MATI on Locals- Trust dynamics in Amberverse (Apr 21, 2025 ) 2025-04-21

0:00:00
Unknown_00: Chat. It is another not Gumroad video, Locals video. I have to get used to saying Locals instead of Gumroad now. I've gotten so accustomed to it. Only to be betrayed by Stripe. Anyways, so I've had this on the back burner for a while. There are a couple things that I've been mulling over for content. I figured that just doing nice, simple little things like this would probably be the best thing to do. Either...

0:00:32
Unknown_00: Every weekend, once a month, something like that. So I'll just get this out of the way. Trust Dynamics in the Amberverse. This was posted on the forum a while ago. I've been meaning to get around to it since then.

Unknown_00: I've saved it just for you, the loyal locals following.

Unknown_00: And I'm going to read through this now.

Unknown_00: So to give you some background, I believe... that this is published in a book of economics. And there's a 11-page excerpt from that book that is a study into influencers and their market.

0:01:11
Unknown_00: Because at some point,

Unknown_00: Advertisers realize, especially in the digital era, that the number one thing driving sales was word of mouth. And it's very hard to get word of mouth advertising from people unless your product is really good.

Unknown_00: Now, a marketer can't make their product very good, but they can make more people talk about their product. So the influencer economy is effectively a way for marketers to take the trust that we have in word-of-mouth advertising and to capture that and make that into a product that they control. So add the marketers, the influencers who brand drop in, you know, set up affiliate links and that kind of stuff. That is the zombified form of word of mouth advertising. And that's what they're doing is setting into. And what they've discovered, I assume, on good, on just out of trust, I'll say that they stumbled upon this. And it definitely wasn't one of them who's super into Amberlynn, decided that they would take university money to publish this. I should say that this was written by

0:02:35
Unknown_00: Which, if it sounds Polish, guess what? It was the Polish University. The University of Poland published this.

Unknown_00: Which I guess us invading Poland and setting up the Kiwi Farms forwarding proxy there has had some detrimental effects on the Polish people.

Unknown_00: But enough ramble, let's get into the content.

Unknown_00: Chapter 6, Trust Dynamics in Amberverse, a case study of Amberlynn Reads, YouTube channel, the commentary community, and audience engagement. Introduction, the chapter investigates the complex dynamics of trust in the context of YouTube content creation focusing on lol cow type creation or type content. The study employs the case of Amberlynn Reid, a prominent figure known for candid portrayal of personal struggles in a failed weight loss journey. Due to several controversies caused by her since her debut on YouTube in December 2011, she became one of the focal characters within the YouTube commentary community, gaining notoriety as a so-called lolcow.

0:03:17
Unknown_00: A lot of this is just background on Amberlynn.

Unknown_00: So a lot of what I'm skipping, if you're at all curious about the history of Amberlynn, I actually did a full person stream on her. It's one of the first streams I ever did.

Unknown_00: You can go watch that on MatthewNet.com or on YouTube. I think there are re-uploads of it. So the rationale for the study, they have to justify why they're spending the money of the Polish people on this shit. The ease of publishing on social media allows every uppercase I internet user to create their own content. As a result, on most platforms, you can find a wide range of creators presenting diverse attitudes and producing a wide range of content. Not all of them gain popularity for the right reasons. Locale culture is an internet phenomenon consisting of mocking content creators whose views or behavior have been deemed comical. Content creators who become a target of mockery on the internet slang are called locales. The concept originated from a combination of phrases, laugh out loud, lol, a popular internet slang acronym indicating amusement, and cash cow. which is not true. I've never actually seen anybody say that cash cow is the origin of low cow. A cow can be milked regardless of if it is a cash cow or not.

0:04:30
Unknown_00: A term used to product services or individuals that bring large profits.

Unknown_00: So, internet content creators who have been recognized as locals often remain unaware that they are providing entertainment at their own expense to thriving internet communities. The title of locale can be gained due to displaying unusual, self-destructive, or controversial behaviors, expressing scandalous views, consistently facing failures in their endeavors, or engaging in online conflicts.

0:05:07
Unknown_00: I'm going to say that's actually pretty good. That's a pretty good summary of who gets a thread on the forum. I feel like that's accurate.

Unknown_00: In research methods and objectives, the aim of this research presented in the chapter is to outline the mechanisms of building trust in pathological online communities using the Amberverse as a case study. I don't know what's pathological about it, but I assume there's some fancy spiffy thing to it. What's funny is that they actually say, I didn't even highlight this, but the method was desk research, participant observation, and qualitative analysis. So sitting at the desk, watching commentary videos, and using qualitative analysis. So there is zero. This says a study survey size of n equals zero.

0:05:56
Unknown_00: Source, we made it the fuck up.

Unknown_00: Uh, in literature review, and this is explaining how they're, they're citing all this other shit. And then they're saying here that issues related to con trust and content careers, especially those who can gather a large following influencers are particularly significant in the literature aspects related to trust and content creators mainly focus on influencer marketing. Uh,

0:06:31
Unknown_00: these studies describe or demonstrate the impact of trust in the influencer on their followers' purchase intentions. Another similar aspect involves studies dedicated to building trust in content creators or in one specific brand customer. So,

Unknown_00: Somehow this relates to market research. Trust us, bro. Please keep pumping in money to the Zlotny, to the Polish university. So here are the results. So in a real academic study, you don't really put the results at the end as like a wrap it all up. You put it near the beginning. This is what we were looking for. And this is what we actually found. And then there's more qualitative analysis towards the bottom. Results. The internet users involved in ridiculing the Lowell cows, gathering communities dedicated to tracking their online activities and documenting them on dedicated forums and social media. Media analysts analyzed the bear heavies as one form of harassment and classified them as one of the subgroups of troll communities. See Bishop 2014. There's a study about Lowell cows in 2014. They have to look that up next.

0:07:39
Unknown_00: Low-cal type content is collected in various forms. Commentary channels commenting on the actions of low-cals are popular, where members of the audience community act as reporters, gathering content and presenting it as coherent form for those who, for various reasons, do not follow the actions of LOLcals at their source. Now here, you guys start ringing up some L's for these boys, the Polish boys, trying to ascertain what an amber verse is. Another form of collecting this type of content is internet forums. Until 2022, the most popular of them remained Kiwi Farms, founded as early as 2013 to persecute the controversial webcomic author known as Chris Chan, which apparently was in another study in 2020 by Veal.

0:08:12
Unknown_00: Since then, the forum has gained significant popularity. Its administrators declared in 2022 that about 16,000 users log in daily from Le Monde. That is a hit piece article that came out during the Kefals saga. In 2022, the forum disappeared from the internet, according to Wired. This is what I love about academics. These Polish people can just search Kiwi Farms and you can actually find it on Google again. But instead of using their brain for qualitative analysis, they're just like, well, Wired says it's gone, so it must be true.

0:08:56
Unknown_00: But then they get this wrong as well. Like this entire paragraph is a fucking disaster. New ones quickly emerged, including Low-Cal Farm. Low-Cal Farm, I think, has been around, if not, like not just as long as the Kiwi Farms, it might even be older. Because I remember when we were transitioning from the Quickie Forums to a new site, and I was thinking of what to call the site after it would drop the name Quickie Forums. I actually realized that there was a .farm, and I thought, oh my God, wouldn't it be funny if we could be Low-Cal.farm? And then I looked it up and it was already taken and it was active use and it belonged to the people from CGL and 4chan. So they've been around at least since we've been called Kiwi Farms.

0:09:33
Unknown_00: Did not arise because we were taken down horrifically by keffels.

Unknown_00: Other communities encountered channels for disseminating locale-type content include X, formerly Twitter, and Wikipedia-type platforms such as Encyclopedia Dramatica.

Unknown_00: That's way better. Does anyone use the ED? Is the ED still around? I haven't thought about ED in forever.

Unknown_00: The locale phenomenon arouses. Ooh, locales are arousing, apparently. A significant controversy among internet users. Some consider it a harmless source of entertainment, liking it to reality TV. Others criticize it as a form of cyberbullying and persecution. Locale culture is a specific form of cyberbullying. Well, the authors make their position on this controversy rather explicit. Um...

0:10:09
Unknown_00: By earning the title of Lol Cow, creators become victims of persecution, but they must have previously exhibited some form of activity that attracted the attention of an audience. Community thirsty for internet drama, an internet slang term for conflicts in the realm of the internet. I think people know what drama is, bro.

0:10:44
Unknown_00: Nor is a one-time incident sufficient to maintain the attention of this type of audience. Locals must repeatedly engage in actions that provoke outrage. Considering that many locals are at least initially unaware of their status, they can be seen as creators who exhibit problematic behaviors. When the status of a given creator as a locale is solidified, the audience community takes provocative actions aimed at escalating the situation.

Unknown_00: The negative impact of community actions on the mental health and well-being of locales is undeniable. Discussions often arise between creators and their audiences, and the emotional reactions of creators only fuel the wave of mockery, bringing no effects other than providing the audience community with materials for new memes.

0:11:21
Unknown_00: I mean, if you let it get to you, I guess. I don't know. Is that true, Chiat? Does, uh...

Unknown_00: Does being a lolcow negatively impact momentals?

Unknown_00: There are opinions pointing out the harmfulness of behaviors exhibited by lolcows which, due to activity of the community, gain publicity and reach susceptible individuals. So I'm not sure what that direct reference is. I don't think that Chris Chan has encouraged anybody else, any susceptible individuals out there, to have sex with their own mother.

0:12:07
Unknown_00: The way that they phrase this, though, is that, like, It's still, even though the Lowell cows and their outrageous activities do provoke some ire, it is actually the fault of the community audience for spreading that around and damaging susceptible individuals by promoting the offensive content. So regardless of who's actually doing things, it's actually the audience. That's the bad people chat.

Unknown_00: But now we get away from low-cows to Amberlynn Reid and the Amberverse. Unlike many modern-day low-cows, Amberlynn Reid's content tends to be curated. She does not rely on live streams. When she does interact with her audience, a significant discrepancy from her normal persona can be observed. Despite her low-effort video editing style. Low fucking effort. She is in control of what she chooses to publish on her channel, indicating that at least some of her controversies may have been stirred deliberately. It is important to note that as far as she discloses social media presence is AL, ALR is only source. You know, ALR is not easier to say than Amberlynn Reed. Those are all one vowels are one syllables and ALR is three different letters. So it's the same amount of mouth work to say either the acronym or the name.

0:13:14
Unknown_00: Um,

Unknown_00: I mean, with Amberlynn specifically, that might actually be true.

0:13:52
Unknown_00: Amber Lynn Reed's online presence resulted in the creation of an online reactionary community, which began gaining popularity around 2018 when Amber Lynn Reed's following increased significantly. The social ecosystem consisting of Amber Lynn Reed and all agents of the reactionary community, as well as all data reposted on various platforms, is known as the Amberverse and Portmanteau of Amber Plus Universe. Wow. Fascinating. Amberverse is not a secluded structure. It is a fraction of a larger community called Gaul. That is actually really funny, though. I don't think they even explain what Gaul means. They have to explain that Amberlyn Reed can't say any fucking words correctly. She's worse than me, so that's why it's called that.

0:14:32
Unknown_00: which focuses on a particular type of low-count influencer, specifically overweight vloggers and mukbangers whose content depicts failed weight loss journeys or fat acceptance body positivity activism. The characteristic that connects influencers categorized as girl-walled members is their lack of consistency in presenting narratives without showing any proof for their truthfulness.

Unknown_00: That's pretty accurate. I would say that's probably a fair analysis of that.

0:15:07
Unknown_00: Okay, so now we have this wonderful graph.

Unknown_00: Figure 6.1, the only figure in this. The structure of the community gathered around LolCal influencers sourced our own work. We made it the fuck up. Okay, so we have the LolCal, but then we got the Jannies. We got the followers. We got the lurkers.

Unknown_00: the archivists, the commentators, the defenders, and the trolls.

Unknown_00: She was trolling. I'm not trolling. Okay, let's see how they break this down.

0:15:39
Unknown_00: As in any community surrounding a lol cow, Amberverse members can take on various roles and display different patterns of behavior. There are several basic roles that its members adopt, as shown in figure 6.1. We got the big chungus herself, the lol cow. We got the followers, which are community members who follow the locale solely for their content, sometimes unaware of the larger existing community or aware but engaging only in direct interaction with essential influencers. So this is the people most stuck up the locale's house. I would agree that this is a thing.

0:16:11
Unknown_00: The lurkers, community members who remain inactive. I don't know why this is even a distinction. Like the followers and the lurkers can often be the same person. Like if you're just watching her streams for her content, then how are you different from a follower? Except that you don't chat, you don't leave comments.

Unknown_00: um then it's touched on moderators who try to try to have like a moralizing and controlling tone but are ineffective trolls community members focus on creating humorous content and causing confusion for entertainment purposes i actually disagree with this definition hey well no let me let me uh let me clarify um

0:16:53
Unknown_00: I obviously trolls are a thing. What's what they don't seem to distinguish is that the, um, like there is a third group that are like anti followers. And this is like, it's like an atone bubble, the anti follower. And it's like, it is closer to a troll, but they're not interacting directly with Emberlyn Reed. Um, they are a follower who does not like Emberlyn Reed, which for all, you know, intents and purposes can often be indistinguishable from a genuine fan as far as like the ad revenue that it creates.

Unknown_00: So I feel like that distinction is very important, but they just lump anybody that doesn't like Amber into people that are actively going out to try and create content through her. Then they have defenders, which is just another like another follower. They didn't even organize this to show like like like a scale, like an X and a Y accent or it's like. this is like people up here like amberlynn and people down here don't like amberlynn and then you have like a passivity skill where you have like her most engaged audience either anti-fan or fan and then her least engaged audience so you'd have like lurkers who are um participants on this side and then lurkers who are participants on this side on this side and then you'd have like her biggest super fans on the top right but they didn't do that they just have like

0:18:07
Unknown_00: This Venn diagram that doesn't look like a Venn diagram looks like the coronavirus or some shit. It doesn't. Honestly, as far as like a figure goes, this imparts absolutely fucking nothing because you would expect that these bubbles would overlap. Like, how do you archive something without following Amberlynn? How do you lurk Amberlynn without following something? How do you defend Amberlynn as a moderator without also being a defender? You know what I mean? It's like, it's terrible. It's really lazy.

Unknown_00: Commentators, community members who comment on the current or past activity of a locale. But that is, when we say commentator, we're referring to people who do streams. Like PPP and I would be commentators, but not every person who is an anti-fan is a commentator. And then archivist, members who gather, archive, and analyze content published by the locale. I guess you could say that this term is clumsy, but it could be what I'm referring to. Just like a bad name for it.

0:18:43
Unknown_00: A commentary community's influence on trust dynamics. Now we get to wind this back and say that, no, really, we're actually doing something scientific here. Throughout Amberlynn Reid's presence on YouTube, large amounts of data had been archived, some of which became notable for the community and its identity. The analysis of Amberlynn Reid's activity led to the creation of a theory known within the Amberverse as the cycle cycle. The cycle refers to a sequence of events regarding any new narrative Amberlynn Reid introduces to her channel. The cycle consists of four steps. Redemption, ignorance, indictation, manipulation, and this is fucking theft. I'm going to show you. This is a Google search for the Amberlynn cycle. And you'll notice that the Amberlynn cycle is actually from the Kiwi Farms thread about Foodie Beauty. And then they just kind of reworded things to be a little bit different because this is the cycle. And this was made for the forum by a user on the forum. And they just decided, no, actually, this is about Amberlynn now.

0:20:02
Unknown_00: With the cycle being commonly acknowledged phenomenon around the Amberverse, commentary channels not only report on Amberlynn Reid's activity, but also shape the community's perception of it. Therefore, trust regarding Amberlynn Reid's internet presence does not depend on the same factors as in the case of typical influencers. It is not transparency, authenticity, and reliability that viewers expect from her channel, but failure, dishonesty, and lies. I think that they are trying to be nice to her by calling everybody a fucking cyber bully, troll terrorist, or whatever the fuck. But this is like the coldest fucking thing you could say. Especially if you're trying to pretend to be like a scientist doing science and shit. You're like, yeah. Her entire reputation is built on her failure, her dishonesty, and her lies. Like, what a fucking condemnation right there.

0:20:42
Unknown_00: In that context, Amberlynn Reid's content started to be treated by the community as a narrative similar to a TV series or reality TV, with people appearing in blogs referred to as side characters and events being grouped together into eras or seasons. Eras are being divided based on Amberlynn Reid's current partner or place of residency. And which, which characters spelled like a witch? Yeah. Which is the witchiest Amberlynn Reid side character, Chad? I'm going to say Destiny is the witchiest witch.

0:21:19
Unknown_00: Which characters cast of... And which characters cast of characters... This is like a fucking clusterfuck. What the fuck? Which characters cast of characters...

Unknown_00: which I think they did not mean to say which characters, but which cast of characters consisting of her partner, family, friends, and even pets. Every error has significant events and quotes often being referenced by commentators. Even years later, these comparisons and linguistics patterns are present across the whole community being reinforced by commentary channels.

0:21:54
Unknown_00: which is pretty fair. That was a good summation of Amberlynn Reid's hate fandom.

Unknown_00: But this one's in pink, which means that it sucks, chat. Let's see why I made this a pinky. This allows the audience to easily detach internet content from the real person and events in their life, leading to a decrease in empathy and the dehumanization of a low-count influencer, in this case, Amberlynn Reid. The detachment allows for audience engagement despite the lack of trust toward the main content creator.

0:22:26
Unknown_00: no I disagree with that I think the fact that they are like if you want to watch reality TV just fucking watch reality television people that are watching shit like Amberlynn are watching it specifically because they see the human in it like this is not scripted this is not fake this is actually how she behaves she's extremely obnoxious she causes all her own problems and that's the pool that's why people find it interesting

Unknown_00: notable controversies and their impact. So this is just a summation. She dated crystal. I think the, if I remember correctly, crystal was like under age or something. And she cheated on her. Eventually. I think that she lived with crystal. The destiny is the best one. Destiny was the love of her life. She has never gotten over destiny and destiny trolls the fuck out of her and troll the fuck out of her when they were together. Um,

0:23:22
Unknown_00: destiny was nothing destiny all the videos with destiny are the funniest because destiny was like immediate and quick to just call amberlynn out on being full of shit and then then dustin cheated on her and dumped her becky era sucked um wifey era fucking garbage most boring fucking era didn't even see her because she was so afraid of the internet then the single lynn era

Unknown_00: That's stupid. She's a U-Haul lesbian. She's always shacking up with somebody.

Unknown_00: Okay, so this is them complaining about YouTube not banning this, by the way. Platform policies and user trust on YouTube, the community guidelines, the content moderation, and the creator monetization policies.

Unknown_00: These guidelines cover areas such as hate speech, harassment, violence, and misinformation. Despite that, the low-cow community flourishes on the platform, producing hours of content every day.

0:24:19
Unknown_00: Even though several of these videos infringe on community guidelines, appropriate punishments are rarely served. However, the reporting system became one of many tools utilized by the community, with commentary content often reported for copyright infringement. It is important to remember that both lolcows and their commentators profit from the created content, while the content may break the community guideline rules. In the case of pathological communities such as lolcow communities, YouTube's moderation policies tend to be used as a weapon toward the disliked members of the community. Most notably, false copyright infringement claims are being reported towards commentary channels, resulting in temporary restrictions such as the inability to upload videos or live broadcast for one week.

0:25:06
Unknown_00: The Dynamics of Trust Within Online Communities

Unknown_00: The heterogeneous structure of the audience community and the connections formed among its members are frequently ignored. Understanding these relationships, particularly in pathological communities such as local communities, can contribute to better refining the functioning principles of social media platforms. Analyzing the dynamics of trust in such communities can provide valuable insights into the functioning of pathological groups on the internet. Understanding how trust is shaped and utilized in these contexts can help develop strategies aimed at reducing the spread of harmful content and increasing user safety. The case study presented in this chapter should be considered as preliminary research outlining the problem. Further studies are necessary, encompassing other types of similar communities centered around various localities. influencers and gathered on different platforms. Exploring these aspects can contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of trust in online communities and help create safer and more user-friendly online environments. Yes, please, please, Neil Mahan. What we really need is an even more walled garden internet. Where dumb fucks can parade around and fucking lie flat out to their own fucking audience over and over again. And nobody can say anything bad about it because it's so bad for their mentals to be a lying sack of shit who can get away with whatever the fuck they want.

0:26:24
Unknown_00: This is so fucking dumb. We need more research to make people dumber, less responsible, and more easily able to get away with flat-out fucking deceit and bullshit constantly. That's the future that we need.

0:27:06
Unknown_00: We need to preserve people from any form of statement that they don't want to hear because it's really upsetting. When someone says that you're wrong or that you lied or that you're full of shit, it's so damaging. And honestly, that's the most important thing. That's the most important thing in the entire world is that we never hurt anybody's feelings for any fucking reason. Bravo, Poland. Let me look this up real quick. I bet you. I fucking bet you, Chad.

0:27:39
Unknown_00: There is multiple. Okay, you know what? Let's do this, then. Let's not fuck around, chat. Let me just search Grigory Filipchik and Azniazka Filipchik and see where they show up.

Unknown_00: Trust Dynamics.

Unknown_00: They do show up in ResearchGate. Where is he from? This guy is old. Oh, it's the University of Economics in Katowice.

Unknown_00: Trust dynamics in the Amberverse. Ethics and trust in big data, too big data in management. Assessing data quality. Determining what data to trust and use. Assessing data quality. That is such a weird, this, is Ajnezhka, is that a woman?

0:28:13
Unknown_00: She has no other results. Dude. I wonder if that's like her, this guy is like a data analyst. And then his sister was like, brother, brother, I need to, I want to talk about Amberlynn and have it be in a, in a document because then people, my favorite commentary channels on YouTube will talk about it. And that would be really funny. So then, uh, it was like, okay. And we will, uh, we'll do, I'll do this for you, my sister. maybe it's his wife maybe his wife was into it let's see if i can find her real quick because this guy's like an old guy he's like 40 oh my god she has like a what the fuck i guess there's multiple people named this but i'm just gonna say she has like a like a face that's like scary but this is her university oh this is her in katowice

0:29:23
Unknown_00: Dude, chat. Let me get this picture. Bro, this is her LinkedIn page. She definitely, I can tell by looking at her, she is a huge fan of Amberlynn Hate Channel. She's like either this guy's wife or sister, and she wanted her name in a publication specifically to troll the Amberverse. That is my assessment of what's going on here.

Unknown_00: That is my qualitative analysis, chat.

Unknown_00: Thank you for listening. Have a great Monday. I'll see you on Friday. Take it easy. Bye-bye.