YouTube confuses me....
I'm pretty new to actually taking it at all seriously and
before a few months ago I primarily used it to share videos I took of my annual
Christmas display with far flung family.
Then someone suggested I take my blog to the next step using YouTube and
I reluctantly tried it out with thus far mixed results.
Over the past few months you may have noticed an evolution
of sorts in each successive video.
For one thing, I've gotten over my physical
shortcomings. Even in the face of the
cold steely subjectivity of my webcam.
In short, I can care less what you think of my appearance, I'm more
interested in the content than my personal appeal.
However, I know that can be a problem since I either have to
have outstanding production values or at least some attribute that's broadcast
worthy. Not that I take the medium that
seriously, I mean come on, YouTube's
success was built on cat videos and amateur infomercials.
I have a face for radio and a voice that at times sounds
like I've got a mouthful of cotton. I
know that, so no need to remind me of it.
Still, I do the best I can and try to be entertaining, even
if I come off like a bad imitation of John C. Dvorak at times. Still I've suffered the "get a
life" commentary more than once.
You may have also noticed that comments on many of my videos
are disabled. Mostly because I get nothing
but trolls and OCD sufferers delighted to correct every misspoken word or misplaced
fact.
All this adds up to a very limited audience with success measured in single digit views.
Even with my relative anonymity I've managed to run afoul of
YouTube's copyright bots and faceless denials of revenue with no real
recourse. To date no videos have been
pulled down but I've had some blocks in foreign countries, sorry Germany.
I'm not looking for trouble but it seems that the
inconsistent application of YouTube's policies makes it difficult to avoid
it. How can anyone possibly learn from
their mistakes when the only notification you receive is a generic, " We
think you did something wrong" email with no specifics?
So it seems every upload is a roll of the dice. Who will I offend? Will the humming of my
PC's power supply somehow violate someone's copyright? Perhaps the sound of thunder from a passing
storm will trigger a copyright violation of the Door's Rider's on the storm!
Obviously I have two issues, interest and
inconsistent application of the "rules"
To go by YouTube rules I guess I'm only safe with the
aforementioned cat videos so long as they don't purr in tune to anything with a
copyright.
To be popular, I have
to have production values equivalent to at least a TWIT podcast. Of course even some of their videos only get
50 views and they have a million dollar production facility not to mention
staff.
I've looked at other YouTube videos similar in content to my
own and seen no evidence of the heavy hand of YouTube's legal department that
I've suffered. It appears Monetization
and content is unaffected in these cases.
That leaves me a bit confused. I
can only guess at my own sin.
I've seen videos with thousands if not millions of views
that even their creators find less than stellar. No accounting for taste I suppose.
So in the end, I'll keep trying new things and probably run
afoul of a few more arbitrary YouTube rules in the process.
If nothing else, perhaps my adventures can serve as a
precedent as I navigate the minefield of popularity and legality in the YouTube
metaverse.
Let's see what rules this video breaks, eh?
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