Is Curtis Judd a Shill?!

So I think this is a fun discussion. What's a shill? And we'll determine whether or not I am a shill. Dictionary.com says for 'shill': 'a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc. Or a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship, or loyalty.' Interesting. Okay, over at Merriam-Webster: 'one who acts as a decoy, as for a pitch man or a gambler. So in other words, someone that they kind of plant in the audience that acts like, "Oh, this is the most wonderful product in the world." This also happens in the political world. One who makes a sales pitch or serves as a promoter. Am I a shill? Maybe. Let's talk about it. This is all about bias. Everyone who posts videos on YouTube is required, if they receive something, to mark- at least in the United States, by law- they're required to mark whether or not it's paid promotion. And they just define that very, very broadly. If I receive a piece of gear from a product company to review, I go ahead and check that box just to make sure that we're in the clear, make it clear there is a potential bias there automatically. So that can also range up to other things as well. Not on our channel but in some cases, there are influencers or creators who are actually paid by the product companies to make a video about that product. So that's kind of the reality there. We go further in our videos, we actually put a full disclosure that describes the nature of the arrangement. So usually what that is, is either I pay for the product myself- a little bit rare, but that does happen in a number of cases- or a product company gives me a product. I received that and I agree with them, okay, here are the terms under which I'll do this. I will review this product from my perspective, using my own opinions. They don't pay me any additional money. I just get the product. And I also do not give them the opportunity to review and provide input and require changes to the video prior to posting it to YouTube. So that's usually the agreement under which I operate. Others do it a little bit differently. And you can- there are a million different places you could draw the line. I'm not here to say that I am doing it the right way and everyone's doing it the wrong way. I think I have- there's bias that I'm taking on as well, by the very nature of the fact that I'm getting free products to create the reviews. Whether real or perceived, there is some bias there. Also, when you're getting paid, by the way, those are usually called sponsor deals. I remember having a conversation at NAB years ago where one- a fellow creator said, hey Curtis, you've definitely got to get an agent that can get you all sorts of- all sorts of these sponsorship deals that you can do. And you could be making an additional, like, 12,000 a month. And I think for someone who's doing it full time, maybe they need that. I don't know, I have a full time job. So this is- the YouTube videos and my online courses that I have over... and I'm going to be a shill here, self- shameless plug! I have courses online that I sell over at school.learnlightandsound.com! So there's a whole range, in other words. And I think we all- it's all on each of us individually to decide, okay, how much bias am I willing to accept and still find value in that video and that review or a sponsored video, whatever it happens to be? Let me just take a step back and first say every person is biased in some fashion; that's part of being a human being, we all have our own perspective. So for example, in my case, even if you set aside whether I'm, you know, set aside free gear, set aside being paid to make a video, if I am someone who makes educational videos, which is what I do professionally, I have a perspective of how I usually film and how I create videos. There's a certain way I typically do it in studio, every once in a while I go out on location, but I'm not vlogging. So I don't really have the vlog perspective. I don't have the experience with vlogging to really understand all of the nuances and the challenges of vlogging. So there's a bias right there. I have a certain way I typically work, type of video that I work on, and other types of videos that I do not work on. So therefore, I are automatically have a bias. So my perspective is not necessarily going to be as valuable or interesting or useful for someone who is primarily doing vlog type videos. There's some overlap, sure, but just one example of how we all have our own perspectives, and therefore we carry some bias of some sort. Now, as soon as you introduce free products, there's the potential for more perceived or real bias all of a sudden. And I'm not going to stand here and make excuses about no, I don't, I'm totally honest, I never have a bias- because I do. There are biases, and I actually choose which products I'm willing to accept and which I'm not. So there's already a bias there as well. And then there's also the next step, which is, okay, we want to pay you to make a video. And to this point, I've said, no, no, we're not going to do that. If you like to- for me personally, as a personal decision, that's too much bias. So that's just how I think about it. Now, the reality is that we all have perspective, aside from the free products and the sponsored deals, and I think that's actually a good thing. We're humans, we all have different perspectives. And if you're looking for a piece of gear and you need input on, okay, is this a good piece of gear for what I'm trying to do? You can go watch videos from a variety of different perspectives. And that actually gives you kind of a 360-degree view on that product. And maybe some of them are going to be more valuable to you because the perspective of the person doing the review is closer to the type of work you work on. That's great. Others are going to have a different view. That's great as well. So I think that's all good. But what I want to say is I think I want to do an experiment here. So yes, at some level Curtis probably is a shill just because there is at least perceived bias, if not real bias in terms of accepting free gear to make video reviews. So what I want to experiment with for about three months: I have a few other- there is some gear sitting here that's on loan and one piece that was given to me to make a video; I need to get those out of the way first. But sometime in March, I am going to stop accepting gear from product companies, let's say for three months- let's do three months. And I'm doing this, you can publicly now keep me accountable. So for the next three months, probably, there are going to be fewer product reviews. So that's the reality. I can't afford to buy all these products. But I think it'll also give us a chance to kind of maybe get a different perspective. So I'm really curious to see what your perspective is down in the comments below. So in the meantime, get out there, make some great videos, and we'll talk to you soon.