Cool discussion! I'm always a fan of content propaganda, and I also like the graphic on the circles of the potential Splatoon audience. It's been brought up in debates in the competitive scene in general how in order to expand the player base you can't just think about making more existing players interested in comp but also need to consider how you can get more people outside the game interested in any capacity, and IMO simple fun, casual appeal is crucial for that.

If I can give a bit of an altered perspective on the points on competitive-oriented content (happy to have made the list btw :P) I do think competitive content can't be exactly talked about as a personal style so to speak. For example with seeing things as Chara-inspired, I largely feel like that's just because comp players enjoy the game in a similar way and are all focused on playing and developing/sharing our thoughts on the state of the game. At least speaking for myself that's basically the whole reason I still play the game. If I wasn't doing competitive content I wouldn't be making any content. In that way it doesn't feel quite accurate to imply competitive content is ripping off Chara. While I can vouch seeing his success with competitive content is part of what motivated me to attempt it myself, the actual substance of what I make isn't drawn much from him at all, it's just that content that is high level discussion and gameplay centered can naturally only take so many shapes and he took off with it first. This is to say instead of people wanting to make content in general and then specifically deciding for it to be competitive, most competitive players looking to get into content will naturally slide straight into that bubble. That said I certainly appreciate folks like Hexen showing that content innovation for higher level Splatoon stuff is still certainly possible, and in general comp should still try to be approachable by any Splatoon fan. I know with my own stuff at least on my main channel that my intended audience isn't just comp players despite the subjects often pertaining to comp. I like to think that's able to work, but I do worry about that if what you said about Dude being considered "comp content" is true just for being good and being active in the scene years ago lmao.

That ended longer than expected oops. Again overall great stuff! Hoping that you inspire the next content generation

noted. aiming for 3 uploads total next year🔥

(seriously though, thank you so much for your kind words!! i'll def try to get my upload schedule more consistent, the response to the raiders playthrough has definitely put some things into perspective for me and caused me to rethink my approach to making videos :> i will do my best, seriously thank you again!!)

then theres the artists🥹🔥

“CJ FRESH WILL RETURN!” I shout as they drag me into the padded room

put me back in college and I’ll upload like every other day again boss 😭 I have so much thumbnail art locked in my computer catacombs AAAAAUUAUYGGHHH

a lot of people have just become busier!! Seeing splash panda’s success has really made me happy because it felt like for so long so many people were posting fun silly videos and getting nothing from the ol youtube algorithm. There are so many small channels fighting for their life out there… and hopefully 4 inspires even more!! The best time to start is NOW!!!
Not when 4 comes out!!!!
(I tell people all the time on stream they should be the next octoboy bc you don’t even need a capture card. The switch 2 captures such good clips for the editing. I’m Sure someone will do it eventually but not me I wanna make more music so bad like it’s 2021 and maybe do the series I’ve dodged for over a year bc I thought we’d get third kits blast 2 HAHAHAHA)

Honestly I believe there are still plenty of great/up and coming splatoon YouTubers out there. I wouldn’t say the scene is dying, just moving on to new people. I literally just started a series on shorts talking about splatubers that has been doing really well and I’m absolutely gonna be continuing it, and it’s honestly shown me how many people there still are to discover :D

Hi, I edit for ProChara, I've noticed alot of my peers getting very busy as we all started to get out of college. Most of us are now approaching or already in our mid 20s so I can 100% understand how both the viewerbase and youtube scene are slowing down a bit, especially as we are approaching S3's lifespan. Hell I havent played the game competitively for YEARS, even though I met my spouse on Splatoon.

Your point of building up for the release of Spaltoon 4 really does remind me of how I started off. I made a discussion video and then Chara recruited me on board. We had a good grasp on content and then the channel exploded so much further to what I could even imagine. I still remember the times me and Chara were planning some video formats in his room haha.

Internally we have had discussions like this all the time, and we've seen the most success with competitive leaning videos, but im sure we want to also try to branch out to reach a more general audience, with how alot of people liked the moonlight saga.

Overall you made some excellent points here, Ive always been a fan of TF2 content for example even if i dont regularly play it, especially the ones that talk about weapon balance. I always wanted to make the videos appeal to a more general audience like that, so when technology like Flexlion got better, this is when I started to learn how to film scenes in game and overall put more effort into my videos (and spend days on 15 sec indroductions) to push the production value further. This was all to change the video from just a comp discussion to something any Splatoon Fan could enjoy.  Wish I could have done more in that time but college was just consuming me so much, I cant imagine what else my peers in Splatoon Video editing are dealing with now as the economy is a wreck.

Thank you for your input, I owe the community alot for helping me find myself and the love of my life. I cant wait to see what you all will acomplish in Splatoon 4.

it's so weird to me that people call dude's content competitive just because he's good at the game. he's the most consistent casual creator but just because he won major tourneys in the past people call him competitive

If you ever feel like the Splatoon Youtube scene is stagnating, try giving small creators a chance! I think I speak for all of us when I say we put a lot of time and effort into our videos just for the love of the game. There's tons of great content out there just waiting to be found :)

VicVillon and CosmicCloud

No cosmic cloud mentioned
No pufuu mentioned
Not even alphastar????
No richi monotagari
No rizirone
Not even the goat rassicas????
No ardnin
No vicvillion
Is bro even a fan

Really interesting video to talk about, I'll give my thoughts on the whole thing.
Part of the reason I think competitive content is so popular right now is that it just has a longer staying power, when a game exits its active content cycle you have more hardcore fans and a lot of casual fans just watch other stuff, its really really hard to nab attention without already being established, and those larger names often also move to other games. With comp, a lot more is happening or developing to talk about and that makes it easier. Even then it still slows down, I upload 3x less videos then I used to. So I'd imagine casual wise its even harder to grow.

I think the talk about the comp side wanting more content comes down to people want a wider variety of opinions and topics and that's the value in newer channels, but a lot of them are still trying to find their style. Ori's guides, Pikas storys, and Hxns coaching come to mind as some that are doing well and of course my teammate Omega is doing well, but all struggle to grow because of the time frame and will likely explode going into a new mainline game. I totally get a lot of people doing videos like me though and how that can saturate things. My goal has just been about comp scene growth and I think I found success because I made stuff people weren't at the time, but now there's more comp content and thus harder to make unique stuff. There's still definitely things I don't do as well.

You briefly mentioned my Raiders playthroughs and casual content and your right, part of the reason I did a nuzlocke is to try and stand out but its very hard to tackle anything casual as a more comp channel because viewers will generalize your content into boxes regardless of any branching out. Gameplay videos for me have almost always done worse for that reason. The one time I had success was last Resort, and I think that's because Arashi and his antics had a lot of appeal to wider Splatoon fans, he's very entertaining and silly, he would do great if he made content, and since he didn't my channel became a place for that, but that audience largely has nothing to turn to on my channel outside of the once a year reunion video.

I think part of what Octoboy and other channels did well was group dynamics, having people to bounce off of can do a lot and the second half is just presentation (which Splash Panda is incredible at.) I'm not a big casual content viewer but I'd tune into a panda video or octoboy one, and I agree that niche is missing, and I hope to see people build their channels so when Splatoon 4 hits they can grow. A big part of why mine did is I had time to learn how to make my content prior to Splatoon 3 really hitting. Competitive is 100% the smaller market but I hope this gave a bit of my pov. I appreciate your deep dive into this, good luck.

bro summoned the ENTIRE splatuber community with ease 🗣️🔥

The fact that Owest is considered one of the bigger splatoon youtubers now is a crime because his content is genuinely the most sauceless nothing content i've ever seen. Dude genuinely pumps out videos that add nothing of substance to whatever he talks about, he just so happens to be a good editor so he gets views xddd.

I've honestly really been missing old Octoboy/Failboat/Jaymoji content I'm a bit tempted to do it myself

Reject copying return back to montages and minigames

I'm so happy to be featured and have more people discussing this 😭

i'd debate that hazmy was a splatoon 3 staple but they did leave for the milk so just early S3

alright you sold me i am 1:32 in and i think i will make a video and get 14 morbillion view

First of all, I got whiplash seeing my guy DBGo at the beginning!! Omg! He mentions new people coming to the scene tho, not people who have been doing it.
Second, a lot of Black, Brown, and South Asian  (non-white in general) YouTubers who do Splatoon stuff is MASSIVE. Off the top of my head: Kiver, Negus/Ken Knows It, ThatSRBDude, Alphastar716, FlemiZ, Ju5t Champ (who has been doing the PPT presentation style that you are doing here), Who Cares 123, even DBGo in the beginning clip who is Filipino! I love seeing more non-white creators who also share an interest of something I like because for a long time, many of us brown folks were considered weird because we didn't fit a particular stereotype. That we just didn't ... play video games? Nowadays, not so much. It's a lot more spread out.

I remember a discussion similar to this floating around a while ago and was motivated to try and make my own Splatoon content. I adore the series as a whole and actively play it to this day but after uploading a handful of pvp and salmon run videos, none of them really performed well so I just moved on to uploading other games that gave me more success, which sucks because I do believe with the time and effort I put into those videos, I’d at least get a little something more. And yea if I’m enjoying the game and having a fun time putting silly edits, why would uploading Splatoon be a problem? When I put out those videos for them to not do well after the time I put into them, it just leads me to burnout of making videos for the game. This kinda turned into a vent reading back through it, but this is something I had motivation in doing and it felt appropriate to comment this here. Glad someone made a video of this topic