Monday, November 18, 2013

YouTube is becoming the new MySpace…Intelligent Black folks let’s find another place to post our videos!

YouTube currently is by far one of the most popular video upload sites on the web. However, Black people who post videos to YouTube which feature intelligent, thought provoking content are under siege by YouTube’s community policies, and a conclave of Black people who dislike their content.

You can post all the twerk videos, rap videos, and videos depicting Black women fighting in the street like a pair of stray cats on YouTube and you won’t get flagged or deleted at all. But post a video featuring an educated intelligent Black man or woman talking about Black people taking personal responsibility for their lives, Black-on-Black relationships, Black empowerment, or Black economics,  and you’ll get flagged, your videos taken down and your channel deleted.

But you won’t get flagged by White racists. No in most cases, it’ll be by other Black people. Black people who want to stop up their ears, close their eyes on being presented with the truth. Jealous Black people who speak evil about the success of others and do nothing about the issues presented to them in the videos these intelligent YouTubers are trying to share with a larger audience of viewers.

YouTube is becoming the new MySpace. Five years ago MySpace was a place for friends. It was also a place for intelligent content by artists, writers, and political and social activists.

But as soon the site became popular, the trolls and the attention whores came there. Most of these people didn’t know how to create content, and in desperation for attention started pandering to the lowest common denominator to get hits on their pages. To that extent, they began posting their booty pictures heir lingerie pictures, their amateur gangsta rap videos and videos of cats, and fights. Scammers began posting up spam accounts and flooding people’s inboxes with spam, keeping them from connecting with friends on their social networks.

And as all this junk content began flooding MySpace, most of the regular users abandoned the site. By 2010, MySpace stopped being a place for friends. Instead it became a wasteland of garbage content. Currently, the site totes itself as a place for musicians, but most of the artists, writers, and people who created the content that made MySpace the place to be have moved on to Facebook.

Unfortunately, Google, the owner of YouTube has done nothing to stop the flood of junk accounts and Junk content. Instead of imposing standards on YouTube where people have to post videos to comment on other people’s videos, insisting on e-mail confirmation for the opening of accounts to stop spammers and trolls, and making the usernames of those who flag videos available to those who are flagged, It has insisted that YouTube users connect their accounts to Google+.

Allowing the trolls to continue on unchecked. Allowing the junk content to continue on unchecked. And allowing the flagging of intelligent Black people’s content to continue on unchecked.

Smart Black YouTubers can see the handwriting is on the wall. Ignorant Negroes have hijacked the site and are trying to turn it into World StarHip Hop 2.0. And if they insist on turning YouTube into a sewer of coonery, twerk videos and fight videos, it’s time we intelligent brothers and sisters found a venue where we can post our own videos without the threat of reprisal for posting a video a handful of people don’t agree with.

Google may own YouTube. Google may make the rules regarding YouTube. But we own our content. And we can take our content elsewhere.

Brothers and sisters, You Tube isn’t the only game in town. And there are other places we can go to present our content.

Places like Vimeo. Vimeo insists that users only confirm their accounts with e-mail addresses before they can comment on a video. They don’t ask for phone numbers like YouTube. Plus, they’re pretty lenient on content since it’s a site a lot of indie filmmakers and artists like to use it to post their projects. I’ve seen all sorts of content here from stripteases, to art nudes, to hard hitting documentaries on Vimeo.

Places like Dailymotion. Dailymotion also insists that users confirm their accounts with only e-mail addresses. They also don’t ask for phone numbers like YouTube does or ask for you to have a Google+account. It’s also pretty fair on content.

Places like Generation-X.net. Gen-X has a little difficulty with its interface, but it’s another place where Black people can post content without the threat of censorship. Many former YouTubers like Sargent Willie Pete and SoulNBlack currently post there.

Places like Ustream. Sure you have to pay for this one, but the content here is uncensored.

Or you can host your own videos on your own site. Here, no one can tell you that your content is inappropriate except for your webhost. It may cost more in the short run to host your own site, but in the long-term you’ll have control over your content.

And it’s content that drives the traffic of a site. It’s content that makes a site popular. And I’m sure that once all the intelligent Black people take their content elsewhere YouTube will decline in popularity. Because people come to the internet for information, not entertainment. There’s only so many twerk videos, wanna-be rappers, and Black female on Black female fight videos people are willing to stomach before they get boring and repetitive. Maybe when YouTube sees its traffic declining it’ll finally do something substantive about the trolls, attention whores and spammers who are ruining the YouTube experience.

Intelligent brothers and sisters, YouTube isn’t the only place to post your videos. There are alternatives to YouTube available for you to broadcast yourself on. Use one of those websites and you’ll find that your subscribers will follow you there. Better yet, you’ll discover a whole new audience of viewers eager to discover your content.

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