Well, I'm not reviewing anything today, but LarryBoy Fanatic is (BTW, she's working on another episode in the LarryBoy VLOGS MONTH series).
Earlier this week, we received an email from YouTube, and basically, they said that we were no longer eligible for monetization, because we haven't reached the new threshold of 4,000 hours of watch time and having at least 1,000 subscribers. So I, as "CEO" of our channel, one that checks on our videos and data, I noticed that we only had at least 3 days worth of watch time, way less than the 4,000-hr. requirement, which equates to about 166+ days (if you convert hours to days with Google). I had also noticed that we currently have 256 subscribers. That's NOT a lot of subscribers, when you try to compare it to Nostalgia Critic, the Cinema Snob, Phelous, Markiplier--and not even at Pewdepie's level. So yeah, I'll be the first to admit that we're definitely a small channel.
Anyway, YouTube gave us a heads-up, saying that we had until February 20, 2018 to meet the new threshold of 4,000 hours and 1,000 subscribers, or we would lose monetization on our channel. Basically, afterwards, if we were to get to both requirements, YouTube would take about a week to re-evaluate our channel and then decide whether or not to have us be monetized again.
So far, a lot of people are upset with the changes, and people are saying that YouTube doesn't care about smaller channels. I think that part of the reasoning behind these changes is to stop people from creating channels to pirate stuff (obviously), and also to focus more on channels that sell--ones that give good content and mean no harm to YouTube. OUR CHANNEL does just that: we give good content, and we mean no harm. And I'm pretty that there are other small channels that give good content and are appropriate for YouTube.
If you were to look at the content that we give, you'll notice a theme: VeggieTales-related, or kids'-show-related reviews, vlogs, Top 10s, etc. We used to do react-videos, but we found more viewerships with the reviews and Top 10s--and a lot of them have to do with LarryBoy, which LarryBoy Fanatic is well-known for. Look, VeggieTales may not be the most popular thing to exist; but LarryBoy Fanatic loves to talk about it. In fact, my blog had stemmed from talking about something that may not have gotten such media attention if it hadn't been for people like me and LarryBoy Fanatic. So whether or not you're a big fan of VeggieTales, you might come to our channel just to enjoy the visuals that we provide, the jokes we make, or you might come and look at us as over-analytical (Believe me, someone had told me that before). But we try our best to provide good content, in accordance with YouTube's policies--we think about Fair Use a lot; and we think about what our audience wants to see (because people have made video suggestions to us a few times before).
So what do the new changes on YouTube mean for our channel?
Well, we can still do custom thumbnails, we can still do the custom end screens, and we can still make videos as long or short as we want (a typical LarryBoy Fanatic episode being at least 5 minutes long). However, we just won't be monetized until we get 4,000 hours and 1,000 subscribers. Rumor has it that we would get paid for whatever we had earned before the changes came, just so that everything is fair, but I also understand that people will say otherwise--I'm not holding my breath, if YouTube doesn't pay us regardless.
Now, LarryBoy Fanatic and I have been talking about having a Patreon. However, we're currently still learning about it; in fact, this would be a huge step towards a different, rather than simply relying on YouTube for a paycheck. We've also explored other avenues to make money off of our work, but like I said, we're still learning. So if we happen to come up with our own Patreon, then we'll let you know as soon as we have one up and running. Because we would like to build this channel with more equipment. In fact, we still need:
-a camcorder
-flash drives (to save videos on)
-a stylus (to use on a new laptop computer that has touch-screen; this would speed up our drawings of the LarryBoy Fanatic and Whatsoever Critic characters)
-a movie-making program to take the place of Movie Maker (since I'm currently using an old laptop computer to make and edit videos)
-a microphone that can be hooked up to a computer, rather than rely on a audio recording app to record voiceover
-some kind of studio (so that I can film live-action--drawing cartoon versions of me and LarryBoy Fanatic is fun, but it kind of slows us down when trying to come up with more videos)
So again, if we decide to do a Patreon, we'll let our audience know.
Anyways, this was something that I wanted to talk about, because we're gonna need the support we can get. We're still going to put up videos, and LarryBoy Fanatic is hard at work with more. Also, she told me that she wants to try and put up the League of Incredible Vegetables review before we lose monetization.
So for the time being, hopefully either YouTube changes their mind on some of the changes, or we're able to reach the new threshold before they take away our monetization.
Finally, LarryBoy Fanatic may or may not do a video discussing this matter, because one, I just explained it to y'all; and two, again, she's trying to put up the League of Incredible Vegetables review. You know, that would be cool if we got more subscribers and viewership when that review goes up, and that could save our channel from getting demonetized. Or if our audience shared each of our LarryBoy Fanatic videos, and like them for either fandom or creativity. Anything helps at this point.
So hopefully this whole thing gets resolved, and we can continue business as usual.
Whatsoever Critic
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