Manipulated Videos on YouTube

Videos that people can just laugh about were on the top 5 of this week’s YouTube US trending list. The first video is from the channel “Mr. Beast”, who is famous for trying out crazy challenges. His channel currently has more than 36M subscribers. The second video was from the channel “CalebCity” and is about how we usually act in front of smart friends. CalebCity has 3M subscribers and uploads comedy videos often played by himself.

This week, two of the videos that were listed on the YouTube US trending list dealt with simple but helpful life hacks. The first video was about fixing a lawn tractor, which is often used for mowing the lawn. The second video is a very short video that shows how to remove a carpet stain fast and easy. The video is less than two minutes long, which makes it less boring for the viewers and just delivers the main idea straight.

Afreeca BJ and YouTuber Song Dae-ik was severely criticized this week for making a video that contains false and misleading information. Details on this issue will be elaborated on the next part of the report. Song Dae-ik’s recent video has raised the public’s awareness on prank videos and videos that spread out false information. YouTubers should never put profit over integrity and never lie about anything because the truth will eventually come out.

Two of the videos on this week’s YouTube Korea trending videos were about workout and exercise. The first video is from the channel "말왕TV(HORSE-KING TV).“ This channel often invites guests who are not really familiar with working out and teaches them how to exercise. This episode was filmed with Sso-daejang, a BJ on Afreeca TV. The comment section tells that the viewers enjoyed watching Sso-daejang trying out heavy dumbbells with such a small body. The second video was from the channel “Thankyou BUBU” and the couple works out through the whole video, demonstrating all the postures for about 30 minutes.

“Bulmawang Ramen“ is a product that was introduced by Geum.B company recently as the spiciest ramen in Korea. This ramen has a Scoville scale of 14,444 because it contains Carolina Reaper, which is one of the spiciest pepper in the world. Many Korean YouTubers tried this ramen, and some of them even added more spicy peppers while cooking.

“Kyle & April – Ride MTB” channel was selected as this week’s YouTube US Creator on the Rise. Their channel’s main content is mountain biking and sometimes they introduce contents related to other extreme sports. They often do livestreams and answer questions from their viewers too. Most of their videos include slow motion and drones, as teaching mountain biking skills requires much space and precision.

On this week’s YouTube Korea, “쿡피아 Cookpia” was selected as the Creator on the Rise. This is a recipe channel and currently has about 34k subscribers, with an average of 50k views. This channel is run by Lee Bo Eun, who is a famous cooking researcher who appears on various Korean TV shows. In her channel, she introduces easy recipes for Korean cuisine. Videos about Korean side dishes are the most popular on her channel. Although she has just started running the channel, the lighting, camera angle and other settings seem like the TV programs she appears on. All her videos are nicely edited, which makes it much easier and entertaining to watch. Furthermore, she chats a lot while cooking, which makes the video less boring and more friendly.

For the first time in its history, Facebook is facing an organized boycott from advertisers set to begin July 1st. It’s not from small companies, either — large corporations including Hershey, Honda, and Verizon have stopped their spending. Several companies joined the initiative after July 1st, including Sony, which reportedly said July 2nd it would suspend ads on Facebook and Instagram through the end of the month. Companies from a variety of industries, including health snack brand KIND and retailer Target, have followed suit. Target said it would use the July pause on advertising “to re-evaluate our plans for the remainder of the year,” suggesting the retailer could extend its participation in the boycott. KIND founder Daniel Lubetzky echoed the sentiment, writing on LinkedIn, “If Facebook doesn’t take visible, measurable and assertive efforts to effectively prevent the promotion of hate, division, defamation and misinformation by this year’s end — we will feel compelled to evaluate indefinitely suspending our investments in Facebook until they do so.”

The goal of the #StopHateforProfit campaign is to pressure the social media behemoth into changing how it handles hate speech and misinformation, including often incendiary posts from President Trump. The companies pledge to stop advertising on Facebook and Instagram for at least a month. Some companies have taken the boycott a step further, pulling advertising from all (or most) social media platforms — not just Facebook — and that list includes Coca-Cola, Lego, Starbucks, and Unilever. Microsoft has suspended its advertising on Facebook as well, at least through August. So yeah, it’s a potentially big deal. Whether pulling ad dollars will have an impact — financially or otherwise — is still to be determined.