The loneliness of the persecuted YouTube creator (and other lamentations)

Might I lay down my poor offering beside the nobility of Dylan's Mr. Jones? I don't know what else to do right now. I just topped 21,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel - a number the average hobbyist would likely envy - and my views are down to single digits, or not much better. That goes against the laws of physics, or at least against the laws of YouTube, the creators of which prize subscriber counts above all else - and which GUARANTEE huge views, or at least higher than the ones you got when you had 238 subscribers in Year One.

This is year 13 or so, and it's been a trip, as they say, but this trip may be over soon if things don't get a lot better. Right now, they look worse. With 3,000 videos in total, and all those subscribers, and past views in the thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands,  you'd think my current offerings would garner more than, say, ten.

But that's how it is.

I am convinced this isn't due to the plummeting quality of my videos, though some people have patted my hand and told me, dear, maybe you just don't realize it yet. I put more energy into them now than I ever used to, back when I effortlessly got thousands, or, at the very least, hundreds. 

The subject of the "algorithm" comes up every single day now, and I have no idea what it actually is, except that you must beguile it, flirt with it, suck its various appendages, and all that stuff, in order to get any kind of views at all. It's a robotic thing, like most of the narrators on YouTube (not to mention 99% of the images you see), but there's nothing "intelligent" about this AI garbage, as far as I can see. It is as prejudiced and prudish as any childless cat lady who steadfastly refuses to vote for Donald Trump. 

So why are the algorythmical baddies at YouKnowWhoTube beating up on me like this? Why have they turned off the tap and basically shut me out of my own channel?  It's in the video, but let me summarize: I've had a number of comments removed and notices pop up claiming I have been censored due to HATE SPEECH, HARASSMENT and CYBERBULLING. In no way, shape or form have I ever uttered anything like this, but I've had about half a dozen of them in recent months, each of them threatening me with termination if I make "any more comments like this" (like WHAT? They've already been deleted, so I have no idea what they actually said, let alone when, where, which video, etc.)

Though I realize the algorithm is a thing, not a person. I've tried, foolishly, to no avail, and KNOWING it will be to no avail, to get help for this. I've sent multiple messages to YouTube "feedback" (a ludicrous feature which is about as useful as writing a letter to the President of the Universe, folding it into an paper airplane, and dropping it off the World Trade Center - and the fact it no longer exists only boosts the level of futility). It's a way to get rid of complainers while appearing to listen to them, to "value their feedback" so they can Improve Their YouTube Experience.

In reality, they just want you to go away.

YouTube has changed beyond recognition just in the past few years, since the pandemic at least (and we now measure absolutely everything by whether it happened before the pandemic, during, or after - the first, and I hope last, time all of humanity has been united in such a wretched enterprise). It's all about commerce now, being monetized, including ads in your video which are actually presented by the creator/host (kind of like Arthur Godfrey inserting an ad for Lipton's Chicken Noodle Soup into his variety show, thus causing peals of laughter in the audience when he tasted the product and shuddered), etc. which I am not interested in. NOR do I think these slickly-produced, heavily-sponsored corporate offerings  are the only videos that get decent views nowadays. Every single day, I see videos, some 10 years old, some posted only yesterday, which are getting literally millions of views. LIKE THIS ONE.



This, too, is a ferociousgumby original, and every single day of my life it garners at least a few thousand more views, added to the 15+ MILLION it already has. I get multiple comments, some of them so gross I have to delete them, and I am not able to keep up with the 17,000+ comments I already have. I can't possibly read them all - so is THAT what they're so upset about? But they're not even my comments, so it can't be that.

So why did this happen?

THE ALGORITHM.

I guess.

It must be.

Why??

The algorithm decided to let this particularly awful and amateurish thing (which I threw up there several years ago after all of 15 minutes of effort) get into some sort of mysterious stream called RECOMMENDED. I have no other ideas on this. It doesn't happen, actually, but here it is anyway. 

As for my current offerings, which are of much better quality, I cannot think of a logical explanation for the crashing views which does not include YouTube threatening to terminate me for no reason at all. The nasty old algorithm, the childless cat lady of all time, has decided, NO, NO, NO, we are NOT going to recommend any of your videos from now on; NO, NO, NO, we are NOT going to send notifications to your 21,000 subscribers so that they know you've uploaded a new video. Naughty girl, bad Gumby, we're punishing you for being so ferocious (and is THAT the reason they're doing all this?) I have to censor every other word, no matter how mild, for fear of the final call, the last pop-up, the dreaded summons: COMMENT REMOVED!

This has stolen much of the joy I've had in 13 years of keeping the  channel fed and stoked with all the things I love best. OK then, I'm down but not out (yet), but the wretchedness of not being able to even look at my channel most days (dreading the sickening crash at getting 9 views when I used to get 9 million) is almost as disheartening as constantly telling myself I can find other satisfactions on YouTube, and even focus on all those oldies that are still raking in ridiculous views.  But I am sick of this bootstrapping, and I want ANSWERS.

No other creator that I have ever heard of has run into this. Most "small" channels have maybe a few thousand subs; some of them gain ten thousand views per video, easy. The math ain't mathin'. 21,000 subs isn't even a small channel any more, it's a medium-sized one. And it has taken me a huge chunk of my life to get here.

But there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about this. I've even written to a snail mail address in California, several times, while picturing it fluttering down out of the heavens and landing straight in the shredder. It's a joke, in other words, just a way of pretending to be listening. If this is truly the work of a robot, and the flow of my videos has been shut down permanently, I will have to limp along for - oh, I guess all eternity, or for however long I'm still alive. 

I'm still posting, but my heart ain't in it. I have literally hundreds of videos stockpiled, most of which won't see the light of day, but that's not the problem. I've always had far more material than I've ever needed - the opposite problem most creators face.

I feel like I need an ally, a human being preferably, someone who  knows how to fix this, but I am at the mercy of robotic forces now, squeezed dry by some vast corporate entity, like Charlie Chaplin caught in the cogs of the great machine in Modern Times.

I have one more thing to say, which maybe I should've said right off the top. YouTube isn't YouTube any more. Not sure it ever was, but increasingly, it has been taken over by Google. In other words, it's no bloody wonder my complaints fall on deaf ears. Trying to get a response out of Google is a ludicrous notion, because no human beings are involved in its operation at any level. It's all some sort of dystopian AI nightmare, everything artificial, manufactured, and devoid of any sense of humanity. But an entity with no conscience can easily become as nasty as HAL himself.

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

UPDATE. I've been carrying on a wacky and very enjoyable thread in the comments section of one of my recent videos. The guy is crazy, posting quite bizarre parodies of songs, poems, etc. but it's the first time in months I've enjoyed any aspect of my recent channel activities, and I want to keep it going as long as I can. And I was having all sorts of fun with this - 

UNTIL.

Until I noticed that two of my comments no longer appeared on the thread. They had, apparently, been deleted.  As with all the comments I leave nowadays, I was extremely careful to re-word, re-spell, use substitutes, etc., though the comments themselves were about as neutral as they could be. One of them quoted the great Theophilus Marzials and his onomatopoeic masterpiece, A Tragedy. But the plops and flops may have struck YouTube as far too violent! And we can't have POETS in these comments. My God, what is YouTube coming to? Let's stick to vicious political rants and content so gross and offensive that it makes the paint peel off my office walls.

So must I tiptoe around All Go Rhythm for the rest of my life? Why am I seen as so dangerous, so subversive, so offensive, so violent, so abusive, so full of hate and cyberbullying and harassment that every other comment just has to be struck down as a matter of course?

The Bird Files: These Geese are NOT Good Canadians!!

Well, here I go again, once more against the flow again. I'm now getting barely 20 views on videos that used to get in the hundreds, and I refuse to believe the quality has plummeted, because I am STILL getting healthy views on the older ones of much lower quality. I am also still gaining subscribers steadily and am soon going to be up to 20,800+. Other channels I follow have a tiny fraction of that number and get thousands or tens of thousands of views. 

I have been harassed and persecuted relentlessly by YouTube for "hate speech", as well as "bullying and threats" (to MEGHAN MARKLE - ??). I still get a lot of very innocent comments taken down and find myself commenting in code. So if this gets no views, or five or whatever, I guess I will leave it up anyway. 

But I feel like I'm twisting in the wind. And I am, and it could get a lot worse, but as it is, I don't even want to look at my channel any more because I know it will be bad news and bring down my day. I keep telling myself, keep going, keep going, the algorithm is going to forgive you eventually, but it's the double whammy of the royal bullying and threats (totally ludicrous!) added to the Gypsy Rose "hate speech" that is doing this to me - along with that stupid "warning" thing that is on my record forever, though there was supposed to be a way out of it that was never posted.  

It's hard these days, and my first job is to keep up my mood and morale as well as I can, but it's just awful to see this, after years and years of careful tending and building. I haven't had decent views in half a year at least. Anyway, these geese were pretty amusing, and I think it's a great video, and I don't think anyone is going to watch it.  I can no longer share my passions with more than a tiny handful of people, and even that miniscule audience is shrinking away. 

UPDATE: this video got 9 views in 24 hours. My previous birdwatching videos got 50 - 100. I am so sick of trying to be positive, etc. while everything I've built over 13 years sinks in the swamp!

WHAT IS GOING ON?????????????

Am I guilty of the worst sin on social media? (Where is free speech in 2024?)

I have run into the most miserable, baffling, unfair problem I have ever had on YouTube, one which could easily cause my channel to be terminated. For the third time in several months, I have had a notice pop up telling me my comments have been taken down due to "hate speech". 

I have no idea what those comments actually SAID, because they weren't there anymore, but I knew damn well I was NOT guilty of any such thing. With the Meghan Markle thing, I happen to know she has minions and a legal team who carefully watch YouTube and other social media, and clamp  down on transgressors whether they've actually done anything or not. I know of several creators who lost their channels that way.

I figured out that the first one I got was likely a Markle thing, but the second one really baffled me. The only thing I could think of was the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, in which she and her minions also watch comments and videos and bring people down if they don't like what they say. I have to guess because it  disappeared, but my comment may have alluded to the fact that Gypsy Rose's nickname as a child was "Possum". This was actually stated in one of the many dramas, documentaries, reality shows, etc. that have sprung up around her. I believe I called her something like Possum Girl, and  this was deemed hate speech because I cited her childhood name. 

If it wasn't that, it was something equally stupid. But I'm guessing here. In truth, I have no idea why any of this is happening to me. I don't see how I broke the rules, but how do I know that if they don't tell me what the rules are?  I stopped watching or commenting on Gypsy's videos weeks ago, but yet another warning popped up yesterday, this time restricting me from commenting for 24 hours. So the noose is tightening even as we speak. 

It was even more frustrating and painful  to realize I can no  longer reach a human being at YouTube - it's all Google now, so your cry for help is engulfed by a corporate monster. I do remember live-messaging a support person years ago to resolve a problem, but he did not speak English very well and didn't understand what I was saying. I even found an email address and tried that, but nothing happened, there was no answer. 

But now I don't even have that. They have made themselves unreachable, 

I sent the following letter to an obscure snail-mail address I found at the bottom of the Google junk drawer, but I think it's more or less a joke, meant for seniors like me who they assume don't know one end of a computer from another. Will I hear anything back? Will this make it all worse? Will they insist I AM guilty of hate speech and just didn't know it, and take my channel away from me forever? Corporations, like individuals, don't  like to admit they've been wrong. It's a pride thing, and they'll hang on to their delusions to the bitter end.

Google LLC, D/B/A YouTube
901 Cherry Ave.
San Bruno, CA 94066
USA

August 11/2024

Several times in the past six months, I have received a warning from YouTube about comments I made that contained “hate speech”. I was completely shocked at this, as I don’t believe I have ever posted anything that would qualify as hate speech. Nor have I ever been accused of it in the past. I have been threatened with losing my channel if I did not stop.

I am very careful in my comments not to use language that is racist, sexist or homophobic, and not one word of it is threatening or bullying in any way. In fact, I believe my comments are carefully considered and worded respectfully,unlike many other comments I see in the same section. Some are meant to be satiric or ironic, so perhaps the algorithm doesn’t understand humour? Surely we have not lost the right to express criticisms, particularly of public figures, if they are fairly-worded.

I have been a YouTuber since 2013 (channel name/handle ferociousgumby), have 20,600+ subscribers and almost 3,000 videos, and my channel means the world to a chronically-ill, isolated senior who has very few social connections. I post birdwatching and doll-collecting videos, which I cannot see as controversial in any way. Nor can I find anything in my comments to object to. Perhaps it is my collection of troll dolls (this is not a joke!) which the algorithm doesn’t like? In any case, I believe I am being watched, and it makes no sense. My views have also dwindled dramatically for no apparent reason.

I cannot fathom why this keeps on happening to me. My channel’s existence is in danger for no good reason. Something in the system must be doing this, perhaps the algorithm which I know very little about, or else someone is reporting me for a problem which I believe does not exist, or is taking something literally which was meant to be humour.

I did attempt to send feedback through YouTube more than once, and got no reply. I have tried the help forum and got nowhere. I have also sent this letter to snail mail, but I have to assume it’s very unlikely there will be a response. So this is the last thing I can think of doing. If in fact you have determined that I am guilty of “hate speech”, PLEASE give me a list of the offending words so I can stop using them! Nothing would make me happier than to abide by the rules, but first I have to know what they are. I need your help.

😳Am I Too Old for YouTube?🤔

Well, what do you think? Meantime, here's more information that I attempted to send to YouTube, which turned out to be a Google address and completely generic. 

I sent a version of this message yesterday, but since then I realized I left out some crucial points. I have a serious problem which I need to address. I hope YouTube will listen, because this is extremely important to me.

My account is called ferociousgumby, and I have been a creator since 2011, with 20,600+ subscribers and almost 3,000 videos. I received a notice yesterday which I did not understand. It said  my comment had been removed because it "may violate community guidelines re: hate speech policies." I was told that if I made any more comments like that, I could lose the ability to comment or even have my channel terminated.

I do not believe I am guilty of hate speech in any of my comments. I am a senior citizen who uses her channel for her hobbies (birdwatching, doll collecting, cat videos, etc.) I am hardly a threat to anyone! I always strive to be respectful towards others, even if I disagree with their views. Since the offending comment was already removed, I have no idea what it actually said or in what way it may have violated YouTube's community guidelines. Since I am basically operating in an informational void, I have no idea what you are referring to, so how can I avoid such offenses in the future? 

I do have strong opinions, as do most of my YouTube friends and cohorts, but I always agree to disagree with people and do NOT issue attacks or insults of any kind. That said, I believe I have the right to criticize public figures, because such people have assigned themselves that role, thus opening themselves up to public criticism as a matter of course.   

I am baffled as to why I am being threatened with losing my "grandma channel", which is all about my hobbies and interests and intends no harm to anyone. To lose it would be heartbreaking and would badly affect my mental health, since I am bipolar and  have to be very careful about stress. I have also had to face a number of very serious family health issues, including my husband's surgery. 

I was unable to tick the box asking for email feedback, but I would be most grateful if you would enlighten me on these points so that I may stay within community guidelines in the future. But if I don't know what I'm doing wrong, how can I put it right? Please give me more information about this issue, citing the SPECIFIC comment and the SPECIFIC community guidelines I may have violated. Otherwise, I will have missed an opportunity to learn. Thank you for hearing me out.

With respect,

Margaret Gunning (ferociousgumby)

email  magunning@telus.net 

The Troll Doll Channel: Who knew TROLLS could FLY? (Carousel Waltz)

Who knew trolls could fly? This is my tiniest custom troll, an exquisite thing with a teeny-tiny crocheted outfit and replacement hair made from Tibetan mohair.  Sad to me that no one seems to be watching my videos anymore, but I've come to pour so much of myself into them that it's hard to stop. I won't stop, so must rearrange my attitude somehow. So long as my views don't go to zero, I guess I'm OK.

Have I had enough? Yes - of THIS!

Ironically, this is a comment about comments that never got posted on YouTube. I've had considerable discouragement over my channel lately. Over 13 years, I've built it up to 20,500+ subscribers and over 3,000 videos - but my views are absolutely in the toilet now, without any change in the quality or the work that goes into them. People have even been calling me out on "commenting too much" on other people's videos, which makes no sense as I think my comments are much more well-thought-out than the average and don't attack anyone. Maybe that's why?

So I had no real place to post this, and decided to plop it down here. It's my thoughts on what has happened to social media and the uncharitable, sometimes ruthless Wild West that is the internet.

This evolved into an essay, so skip it if it’s too long! But I have a few things to say about the internet in general, and YouTube in particular, as I’ve experienced it since I started my channel as a hobby in 2011. I have had a number of people reply to my comments about Gypsy Rose Blanchard, claiming I comment too much, I’m in every comments section, and (as a result) I have no life, I should get a job, and should just stop all this because I have nothing to add to the conversation. (I got this one, nearly verbatim, just a few hours ago.) Surprisingly, these are NOT all from the pro-Gypsy camp, which really does shock me. I generally do not promote myself (though it seems like everyone else does, relentlessly, perhaps just to survive the sharks in the water), but to be told I have no life based on my writing hits every nerve in my psyche.

As for an explanation as to why I “write too much”, I am a professional writer, have published hundreds of newspaper columns, book reviews and magazine articles, poetry and short stories, and published three novels (with publishers, NOT self-published). I established my channel in 2011 and have posted more than 3,000 videos, and have 20,500+ subscribers. I don’t mention any of this, ever, because it makes me very uncomfortable to self-promote, though I see it everywhere and all the time, and it is beginning to wear me down. It really does seem to me that this is what YouTube is all about now: subs, views, links, numbers, numbers, numbers! I can appreciate the fact that people need to make a living, but there is such relentless hustling going on that I am beginning to wonder if it is about people anymore.

I do have a lot to say, and maybe some people don’t like it, but I try never to be disrespectful to anyone and believe my comments are well-thought-out. People can skip them if they want. When I hear creators say over and over again “I’d love to hear what you guys think”, and  when I think I DO have something to say, I tend to want to SAY it without being clapped down by people I thought were on my side. It has just happened too many times for me to ignore.

 Writing is what I do. Next to my family, it is my life. When yet another person tells me to shut up because I don’t know what I am talking about, it hurts. I am beginning to think I may end up having to wind up my YouTube experience because it is just not the deal I signed on for. At all. Sad, because it used to be so fun and enjoyable, and it was a way to share all my hobbies, particularly during lockdown. But those days appear to be over. I don’t know this place anymore.

😄SMOKIN' HOT SHOWGIRLS do the Crowd Wave with their LEGS!😄

So this, which I worked on for hours, got TEN views. I'd give up, but somehow after 13 years and 20,500+ subs, I find that hard to do.

WHY is this happening? Why are my subs rising by 300+ per month, but no one is watching? Ten views, when the Motormouth thing, which I threw together in ten minutes, has 14 MILLION.

Really, I give up, except I can't. I just had to keep trudging forward, but it does seem like everything I've built up since 2011 (over 3 THOUSAND videos) is just going down the toilet due to people's indifference. 

Is there a way ahead? I guess I will find out, yes or no. But it galls me that so many channels with 3000 subs or less are getting tens of thousands of views, while my stuff just falls into the gutter.

🌞RETURN of the KEYBOARD CAT!🌞

One of the very first videos I saw on YouTube, back in about 2008 when the whole thing was new, was this Keyboard Cat. I found it in green screen and was able to add my own soundtrack (Darktown Strutter's Ball), which syncs up surprisingly well!

FUDGE WARS! Follow Mr. Swanley's no-fail recipe for perfectly made fudge (or else)!

 

I was YouTubing around (late at night, like always) and began to look at fudge recipes, as my last two batches hadn't turned out very well. I found the following jaw-dropping exchange between what could only be called a fudge scientist, and a few other people who were obviously having him on: but what made it even more delicious (pardon the pun) is that he had NO IDEA they were having him on. 

He took them entirely seriously in their earnest questions about the specific gravity of the fudge he was making - even asking him for a copy of his spreadsheet! - and just continued to pontificate, a self-involved, know-it-all, university-certified crashing bore, the type you never want to get caught with at a party. He ripped into the one person who had something intelligent (not to mention relevant) to say about the whole thing, accusing her of finding spiritual fulfillment in failure. Ain't YouTube grand?

MrSwanley2 years ago (edited)
I have tried making fudge many times, and found it near impossible to get consistent results using this technique. Then, being an engineer, I realised that both temperature and soft ball tests are (unreliable) ways to estimate water content. If you knew the target water content you could just measure it directly by weighing the pot and contents, before and after - there is no need to estimate it. I now believe that perfect fudge has a water content of around 10.5%. Hence with this recipe your starting weight is 1094g (+pot) and I predict that if you cook it until you reduce to 931g (+pot), leave to cool for 8 mins, beat for 5 minutes and pour... you should end up with perfect fudge every time. I made myself a little spreadsheet to calculate moisture content of common ingredients, and so far I've hit the nail every time I've followed it. In fact this method is precise enough to go for a particular type of fudge, e.g. moist or slightly dry.
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AnyaLake1 year ago
+MrSwanley well good for you, you just took the joy out of it!
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MrSwanley1 year ago (edited)
+anyalake The joy comes from eating and gifting perfectly made fudge, in fact I'm not aware of what other joy there is to be had. However, if you get some kind of spiritual fulfillment from failure then you can just keep on doing what you're doing. Nobody is forcing you.
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Joseph Mory1 year ago
+MrSwanley from one engineer to another, would you care sharing that spreadsheet?
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MrSwanley1 year ago
+Joseph Mory I'm willing, but I don't know how to get a file to you. I don't use any file sharing sites and I believe YT would block the URL anyway. I don't see a personal message system either. Besides which, the spreadsheet is nothing special. It's just a list of ingredients by weight (g), for each ingredient I input an estimated water % and use that to calculate the water grams. I sum the columns to calculate total weight and total water %, and a final section allows me to enter a target water% and predict what the total weight should be when that amount of water is removed. Basic assumption that all mass lost is water vapour. My water% estimates for important ingredients are milk(87%), sweetened condensed milk(33%), butter(15%). That's in the UK: different parts of the world have different standards for solids content of dairy products, so I would double check those.
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Joseph Mory1 year ago
I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out, thanks for the input!
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AnyaLake1 year ago
a spiritually fulfilled person would have sent a PM, exchanged emails or even posted onto google docs given that everyone posting here by definition has a google account. Right back to failing in life I go ...
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MrSwanley1 year ago (edited)
+anyalake I am here trying to share ideas with other people who are interested in making fudge. You seem to be intent on nothing except picking a fight - for no good reason that I can see. Thanks for reminding me about Google: I just used it to mute any further posts from you.
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Fyfy zyzy1 year ago
+MrSwanley I was wondering your calculations include the pot, how much does your pot weigh? Just so I could calculate and get exact results every time but with using my pot weight. Thank you for sharing what you have discovered.
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MrSwanley1 year ago (edited)
+Fyfy zyzy The weights I gave don't include the pot, that's why I say (+pot) beside them. They are just the sum of the weights of the recipe ingredients, before and after removing water. Add the weight of your own pot to both.
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Sam LSD1 year ago
thanks for that scientific calculation about moisture content.
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Zilliz 0002 months ago
MrSwanley or....you could just use a candy thermometer! !
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ferociousgumby20 hours ago
Woah!
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FUDGE WARS, ROUND 2!: I just perused a few more fudge recipes on YouTube, and you wouldn't believe who popped up in the comments, giving everyone even more grief about the sacred science of fudge-making. Some poor lady, obviously just trying to be helpful, posted a conversion from British weight measurement to the standard North American dry measure system (cups instead of ounces/mls). And once again, the Fudge Grinch popped up.

Abigail Skelton2 years ago
FOR EVERYONE IN AMERICA, HERE ARE THE INGREDIENTS: 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp butter 2 cups brown sugar 1/2 cup milk about 1 2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk what recipe should I convert next?
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Abigail Skelton2 years ago
+thecraftyzebra Your welcome! Any suggestions for another recipe to convert?
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MrSwanley2 years ago
+the wild one I hate it when people use liquid volumetric measures for solids such as butter, and things with variable density, such as sugar. Even in America I'd have thought people would want to use sensible, repeatable measures. So, no more conversions please.
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Sheree Hyde1 year ago
+the wild one Thank you for converting this for us in the US! Love these recipes! Please do caramel tarts!

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Sheree Hyde1 year ago
+MrSwanley Speak for yourself only. I appreciate the conversions!
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Tabitha Crouse1 year ago
Thank you so much! That is extremely helpful!
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E Winter1 year ago
I know right. mrswanley has a lot of nerve speaking for everyone. Needs to mind his business if the conversations aren't useful for him.
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Melatina771 year ago (edited)
Great tasting fudge and easy to make!
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MrSwanley1 year ago
+E Winter It would help if you learned to speak and interpret English before making a fool of yourself. I clearly said "_I_ hate it", not "_we_ hate it", i.e. at no time did I claim to speak for anyone except myself. And I stand by what I said, which most people with a brain will recognize as common sense.
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Woahhh!!

Clip from YouTube! (experimental video)

 

YouTube has a new "thing" that I've been experimenting with, but it seems unlikely I can do anything with it. Or not!

💗🧡💛Ferociousgumby THANKS YOU!💚💙💜

Not that I'm proud of my channel! Well, yes. From its beginnings in 2013 as a baking/crafts channel with Caitlin, to the indefinable weirdness of today, it has been a constant source of - what? Lots of things. I attempt to explain it here. Weirdest of all, I was just contacted by the producer of an MTV video clips show called Ridiculousness, asking my permission to use a video I made years ago - of Bill sneezing. How they found it, I do not know. It got 61,000 views, which for me is astronomical, though the highest one so far is 9,100,000 for a really stupid one with a rubber robot singing Daisy (like HAL in 2001).

It's is still getting multiple comments a day, but it's a complete coincidence. I had no idea it was "trending" on TikTok, and it still must be or I wouldn't be still getting so many views. I don't want to get caught up in views and subscribers, but being up to 14,800 subs is something I never expected. What's most gratifying is that my granddaughters, particularly Erica, think this is all WAY cool, especially the MTV thing. 

Whether they actually use it or not remains to be seen, but just being chosen is - well, something, I guess, out of the multi-millions or even billions of channels and videos (and Gangnam Style long ago surpassed a billion views). So here I try to explain it all, or at least talk about it. I've kept this blog for more than ten years and barely know if people read it, but I do get comments, several a week, usually from VERY old posts that people must have googled up. I also google MYSELF up quite frequently. When I do an image search, half the time images from my own blog posts come up. Which is kind of strange, but not for the internet.

The Troll Doll Channel: TRIPLE UNBOXING! Viking Bank, Cave Man Plushie, ...

A triple-troll triple threat! It's amazing to me how many of my subscribers are now watching my troll videos. This is one of the very rare videos where I actually address the camera. My channel is still booming at a ridiculous rate, and all due to one very DUMB, short, thrown-together video. Well, it happens! I recently saw a small channel which garnered 50 MILLION VIEWS for a 30-second excerpt from somebody else's video. Not even original material! And, typically, the views dropped back down to the usual few hundred after that one. But somehow or other, people are subscribing, including my grandchildren and their friends! I am now known as "famous Nanny" or "Erica's crazy grandmother". This is full-circle, as I started the channel to post videos of Caitlin and I doing baking and crafts. The coolest moment of all is when Erica's boy friend Ryder posted a comment under one of my videos, and I thought - oh no. It can't be "THE" Ryder, is it?  IT WAS!!!! I asked him to say hi to Erica for me, and he said, sure, next time I see her. It was probably the highlight of the whole ten-year-long ferociousgumby experience.

TEN! THOUSAND! SUBSCRIBERS!!!

When I started doing baking and crafting videos with my nine-year-old granddaughter (now an adult going to university), I barely knew what a subscriber was, and I even remember asking her, “Do I have a channel?” In the ten years or so since then, my channel has been a fun hobby which incorporates many of my favourite activities, such as running around in the park photographing ducks and collecting WAY too many trolls. (The rest of it is just freaky stuff.) I do plan a special celebratory video and even have a ferociousgumby tshirt, but am recovering from a nasty bout of COVID and have to lay low for now. But to everyone who enjoys watching these crazy little things, thank you for giving me a chance to share the things that give me joy. More to come, once I stop coughing!

It's the end of an era

 

We-e-e-e-ellll, it's the end of an era for me. YouTube is no longer posting videos directly from the site, and since THAT is where I got them, I'm having to take the long way around. A pain, but that's "progress". Blogger is now a very old and kind of outdated app, and even though I DID update the look of it fairly recently - I don't even know if the saved ones will work now. This is a pain mainly because long entries are kind of sparse now - pandemic has changed everything, including how much time I have to actually write something coherent. The thumbnail at least SEEMS to be correct here - YT has been casually taking them off and putting up random screen-grabs, when I generally put more into my thumbnails than into the videos. So I don't even know if THIS will work any more, and if it doesn't, this blog will have to revert back to still photos and text (as it began!). I guess Blogger is no longer considered "hip" enough, and I am DONE with Facebook, and this time I reeeeally mean it! I am surprised to see at least a fragment of the custom thumbnail here, when it's not showing up anywhere else. YT is "adding" features, meaning it is subtracting others. And all on a November Monday. 

UPDATE. As I look at this, it really looks OK - I just have to take the extra step of copying and pasting the address up top. Actually, it looks a hell of a lot better so far, and I can make it any size, and you can also watch it on YouTube easily. But how I wish they'd warn us about changes, rather than just pulling the rug out from under. They "roll out" changes as if it's some kind of bloody red carpet. Anyway, I seem to be able to watch this, so hope you can too.

💗Whatever this is, I love it!💗

I have no idea what this is or where it came from. Must be YouTube.

Links to my YouTube channel, YouTube, and Blogger

Links to my YouTube channel, YouTube, and Blogger

Margaret Gunning magunning@telus.net

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd9Gtf_dCA7fkyDE62Z2GpA 

https://www.youtube.com/ 

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/

5 Cereal Gadgets that Actually Work!

Testing YouTube's "new" format. I may never get the hang of this! But at least now I can post more than thumbnails.

Internet ambush: the poison pill

(This started off life as a journal entry, but as it evolved I realized this is something I really need to post. It deals with a subtle form of psychological abuse on the internet, in which someone offers you something and makes it almost impossible for you to say no, even if deep down you are uncomfortable with that person and don't want to play. In some cases, there is bad blood in the past which is being denied, glossed over, or twisted around to be your fault, while excusing the perpetrator as having only the best motives at heart. I had an example today on YouTube, just a small one, but my alarm bells went off like crazy.So this is more personal and emotional than most of my blog posts.)  

I had a strange offer this morning from a woman who, like me, has a YouTube doll channel (specifically, troll dolls). She has been very nice in praising a couple of my videos, but then offered to send me a troll, and I refused it. I won't give out personal info, but it was more than that - I could feel a hook in it.  I know I`ve been suspicious before about things that turned out to be OK, but I don`t know this woman, and sometimes fulsome praise (I mean fulsome in the sense of much-too-muchness) IS suspicious. Yes, she has come up to me on the playground, skipping along in a gingham dress and pigtails, etc., and said, "Let's be friends!", and here I am being all suspicious. 

But my God, the CRAP that goes on on the internet, and sending me something like that out of the blue makes me beholden in some weird way, even guilty and feeling I maybe "owe" her something, which of course I do not. Over-gifting or completely unexpected gifting is aggressive at worst, even an ambush, though it also makes the recipient feel THEY are crazy or "off" for being suspicious of a generous gift which has been freely given. What is wrong with you to think there are strings attached?

I don`t know this woman from Adam, or Eve, or anyone else, and she has hardly any videos on her channel at all. That alone is reason to be wary. She referred me to her website, which is generally a sales pitch. Sending me a troll after seeing only two of my videos is an odd thing to do, and even if it didn't lead to "you owe me", psychologically it DOES do that. It`s also real Nigerian prince stuff at its worst. Falling for it leaves you feeling angry, ripped off and ashamed.

I don't want to give her my personal info, least of all my mailing address. Then she will know where I live. A complete stranger. I have heard of the most diabolical things coming from letting your boundaries down, though to be so wary of her makes me seem weird and over-suspicious. She also said, rather snippily, "that is, IF you're interested" in a completely different tone, implying that if you're NOT, you're not being very friendly to a fellow enthusiast.

It's better to err on the side of caution, I think. So I think I handled it right in graciously declining and telling her I don't give out that sort of information. My troll channel is meant to be pure joy, and if someone likes it, thats great. But it is set up a certain way. No commerce, no freebies, no offers or trades, no buy and sell or even being made beholden by sending ME something I never asked for and really do not want. It`s actually pressure on me to MAKE me be interested in her work (for surely I must thank and praise her profusely when I get it!), or making me feel guilty if I am NOT interested in her work, which at the moment I am not. 

So there may well be more snippiness ahead. "That is, IF you`re interested" had a nasty core to it, coated in sparkly sugar.  Postal stuff is dicey at best, especially with the border closed, and I don't know where she lives, but I assume it's the States.  I don't want her finding and criticizing the stuff I post about the States. It could start a war. She may be one of these DETESTABLE Paula Deen-like Southern women, a type I need to stay miles away from. A large number of crafty women on the internet are, maybe because they are traditionalists and egocentric busy bees.

This is the etiquette I think is sensible: don't offer something free, it'll make the other person feel they "owe" you something even if they insist you don’t. Don't agree to receive something when it is offered out of the blue by someone you do not know. When you get that twinge of quease in your belly, something subtle but unhealthy is going on.

That quease means you are sensing a manipulative ploy from someone who doesn't know you from Adam (OR Eve). When I see the nasty leech behaviour of Lynne, my former high school friend, who stood by and silently watched while I was systematically eviscerated in front of her close friend Lori – WHY ON EARTH would I want to connect with her again? But that was exactly what she wanted to do, and insisted on it over and over and OVER again.  If I feel uncomfortable with her and choose not to connect, she should accept it as my decision without questioning it, not pursue me all over the internet, finally driving me to explode and then REALLY be the villain.

I did not stay on my hometown Facebook page (which is the way Lynne somehow connected with me again, trampling the boundary of my blocking her a couple of years ago) for more than a few days, before realizing everyone had their head up their ass and was obsessed with the past. She took my brief interest to mean I wanted to endlessly reminisce about a place that nearly destroyed me. In retrospect, certain things can look very different, and now I see that what she did was every bit as savage as what Lori did (prompted by nothing, by the way), or worse, because her utter silence and total lack of ANY semblance of defending me was making her complicit. Quite simply, she literally stood by and watched.

I don't want that energy in my life, but the way it panned out made it, guess what, ALL MY FAULT for refusing her 'concern'. But even that didn't stop her. By some devious means, she found my YouTube channel (which goes by the name of  ferociousgumby) and left a comment on a video about side effects of meds, telling me I should taper off! If a person blocks you, GUESS WHAT, they do it because they are uncomfortable with you. Those times she visited (she invited herself to have coffee with me twice when she was in town from Ontario), I did not want to see her and did not enjoy the long conversations about Chatham and the past, which is where everyone STILL lives now, including telling me in detail about one person I barely knew who committed suicide. The rest was about how no one in the school system understood her son. Her conversation was one-sided, a monologue, and a drag on my spirits. I felt awful, yet relieved when she left. I did not know how to say no in those days, at all, and now that I DO know, it still causes an interior struggle.

I don't know why I tolerated it, except SHE phoned ME, assuming we were still "best friends" or even friends at all after decades, with a lot of bad blood in the past. Later I dodged the bullet, but as usual with these things, I was left feeling bad for what I had to do. I saw just the beginnings of a tirade from her on Facebook messaging (and HOW can you message someone when they have been blocked??) and didn`t read it, knowing what it would be like and how I would be cast. And how it would leave me feeling, basically ruining my day.

When someone says no, when someone erects a barrier or a boundary, you MUST accept they have their own reasons for it which you may know nothing  about (and are NOT owed an explanation for because it is none of your business), and respect it. Otherwise you don’t respect the person, and then why are you even trying to get the so-called friendship from decades ago (laden with bad blood) going again? Why try to trample down those barriers, and just arm-twist and arm-twist until that person says, Oh, forgive me, I was wrong! I DO want to be your friend again! Let me just push down this barrier I erected because I am so DAMN uncomfortable with you. And kindly do not twist this around and leave ME feeling bad, when the violation is YOURS.

I guess these people just HAVE to win this somehow, to push themselves on you repeatedly until you give way, or even tackle you in the name of friendship. 

I have learned from Linda L. and that really insane Terri chick who was obsessed with Harold Lloyd that you MUST be careful not to get swamped or even sucked into a little whirlpool that has its own sick agenda. There is this bizarre sense that time has stood still (which it apparently HAS in Chatham) and youll just happily fall into step again and be best buds, which we never were. At all.

I am actually shocked at what she did, but what with her, Linda L. and that HL-obsessed chick, I am now much more careful. They were much more blatant examples of actual mental illness, personality disorders, but I learned from them (mostly, what to avoid). And what do I lose? Nothing at all, though having to push back on the troll offer left me feeling subtly dampened during an already hard time. It just left a bad taste in my mouth, something I did not need on a grey day like this.

But it's all a potent reminder that no matter how the internet has evolved, it is still the wild west, and right now it seems to me it reflects the worst of human nature far more often than the best.

Coping with COPPA: a NewTube's coming!

I've taken a break from all this YouTube/COPPA/FTC nonsense, having multiple health problems to cope with (including trips to the ER with strange doctors poking at my ribs). But this - at least, in this video I try to envision an alternative to the vise-grip YouTube has on communal video sharing. So far, no viable alternative exists, but it COULD, and it MIGHT - so watch for it! In the long run, I believe this is the ONLY solution.

Dear FTC: Please LISTEN TO ME!

(My letter to the FTC protesting the absurd, destructive new policies which YouTube is trying to force on its creators. I just can't shut up about this! It's an example of an almost Kafka-esque bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake. I've had a channel for over 10 years, posted 1750 videos, and can't stop now. I've broken this long screed up into pieces, with my usual, appropriate visual aids from Fritz Lang's nightmarish cinematic vision, Metropolis.)

"I wish to protest against the new FTC/COPPA restrictions which YouTube will soon be passing down to their creators. Under these new restrictions, channels that endeavour to make high-quality content for kids will no longer be able to earn an income OR have their videos accessible to subscribers (due to very tight restrictions on all the features needed to allow their videos to be seen). 

Thus kid-oriented channels will be hamstrung by the very regulations which were originally intended to keep kids SAFE on YouTube. Because kids will no longer have access to their favorite high-quality kids' channels, I believe they are MORE likely go to adult-oriented content which may be inappropriate and even harmful. 

The specifications which must be applied in evaluating the correct category for our videos are EXTREMELY vague and virtually impossible to apply. If we differ from YouTube in our choice of category, which in YouTube's case is done by robots, we can be fined up to $42,000.00 PER VIDEO. 

Most YouTubers are extremely concerned about kid safety, but we CANNOT provide age-appropriate, high-quality content for kids if we have our income and all our features taken away. This has caused tremendous anxiety in the YouTube community, and the only direction we have received from YouTube if we wish to protest this potential meltdown is to "consult a lawyer". 

I am a grandmother of four and have been posting videos featuring my hobbies, collections, nature videos, family celebrations, etc. for 12 years. I am not monetized, but if I lose my channel, I will literally lose 12 years of family history and creative satisfaction. That door will likely be closed to me forever. 

YouTubers pour heart and soul into their work, and their channels are an intrinsic part of their identity. This could be the equivalent of mass firings or layoffs, for no reason that will help child safety whatsoever. PLEASE rethink this, talk to as many YouTubers as you possibly can, watch as many videos in as many categories as possible, utilize REAL people and not algorithms/bots, and try to work with YouTube to come up with something which is possible to comprehend/apply and respectful to creators. 

Without creators, there is no YouTube. With so many people going out of business, you will see a mass exodus. In effect, it could end YouTube as we know it. Surely this was not the original intent! I believe it's within your power to save the situation and make it work better for EVERYONE involved. I ask you to take another look at this entire issue, and work with YouTube AND creators to come up with regulations which make sense, actually DO protect children, and allow this whole vibrant, enthusiastic community of YouTube creators to continue." 

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