The YouTube purge

[Woodsman]

The saga continues:

I'm also an interested follower of the comic book and movie industry, (there are a number of prolific YouTubers who create and talk comics who have been witch hunted with an absolutely astonishing level of on-line savagery over the last year. There has even been a physical assault against one game reviewer! -That, and another incident of professional bullying are now being prosecuted via crowd funded legal actions, -with lawyer input on YouTube. The level of learning and intelligent attention to these matters by the public is both surprising and encouraging.

While disgusting and rather scary, (especially after reading Solzhenitsyn and recognizing the key points on the map toward some sort of re-envisioned Archipilago), I take a measure of satisfaction in seeing how rational people are working together to create alternative systems free of ponerized influence, both in publishing and money transactions. It is amazing to watch as people learn the hard way how to survive under a ponerized system.

I would recommend looking up videos by "Diversity and Comics" for a sort of diary via comics review of the current culture holocaust. This story is one of the reasons we're here, I think, one of the Right and Left bits of Objective Reality we can learn from. It's the living drama of Ponerology unfolding in microcosm and it is amazing to see the various players learn the ways, modes and terminology of psychopathy as first studied here in these forums.

 

[Ca.]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1073700172725710849

He was able to clear the issue, But, some speculation is it may have been 4 "other" reasons,

Published on Dec 12, 2018
TheEarthMaster
No more LIVE Streaming.... YouTube has Disabled me.

Apparently some copyrighted songs Accidentally got mixed in with my non copyrighted music playlists.... We shall move forward and deal with it the best we can.

 

[Nathan]

Something new to add to this topic...

YouTube's most popular personality, PewDiePie (with 77 million subscribers), is once again the target of radical left Vox Media and their decaying portfolio of propaganda websites, Vox News, The Verge, Polygon, Recode and three others.

PewDiePie (Felix) recently recommended 28 small YouTube channels to his audience in a video. Which is a pretty nice thing to do, and not something other popular YouTubers would bother with. One of those channels, E;R, had some hidden, obscure jokes that could be defined either as edgy humor or anti-Semitic. However, to find these jokes you would need to spend many dozens of hours watching all of the hour-long videos. Understandably, Felix didn't have that time and was happy to recommend E;R because he made some great anime essay videos.

Someone at Vox News noticed this and wrote a slanderous lengthy article about Felix, going to great lengths to tie him to Alt-Right figures such as Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro (even though neither are remotely Alt-Right) and paint him as radicalizing his 77 million followers into the Alt-Right.

Not to mention that PewDiePie recently gave a positive review of Peterson's book. I'm sure Vox loved that.

The Vox writer used the phrase "Alt-Right" 29 times. It's completely insane:

YouTube’s most popular user amplified anti-Semitic rhetoric. Again.

Felix did the right thing and posted a response video, mostly to laugh at the craziness of Vox reporters but also to explain how he'd overlooked these deeply buried anti-Semitic jokes and has since removed his recommendation from the video. Felix has occasionally made some minor mistakes in the past, he is 26 years old after all. But he has always been quick to hold himself responsible.

Of course it was too late, and Vox Media were already scouring his entire history on YouTube for any tenuous connection they could make, including an anti-Semitic username that a stranger used in the same game Felix happened to be playing. Evidence that he must be racist, right?

The Vox writer says on Twitter:

The thing is, once again, we have a classic normalizing presentation of deeply horrible levels of anti-Semitism, being given plausible deniability. Maybe PewDiePie didn't realize "rabbi shekkel" was an anti-Semitic handle. Or he did, but didn't care enough to exit the game.

While Felix hadn't noticed the username at all, this Vox writer is shaming him for not immediately exiting the game.

Vox have since been pumping out article after article across their various websites with titles such as:

"YouTube’s most popular user amplified anti-Semitic rhetoric. Again."
"PewDiePie's ties to white supremacy spell serious trouble for the future of YouTube"
"PewDiePie gives shout out to hateful, anti-Semitic YouTube channel"

PewDiePie posted a new response video that is probably more accurate and entertaining than all of Vox's videos combined. You can tell the difference between ideologues and PewDiePie because he has a sense of humor:

Bonus "alt-right hero" Jordan Peterson bit at 08:12.

Toward the end of the video, Felix raises an interesting point. Vox Media is not doing very well. They're on track to miss their revenue target yet again. And it must pain them greatly that a single YouTuber has more reach than their entire portfolio of mainstream media. So this certainly comes from a place of jealousy and desperation. Not to mention outright denial of reality.

But if you look at the tweets by this one Vox writer who continually writes about him, you can see her fear that this "white supremacy" could become "normalized". Which seems to be doublespeak for: I'm scared that 97% of the population do not agree with my ponerized authoritarian view of reality.

I just want to state for the record that any time a reporter has to engage with deeply hateful and disturbing content, it's a strain on our mental and emotional health. We don't do it for shallow reasons, but because it's our job to shed light on how extremism is mainstreamed.

And the aftermath — receiving death threats, threats of rape and violence, orders to kill myself, endless fat-shaming, all sorts of slurs, seeing people I follow also receive harassment, and general mockery for days — I didn't open myself up to that because I wanted the traffic.

I knew all of that was coming, because a milder version of it has happened each of the previous times I've written about PDP. I chose to write the story anyway —at the risk of amplifying extremism— because how the most popular person on YouTube uses his influence matters greatly.

It must drive people like her crazy that they can't control what everyone thinks.

A pair of popular Aussie YouTubers, Laymen Gaming, posted a video about this, along with an interesting discussion about comedy calibrating society by pushing its boundaries, how "news" is becoming indistinguishable from satire like The Onion, and how everyone is apparently "Alt-Right" now. Video below skips the intro and goes straight into the story:

 

[Nathan]

On a similar topic, YouTube Rewind 2018 is now the most disliked video in the history of YouTube.

It took eight years for Canadian pop star Justin Bieber's hated hit track, Baby, to reach 9.8 million dislikes. YouTube needed only six days to beat Bieber. Currently, YouTube Rewind has been disliked over 13 million times. This is a jaw-dropping example of the disconnect between radical ideologues and the general population, and their continued denial of this divide.

To quote my favorite high-quality source, Vox:

On December 6, the site released its annual “Rewind” video, in which it looks back at the highlights of the year. The 2018 video is an effusively rosy, objectively wince-inducing 8-minute lovefest, with a notably diverse cast celebrating everything from K-pop to drag queens, working moms, mental health vloggers, and the Baby Shark meme.

As YouTube pointed out in a press release, Rewind 2018 “features over 100 of YouTube’s top creators.” It does not, however, feature PewDiePie in any capacity. The omission incensed PewDiePie’s followers, as well as the followers of other YouTube creators who were left out. As a result, the video, within a matter of days, has rapidly overtaken an 8-year-old Justin Bieber single to become the most-disliked video in YouTube history.

Of course, a casual glance at Rewind's popularity over the years show a notable decline from 2016:



As I write this, the blue bar on 2018 is almost gone.

You can take a guess at when YouTube Rewind started to become politically correct, and how the general audience responded to it.

Notably this year they seem to have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from popular YouTubers such as PewDiePie, Shane Dawson, Jacksepticeye, Smosh, Jacksfilms, Vsauce, Logan Paul and Mr Beast -- all creators who pull in a major chunk of viewers to the website. Instead, we have Will Smith, Liza Koshy (a former Vine personality who ticks the diversity checklist and sells clothing on her website, yet hasn't posted a YouTube video in nine months) and a popular gamer nicknamed Ninja who doesn't even use YouTube.

YouTuber Marques Brownlee, also seemingly selected for meeting the diversity criteria, was not impressed with his involvement. He had this to say on Twitter:

The “problem” with YouTube Rewind is pretty simple, actually - the delta between what creators/audiences expect and what YouTube wants to show has never been more clear.

Creators want YouTube Rewind to be a celebration of YouTubers and the biggest/best stuff on the platform that year.

YouTube wants Rewind to be a couple minutes they can show to advertisers and say “look at all the great stuff over here that you want to spend your dollars on!”

YouTube tries to blend the two ideas, which results in this cringey, chaotic, super PC video that leaves out a lot of the stuff creators love and advertisers don’t.

While PewDiePie hasn't been asked by YouTube to be included in their Rewind videos for a couple of years now, JaidenAnimations' illustrations were included in the Rewind video, where she took the opportunity to sneak in PewDiePie's gaming chair, which YouTube failed to notice until it was too late.

The Rewind video includes a few wonderfully cringeworthy lines delivered over a campfire:

So apparently we control YouTube Rewind this year. Y'all we can whatever we want. What do we do?

You know who really needs to be in this Rewind video?

Everyone who managed to do something bigger than themselves this year.

Who found a way to help the causes that matter to them the most.

To everyone who proved it's OK to talk about mental health this year.

It takes a lot of bravery to be that vulnerable and I'm so proud of this community.

The person they're referring to was paid to talk about mental health. So I guess it takes a lot of bravery and money to be that vulnerable.

Can we also give a moment to Asian representation in entertainment this year? Major strides were made.

Here's to all women in 2018 for finding their voices.

I think we should read the comments.

Let's give the people what they want.

I'll end this post with some of the most popular comments on the video:

Don't wanna watch the video? Political issues and Fortnite [video game]. You're welcome.

most disliked video on a platform! you did it youtube! great work!

Youtube is so disconnected with their viewers now it’s not even funny

Are half these people even youtubers???

The part that I thought wasn’t cringe was the dog

they literally skipped all the actually relevant stuff that happened this year

What were they thinking when they made this

This is bad

 

[luc]

Nathan, I think that would make for a good Sott article! Watching one of PewDiePie's videos you linked, me too I couldn't help but think of Ponerology. In the face of such rampant evil, stupidity and literal insanity, all we have left is mocking it, making fun of it. Of course they absolutely hate that and I'm sure they are already fantasizing about torturing everyone to death who dares pointing out the obvious. It's so sick.

 

[Arwenn]

Nathan, I think that would make for a good Sott article! Watching one of PewDiePie's videos you linked, me too I couldn't help but think of Ponerology. In the face of such rampant evil, stupidity and literal insanity, all we have left is mocking it, making fun of it. Of course they absolutely hate that and I'm sure they are already fantasizing about torturing everyone to death who dares pointing out the obvious. It's so sick.

I agree-it would be great to put this up on SoTT. I have not watched the YouTube Rewind yet, the comments and the huge number of dislikes says it all. What a huge disconnect- Silicon Valley really is clueless! What with the deplatforming of Sargon of Akkad on Patreon & conservative voices being relentlessly banned on other platforms, the snapback is going to be brutal for the tech giants when it does come.

 

[Nathan]

Haha, thanks Luc and Arwenn! I honestly would not wish it upon you to watch the Rewind video. It is so unbelievably tone-deaf.

Meanwhile, more drama has unfolded. Apparently, someone hacked the Wall Street Journal and claimed to offer an apology to PewDiePie for their past witch-hunts and encouraged readers to subscribe. Naturally, cringestream media is all over it.

Here's a portion of the now deleted-page. The "hacker" borrowed an amusing screenshot from the YouTube Rewind video to encourage people to subscribe:


Even Jordan Peterson is subscribing:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1070518052108861440

Anyway, here is something a little more interesting that happened the other week. YouTube's darling diversity and feminist star, Lilly Singh, was prominently featured in YouTube Rewind 2018. She recently criticized the "wage gap" of YouTube's top stars on Twitter, the social media platform where everyone is happy and rational:



In truth there were three female creators including herself, and the reason for this has unsurprisingly little to do with gender. The other YouTuber had a niche channel that died down while the third YouTuber was busy filming her new HBO show and stopped putting effort into her channel. Which I think is pretty impressive for a visual platform with a mostly male audience.

It's also worth mentioning that gaming channels target a huge demographic whereas funny skits simply won’t appeal or monetize to that scale. Male YouTubers who perform skits have also disappeared from the list. In fact, PewDiePie has steered away from gaming and into general humor and culture. Which means he's also falling off the list, barely making the top 10 this year.

But what about Lilly herself? She is YouTube's favorite, despite receiving a fraction of PewDiePie's viewership. I get the impression that YouTube want her to be their politically correct PewDiePie who is diverse in every way, except intellectually.

I was a little curious, so I had a look at her stats. Lilly's popularity began to explode in 2013, only to decline in late 2015. It's interesting that this time period always seems to mark the decline, isn't it? You can see in recent years her subscriber count has declined steadily to a rate not seen since 2012. People are leaving her in droves.



The last few months have been particularly brutal. Last month, she decided to take a break for mental health reasons.

PewDiePie admitted in one of his videos that he was annoyed with all the talk of mental health surrounding creators’ recent string of breaks from YouTube, claiming that BBC News had even reached out to him for comment on the issue.

“I’m getting a little annoyed by it,” he said. “I’m not gonna lie. It’s like, shut up. Shut up, children. Just take a break. If you need a break, take a break. Stop trying to monetize everything.”

He then said that Singh’s announcement video (about taking a mental health break) was likely made to draw attention to her channel because she knows it would lead to more media attention, which predictably it did when BBC News ran the article.

“That’s the reason why she wanted to take a break to begin with,” he said. “Probably, her channel isn’t doing as well, and probably she isn’t happy with what she’s making.”

When she returned, she published a new skit that satirized getting woke and becoming outraged. It's almost like she decided if she can't beat them, join them. Unfortunately, the get woke video is not funny.

Nonetheless, PewDiePie called her out on her gender pay gap comments. You can have a chuckle at the snippet here (video will play at the correct point), where he calls her an idiot.

Also, that video has the best opening lines of any YouTube video:

Welcome to Pew News, the most diverse news source of all time.

We have literally everyone working here.

 

[Azur]

The Work. Can you See?

 

[BlackCartouche]

Ok, so I watched the 8+ mins YouTube "Rewind" vid to see what the fuss is about (I won't affront this forum with adding the link)
I didn't really know what was going on for most of it... However, after watching the whole thing I'm fairly certain I am now officially BRAIN DEAD.
Thanks @Nathan (not!)

 

[Nathan]

@BlackCartouche

I think there's only one version we can truly appreciate:

"YouTube Rewind 2018 but every time it's cringy the video ends"

It lasts ten seconds.

 

[3DStudent]

I had to watch the rewind too, because it's been out a few weeks and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. It really is bad, and I'm mostly wondering, "Who are these people?" I remember them not being that bad in the past, and I would actually recognize half or so of the content. But it does seem like they've gone full libtard with it.

 

[Nathan]

From earlier this week:

YouTube removes 58 million videos featuring hateful or inappropriate content

YouTube was once seen as safe space, free from government regulation and censorship.

But the dark side of the sharing platform has been laid bare in a report that reveals in the past three months, it has had to remove 58 million videos that were posting hateful or inappropriate content.

A spokeswoman said the company, owned by Google, is confident a new algorithm will work to stamp out inappropriate content.

[...]

But freelance writer Stilgherrian said the mere size of YouTube makes it virtually impossible to capture every hateful video or abusive content.

He said while the company maintains its technology to pick up such content is becoming more sophisticated, so are the techniques of those who want to spread hatred or far-right propaganda.

Reminds me of a ZeroHedge article from a couple of years ago:

After all, with the amount of power the company holds in Washington, it’s as if Google - or Alphabet - is an actual wing of the government.

 

[luc]

More Orwellian madness: Amazon terminates "Amazon Payments" account of the David Pakman Show for no apparent reason, possibly even keeping money others have donated to the show:

 

[Rhythmik]

Vimeo completely removed all of Ryan Dawson's videos from their platform and are keeping $5,000 that he is owed. Reason was antisemitic content or offensive content targeting Jews. He was removed from Facebook and I believe also dropped by Patreon.

 

[Woodsman]

More Orwellian madness: Amazon terminates "Amazon Payments" account of the David Pakman Show for no apparent reason, possibly even keeping money others have donated to the show:

This might offer an explanation for the David Pakman debacle. I'm quite surprised that Amazon took such meager bait! The power of the outraged twitter clone army is still growing despite wide public condemnation.