Saturday, September 10, 2011

Youtuber featured: Athenewins pt.1, meet Athene

Hey everyone,

Time for another youtube featured post, and because it will be a quite big post I'll have to split into 2 parts. So this time I'm talking about a man who plans to change youtube as it is. Allow me to introduce to you: Athenewins.


Now you might be wondering in what way he wants to change youtube, well he intends to change the principle of a hierarchy. Hierarchy? Yes, there actually is such a thing in youtube, even though it doesn't look like that. As it is now, there are a few big youtube channels which have all the top spots on the front page, high search results and a lot of general advertising. Now why do you think they have all of that, sure because they have good content and lots of followers, but also because they advertise for youtube, and by that they earn money for youtube. This is a real pain in the ass because this keeps the smaller youtubers from ever getting to the top, even if they put a lot of effort into it.


Well, this man is planning to take down this hierarchy so that the smaller youtubers can get the fame they deserve. If you want to know more about this movement you'll have to read part 2 of this post tomorrow, because now I'm going to talk a little bit about the man himself.

Athene is a big youtuber himself, and his fame all started with a video about his skills on the game world of warcraft. He was a top level player, and maybe even the best and because of that he called himself "Athene, best paladin in the world". In the video he also gives tips for other players, but most off the time he's bragging about himself. And still he had something which attracted people, because they kept coming back, even though the video didn't make much sense... See it for yourself:
 

But as I said, people kept coming back for more, and that's what he created... A series of videos about him and his friends, about the life of real pro gamers. Another thing which probably caused his series to go viral were probably the "colorful" characters... A cocky main character who puts everything aside for gaming; a shirtless "boyfriend" who acts like a backstreet criminal ; a guy who looks like he is a asocial rapist (yes, it really looks like that) and others... The series got amazingly popular and that allowed athene to get on with another of his projects: Ipower, which began with the protection of net neutrality and community forming. Here's a quick intro video: 
 
 

After that he got into the poker world, in which he grew pretty quickly, earning a steady amount of cash, he even got sponsored by pokerstars and was allowed to enter a big tournament. At this time he completely dropped world of warcraft though, which caused a little drop of fans, but most of them stayed. He gave tips and strategies about playing poker, and even offered people 1 on 1 help sessions. He put his back into it, but there was also a big message behind this new series. Because in the videos he made, his life got worse and worse when he put more time into poker and got addicted. His girlfriend leaving him, losing connections with friends and families, getting fired from his job. In the end it was revealed that it was all a big "scam" to warn people for the dangers of getting too involved.

So, that's it for today's post, it might look like a sudden stop, but remember, the rest will be posted tomorrow, so I hope I can expect you again then, for the second part of this youtuber featured.
See you then!

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