Well, I got that letter from youtube. The one that says “we changed our rules, and you no longer qualify, so you won’t be monetized after this month. But don’t worry, you have 30 days to meet the requirements.”

30 days? How do you get 900 followers in thirty days? Or all that watch time. For those who are close to that limit it’s good, hopefully they get there. For me, and little youtubers like me, it’s not happening.

On the positive side, I haven’t made any money from youtube. I’ve never had enough views, I don’t make content that often, so it’s fine, for me. Nothing’s really changing. For others…it’s not as nice. Youtube’s point is “they make less than $100 a year,” but I would be pissed if someone just decided to take $100 out of my paycheck every year. There’s so much that $100 could help with, a single bill, or a new camera or microphone. Hell, I got a $100 gift card for Safeway one year for Christmas and that made it so I could pay my bills without getting any late fees and still get food and gas. $100 is kind of important sometimes.

There is a positive side to Youtube’s change, this will keep a lot of the channels that re-upload other peoples content, and inappropriate content like Elsa-gate stuff from getting monetized. It will also move more ads to the large channels which is good for advertisers and the larger creators. On the bad side animators are, once again, getting the shaft, as well as any other person who makes occasional content. There will also be fewer people trying to get monetized because it’s really tough to get 1000 subs and all that watch time per year. There are people who will do it, and will thrive for it. There will also be a lot more of us who use it as just a way to connect with our followers, share a little of ourselves online. It’s another social media platform, and that’s about it.

Diversify, diversify, diversify! That is the mantra now. Has been for a while. If you are trying to actually make a living online you need to do more than one thing. Stream to twitch. Stream to youtube. Post to instagram or facebook. Make friends and followers, and help support other smaller creators so they can do well. For your own business you can make merch, like t-shirts on t-spring, or stickers on redbubble. Having a sponsor, or some other revenue outside of youtube itself. Youtube is more and more social media for small content creators, and that’s probably how it’s going to keep going. Especially since youtube only wants “family friendly” materiel to me monetized (unless you’re a main stream media outlet. CNN and NBC get monetized while smaller news channels don’t.)

Also, you know what would be nice? If people started sharing smaller channels they like, mentioning them in their vids or something, because it’s so hard to find good content on youtube anymore. The algorithms are so janky, they only show either the same creators I always watch, or vids from tv shows that are prime time, thus youtube wants you to watch them. They bring their advertisers with them, of course, and youtube wants a cut of that money. So please, share more smaller creators. Tell me who you like so I can see if I’d like them too. Tweet about them, comment on this blog post, or share them in a vlog, but I want to see some good content from smaller youtubers! I’d really appreciate that!