YankeeMarshall used to be an active poster on this forum and went by the name of Playboy Penguin.
YouTube isn't something I use often or enjoy much. I like it as a resource for digging up something specific (such as a particular older music video, detailed teardown/reassembly of a firearm, or a video clip of a crime scene, etc) but for broadcasts, shows, and
especially gun reviews, I have nearly no use for it whatsoever.
It helps that I have seemingly very little interest in new/current guns, I
much prefer to live in the (recent) past.
In my opinion, the most
helpful review of any product that I might consider buying is when a reviewer can detail for me absolutely every little bit of it that possibly disappoints or might be construed as a negative. Because it just seems to me that if I can gather up all the possible negatives, I can sift through them and see how relevant those negatives might be to me personally. I have never expected perfection in any product that I might purchase, but I feel like I have a leg-up when I can get an idea of the possible strikes against it, to consider how much those items might matter to me.
It's not that glowing reports of features are useless to me, it's more that I have no idea whatsoever of the reviewer's level of experience is in such matters. If I see, hear or read about one more shooter telling me that this particular pistol is "more accurate than I am", I'm going to vomit. Because in the real world, that nugget is wholly irrelevant and also brings your ability very much in to question. And your credibility withers.
If you are a YouTube gun reviewer and doing that generates an income for you and/or gets free stuff shipped to your door, then I raise my beer to you, that's a helluva gig and while I have less than zero desire to do that myself, I give you a nod that you've been able to pull that off. At the same time, if YouTube and every similar site ceased to exist, I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it.
Like the out of production guns that I much prefer, I also get far more enjoyment from a gun discussion forum where folks use their words and leave the video camera out of it. I don't care to watch you handle a firearm poorly or recklessly, I don't want to grit my teeth through your dumb excuses, your "expert commentary", your inaccurate capsules of history related to the manufacturer, your resume and list of qualifying experiences, I don't want to watch you fumble over putting a slide stop back in to a pistol, I don't want to hear your dehumidifier whirring in the background...
I don't care to watch your YouTube channel and I am not interested in your gun review.
But yes, as you might surmise if you have read this far... I actually am interested in your gun forum written discussion on this subject!