The gaming YouTuber Jason “Videogamedunkey” Gastrow (29) is currently mocking how easy it is to succeed on YouTube with bad content. However, he is actually successful with his satire. Even more successful than with the elaborate videos for which he is known.
This is Dunkey: Videogamedunkey is a 29-year-old American who has been uploading satirical gaming content to YouTube since 2010. His biggest hits include videos on Skyrim or Legends of Zelda.
Dunkey is known for his biting and extravagant humor. He pokes fun at everything and everyone; his fans love him. He has 6.48 million subscribers on YouTube: While this is already a pretty big channel, it is still a hidden gem compared to the big mainstream YouTubers like Ali-A (Fortnite) or Markiplier.
Good content simply doesn’t pay off on YouTube
This is now his experiment: Dunkey explained in a new video “I’m Done Making Good Videos”: He simply can no longer make good content. Because it doesn’t pay off on YouTube.
He has spent 10 years trying to create fun and good videos. He has tried to be the best, but when he looks at YouTube: It’s not worth it. He sees no future for his content.
He is also getting older now and has to think about his mental health and his family. Making only 4 good videos a month does not add up financially when other big channels are releasing 30 videos per month.
Dunkey showed a whole series of YouTube channels that he believes strive for “good content”. They max out at 10 to 20 million views a month. A “real YouTuber” like Markiplier easily gets over 150 million.
Good videos are simply hard to make and take a lot of time. That’s why Dunkey is stopping now.
YouTuber presents innovative new weekly plan
This is Dunkey’s new plan: Dunkey says he will now switch to “daily uploads”. He will hire staff, outsource content, and stop stressing so much to create “special videos”.
The YouTuber presented a new schedule:
- Monday will be “Drama Monday”, discussing the latest gossip, such as Jake Paul’s boxing matches. And Dunkey will be totally outraged about whatever is in the video.
- Tuesday will be “Among Us Tuesdays” – after all, it’s the “best video game of all time”.
- Wednesday will be “Minecraft Wednesday”, because everyone knows how much Dunkey loves Minecraft.
- Thursday returns as “Among Us Thursday” – the game is just too good for one day to suffice.
- “Reaction Friday” cannot be missed – from all that playing, one might get burnout, one would need a day to react to the videos of others.
- For Saturday, Dunkey plans to do something nobody has ever done: “Minecraft Saturday”.
- On Sunday, of course, “Among Us” must be played again.
With “short nonsense” as much success as with proper videos
This continued: One might consider all of this to be a one-time satirical video, but Dunkey has indeed switched to “Daily Uploads”. Since the announcement, he has uploaded a new video on YouTube every day and executed the formats he introduced.
And the amazing thing: With the videos he has seen tremendous success. The short, tossed-off content that apparently takes little effort achieves the same view counts, perhaps even higher, than the previous “long, good content.”
These videos are marked with exaggerated titles like “Reacting to the FAKEST GAME EVER” and have exactly the thumbnails that he previously criticized. Even though the video only lasted 38 seconds, 2.95 million viewers watched it.
In other videos, Dunkey parodies Minecraft, Among Us, and the “drama” reporting around Jake Paul. Each of the videos is a million-hit on YouTube.
His fans are now amused to see the new “troll videos” trending on YouTube. One comment under one of Dunkey’s videos says:
“He mocks a broken system and still earns a lot of money.”
“Frustrated with mega channels”
This is the serious background of the satire: Dunkey’s wife, Leah, gave a statement to the US site Polygon. Because Dunkey himself is now too busy to respond himself due to his new schedule, as she says.
It is said that Dunkey is very frustrated with the current offering on YouTube and worries about his future. While they have been doing well so far, that could change quickly as more and more “mega channels” emerge that upload daily videos.
This would cause a “sad feeling” for them and other channels that put a lot of time into their videos.
It saddens them when their content is overshadowed by the “latest trends” and “stuff that takes hardly any effort”. This frustration and sad feeling have now led to the new weekly plan.
Effortful vs. simple formats on YouTube
This is what it’s about: The experiment is not entirely fair because Dunkey has built a strong foundation with “good content” over the years, which he is now exploiting to gain so much success with the satirical “cheap” content. If he were a small YouTube, the new content might fizzle out.
However, Dunkey proves that quality and effort are not proportional to success. Elaborate videos can fizzle, while quickly made videos can become viral hits.
Dunkey contrasts various formats in his satire:
- “Let’s Play” content related to Minecraft or Among Us is extremely popular on YouTube. These are usually hardly edited, but recorded and sent in one piece. This allows for daily uploads of new videos.
- The “normal videos” from Dunkey, on the other hand, are often compilations of funny but short scenes from dozens of hours of gameplay material. This is a significantly more elaborate form, and one only manages 4 per month.
- “Reaction” videos are often criticized as “not very demanding” because the YouTuber reacts to the content of others – these formats can also be done daily.
- Dunkey contrasts this with his essay content. These are extremely elaborate. In them, a YouTuber delves deeper into a topic – creating a single video can easily take months.
Especially Twitch streamers generally do little work with their YouTube videos. These are often just compilations of their streams, made by others. MontanaBlack, for example, once explained how that works for him.
In any case, Dunkey has succeeded in creating a successful satire on YouTube formats that every gaming fan knows all too well.
Especially a game like “Among Us” is perfectly suited for YouTube, as if a marketing firm had designed it. Among Us allows multiple YouTubers to interact with each other, so they can mutually expand their audiences. Those who play YouTube purely for efficiency, as in Dunkey’s satire, might even come up with the idea to show Among Us over 3 days.
Recently, several gaming YouTubers have significantly grown with Among Us:
YouTube steals a 28-year-old from Twitch, making her the “biggest streamer in the world”
