Are these Vloggers just a scam? SOL or Shmee etc???????
Discussion
xjay1337 said:
ashleyman said:
Why does it matter what you think?
It's his car, he obviously likes it. Who cares what he paid or if it was 'new'. It honestly has absolutely nothing to do with you.
Do you say the same to STG for saying the Noble looked sIt's his car, he obviously likes it. Who cares what he paid or if it was 'new'. It honestly has absolutely nothing to do with you.
t?STG is not a factual information broadcast.
Its a bloke driving and buying cars, going to car related events and doing some marketing here and there.
I am not expecting his views or opinions to align 100% with mine.
Sometimes he gets the name of older cars wrong and I correct him
Sometimes he likes a wrapped thing and I disagree
Sometimes he passes over a car I like to show me yet another Ferrari and I frown
Most of the time he films stuff I like to see and a lot of the time my thoughts on a certain car are the same, and sometimes he even makes me laugh.
So I watch it.
And I don't get perturbed by his opinions or choices if they differ from mine.
Its a bloke driving and buying cars, going to car related events and doing some marketing here and there.
I am not expecting his views or opinions to align 100% with mine.
Sometimes he gets the name of older cars wrong and I correct him
Sometimes he likes a wrapped thing and I disagree
Sometimes he passes over a car I like to show me yet another Ferrari and I frown
Most of the time he films stuff I like to see and a lot of the time my thoughts on a certain car are the same, and sometimes he even makes me laugh.
So I watch it.
And I don't get perturbed by his opinions or choices if they differ from mine.
ashleyman said:
xjay1337 said:
ashleyman said:
Why does it matter what you think?
It's his car, he obviously likes it. Who cares what he paid or if it was 'new'. It honestly has absolutely nothing to do with you.
Do you say the same to STG for saying the Noble looked sIt's his car, he obviously likes it. Who cares what he paid or if it was 'new'. It honestly has absolutely nothing to do with you.
t?
Right on.
I'll just go and comment on the Youtube video he made about buying it then
The guy makes his living talking about cars he's bought/buying/might be buying. I'm sure he doesn't give a flying f
k what I think of his sub-£30k Fiat 500 (see I changed the price there!) but it doesn't mean I can't say I don't like it.Quickmoose said:
STG is not a factual information broadcast.
Its a bloke driving and buying cars, going to car related events and doing some marketing here and there.
I am not expecting his views or opinions to align 100% with mine.
Sometimes he gets the name of older cars wrong and I correct him
Sometimes he likes a wrapped thing and I disagree
Sometimes he passes over a car I like to show me yet another Ferrari and I frown
Most of the time he films stuff I like to see and a lot of the time my thoughts on a certain car are the same, and sometimes he even makes me laugh.
So I watch it.
And I don't get perturbed by his opinions or choices if they differ from mine.
Good post. Its a bloke driving and buying cars, going to car related events and doing some marketing here and there.
I am not expecting his views or opinions to align 100% with mine.
Sometimes he gets the name of older cars wrong and I correct him
Sometimes he likes a wrapped thing and I disagree
Sometimes he passes over a car I like to show me yet another Ferrari and I frown
Most of the time he films stuff I like to see and a lot of the time my thoughts on a certain car are the same, and sometimes he even makes me laugh.
So I watch it.
And I don't get perturbed by his opinions or choices if they differ from mine.
I think the Vloggers brought in the media an excessive spectacularization of car ownership but in the end I consider them just another kind of car related media content, nothing less and nothing more. In the same way I don't buy a lot of car magazines I don't watch some Youtube channels.
matsoc said:
I think the Vloggers brought in the media an excessive spectacularization of car ownership but in the end I consider them just another kind of car related media content, nothing less and nothing more. In the same way I don't buy a lot of car magazines I don't watch some Youtube channels.
I'm very much the same. TBH I've only ever watched Shmee or STG because of this thread. I don't get 'it' and they don't really entertain me enough to subscribe on YouTube along with many others.Jamie_FYD is great though, more down to earth. At least until he started selling Merchandise.
Not as bad as those T-Shirts Shmee did a bit back though
ashleyman said:
The R8 V10+ is all he's talked about so far and there doesn't seem much else he's keen on. He won't get an AMG GTS because SOL has one, doesn't want an older car, has about £110k to spend. I wouldn't be surprised if McLaren sorted him out with a 570S just for the press but not sure if they do that type of thing. Not 100% sure who the miserable looking bloke is in that car buying video though, some sort of broker?
Having said Audi originally, I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up in a 12C 
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Yeah that certainly helps.But in these cases what are they talking about to get wrong?
The stitching is red...he likes red stitching
That car has gold wheels, he likes gold wheels
This car has a bland dashboard he doesn't like bland dashboards...
the ride is hard....the ride is soft
This one goes REALLY fast has 450HP and 0-62 in around 3.6 which is quicker than the older one and almost as fast as that comparable one the other company make.
Comment below if you agree
And let me know which one you think I should buy and then I can take you on the journey of me buying and driving one.
Other than getting the odd car model wrong....there's very little to trip themselves up on, it's all opinion.
And to be fair to STG, he films MUCH MUCH more stuff from the 60's, 70's and 80's than the other guys, and really I just like seeing them in good nick and moving....it's background filler telly
Truckosaurus said:
If he is indeed getting a fee in exchange for a certain amount of content then I think we can assume any review will be positive in nature.
Whether it's a fee, a loan car, a discounted wrap etc it's all the same. Nothing is ever criticised - everything is 'awesome', 'cool', 'amazing carbon fibre', 'looks so aggressive' etc.All very impartial and honest.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I understand your point and preference...more than that, it is VERY similar to mine.If there were 100 Harry videos I'd not seen and a 100 STG/SOL/Shmee videos I'd not seen, I'd probably watch all of Harry's before looking at the others.
That not being the case howver I actually quite enjoy getting back from work and unwinding by watching 10 minutes of Tim in Dubai driving stuff I never will, where everything is 'insane', laughing AT Paul Wallis as he destroys a perfectly nice M3, nod in agreement as Sam prefers a certain style of seat to another...and then approve of the very many angles MrJWW fits into 5 minutes of banal tyre chat...and hopefully as I become fully unwound, maybe I have finished my evening meal and poured myself a drink I get engrossed in Harry's eclectic collection and find out some pretty nerdy stuff about a car I love and that maybe Paul/Sam wouldn't know the name of...
In short the cars are on screen to get interested in, look at, listen to, and sometimes some chat to agree or not with...it's filler....akin to switching the radio on to have in the background...
They were interesting at first. Then they stopped car spotting.
Shmee sold out and only shows off the cars that he loans or owns. I initially enjoyed seeing his McLaren, but he rarely if ever pushes it, even just to accelerate upto the speed limit. The cars he owns he now shows off as part of an ongoing ego trip and of course the cars he is loaned he can only praise.
Supercarsoflondon is a decent chap who at least has paid for his own way, but he doesn't car spot with any meaning anymore and the same video after video of his car just got boring. He also relies on clickbaiting too much.
Seenthroughglass I just find incredibly boring all round.
Maybe age, but I found them interesting not that long ago.
Shmee sold out and only shows off the cars that he loans or owns. I initially enjoyed seeing his McLaren, but he rarely if ever pushes it, even just to accelerate upto the speed limit. The cars he owns he now shows off as part of an ongoing ego trip and of course the cars he is loaned he can only praise.
Supercarsoflondon is a decent chap who at least has paid for his own way, but he doesn't car spot with any meaning anymore and the same video after video of his car just got boring. He also relies on clickbaiting too much.
Seenthroughglass I just find incredibly boring all round.
Maybe age, but I found them interesting not that long ago.
CaptainRAVE said:
They were interesting at first. Then they stopped car spotting.
That's an interesting comment alone because generally the more mature audience did not approve of the car spotting side of things; certainly Pistonheads users in general show a huge trend towards hating it and everything that is connected to it.For me it's a catch-22, as a result of the 'success' from being an early car spotter in the days all of this got started it has turned into a world where I simply can no longer do it. Strange as it is to write this, I cannot stand on the street with a camera because by virtue of a social network of around 7 million followers it transcends into a non-stop selfie brigade - as fun as that is it becomes hard work for extended periods and ultimately doesn't give me space to turn on a camera and actually film anything myself. It is why at major events we have to attend with a team to prevent interruptions to the videos that I am trying to create.
The content has changed too, back in the early days when it was SOL, myself and a few other names that have gone quieter since: munch997, richnwilliams, dimi164, F14BigAl, it was still a fairly exclusive content form and there weren't that many people doing it. As time went by and cameras became more accessible, social media grew in many forms, new platforms arrived like Instagram and SnapChat that made all of this easier, the exclusivity of the content fell on a rapid declining path. As such the general audience found it less exciting and traffic numbers on this sort of video started falling too, naturally anybody running a business who sees their market declining should be trying to do something about it!
CaptainRAVE said:
Shmee sold out and only shows off the cars that he loans or owns. I initially enjoyed seeing his McLaren, but he rarely if ever pushes it, even just to accelerate upto the speed limit. The cars he owns he now shows off as part of an ongoing ego trip and of course the cars he is loaned he can only praise.
It's a similar catch-22; quite simply if there is ownership involved then there is more global interest in the content. For example if I sit on my sofa and talk about what spec for my AMG GT R or Ford GT, I can guarantee it would get more views than if I did a full technical review of a McLaren F1 or Ferrari 250 GTO and that is just the way of the world now. To use recent examples, on one day I had a day of dreams with an opportunity to drive back-to-back the 288 GTO, F40, F50 and Enzo and that video reached 120k views. Soon after I shot a driving piece in traffic in London in my FF talking about what it costs to own one and that's currently at 370k views. Not only that, because it's of a more wider appeal, the latter is earning at a higher CPM too.I try to align my content to a mix of what interests me, combined with what seems to interest the largest majority of audience - because at the end of the day that is what enables my business to grow; earn money, open more opportunities, and generally be exciting.
With regards to loaner cars, or press cars in general, I try to avoid cars I know I am not going to care for - because my angle is about sharing the excitement and positivity of these opportunities. I'm not Chris Harris or Steve Sutcliffe, and nor am I trying to be. I want to show things in a way that the viewer can decide what it's like and in particular highlight the things that appeal to me. For the cars in my garage, I wouldn't buy something if I thought it was rubbish!
When it comes to driving hard, I am super reluctant to post videos online of me beating the daylights out of a car at speeds vastly in excess of the speed limit. I see tweets from police forces around the country in my direction, I receive e-mails from people to let me know they are watching what I do, why on earth would I put myself in a position of risking trouble! Equally if I have an image of disrespectful driving, poor driving, and generally abusing cars then I will find less opportunities available to me in which to drive them in the first place - it's not in line with the image of brands, or how private owners want their cars treated. The last 12 months alone my LT Coupe went to Spa, my LT Spider to Navarra in Spain, my GT4 at Anglesey, my Focus RS on the Ring, many of the cars have been driven beyond where most owners will take their cars yet for some reason comments like that are always appearing - is it purely because I don't rag it on camera in videos I upload? There are more than enough videos of exotic driving in unusual countries from my fleet, I just don't want to do it on a daily basis in the UK - that isn't me.
As it happens, I have a video later this week of around 20 launch controls in the LT Spider, plus burnout mode demonstration, that was a fun day.
Sorry, I've rambled too much!
Shmee I know it's been mentioned before but more content in cars that are attainable/old/have some character would be great.
You could purchase an older but still reasonably cheap 996 or E46 M3 and go into the ins and outs of ownership. Or even cheaper metal.
Attainable cars are always more interesting to me, and I am sure they are to the majority of folk who aren't filthy rich! It might not be a large financial outlay for a reasonable uptake in traffic to your channel.
You could purchase an older but still reasonably cheap 996 or E46 M3 and go into the ins and outs of ownership. Or even cheaper metal.
Attainable cars are always more interesting to me, and I am sure they are to the majority of folk who aren't filthy rich! It might not be a large financial outlay for a reasonable uptake in traffic to your channel.
daveco said:
Shmee I know it's been mentioned before but more content in cars that are attainable/old/have some character would be great.
You could purchase an older but still reasonably cheap 996 or E46 M3 and go into the ins and outs of ownership. Or even cheaper metal.
Attainable cars are always more interesting to me, and I am sure they are to the majority of folk who aren't filthy rich! It might not be a large financial outlay for a reasonable uptake in traffic to your channel.
I suppose I've gone slightly in that direction this year more than before with my Focus RS and old-style Mini; both of which I very much enjoy for their specific purposes. I am however still living in London (rather foolishly) but very much looking to moving elsewhere and opening up the opportunity for a larger garage.You could purchase an older but still reasonably cheap 996 or E46 M3 and go into the ins and outs of ownership. Or even cheaper metal.
Attainable cars are always more interesting to me, and I am sure they are to the majority of folk who aren't filthy rich! It might not be a large financial outlay for a reasonable uptake in traffic to your channel.
As much as these are of interest to a specific niche, they unfortunately aren't to the larger population on the whole. The flashier and more expensive it is, the more clicks it gets - sadly!
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