My favorite (sarcastic) videos are “Foreigner speaks PERFECT Chinese”. I find this media just obnoxious. 1. It’s not native speaker level perfect. 2. It’s completely narcissistic.
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Some of these people have hit a sweet spot. They’re not getting millions of views for one or two videos, they’re getting thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands for a lot of videos.
You find your base and you give them whatever the hell they want.
For Serpent and Milk, their market is
- People who like to hear China bashing
- Chinese that are pissed off that they are bashing China
- People that think these guys have some insight about China, but which is really mostly a lot of repetitive bulshit.
Imagine if you lived in Taiwan for a few years and all you do is walk around the streets and take videos. Would you really have a clue about the inner workings of business
or government or politics in Taiwan? No.
Would you know enough to throw a lot of bullshit out there and pretend you know something? Yes, to some groups.
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But, they are giving a perspective that is counter to the fluff that has been written about, by and for Chinese propaganda. I don’t think the inner workings of China and the Chinese people is as much of a mystery as Chinese people make it out to be.
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Never watched serpentza’s old video’s so on the suggestion above watched the wedding video from his first marriage.
Wow, that is a messed up wedding. There is no emotion between either of them and calling her beer wife, is there any respect?, it’s soo awkward to watch and afterwards it’s basically a youth drinking party afterwards. I am lost for words…
At least with his current wife he seemed to treat her better and grown up a bit.
Do they get money if the viewer is using an ad blocker? I remember reading years ago that they didn’t. And many people use ad blockers now so maybe the views may not stack up to tons of profit.
You aren’t painting a fair picture here . Those guys lived there what, fifteen years , married to Chinese,. Opened various businesses and did various jobs, learned Chinese , travelled around doing their motorcycle travel tour documentaries . Winston also did some interesting videos of different sub cultures in Shenzhen and other cities. I think they have plenty of experience to share. Now they’ve left China they still bring up some interesting stuff on occasion, especially laowhy about China’s propaganda programs.
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Exactly there really isn’t any mystery. It’s a corrupt guanxi driven nationalistic xenophobic totalitarian place with very large income gaps.
Trying to get a real opinion from Chinese is like getting blood from a stone. Think it’s bad in Taiwan try asking Chinese about something that touches on government.
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O fo sho.
There is also truth to winston being a bit of a know it all too though.
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For sure.
But folks are also looking for entertainment, one of the reasons I watched his show was the Shenzhen street life and drone footage and great music with some of the segments.
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Whether or not Serpentza will admit it, I think he was heavily influenced by Mordeth13.
M13 is the real OG when it comes to the type of content - commenting on being a foreigner in Asia, and vlogging style - narrating on a motorcycle. Serpentza is also not the first YouTuber in China although he claims to be. There were people before him before YouTube was banned.
I like his videos though because its difficult to relate to others who have not experienced being a foreigner in China or Taiwan. Same reason I use this forum. And it is quite a bit more entertaining than just staring at a YouTuber in their bedroom. Can’t stand that. Give me something to look at.
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Yeah they put a lot of work into some of the videos, especially Serpentza.
I also watched Mordeth’s stuff but like many of us he met some challenges in Taiwan .
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He probably would admit it. I just think he is salty that M13 never met him. He made a video about going to taiwan to meet him, m13 didn’t and then he started slagging him off.
M13 is classic but he should update his video style, its still more or less the same as when he started.
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A couple of weeks ago, the CCP got one of their Caucasian youtubers to make a video claiming Taiwan isn’t a country, which I won’t bother linking.
Laowhy86 made a great counter video to that one.
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I realize this is an old post, but Serpentza claiming to be the first YouTuber in China? Seriously? This is Su Fei erasure.
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Those guys generally have no clue.
Just trying to get clicks.
Kind of perverted that people look to them as a reference on China or Taiwan.
Why are they not knowledgeable about china? they are pretty legit when it comes to china. Taiwan is a bit more surface level but who really cares.
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Yeah, I much prefer Nathan Rich. 
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Because they were never on the inside of anything. They were always on the outside looking in.
They weren’t inside any businesses or government or politics or anything important or useful. They’re just tourists walking the street and talking about food or whatever touristy activity of the moment or day.
Their perspectives are touristy and change moment by moment or video by video.
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I would say I agree with that assessment. Their Chinese is shit so they will always be on the outside looking in. But the alternative are just Xi fan boys all over youtube.