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cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/post/152656
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
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I really respect Gamers Nexus for actually doing the shit Linus Tech Tips just haws and haws over.
I don't think LTT ever did or claimed to do investigative journalism (or really journalism at all)?
They make entertainment videos that sometimes have mildly informative value.
I just got sick of there always being a new "controversy" with him and his inability to seem like he gives a shit about it. Each time he gets accused of something, whether he did it or not, he just goes on the WAN show to sigh as big as possible and say "Guys..."
But thats how it's presented, and that's how many viewers interpet it.
First it's not investigative journalism, it's hardware reviews that may or may not reveal problems, and he fakes and cheat with his, and takes money illegally under the table for making good reviews.
Difference between him and for instance Gamers Nexus, is that Gamers Nexus reveals if he detects something is off when he tests. While LTT prefer to get companies to pay for good reviews that gloss over the problems.
People are idiots if they believe your claim is true, and apparently most do?!
LTT and gamers nexus face similar but not exactly the same pressures. Gamers nexus is able to be more aggressive than Linus is but Linus structures his business on such a way that made it vulnerable to such a thing.
The clearest example of this was when the Intel overcoming bug was being hidden by Intel PR spin and GN noticed a pattern, said fuck all that noise, and raised hell over it. GN was right. Intel was wrong. And GN was rewarded for it. Linus has to keep sponsors happy whereas GN regularly throws punches with industry titans like NVIDIA.
The risk is higher but so is the reward. People trust GN specifically because of that reputation. Linus is fun, his channel is interesting, but he’s squarely in the influencer/entertainment category.
Meaning that for Linus you are the product, and the advertisers are the real customers.
Again meaning the videos are not made for you, they are made for the advertisers.
LTT doesnt make deep investigative hours-long videos anyway
Oh I almost forgot about him, I blocked his channels years ago. He is an idiot and a shill, and did illegal hidden advertising.
Why anyone would still watch his channels is very strange IMO.
It’s kind of a guilty pleasure for me. I like it in the background sometimes. It’s like watching code blue cam. Cops are occasionally useful bullies but I don’t watch it for the cops. I watch it for the white trash judge judy bullshit. It’s a methed out freak show sometimes. It’s spectacle.
Illegal hidden advertising?
Yes, he would make a paid advertisement camouflaged as a review and never disclose that it was in fact not a review but an advertisement.
He had even set up a scheme to hide the fact, and make it look like the payments were for something else, like consulting.
The guy is absolute scum, and the success of his channel is based on illegal practices.
That is not the reality as I see it. They don't hide the fact that it's a sponsored video (marked as "sponsored video") until the end of the video. They seems mindful to always disclose conflict of interest (everytime framework, the NAS company) and they stopped working with Anker publically and immediately when the eufy camera scandal broke. They seem to hold them selves to a high ethical standard and disclose information even though it paints them in a negative light (they admitted they knew honey was swapping advertiser links but they didn't make it a big story)
Source: I watch around 2-3 LTT videos per week and around 50% of the WAN show podcast
I used to watch less because I couldn't bring myself to click on the god-awful distasteful thumbnails but then I installed "dearrow" and sponsorblock and they are more than tolerable.
OMG the honey fiasco was such an incredible explosion to watch. I never trusted it. I knew it was shady. But I never actually studied it. Just dismissed it as ridiculous shit being shipped everywhere and avoided it. Then the truth came out, LTT and many other got caught with their pants down and looked really bad, and I felt my distrust validated.
So satisfying.
Yeah I thought there is no way it can work effectively and never tried it. I was wondering how they could afford so much advertising. I just expected to be bankrupt. I bet others thought that too. That the shadyness was only about investors.
He only changed practices to be more transparent because he was called out with clear evidence.
I bet he still breaks the rules if it fits his purpose, but since I haven't watched his dishonest channels for years, I cannot really say. But once a fraudster always a fraudster, that's my experience.
Youre forgetting that time they did a scrapyard war which was sponsered by dbrand, in which somebody was constantly in view, playing on a switch with a dbrand skin.
Product placement has always been a thing. I once saw some show on tv where there was a hospital with shiny Apple computers in every scene and I laughed my ass off at how tonedeaf that was.
Not that it makes it any better, but that just seems like typical business practices. Almost everything we watch in America is an advertisement.
No it's not, it's clearly illegal even in USA. Gamers Nexus never did anything like that, or Hardware Unboxed. Those are channels that are renowned for their integrity. Although Hardware unboxed is Australian they are addressing the same market. Except for not being a goofy joke like LTT.