YouTube = Being Dicks About Bulges

Newsletter + Video

This is hopefully my last post about the truly ridiculous lengths YouTube will go to to avoid saying, “Don’t show men below the waist.”

YouTube’s Nudity & Sexual Content Policy (and its use of the subjective “sexually-gratifying” language) desperately needs an update. Here’s my suggestion:

• BOOBS WITH BARELY-COVERED NIPPLES ARE FINE AND DANDY.
  WOMEN ARE EYE CANDY.

• BULGES BIGGER THAN KEN’S BETTER BE IN CARGO SHORTS.
  MEN ARE HANDY, NOT EYE CANDY.

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VIDEO

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Here’s the latest in a series of stupid emails from their team of bots and tools.
Frankly, I’m unsure if there’s a living/breathing/thinking human in the mix.

“Substantial” nudity? Shut the front door, YouTube. And they can shut the fuck up about “sexually gratifying” too because it literally doesn’t mean anything objectively.

No matter how many times they repeat it, it's just legalese and corporate jargon that’s a meaningless, nonsensical word salad. People can and do get off to literally anything and everything. I would say Google it, but make sure your SafeSearch is turned off first. And don’t believe everything Google Gemini says. It’s full of shit too.

It’s also nice to see the reviewer/bot speaks Dutch. Copy-paste fails are fun.

The last time I checked Netherlands has some of the most liberal, progressive views on nudity, sex, and sexuality in the world. But not YouTube. You’d think this was the 1950s instead of the 2020s. To them, I’m not making artistic montages of found footage and photos. To them, I’m making porn. Or at least porn-adjacent.

If I was making porn, I like to think I’d make more dollars than AdSense pays.

But who the fuck knows. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I don’t want to make porn. I want to make the montages I’ve been making. I want to focus on making better conte. Not making content “safer” from YouTube’s dumb bots and tools.

Like most companies (and people frankly) instead of tackling real problems, YouTube throws itself at manufactured problems. Instead of fixing their Content ID system, for instance, they worry about whether a man’s bulge is too prominent.

If it’s not abundantly clear, I’m SO OVER this bullshit. I’m SO OVER YouTube’s Email and Chat Support and their tendency to make problems worse not better.

So to minimize my interactions with the platform, I’m now:

1. Paying for a subscription to Epidemic Sound. This ensures I don’t have to fight bogus copyright claims on Creative Commons and Public Domain music. The price isn’t too steep and allows me to focus on making better videos instead of crafting better copyright disputes.

2. Including a disclaimer on every video. Whether it needs one or not, it provides “context” about the intent and purpose of the video is. Even if the audience understands what they’re watching, the bots obviously don’t.

3. Crossing my fingers that YouTube just leaves me the fuck alone from now on.

Yes, I’ve used the word fuck a lot in this post. It’s because YouTube has worked my last fucking nerve talking in circles like they do.

I just want to make and publish montages that my subscribers (and others) enjoy.

That’s it. I want this to be over. While I hate them and their policies for giving into puritanical prudishness, I’m too tired to fight with them anymore.

Not like I’d win anyway.

Google and YouTube are two-headed monsters, parent and child monopolies too big to control. In my mind, they’ve become corporate bullies. Similar but in some ways better than Meta. While I can do without Meta, Google/YouTube is a necessary evil.

Where else can my little gay montages reach so many people so fast?
TikTok? No thanks.

It’s time to put this saga to bed. Hopefully for good.

Thanks for reading…and, if you celebrate, Happy Independence Day!
Clint

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