Since around 2009-2010, cologne reviews started to become really popular on Youtube, as Youtube itself became a more popular social medium. I suspect this resulted in a huge influx to the fragrance community and is also why certain fragrances became hyped.
I joined basenotes in the middle of October 2011. I was a lurker on here for a month before I joined. I kept googling fragrances and basenotes pages kept showing up so I was starting to see a pattern. Then as I stumbled on a youtube video of cologne, I realized there was a whole community of people who test and review fragrances.
I started out with Marc Robes08 and Tim Swetcoff, and then discovered many other reviewers such as Cutlass, Mickers and JR.
They helped convince me that fragrance collectors (especially the people on here) were flesh and blood people who lived normal (and great lives). Some reviewers are weird and bizarre, but I'd say many of them seem like great people, and I took a little inspiration from them and their personality and applied some of it to my life. Even just watching a few of them helped my social and communication skills a good bit, as some of them were great at speaking and communicating. So I took traits that I liked about them and tried to adopt them.
I think there's been a big change in the Youtube community.
First of all, I hate to be mean, but it is getting a little saturated. At first, in 2009 and 2010, it was a novelty and maybe about a dozen people were consistently making reviews. In 2011 and 2012, a huge influx of reviewers came in, (probably due to Marc's "fragrance idol" challenge) and more. The ones who clearly had the most dedication rose up top, but now it's not a novelty anymore so it's much harder to get noticed with more people in the community, especially if you aren't doing anything different.
This is a reason why I thought about being a youtube reviewer and decided not to. Not only did I want to keep this hobby seperate from my real life, but when I start projects, I want to pursue things that not many people are doing and give people what they don't already have rather than being part of the crowd.
Some reviewers really worked hard to stand out. Al (Fragrancefanatic1) has his street scents series where he randomly interviews people about fragrances, which is something that not everybody else is doing. Dracdoc, also, deserves a lot of props. Dracdoc is so meticulous and painstaking in his testing of fragrances that he has added a lot to the community that it didn't already have.
Also, I've noticed a lot of the old regulars on youtube have retired or became much less active. My guess is that many of them became so obsessed with the hobby, rushed into it so fast, that after a certain point, they burned out and lost interest. Tim Swetcoff hasn't made a video in years, but he's active on facebook. My guess is that, in addition to other commitments, he started to become embarrassed of his hobby (just a guess) and wanted to divorce it. I did talk to JR Writer though, and he told me in his own voice that he still likes fragrances but isn't as interested as he was. He told me that he sold about half of his 100-bottle collection and only kept the stuff he was going to use often.
So , it's hard to say whether this youtube fragrance community thing is a fad that will die out or something that will grow. In the end, though, there are people on BN who've been in the hobby for many years are in it for the long haul.
I joined basenotes in the middle of October 2011. I was a lurker on here for a month before I joined. I kept googling fragrances and basenotes pages kept showing up so I was starting to see a pattern. Then as I stumbled on a youtube video of cologne, I realized there was a whole community of people who test and review fragrances.
I started out with Marc Robes08 and Tim Swetcoff, and then discovered many other reviewers such as Cutlass, Mickers and JR.
They helped convince me that fragrance collectors (especially the people on here) were flesh and blood people who lived normal (and great lives). Some reviewers are weird and bizarre, but I'd say many of them seem like great people, and I took a little inspiration from them and their personality and applied some of it to my life. Even just watching a few of them helped my social and communication skills a good bit, as some of them were great at speaking and communicating. So I took traits that I liked about them and tried to adopt them.
I think there's been a big change in the Youtube community.
First of all, I hate to be mean, but it is getting a little saturated. At first, in 2009 and 2010, it was a novelty and maybe about a dozen people were consistently making reviews. In 2011 and 2012, a huge influx of reviewers came in, (probably due to Marc's "fragrance idol" challenge) and more. The ones who clearly had the most dedication rose up top, but now it's not a novelty anymore so it's much harder to get noticed with more people in the community, especially if you aren't doing anything different.
This is a reason why I thought about being a youtube reviewer and decided not to. Not only did I want to keep this hobby seperate from my real life, but when I start projects, I want to pursue things that not many people are doing and give people what they don't already have rather than being part of the crowd.
Some reviewers really worked hard to stand out. Al (Fragrancefanatic1) has his street scents series where he randomly interviews people about fragrances, which is something that not everybody else is doing. Dracdoc, also, deserves a lot of props. Dracdoc is so meticulous and painstaking in his testing of fragrances that he has added a lot to the community that it didn't already have.
Also, I've noticed a lot of the old regulars on youtube have retired or became much less active. My guess is that many of them became so obsessed with the hobby, rushed into it so fast, that after a certain point, they burned out and lost interest. Tim Swetcoff hasn't made a video in years, but he's active on facebook. My guess is that, in addition to other commitments, he started to become embarrassed of his hobby (just a guess) and wanted to divorce it. I did talk to JR Writer though, and he told me in his own voice that he still likes fragrances but isn't as interested as he was. He told me that he sold about half of his 100-bottle collection and only kept the stuff he was going to use often.
So , it's hard to say whether this youtube fragrance community thing is a fad that will die out or something that will grow. In the end, though, there are people on BN who've been in the hobby for many years are in it for the long haul.
