Geometry Dash YouTube popped off this year, there is no doubt. So many new YouTubers including Stallion, KingSammelot, Tride, SiKky, Stallion, Ender, Klaux, Waboo, Cob, MatMart, MathGenius, and even myself got some big wins this year.
Despite this, however, YouTuber presence in the Geometry Dash 2022 Awards was lacking. Only four nominees were chosen, and excluding Tride, each nominee was someone who had previously been nominated.
That alone is not a reason to restrict someone from the Awards. In fact, that's not what I'm saying. None of the nominees shouldn't have been nominated. But I am saying that four YouTubers (especially ones that largely make the same type of content) do not represent the vast scope that is Geometry Dash YouTube in this past year.
So, as an event to celebrate the community, the Awards did not do its job at representing the Geometry Dash YouTube portion of the community.
Today, however, I hope to change that. With these suggestions in place, the Geometry Dash Awards could not only bring some much needed representation to the YouTube community, but other underrepresented communities such as the star grinding community.
Table of contents:
- TL;DR
- 1. Include More Nominees
- 2. Include More Categories
- 3. Have The Committee Choose The Nominees
- Summary
TL;DR
The best way to improve underrepresented categories in the Awards is to include more nominees.
If extra justification is needed, you can split the existing YouTuber category into multiple, give the committee more power regarding who gets nominated, or both.
Next year, I think the easiest thing to do is include six nominees for YouTubers instead of four. That alone would already be a great starting point to making the Awards more inclusive to all.
1. Include More Nominees
This first fix is by far the easiest, which is why it surprises me that it was not done this year.
The easiest fix would be to include more nominees. Other categories included six nominees, so why should the YouTube category be limited to just four? Even the player category included six nominees.
The biggest reason I believe this was not done is because of a different, albeit failed attempt to solve the problem: the introduction of the best video category.
Viprin said the following on Twitter in regards to Colon's reaction to the Awards:
Content creators who did not produce that many videos this year didn't really seem to get much votes, although they still got a shot in Best Video.
This tweet suggests that the best video category was made to encompass more of Geometry Dash YouTube. But as I said many times before the Awards even started, this is not a fix.
While this is definitely nice to give YouTubers who produce very high end stuff a shot, that is a very small (albeit incredibly talented) subgroup of Geometry Dash YouTube.
Many of the YouTubers I listed at the start of this article, such as SiKky, Stallion, and Cob, do not upload often. But when they do, they still upload good stuff. Despite this, I wouldn't say any of them deserve to be in the best video category (myself included).
Not to mention the fact that the best video category seemed to only focus on popular community videos, with Npesta getting one of his videos nominated.
Not saying it shouldn't have been nominated, but it hardly represents Geometry Dash YouTube.
It would be better to include two extra slots in the YouTuber category to nominate two more YouTubers who grew this year.
Not saying I should be nominated, but I do believe that 75,000 subscribers and 12 videos (pretty much all of which exceed 100,000 views) is a good candidate. A lot of the YouTubers I mentioned have similar metrics to this.
Including Tride, Wulzy, EVW, and AeonAir (the nominees for this year), I think a nominees list like this would suffice:
- Tride (108K subscribers)
- Wulzy (110K subscribers)
- EVW (806K subscribers)
- AeonAir (145K subscribers)
- SiKky (69K subscribers)
- Myself (75K subscribers)
And if you don't like me humbling myself, here are some other nominees I would suggest:
- Cob (44K subscribers)
- Stallion GD (34K subscribers)
Although one could argue that these subscriber counts are too low, hence why I do think I would be more fit.
That being said, I don't think their subscriber counts make them unworthy, as Doggie got nominated last year with only 47K subscribers. Cob and Stallion are in that ballpark.
Regardless, I think the list I suggested above would already encompass a wider array of content types on Geometry Dash YouTube.
2. Include More Categories
Viprin stated that the Awards are highly dictated by the community. In fact, he calls out the community for not speaking up about Geometry Dash YouTube:
There's always a question to suggest new categories in the suggestion forms, but we haven't gotten much good suggestions for content creation really. People mostly care about levels.
This is a fair and factual statement, but is not a solution. Excuses are not improvements.
That being said, I understand that categorizing YouTubers are hard, let alone a small subset of them that are Geometry Dash YouTubers.
That being said, I find it funny how the same has repeatedly been said about levels.
Regardless, even just splitting the existing YouTuber category into two categories would make a huge difference and allow for so much more of Geometry Dash YouTube to shine.
I would suggest the following:
- YouTubers who play the game (Play). These would include YouTubers who largely play the game in "letsplays," but would not be limited to a single kind of content type.
- YouTubers who talk about the game (Commentary). These would include YouTubers who largely talk about the game instead of playing it.
But even then, I admit that categorizing a lot of YouTubers would be difficult. YouTubers like Cob make a good balance of content playing the game and content talking about the game.
Other obvious categories, such as live commentary and post commentary, sound good on the surface—but even then, there are loads of YouTubers who do a lot of both, such as myself.
I think the best bet would be to categorize YouTubers based on more objective metrics. This is even what has been suggested to be done with levels.
Even just breaking the category into above and below 100,000 subscribers would make a big difference and allow for more YouTubers to get the stage.
You could also split the category based on language to include more YouTubers outside the English community—but that doesn't seem to have been a problem this year.
At the end of the day—I cannot say this enough—I understand it is hard categorizing Geometry Dash YouTubers. Instead, I largely think the better solution is to just include more nominees, as I've already stated.
3. Have The Committee Choose The Nominees
Viprin also stated that nominations were largely based on the community. He said the following:
The nominations for these categories were pretty much entirely based on the results from the suggestion forms. Content creators who did not produce that many videos this year didn't really seem to get much votes.
I am all for incorporating the community into decisions. It is a community event, after all.
That being said, just because someone isn't largely suggested doesn't mean they don't deserve a spot. There are many big YouTubers who don't have dedicated fan bases. Prioritizing YouTubers who do is not representative of the community.
In fact, even Viprin agrees that the community at times is not the best judge. However, this is mostly in regards to the results.
The results will always be a popularity contest, as it is 100% chosen by the community. The nominees are what really matter.
It is the job of the committee to select representative nominees. Otherwise, why even have a committee in the first place?
Taking into account what the community says is vital, as the Award nominees should not be limited to what the committee is aware of.
That being said, selecting nominees who deserve a spot and not whoever was suggested most is crucial.
This also applies to the best video category. Npesta's video was a considerably controversial nomination, but it is obvious that it must've been highly suggested.
Instead, I would suggest a video like Colon's SubZero coins video instead. That would be more representative of Geometry Dash YouTube this year.
I understand the fear of backlash for not listening to the community's demands. But that is not an excuse. There will always be backlash. But trying to minimize that at the cost of people who deserve a shot at the spotlight is not right.
It could also be argued that the committee is not aware of some potential worthy nominees. But I find that unlikely as most of who I suggested in my first point is of a size comparable to YouTubers nominated last year. It also seems that is not what Viprin is implying in his official statements.
Summary
What I find interesting is that both my second and third points could be solved by just doing what my first point suggests: including more nominees.
If other categories do it, why can't the YouTube category follow along?
Including more categories would not be required if we could include more representative nominees, and the committee could both listen to the community and choose who they believe is worthy if they had the space to do so.
At the end of the day, the best way to improve YouTuber representation in the Awards is to simply include more nominees.
If you need justification to include more nominees (which should not be the priority but whatever) then splitting the existing YouTuber category into multiple and choosing more nominees based on the committee are valid choices.
I also want to briefly touch on other underrepresented categories. One of the most widely suggested categories, star grinders, should exist.
Star grinders have become incredibly relevant now thanks to the revival of the leaderboard. In fact, there is even an entire, official team running it.
Simply add a star grinders category with six nominee slots. If that isn't enough, then either increase the number of slots or break it into multiple categories or do what is suggested in this article.
I could say a lot more about the Awards, but this already looks more like an unstructured rant than I'd like. But at the end of the day, all I can say is that the Awards should be more representative of the entire community. Not just levels, but YouTubers and other players as well.
I don't want to sound like a jerk writing this. The reason I spent weeks writing a 2000 word review on the Awards is because I believe it is such an important event in the community.
It gives the community hype, and others—creators, YouTubers, and players—something to aim for.
Because of this, I want to see the Awards succeed. I believe they have so much potential. But the first logical step is to have them represent what the community achieved throughout the year, which I think they could be better at.
Colon said it best:
Spreading everyone up would be a really nice confidence boost for this part of the community, so [that being nominated] feels like a reachable goal.
Happy new year! Dashword has some great articles coming out this year, so stay tuned.
