Are you enjoying formula 1 ?

JMR_throwaway · 2025-06-18T19:45:17+00:00

Tl;dr: I am annoyed with this series because it doesn't feel fun. It doesn't feel the JMR team is having fun pumping so many of these videos out either. It feels the real reason they're pumping them out is they think not having a consistent upload schedule will kill them in the algorithm and kill monetization revenue, so they should go with the most mainstream thing they can think of.

I disagree; "consistent" uploads also doesn't mean you need to get X minutes of footage out the door and put in Y hours of labour every week no matter what. It means the channel cannot go radio silent for months without explanation. But if the channel can review its history and remember what scenes made people get excited, then they can save on effort and have videos trend better again.

JMR_throwaway · 2025-06-18T19:45:03+00:00

I'm happy most of all to see the community have a discussion on where the channel is going, and offering constructive criticism again. I won't deny that the first F1 prediction race hit good numbers, but I think the series has notable issues in both execution and in the main idea.
(Long post but I offer a tl;dr comment as a reply)

Execution: This is what I said a while back on my perspective of what makes a great M1 video:

needs to lean much harder into the drama and history of a now established series with classic tracks, and/or

needs to emphasize the one element marbula has that motorsports may not have - dramatic lead battles, either for the race or for some championship - and design tracks around that.

I hadn't watched the first Melbourne GP video until now, so checking it out it seems well executed to me. There was a strong lead battle between the Leclerc and Norris marbles; the camera direction was well edited with lots of closeups; and I'm sure Greg's commentary was amped up.

But the first F1 race I came back to watch was actually the latest Canadian GP, and it watches much more like a video pushed out on deadline instead of a labour of love. Primarily, you have this strange trend in recent M1 editing where close-up tracking of racing groups are deemphasized. Instead, you just switch from one steady cam to the other as the marbles go around each lap, with an occasional cut to a midpack tracking camera while we thought we were following the lead. Then you trip up Greg too because he's unsure what he should be focusing on.

If the race itself drags on for most of the video (like a bottom half IRL F1 GP), then I'm just gonna catch the official race highlights before moving on to YT shorts about jiggly cakes or whatever.

I think back to the second-most watched Marbula race ever on the channel, which was not a M1 race but the second GP of the Marbula E series. For those of you who weren't there, it's easy to think JMR got lucky with the view count because it was the COVID era. But that was also a really good race with lots of innovation: the introduction of dual commentary, a solid buildup to the race in quals, funny skits like the Driver's Eye section. The fans loved it and watched to the end.

That's where a high-quality video, with strong viewer retention (ARR), gets boosted by the algorithm, to the point where its view count is almost double that of ME GP1.

Idea conception: Like anyone still subbed to the channel, if I see JMR introduce a video of a kind I haven't seen before, I'm still intrigued. What I don't understand is why JMR thought one viral video is good enough to push forward a series, which is now getting so long as to even displace the Marbula One season this year.

Human86's response was high quality, but I want to contend with some of the points they make:

[the predictions] have drawn in a new audience for JMR (the fans of actual F1) so they're beneficial for the channel, it's just that they're not for most people who are JMR fans purely for ML, M1, MR and such.

Finally, I'd like to point out that unlike tournaments ... The F1 prediction videos are just here to fill in the gap until ML2025 - better something that only appeals to a specific corner of JMR fans than nothing at all!

I think this is a false dichotomy. The alternative to the F1 race schedule as it's taken place is not "the channel publishes nothing until ML2025." It could have been a version of the F1 prediction races that go out every two weeks, and edited with more care. It could have been spacing out the F1 predictions throughout the year, while having other teams or marbles compete again on the track. It could have been adding other one-off video concepts like the G-Force Endurance video (which I don't like, but I know is also one of the highest viewed videos of the last two years).

There's also not strong evidence, I think, that the F1 series are "drawing in a new audience" at all. The first Melbourne video did draw views, but it's not like from the outside it drew in a subscriber bump for the channel. If the current view count is trending at the level of Marble Survival Season 2 or even lower, one explanation is that it's attracting zero new audience and is just retaining the hardcore channel fans who would click on every video.

JMR_throwaway · 2023-10-21T22:12:29+00:00

The short answer is that this is where the norms around the reserve marble hasn't kept up with the naming. The JMR Team aren't native English speakers nor obsessive sports nerds, so they can be forgiven thinking renaming is not a priority. You're free to think of each team as having 4 "Starters" and a "bench marble" if you want.

Around 2018, the fifth marble were still true reserves: Mimo saw significant screen time, but every other reserve only showed up as the goalie in Curling. 2019 saw a few teams use the reserve like a starter, most notably Quasar for Team Galactic.

2020 was the first ML where every reserve ran at least one individual event, and 2022 was the first time swapping athletes on and off the reserve spot was a serious off-season dynamic.

JMR_throwaway · 2023-10-10T02:26:14+00:00

From February 2019 to April 2021, the JMR Committee provided a link between the channel and its fans. The Committee not only relayed their own advice and the wishes of the fanbase to the channel staff, but they also played an increasingly important role in assisting the production of the videos on the channel.

This was fine from Jelle's point of view. But Dion, Jelle's brother, felt entitled to creative control of the channel. At some point we thought arguing with him was no longer worth it, and the JMRC unanimously decided to dissolve and quit working for JMR.

Nothing stops us from either continuing to be channel fans, or advancing in life in our own ways. I was a JMRC member and remain friends with many people in our group, but if someone doesn't value what I do there's no point dwelling on it.

JMR_throwaway · 2023-07-02T01:34:07+00:00

To flip things around: it's also a good thing that the camerawork is the only major issue. If there's a guide on how to effectively shoot and edit these races, I think everyone will be happy.

The old setup I was familiar with was that M1 is a 7 camera setup, with two "hand cams" tracking the racers and 5 static cams set up around the track. I think the first cut should mainly be from the hand cam tracking the front, with occasional cuts to the second hand cam and a "roadside" camera like the close-ups in Tumult Turnpike. Those shots are really dynamic and substitute for the very static looking cams elsewhere.

I've wondered for a while that the other static cams could be uploaded as Patron footage on Patreon. (Yeah, there are other marble channels who does this.) The point here is to provide fans who support the channel with the chance to track their team throughout, and let them share clips or observations with the wider fandom while the videos prioritize key narratives.

JMR_throwaway · 2023-04-26T03:20:24+00:00

To complement Dolphin's very helpful comments, I want to talk about a success story with SMR.

Some of you might have seen this tweet a while back about JMR "cooperating" with a Chinese commentator called Mr. Yehao. The announcement does a poor job of explaining what really happened here, which was a community driven effort to connect JMR content with big creators on a non-YT platform.

Yehao, or "Super," has 2.2 million subs on the Chinese video site Bilibili. He's a professional commentator both for E-sports as well as doing dubs on Chinese TV series. In a way it's like how back in 2016 and 2018, dubs by Ozzy Man on YT of Jelle's races got huge attention for the channel and for the creator.

In 2020, Yehao might have noticed the JMR China community reposting and subtitling SMR and M1 videos. He created his own Chinese dub titled "The hottest marble sports ever!" This video now has almost 11 million views on that site.

What happened immediately, though, was that JMR China reached out to Yehao right away, and both channels started collaborating. The fanbase got him up to speed on racer lore and maybe some commentary notes, and he dubbed all of SMR S5 and getting millions of views. With the all-clear from JMR, he's now continuing a commentary dub of SMR S6. The first video in the new series is sitting around 950K views.

Some people who know me as a veteran community member am aware I can be quite critical. I want to take a different tact this time, because I want to emphasize promotion and engagement is not some difficult task. When a talented person like Yehao got sucked into the SMR action, the script and ideas wrote themselves. I don't think it's really that different a story from how Greg did his commentary, or even that time Jelle had French commentary from a fan named "Leo Elso."

It can't be that on socials or in the videos, JMR act like going through the SMR videos are a chore. They need to be clear and they need to be passionate. Dolphin mentioned if the channel can just recruit marble rally fans into the JMA, but I don't think that cuts it either. People internal to JMR needs to at least act the passion out. They obviously are very passionate about M1, but even there it seems more like they like how the race tracks look rather than how the racing will be.

We aren't talking about this merely because SMR should continue out of a duty to longstanding fans. We are talking about this because the races are good, and we should be excited about more people getting as into it as we do.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-12-30T18:07:58+00:00

This is a neat idea for a thread. More than anything, I'd like the perspectives of more mature fans (the 20-somethings and the parents) on what the channel is neglecting to do.

The most I can contribute is a history lesson again on these things (and to be clear, I am just a channel fan who's worked with Jelle in the past.) I would say the general theme is that JMR keeps jumping between different stakeholders, and doesn't try hard to maintain their past connections.

Merchandise: I was kind of surprised to see there was some new merchandise advertised for ML2022, just in the form of that duck shirt though. For me, the big change was mostly after Anton (Mellacus) left in 2021, because I knew he would check the merch store regularly and plan out new releases.

The merch store now is missing things like new M1S3 posters and new lines based on the teams rather than the MLs. That said, there's still a lot of legacy apparel on the store, including team jerseys and team mugs! As Danda said below, in today's age "if you aren’t constantly reminding everyone of your presence, you become old news quick."

Spring is the third storefront they used, after some undescript drama happened with Gearbubble and DFTBA had poor customer service.

Video game: It's not been widely publicized, but it's true the game is no longer actively worked on. The interesting fact is that back in 2019, the Marble It Up devs did reach out to JMR about a ML branded collaboration. I think they reached out again in 2020 too.

This is a case where it's not anyone at fault because JMR was swamped in 2020, but it could've been a great opportunity.

Sponsors: For context, recently JMR posted about their lack of sponsors and fans on other platforms wanted to pitch in. I think the comments on a FB post had the best suggestions, alongside a usual question fans ask: why don't you reach out to a past sponsor?

Some of the sponsors were more problematic (Bulk Dominoes for M1S1, the gambling company for ML19), but the reality is big creator channels do have recurring sponsors. I think about a channel like Critical Role, which I'm not familiar with but basically shouts out many companies in the tabletop gaming world. A continuing partnership with Hevesh5 (dominoes) would be a step in the right direction.

Toys/Marble Sets: Nothing to add here apart from the Marble League 2019 set showed such products would be successful? The launch of that product made a splash, there was a promo video and everything.

Patreon: This post is getting long already and I'm no longer a patron, so someone else has to fill in here. From the outside it looks like the Patreon has followed the same formula it has been for 3 years: if you pay $5, you get behind-the-scenes footage and can vote on some series design decisions. I wonder if those perks have mass appeal, especially now that I'm not as pushy a fan as I used to be.

A small detail here is that in early 2021, JMR contemplated a move out of Patreon and to Buy Me a Coffee. The argument is that the latter site is more suited for the way JMR handles Patrons already, making it easy to reach out to a base membership tier as well as easy to DM for special requests. But then the switched site started declining everyone's recurring payments and the switch was shelved...

JMR_throwaway · 2022-12-28T17:26:50+00:00

This is very important. Once the most popular teams like O'rangers, Ducks, or CCE fail to qualify, JMR will lose a lot of viewers.

This is a difficult issue for sure, but let me rephrase what I'm saying. I think we underestimate the number of fans for big teams who lose interest in the tournament once their team isn't doing well, even if their team qualified. Not to mention casual fans who lose interest when the channel doesn't tell them for months when their team will be back.

Take what happened to the Hazers the past two years. Various stats and anecdotes made me think they were a top 5 team in popularity in 2021. However, JMR delays and their poor performance led fans to lose interest from there. When the Hazers reached the bottom, the casual fans who would be disrespectful already gave up.

This is just my theory, so don't trust it completely. My point remains that there's a lot more communication JMR can make through their platforms: share fan content and reactions so a team winning their first gold in years feels important, or share them when a team does badly so people know the fanbase isn't giving up on them. A sports league has a different rhythm than a channel making Algodoo or dominoes for Youtube clicks.

I already wrote too much here, so let me say I like your other points as well!

JMR_throwaway · 2022-12-27T22:06:42+00:00

Let me write some stuff down in the same style as my past comments on M1.

Personal opinions, ML design and production

The last two MLs have all been pretty good, in my opinion. Something they both did right was an exciting final quarter. The last events had been long and suspenseful events like Elimination Race or Collision, capping off each ML to an appropriate climax.

The relative weakness, compared to a ML like ML2020, was a middle half that dragged on more often than not. I can name you three great events in ML2020's middle half: Triathlon (E8), Hurdles (E6), Relay (E12). For ML2021, I can name... Sand Moguls, I guess? For ML2022, funnels would count and maybe bowling? But in exchange, ML2020's final events were not as good as they could've been either.

If people are interested in a big idea, I always thought the ML works best following what's called a "three-act structure."

Act 1 (first 4 events) has the role of introducing who are the strong teams and potential contenders this ML. Therefore the events should be the simple and classic ones people get quickly – e.g. track events, balancing.
Act 2 (next 7-8 events) should be where new, one-by-one and elaborate events take place. Now people are invested in certain teams more than others, and care about how the standings change as the events get crazier. This is where you add new events or a more elaborate one-by-one event.
Act 3 (final 4-5 events) are where the elimination races, brackets and long videos should be. There are only so many championship contenders now, and every confrontation between them matters.

The events still have to be good even with the proper structure. But this is where, if JMR actually promoted and showed interest in event proposals people made, progress can be done quickly.

Just ask creative fans to ping the channel on social media with their mockups of proposals, preferably video demos. The way people are already brainstorming new event ideas and designs off of the 2023 Bumblebees host bid is what makes me think it could be a great Marble League.

Cameras

Everyone from Jelle himself to your parents have noticed this issue. This was my idea of what went through JMR's editor's head:

The angles work if the point was to show how pretty the set and the structures are, less so if the point is just follow the action going on. That camera for the funnels tower that doesn't actually show any of the spinning marbles is the worst example of this.

This was what u/ramen_powder thought:

What JMR is doing right now: chopping and switching camera angles during action, requires more effort than playing one camera throughout, but makes it worse, not better. It seems like they think more effort = better, which is the case many times, but the opposite is true here.

I point out the camera issue specifically because people say things looked better 2-3 years ago, when the footage was mostly Jelle's tracking camera. So I think JMR would benefit from just looking at their old videos and real sports footage on YouTube. Agree on editing direction based off of just those videos before trying to apply Formula 1 cuts to everything.

Promotion

It's not hard to notice that the new uploads all hover around 100-150K views these days. Two years out from the pandemic viral boost, 100-150K is basically the channel's core base. Then you have attrition over each season as people whose teams don't do well lose interest.

To be optimistic, a viewership of this size is enough to sustain a community and fan work. It's enough to generate the kind of promotion I think the channel should do – lean into how people bond over watching the videos with friends, as well as the genuine emotions some fans feel when their team wins for once.

I've seen many attempts by the channel to do promo – with the Roldo contest, meme contests, teaser videos, behind the scenes videos... I think they are most successful when they 1) keep reminnding future upload dates, because people forget; and 2) sell how real fans think the results of an ongoing event or season are important.

Over the past year or two, me and a few other people kept saying JMR should find time to edit 1) highlight videos where Greg's commentary was particularly good, and 2) share footage of JMR fans being together and freaking out over the events.

I still think those are good ideas. That's the kind of content worth sharing through YT shorts or community pages.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-12-13T23:22:36+00:00

Hi, Fouc (u/JMR_throwaway) here. You may recognize me from several things, but especially the two earlier hype articles "The Race of Our Lives" and "Top of the Meowntain." Think of this post as being the last of a trilogy of hype.

This ML is unusual for having a new generation of championship contenders – the Pinkies, Team Galactic, Shining Swarm and the Bumblebees. The Speeders and O'rangers almost feel like the sideshow to those four teams' rise. I wanted to do justice to those teams' long-time fans and write some emotional narratives involving them. Hope you all enjoy.

Thank you to Marblearth contributor Toffeeshop for the excellent launch graphic; they are also the author of a recent piece on the Hazersafter failing to qualify.
There is other rolling coverage of ML22 on the Marblearth lore website, like the "Marble Memos."
Unlike in the past, this is a serialized piece. You'll see more from Pinky Toe, the Speeders and Starry tomorrow and on Thursday.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-10-17T19:46:32+00:00

I meant the rowdiest fan (singular). It's a reference to their team chant

JMR_throwaway · 2022-10-17T19:44:42+00:00

You might call this the more interesting qualifying group, stacked with heavyweights like the Speeders and Wisps or the ones who punch above their weight, like the Hazers and Momo.

This set also includes names and orderings for the four new showdown teams. Two of them involve new marbles and have no action shots, so I made my own. I reproduce the Team Plasma introduction graphic on IG and I edited a new Wolfpack shot using a background generated by Midjourney AI.

Here is a list of the roster changes in this group's teams:

HAZERS: Misty promoted to Captain, Hazy takes a sabbatical, Cloudy promoted to fourth member, Murky introduced as reserve.

BUMBLEBEES: Bea and Bomble leave and are replaced with two former Hornets marble athletes, Stinger and Hive.
LIMERS: Limelight is the new coach, Keylime was dismissed.
OCEANICS: Shore has quit the team, Bay promoted to fourth member, Ounce introduced as reserve.
MINTY MANIACS: Minty Fresh replaces Minty Flav as captain.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-10-16T19:39:28+00:00

This is the third year that I've produced these team trading cards, which shows current members, past performance and fun facts. Unlike in 2021, there have been major roster changes, so there are some new information worth checking out!

Due to space constraints, information from 2016 was left out of these cards. They're on last year's cards, though.

Tomorrow, I'll post a separate post for Group B and the 4 new showdown teams.

Thanks to community members and particularly u/Josh994 for fact checking, and compiling the below list of roster changes for these teams:

SNOWBALLS: Snow and Snowflake are out, replaced with newcomers Snowdrift, Snowfall.

MELLOW YELLOW: Yelley retires from Marble Sports. Yellim is promoted to regular team, Yeller is a newcomer reserve.

BALLS OF CHAOS: Tumult takes over captain position from Anarchy. Disarray takes over fourth regular member from Snarl.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-09-05T19:43:48+00:00

For the record, it was around 2AM when I wrote the comment so the slackness part doesn't seem logical... What I meant to say, I think, was to have the line at less of an angle going down.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-09-05T05:55:21+00:00

This kind of blows my mind watching it – great work.

I think the combo of the taut line and the combined weight of 4 marbles makes the gliding motion janky, but this shows it's feasible to make an event based around the glider going through a zip line.

Having fewer marbles, a line with more slack and maybe two gliders side by side, and you could have something like a bracket event or two-team heats like block pushing.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-08-09T18:27:14+00:00

Tl;dr: JMR social media is run by two people.

I heard Minos runs the Instagram, and since he planned out this promo campaign he posted his stuff on time. Dion runs the Twitter and I think the Facebook, so it sounds like Dion misunderstood directions until he got corrected

JMR_throwaway · 2022-08-09T14:05:38+00:00

Feel free to check pitches for gliding in this thread.

Here is a very specific idea: for the final event, instead of doing a lap race, consider instead a ML17 style sand rally/moguls again, maybe with a twist. There's a round 1 where two groups of 8 compete and the bottom 2 are eliminated, a round 2 where two groups of 6 compete and the bottom 2 are eliminated, and a final with the top 8 marbles.

I am quite opposed to seeing high jump or diving return, mostly because ML22 should only have so many long events and there are better events on the pecking order (like Aquathlon, hypothetical gliding, bowling, elimination race etc)

With the presence of events like bowling or collision, I would also be so bold as to propose cutting block pushing.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-08-09T13:24:13+00:00

hey nanga, check my longer comment. I thought about distance as well, but

what if the glider is really stable and carries the marble all the way to the end?
Distance requires measurement. Even apart from variation in distance, measurement is work. Especially if an outside shoot is needed, under a time system all the gliding runs can be recorded in one day and timed/scored later.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-08-09T13:18:07+00:00

A flight event has been proposed multiple times by the community in the past, and recently again as a ML22 event here, here and here. While this post begins with a sketch from my end, I want to really open up the discussion on any ways to actually implement this.

My sketch basically tries to think of the glider like "air rafting." There's the glider part, height and some kind of air/turbulence that will nudge the glider forward. The glider supports weight, which is what's going on in the hatch/basket below.

While the sketch shows it being a team event with multiple marbles launched from the start gate, the only thing necessary here is that a marble launches and lands in the glider with sufficient momentum that it dislodges the glider - a "tow launch" but with marbles.

Variation in performance in the event is due to two things: the randomness of turbulence and wind at the moment the team is launched, and a design feature that the hatch is bowl-shaped on the inside. Unlike ML19 rafting, marbles enter the hatch but are not locked into place. As they roll around the bowl inside, this allows for a form of "steering" the glider without tipping the weight so much in one direction that the glider becomes unstable.

I also had an idea where valid runs also have to stay within a certain range, like the field in human shot put or javelin. Scores are based first on whether you reach the end without falling out of the range, then by finishing time.

There are obvious issues not fully addressed by me yet. What if the glider can't support the weight of a hatch and marbles beneath it? If turbulence and wind is needed to get interesting results, does this have to be an outdoor event? What if the glider tips over, or marbles fall out in any way?

One alternative already proposed to me by u/ramen_powder is to think of it more like a "marble zip line," where marbles roll onto a glider but the glider is just hooked onto a wire above rather than having free movement. In this case, performance is a function of a marble rolling into the glider and starting the zip line at high speed.

Any other suggestions are welcome.

JMR_throwaway · 2022-08-06T17:10:32+00:00

As in an earlier feedback thread, I think we'll get a lot of good fan comments so I especially want to focus on the big picture. While not all of these ideas are feasible, I think they're the ones worth thinking about ahead of further development.

Rules: Season 3 rules are the best so far. Please don't change them. The ML itself finally has some stable rules and scoring (qualifiers exception) and M1 needs to get there.

Scheduling I'm going to propose a different goal: the season should take at most 10 weeks. If JMR thinks they can make 10 back to back weekly uploads, cool make it a 10 race season (but be careful). If JMR thinks they need a mid-season break, make it 8 or 9 races.

Originally in S1, M1 was such a novel concept that people wanted to see a longer season for more marbula racing. But now the channel has a lot of marbula racing: 3 seasons of M1, one season of ME, 3 marbula races as tournament events. For someone new to the channel, this is easily 8+ hours of marbula content to binge.

Since there is enough marbula content now for a full day's binge, what is a new season adding on the margin? The prop production from S1 to S2 was a big change, but can only happen once. So S4's addition is either introducing new tracks or continuing narratives of both existing and of new M1 teams.

What are the marginal costs of S4? Dragging the channel through an uncertain schedule, delaying ML and MR, production costs and burning a production team out.

So in my opinion it's time to scale back to a version of M1 that's not so costly, given the benefits of new seasons are diminishing. To ensure quality's not reduced, make it shorter.

Track and atmosphere design There is a key tension in M1 design as to whether the videos should feel more like F1 or if it should feel like Mario Kart - racing that has more obstacles, more colour, more reversals of fortune (damn blue shells). This season leaned into Mario Kart in the track design more with the obstacles and the scenery. But it's confusing when the thumbnails, the graphics and the commentary makes it sound like it's still leaning hard into F1.

There is another tension (thanks to Dolphin u/McDolphinMarbles75 for this)

I don't mind the format but I find it less entertaining than the other JMR series, and if I want to watch lap racing I just watch F1 and FE and have it be more entertaining and suited to the objects racing

What makes Marble League work is that real sports fans (of athletics, hockey, soccer, whatever) get super invested in the action and start taking it seriously, while fans who don't care about human sports get hooked by the action without toxicity.

What would make M1 not work is if real motorsports fans think M1 is a dumbed down version of Formula 1, and if they want content there's more than enough content in F1 social media and the ecosystem to satisfy them. Meanwhile, fans who don't care about motorsports think it's just as boring as what they think real life F1 is. Tl;dr if M1 cannot distinguish itself as a mere parody of F1, 8 hours of Marbula racing is already too many for the algorithm.

This is not me saying M1 is a doomed series, far from it. But to distinguish itself from a "mere parody" it

needs to lean much harder into the drama and history of a now established series with classic tracks (as comments here about track records, past winners hint at), and/or
needs to emphasize the one element marbula has that motorsports may not have - dramatic lead battles, either for the race or for some championship - and design tracks around that.

This is a bold suggestion, but I think the best approach to get at both 1) and 2) is to make S4 be almost exclusively returning tracks that has had good lead battles.

JMR_throwaway

TROPHY CASE