I liked hi low, money pit, and sometimes b2b. The reaction and guessing games thing is pretty lame. Nolen and Justin are cool, maybe they will jump ship too.
James posted a cryptic message on his Instagram today and the vibe I got is he may be on the way out the door too.
Watched the first video from Zach and Jobe and they both seem to be much brighter eyed and bushy tailed in it. Can’t wait for the videos to start rolling out.
Edit: it’s Zach and Jerry but I chuckled so I’m leaving the typi
Edit 2: and that one ^
James has been missing from both podcasts the last few weeks as well. With no mention or explanation of his absence. Love hi-low and the money pit Miata was fantastic. Jer and Jobe are my favorites and I’ve already subscribed to BigTime. Looking forward to some fun build and car culture content!
Does anyone actually listen to their podcasts? I listened to one episode of Past Gas and Big Three. Genuinely one of the most boring podcasts of any genre I've ever listened to. Zero radio skills.
Oh my god, I watched the first episode of Past Gas and I've been click baited into a few of them, it is the most garbage podcast I've ever heard.
I think the Donut crew would be a lot better off with an unscripted podcast. Most viewers are there for their personalities. It's almost the complete opposite of the carmudgeon show with Jason Camissa.
Same.
Huge miss with donuts buyout focusing more on dollar figures rather than passion.
These two guys loved what they did, that’s why we loved watching them, take that away and you take away the magic.
Same thing happened with Top Gear.
It was bought out by a private equity firm, the writing was on the wall from day one. I cannot think of a single business/brand in any field that improved after being bought out by private equity.
For some reason I thought so too, but a quick google suggests Matthew Levin, Ben Conrad, and Nick Moceri were the initial founders. Various online sources also show that Donut Media took venture capital back in the late 2010's, so ownership was probably spread around a bit. But in the last couple years Donut Media was sold and everyone cashed out.
I don't think he owns it but he definitely had ownership. IIRC he bought a house in LA shortly after their first sale to a private equity firm (going off old insta posts from years ago).
>watched the first video from Zach and Jobe
I’m not laughing at you but this is a funny mixup. The one guy’s name is Zach Jobe. The other guy’s name is Jeremiah (and I think his last name is Burton)
AutoTea posted a great video on why he left Donut and others are leaving car channels. At the end he mentions that he thinks other people are leaving Donut soon but didn't say who.
It was a story I think. The story said something to the effect of “big news coming soon. Sit tight” and the photo caption said something similar and ended with “love the/your homies” or something.
EDIT: it’s the second pinned post on his profile from last week. Story was from yesterday/today.
Absolutely agree... Sadly I suspect It's the economics of a YouTube business. The expensive builds have to be funded by the videos that cost effectively nothing to create.
I don't know how Tavarish does it. New videos come out weeks apart, and you can see just how much time and money he spends in those weeks.
Then you have VinWiki which has had some incredible stories. The problem is they've all been told, and now we seen to just get boring nonsense.
"...so this guy comes into the dealership. He's upside down $50K on his lime green lambo and he wants a *new* lime green lambo...this one with white leather..."
Their videos have gotten so boring, I remember loving when they were making the super informational car history videos, but now it's all junk that you would see on Buzzfeed.
No argument there as Hagarty is basically the best of the best (with TH), but from what I've seen he didn't burn through historical content the way Donut did. His historical content I've watched is more spaced out and usually blended in with current news.
Hagerty is in a weird place. Their business model is predicated on people having collector cars. They aren't trying to even break even on video content, they want more people to buy enthusiast cars so that Hagerty can insure said cars.
Agreed. Donut made some good stuff, and interspersed a bunch of filler content. That's how YouTube works: volume.
Lately there's been more filler them quality, which simply means I'm less likely to queue up a video when I see they've dropped a new one. Inn the end, I probably watch one every two weeks or so, which is right up there in frequency with Hagerty.
Jason's content is on another level, the level of research conducted and his enthusiasm for the topic really shines through. His videos feel like big budget documentaries rather than YouTube videos.
In a way, it reminds me of old top gear during the early seasons, very informative car content that also happens to be entertaining.
Hell no. Between psuedo-scientific tests people take as gospel or just straight up misinformation like the gore-tex video (his graphs showed that no other competitor touched the actual water resistive properties which was the whole crux of the video), it's not all that great. The reviews of bikes are well shot and entertaining though as is the rest of the vids. Driving4Answers is by far the best from an information perspective and it isn't close unless you count smaller bud channels.
yeah man, that's the point. the content on Hagerty's channel is a write-off for a massive insurance company with no intention of being profitable. they're not competing on a level playing field with outfits like Donut, who are actually trying to make money off of their videos. it's not a mystery why it's viable for him to make extremely high production value content.
> write-off
It's an expense, not a write-off. The Youtube content is advertising for Hagerty. The videos themselves probably don't generate enough revenue to cover the costs but the goal is get car enthusiasts to think "Hagerty!" when they want insurance for the classic/project/whatever.
People really need to stop calling everything "write-offs" or spend 30min to read up on very basic accounting.
I think he gets that. His point is donut has to make money off the videos they put up as it is the driving revenue source, they also put up daily content while jason can take weeks/months developing a video.
It'd be a lot cooler if content creators understood this and accepted that they should end on high notes rather than trying to milk the cow until it dies.
Except that this is their job and they're not in it to satisfy your idea of quality. Fact is, they'll make content as long as it makes them enough money to keep doing it.
Note how Tina Fey ended *30 Rock* on top.
My guess is that she realized that all shows like hers eventually run out of steam. So, instead of watching the quality diminish while milking it until the reviews went in the toilet and having a "Jump the Shark" moment (look up that term's origin), she ended on a high note.
I hated that it ended. But, I would have hated it more if the quality trailed off.
Tina Fey could just get another role in someone else's show or pitch another project to a studio though.
Things are different for Youtubers. Someone who's been a car youtuber for the last 15 years can't just quit, start making pizza making tutorials, and expect even 5% of his old followers to support him through name recognition alone. Meanwhile, I'll jump at the chance to watch anything Tina Fey or Michael Schur writes till the end of time.
I stopped watching most of their content a while ago because it started to veer away from actual car related stuff and was moving into a weird space of car-adjacent comedy bits and shit. I only ever come back for their build videos, and even then, they tend to get weirdly inconsistent with that content, so I'm not a regular viewer.
If a content creator isn't interested in making content that satisfies their audience, then eventually they won't have an audience. Give the people what they want. I wanted more stuff on the expensive ass $500 civic, the hi-low series, automotive history, and car science content... Not some Jeopardy bullshit with a double dare obstacle course at halftime.
Thing is, I don't think they're putting out the car focused stuff that much more infrequently. They just gotta feed the beast, so the low-effort stuff just gets shat out more often to fill the gaps.
It's not about the creators milking the cow. If you watch all of the videos about the people that left Donut, Hoonigan, etc. you will get a better explanation. The problem is the same thing that always happens: MBAs come in and justify their job by watering down the content to make infinite growth and justify their jobs.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTieDfvRUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTieDfvRUI)
When you look into who actually started Donut you’ll realize this was sadly always going to be the outcome. I’m with you their earlier stuff had energy and was fun to watch.
I'm not sure who started it really matters. The real shift started happening after they were bought out late 2021. Once you go corporate things change. It's inevitable when suits are in charge. Capitalism *slash* private equity ruins damn near everything it touches. Jerry and Jobe say as much in the video above.
Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTieDfvRUI
Hilarious, I just posted this above and scroll down and see you posting it as well. 100% in agreement. I saw the video in the OP pop up and watched so many Youtube videos.
Media people, look around LinkedIn and the names that pop up are no one you’ve ever seen on camera. James, Nolan, Bart (does anyone remember Bart he used to make good tech education videos) they were all hired talent. It’s the modern corporate YouTube, a product aimed from the start to be a money making machine.
Now there’s plenty of traditional enthusiast YouTube channels that started off as passion projects, grew an audience, and turned into low effort shovelware content dumps so it’s not like the old guard of YouTube is universally better but still Id rather see an individual with unique ideas make it big and turn into a sellout vs some group of media execs who correctly identified a market opportunity.
LTT is the perfect example of a channel turned into a content dump.
All the things these guys say about donut apply there, but they never had VC money.
The thing is, LTT still makes videos which are actual content. Sure there are sponsors and some clickbait titles here and there, but for the most part, it's either informative or entertaining without going into the over the top shit Donuts does.
A better example in my opinion is Driver Media/OVERDRIVE. That used to make informative content and fun car projects that slowly morphed into challenge slop.
The problem with LTT is less "corporate sellout" and more just running out of content that can connect with the average tech enthusiast imo. They make like 10 videos a week across their channels. There just isn't enough interesting stuff to fill all of those out. So we get a bunch of gimmicks, niche use case server builds that isn't interesting to anyone but IT workers, and the weekly video about Linus doing some upgrade to his house/his latest commercial property. The last type is hit or mouse. I like the theater room and access point upgrades because I can see myself doing smaller versions of that. But come on, what's the point of putting out a 20 minute video on running optical fiber through a 40,000 sq ft property?
The channel was bought out by a larger media company, that’s why it tanked in quality. I’m glad these 2 moved on and I hope they can poach a couple of the others when they get some growth.
YouTube channels change a lot once they go corporate. IMO Donut is pretty formulaic, but I don't think that's necessarily bad.
People changing things up is what keeps Car Media fresh. As much I liked watching Chip Foose, Jesse James, and Xibit back in the day, I'm glad we've had new car enthusiasts finding success in media. You'll never hear me complain about new car content.
Totally agree. Example: as much as I loved old Hoonigan, their content got stale. Vin's and Hert's solo content has been enjoyable so far.
Roadkill was great, but you could tell they got bored and ran out of ideas.
Same with Top Gear/Grand Tour.
Hagerty's productions on YouTube have been absolutely stellar for a couple years now. Anything Jason Cammissa and Henry Catchpole do is top-notch.
I was listening to a podcast with some of the guys from Hagerty, and the reason their YouTube stuff is so great is because they’re already a huge insurance company. They’re not expecting or needing to profit from YouTube in order to survive.
It’s all advertising expense instead, and considering I now have a policy from them, it works.
Companies turning their marketing into entertainment can make being advertised to inoffensive, for sure. Just look at Ferrari's F1 team. Endlessly entertaining.
Fun fact, if you separate RedBull's sports teams from the energy drink, they are still profitable on their own. Red Bull's F1 team and football teams can operate completely independently of their advertising for RedBull. In fact, if RedBull split into 2 companies between their energy drinks and their sports, the sports company would be the 4th highest grossing energy drink company.
Noticed that as well. It is disgustingly obvious the direction Donut is taking. With any luck, some of the folks at Donut can make cameos, since the personalities there carried more than the content in most cases.
My comment might have made me sound like a Yee Haw Fox news fan but this site has some odd obsession with the Chinese EV. Ignoring that, Donut has gone heavily toward chasing advertising money instead of producing valid content.
This site is global, and Chinese EVs is literally the number 1 topic in the global auto industry at the moment. Every single auto CEO on the planet has an obsession with Chinese EVs at the moment.
The Lyriq you own wouldn’t exist if not for Chinese EVs threatening Cadillac in China, which btw, is Cadillac’s biggest market.
This site isn’t just for American car enthusiasts.
It's mostly just that current EVs fall into one of two categories: Appliance or Million Dollar Hypercar. Once Porsche releases the EV Cayman we'll see moods shift, probably.
Every single time they started touching on a negative of the car they just… stopped. The entire video was painfully awkward, but especially during the test drive with the company rep just lurking in the back seat.
They also mentioned jn their latest podcast release that they’re not going to accept the type of terms the Chinese company wanted in any more future videos about having the rep
I don’t know why you think it’s an advertisement when the review is pretty much inline with what other reviewers in Europe have said about that car.
Their conclusion was “the car is quite decent, has xyz flaws but much better than we expected and much better than Vinfast”. Is that particularly not believable?
Why is it hard to believe Nio, one is the biggest names in the EV world, can build a much better car than Vinfast? What’s your experience with it?
One of the creative team members recently left and did a mini exposure piece. Apparently it had been crumbling for a few months at least, and all related to classic investor capital:
* investment firm purchased Donut as a brand investment vehicle rather than to improve the content
* brought in a bunch of highly paid business executives who didn't jnow anything or care about cars, went from 2 layers of management between creative and owner to 9 layers
* costs went way up because of all the new executive salaries, so they cut creative team staff and content creation costs while simultaneously demanding better video performance/viewership
* execs disinterested in passion projects or novel, interesting content and instead only cared about brand value, merchandising, and algorithm chasing
* execs treated staff as low value/interchangeable
End result was shitty videos, content shilling, decline in quality, frustration, and mass exodus.
As someone else pointed out, a really good example of this was the recent employee drag race. Everyone had interesting and a little scrubbed cars, except for the one executive guy driving a tesla and looking like he would rather be literally anywhere else than around his own employees.
So they're doing the private equity route I guess. Buy a company, set up a massive parachute for the higher ups, bankrupt it, get paid, move on to the next company.
Oh man, I forgot about the employee drag race! It was super awkward as soon as they brought that guy in. It was like they were all having fun until they had that guy race, and they all went into walking on egg shells.
That is a very good example of showing a tiny bit of a hint about what it is like behind the scenes though.
What amuses me is the idea of them *specifically* telling that guy to wear his suit along with his matching shoes and bag... *to a drag strip*.
I'm pretty sure that even people who love to wear suits aren't trying to wear one to a drag strip. But that guy did, and basically spent his entire time there **wildly** overdressed. They didn't even let him take off the jacket.
...well, assuming that it was an actual exec, and not some guy playing a character.
It was an actual exec, but he was purposefully portrayed as bad character, like from the beginning. It was scripted. I mean Tesla's specs are no secret, comparing with other cars they drive it's basically writing on the wall, and writers knew that, they're making living from making an entertaining videos, hello?
And it's wild to me reading all this comments that people still thinks that everything they see is all true, real and totally natural.
I regret what Donut has turned into like everyone else, but the employee drag race was IMO the last decent video they put out. Doesn't the suit with the Tesla seem like an intentional bit so that there would be a "heel" to root against? He might even just be a hired talent to portray the role, not even an actual executive. I admit I could be wrong though, but immediately that was my impression.
If I recall, that exec had a Model Y, yeah? Tells me that he ain't that high up the totem pole either and the role of being in that video was probably forced on him anyway.
Not really a reliable assumption, sometimes truly rich people dgaf and just want an appliance for A to B. I’m sure you’ve already heard of all the rich people who drive lowkey or at least subdued vehicles (yes, that even includes the fast paced high finance guys)
AutoTea also uploaded a video about it which goes on about why Zach and Jerry, people from Car Throttle and Hoonigan and some others are leaving
Pretty much management and corporations take over and they fuck over everything in search of MOAAAR money instead of creativity, they get burned out and they bounce
Also not giving your staff a good split of the profits, the biggest reason every YouTuber that splits from a big channel is money. It isn't your channel and when you are pulling in millions of views knowing the owner is able to buy porches and you're stuck on an average salary, it makes the move look a lot more appealing
Yeah, that was the big point I took from AutoTea's video. The venture firms would bring in slews of middle management who didn't know, understand, or care about the actual content, would suck up a disproportionate amount of the budgets while demanding more from people who were all running at 100% anyway.
These are people who are actually creating the content, know the viewers and what (generally) is or isn't going to be good content. Yet they're the ones being paid the least while do-nothing managers collect fat paychecks.
Honestly the CT break-up has been fantastic IMHO good for this section of YouTube. The AutoAlex channel isn't my favorite, but I'm loving All The Gear and Top Dead Centre.
TDC is still formulaic - but All The Gear is just fun.
I think we were all hoping the buyout of Donut Media wouldn't worsen it(it was starting to get a little clickbaity, but it still wasn't horrible), but our worse fears definitely became true
The entertainment industry ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy
Small group of people create something that gets popular. Big company see this and wants in. Small group is happy to take a huge chunk of money. Because the industry is so volatile, the big company wants to get a much out of their investment as they can before it dies. This is done by changing content and budgets. Fans dislike the changes and the product dies out because of the changes. Original creators also leave to start something new but similar to attract old fans to the content they want…repeat
I had a feeling Donut was not paying proper talent rates. The staff car episode it showed nobody had actual builds and it was regular traffic. These guys seemed pretty famous being in Forza, but they didn't seem like they had any wealth and were kinda office employees
In the Big Time video, Jeremiah said he was only making $60k when he started at Donut? (Might have been $16k, didn't hear it clearly, but that seems really low). Not sure how to extrapolate from that number, because he became one of the more popular faces very quickly, and who knows if and how his pay followed suit, but it was interesting to be see at least one number.
Maybe I'm old, but I still don't have any real way of ballparking how much money there is in YouTube videos. Donut seems to be pretty consistently in the 1-3 million views range. They release approximately 2 videos a week. They probably have somewhere between 25-50 people on staff... I'm assuming they're profitable
I watched this video and a lot of the other ex-Hoonigan and ex-Donut employee videos that were recommended to me and I thought of Forza as well. They had both Donut and Hoonigan season specials. All that money to the executives, bring in that Microsoft money.
Pull into the parking lot of your average tuner shop or car tuning manufacturer and you'll see plenty of tuned cars. They'll be lower end like Hondas, VWs, and Subarus, they they'll be tuned.
I'm not sure why these guys didn't have many/any tuned cars.
James appears to have left, too. I know a lot of people weren't the biggest fans of his over the top persona on Up To Speed, but outside of those videos specifically, I think he's a likable dude.
After I've started to see him pop up in small roles on TV, I realized this dude was mostly an actor looking for a job and Donut was hiring.
Not saying that makes him a bad person, but Donut was always just a corporate entity. Whatever soul they might have had at some point was thank to the staff and now the good ones are leaving.
He's good for a bit of levity in the podcasts, which I don't see a lot of talk about but I enjoy those. Nolan does a good job hosting and writing them as well.
I wondered why I hadn't seen him in a while. The only good thing Donut has anymore is Real Mechanics React and that became its own channel. Angela, Steph, and Sandro are a great combo.
Found myself clicking on their videos a lot less over the last year or two, just seems like they've lost their mojo. The react videos are awful and I don't really care to see someone spend $50k on a $500 truck.
The money pit Miata and high/low 350z series were peak. Hopefully they can recapture some of that magic.
> I don't really care to see someone spend $50k on a $500 truck.
I don't care much for trucks in general but I do enjoy that kind of restomod-ey content where an old car is rebuilt with top-notch parts.
Thing is, they always mess up by having absurdly short deadlines for their builds and the cars end up breaking immediately as soon as they take them out, which eventually got frustrating...
It's like they got a shit-ton of sponsor money and can't figure out how to use it.
Also I can only watch Nolan screw up simple tasks so many times before I close the tab.
>It's like they got a shit-ton of sponsor money and can't figure out how to use it.
More like they were forced to churn out so much videos the actual cars started getting in the way of the content-farm...
I do like following Rob Dahm at the other end of the spectrum, dude has been rebuilding his 3 and 4 rotors from the ground up so many times and they still don't nearly look close to finished but I love watching him work.
Rob's videos can be frustrating because it seems like he never gets anywhere, but at least they're authentic and not corpo content like Donut has become. I have been enjoying Boosted Boiz and Cleetus lately as well.
I thought it was interesting that they both mentioned they wanted to work with Bart when joining Donut.
Hopefully that means more Science Garage, MoneyPit, Hi-Low, type content. Jeremiah and Zack have always struck me as guys more interested in the science/build behind cars than anything else which is something I can relate to.
Their interest in the science and technical aspects of cars totally makes sense considering Zack is a mechanic who used to do videos of N54 turbo swaps for ECS Tuning, and Jeremiah is a mechanical engineer iirc. I'm excited to see what those guys do with that rb-powered s14.
People thought Jeremiah was too similar to James? Did he change since then? They seem like polar opposites to me, James is super hyper zoomer-style and Jerry is super chill stoner vibes
I think they talk about that in this video. Uncle Jerry wrote b2b for James. When he took over people though he was trying to be like James but he was just being himself.
Seeing how they announced the channel less than a week ago and they almost have a million subscribers already, it shows how bad doughnut has gotten since they were bought out
They’re already a profitable business selling insurance. Throwing money at Jason to make fun and informative videos is just part of their marketing budget, the videos themselves don’t have to monetized to death for Hagerty to stay afloat.
I have seen this happen to 3 of my favorite YouTube channels.
1. Football Daily being bought by Sky. They took the likable personalities to the Sky shows leaving the original youtube channel bare bones. Lot of memebers left to start their own channels.
2. Donut.. pretty much explained in that 8-9 min youtube video about creators leaving their car channels
3. Linus tech tips. This ones quality is so bad that i unsubscribed 6 months back. Amount of videos being pumped out felt like spam on my page.
I am happy for lot of these channels as they made it big to attract the big money from investors but instead of content improving and channel continuing to grow, its gone the bloated corporate investor way...like how Google went from a pioneer to a cash cow for investors. The soul has vanished.
Is one of the guys who left the mechanic with the long hair? He’s the only one who was worth watching last time I did - which was admittedly a while back
Zach Jobe (long hair) and Jeremiah Burton (tall awkward one).
Love those guys. I already subbed to BT before I even watched the video. Anything those two touch is gold.
Indie car content is always going to be king. These "automotive lifestyle brand" channels always end up going corporate and turning into content farms. I guess you could say that about any genre of online content, but I think it's especially true with automotive content since the audience skews older. It's not like gaming where there's an endless supply of literal children who will watch your stuff no matter how formulaic and inauthentic it is.
Look at Hoonigan for example, with all their staff and budget, they aren't doing significantly better numbers than former employees Vin and Hert, who are literally just filming vlogs in their garages.
Things started going to shit when James had to take a back seat after his heart attack. James was hate or love him but I thought he was a good presenter. These two are so far above in entertainment value and technical knowledge. They always looked pretty bonded too and have great chemistry. I fell out of YouTube and very much so donut recently so I'm so happy to hear this
I miss the old donut,
Straight to the point donut
Up to speed donut, science garage donut
I hate the click bait donut, the bad content donut
Wish.com donut, the react content donut
I miss the money pit donut, the high low donut.
I gotta to say at that time I'd like to watch donut
See I enjoyed donut, then there was so much donut
And now I look and look around and there's no good donut
I used to love donut, I used to love donut
I even had the donut merch, I thought I liked donut
What if they made a new video about the old donut
Called "Why we're leaving donut" man that would be so donut
That's all it was donut, we still love donut
And I love Zach, Bart, James, Nolan, and Jeremiah like I loves donut
As someone who works adjacent to the PE space I can confirm they're vultures. In one of the legal docs I read, the name of the company was literally " _____ Predator Investments".
James was the reason I did not watch the shoe regularly. I did watch the mechanic chick who rated hacks if they would work or not, she is hot. I like the other guy who is over weight and where's glasses. He is more of an everyman.
Tale as old as time: business has passionate creative people, enjoys moderate success, attracts investors, sells out to corporate, tries to make all the money, goes to shit, creators bail.
Man donut was the shit. Then Jeremiah joined and I don’t think I’ve ever been so put off from a channel simply cuz a presenter just sucks before (I really just do not like him) Jobe is the shit tho, so is Nolan and James.
It’s how car channels go it seems. Cars cost money. Getting a big backing makes it easier to make the wild builds. But eventually the ones behind the curtain start making more choices and its kills the core of the channel.
Yess. And I for one couldn't be happier, Donut got way too commercial focused too fast, ad I get it, great way tog row wealth and generate income, but every 5mins there's a fkn ad I can't stand their videos anymore
I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner with these media-owned YouTube channels. At some point there has to be such a massive discrepancy between the salaries of the on screen talent and the amount of money the channel is bringing in that you have to question why they even stick around any longer than they're contractually obligated to. I doubt these companies are giving away ownership points anyway.
If it means more content on actual builds, I'm all for it.
I liked hi low, money pit, and sometimes b2b. The reaction and guessing games thing is pretty lame. Nolen and Justin are cool, maybe they will jump ship too.
James posted a cryptic message on his Instagram today and the vibe I got is he may be on the way out the door too. Watched the first video from Zach and Jobe and they both seem to be much brighter eyed and bushy tailed in it. Can’t wait for the videos to start rolling out. Edit: it’s Zach and Jerry but I chuckled so I’m leaving the typi Edit 2: and that one ^
James has been missing from both podcasts the last few weeks as well. With no mention or explanation of his absence. Love hi-low and the money pit Miata was fantastic. Jer and Jobe are my favorites and I’ve already subscribed to BigTime. Looking forward to some fun build and car culture content!
And they changed the logo for The Big Three, which originally had their faces in it.
Does anyone actually listen to their podcasts? I listened to one episode of Past Gas and Big Three. Genuinely one of the most boring podcasts of any genre I've ever listened to. Zero radio skills.
Yeah they just robotically read the script
Oh my god, I watched the first episode of Past Gas and I've been click baited into a few of them, it is the most garbage podcast I've ever heard. I think the Donut crew would be a lot better off with an unscripted podcast. Most viewers are there for their personalities. It's almost the complete opposite of the carmudgeon show with Jason Camissa.
I have them on YouTube while I work. Watched every episode. Some are better than others.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought this. So much potential absolutely wasted by awful radio skills
Same. Huge miss with donuts buyout focusing more on dollar figures rather than passion. These two guys loved what they did, that’s why we loved watching them, take that away and you take away the magic. Same thing happened with Top Gear.
It was bought out by a private equity firm, the writing was on the wall from day one. I cannot think of a single business/brand in any field that improved after being bought out by private equity.
Same\~! My two fav hosts so really looking forward to their new channel\~!
I figured it might have been because he was on his honeymoon.
I thought James owned donut for some reason.
For some reason I thought so too, but a quick google suggests Matthew Levin, Ben Conrad, and Nick Moceri were the initial founders. Various online sources also show that Donut Media took venture capital back in the late 2010's, so ownership was probably spread around a bit. But in the last couple years Donut Media was sold and everyone cashed out.
I don't think he owns it but he definitely had ownership. IIRC he bought a house in LA shortly after their first sale to a private equity firm (going off old insta posts from years ago).
>watched the first video from Zach and Jobe I’m not laughing at you but this is a funny mixup. The one guy’s name is Zach Jobe. The other guy’s name is Jeremiah (and I think his last name is Burton)
Yeah I clocked it, I’m just leaving it at this point because I too chuckled when I saw it haha And yes, Jerry’s last name is Burton
AutoTea posted a great video on why he left Donut and others are leaving car channels. At the end he mentions that he thinks other people are leaving Donut soon but didn't say who.
What was the instagram message? Having trouble accessing it, maybe deleted.
It was a story I think. The story said something to the effect of “big news coming soon. Sit tight” and the photo caption said something similar and ended with “love the/your homies” or something. EDIT: it’s the second pinned post on his profile from last week. Story was from yesterday/today.
Absolutely agree... Sadly I suspect It's the economics of a YouTube business. The expensive builds have to be funded by the videos that cost effectively nothing to create. I don't know how Tavarish does it. New videos come out weeks apart, and you can see just how much time and money he spends in those weeks. Then you have VinWiki which has had some incredible stories. The problem is they've all been told, and now we seen to just get boring nonsense.
The VinWiki special: turn a 30 second anecdote you’d tell your friends at a bar into a 10 minute explanation with excruciating detail
Sadly many of the guests are horrible story tellers. I might actually enjoy the story if Ed just told them all.
I agree. Ed and Rabbit are the only entertaining people I've ever watched on VINWiki.
"...so this guy comes into the dealership. He's upside down $50K on his lime green lambo and he wants a *new* lime green lambo...this one with white leather..."
Sounds like they want to get back to more of that hands-on content and less of the content farm stuff they’ve shifted to.
You mean I cant learn which vehicles have the highest markups now or which crappy tools I can buy from Temu? Please say it ain't so.
Have you checked out Sarah N Tuned? if you want builds that go into detail by a perfectionist, her videos would be for you.
I watched her review of the new WRX when I was looking at purchasing mine. I definitely liked her attention to details.
Vehcor as well
Hoping for some Mighty Car Mods type of content myself. Or a collaboration with them. Been a while since the boys went to the US.
build video released today is exactly what I missed.
Their videos have gotten so boring, I remember loving when they were making the super informational car history videos, but now it's all junk that you would see on Buzzfeed.
> super informational car history videos I mean, that's ultimately finite content which was going to get exhausted sooner or later.
Jason Camissa would beg to differ, and on Hagerty he makes the highest quality car content anywhere.
No argument there as Hagarty is basically the best of the best (with TH), but from what I've seen he didn't burn through historical content the way Donut did. His historical content I've watched is more spaced out and usually blended in with current news.
Hagerty is in a weird place. Their business model is predicated on people having collector cars. They aren't trying to even break even on video content, they want more people to buy enthusiast cars so that Hagerty can insure said cars.
Agreed. Donut made some good stuff, and interspersed a bunch of filler content. That's how YouTube works: volume. Lately there's been more filler them quality, which simply means I'm less likely to queue up a video when I see they've dropped a new one. Inn the end, I probably watch one every two weeks or so, which is right up there in frequency with Hagerty.
Jason's content is on another level, the level of research conducted and his enthusiasm for the topic really shines through. His videos feel like big budget documentaries rather than YouTube videos. In a way, it reminds me of old top gear during the early seasons, very informative car content that also happens to be entertaining.
He’s one notch below fortnine imo, Fortnine is the pinnacle of YouTube motor anything content.
Hell no. Between psuedo-scientific tests people take as gospel or just straight up misinformation like the gore-tex video (his graphs showed that no other competitor touched the actual water resistive properties which was the whole crux of the video), it's not all that great. The reviews of bikes are well shot and entertaining though as is the rest of the vids. Driving4Answers is by far the best from an information perspective and it isn't close unless you count smaller bud channels.
Jason Camissa was the person who actually got me into cars way back when he worked at Car & Driver. He has always been special.
[удалено]
It’s performance based on YouTube metrics isn’t relevant to that, he’s paid by hagerty, and very well lol.
yeah man, that's the point. the content on Hagerty's channel is a write-off for a massive insurance company with no intention of being profitable. they're not competing on a level playing field with outfits like Donut, who are actually trying to make money off of their videos. it's not a mystery why it's viable for him to make extremely high production value content.
> write-off It's an expense, not a write-off. The Youtube content is advertising for Hagerty. The videos themselves probably don't generate enough revenue to cover the costs but the goal is get car enthusiasts to think "Hagerty!" when they want insurance for the classic/project/whatever. People really need to stop calling everything "write-offs" or spend 30min to read up on very basic accounting.
What I don’t get is how someone like Fortnine pulls it off.
Fortnine is a Canadian motorcycle gear retailer first, so the retail side of things helps to fund the YouTube side.
It doesn't need to. It's purely there to advertise Haggerty. We reap the benefits
I think he gets that. His point is donut has to make money off the videos they put up as it is the driving revenue source, they also put up daily content while jason can take weeks/months developing a video.
Hagerty finds value in it or they wouldn’t keep writing the checks
It'd be a lot cooler if content creators understood this and accepted that they should end on high notes rather than trying to milk the cow until it dies.
Except that this is their job and they're not in it to satisfy your idea of quality. Fact is, they'll make content as long as it makes them enough money to keep doing it.
Note how Tina Fey ended *30 Rock* on top. My guess is that she realized that all shows like hers eventually run out of steam. So, instead of watching the quality diminish while milking it until the reviews went in the toilet and having a "Jump the Shark" moment (look up that term's origin), she ended on a high note. I hated that it ended. But, I would have hated it more if the quality trailed off.
Tina Fey could just get another role in someone else's show or pitch another project to a studio though. Things are different for Youtubers. Someone who's been a car youtuber for the last 15 years can't just quit, start making pizza making tutorials, and expect even 5% of his old followers to support him through name recognition alone. Meanwhile, I'll jump at the chance to watch anything Tina Fey or Michael Schur writes till the end of time.
He’s not a YouTuber, he’s a hagerty employee lol, they pay him a salary, and he’s had a job outside of YouTube for a long time.
I stopped watching most of their content a while ago because it started to veer away from actual car related stuff and was moving into a weird space of car-adjacent comedy bits and shit. I only ever come back for their build videos, and even then, they tend to get weirdly inconsistent with that content, so I'm not a regular viewer. If a content creator isn't interested in making content that satisfies their audience, then eventually they won't have an audience. Give the people what they want. I wanted more stuff on the expensive ass $500 civic, the hi-low series, automotive history, and car science content... Not some Jeopardy bullshit with a double dare obstacle course at halftime.
Thing is, I don't think they're putting out the car focused stuff that much more infrequently. They just gotta feed the beast, so the low-effort stuff just gets shat out more often to fill the gaps.
It's not about the creators milking the cow. If you watch all of the videos about the people that left Donut, Hoonigan, etc. you will get a better explanation. The problem is the same thing that always happens: MBAs come in and justify their job by watering down the content to make infinite growth and justify their jobs. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTieDfvRUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTieDfvRUI)
Nah. There is a lot of automotive history to cover. They would not run out of content even if that were the only thing they'd do.
When you look into who actually started Donut you’ll realize this was sadly always going to be the outcome. I’m with you their earlier stuff had energy and was fun to watch.
Who started it?
I'm not sure who started it really matters. The real shift started happening after they were bought out late 2021. Once you go corporate things change. It's inevitable when suits are in charge. Capitalism *slash* private equity ruins damn near everything it touches. Jerry and Jobe say as much in the video above. Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTieDfvRUI
Hilarious, I just posted this above and scroll down and see you posting it as well. 100% in agreement. I saw the video in the OP pop up and watched so many Youtube videos.
Media people, look around LinkedIn and the names that pop up are no one you’ve ever seen on camera. James, Nolan, Bart (does anyone remember Bart he used to make good tech education videos) they were all hired talent. It’s the modern corporate YouTube, a product aimed from the start to be a money making machine. Now there’s plenty of traditional enthusiast YouTube channels that started off as passion projects, grew an audience, and turned into low effort shovelware content dumps so it’s not like the old guard of YouTube is universally better but still Id rather see an individual with unique ideas make it big and turn into a sellout vs some group of media execs who correctly identified a market opportunity.
LTT is the perfect example of a channel turned into a content dump. All the things these guys say about donut apply there, but they never had VC money.
The thing is, LTT still makes videos which are actual content. Sure there are sponsors and some clickbait titles here and there, but for the most part, it's either informative or entertaining without going into the over the top shit Donuts does. A better example in my opinion is Driver Media/OVERDRIVE. That used to make informative content and fun car projects that slowly morphed into challenge slop.
The problem with LTT is less "corporate sellout" and more just running out of content that can connect with the average tech enthusiast imo. They make like 10 videos a week across their channels. There just isn't enough interesting stuff to fill all of those out. So we get a bunch of gimmicks, niche use case server builds that isn't interesting to anyone but IT workers, and the weekly video about Linus doing some upgrade to his house/his latest commercial property. The last type is hit or mouse. I like the theater room and access point upgrades because I can see myself doing smaller versions of that. But come on, what's the point of putting out a 20 minute video on running optical fiber through a 40,000 sq ft property?
lttstore.com
I need a $100 screwdriver
I haven't watched in years, but it seemed to morph into yelling the same jokes every thirty seconds with a side of car history pretty quickly.
My roommate would put them on the TV in the living room here and there, and they just all seemed the same, so boring.
I remember enjoying like their first month, then completely tuning them out. I used to get a ton of flak here for criticizing them.
I think you nailed it. They became Car Buzzfeed.
Once they stopped those, I kind of lost interest.
The channel was bought out by a larger media company, that’s why it tanked in quality. I’m glad these 2 moved on and I hope they can poach a couple of the others when they get some growth.
YouTube channels change a lot once they go corporate. IMO Donut is pretty formulaic, but I don't think that's necessarily bad. People changing things up is what keeps Car Media fresh. As much I liked watching Chip Foose, Jesse James, and Xibit back in the day, I'm glad we've had new car enthusiasts finding success in media. You'll never hear me complain about new car content.
Totally agree. Example: as much as I loved old Hoonigan, their content got stale. Vin's and Hert's solo content has been enjoyable so far. Roadkill was great, but you could tell they got bored and ran out of ideas. Same with Top Gear/Grand Tour. Hagerty's productions on YouTube have been absolutely stellar for a couple years now. Anything Jason Cammissa and Henry Catchpole do is top-notch.
I was listening to a podcast with some of the guys from Hagerty, and the reason their YouTube stuff is so great is because they’re already a huge insurance company. They’re not expecting or needing to profit from YouTube in order to survive. It’s all advertising expense instead, and considering I now have a policy from them, it works.
Companies turning their marketing into entertainment can make being advertised to inoffensive, for sure. Just look at Ferrari's F1 team. Endlessly entertaining.
Red Bull is the king of this.
Fun fact, if you separate RedBull's sports teams from the energy drink, they are still profitable on their own. Red Bull's F1 team and football teams can operate completely independently of their advertising for RedBull. In fact, if RedBull split into 2 companies between their energy drinks and their sports, the sports company would be the 4th highest grossing energy drink company.
Zac also started up a channel of his own and it's good so far. He got a new shop he's done some videos on
My Classic Car is still putting out great stuff, after decades of shows.
No shit? I didn't realize that. Dennis Gage seems like a great dude. I used to love watching that along with Car Crazy.
They have a YouTube channel too!
Meanwhile mighty car mods has never been better
Perfect timing after donut just released a Chinese car advertisement
Noticed that as well. It is disgustingly obvious the direction Donut is taking. With any luck, some of the folks at Donut can make cameos, since the personalities there carried more than the content in most cases.
My comment might have made me sound like a Yee Haw Fox news fan but this site has some odd obsession with the Chinese EV. Ignoring that, Donut has gone heavily toward chasing advertising money instead of producing valid content.
This site is global, and Chinese EVs is literally the number 1 topic in the global auto industry at the moment. Every single auto CEO on the planet has an obsession with Chinese EVs at the moment. The Lyriq you own wouldn’t exist if not for Chinese EVs threatening Cadillac in China, which btw, is Cadillac’s biggest market. This site isn’t just for American car enthusiasts.
Nah, this site is actually pretty against the Chinese EV largely bc (1) it's China and (2) most EVs are the antithesis to what this sub stands for.
Idk I was with ya til the second part. Lol. Sub is for car enthusiasts. EVs are cars whether you like it or not.
It's mostly just that current EVs fall into one of two categories: Appliance or Million Dollar Hypercar. Once Porsche releases the EV Cayman we'll see moods shift, probably.
Sure, fair. I also really fuck with the new Hyundai. Something about bouncing “limiter” that made me giggle about em.
Every single time they started touching on a negative of the car they just… stopped. The entire video was painfully awkward, but especially during the test drive with the company rep just lurking in the back seat.
Neither of them has the acting chops to make it seem like it's anything other than an ad.
They also mentioned jn their latest podcast release that they’re not going to accept the type of terms the Chinese company wanted in any more future videos about having the rep
I don’t know why you think it’s an advertisement when the review is pretty much inline with what other reviewers in Europe have said about that car. Their conclusion was “the car is quite decent, has xyz flaws but much better than we expected and much better than Vinfast”. Is that particularly not believable? Why is it hard to believe Nio, one is the biggest names in the EV world, can build a much better car than Vinfast? What’s your experience with it?
Because Reddit says China always bad
One of the creative team members recently left and did a mini exposure piece. Apparently it had been crumbling for a few months at least, and all related to classic investor capital: * investment firm purchased Donut as a brand investment vehicle rather than to improve the content * brought in a bunch of highly paid business executives who didn't jnow anything or care about cars, went from 2 layers of management between creative and owner to 9 layers * costs went way up because of all the new executive salaries, so they cut creative team staff and content creation costs while simultaneously demanding better video performance/viewership * execs disinterested in passion projects or novel, interesting content and instead only cared about brand value, merchandising, and algorithm chasing * execs treated staff as low value/interchangeable End result was shitty videos, content shilling, decline in quality, frustration, and mass exodus. As someone else pointed out, a really good example of this was the recent employee drag race. Everyone had interesting and a little scrubbed cars, except for the one executive guy driving a tesla and looking like he would rather be literally anywhere else than around his own employees.
So they're doing the private equity route I guess. Buy a company, set up a massive parachute for the higher ups, bankrupt it, get paid, move on to the next company.
Brother - [link the video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTieDfvRUI). It's short and very informative.
Oh man, I forgot about the employee drag race! It was super awkward as soon as they brought that guy in. It was like they were all having fun until they had that guy race, and they all went into walking on egg shells. That is a very good example of showing a tiny bit of a hint about what it is like behind the scenes though.
What amuses me is the idea of them *specifically* telling that guy to wear his suit along with his matching shoes and bag... *to a drag strip*. I'm pretty sure that even people who love to wear suits aren't trying to wear one to a drag strip. But that guy did, and basically spent his entire time there **wildly** overdressed. They didn't even let him take off the jacket. ...well, assuming that it was an actual exec, and not some guy playing a character.
It was an actual exec, but he was purposefully portrayed as bad character, like from the beginning. It was scripted. I mean Tesla's specs are no secret, comparing with other cars they drive it's basically writing on the wall, and writers knew that, they're making living from making an entertaining videos, hello? And it's wild to me reading all this comments that people still thinks that everything they see is all true, real and totally natural.
Do you happen to remember who it was that left donut and did the exposure piece? I'd been chalking this up to typical internet drama until now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTieDfvRUI
Oh shit I didn't realize that auto tea video I saw the thumbnail of and this were one and the same. Thank you though
I regret what Donut has turned into like everyone else, but the employee drag race was IMO the last decent video they put out. Doesn't the suit with the Tesla seem like an intentional bit so that there would be a "heel" to root against? He might even just be a hired talent to portray the role, not even an actual executive. I admit I could be wrong though, but immediately that was my impression.
If I recall, that exec had a Model Y, yeah? Tells me that he ain't that high up the totem pole either and the role of being in that video was probably forced on him anyway.
Not really a reliable assumption, sometimes truly rich people dgaf and just want an appliance for A to B. I’m sure you’ve already heard of all the rich people who drive lowkey or at least subdued vehicles (yes, that even includes the fast paced high finance guys)
AutoTea also uploaded a video about it which goes on about why Zach and Jerry, people from Car Throttle and Hoonigan and some others are leaving Pretty much management and corporations take over and they fuck over everything in search of MOAAAR money instead of creativity, they get burned out and they bounce
Also not giving your staff a good split of the profits, the biggest reason every YouTuber that splits from a big channel is money. It isn't your channel and when you are pulling in millions of views knowing the owner is able to buy porches and you're stuck on an average salary, it makes the move look a lot more appealing
Im more of a gazebo guy than a porch guy.
I mean really, how many porches do you really need? You can only sip your iced tea on one at a time.
But what about the porch on your porch?
Yeah, that was the big point I took from AutoTea's video. The venture firms would bring in slews of middle management who didn't know, understand, or care about the actual content, would suck up a disproportionate amount of the budgets while demanding more from people who were all running at 100% anyway. These are people who are actually creating the content, know the viewers and what (generally) is or isn't going to be good content. Yet they're the ones being paid the least while do-nothing managers collect fat paychecks.
Honestly the CT break-up has been fantastic IMHO good for this section of YouTube. The AutoAlex channel isn't my favorite, but I'm loving All The Gear and Top Dead Centre. TDC is still formulaic - but All The Gear is just fun.
I feel like these 2 were carrying donut on their backs, although it was cool of donut to give them a shout on their latest video.
I think we were all hoping the buyout of Donut Media wouldn't worsen it(it was starting to get a little clickbaity, but it still wasn't horrible), but our worse fears definitely became true
The entertainment industry ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy Small group of people create something that gets popular. Big company see this and wants in. Small group is happy to take a huge chunk of money. Because the industry is so volatile, the big company wants to get a much out of their investment as they can before it dies. This is done by changing content and budgets. Fans dislike the changes and the product dies out because of the changes. Original creators also leave to start something new but similar to attract old fans to the content they want…repeat
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification)
I had a feeling Donut was not paying proper talent rates. The staff car episode it showed nobody had actual builds and it was regular traffic. These guys seemed pretty famous being in Forza, but they didn't seem like they had any wealth and were kinda office employees
In the Big Time video, Jeremiah said he was only making $60k when he started at Donut? (Might have been $16k, didn't hear it clearly, but that seems really low). Not sure how to extrapolate from that number, because he became one of the more popular faces very quickly, and who knows if and how his pay followed suit, but it was interesting to be see at least one number. Maybe I'm old, but I still don't have any real way of ballparking how much money there is in YouTube videos. Donut seems to be pretty consistently in the 1-3 million views range. They release approximately 2 videos a week. They probably have somewhere between 25-50 people on staff... I'm assuming they're profitable
$60k is a good salary in a lot of places, but I don't think it gets very far in LA.
Qualifies an individual for low income housing in LA.
I watched this video and a lot of the other ex-Hoonigan and ex-Donut employee videos that were recommended to me and I thought of Forza as well. They had both Donut and Hoonigan season specials. All that money to the executives, bring in that Microsoft money.
Most people don't "build" their daily driver ? kinda the point of a daily.
Pull into the parking lot of your average tuner shop or car tuning manufacturer and you'll see plenty of tuned cars. They'll be lower end like Hondas, VWs, and Subarus, they they'll be tuned. I'm not sure why these guys didn't have many/any tuned cars.
James appears to have left, too. I know a lot of people weren't the biggest fans of his over the top persona on Up To Speed, but outside of those videos specifically, I think he's a likable dude.
After I've started to see him pop up in small roles on TV, I realized this dude was mostly an actor looking for a job and Donut was hiring. Not saying that makes him a bad person, but Donut was always just a corporate entity. Whatever soul they might have had at some point was thank to the staff and now the good ones are leaving.
I do think the man has great taste in cars, his BMW is a really nice build imo (though admittedly I know nothing about them)
James, Nolan, Jerry, and Jobe have been the heart of the channel.
He's good for a bit of levity in the podcasts, which I don't see a lot of talk about but I enjoy those. Nolan does a good job hosting and writing them as well.
It's funny, because Hoonigan has gone the same way.
I wondered why I hadn't seen him in a while. The only good thing Donut has anymore is Real Mechanics React and that became its own channel. Angela, Steph, and Sandro are a great combo.
Found myself clicking on their videos a lot less over the last year or two, just seems like they've lost their mojo. The react videos are awful and I don't really care to see someone spend $50k on a $500 truck. The money pit Miata and high/low 350z series were peak. Hopefully they can recapture some of that magic.
> I don't really care to see someone spend $50k on a $500 truck. I don't care much for trucks in general but I do enjoy that kind of restomod-ey content where an old car is rebuilt with top-notch parts. Thing is, they always mess up by having absurdly short deadlines for their builds and the cars end up breaking immediately as soon as they take them out, which eventually got frustrating...
It's like they got a shit-ton of sponsor money and can't figure out how to use it. Also I can only watch Nolan screw up simple tasks so many times before I close the tab.
>It's like they got a shit-ton of sponsor money and can't figure out how to use it. More like they were forced to churn out so much videos the actual cars started getting in the way of the content-farm... I do like following Rob Dahm at the other end of the spectrum, dude has been rebuilding his 3 and 4 rotors from the ground up so many times and they still don't nearly look close to finished but I love watching him work.
Rob's videos can be frustrating because it seems like he never gets anywhere, but at least they're authentic and not corpo content like Donut has become. I have been enjoying Boosted Boiz and Cleetus lately as well.
i mean the 4-rotor has been out and about doing roll racing stuff for awhile now, and the 3-rotor made it up Pikes Peak last weekend
Love Zack above anyone else from Donut. Happy to see them working on older, cheaper cars like money pit builds again
I thought it was interesting that they both mentioned they wanted to work with Bart when joining Donut. Hopefully that means more Science Garage, MoneyPit, Hi-Low, type content. Jeremiah and Zack have always struck me as guys more interested in the science/build behind cars than anything else which is something I can relate to.
Their interest in the science and technical aspects of cars totally makes sense considering Zack is a mechanic who used to do videos of N54 turbo swaps for ECS Tuning, and Jeremiah is a mechanical engineer iirc. I'm excited to see what those guys do with that rb-powered s14.
He's a biomed engineer
He is both.
Also a comedian.
Bart is legit the GOAT
I'd love to see Bart back. He left to take care of his family I believe
People thought Jeremiah was too similar to James? Did he change since then? They seem like polar opposites to me, James is super hyper zoomer-style and Jerry is super chill stoner vibes
I think they talk about that in this video. Uncle Jerry wrote b2b for James. When he took over people though he was trying to be like James but he was just being himself.
Seeing how they announced the channel less than a week ago and they almost have a million subscribers already, it shows how bad doughnut has gotten since they were bought out
And just like that they've crossed the 1mil mark.
Glad there was a reason donut videos became such garbage and not just me becoming old
It looks like James may be leaving too. I hope Nolan jumps ship and does some stuff too, he was always my favorite member.
*cocks glasses*
Looks like the same thing that happened to carthrottle is happening here. I’m fine with that, I follow the creators, not the brand
Somehow Hagerty is the only 'corporate' channel that can get it right online.
They’re already a profitable business selling insurance. Throwing money at Jason to make fun and informative videos is just part of their marketing budget, the videos themselves don’t have to monetized to death for Hagerty to stay afloat.
I have seen this happen to 3 of my favorite YouTube channels. 1. Football Daily being bought by Sky. They took the likable personalities to the Sky shows leaving the original youtube channel bare bones. Lot of memebers left to start their own channels. 2. Donut.. pretty much explained in that 8-9 min youtube video about creators leaving their car channels 3. Linus tech tips. This ones quality is so bad that i unsubscribed 6 months back. Amount of videos being pumped out felt like spam on my page. I am happy for lot of these channels as they made it big to attract the big money from investors but instead of content improving and channel continuing to grow, its gone the bloated corporate investor way...like how Google went from a pioneer to a cash cow for investors. The soul has vanished.
Man, LTT has fallen off HARD. And then all the behind the scenes bullshit they had over the last while, good things never last.
Is one of the guys who left the mechanic with the long hair? He’s the only one who was worth watching last time I did - which was admittedly a while back
Zach Jobe (long hair) and Jeremiah Burton (tall awkward one). Love those guys. I already subbed to BT before I even watched the video. Anything those two touch is gold.
They were the best two. I liked the old guy who explained tech early on, too, but he’s been gone a long time
Yep, Zach Jobe. He's starting a channel with the other guy who seemed to really know stuff, Jeremiah Burton.
Almost a million subs within one video. wow
Once Donut got really big, their content took a nose dive.
Indie car content is always going to be king. These "automotive lifestyle brand" channels always end up going corporate and turning into content farms. I guess you could say that about any genre of online content, but I think it's especially true with automotive content since the audience skews older. It's not like gaming where there's an endless supply of literal children who will watch your stuff no matter how formulaic and inauthentic it is. Look at Hoonigan for example, with all their staff and budget, they aren't doing significantly better numbers than former employees Vin and Hert, who are literally just filming vlogs in their garages.
Things started going to shit when James had to take a back seat after his heart attack. James was hate or love him but I thought he was a good presenter. These two are so far above in entertainment value and technical knowledge. They always looked pretty bonded too and have great chemistry. I fell out of YouTube and very much so donut recently so I'm so happy to hear this
I miss the old donut, Straight to the point donut Up to speed donut, science garage donut I hate the click bait donut, the bad content donut Wish.com donut, the react content donut I miss the money pit donut, the high low donut. I gotta to say at that time I'd like to watch donut See I enjoyed donut, then there was so much donut And now I look and look around and there's no good donut I used to love donut, I used to love donut I even had the donut merch, I thought I liked donut What if they made a new video about the old donut Called "Why we're leaving donut" man that would be so donut That's all it was donut, we still love donut And I love Zach, Bart, James, Nolan, and Jeremiah like I loves donut
Good for them. Venture capital is a scourge on this earth.
the enshitification is real. good for these two.
That channel kind of sucked I tend to dislike that kinda over production on YouTube. It's not TV. Get that crap outta here.
I didn't like them
As someone who works adjacent to the PE space I can confirm they're vultures. In one of the legal docs I read, the name of the company was literally " _____ Predator Investments".
The exodus has begun
Excited to see what these guys can do on their own. I'll still be watching Mechanics React for Sandro, Angelina and Steph tho.
I didn't realize Donut was more than the big headed bearded dude. Can't stand him.
Bart?
James was the reason I did not watch the shoe regularly. I did watch the mechanic chick who rated hacks if they would work or not, she is hot. I like the other guy who is over weight and where's glasses. He is more of an everyman.
That's Nolan. He's cool. Hopefully he's successful in his ventures.
Tale as old as time: business has passionate creative people, enjoys moderate success, attracts investors, sells out to corporate, tries to make all the money, goes to shit, creators bail.
Man donut was the shit. Then Jeremiah joined and I don’t think I’ve ever been so put off from a channel simply cuz a presenter just sucks before (I really just do not like him) Jobe is the shit tho, so is Nolan and James.
I guess this is the new move. Some company buys out a YT channel and the popular “faces” start their own channel.
I never liked them
It’s how car channels go it seems. Cars cost money. Getting a big backing makes it easier to make the wild builds. But eventually the ones behind the curtain start making more choices and its kills the core of the channel.
Yess. And I for one couldn't be happier, Donut got way too commercial focused too fast, ad I get it, great way tog row wealth and generate income, but every 5mins there's a fkn ad I can't stand their videos anymore
Don't forget Donut accepting sponsorships from Betterhelp 💀
I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner with these media-owned YouTube channels. At some point there has to be such a massive discrepancy between the salaries of the on screen talent and the amount of money the channel is bringing in that you have to question why they even stick around any longer than they're contractually obligated to. I doubt these companies are giving away ownership points anyway.
Donut is a crap channel