didn't know

After processing the shock and sorrow, what struck me about the YouTube shooting was what I hadn't known.

I hadn't known that YouTube was located there. As with the nearby neighborhood, also in San Bruno, where the gas pipeline suddenly blew up one quiet dinnertime a few years ago, it was a particular locale I'd never been, though I pass very near by it all the time.

I did discover Netflix hq, in another nearby town, this way. I just happened to drive by a building with a Netflix sign on it one day, and only later realized it must be the place where they plan all those bewildering additions and subtractions to their streaming list.

What they do at YouTube hq I'm less certain of, since their customers upload most of their videos, but one thing I certainly hadn't known is that it's possible to make a living doing this, but that appears to have been the shooter's occupation, until the decision by YouTube to "demonetize" (lovely word) certain types of videos rendered this particular form of feeding less lucrative, and that was what she was angry about. Angry enough to drive 300 miles, acquire a gun and use it, which is pretty angry, though not, it occurs to me, angry enough to come up with something a little more effective than this turned out to be.

That the shooter was female, and one whose principal interests seem to have been animal rights rants and exercise videos, seems to have bewildered a good number of people not expecting this sort of narrative.

But what bewilders me is mostly how the revenue stream worked. Exactly how did her videos generate money, when they did? They've all been taken down now, to deter the curious I guess since they're not supposed to have been inflammatory, but a few clips survived long enough to illustrate news programs on the shooting. I for one would not pay money to watch a home-made video of a woman with a hostile glare affixed to her face demonstrate squats while wearing a camouflage unitard, or even watch it for very long for free, but to each their own.