Weird are the ways of the internet. Weeeeeeeiiiiiirrrrrrd. For suddenly one day, I saw one of MY videos on a famous YouTuber's channel. I don't remember how I found out, except that suddenly my views shot up from the usual zero to something like 800. Wowk! I didn't know what was going on. Then in the comments, people kept saying they were sent there from "LaurenzSide", which I'm afraid I didn't know from a hole in the ground. It took a lot of chasing down to actually find the video where said LaurenzSide "quoted" my stuff. It was, well, it was weird, but so were my videos (she actually used bits of THREE of them altogether), and it was kind of a mixed feeling to see someone comment on them, being not quite sure she really liked my videos or just thought they were quirky and bizarre. Which, well. . .
So I did the only thing a non-YouTuber can do. I video'd her video. I mean, I took my camcorder and made a video of HER video, which included MY video. So we ended up with a video of a video of a video! It went in a perfect circle. As a YouTube-channel-having-person (NOT a YouTuber - you have to be doing ads and making money to be that), I know my stuff is pretty much in the public domain. And yes, I've had a few comments, not always complimentary, but that comes with the territory. In fact, lately I've had a lot more than usual, and so far people have been great. I mean, sweet! These seem like young girls, but on the internet you never know who they are. LaurenzSide called me a "sweet woman", and I must confess I have never been called that in my life before. She cautioned her subscribers not to be "mean" to me. I don' t know where that idea came from (except that it's the internet.) But no one has been mean, and in fact, so far it's been warm and cozy. When I get five new subscribers in a week, and four hot-cocoa-and-fuzzy-slippers comments, it makes me think that maybe-just-maybe I'm not doing all this in vain, that somebody actually sees it, that - Oh hell no. But I'm going to keep doing it anyway.
Why is this video so significant? I'll tell you why. It isn't. But unlike most of my YouTube videos, which garner somewhere between one and ten views, this one got 18,500 (and counting - every day that I check, it's higher). It has long been my belief that there's something "off" with YouTube's view-counting system. Weirdly, it's skewed in favor of those who get the most views. Multi-millions and even BILLIONS of views are now possible for monetized channels. Meantime, little old me gets a handful, if that. Sometimes if I look on my video manager, the number of views is wildly different than what shows up on my page. So what is going on? And does YouTube care? All I know is, every once in a while something happens on my channel that is WAY weird. Awhile ago, someone named LaurenZsidehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBnbqt4VRhotq2TQjkIi2Aliked one of my videos - well, liked it, or thought it was weird. (It was.) It was this one:
In this one, the trolls do absolutely nothing. The thing is, I think people assume I am a little old lady who is so demented, she thinks the trolls ARE doing something - not to mention talking to her and voting in the latest Federal election. They don't get that this is supposed to be absurd and crazy BECAUSE they don't do anything. LaurenZside is very popular, though I am not sure what she does. Probably gaming, if I knew what THAT was. She has lots of fans, most of whom seem to be young girls. Their thumbnails are unicorns and rainbows and such. Soon, I was getting hundreds of views for this video, not to mention comments. People kept saying they "came from LaurenZ". I did finally find the clip she posted in which she shows a few seconds of it. She must have posted a link to it or something.
That's cool, it's kind of fun, and it doesn't really matter what LaurenZ or her fans think of me, so long as they are entertained by this. But wait, there's more: "My Doll's Eyes are MOVING!" was made as a lark a very long time ago when I had a VERY brief fling with reborn dolls. I was too cheap to buy real ones, so got some fairly convincing knockoffs from eBay for about 30 bucks. Nobody really watched it, the usual scattering, and a very few comments saying the doll's eyes were NOT moving, that the effect was from shaking the camera, which is probably true. Then: KA-BOOM! 18,500 views, all at once it seemed. The only other time this happened was when a short video of the family singing Happy Birthday to Ryan went nuts. Not exactly viral, but over 80,500, and for why? It's cute, yes, but most of my stuff is mighty cute, isn't it?
When I finally tracked down the LaurenZ video, I realized the "My Doll's Eyes are MOVING!" video was also mentioned, and a tiny clip included, even with my voice in it! This explained the (for me) avalanche of views, which wouldn't be a blip on most YouTubers' radar. But fun for me, and even funner reading the comments. Everyone seems to be good-natured and willing to enter the spirit of the thing, even while INSISTING it's just the camera shaking (which it is).
Relevant passages are at 1:58 and 7:58. I have just taken a video of HER video showing MY video, and I want to see if they cancel each other out (perhaps a self-erasing video?) or disappear into a vortex of immeasurable depth and terror.
