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Is youtube ruining the canals?


doratheexplorer

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Is YouTube ruining the canals?     

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No more than being in a garage makes you a mechanic, or standing in church on a Sunday in your best clothes makes you a nice person. 

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2 hours ago, junior said:

What's different in people getting the idea of boating from YouTube as opposed to those of us who got interested in narrowboats from TV programmes or magazines before the Internet came about?

 

I knew nothing about canals or narrowboats before I watched an episode of something called Watersays World or something on TV in the early naughties...

 

It's just how times have changed. 

My insight came from Pru and Tim doing the first full passage of the K&A after the QM opened it. Then I hired and it rained 5 days out of 6, hired 3 more times and spent 8 years with a share boat

Edited by ditchcrawler
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1 hour ago, CanalRetentive said:

Fact of the matter is the housing situation is an absolute shambles and there are countless people living in unsuitable overpriced low standard accommodation and they're keeping their sanity by looking for alternatives. Sat in squalor watching canal life videos must provide some escapism for them.

 

Yup that's me... stuck in an over priced rental, where the rent increases year on year, desperately saving a deposit, chasing a constantly expanding mortgage... and this world of relative job uncertainty defiantly doesn't help mortgage applications...

 

But I've been around boats ever since I was a youngster and love it so I get out on the water every opportunity I can...

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45 minutes ago, Quattrodave said:

 

Yup that's me... stuck in an over priced rental, where the rent increases year on year, desperately saving a deposit, chasing a constantly expanding mortgage... and this world of relative job uncertainty defiantly doesn't help mortgage applications...

 

But I've been around boats ever since I was a youngster and love it so I get out on the water every opportunity I can...

I think my tenants have had a good ride as I haven put the rent up while they have been there, but it has gone up between tenancies. For me if I put it up what I get compared to what the tenant pays doesn't make it worth having a good tenant leave. The agent takes a slice and then the tax man takes a slice of what's left.

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13 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think my tenants have had a good ride as I haven put the rent up while they have been there, but it has gone up between tenancies. For me if I put it up what I get compared to what the tenant pays doesn't make it worth having a good tenant leave. The agent takes a slice and then the tax man takes a slice of what's left.

 

I think I'm a good tenant.... silly question, from a landlords point of view, what makes a not so good tenant? Are good tenants hard to come by?

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I can't remember a time when I wasn't involved in boats of one kind or another.

First outings were on the River Lea in about 1960 in a PBK then GP14's at school.

Its been downhill ever since ;)

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5 minutes ago, Quattrodave said:

 

I think I'm a good tenant.... silly question, from a landlords point of view, what makes a not so good tenant? Are good tenants hard to come by?

I get no complaints from the surrounding properties, the place including garden is kept in good order, the rent is paid on time.

1 minute ago, Loddon said:

I can't remember a time when I wasn't involved in boats of one kind or another.

First outings were on the River Lea in about 1960 in a PBK then GP14's at school.

Its been downhill ever since ;)

Same sort of thing including oil drum rafts on Filby Broads

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3 hours ago, Athy said:

No.

It would be far worse if no one knew about the canals, thus no one used them, and they all fell into disrepair and were abandoned. The adage "There's no such thing as bad publicity" is not invariably true, but it does have a lot going for it.

This

 

Some people watch YouTube videos and buy a boat and it's a massive mistake. Some people watch YouTube and buy a boat and it's the best thing they've ever done. Some people will watch the videos and give some hire companies some money to have nice holiday. Some people will watch them, give a load of canalside businesses and CRT some money to buy a shiny boat boat, stick it in a marina and only go on it two or three times a year and be quite content with that.

 

And as others have said, really no different to any other form of lightweight promotional content for canals. If anything, YouTube probably has a lot more people making videos showing how to do a filter change or carefully talking through the pitfalls of buying a boat than the old magazines (much more purely promotional in content because they're full of paid ads for brokers and boatbuilders...) and TV shows and articles in broadsheets ever did. You can get overly rosy ideas from hires or friends of friends that own boats too (spoke earlier today with a couple who were amused to meet other hirers who had decided they wanted to live aboard forever so early in their holiday they hadn't even really figured out how to handle it)

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52 minutes ago, Quattrodave said:

 

I think I'm a good tenant.... silly question, from a landlords point of view, what makes a not so good tenant? 

That must be the most naive Q ever asked on this forum, 🤣

Druggies

Arsonists

Trashers

Herbalists (weed) 

Sub letters

and so on....... 

 

52 minutes ago, Quattrodave said:

 

I think I'm a good tenant.... silly question, from a landlords point of view, what makes a not so good tenant? Are good tenants hard to come by?

That must be the most naive Q ever asked on this forum, 🤣

Druggies

Arsonists

Trashers

Herbalists (weed) 

Sub letters

and so on....... 

 

Edited by LadyG
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4 minutes ago, LadyG said:

That must be the most naive Q ever asked on this forum, 🤣

Druggies

Arsonists

Trashers

Herbalists (weed) 

Sub letters

and so on....... 

 

That must be the most naive Q ever asked on this forum, 🤣

Druggies

Arsonists

Trashers

Herbalists (weed) 

Sub letters

and so on....... 

 

 

Say that again @LadyG!

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13 minutes ago, booke23 said:

 

Say that again @LadyG!

Its not my fault the computer is not co-operative 🖥️

Well it's a tablet, and the keyboard covers two thirds of the screen, so half the time i can't see what I am doing, and the other half........... I don't know what I'm doing 🤔 

Edited by LadyG
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1 hour ago, Quattrodave said:

 

I think I'm a good tenant.... silly question, from a landlords point of view, what makes a not so good tenant? Are good tenants hard to come by?

 

Easier to describe a 'good tenant'. One who pays the rent reliably and keeps the place clean and tidy, including the garden. That pretty much sums it up. 

 

Also, a practical tenant who tends to fix trivial stuff themselves (rather than calling the LL to say the window won't shut or the fence has blown down or the grill no longer works in the cooker) is a massive bonus. I now seem to have loads of these and I hang onto them by NEVER increasing the rent. I have one tenant paying half the going rate as they have been with me best part of 20 years. They know they are getting a raving bargain and never bother me with ANYTHING , probably n case I review the rent, aha!! 

 

 

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6 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

There are currently two active threads on here which both involve new members looking for advice on their first boats which they plan to have built.  In both cases the boats they describe are likely to give them some issues.

 

It seems that both new members have had their ideas sparked by watching boating channels on youtube.  These channels tend to portray a world of idyllic loveliness which inevitably makes their viewers want to join in.

 

I'm not surprised by this, since it's the way youtube works.  Content creators get paid from the adverts which appear before and during their videos, and the more people who view, the more they get paid.  So it makes perfect sense for their content to lean towards making the canals look perfectly lovely and focus only on the positives, minimising the negatives.  This is because the majority of viewers are non-boaters who enjoy pretty and relaxing videos of narrowboats chugging along next to flowery hedgerows and under interesting old bridges.  I get it, I really do.  I'd rather watch a video like that, rather than a realistic portrayal of narrowboat life.

 

But the upshot of this is that more and more people are getting a skewed idea of what boat life is actually like.  A friend came boating with me last weekend because she's thinking of getting a boat.  Why?  Because she's been avidly watching youtube videos and sucking up all the loveliness...

 

Broadcast TV shows don't have quite the same impact it seems because they're just short series.  But these youtube channels put out new content every week, drawing their viewers further and further into their world.

 

I don't know what the answer is, but I do blame youtube for encouraging many new boaters onto the cut when they have a very innaccurate idea of what's in store.

Please send my way as our boat will be for sale soon as to me at time writing this recovering in hospital after 2 nd blocked/ twisted bowl operation. I’ve just had 9 days with NO food and lost 7kgs in weight. Plan is sell boat and return to our home Goa India. Maybe straining to open stuck gates/bridges not doing me any favours 

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6 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

 

I don't know what the answer is, but I do blame youtube for encouraging many new boaters onto the cut when they have a very innaccurate idea of what's in store.

And of course, they all seem to lack the necessary experience and expertise to know what they are taking on, it takes them a while, but after a few years they can come on here and grump and groan about newbies, just like the rest of us. 🤔

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20 minutes ago, MtB said:

I now seem to have loads of these and I hang onto them by NEVER increasing the rent. I have one tenant paying half the going rate as they have been with me best part of 20 years. They know they are getting a raving bargain and never bother me with ANYTHING , probably n case I review the rent, aha!!

 

That's impressive, congrats! Can I be one of your tenants 😁

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6 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

 

I don't know what the answer is, but I do blame youtube for encouraging many new boaters onto the cut when they have a very innaccurate idea of what's in store.

Of course they all seem to lack the necessary experience and expertise to know what they are taking on, it takes them a while, but after a few years they can come on here and grump and groan about newbies, just like the rest of us. 🤔

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1 hour ago, MtB said:

I have one tenant paying half the going rate as they have been with me best part of 20 years. They know they are getting a raving bargain and never bother me with ANYTHING , probably n case I review the rent, aha!! 

They're probably living on a boat and sub-letting your house for the market rate, aha!!

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16 hours ago, junior said:

What's different in people getting the idea of boating from YouTube as opposed to those of us who got interested in narrowboats from TV programmes or magazines before the Internet came about?

 

I knew nothing about canals or narrowboats before I watched an episode of something called Watersays World or something on TV in the early naughties...

 

It's just how times have changed. 

I tried to address that at the bottom of my post.  The youtube channels offer a far more personal experience than almost any tv show.  They're made and presented by liveaboards who are selling the lifestyle.  The viewers watching who may be dissatisfied with their lives see the canal life as the solution to all their woes.  The two active threads I've already referred to demonstrate this, as does my friend who joined me for the weekend.

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14 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

What is this "character of the canals" that's being destroyed? They were built to make a profit for businesses, with horses clodhopping along the towpath dropping rosebed fertiliser everywhere. Then they were diesel engined carriers, going like the clappers, then they nearly fell to bits before being turned into a leisure park and occasional shopping trolley dump.

It's like everything else. I liked it thirty years ago, not many boats about, nobody running engines or gennies all night (often), no-one with great banks of batteries to charge... We all think things were better when we were thirty years younger. They were, too. Few people lived in shop doorways and there weren't any foodbanks,  for a start.

Times change. You want the scruffy houseboats (and the posh ones for that matter) off the cut, get rents back to what they were back then, build council houses and let's have a house price crash. I suspect not many will vote for that, of any political persuasion!

I tend to agree with all of this, but my original point was specific to youtube and the way it works for those who derive an income from it.  What are your thoughts on that?

11 hours ago, enigmatic said:

This

 

Some people watch YouTube videos and buy a boat and it's a massive mistake. Some people watch YouTube and buy a boat and it's the best thing they've ever done. Some people will watch the videos and give some hire companies some money to have nice holiday. Some people will watch them, give a load of canalside businesses and CRT some money to buy a shiny boat boat, stick it in a marina and only go on it two or three times a year and be quite content with that.

 

And as others have said, really no different to any other form of lightweight promotional content for canals. If anything, YouTube probably has a lot more people making videos showing how to do a filter change or carefully talking through the pitfalls of buying a boat than the old magazines (much more purely promotional in content because they're full of paid ads for brokers and boatbuilders...) and TV shows and articles in broadsheets ever did. You can get overly rosy ideas from hires or friends of friends that own boats too (spoke earlier today with a couple who were amused to meet other hirers who had decided they wanted to live aboard forever so early in their holiday they hadn't even really figured out how to handle it)

I think you underestimate the engagement people have with their favourite youtubers.  IMO it's nothing like other forms of lightweight promotional content.  Many of the viewers think of the creators as their friends and are totally hooked on the lifestyle they're being sold.

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10 hours ago, MtB said:

Also, a practical tenant who tends to fix trivial stuff themselves (rather than calling the LL to say the window won't shut or the fence has blown down or the grill no longer works in the cooker) is a massive bonus.

 

Of our many disaster tenants allegedly vetted by the letting agent we had two university lecturers, they rang up because a light bulb wanted changing, claimed she was too short and he was scared of heights.

 

We are no longer landlords.

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If youtube is attracting people to buy boats isn't that a good thing?

If the opposite was true the canals could fall into greater decline.

 

I never expected boating to be a perfect world but it ticks a lot of boxes.

 

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11 minutes ago, MartynG said:

 

 

I never expected boating to be a perfect world but it ticks a lot of boxes.

 

I think thats the problem with a lot of these tubers, they portray this perfect lifestyle. Some of it is, some not so much. I hate the ones that give out the clickbait titles like are we sinking, disaster, etc. People need to read between the lines but a lot dont. I like Robbie and CHG and a few others, most of the others i cant stand for various reasons. Some just go from one problem to the next and full of false drama that is easily avoided for anyone with an IQ bigger than their shoe size. Camper van channels are the same and sailing channels, all bikinis and glamour/drama for the views. I blame the you tube channels for pushing the boat prices and demand up.

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