Are YouTubers & Synthfluencers that bad?
Who can you trust?
In today’s modern age, we are all flooded with content. Sometimes it’s original, sometimes it’s ads, and sometimes it’s this kind of influencer marketing thing which most of the time is quite obvious and sometimes it’s not. The music gear industry is no exception. Just like with smartphones, laptops, TVs, etc. companies sent out gear to reviewers for them to write a review or make a video about the product they received. And those reviewers either get that thing as a loan, at a discounted price, for free, or for free plus a paycheck for their time and effort to do the review. Here at Sinesquares, we’ve done the first three but never received an additional payment for a review.
People often criticize reviewers who receive compensation for their reviews. They believe that the reviews are biased and that the reviewers are attempting to deceive their audience into purchasing a product. Recently, Behringer, a major company, openly criticized reviewers, fueling more hostility towards them.
However, the question remains: can you trust a review by a YouTuber or media outlet? The answer is not straightforward. When watching an online review, consumers must be aware of certain things and take certain steps to ensure that their opinions are well-informed and not influenced by external factors.
Who are these people?
In the music gear industry (just like in any other industry) there are a few types of influencers. The main three categories are YouTubers, Websites/ Blogs, and people with a lot of Social Media followers. And most of the time, a synthfluencer can be in more than one of those categories. Those are people who love music gear, synths, pedals, etc., and decide to do demos, reviews, tutorials, and all sorts of content that revolves around gear.
Once you have a substantial amount of followers, companies that make music gear will approach you to create content for their products and share it with your audience. Simple as that. The company’s offer for your service varies depending on your audience. If you have a very small channel you may get something on a loan or with a discount and if you have a big channel and a lot of people following you, companies are willing to send you free gear and also pay you to do a review. And that’s one source of income. Other sources of income can be ads on YouTube or your website, selling presets, sample packs, or merch, having sponsors for your videos, and the list goes on.
From my personal experience though, is quite hard to make a decent living in this niche. The synthesizer and effects audience is not that big so it’s not that easy to make a lot of money from ads or sponsors. Plus, many companies that make music gear are quite small and it’s also hard for them to spend a huge budget on their promotional activities. On the other hand, in smaller niches, it’s easier to get yourself out there and gain a few followers quickly since there’s not a lot of competition. For example, if you want to become a YouTuber for Apple gear, the competition is extreme and you’ll have to compete with channels that have millions of subscribers, amazing productions, and are practically millionaires.
One thing is for sure though. Since it’s an industry that doesn’t pay that much, people who are in it genuinely love gear and music production. They didn’t start this for the money because the money is not that much. What happens after gaining an audience is another story…
The Bias Problem
So why there are so many people hating on YouTubers and music Media? If you go around YouTube, Instagram, or Reddit you’ll see lots of comments bashing them, saying that they are actively trying to trick you into buying gear, that they are the industry’s tools for companies to make profits, etc. All these are caused by the bias problem those people are facing while the audience knows all about it. A few decades ago, people didn’t know that many endorsements were actually paid ads. If an X movie star walked on the street wearing some branded shoes, most people didn’t realize that the company that makes them probably sent those sneakers for free and had a contract with this person to wear them. But nowadays, we all know how the industry and influencer marketing work. We have developed a skill to recognize ads and ignore them so when we see a new review video of a big synth channel, we all know that there was some kind of transaction for that video to happen.
But does this actually make the review unreliable? Yes and no.
One’s perception of the truth and the facts is heavily influenced by their own experience, knowledge, and many other things so when I say that a delay pedal is amazing, it is my own personal (and biased) opinion. It doesn't mean it’s the objective truth (that’s not really a real thing for music gear). So when you are paid money to review something or get something for free, it is certain that your opinion is already a bit biased consciously or unconsciously. You never had to ask the question: Should I pay that X amount of money to get this thing? Or even worse: Can I say bad things about this synth and then stop receiving money from the company that makes it?
Your audience will have to pay to get the piece of gear you’re reviewing so their decision has another very important factor that you as the reviewer didn’t have. And that’s what makes a lot of people angry. They are essentially saying: “You got paid and got the thing for free, and now you’re trying to convince me to spend money to buy it.”
While this statement has some truth in it, it’s not the full truth. Yes, reviewers have a bias and also have relationships with companies. But at the same time, they have their own personal taste and opinion and they try to express it through their videos or articles. Since I’ve talked to a lot of people in this niche, the truth is that they don’t really care that much about selling gear rather than providing a solid piece of content for their audience. You also have to consider that if an influencer becomes a complete sellout, people will know and he/she will lose a big portion of his/her audience. Balancing the relationship with your audience and with the gear manufacturers is not an easy task.
There is a great video by Jeremy - Red Means Recording explaining his relationship with companies and his experience doing this for a lot of years that is really worth a watch. You can find it here.
So yes, it is true that it is impossible not to have some kind of bias when you are doing paid reviews but it’s also true that in order to build an audience you have to build trust. And trust is built by being authentic, having a voice, and trying to do what’s best for the viewer. And most people in this space are doing all of the above.
How to protect yourself?
That should be self-explanatory but for those who are so furious with reviews and “influencers“, here it is. Reviewers like us can do a lot of things but one thing that we certainly cannot do is take your credit card and charge you to buy yourself a new shiny synthesizer. This is your choice and your choice only. Thankfully, we live in a time where information is accessible and most of the time free so before buying a new piece of gear you can do as much research as you want. It is our job to be able to make conscious and well-thought-out decisions and not be blindly influenced by a random YouTube channel even though sometimes this is quite hard.
I am guilty of buying stuff because I’ve watched some amazing reviews online and ended up not using the thing I bought. It happens a lot but I’ve learned a lot from those bad choices. My key learnings are the following:
Synths, instruments, effects, etc. are tools to help you reach a goal. In my case, I use gear to make music and release albums and that’s my biggest goal. So the gear must serve this purpose. It must make things easier, inspire me, and give me more power to create. Your goal may be to just have a few things to jam after work which is also perfectly fine. In any case, your workflow and gear need to be defined by your goals and not by being jealous of the huge studios you’ll see online.
Since I’m watching YouTube a lot and I read a lot of articles on music gear, I decided to sort out the people I follow and watch their content. There are lots of content creators and no one is the same. So you have to filter out the ones that you don’t really like or trust their taste and don’t really care about what they have to say.
Be influenced by people you admire and look up to. Most reviewers and YouTubers are not actual musicians, don’t release music, and don’t play live shows. Some of them also do those things but only a handful do those things successfully. So if your goal is to make music and grow your fans or tour playing your music live you should choose a different set of influencers. An artist who makes music that I love is a much bigger influence on me than a random YouTuber who makes some boring music. So you set your goal, see who has been successful, and try to do the things they did to get there. A studio photo of an artist I love is a huge GAS enabler for me while a new video on YouTube rarely makes me want to buy the thing they’re reviewing. A very useful resource for this is equipboard.com where you can find thousands of artists and see what they’re actually using to make the music that you like.
Lastly, for the people getting mad at reviewers or anyone else, just sit back and try to realize why they’re making you angry enough to write some bad things on Reddit or be disrespectful to them. Just watch this video “The Orange Analogy“ and think. You may be jealous that another person has a ton of gear for free and you’re struggling to get a freaking Behringer clone. And most of the time you think that this person has no value or musical skill to have all these instruments. Which it may be true but you’ll have to realize that they have all those things for the work they’ve done that may not be making hit records but just making marketing content for a company. Be kind and have empathy. We live in a toxic world that we ourselves made toxic so fueling it with more hate and anger will only make things worse. If you don’t like someone, just skip to the next one and you’re done.
Conclusion
I could say so many things about this topic and I tried to narrow it down to the most important points. Yes, you’re right. You cannot trust reviewers and you probably shouldn’t. What you can do is develop your own personal critical mind and take the best out of everything you watch or read. Reading a review might give you a useful tip on a pedal you’ve just bought that you didn’t know. You can listen to some sound examples of a new synth and decide that it’s not for you. You can finally understand how a freaking patchbay works and find out it was the solution to all your problems (that’s me!).
Synthfluencers, for lack of a better term, are just people that happen to do content for synths and music gear. And they’re spending hundreds of hours to please you, the audience. Sometimes they do it, sometimes they don’t but at the end of the day it’s you who makes all the calls. So spread love, not hate and everything will be fine in the end.
PS: The only thing I’m spreading hate is the cringe, shocked faces on YouTube thumbnails. Please stop. :)
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