Is YouTube becoming more & more toxic?

"Cancel Culture" on YouTube has long been a controversial topic. People can “cancel" any controversial YouTuber by canceling subscription, doing boycott, or the request the YouTuber to be kicked out of a platform. In recent years, various influencers, celebrities and politicians have been "canceled" by the public for making racist and hateful remarks. JennaMarbles is a YouTuber with over 20M subscribers and has started YouTube about a decade ago. In her recent video, she announced that she would be leaving the channel due to some of the controversial contents she made in the past. She explained how she came to make such contents and apologized to some viewers who mentioned those videos. However, many viewers were on JennaMarbles' side because these videos were made a very long time ago, and JennaMarbles later realized they were inappropriate and turned them to private. Their idea is that one can always make mistakes and the present JennaMarbles has become more mature; they also pointed out that it is wrong to judge a person with a mistake from a long time ago. Another giant YouTuber, Shane Dawson, uploaded a video after watching JennaMarbles, confessing his past mistakes. Both videos were listed as #1 and #3 on YouTube U.S. Trending list. (By the way, #2 was BLACKPINK!)

This "cancel culture" began when people started to upload more and more provocative content on social media. People posted irritating and unpleasant content just to get more views and clicks. "Cancel Culture" can be interpreted to have a net function of restricting such behaviors of users online. However, is it still fair for the public to "cancel" others? Isn’t this the same as the public punishing YouTubers with their own weapons such as like and dislike, and subscribe buttons? In my personal opinion, such public punishment only leads to another hatred. Instead, the public should focus on how the YouTuber made a mistake, learn from those mistakes and cooperate together to compensate for the damaged caused. It remains unclear whether JennaMarbles leaving her channel will change people's perception toward the "Cancel Culture."

The newest video of the beauty YouTuber "Bretman Rock" made it to the YouTube U.S. Trending list. He filmed the video with his sister, Princess Mae, and did a lie detector test. Throughout the video, they showed how brothers and sisters in real life talk to each other. Viewers left positive comments that they could easily relate to the video. Lie detectors, which give a light electric shock for a lie, are often used as YouTube contents in Korea.

This week, beauty contents with the concept of “~ does my makeup” became popular. It is true that these three YouTubers all have a huge number of subscribers and almost every video they make go on the Trending list, but it is worth noting that the three of them created similar makeup contents within a week.

Afreeca TV's BJ YangPang announced that she would be spending some time in a temple for her mental health. YangPang has received many hateful comments as she was a part of numerous gossip during 2019 and 2020. She is currently staying at a temple with her family and taking time to get better. Although it is said that YouTubers cannot avoid hateful comments, getting over them fast is a challenging thing for all YouTubers whether they have a lot of subscribers or not.

As BLACKPINK's new song "How You Like That" has created a huge sensation around the world, its reaction videos are also gaining huge popularity on YouTube. In particular, videos that comment on BLACKPINK's new song from a specific perspective or concept, such as “as a part of the dance team” or “as a K-pop dance instructor”, are worthy of notice.

Both of the two haunted house videos by the comedy channel "Double B" were listed on YouTube Korea’s Trending list. As the weather is getting hotter and hotter in Seoul, the season for horror contents has returned. It is mentioned in the title that one the members got haunted by a real ghost, but it later turned out to be a prank. Some viewers criticized about this, as they may have expected a real situation and clicked on the video.

"Rx Fit with Dr.Chad" was chosen as this week’s YouTube US Creator on the Rise. It has only been about three weeks since the channel started uploading videos, but the video with the highest views recorded 279k views. The main content is a short exercise routine specialized on each body part, such as for abs and love handles. All his videos are less than 15 minutes, which makes it easier for people to try the routine. The word "Rx" usually can be found in many pharmacies; it derived from the Latin word "recipere" which means "receive." It is usually used as “prescription” in pharmacies. Dr. Chad explained in his video that he aims to provide workout videos that are customized to viewers with different goals. This channel is looks quite similar like Chloe Ting's channel in many ways. Chloe Ting is one of the most famous workout YouTubers, who created #chloetingchallenge after herself. Chloe Ting currently has 11M subscribers with workout videos for abs, toned arms, hips and more.

On this week’s YouTube Korea, “천방지축 김채피CHAEPPI” was selected as the Creator on the Rise. She runs a cooking channel and currently has about 45.5k subscribers, with an average of 50k views. At first, her videos seem to have the Instagram home café vibe due to her quiet voiceover and the color sense of the overall video. However, she inserts a lot of memes throughout the video and often makes funny jokes. The number of her subscribers increased sharply after one of her videos was mentioned on another YouTube channel called “햄튜브(HamTube)”, which has 520k subscribers. After HamTube tried CHAEPPI’s cabbage steak recipe video and failed, many viewers of HamTube came to the original video and subscribed to CHAEPPI’s channel. CHAEPPI’s videos usually are recipes of food that she saw in movies or on social media, which she recreated in an easier way.

Like much of the rest of the world, folks in Latin American countries have found themselves stuck at home in recent months. And with that extra time indoors comes more time (and apparently a greater desire) to watch video content. Digital video measurement company Tubular Labs recently compiled a report around viewing habits in Latin American countries, looking at certain nations and the creator genres driving views in quarantine (among videos with over 50,000 views).

Comparing monthly YouTube views from the last two years, you can see noticeable increases since quarantines began back in March. While views from Chile- and Colombia-based creators were each up a modest 3% year-over-year from March through May, countries like Argentina (up 21%), Brazil (up 19%), and Mexico (up 14%) showed greater increases in the timeframe. Entertainment creators accounted for a large portion of views (between 17% and 26%) in each respective country measured, but the data shows key differences across borders, too. For instance, music and dance creators in Colombia made up 39% of YouTube views from creators there, a figure four times higher than what was measured in Chile for music and dance creators. Meanwhile, gaming creators made for 20% of YouTube views in both Chile and Argentina, respectively. That figure was seven times higher than gaming’s share of voice in Colombia. Perhaps Colombian creators were dancing too much to take a break for gaming. Or Chilean and Argentinian creators were gaming too much to dance.

Music and dance creators in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru made up at least 12% of views among creators in their respective countries, which was more than twice as high as what was seen in Chile. However, Chile and Argentina sports creators each made up between 8% and 10% of views from creators in those nations. That was three times higher than what was measured in the other Latin American countries Tubular looked at.

Tubular’s data also revealed potential recommendations for where Latin American content creators could pivot video topics. On YouTube, coronavirus-focused views in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico peaked between mid-March and mid-April, and dropped throughout May. Meanwhile, one major growth area on the platform in Latin America is home and DIY videos, where views are up 36% in the 90-day period through June 10, compared to the 90-day period directly before. Fashion and style videos were up 24% in the same 90-day period, compared to the one preceding it.

Using Tubular’s average V30 metric, which looks at the average number of views a video got within 30 days of being published, you can see where views are high but upload numbers remain low, a sign of supply not keeping up with demand. Across the six Latin American countries measured, family and parenting and kids and entertainment videos on YouTube had a V30 around 180,000–the highest of any category–but both had fewer than 30,000 uploads in the 90-day timeframe. By comparison, there were well over 100,000 gaming uploads and nearly 150,000 from people and blogs. But average V30 figures for both those categories were under 100,000. On Facebook, food and drink videos had a major opportunity for growth. With an average V30 over 150,000 and fewer than 100,000 videos uploaded in the timeframe, it appears that creators would do well to lean into this sort of content more given what audiences are already watching. Given the early quarantine interest in bread videos globally, seems like there was a clear sign that people are baking/cooking while stuck indoors.