity of that.
	So yeah, I really hope people would stop asking.
	Because I get quite a few requests, and I'm not interested in doing that.
	Sorry.
	I don't mean to be rude, but it's just quite antithetical to what I'm doing here.
	And I don't want to go down that road.
	I would feel very uncomfortable doing it.
	And I don't know what I would gain other than a bit of money in the short term, but that's not something I'm prepared to compromise my principles over.
	So, yeah.
	I'm not interested in that, I'm afraid.
	So yeah, just a bit of a ramble.
	There are probably other things I should ramble about, but I won't.
	Next week I'll probably be doing a video on the Brexit because I've been waiting for people to make their cases.
	And I want to present, now that I've got my full channel, I can upload videos of any length again.
	I'll do quite, hopefully quite an extensive, quite an extensive analysis of as many positions as I can find.
	And I'll try and fact-check them all as best as I can.
	Because I think it's important.
	I think it's an important issue.
	Personally, without having done this analysis yet, I am in favour of leaving, but that's mainly because I have problems with the democratic legitimacy of the EU.
	The old joke being the EU isn't democratic enough to join itself really, I think, rings true.
	I mean, when you've got, like, the forcing the Irish to vote twice on the Lisbon Treaty, because the first vote just wasn't the right vote.
	They had plans and, you know, the Irish just, they weren't playing ball.
	So, no, I don't, I don't like that.
	I, that...
	I don't see why anyone would be happy to compromise on democracy.
	And I hear a lot of scaremongering about how Britain won't last without the EU.
	And it's like, well, how did Britain get by without the EU in the start?
	No, I don't think that's true either.
	But again, I'll get into it in the video.
	But yeah, so if anyone who was thinking, oh, maybe let's try and get Sargon to do some sponsored content, no.

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