Sensi Seth is a YouTuber in the martial arts niche who has set up his channels in a structure that removes some of the pressure from the process of being a content creator. By separating his reaction content from his more work-intensive uploads and negotiating YouTube’s fair use policy, Seth has removed the need for his main channel videos to be financially viable while also not watering down the content on his main channel with reaction videos.

Seth’s reaction channel works as one of the more advanced positions in his sales funnel. It allows dedicated fans access to more content from him. Some challenges come from this technique, however. His second channel, Sensei Seth Reacts, comments on other videos. This choice is complicated legally, as the original video is often not his. Seth gets around this in two ways. He never uses the video in full and also comments regularly enough that there aren’t uninterrupted periods of a video playing without his input. These decisions make the video fair use according to Youtube and US law because Seth is effectively creating something new with his personality, humour, and expertise. The other way he avoids copyright is by reacting to his videos, showing a sort of behind-the-scenes perspective to them, like a director’s commentary on a film. An example of this is “How I Lost A 7 Day Fighting Competition.”

The benefit of this structure is that each video has a lower effort and higher frequency, so if one doesn’t land well or gets copyrighted by a creator, it isn’t a huge issue, as the channel as a whole is still profitable. This foundation also frees up his main channel, allowing him to showcase more personal projects without financial success at the forefront, focusing on getting the attention of more people with exciting concepts rather than uploading for the sake of money or upload frequency. In this way, Seth’s main channel works as a loss leader for the rest of his content, giving him the freedom to make content that gets attention while still having a sense of financial security by funneling his fans to the reaction channel.

‘The special features of contemporary interview format on YouTube channel’ (2016) The international scientific and pedagogical organization of philologists ‘East-West’ [Preprint]. doi:10.33739/2587-5434-2019-2-113-117. 

George Algar-Nicholas