The Multi-Layered Genius of Aaron Paulsen
Although he has over a million subscribers, you probably don’t know YouTuber Aaron Paulsen because, well, a million subs doesn’t mean much anymore (I will just point out Nietzsche’s phrase “the many-too-many” for absolutely no reason whatsoever). However, he might be one of the most brilliant men of his time.
And let me emphasize — of his time. Paulsen is the sort of man who will be beloved in his era and completely unrelatable to future generations, not unlike Mort Sahl, who some say invented modern comedy but whose acts are absolutely unwatchable to even young baby boomers, let alone later generations.
Paulsen is a guy who creates content with several layers, and to explain what I mean, just watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I7aepAjPizg
First, he begins the Stories video with a clip of a ragebait interview with someone who has gone off the deep end of polarized American Twitter culture-war discourse, being for the extreme left what some writer for Brietbart news would be on the extreme right. The thumbnail for the Stories is perfectly designed as ragebait to get one to click out of rage — after all, this is how I clicked on it.
But the video then changes to an absurd and comic performance which entirely undercuts both the message of the crazy radical and her entire ideology. The tension between the two genres adds to the comedy and makes it hard not to laugh.
Nietzsche, again, is valuable here: “Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay.”
And slay Paulsen does on his trampoline, but he also slays on YouTube, quickly exploding in popularity in late 2023 as the ragebait-and-switch technique pays dividends in monetizable views:
From what I can tell he’s a bit of a one-trick pony, but the trick is very good. And clever; Paulsen recognizes the way the algorithm works, the way human psychology works, and the way media works. And he’s done it all to create a large income stream for himself.
Of course there’s much more to learn from Paulsen’s success — one being that Generation Z is inured to the algorithms of the internet, and rather than the fantasy of a mass logging off (something media pundits are insisting will happen), they will likely create something different.
Just as my generation combined noise, chaos, and disharmony to create beauty (Aphex Twin, Nirvana), I see Gen Z as they come of age combining the noise, chaos, and disharmony of their digital reality to both leverage and deconstruct it. Unlike my generation, with its mistrust of firm-based capitalism, Gen Z grew up in a capitalist system centered on the individual economic agent, so the story is going to play out very differently than it has in the past. I suspect the Xennial-built internet (Facebook especially, since Twitter has already been killed by its new owner) is not at all prepared for what is about to come and, like the record labels and Blockbusters that failed to adapt to the Millennials, their massive firms now face the risk of devastation.
