A review Binge for $1.07 an hour
In the world of influencer marketing and social media, exposure is often trotted out as the holy grail of payment methods.
Streaming platform Binge split industry, and Mumbrella office, opinions last week when it launched a competition which offered little more than exposure in response to reviews.
Dr Mumbo isn’t one to judge, but luckily the internet happily will. Enter content creator Ryan Jon.
It turns out, not only will your local cafe, gym and landlord not accept Binge subscriptions as payment, one review a week for the price of a standard Binge membership boils down to around $1.07 per hour. Ouch.
It’s worth watching the whole video, if not just for the excessive use of quotation marks, but also for an actual reviewer’s take on the competition. Plus, as Ryan Jon points out in the description, ‘This was excruciating and so awkward to make so at least some it some love?’
Dr Mumbo checked in with Ryan Jon to see how he’d recovered from the filming experience and was relieved to find him in good spirits, despite the fact he can probably never attend his local coffee shop again.
“I think free work disguised as competitions is something worth calling out. There are lots of logo competitions so companies can avoid hiring a graphic designer, lots of free internships that are spent doing admin work. Mumbrella readers would know how common it is to work for free to get exposure or build your portfolio,” he said.
“When I thought of the idea of calling people, I knew I had to do it. Which sucks, cause the idea seemed fun, but the reality of doing it was so excruciatingly awkward.”
Sorry Ryan Jon, but your suffering is our reward.
In Binge’s defence, the platform hasn’t given all the specifics of the competition and how many pieces the winner will be expected to submit. But it is hard to look past Binge’s decision to only offer up a Standard membership. With all those hours of reviewing ahead of them, the winner might have needed those extra two screens.
I agree with his point but oh my god – I could NEVER do that!
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A painful but great practical demonstration of how corporations that used to pay for content, and could still afford to, are driving content creators into poverty.
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The irony is that News.com.au should totally hire this guy to do a show but I guess that’s not happening now!
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