I was scrolling through Twitter, as I always do to pass the time, when I came across a tweet from my favorite musician and YouTuber that said he would be demonetized. He has been making singing videos for years but came up short of the new threshold.
Like him, thousands of smaller creators got an email saying if they don’t have a certain number of subscribers and views in order to have certain tools and the Partner Program privileges. Anyone who fails to meet the new requirement of 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past year and 1,000 subscribers will be demonetized. They have 30 days to meet the new requirements, or their privileges will be revoked on February 20th.
Some privileges they will lose include the ability to have end screens and cards that let them advertise at the end of their videos, developmental tools, copyrights for their original content, and additional exposure. Of course, ads will also stop playing before their videos and they will be demonetized. You can see a full list here of more benefits they will now lose.
YouTube is supposed to be a place to create content that hopefully as many people as possible can see. So many people are just getting started. They depend on YouTube to gain supporters and get where they want to go. Just like anything else, it takes time and hard work to get to that point. It is completely unfair that smaller channels are being rushed or forced out.
A lot of the site’s creators have put most of the blame on Logan Paul for his “suicide forest” video. After YouTube faced a heavy amount of backlash for not punishing him right away, they eventually removed him from Google's preferred ad platform. It seems as though because YouTube will lose money from cutting ties with Logan Paul, they only want to support contributors they know will make a lot of money.
Logan Paul made a huge and unforgivable mistake that no one should be paying for but himself. There are plenty of smaller channels run by perfectly decent people who never offended a massive amount of people the way Logan Paul did, and their punishment is worse than the one he got.
Logan Paul still made millions off his ridiculous videos and the smaller channels won’t even get a chance to make nearly that much. Everyone with an itch to be creative and show the world what they can do should get the platform to do so and be helped in any way they can. YouTube just smacked everyone in the face who was taking the initiative to try.
If anyone finds it unfair, they should find it in their hearts to keep supporting struggling YouTubers, so they can make their way to the top. Small creators losing their Partner Program privileges are using the hashtag #SmallYouTuberArmy to speak their minds and put themselves out there. Searching that and watching their videos is a good way to find new content and help the YouTubers meet the new requirements.
Being an artist is already difficult when you do have the support and partnerships, but more so when you don’t. Especially if you had that and suddenly lose it. There are so many YouTubers who deserve recognition; musicians, gamers, vloggers, etc.