My 4 year experience as a Canadian Youtube Content Creator.

Thanks to everybody that has been checking out my channel, I appreciate your support. I wanted to make a thread about the struggles of Small content creators & what to expect.
We all know the positives that come with growing a channel, but most channels do not talk about the hardships because it is embarrassing & difficult to deal with & explain to outsiders. So I will attempt that here. This might be lengthy, so strap in & grab some water lol

I am Canadian, I am Greek & I have been making Youtube  videos now for over 4 years. I absolutely Love it & have been trying to make this a source of income to become either financially independent or at least partially. It’s my brand & it’s my Company & I want it to grow so I treat it as such. It took me 2 years to get Partnered & Monetized. My uploading habits are at least 3 videos per week, plus shorts & community posts. The focus on the channel is Gaming videos (not just let’s plays, but reviews, reactions & special art projects like my photo mode videos series) I also do Movie & show reviews with a little social commentary.
My first year was a bit rough with little to no views, but it kept rising.
My 2nd year was Rock Solid, I went from 400 subscribers to 1100 in a 3 month period. I was getting 1000s of views per video & I was being recommended. Then the Biden/Camalla administration took over & my channel completely flatlined. I went from 1000s of views per video to 10-20 views & NO recommendations. You see, I made a couple of Pro President Trump videos, that were not insulting or targeting Democrats in any negative way, I just encouraged people to make sure they go out & vote. Then I made the Joe Biden Cardi B video & that was when they pulled the trigger & shot my channel in the head.
Luckily for me, Santa Inc happened & my video series “The Worst Of Santa Inc” where I compiled all the clips of them swearing or just being terrible people, each episode was split into 3 videos of 4-5 mins each, because that’s all HBO would allow me to do without blocking the videos. I got monetized based on those videos. A total of 4k hours of those videos were watched & the algorithm was suggesting the videos to 10 000s of people. The Algorithm was working. Then Warner Bros got involved with my channel. I got an email from youtube advising me that Warner requested my metrics to all the content I made using ALL their IPs & all of their other owned companies like Lions Gate & HBO. I then got an email advising me that I had Warner Employees auditing my channel going forward so all my stuff that was their programs would be auto blocked & claimed until Warner themselves reviewed the videos. I had 1200 Subscribers. To this day, Warner still has a hand around my throat & most of the time, the disputes to unblock my videos gets rejected. I will say this, they are fair in the regards that they don’t care if I trash or praise the movies, so there is no such time that they said “Well you were unfavorable in your review of Thunder Force, so we are blocking it!” most of my Santa Inc videos were allowed until towards the end when youtube just stopped suggesting the videos & I would get 200 views…but then it would recommend the next video on the series & it would get 1k views. So what I am implying here is that they were testing virility of the video. They wanted to see if people would still watch my video & if YES, they would kill it.

I have contacted Youtube dozens of times over the algorithm not suggesting my videos no matter how topical & trending the topic was. An example was the Will Smith Slap. I posted a video within the first 3 hours of it happening & I got almost 200 views within 10 minutes, then flatline. No more impressions/recommendations.
Nobody on the support team was able to understand what was happening & why. Because the thing is, it’s ALL done by their algorithm. I am still an outlier in their system to this day.
Then around the end of 2022, we got access in Youtube studio to see What audiences were being suggested my content. So again, I make mostly Gaming & Movie review videos. My content was being recommended to Muckbang, slime & ASMR audiences & I was being negatively reviewed in their surveys… OBVIOUSLY!
I got in contact with partner support to inquire as to why I was being recommended to those audiences? At first they had no answer but it came down to them not being able to control who they recommend what too. That is a load of Bullshivism.
So  I decided to test something. I uploaded a few ASMR videos, like I made a video where  I read a bunch of Norm Macdonald jokes (RIP) in whispers, then I did a video where I played Dead Space while only Whispering & title the video Dead Space ASMR. Guess what happened. The Algorithm stopped suggesting my videos to ASMR audiences. What the Hell is that? If you one is conspiracy minded, one might draw the conclusion that the system actively adjusts to anything you do to suppress your channel.
I did reach out & they had an answer to why they were suggesting my videos to non gaming/movie audiences. Are you ready for the reasoning? Well they did this with the aim to broaden the reach of my channel to get a whole bunch of new audience members & viewers. That’s a metric ton of Bullshivism.
Let me explain, Muckbang & ASMR are fetishes. People create separate accounts to watch their fetishes because those are the only videos they want popping up in their recommendations. Slime is also a lesser fetish just like Pimple Popping (disgusting), the pimple vids got banned if I am not mistaken. Bizarre world.
I asked them, what is the sense of suggesting people stuff they will not want to watch? Those  people will get surveyed & I will get crushed. Again they told me there was nothing they could do, it was the algorithm.
I almost quit Youtube, I don’t make the quality videos I used to because after 4 years of fighting a completely up hill battle for growth, I was worn down. So I stopped the movie reviews, decreased the production value  of the videos & I appear less often on camera. I am tired of fighting a fight that I cannot win or gain traction in.
Then 2023, a few months ago, Suzanne Wojcicki steps down as Youtube CEO & Neil Mohan takes over. There was a lot of outrage & people were worried that he would be worse for Youtube than Suzanne ever was. But do you know  what? No, he was making the platform better & more fair. All of a sudden my videos were going from 20 views to 100 views & 300 – 400 views & a few 1000 views. I looked in the analytics for the videos & Holy smokes! My gaming videos were being suggested to GAMERS! but not only gamers, but to gamers that watch videos on the game I was covering in that video. The algorithm was actually working. I was being recommended to audiences again. LOL until it stopped working.
I am still being recommended but the frequency is a lot less than when Neil first started. I have 3 RedFall videos, 1st has 200 views, 2nd has 1200 views & the 3rd has 80 views. The 2nd is still being recommended but not the others, there is has been no attempt to recommend them after the 1st days of uploading.

There is more but I am going to wrap things up with this. I mentioned that I was a Greek Canadian. So just quickly, Youtube has a program where Black partnered Content creators can register to be seen more frequently since they are a minority & BLM & all that stuff. I reached out to Partner Support & asked them “I am a very small minority in the content creator sphere, I am Greek. We don’t have many Greek Youtuber representation. What can we do about that to get me as a minority seen more & have my voice heard, as a minority that has had a history of oppression by the Ottoman empire for 400 years? My family has suffered directly as my lineage came from that time.” They “empathized” but they had no programs for any other group. The oppression is real folks. Always trying to keep The Greek Man down, lol.

Last nail in the coffin. I am Canadian & Canada sucks when it comes to certain rights & freedoms. Effective last month, they finally passed Bill C-11. Pretty much what this is, is a system where the Canadian Government dictates who gets to be seen on streaming services that includes Youtube & social media.  If you are not deemed Canadian Image Friendly, the CRTC will limit your reach. How? Very simple, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) will have or has an Algorithm that will override the Youtube algorithm. Youtube has no visibility or control over this. So, much of what will be going on to my channel & other Critical Thinking channels on youtube will be a mystery & we will have to just swallow the Justin Trudeau load. So I am Fackacked! The Canadian Liberal government does not give a crap about what the people want. They have been pushing this for years & they kept at it & it kept failing so they cheated & snuck it in with some other legislation.
It’s just all so f*cking funny. It went from an uphill battle to a level playing field to now being a completely Vertical climb up a oily glass wall.
Will I stop uploading? NO! At least not for the foreseeable future. I do youtube because I enjoy it still.
This is why it is so important to fight for your rights against a progressive government because all this stuff can happen to the US as well, each Democrat administration gets increasingly more progressive & strips you of more of your rights than their previous. It is a Cancer, a progressive cancer that keeps moving forward until the host is dead. You are the host, fight back & show them no fear.
Alright, I have been at this for 2 hours, I am hungry.  This has been my experience & I know if has happened to others as well.

Thank you for reading & Have a great Day!