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How YouTube's Year-In-Review 'Rewind' Video Set Off a Civil War (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: You might guess that a surefire way to make a hit video on YouTube would be to gather a bunch of YouTube megastars, film them riffing on some of the year's most popular YouTube themes and release it as a year-in-review spectacular. You would be wrong. YouTube tested that theory this week, releasing its annual "YouTube Rewind" year-end retrospective. The eight-minute video was a jam-packed montage of YouTube meta-humor, featuring a who's-who of YouTube stars along with conventional celebrities. The video was slickly produced and wholesome, with lots of references to the popular video game Fortnite, shout-outs to popular video formats, and earnest paeans to YouTube's diversity and inclusiveness. It was meant to be a feel-good celebration of a year's worth of YouTube creativity, but the video started a firestorm, and led to a mass-downvoting campaign that became a meme of its own. Within 48 hours, the video had been "disliked" more than four million times. On Thursday, it became the most-disliked video in the history of the website, gathering more than 10 million dislikes and beating out the previous record-holder, the music video for Justin Bieber's "Baby."
The issue that upset so many YouTube fans, it turns out, was what the Rewind video did not show. Many of the most notable YouTube moments of the year -- such as the August boxing match between KSI and Logan Paul, two YouTube stars who fought in a highly publicized spectacle watched by millions -- went unmentioned. And some prominent YouTubers were absent, including Felix Kjellberg, a.k.a. "PewDiePie," one of the most popular creators in YouTube's history, who had appeared in the Rewind videos as recently as 2016. Some YouTubers enjoyed the video. But to many, it felt like evidence that YouTube the company was snubbing YouTube the community by featuring mainstream celebrities in addition to the platform's homegrown creators, and by glossing over major moments in favor of advertiser-friendly scenes. The Times says the Rewind controversy "is indicative of a larger issue at YouTube, which is trying to promote itself as a bastion of cool, inclusive creativity while being accused of radicalizing a generation of young people by pushing them toward increasingly extreme content, and allowing reactionary cranks and conspiracy theorists to dominate its platform."
"But people like Mr. Kjellberg and Mr. Paul -- stars who rose to prominence through YouTube, and still garner tens of millions of views every month -- remain in a kind of dysfunctional relationship with the platform. YouTube doesn't want to endorse their behavior in its official promotions, but it doesn't want to alienate their large, passionate audiences, either," reports the NYT. "And since no other platform can rival the large audiences and earning potential YouTube gives these creators, they are stuck in a kind of unhappy purgatory -- making aggrieved videos about how badly YouTube has wronged them, while also tiptoeing to avoid crossing any lines that might get them barred, or prevent them from making money from their videos." This tension is at the heart of the controversy over YouTube Rewind.
"A YouTube recap that includes only displays of tolerance and pluralism is a little like a Weather Channel highlight reel featuring only footage of sunny days -- it might be more pleasant to look at, but it doesn't reflect the actual weather..."
The issue that upset so many YouTube fans, it turns out, was what the Rewind video did not show. Many of the most notable YouTube moments of the year -- such as the August boxing match between KSI and Logan Paul, two YouTube stars who fought in a highly publicized spectacle watched by millions -- went unmentioned. And some prominent YouTubers were absent, including Felix Kjellberg, a.k.a. "PewDiePie," one of the most popular creators in YouTube's history, who had appeared in the Rewind videos as recently as 2016. Some YouTubers enjoyed the video. But to many, it felt like evidence that YouTube the company was snubbing YouTube the community by featuring mainstream celebrities in addition to the platform's homegrown creators, and by glossing over major moments in favor of advertiser-friendly scenes. The Times says the Rewind controversy "is indicative of a larger issue at YouTube, which is trying to promote itself as a bastion of cool, inclusive creativity while being accused of radicalizing a generation of young people by pushing them toward increasingly extreme content, and allowing reactionary cranks and conspiracy theorists to dominate its platform."
"But people like Mr. Kjellberg and Mr. Paul -- stars who rose to prominence through YouTube, and still garner tens of millions of views every month -- remain in a kind of dysfunctional relationship with the platform. YouTube doesn't want to endorse their behavior in its official promotions, but it doesn't want to alienate their large, passionate audiences, either," reports the NYT. "And since no other platform can rival the large audiences and earning potential YouTube gives these creators, they are stuck in a kind of unhappy purgatory -- making aggrieved videos about how badly YouTube has wronged them, while also tiptoeing to avoid crossing any lines that might get them barred, or prevent them from making money from their videos." This tension is at the heart of the controversy over YouTube Rewind.
"A YouTube recap that includes only displays of tolerance and pluralism is a little like a Weather Channel highlight reel featuring only footage of sunny days -- it might be more pleasant to look at, but it doesn't reflect the actual weather..."
Americans don't understand anything else, War on drugs, war on terror, war war war.
Shame they don't understand what winning is anymore
People don't like knowingly being told what is cool and what isn't. I mean when it's a friend or even a complete stranger saying "check this out, it's cool", that's all well and good (provided it actually is, and not a rickroll). A friend knows your tastes to some degree. A stranger can assume some things about you by where you are and how you're dressed and such. YouTube can't do any of these things, because they're only making one video, aimed at billions of people.
And that would be a best case scenario, where YouTube really does just want to promote what's cool. However, it is incredibly obvious that what they really want to promote is advertiser-friendly content, much of which is quite good, while silently glossing over the parts they don't like. Unfortunately for them, the parts they don't like are the parts their various viewing populations do like. This is why television could only be cool in small batches, the world is simply too big to all have the same tastes.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
A bunch of kids downvoting a video to be trolls is not a 'civil war'. This is firmly "things that don't matter to anybody".
A dose of perspective would be healthy.
It was meant to be a feel-good celebration of a year's worth of YouTube creativity
How can that be true when it doesn't feature most of the CREATORS that make YouTube so popular?
A parade of B-List celebs doing Fortnite dances is not a "celebration of creativity".
I don't really follow YouTube much at all, but this seemed like a big tone-deaf misstep on the part of YouTube that is trying to pretend like some people do not exist. Absurd. Celebrate what you are, all of it, or say nothing at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nobody cares. Not even their immediate family cares. The most-viewed videos of 2018 were all music videos of bad records. You could literally show videos of goats being hypnotized instead of every single "YouTube Star" and YouTube would make just as much money. If you can name five of these YouTube Stars you should be ashamed of being such a giant loser.
Get over yourselves. Pewdiepie spouting racist shit isn't that interesting and the people that watch him don't buy shit anyway. Advertisers are starting to realize they're better off targeting their parents. The only good YouTube videos are the ones that show you how to de-bone a chicken or unclog a toilet.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It was chock full of those cringe-inducing vloggers. Not an ounce of creativity or talent in anyone except the animation person that threw in all the PewDiePie references.
All these words and all The Times can come up with is people are downvoting because they fear YouTube for the same reason The Times does, because YouTubers get more views than them and present alternative viewpoints? That's it? That's the best their intellects could come up with? How parochial, narrow-minded and most of all self-serving. It's because the video was widely perceived as nodding to SJWs, the plague of our age. Weird that never occurred to them as a possibility when it's right in front of your face.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
There's no other word for it, and it's why people found this so repellent.
Let's not forget that it took bieber what, 9 years to get to that many dislikes, this virtue-signaling shitshow got there in a week?
-Styopa
Inclusion has become code for exclusion. It’s a bit like saying direct action when what someone really means is violence. Inclusion is simply another way of saying progressive or politically correct. As has been shown time and again these values are very exclusionary.
It also means that the winners will be determined based on their politics, gender and skin tone. No consideration will be given to merit. Why bother watching when you can predict the results based on whether or not they support progressive values?
Conservative, anti-abortion, white, male, Christian, straight? All of these things are grounds to exclude you. Especially if you belong to a group that is supposed to be progressive. Black and conservative? Progressive but anti-abortion? Your life will be ruined and you will be treated as a traitor.
People are seeing through the charade that is political correctness. Political correctness is nothing more than fascism with good manners. The intolerance of the politically correct is becoming known by the masses.
Interesting how the summary doesn't mention (though the article does) that both Logan & PewDiePie have been mired in controvesy for a few years. Hardly surprising that Youtube wasn't interested in showcasing them.
"Mired in controversy", as used here, means a bunch of officious jerks complained. When a special set of jerks complains about you, you become "controversial", regardless of what the overwhelming majority of people think.
Google does their bidding to avoid being "controversial".
I watch YouTube all the time and have no interest in the people in this rewind thing because I am an old fart. :D :D https://www.youtube.com/channe...
My favorite channel at the moment are a about a guy sailing up and down the canals in England in his narrowboat. Very relaxing.
"I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me, and it'll happen to you, too"
But my point is that there's plenty of stuff on YouTube that seems to (thankfully?) be off the hype radar and lives it own quiet happy life. A lot of people my age don't seem to know that, maybe because they are not logged in to google/YouTube when they get the front page. I tried that once, it's awful.
Cheers.
L'Idiot
Paul and PewDiePie earned their ostracism fair and square. Maybe if they started acting like people, they'd gain an audience outside basement-dwellers, sockpuppets, and dead accounts.
I think the overwhelming number of people would consider the n-word and showing the bodies of suicides in videos convroversal.
Payment processors and other similar organisations simply get massively lobbied by this well connected and loud group of crazies that are very skilled in using platforms like twitter to organise their hate mob.
If fringe group nationalists really gave a shit, they'd drop checks in the mail if they had to. Funny thing about conservatives is they're perfectly happy to expect others to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but when it's their turn, suddenly the whole world is fucking them over. Oh, the irony.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
This was the year Slashdot ignored Q Anon for the entire year.
wtg
That is because covering a practical joke perpetrated against idiots is not funny, news worthy or interesting, it is just sad.
he''s not actually racist though, try not to spread lies m'kay?
Yes he is, so try not to whitewash, m'kay?
Or is this a whole "oh he uses racial slurs but he's not racist" sort of deal. If you call someone a "fucking black person" except you spell "black person" with two g's, then yeah you're pretty racist.
Paying people to say racist shit? Yeah kinda heading in the racist direction and then on a bit there. It's not exactly controversial or news that you can pay people to do that.
And then there's him promoting the pretty racist channel E;R.
Maybe one or the other could be excused, but there's a pattern of behaviour here.
Oh and it's not satire simply to do racist shit just because you can.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Logan Paul and PewDiePie made their choice
I can sort of understand leaving out Pew as punishment for gaffes (he''s not actually racist though, try not to spread lies m'kay?).
I was very careful to be accurate. I didn't say he was racist, I said he made "repeated racist statements".
Now is he actually racist? I'm not sure, I don't really follow him well enough to make a judgment.
I do know that "oh I'm not actually being racist, I just said X as a joke" is a deliberate tactic used by racists in order to normalize racist views while keeping some deniability. I'm not claiming that PewDiePie does that, but there are real consequences to jokingly using racist language.
I stole this Sig