- Amelia Moseley

 

    It has been interesting being a YouTuber for the past two years. While I have not been in the hot seat myself dealing with YouTube and its problems, I have been watching things go on with a little more understanding of how the website works. That experience makes this current dissent in the YouTuber ranks all the more interesting to watch.

    Now, not all of this is super obvious. I mean, there is a very obvious discomfort going on right now with the topics surrounding copyright. If you want more examples, look no further than the debacle with I Hate Everything, his strikes with Derek Savage, and his removal from YouTube. The entire ordeal rallied hundreds of thousands of YouTubers behind IHE to get his channel returned, which is awesome, to see so many people banding together in a community, rallying behind this creator. Granted, most YouTubers (including myself) are pretty fed up with YouTube’s handling of their copyright policies and the ways it can be so easily abused.

    It’s a valid complaint. Copyright claim as it stands is either automated through YouTube’s less than accurate Copyright ID Claim, or triggered by the very basic flagging system. It is very easy to abuse the system and get a bunch of false flags against an entire channel while also incredibly difficult to get those strikes removed. Chiefly because the system is almost completely automated, humans aren’t looking at mistakes being in the system nearly as much as we need them to. If a number of false claims go through in quick succession, there a YouTuber has very few options to recover before their account is just automatically deleted.

    Of course, that isn’t the end of complaints. It’s YouTube. Their comment sections are known pretty universally as something you just skip over because of the vile cesspool the comments sections have become. Everyone is complaining. So it’s interesting to see YouTubers complaining about YouTube, particularly YouTubers who are making their living off the platform.

    It was really surprised to see the video "YouTube Has Changed" on Markiplier's channel. I mean, he’s sitting pretty on 12 million subs--what does he have to complain about the system? His video is great and very reflective on himself. To say, though, that it isn’t about YouTube as a platform isn’t true. But that’s not all of it. The video addresses the cycle of toxicity developing on YouTube over the past 4 years and how, with the rise of the YouTuber, YouTubers are constantly trying to tear each other down in order to be able to be successful and generate revenue. And YouTube, as a platform, is encouraging this.

    This goes back into another I Hate Everything video and looking at how YouTube structures its default home page. It is curious that YouTube does not encourage people to find other content than the mainstream, super popular content. YouTube wants you to watch what they’re being paid to have on the platform or the drama that is going to get them a lot of ad revenue.

    Really, this attitude is getting so much momentum lately, that we’ve got a hashtag movement for it: #makeyoutubegreatagain. If all the videos cited on the page haven’t been enough to cover this point, perhaps this JacksFilm video might shed some light on the issue:



For all these videos and more, here's a playlist on all the topics and more.