Nebula / Dave Wiskus and Standard Broadcast LLC - A Creator-Owned Streaming Service

[Beautiful Border]

This platform caught my attention recently during the Hbomberguy plagiarism drama. A major focus of the video was on a creator named James Somerton, and discussions of his poor use of citations as well as his failures in adhering to certain progressive lines. In looking into Somerton, I found information regarding his vocal criticism of Nebula as a platform, which caused somewhat of a stir in that sector (archive).

Given Harris' association with Nebula, and certain financial ties, it is worth considering how much of the decision to discuss Somerton could have been motivated by the latter's negative comments regarding the platform.

Is Todd in the Shadows associated with Nebula at all? Because if so you might really be onto something here. As indefensible as Somerton is there was something quite ruthless about how obviously co-ordinated the effort to take him down was.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

Is Todd in the Shadows associated with Nebula at all? Because if so you might really be onto something here. As indefensible as Somerton is there was something quite ruthless about how obviously co-ordinated the effort to take him down was.

It was a long time coming, it was initiated by Somerton trying to cause drama as he was gatekept from Nebula due to him "tainting" the platform and as breadtubers didnt want to give him money. This was revealed during a twitter spat between Somerton, Jessie Gender and Maggie Mae Fish in November 2022. Hbombs producer, Kat Lo, works for Nebula and she saw that spat and ran with it, did all the digging on Somerton, picked the plagiarism allegations and helped Hbomb make his video. I posted some info about it in the Hbomb thread.

Todd is just a remnant of TGWTG who they keep close, his only relevance is that he fucked Lindsay Ellis once.

 

[BestFriendsAnimalSociety]

This platform caught my attention recently during the Hbomberguy plagiarism drama. A major focus of the video was on a creator named James Somerton, and discussions of his poor use of citations as well as his failures in adhering to certain progressive lines. In looking into Somerton, I found information regarding his vocal criticism of Nebula as a platform, which caused somewhat of a stir in that sector (archive).

I made a post about this in the hbomb thread.

TLDR Sommerton was mad that Nebula wouldn't have him on their platform then sperged about it on twitter. This got the attention of Kat Lo who is hbomb's producer who likely got him to make the plaigarism video.

To me, this info cast hbomb's video in a drastically different light, i.e. he was acting as an attack dog for Nebula rather than sticking up for 'queer content creators' by making Sommerton his target.

Like others have said, Nebula isn't funny. But they are fishy as hell and there's probably some stuff going on behind the scenes that may be worth documenting.

 

[TheOtherSideofMakeBelieve]

I haven't looked into it myself but Curiosity Stream might be the more interesting side of things to dig into. A creator I watch (I think NileRed but I'd have to go through my community posts on youtube to doublecheck) recently just started uploading to Nebula and people were complaining because they had it confused with Curiosity Stream. The corrections came in saying that Curiosity Stream was the shitty one and that the Curiosity/Nebula bundle was ending soon

What they were saying was that Curiosity posts hour+ long documentaries where most of the information in them is fabricated whole cloth while Nebula is just a premium streaming service focused on science-y stuff, which I don't have a problem with since youtube is really dumb about what you can do on a chemistry channel, like how they soft-demonetized CodysLab for making black powder out of urine (his channel is still monetized but he can't cash out, he has tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of adsense money that they won't give him and won't tell him why he can't have it)

I wasn't aware of the breadtube connection since I've never used either service personally, so that may still be interesting enough to dig into

 

[Anti Snigger]

Is Todd in the Shadows associated with Nebula at all? Because if so you might really be onto something here. As indefensible as Somerton is there was something quite ruthless about how obviously co-ordinated the effort to take him down was.

Todd at some point mentions that he saw a draft of Hbomb's video, I remember something about that, not sure about the nebula stuff.
I do recall something weird about the video, all the breadtube people were commenting on it within about 30 minutes of it coming out praising the quality of it, which considering the thing is 4 hours long caught my attention almost immediately.

 

[6thRanger]

I didnt expect a lot of these people on the list though,

It's 170+ creators there's going to be lots of people there. Nebula and Curiosity Stream are platforms for pseudo intellectuals /"knowledge based YouTubers" crafting their own hugbox/ space for radical content. It's for people who believe they're excessively big brained or philosophical. Breadtubers are just highly overrepresented in that category for obvious reasons.

The corrections came in saying that Curiosity Stream was the shitty one and that the Curiosity/Nebula bundle was ending soon

Curiosity Stream is 90% documentaries. It was started by John S. Hendricks, who founded Discovery and peacefully retired. This is essentially his post-retirement project.

Nebula is a "creator owned" (it has never been very clear to me which creators or how this really works) platform started by Standard Media, which was (really still is) a management company for YouTubers headed by Dave Wiskus.

The only reason you have probably heard of Nebula is that Curiosity Stream bought a piece of Nebula with what I consider an insane valuation. They then bundled Nebula with Curiosity Stream as a purchase. This has been the case for years. Nebula continues to "manage" YouTubers and take a 20% commission in exchange for advice, setting up collaborations and securing sponsorships. When your favorite knowledge based YouTuber starts shilling Brilliant and NordVPN all the time, they're likely working with Nebula.

Based on the chatter I've picked up, both platforms have problems: Curiosity Stream has no mechanisms in place to check facts in these documentaries, so misinformation and malicious lies often make their way into end products. Since it's a "documentary" people take them more seriously than they would an unhinged YouTube video essay. Nebula on the other hand just never really took off. It's a more prestigious version of what something like Bitchute was to the right-wing, but since they're not really being censored, it's not used all that often. Creators throw some videos on there every now and then in the same kind of way many YouTubers use Patreon. Or some just use it as a dumping ground for videos that deviate from their traditional format. Curiosity Stream is going to be/ has been decoupled from Nebula, so soon the real numbers will emerge for both.

I don't think much milk will come from this, but there's definitely back room sperging when you get essentially the most autistic and full of themselves YouTubers all on one "team".

Source: I had a subscription to Nebula/Curiosity Stream for about 2 years on and off.

 

[Omori Boy]

A major focus of the video was on a creator named James Somerton, and discussions of his poor use of citations as well as his failures in adhering to certain progressive lines.

Hbomber spent two hours talking about how he plagiarized. Then there was a hour long video by ToddInTheShadows about James literally just making shit up, no source or even sometimes no basis in reality. James wasn't just sticking to progressive lines, he went beyond them to make shit up about how bad straights are and how good the gays are. What you're doing in this sentence is literally what James Somerton was doing.

 

[mofu mofo]

This platform caught my attention recently during the Hbomberguy plagiarism drama. A major focus of the video was on a creator named James Somerton, and discussions of his poor use of citations as well as his failures in adhering to certain progressive lines. In looking into Somerton, I found information regarding his vocal criticism of Nebula as a platform, which caused somewhat of a stir in that sector (archive).

Echoes of the Candid drama (specifically the Skeptics clique vs. Harmful Opinions) from back when you could make bank on yt just by being and anti-sjw.

 

[Ninon42]

Is Todd in the Shadows associated with Nebula at all? Because if so you might really be onto something here. As indefensible as Somerton is there was something quite ruthless about how obviously co-ordinated the effort to take him down was.

It was a long time coming, it was initiated by Somerton trying to cause drama as he was gatekept from Nebula due to him "tainting" the platform and as breadtubers didnt want to give him money. This was revealed during a twitter spat between Somerton, Jessie Gender and Maggie Mae Fish in November 2022. Hbombs producer, Kat Lo, works for Nebula and she saw that spat and ran with it, did all the digging on Somerton, picked the plagiarism allegations and helped Hbomb make his video. I posted some info about it in the Hbomb thread.

Todd is just a remnant of TGWTG who they keep close, his only relevance is that he fucked Lindsay Ellis once.

Todd has been a part of Nebula for quite a while, they are his only sponsor on his videos. Kat Lo is BFFs with Lindsay Ellis, Hontra and Jenny Nicholson (not on Nebula) too; there are pictures of their Vegas trip on the Lindsay thread. It was Tom Scott's video with Jill Bearup that pissed off a very pregnant Lindsay off enough to burn that bridge for a year and quit the Internet. There's a ton of shit with Nebula and Dave Wiskus, who desperately wants to be seen as a creative himself as well as a cultivator of highbrow Content.

Nebula also stables Sarah Z, Lady Emily, and a fuckton of other lolcows. Worth noting though that once the Curiosity Stream money dries up, there really doesn't seem to be much sponsorship for the vast majority of their talent. Bright Sun Films, for example, has them as ad reads but doesn't get any other sponsor money from the association and pushes his YT page way more than Nebula. Only Lindsay publishes exclusively on Nebula, most other creators don't despite getting a theoretically higher cut of the profits than YT which means it's still more of an alt platform/vanity project than income generator.

 

[liam dees]

Oliver Lennard, Thorn is the stagename bullshit for his drag persona cause hes a drama nigger

Also Nebula was founded by the guy who made the Discovery Channel. Thats one of the parts of the pitch when Hbomb first shilled it in 2018 as a documentary platform for science documentaries. Thats probably worth looking into, its like censored.tv for commies.

I didnt expect a lot of these people on the list though, Razbuten, Closer look and LFTS surprised me. Man Carrying thing and Like Stories of Old felt a bit commie so I knew they would be on there but the others seem wholesome and non communist, Im gonna feel bad unsubbing from them. Same with Tierzoo, he just seemed like an average guy. Im surprised AccentedCinema isnt here though, hes also a commie, chinese canadian commie infact so he should be a prime candidate. No Dan Olson or Adam Conover as well, very strange.

Ah so someone here does know Accented Cinema! Been a long time viewer but I think I really will unsubscribe from him, quite a few videos got on my nerves such as his Chocolate video where he brought up his feminist studies from school, blech. I liked him better when he focused on talking about how films worked. And is it just me or is his channel style getting worse and worse?

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

Ah so someone here does know Accented Cinema! Been a long time viewer but I think I really will unsubscribe from him, quite a few videos got on my nerves such as his Chocolate video where he brought up his feminist studies from school, blech. I liked him better when he focused on talking about how films worked. And is it just me or is his channel style getting worse and worse?

I like some of his videos even if I disagree with them. Hes just your average Western POC guy, ethnonationalist when theyre in the west anti nationalist in their home countries. I stopped watching him a while ago once he started shilling too much obscure asian nonsense and became overtly commie. Hes been pretty stagnant, same old same old. I would really really like to see him make a video on Kundun though, he will never do it cause hes a fucking coward but I really want to see his Maoist apologia laid bare and for fellow chinks to either support him cause le based or disown him cause their families fled due to the cultural revolution. It would be especially funny after dimwit Hasan endorsed Chinas treatment of Taiwan and supported the colonization of Tibet, quite literally sabotaged breadtubes relation with the US government.

 

[6thRanger]

Nebula also stables Sarah Z, Lady Emily, and a fuckton of other lolcows. Worth noting though that once the Curiosity Stream money dries up, there really doesn't seem to be much sponsorship for the vast majority of their talent. Bright Sun Films, for example, has them as ad reads but doesn't get any other sponsor money from the association and pushes his YT page way more than Nebula. Only Lindsay publishes exclusively on Nebula, most other creators don't despite getting a theoretically higher cut of the profits than YT which means it's still more of an alt platform/vanity project than income generator.

My previous post was getting long but its worth noting with full clarity that Nebula is pretty much going to die a very slow death once its uncoupled from curiosity stream. To put it into perspective, Nebula's paying customers number around 680,000 at around $4 a month. There are single Twitch Streamers with more revenue. You can browse the Nebula blog if you're interested in the numbers of the venture. It is full of corporate cope.


The reason Lindsay even posts videos there is because it is much more secure hugbox than Youtube is an after numerous meltdowns she is scared of criticism. Nebula's chance to make it big will actually happen if YouTube cracks down on leftist and educational content, which at this time is unlikely. There are few incentives to use Nebula when you consider the YT audience size and existing subscribers.

The platform is so dead that the CEO has said theyre taking it in the direction of a Netflix competitor rather than Youtube. This is an insane thing to say if you're aware of streaming saturation, cash burn-rate and the huge barrier to entry / gatekeeping involved. The CEO is either not well-informed about where the industry is or is hoping as that death will be slow, market conditions will change. They've brought on a strong Chief Content Creator and are positioning themselves as essentially a luxury good, which are great steps. However, good strategy doesnt matter when the industries your in arent tenable to meaningfully break into. Right now, no matter how efficiently you build a car, it cannot travel across the ocean.

Its destiny is a kind of collaborative Patreon. Which isnt so bad, but isnt what Curiosity Stream or the mysterious content creators that own it want.

What is inteteresting to me is determining who the Youtubers are that have partial ownership of the platform. As Nebula starts to wind down and ultimately fail, those would be the people to pay attention to. I know Sam Denby (Wendover Productions) owns a piece through Standard and is Nebula's new Chief Content Officer.

If I dont get bored/forget I will do a post on Nebula's structure some time as far as I can understand it. I have suspects for who some of the minority owners are, but no real evidence at this time.

 

[liam dees]

Is there a right wing equivalent to Nebula?

 

[JelloJerk]

Interesting stuff. It just clicked from reading that list that Alt Shift X is on there. Is he BreadTube-adjacent? Kind of disappointed if so. I really liked his ASoIaF theory videos. I don't get why he's on there either. He says that he just posts more book theories on there, from what I'm reading for other people in the thread, this is supposed to be a platform for sciency/educational content?

Is there a right wing equivalent to Nebula?

I mean take your pick. There's a far bigger market for alternative, subscription-based platforms for right-wingers than left-wingers, since, you know, they actually get censored. Someone upthread mentioned Censored.TV but I don't know anything about it other than the fact that Ye did an interview with the guy running it, and that Soph/Lt.Corbis was making videos there for a bit, but I always thought it was like some guy's personal website or something.

 

[liam dees]

I mean take your pick. There's a far bigger market for alternative, subscription-based platforms for right-wingers than left-wingers, since, you know, they actually get censored. Someone upthread mentioned Censored.TV but I don't know anything about it other than the fact that Ye did an interview with the guy running it, and that Soph/Lt.Corbis was making videos there for a bit, but I always thought it was like some guy's personal website or something.

Yeah censored.tv works as Alex Jones' personal platform where he peddles his pills as ads before the videos on the site plays. Besides that, cozy.tv or Kick maybe?

 

[JelloJerk]

Yeah censored.tv works as Alex Jones' personal platform where he peddles his pills as ads before the videos on the site plays. Besides that, cozy.tv or Kick maybe?

Well Cozy and Kick are not behind a paywall and definitely don't try to have that "curated" "premium content" image. If we're including any website that caters to the right then I think Rumble, Bitchute, or Odysee would be more apt comparisons than Kick. Kick isn't very right-wing so much as it's a place where all the gamblers and strippers are at now since Twitch kicked them out.

 

[liam dees]

Well Cozy and Kick are not behind a paywall and definitely don't try to have that "curated" "premium content" image. If we're including any website that caters to the right then I think Rumble, Bitchute, or Odysee would be more apt comparisons than Kick. Kick isn't very right-wing so much as it's a place where all the gamblers and strippers are at now since Twitch kicked them out.

Personally the only platform among these I am even entertaining using would be Odysee, everything else is shite ngl

 

[Anti Snigger]

Is there a right wing equivalent to Nebula?

PragerU?

 

[Product Placement]

Not sure how this thread would work well, unless some users would be willing to get account and highlight the crazy from the videos they have. But honestly, I wouldn't want anyone to waste their money on doing that.

It's not a bad run down of the company, just doesn't seem thread worth right now. Or maybe a megathread for all platforms like this would work.

 

[TheJelqster]

We need data scrapping skitzo's to farm videos from Nebula, there's gold there for sure