[ rambling ] Thumbnail branding, Youtube's Hostility to ASMR, and more... (Patreon)

Hello dears! I have some more news and rambling for you...

This rambling is for free followers & patrons!

「 Thumbnail Branding 」

I recently finalized a branding design for thumbnails. 

Do you remember the maid audio? That one! (currently available only to Patrons, but I'll upload a free version later!)

Did you like how it looks? I'm hoping that doing this would help make my thumbnails stand out and feature my signature, so you'd know it's my video right away!

「 Youtube is increasingly hostile to ASMR creators 」

In my first appeal, I simply asked for re-review of the video. Youtube Studio has an option where you can do that. 

Within the day, they responded and denied my appeal. They did not ask for my reason for appealing, either. 

In my second appeal, the support staff helped me get an age restriction removed on the original upload (wow!) but apparently the review team found that the re-upload still violates the community guidelines (???).

For the third appeal, TeamYoutube reached out to me on X directly and told me they've followed up on the re-re-review (this happened during my conversation in the second appeal)

For my fourth appeal, I asked for another reviewer to check. 

In my fifth appeal, and this is what I told them this time:

"Please, may I ask for another re-review?I have checked over and over and I can confirm that there are no community guidelines violated.As you can see from the video I provided, the content is only ear rub/ear massage of the 3DIO microphone. It does not have resemblance to the more "sexual" rubbing at all, and there are zero implied or zero intentions of sexual gratification." 

Of course, I was rejected and received a canned response. This was the same response I received from the third person. 

"We want to let you know that after a careful review by our internal team, your video was found to be in violation of our Community Guidelines and has been taken down. Specifically, it falls under our Adult Content policy due to audio or text that includes sexual noises or graphic descriptions of sex. We appreciate your understanding that sexually explicit content meant for gratification is not allowed on YouTube."

This is the "sexual content" in question:

Community Guidelines Strike for EAR RUBS.

I suspect that this is still HUMAN REVIEW, because I have dozens of audios with earrubs in them, but only this video was struck (I have another video struck because of CuddlyOctopus, but I accept that strike...). 

I've went through 5 different support staff from Youtube, and unfortunately they're holding up their decision.

I gave up but still I went for a sixth time appealing it again and... 

Now, on my sixth appeal, I learned a few things:

The only evidence they present you is the one in Youtube studio. Even if the evidence is faulty, and you appeal that... Most of the time, you can't do anything about it, even if you appeal. 

"Please also note that an appeal can only be submitted once per channel and once it's been decided upon, the system simply cannot allow any more attempts."

To add to this information though, technically, it's two appeals: one appeal in Youtube Studio, and another one through dedicated Youtube Partner Support Site. 

You do not talk to the people directly reviewing your videos. They're basically messengers... There's a separate review team that goes through videos that you appeal. 

The enforcement, while Youtube tries to make it sound "equal" and "fair", if you ask Youtube support, that's what they claim... You show many other videos that show otherwise, and they will parrot the equal and fair treatment while telling you to read the community guidelines for the millionth time. 

From my many years of experience appealing videos, here's what I have to say about reviewers - they are NOT impartial. If you get lucky, you might get someone who actually takes their job seriously - and the strikes & appeals on your videos gets lifted. If you don't, then... you're out of luck and you can't do anything about it. 

On a less punishing note, the age restriction on the original Super Creek upload was lifted... Which, interestingly have the exact same audio as the Super Creek re-upload. The only exception is that the Super Creek re-upload has a dakimakura call to action (which was NOT tagged by Youtube). Which makes it funnier... 

「  Another VA was banned. 」

Another ASMRtist I look up to has been banned from Youtube, too.

Her name's BabyPink. You probably listen to her, probably not... But she's off Youtube for good now in terms of ASMR. I also have to re-think how I approach sharing my content publicly too... Which brings us to the next point. 

「  Audio Distribution & Discovery 」

Here's some alternatives I've found so far, researched/used and my thoughts on them. 

Unlike Youtube, if you wish to publish on Spotify, you have to make use of a distribution service, with rare exceptions: my site, memoriaasmr.com, has a partnership with Spotify, but the synced audios are paid ones only. So, if I want to reach new people, I need to pay for a distribution service. Most distribution services do not accept ASMR, but a handful does - LANDR and... I forgot this other one. Anyway, I need to pay them monthly, and I need to compute the costs for paying them for distribution vs getting new patrons. Now that there's a real risk of losing my Youtube channel soon if re-reviews were to happen for my older catalog, it becomes a harder ask to risk it. 

Now, reddit... I like using reddit (controversial opinion, I know). But, depending on the subreddit, you're at the mercy of a powertripping mod or two. There's a mod over on r/asmr that dislikes ASMRtists who use "anime" illustrations, and would remove your post despite following posting guidelines. This happened years ago though, so I'm not sure if that mod is still in that subreddit. And then, self-promoting on reddit in my experience is only a VERY small fraction of the amount. A video I shared in a subreddit a long time ago received 500 views... out of the total 42,000. I appreciate every single view that came out of reddit, but relying on reddit as a primary discovery platform, is not reliable. 

Which brings us to the next part... RPLAY. If you're new to RPLAY.LIVE and you don't like "extreme" fetishes... Please do not browse the homepage of "NSFW" and stick to "SFW" category. This platform has less censorship than Youtube, and is recently a place where a lot of ASMRtists, VAs and Vtubers have been going to as a Youtube alternative. I'm planning on making it a mirror of my Youtube + memoriaasmr.com or Patreon, too. Another extra it has is that you can do livestreaming there, which is not possible on memoriaasmr.com (Fourthwall) or Patreon. But wait, Memoria... "I can watch streams on Patreon!" Well... you can, but they're embeds of a Youtube or vimeo stream. 

I've been working on getting things done for RPLAY, but if you want an alternative to Youtube mirror for my content, please follow me there! And do not click on the paid subscribe button yet, that's for testing purposes. I haven't decided on the prices I'll do on RPLAY yet.... 😅  

If you're a patron, your experience would be largely unchanged for the weekly content. You'll still receive them as is, but I've been thinking about making it better for you (without giving me burnout)

Anyway, here's my RPLAY! 

https://rplay.live/c/memoriaasmr?page=creator-home

I know it's empty for now but during the coming weeks I'll be uploading content there so please look forward to it!