I celebrate creators. Across the board I seek out independent and especially active creators. I support YouTube creators through Patreon and directly because I believe in the art of videography and photography as modern equivalent of the story tellers art form. We now are well into the rise of the Sailing Influencers with multi-modal marketing campaigns across multiple social media platforms and driving branding engagement.
I have been holding this story back and people will wonder where some of the information comes from. It is no secret that I have hosted several YouTube sailing channels on my boat and that I consider some of the YouTube creators friends. Most of these people who have been on Eoti are cruisers that have YouTube channels (one notable exception who no longer sails and is on the next gig). Myself and my family have also been on several YouTube sailors’ boats and likewise these are cruisers with YouTube channels. Boat shows are also quite different for me. My first day at a boat show is the scope it out day. The second and third day are my talk to everybody and make notes about themes I heard each night. The final day of the boat show is when I buy stuff. I usually talk to a lot of companies about how they think about the Sailing Influencer and YouTube sailors.
There is a principle in social media that drives audience engagement called authenticity. More and more I’ve seen the random success of a few creators driving the direction of those who are the upcoming in the genre away from enthusiast participation in sailing into social media influencing. Today I want to talk about exploitative creators who we’ll call Sailing Influencers. There are a few tribes in the Sailing YouTube channel genre. They move in and out of various roles and within their tribes. The Sailing Influencers are the ones who join a tribe to build a brand absent an actual enthusiast base. It becomes readily apparent that these Sailing Influencers have no relationship to authenticity.
What I’m seeing within a few of the tribes is what we call youth worship. Some of the Sailing Influencers complain about the pervy old guys objectifying them. The Sailing Influencers are also associated with a level of disrespect and overt rudeness towards the sailing enthusiast community. You will find these Sailing Influencers saying some pretty ignorant stuff about how old the average age of cruisers is compared to them. This Sailing Influencer group is getting peeved at old, fat, ugly people in the anchorage.
With the advent of the “young cruisers club” the Sailing Influencers are insulating themselves from the broader cruising community and being arrogant about it. Yet this older cruising community and sailors are the target audience for their Patreon patronage. Sailing Influencers have no issue taking old, perverted sailors (some would say old-perverted-sailors is redundant) money just as long as they don’t share an anchorage. The Sailing Influencers are rude about how they’re treating their audience and the cruising community in general.
With a good mix of media personality, social media presence, organized business practices around the influencer mentality, and a certain amount of get things done. There is nothing saying the stuff to kick start a Sailing Influencer lifestyle is easy. What there is about this lifestyle they have chosen is a certain amount of arrogance that soon infests their actions. Long term cruising and living aboard a boat is dangerous, difficult, and filled with risks most have never thought about. Sailing Influencers increase that risk for the general cruising community without giving back to that same community.
Some of these channels are the ones that show up in a far-off island. The Sailing Influencer will drop the hook randomly. Then maybe they go get an AirBnB. The Sailing Influencer will suck up all the local bandwidth on an island to upload a multi-GB film about their bikini haul. They complain about the boats in the background ruining the shot they set up. The Sailing Influencer turn off, or worse enter non-legit AIS MMSI, or run AIS silent so nobody knows they’re there. Think about it. The Sailing Influencers have shown up in quiet anchorages and started blasting their rather pathetic music and bringing ugly American goes to sea a whole new life. They take 20 minutes to make a purchase at the only store and the tiny grocery so they can have local color. They wear each other’s brand bikini’s repping each others merchandise.
Some Sailing Influencers found on YouTube have been known to hold up manufacturers literally saying they’ll buy their product but if they don’t get a good price, they’ll sink it on their various social media accounts. There is no issue from anybody I know that getting, testing, and evaluating a product that has some level of compensation behind it is bad. We all have bills to pay and media for most of our lives has always had advertising. Sailing Influencers have been known to get sweetheart deals on stuff and then burn the bridges behind them leaving a bitter taste for everybody who follows. I’ve been told by boat yards, equipment makers, and more about Sailing Influencers or their representatives shaking them down.
If you want a real good view into whether a Sailing Influencer is “sailing” or “fluff”. What are the products they’re selling? Sails or green goo? Chandlery stuff or bikinis? Products they made themselves like art, or knives for the kitchen. General household products aren’t a bad thing to create merchandise agreements around. They likely have some of the largest budgets to support something like Sailing Influencers. If you want the street cred from cruisers get an underwater power scrubber for hull cleaning. Sailing and yachting companies know their consumers. The manufacturers also protect their brands. Most companies serving the yachting and boating industry are small to medium sized businesses.
That isn’t to mean there aren’t positives that can come from the introspection by a Sailing Influencer with a large YouTube following. One case that is open record is The Wynns and the debacle with their sails. They bought and paid for sails branded by another company. The loft took the money and ran. The Wynns did a story on their YouTube channel and the brand stood up even though they likely didn’t have to. They got another brand to give them sails. This for the sailing community was a win illuminating a shady practice by a yachting business. Good on The Wynns.
On the other side of the equation is another example. One manufacturer told me that a Sailing Influencer with a large YouTube Channel said, “Do you know who I am?” and the manufacturer representative said, “Nope, and I don’t want to.” Another representative relayed a story about how they have told a few channels, “We don’t sell to YouTube channels because we want sailors.” I notice they have GIVEN their product with no fan-fair to one channel. I have introduced some enthusiast sailing channels to brand representatives because that makes sense. I’m not hostile to those who are creators and enthusiasts. It is the Sailing Influencer who doesn’t participate in the cruising community but act like they represent it while talking bad about it.
I have been asked what is up next on the writing schedule about Sailing Influencers. Apparently, several companies appreciate the research into the Sailing Influencer and YouTube Sailing Enthusiasts. At some point in the future, I’ll be writing a piece on addressable enthusiast market, the narrative and constructive stories of enthusiasts, and the principle of pack it in pack it out or don’t leave your influencer garbage behind.
Until then. I don’t get paid for these articles. There is no compensation direct or indirect. My mom was right when she said, “If you don’t have anything nice today don’t say anything.” My dad was also right when he said, “All evil needs to be successful is a good man to be silent.”