The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

I don't think Ben necessarily needs to run PBs in order to grow his channel. I think the vast majority of people who watch him are hobby runners, myself included. I enjoy the Kenyan content because it's fun to see something different. It's the same reason I sometimes watch travel or food vloggers. It's just entertainment, nothing too deep. In fact, I mostly skip his more technical content because it's not really interesting to me and also not that entertaining.

This is a pretty good take on Ben F. What's too bad is that if he was a little more open minded, he could manage to not turn off more serious runners if he tried.

This may have been asked before but..

Is there a model that all these Shoetubers follow to grow the audience?

My biggest gripe with all of them is that they repeat the same subjects, and the same type of content over and over again (What eating like a pro runner is like, what going to the toilet as a pro runner is like etc etc).

I have got to admit, i watch them once, andif they are not annoying then i follow them. Eventually the repeats of the same badly edited content grows alongside my discontent and i give up.

Only the Distance Project seems to have someone editing the films to a decent level & not try to make every video about him.

Just wish there was someone who actually behaved like an adult and a runner and not a borderline ADHD case thinking about these videos

Phily very upbeat after her race and regret free. Looks ready to go again.

Thats gonna upset some of the haters here desperate for her to fail and ready to tear her down.

Think the tears on here when Felton inevitably goes sub 2:20 one day will likely surpass it though.

THIS. When a lack of respect for the distance and a juicer meet you get a Floberg. Dude went from unable to crack 3 to suddenly running 2:35…fishy. And as of a year ago he was talking about an OTQ…no doubt he’s about to drop a summer of speed video on us. Hopefully we get more content where he’s interviewing himself in a half lit room 60 minutes style. Color me inspired!

There's a fantastic irony in the fact that all we ever see from you on here is you crapping on other posters (and SJD) when you complain about people doing that to the youtubers

Shoetubers get to race in the newest shoes months in advance of their release. It's important that they get their expert opinion out to the masses. The NB SC Elite 5 is on the block right now.

How she acts on social media and how she feels are two entirely disconnected things. No one wants her to fail, she's just fake and annoying. Also, I think people will be complimentary if Felton ever breaks 2.20.

Regarding Phily, she's painting a picture of "taking a heroic big swing" and failing. However, looking at her Strava she was only running sub 2.23 pace for about 5k (which is net downhill). Am I missing something?

There are sporadic video topics/titles that seem to get picked up well by the algorithm and so the more view-oriented youtubers will try and game the system by recycling the exact same language and topics. So rather than saying "here's a video full of b-roll footage of me lazing around the house eating a bacon sandwich" they'll title it "What I eat in a day as a professional runner". Or they'll pull out a load of crap running gadgets from a dusty drawer or whatever random freebies have been sent to them and title it "My top 5 must-have running gear to make you a faster runner". You'll often see them recycle these topics mere weeks apart.

Meanwhile they keep their fingers crossed that the video hits the algorithm in just the right way in the wild hope that they get 25,000 views for a crap video that noone enjoyed, instead of 10,000 views that some people actually liked. There's nothing more depressing than seeing a previously good channel go down this lifeless trajectory in the hope of reaching more of an audience as it's usually a bit of a death knell to be honest. Akin to a decent restaurant that suddenly decides to make a quick buck by buying in microwaveable food.

Three channels that aren't currently going down this route (and hopefully never do!) are Crown My Run, Ran to Japan, and Ryan Thomson.

They are all fake clowns.

It's weird to me that only the channels with individual creators get put under the microscope and crapped on, but no one mentions The Running Channel which does the same thing as these individual creators, but has a much larger subscriber base. I'm also sure they make a lot more money because they're able to employ so many people.

I think this is because they try and do attract the most normie broad audience, I bet most of their viewers run little to no miles. They run their channel more like a corporation because they are one. There isn't a lot of 2nd guessing what they are doing and why. Their individual personalities are shadowed to a certain degree by the company their work for.

Most of the individuals that are critiqued here gear their content towards a way more niche audience that is more interested in running culture than the general population. So when they continue to put out content, opinions, ect. that conflict with that audience, then there is more discussion.

BITR gets crapped on regularly. They have have a dozen creators.

I think them tailoring their content to a niche audience is just your opinion. I don't see any evidence of that myself. What content specifically are you referring to? TRC has also talked about things like equipment recommendations, VO2 max, specific workouts, etc. The individual creators simply share more of their lives because that's kind of the vlog format, which lots of other non-running YouTubers do also. People are free to their opinions of course, that's the nature of the internet now, but I still find the constant criticism so odd.

This will be an unpopular take, but I thought Kofuzi's Boston coverage was better than ESPN's coverage. I think Kofuzi provided the right ratio of running to wheelchair footage in his video compared to ESPN.

I think The Running Channel is just fine. They're very much catering towards those that are not necessarily super into running and that's totally fine. I like the diverse cast of TRC - Andy has a very interesting background and is really quite smart, and Rick provides good comic relief. Most of the others are pretty good, too. I just don't like Jess.

I'm pretty sure the most popular videos by shoetubers are "How to be sub-20 at the 5k"

I also like TRC for the most part. That's kind of my point. I think TRC and the individual creators who are often criticized here all make content for a similar audience -- hobby runners. Which is why it's strange TRC doesn't get flack when channels like Felton's and Bowden's do. The criticism also often seems quite personal, which I don't see directed at the TRC presenters either. It makes me think people just find individual creators easier to bully because they're on their own.

Yep. I was at Chicago in 23. And although he did a shakeout run on the Saturday, he didnt advertise it on the "Kofuzi" Instagram but on his secondary "kofuzi run club" one. (He's not the only 1 doing multiple channels, but I don't really know why they do it) so I missed it.

I wanted to see what the deal was. Out of curiosity, not devotion

So when he came to London in 24. I went along to Soar Runnings offices in EC2 to take part.

Soar for their part made zero attempt to sell anything that I saw. They had some mannequins with their clothes on. And they put on food and coffee. And yes, when Michael came down the stairs to the basement he shouted his daft slogan. And people applauded. He did a load of photos with people. I didn't partake. (I am visible in his "weekend" video) We did a group photo outside.

He had 3 local guys lead the run, I got chatting to one other person. Michael made limited effort to talk to everyone. I don't think I even got a hi from him. This was also the first event I became aware of super grifter Aubrey and his annoying kid. You may not like Ko, but he does HIS thing and has HIS followers. Aubrey trying to muscle in and scoop up some of them felt, off to me.

5k-ish loop and we returned to Soar. I grabbed a free Danish from their selection. Fair play to them for not hammering their products. I actually think they SHOULD have tried to sell some. You have a lot of runners present and it would have represented a return to them for hosting the event. I wonder with hindsight if they think it was worth it?

Ko was outside having more selfies taken. I wasn't about to queue up for it. And what do I have to say to him beyond "I like some of your videos" (I fear he's disappeared into a cloud of pretentiousness in the year since then!) And I ran off back to London Bridge station to go home.

It made a change to run in an area I don't normally. But I didn't really see the appeal