Well, in Skall's case, it's not really 'his' shit so much as it is 'sword' shit. True, this video here is sort of a personal vlog, but that's mostly because he's pissed off his subscribers and now feels the need to apologize (which is rather gallant of him, I must admit; usually when a Youtuber censors his channel, he does so with all the vim and entitlement of a Roman emperor. It is a rare man who can step back and say, you know what, I am sorry, I was wrong)

He does do more "life" vlogging than his fellows in the sword nerd community, but even when he does, it's almost always tied in to some broader theme e.g. his video on furries, or his video about depression. He's not some beauty guru discussing what he ate for breakfast last night, or a fashionably vulnerable YGTAH.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you! Some people like making diaries, and some even like when everybody else reads them. Having people pay attention to the minute details of your life is the essence of celebrity, and attaining celebrity is an alluring dream for many. The world, I say, is big enough to accommodate both Skallagrim AND Boxxy.

It does lead to more questions, though. Like, what percentage of pre-modern print media was just people endlessly talking about their own shit? Samuel Pepys, Frederik Douglas, Anne Frank, Saint Augustine, Proust (arguably). I'm not saying that every Lia Marie Johnson is a Proust (in scale or vision), but it IS perfectly human to want to project your internal affairs out onto the world at large! If we are seeing "more" of it these days, that is only because the decentralized, egalitarian nature of the digital world makes it easy for people to create and publish whatever they'd like.

I'm pretty sure this is his full time job now, right?

I agree with hooker. wtf is a YGTAH?

Young Girl Talking About Herself.

And OZ raises a good point! I don't think this is literally Skall's full time job - IIRC, he has a dayjob as a blacksmith or a LARP consultant or something weird like that - but this channel is now a major part of not just his social, but also his professional life. If you can make a career out of talking about yourself, why NOT do it?

If I had to make a living talking about myself, I would commit suicide within six months.

Most informational vlogs tend to drift into diary territory, simply because sooner or later you run out of interesting actual information to talk about. Skal's central thesis debunking movie ideals of swords is interesting but it just becomes repeating oneself unless you stray off topic. Eventually Mythbusters runs out of things to bust.

Thanks!

Katana drama is what first made me aware of the Sword Guy community.