The Internet is full of uncertainty and judgment, as anonymity gives people the confidence to say whatever comes into their minds. For Internet celebrities, though, more caution is required than for normal celebrities because their livelihood depends on the number of subscribers and views they get on pictures, videos, or blogs.
The most successful Internet celebrities are YouTube partners who get paid based on the number of views they get as well as through advertising. Of course, many YouTubers are in the business for the sake of creating quality, original content that their subscribers can relate to and enjoy, rather than money. Such YouTubers include Dan Howell (danisnotonfire), Phil Lester (AmazingPhil), Brock Baker (McGoiter), and Mark Fischbach (Markiplier).
The biggest trend for YouTubers this year has been publishing books about their lives and going on tours. In the wake of this, the second-most-successful YouTubers, known as Fine Bros Entertainment -- Benny and Rafi Fine -- made all the arrangements for their own move up in the World. React World, that is.
On Jan. 26, the Fine brothers released a video that gave a general outline of a new program they were launching to have "the people that helped React become a global phenomenon be the ones to make the shows with us." The enterprise would begin offering partnerships to anyone who wanted to work with them, under their label and using their titles, to create React shows around the globe, in various languages and countries. The goal of this endeavor is to continue "making episodes that will not just be entertaining now, but live on forever as a time capsule even a hundred years from now, that people can look back on what various generations were saying about culture and the issues of our time."
This seems well-intended (albeit, a bit pretentious), in light of the comments in the latter half of the video that denounce channels and shows that have stolen what they deem as their -- and only their -- format, the Fine brothers' actions may have more behind them than community-building. In the past, they have gone after The Ellen Degeneres Show for doing a "Kids React" segment and reportedly had react videos taken down for copying their format. Benny and Rafi also stated in the React World announcement video that they were taking this action to work as the counter-balance to Hollywood, while they themselves were creating a Hollywood-like conglomerate, using the techniques of television shows like "America's Got Talent" to prevent people from stealing their label and ideas.
In an attempt to protect their format, logo, and content, Fine Bros Entertainment filed a series of trademark applications with the U.S. Patent Office: "kids react" in 2012; "elders react" and "teens react" in 2013; "people vs. technology," "kids vs. food," "adults react," "celebrities react," "parents react," "Do they know it?", "Fine Brothers Entertainment," "lyric breakdown," "try not to smile or laugh," and "react" in July 2015. The application for the "react" trademark is particularly troubling, as it applies to "entertainment services, namely, providing an ongoing series of programs and webisodes via the Internet in the field of observing and interviewing various groups of people." The trademarks have been used to take down videos of other YouTubers reacting to their videos; however, they did not take down many of these made by more popular YouTubers, like danisnotonfire, Tyler Oakley, Smosh, and IISuperwomanII.
These trademarks are potentially very powerful tools, but the Internet community's reaction to them is fueled by the flawed belief that a trademark on a phrase allows the holder to trademark a video or class of videos. That being said, the trademarks could have been used by Fine Bros Entertainment to dispute other creators' rights to use the trademarked phrases and thus warrant those videos deemed out of line to be taken down, as they have done in the past.
Following the announcement, websites of all sorts like Reddit, Facebook, and Tumblr sprang into action, spreading the word about the perceived tyranny of Fine Bros through opinionated posts and lengthy explanations. With the news traveling like wildfire across the plains of the Internet, Fine Bros Entertainment's channel began losing followers at an alarming rate. Over the course of a week and a half, they have lost nearly half a million subscribers and their latest videos have three to four times as many dislikes as likes. People who may have never watched their content before are now in an uproar, and intent on seeing them thoroughly reamed, and their ex-subscribers who care about the freedom of the Internet are dropping them like a hot potato.
Several YouTubers also reacted to the announcement, including Steven Williams (boogie2988), Ricky Hayberg and Eliot Dewberry (ETC News), and Brock Baker (McGoiter). These YouTubers have relatively strong followings, but not compared to anyone who have been featured on "YouTubers React" in the past. In fact, none of the stars who have worked with Benny and Rafi have spoken out against the React World controversy as of this writing. And they probably won't.
The fact is, despite the bad taste left in people's mouths by React World, Fine Bros Entertainment is still a huge player in the entertainment industry. Being blackballed by them is a death knell to a less-successful YouTuber's future success, as Brock Baker pointed out in his reaction video. Baker's experience with Benny and Rafi where they said that he would never be popular enough to work with them is evidence that the Fine brothers are not always as well-intended as they portray themselves to be. React World may have been a benefit for some upstarting YouTubers, but in the end, it would have made Fine Bros Entertainment a huge amount of money over time and allowed them to corner the market on reaction videos, if they chose to exercise their trademarks to their fullest extent.
In light of the backlash that their announcement received, Benny and Rafi posted an "explanation" video that was ridiculously condescending and not very explanatory. Once they realized that their efforts were in vain and that the idea of React World was already incredibly tainted, Fine Bros Entertainment released an official statement on Feb. 1 that reads:
We have decided to do the following:
1. Rescind all of our “React” trademarks and applications.
2. Discontinue the React World program.
3. Release all past Content ID claims.
The concerns people have about React World are understandable, and that people see a link between that and our past video takedowns, but those were mistakes from an earlier time. It makes perfect sense for people to distrust our motives here, but we are confident that our actions will speak louder than these words moving forward.
The Internet spoke and the entertainers listened. The mess that the Fine brothers made for themselves is, if nothing else, a lesson in the power of the people in the Information Age and the checks and balances of potential restriction on the Internet. Whether or not Fine Bros Entertainment will recover from this scandal has yet to be seen, but it will take a lot of time and more apologizing to undo the work of this chain reaction.
