The YouTube Dream: Is It Just A Dream?

To begin this article, I want to point you to the very beginning of YouTube back in 2006, long before it was bought out by Google and turned into what can only be described as a masquerade for social research.

If you don't believe me on that front, they are very open about the fact they are using you for such research as increasing the intelligence of AI, producing consumer records on you based on your activity and selling it to companies such as Amazon, and creating a database in which they can use to whatever ends they so desire.

Read the TOS and you'll see you have no RIGHT to be on the site, use it, or even a right to your own content at the end of the day. In the year before the site was sold to Google, there was little activity.

Moving forward, the site had multiple waves of authoritarianism, from censorship based on religion and a lack there of, to censorship based on politics, race, and now with the advent of Google's AdSense AI, just about every single topic save for hair and beauty (give it time) is targeted for censorship, and indeed many social commentators, Left and Right are looking down the barrel of the demonetisation shotgun. Again.

Now for those unfamiliar with the AdSense system, or in other words the system by which content creators on YouTube get paid, your video is shown to an audience you gather/one you get through being promoted by the site itself. Then, either before, during or after at least one advert will be played before the video plays.

This pays, as you can imagine if you have any semblance of how large corporations work, abysmally unless you are lucky/talented/manipulate-the-algorithm enough to get a substantial pay check from Google.

And in the YouTube age we live in today, there have been many events, known collectively as 'adpocalypse' aka absolute targeted, or protective measures in the form of assaults on the pay checks of YouTube content creators caused by either advertisers pulling out, or by Google being overly zealous and changing their policies to harm, rather than the large and powerful abusers of their system, harm to the fullest extent possible the smallest users of the site.

When I was younger, I saw YouTube and was amazed by it. It brought me great joy to sit and just watch science videos, funny videos, machinimas, and then videos debunking religious claims, and I wanted, and tried many times, to emulate those people and make content, I desperately wanted to be an entertainer on YouTube and I didn't really care if it paid or not.

I did it because I loved it, and I sucked at it, terribly. I've made YouTube poops, social commentary videos, memes, ASMR videos, comedy skits, serious rants, debates, you bloody name it. And I have done so despite success or failure. When I fail, I try again. When I succeed, I still try again. The key to making it on any video sharing site is to keep trying. It is cliché but it's true. YouTube will come and go, it will die or be revived, who cares?

You must make your talents, hone them, better yourself and share your videos on every platform you can. And it almost goes without saying these days, but you must find some other way of supporting yourself, AdSense isn't going to cut it.

If you want this to be something you do, and you want to make money off it, you can do it. But don't restrict yourself to one platform, and don't choose YouTube's monetisation issues as the rock to die on, it has always had these issues, it's just that now is more severe than before.

So, good luck. Go make videos, draw, write, etc. and don't be a YouTuber, for the site will certainly die, be a content creator, a comedian, a writer or whatever you want to be known for, and if you try hard enough you can do it.

Thank you for listening.