Last night, I discovered that the first of my YouTube channel’s two “community guidelines” strikes had officially expired. HURRAY!
Since receiving yet another strike about a month later—both strikes were for linking to photo sources YT’s bots decided were pornographic—I’ve been walking on eggshells, constantly worried that one wrong move could result in my channel being wiped off the face of the internet by YouTube’s overzealous bots, bullies, and bureaucrats.
It’s a nerve-wracking experience, knowing you’re just one (alleged) mistake away from getting all your hard work deleted. As of right now, I’m safe(r) from finding myself buried in YouTube’s Cemetary Of Broken Dreams.
So I did a little happy dance when I realized the strike had officially expired.
Okay, maybe not so little—I cranked up Kool & The Gang’s Celebration and had a full homo-alono dance party in my living room. YouTube may still be a minefield of bizarre algorithms and arbitrary strikes, but this feels like a win worth celebrating.
One strike down. One strike to go. The second is set to expire on Ocotber 17th.
So as long as I mind my Ps (is for penises) and Qs (is for queers), I can breathing a little bit easier. I can also create and curate with less gloom and doom.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have to tread carefully. You never know when the YouTube bots and bot-like overlords might decide that a harmless piece of content is suddenly “offensive” or is suddenly “unsuitable” for advertisers. (YouTube’s latest “trick” is to slap an "Ad Suitability” label on videos it doesn’t like, which basically demonetizes it. So even if a video gets seen, creators receive very little in return. Grrrr.)
Having a YouTube channel is a lot like riding a rollercoaster with a few loops that you didn’t know existed. But for now at least, I’m enjoying a basking in the sweet relief of knowing my channel is no longer on the verge of being nuked.
So here’s to staying in the game, dodging strikes, and celebrating big and small victories along the way. Cue the music and let’s keep this party going!
Thank you for all the love and support…especially these past few months,
Clint
P.S. I’m also celebrating that YouTube’s ongoing censorship shenanigans helped me realize Substack is a much better and safer home for me and my kind of work. Silver linings? Yes, please.
FOUND PHOTOS+ OF THE DAY
ON THIS DAY = SEPTEMBER 14
BIRTHDAYS
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769)
Explorer + PolymathKATE MILLETT (1934)
DAVID WOJNAROWICZ (1954)
Artist + ActivistAMY WINEHOUSE (1983)
Singer-Songwriter
“EVERY BAD SITUATION IS A BLUES SONG WAITING TO HAPPEN.”
Amy Winehouse
EVENTS
King Philip IV of France orders the arrest of two Knights Templar because they exchanged an “obscene kiss” that pretty much covered their entire bodies. (1306)
Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female goes on sale. (1953)
IBM introduces the RAMAC 305, the first commercial computer with a hard drive with magnetic disk storage, weighs over a ton. (1956)
In New York City, Gay Activists Alliance stages the first of an orchestrated campaign of “zaps” in protest of continuing police harassment. They heckle Mayor John Lindsay as he enters the Metropolitan Opera House for its opening night gala. (1970)
The Waltons premieres on CBS. (1971)
Mork and Mindy premieres on ABC. (1978)
The Golden Girls, starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty, debuts on NBC. (1985)
ACT UP led a noon protest of 350 people in front of the New York Stock Exchange, targeting Burroughs Wellcome and other companies that it felt were profiteering from the epidemic by their high pricing of the AIDS drug AZT, which was unaffordable to most people living with HIV. The demonstration was planned to coincide with those held in San Francisco and London that day. As a result of these demonstrations, Burroughs Wellcome lowered the price of AZT by 20 percent four days later.
Congrats on making it yet another day with slightly less hanging over your head...