How the Coronavirus has impacted the internet: Q&A with YouTuber Doug A James

Douglas James makes YouTube videos for the science channel Ben G Thomas, and runs a history channel called Doug A James, where he also explores literature and science. I chatted with him over the internet about his unusual job and how he’s been affected by the pandemic.

The Ben G Thomas channel posts educational videos three times a week. It has around 200,000 subscribers and has accumulated over 33 million views in the 8 years it’s been on YouTube. Douglas produces the weekly “Seven Days of Science” series.

What does it mean to be a YouTuber?

To put it simply, I produce videos and upload them to YouTube. Being “a YouTuber” is such a wide field. People can post music, games, comedy, everyday activities. Then there’s our educational videos.

It’s more complicated than that, however. I start by thinking of a topic, I then research that topic, write a script (500-3000 words), narrate that script, edit the audio, then edit the video itself. After that, I compose a quick soundtrack and make a thumbnail. And I make two videos a week, there are many channels that spend weeks, even months making a video. So, it’s a lot harder than you’d think, despite its reputation as an easy profession.

Doug A James is a relatively new channel, but it already has over two thousand subscribers and seventy-five thousand views.

Has your daily routine been affected by the lockdown?

Slightly. I’m still mostly doing the same thing, but we had big plans for the channel (travelling more and making some varied, interesting content) that have now been put on hold. Luckily, thanks to the nature of our videos, we can produce our normal content at home. The biggest change for me has been the return of my family (they’ve had to stop working) so the house is a lot busier, making it slightly harder to get work done.

I had already arranged to interview Douglas to discuss online content creation and the state of YoutTube and the internet, but coronavirus came along and presented me with a unique insight into the effects of the pandemic.

How has your channel been affected been affected by coronavirus?

I’ve gone back to making a video a week for my historical YouTube channel and I’ve sadly put all my larger projects to one side. We want to make the most out of this situation and try to entertain as many people as possible. As for the success of our videos, we haven’t seen any great increase at all (which you might have expected with everyone indoors). In fact, we’ve had a bit of a dip in watch-time recently, but that’s more to do with the type of videos we’ve been putting out.

What about YouTube itself?

YouTube has been massively affected. They’ve been demonetising videos that reference the coronavirus, as it breaches their “global pandemic” policy. They’ve said it’s to stop the sharing of misinformation, but larger channels have gotten away with despicable, misleading videos and our videos on sensible precautions received limited advertisements. I understand YouTube’s plight - they have to make sure lies don’t spread like wildfire. It can be really hard to regulate everything, and they trust the larger channels to be more responsible - some have released very informative and impressive videos on the subject. YouTube’s action can be frustrating, but I believe they’re trying to do what’s right.