Content creators are recreating homelessness in The Sims

For content creators Like Zach Letter, YouTube can be a self-made story. Letter, who has been producing content since 2011 and has more than 2 million fans on various platforms, told Wired that he was almost homeless around 2011. At the time, Letter was doing a dual job, working as a mill apprentice and getting YouTube content to work full-time. He said that all of a sudden, the company he worked for fired everyone—just after he borrowed money to buy vehicles and equipment for his job. This forced him to pay large sums of money for unusable equipment, which quickly depleted his savings.

Despite his best efforts to find a job, he went bankrupt three months later. “I was scared. Every night, I went to bed after working all day on YouTube, just praying that something would happen.” Wright said. Then, his YouTube channel became popular and generated moderate income. According to Wright, this came at the right time, because he estimated that there were about five days before being homeless, and he was only $38 in his name. The advertising revenue ($800 per month) generated by his YouTube channel helped him avoid bankruptcy. “The situation continues to improve.” From this point, for Wright, he thinks he is lucky.

In December 2017, the letter Separate Created by the player The Sims 4 Challenges on YouTube.The challenge is carried out under the nickname of the “homeless” or “self-made” challenge. Players dress up the Sims as homeless, and then proceed to purchase 5,000 simulated coins-enough in-game currency to build a simple multi-room House-without any residence or work, according to Challenged community page.

Wright said that a challenge like this is very interesting, “because it is closely related to the life that many people, including me, have experienced. So, try to see how far you can go in your life, which will bring you hope.”

Combat algorithms

The Homeless Challenge is just one of many challenges created by players. Others range from having a female Sim Give birth to 100 children By 100 different partners Re-creation and evolution And play Princess. Challenge remains a popular pillar The Sims YouTube community. For people who often play games (such as content creators), games can quickly become repetitive and boring unless new content is added or community-developed modules are released. The so-called game challenge allows players and creators to achieve this goal.

Tom, His millions of subscribers and followers are better known as “Nitpicking british,” explained that the challenge allows creators to have powerful and unique video concepts to attract potential audiences. Tom believes that YouTube is a contributing factor to the challenge culture because its algorithm encourages creators who are eager to participate and grow in endless In the attention arms race, try increasingly weird video ideas and challenges. YouTube see Over 500 hours The amount of content uploaded per minute-viewers watch more than 1 billion hours per day. Tom says that challenges that are inherently controversial tend to be more impactful, “because viewers will be shocked and curious,” which leads to higher click-through rates because potential viewers want more information. Click-through rate and audience retention are especially important for creators because they drive content monetization.

(YouTube did not respond to a request for comment, nor did it provide statistics on approximately how many “made from scratch” videos were uploaded and how many people watched them at the time of publication.)

Games and homelessness

By their very nature, video games cannot fully and accurately simulate the reality of homelessness, such as threats of violence from other people, who look down on the homeless, harassment by law enforcement, useless shelter systems, and Hostile building.

Exceed 567,000 people are homeless in the U.S., According to a January 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The report predates the coronavirus pandemic and has since led to an increase in the number of homeless people. In 2020, A study Brendan O’Flaherty, a professor of economics at Columbia University, predicts that the coronavirus may increase the number of homeless people in the United States by as much as 45%. Under normal circumstances, there are not enough shelter beds to accommodate the number of homeless people, let alone the new influx, especially considering the pandemic security agreement.Those who are often homeless also Inaccessible Medical care increases the possibility of major health problems and preventable deaths.