CTE 101 is easy. Every good scam needs a target. Find target. Run the scam. Collect the money. The greatest asset of modern conspiracy grifting is an audience predisposed to be ignorant of the danger and coming to you on social media instead of you searching them out.
There was a time on YouTube not that long ago where things were a bit different. The more advanced brains in the grifting world figured out how to manipulate the algorithms to boost their narrative.
The algorithm didn’t care if it suggested Celebrity John Doe legitimate death story versus Celebrity John Doe bullshit story. An easy to figure out ploy was mass production of bullshit stories and let the math take care of the rest. The susceptible minds would land on the less than sincere content, enter into the rabbit hole and nature took its course. At one time the dislike button actually counted the dislikes, or at least displayed them. You could actually create a bunch of sock puppets and have conversations with yourself to either agree or disagree just to keep traffic going.
These type of things haven’t disappeared completely yet some are more difficult and require more effort to achieve the goal.
Legitimate YouTube content operates roughly like this.
Create a channel.
Promote your channel.
Qualify for advertising revenue.
And most of the interesting ideas have been taken up by this point. Creation of a fresh and exciting new idea is not necessary for the conspiracy grifter. Like Democrats endlessly whining about the Republicans and vice versa, the goal is to become a parasite. You are posting what’s wrong with the legitimate content, relying on logical fallacies and the types of debating arguments designed to win an argument without being right. To approach the top of the multilevel marketing pyramid you need help. The more clueless the help the better. Some of the target audience is only useless for short term donations. You need some that have a bit more staying power, the mid level tier of the pyramid.
This is a site of dubious value. To me it reeks of narrative boosting funneling outside of but related to YouTube.
https://tz.youtubers.me/gematria-effect-news/youtube-estimated-earnings/en.amp
A new YouTuber who has gotten curious and into so called truth seeking might either independently decide they love the new found attention they’ve been getting and start a new channel on their own, or they may be pressured into performing in a manner more in line with what the cult leader says they should be doing. Legitimate YouTube- the main source of content that drives the algorithm recommendations is the like button. Because of the math, sharing is encouraged. It’s simultaneously amusing and distressing as the cult leader waffles between bragging about how much money they make and begs for likes and shares as if they were a homeless person that hasn’t eaten in three days.
The ringleader has some tools to throw at the potential MLM middle tier.
1) Recorded videos - the comments section. Legit YouTubers can’t keep up with thousands of comments on a video with millions of views. Not a problem for the MLM cult leader. Like every positive reply. Throw a couple channel ❤️s into the better, more adoring comments. Give the people who don’t get attention in real life attention.
2) Livestream and livestream chat - Legit YouTubers promote trusted individuals to monitor the chat for the inevitable trolling from those that think it’s more fun to disrupt than to be a team player. Give the MLM people a wrench. I’ve seen conspiracy videos with every comment being made by someone with a wrench, which is super pointless. That is unless you realize it’s a perk to give attention instead of functionality. It’s like a channel ❤️ on a comment on steroids. An ego booster. These people are not under fire from trolls so much as there to do the whining for likes and shares since the cult leader is busy live streaming.
3) Linking to other social media - YouTube is the bread and butter, but you need to keep access to all parts of the rabbit hole. Every major social media platform is bombarded with links to YouTube. While your ads for products promote ads for something tangible, this is your advertising for the YouTube content. Social media platforms like what used to be Facebook and what used to be Twitter don’t algorithmically check YouTube links. This is also a golden opportunity to pump up the ego of the MLM middle tier. Zach is famous for comments like, “Support this young man’s channel, he’s doing great work for the community!!” More like, “I can’t believe this fish is still on the hook!! More free advertisement for me!!”
The main purpose of all this - to generate as much traffic as possible. Having a rotating crop of freshly supplied MLM middle tier to seek out the lower tier since invading others legitimate channels by trolling their content is too much work for the leader.
Returning to that link, it’s super outdated. But it does show that actual monetary ad revenue for a new conspiracy channel is not anything to get excited about, which I believe is accurate. The MLM middle tier isn’t supposed to know and understand this. Big YouTube channels pop up on some of the most remarkably idiotic content, and the lure of making it big like that is lingering in the mind of the cognitively impaired, never realizing they are more likely to be struck by lightning simultaneously while they win a million dollars in the lottery. At the bottom, a list of so called similar channels. Our friendly algorithms have picked some rather odd choices there. That’s not important to our lesson here. What is important is the worm in the brain that allying yourself with similar content is necessary. So, who better to ally yourself with than other conspiracy content? That’s the actual similar content. Even the more feeble minded make that connection, especially when spurred on by the top tier.
Also in that link, a review of what the channels content is. That’s a fail, a big time fail. Legitimate YouTube wants your content to reach as many people as possible. They really don’t care if Draft Kings gets ads on bogus sports picks. A potential MLM middle tier is probably already involved in some other pseudoscience and scam content. Healing crystals and spirituality, the weirder thoughts in the cryptocurrency world, homeopathy, sovereign citizen content, etc…. What do you think happens to them when a site like this recommends Gematria Effect News as a similar channel? They’re going to think it’s a good idea.
No, YouTube is not the source of the income itself. It’s the biggest part of the economic framework. It’s the marketing and how the product of hatred is advertised. The MLM middle tier with their wrenches and mostly unseen blogs and their videos with less than 1000 views are asking for donations via Superchat, PayPal and Patreon subscriptions. These middle tier people are a huge asset in the overall economy, constantly having been badgered into how constitutional rights are being violated when they really aren’t. When a bot gets censored, they don’t fight back. The MLM middle tier does. Naturally they haven’t received any real monetary compensation for their effort - the YouTube system isn’t designed for that. The end result is more frustration and continued cycling through the feedback loop of being disillusioned and disenfranchised.
This is why there are people who consistently post content that is wrong about every single topic. Sure, it’s heavily boosted by bot generated content. That traffic is the Nigerian Prince spam email of modern times. But it’s far more effective to have a real human with real emotions (as misguided as they are) fighting back.
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