It finally dawned on me while trying to watch the latest Board Dames Hangout on YouTube what I hate about these “content creators”/YouTubers doing these Hangouts. It’s like watching both sides of a telephone conversation. In fact it’s exactly like that.

You are watching (sometimes live if you are online at the right moment) a phone call. And it’s fecking boring.

“Ah but Darren it’s not like a phone call because we can talk and ask questions in the chat room.” 

True, but it’s you mostly talking amongst yourselves whilst the YouTubers chat inanely about boardgames to each other over their webcams. Sometimes there might be the odd acknowledgement of the chat room, or answering a question. But the majority of the time they are just making insipid statements and agreeing with each other.

Look I love board games, I love talking about them with my friends. But these hangouts are about as interesting as watching paint dry.

I thought my life was mundane and that my opinions were uninformed and inconsequential. But compared to some of these YouTubers I’m leading the life of James Bond and I’m channeling Einstein.

What I don’t get is why people like these things. Are they wannabe NSA?

“They are like live podcasts”

Yeah with crappier production values and no editing. Edit these down and you might get 5 minutes of real content. And that constant flicking on Hangouts between cameras on the faintest of noises. So bloody annoying. Sometimes it gets unwatchable.

“You’re just jealous because you don’t do one/haven’t been invited/ no one reads your blog/insert reason here”

Maybe so. I can’t rule that out if I’m being brutally honest with myself. I can say it’s not. But is it? Or am I just a hateful person who likes to voice that part of his black little heart to the world?

I do lay awake at night wondering how the heck some of these folks have followers. I have theories, and none of them include “they are creating compelling and insightful content”. One or two have the words generic and bland. 

Which brings us back to describing these Google Hangouts. There that’s tied things up nicely. 

What do you think of these Google Hangouts by “popular” boardgaming YouTubers?