Thank You(Tube)

Thank You(Tube)

A decade ago, it was unheard of to make a living from posting videos to YouTube.  It was a hobby, a pastime, and just entertainment.  The videos were chaotic, random, hilarious, and heartwarming; anyone could post something to share it with others.  There was sheer joy in filming something, editing it together, and broadcasting it to an audience.

The headline of a 2006 TIME Magazine read “Person of the Year: You” and featured a reflective surface on a computer screen, with a video playback progress bar at the bottom of the mirror.  If you looked at the cover the right way, you could see yourself framed in the video.  No longer did anyone have to tell you what to do or say or show; the connection between you and an audience was immediate.  It was up to you.

Now, years later, more people than ever are submitting their user-generated video content to the site.  The library of content is growing at a faster and faster rate.  It is easy to be intimidated by increased competition, but more viewers bring more opportunities.  Topics previously absent from the public radar now have entire communities rallying behind them.  Newcomers and veterans alike can explore the smallest niches to find abundant worlds of ideas.

Creativity, exploration, and surprises are still here, even if much has changed since the inception of the site.  People like me can create whatever they want and get paid, changing what could just be a hobby into a full-time job for filmmakers, builders, teachers, gamers, musicians and artists.  Old videos continue to find new fans, inspiring the next generations to be the voices they’d like to hear.  The future of the site is not going to be perfect, but it’s going to be interesting.  As long as people want to make crazy videos, there’s a good chance somebody else out there wants to watch it.

Thank you!

Robert

A Complaint to the FTC

A Complaint to the FTC

Dear FTC,

I run a YouTube channel called 5MadMovieMakers for my full-time job.  Recently YouTube set my video “Stepney Train Stunts” to “Made For Kids”, and I attempted six times to switch it back to “Not Made For Kids”.  They rejected my appeal through their site dashboard, Twitter, and email.  I believe their ruling to be incorrect and would like the FTC to ask them to rectify this.  I am very aware of the penalty imposed by the FTC upon YouTube in 2019, but I am not sure if the FTC is aware of the current state of YouTube’s forcible implementation or interpretation of COPPA compliance.

Back when the COPPA rules toward YouTube were announced I spent a great deal of time reading up on the new policy to make sure I was not violating the rules.  Most of my videos feature toys such as Hot Wheels, LEGO, wooden bricks, K’nex, and Lionel trains configured into roller coaster contraptions and backyard thrill rides. I did have two videos that I ended up deciding were Made For Kids: one titled “Rubber Ball Recovery” which featured my 7-year-old cousin as the protagonist who builds a ball chute, and another video titled “Turbo Thomas Jungle Detour” featuring recent Thomas the Tank Engine toys which originally was filmed for Mattel’s official Thomas and Friends channel.  Therefore I set my channel to “Mixed” between content that is Not Made For Kids and content that was Made For Kids.

Ever since COPPA rules were implemented on YouTube in 2019, I have had videos randomly get caught in YouTube’s automated patrols to enforce the Made For Kids policy.  I believe that their systems are looking for keywords in a video’s description or phrases in the metadata tags that indicate if the content is similar to other content set to Made For Kids.  Their algorithms are also probably advanced enough to identify objects or characters that visually appear in the video.  Understandably YouTube is trying their best to align with the guidelines provided by the FTC after the settlement.  However, their automated systems are not always accurate, and dozens of times I’ve set videos back to “Not Made For Kids” manually.

As the creator of my videos I have a goal and purpose in my usual content: to use classic and nostalgic toys in a fantastic, excellent, and exceptional manner.  I enjoy building structures and tracks that many adults wish they could build in their free time.  My slow-motion stunts with miniature cars, trains, and marbles, filmed over dozens and sometimes hundreds of takes, leave audiences of all ages speechless, amazed and perplexed as to how the shots were achieved.  I know my intentions, but I also have objective proof of websites, blogs, or news articles sharing and discussing my videos, which I provide to YouTube when they question or counter my video’s audience settings.  Most of the time they admit fault and manually set the video back to “Not Made For Kids” after their system automatically flags it as otherwise.

As an example, in 2020 YouTube automatically set my 2017 video “Thomas Train Stunts” to “Made For Kids”.  This video had gone viral the week it was released so I had plenty of documentation of the video’s popularity with all age groups.  I filed an appeal in YouTube’s Creator Dashboard / Studio which allowed for 800 characters to explain or defend my position.  I wrote: “Video received 94,000 upvotes on Reddit the week it released and currently sits at #40 highest ranked post of all time on /r/videos.  Reddit does not allow children under 13 to create accounts to vote content.  This video was also shared by USA Today, Daily Mail, Gizmodo, Geekologie, Mashable, Wimp, Fox, and BBC, indicating widespread appeal and an interest from all age groups.  The toys featured are presented in an atypical fashion by completing complicated physical stunts.  The presence of hard-hitting electronica music and absence of a friendly narrator are additional deviations from the original Thomas and Friends television show, indicating that this is a parody of the source material for adult fans of the show.”  YouTube acknowledged their mistake and reverted the setting on the video to “Not Made For Kids”.

The use of toys and even familiar locomotives from children’s stories was, in this case, deemed by them to be not under the rule of COPPA, since the video was so unusual compared to the source material.  Many other fan-made videos of Thomas the Tank Engine in all sorts of bizarre scenarios exist on YouTube, such as a laser-shooting mechanical spider with Thomas’ face on it, a Robot Chicken / Adult Swim parody in which Thomas jumps over a ravine in slow motion like some sort of Fast and Furious stunt, and an animation in which the Island of Sodor gets hit by a nuclear bomb.  None of these videos are geared toward children, and though I am glad my own videos are generally family-friendly, YouTube realized my content was similar to these parodies and spoofs in that it did not imitate the children’s television show but rather extrapolated upon it by placing the toys in a stunt-driven X-Games competition.

After the viral sensation of “Thomas Train Stunts”, Mattel reached out to me to ask if I would produce a similar video for their official Thomas and Friends channel.  At the time, none of the official Thomas and Friends content resembled my video in any way.  The television episodes and clips featured Thomas and his friends solving problems on the Island of Sodor and behaving as normal trains do.  The trains occasionally got into crashes or accidents but learned valuable lessons at the end of the day; going “off the rails” was, in the books and show, something to be avoided at all costs.  The only instance I can remember was from one direct-to-DVD video from 2009 titled “The Great Discovery” in which Thomas was airborne for a moment as he crashed through a bush and flew over a bridge to find an abandoned town; however, in all Thomas media there was no emphasis on trains performing stunts, flips, or tricks similar to those of skateboarders or movie stunt drivers like in my video.  I realized Mattel was hoping to cash in on some of the popularity of my weird interpretation of the Thomas brand and so I made a video for them titled “Thomas Stunt Race”.  I can objectively say that this freelance video was made for children because it was intended for Mattel’s Thomas and Friends channel, which is entirely set to “Made For Kids” on YouTube.  That video also featured items from their 2017 Wood lineup, which Mattel was hoping to sell more of, whereas my original video was built from old Brio, RC2, Learning Curve, and HIT Entertainment toys my family had owned for decades.

However, I did not realize how much Mattel was going to incorporate stunts into their brand.  In August of 2019 they introduced a series of videos titled “Stories and Stunts” on their channel.  These videos were made by some other production company, though were very clearly meant to imitate the look of my stunt videos.  Cardboard buildings, blanket backdrops, and slow motion photography leant themselves to more of a sketchy “homemade” look than that of the traditional show’s professionally crafted models or cleanly animated computer-generated imagery.  I don’t have a problem with Mattel imitating my style, just as they don’t have a problem with me using their character in my bizarre fan-made video, but unfortunately YouTube now sees my homemade stunt creations as an imitation of theirs instead of the other way around.

I uploaded “Diesel Train Stunts” in 2018 which has never really had a problem with YouTube’s automatic COPPA enforcement despite its similarity to my other stunt videos.  Perhaps it’s because the featured wooden toy train D199 only appears in the books and never in the movies or television shows.  However, in September of 2021 I uploaded “Stepney Train Stunts” to my channel.  This third entry to my toy train stunt series featured another obscure train character that perhaps only people my age would remember, and consisted of 20 shots filmed over the course of 5 days with over 465 attempts to get the stunts to work just right.  The video was met with acclaim from train fanatics on Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube when I released it on September 2.  I got married on September 6 and returned from my honeymoon two weeks later to read all the kind comments left from viewers.  A few days later, on September 22, I got an email from YouTube telling me that “Stepney Train Stunts” would be automatically set to “Made For Kids”.  The comments disappeared from that video’s page, as did other standard YouTube features, replaced with a message telling viewers to try the “YouTube Kids’ App”.

I knew this ruling was not consistent with the decisions made by myself and YouTube on my other Train Stunt videos, and I knew I had not made the video for children.  I simply wanted to pay tribute to one of my favorite characters from the old Railway Series stories in an unusual and fun way.  I’m glad that families can watch the video together, but to say that only children can enjoy my video is an insult.  Yes, the video has bright colors.  Yes, the video has toy trains.  Yes, the electronic music is fun.  But I’ve talked to so many adults who have enjoyed all three of the train stunt videos on my channel, especially this recent video, and none of them understand why YouTube thinks this video is just made for kids.  I want to make content for everyone, and for YouTube to not allow me to make that decision is a major misunderstanding of my intent and a very misguided application of the FTC’s policies.

At the time of filing my appeal, I didn’t yet have any major news outlets reporting on the video.  In an effort to hastily return the video to “Not Made For Kids” I quoted most of my appeal for “Thomas Train Stunts” which had successfully repealed the “Made For Kids” setting previously.  Unfortunately, YouTube only responds to hard evidence specifically indicating the audience of the video in question and doesn’t seem to look at other similar videos as reference.  My appeal was rejected.  Since the rejection of my appeal for “Stepney Train Stunts”, I have had multiple television shows and news outlets reach out to me to use the footage in their media, including American clip show “Right This Minute” which airs nationally.  The title of RTM’s review of my video is “Toy Trains, But Make It Extreme”.  I forwarded these clips to YouTube’s help desk in hopes they would reverse their decision, but to no avail.  I was given no reason for the rejection and only sent a link to the list of qualities of content the FTC considers “Made For Kids”, which itself says there is no hard or fast rule and that each individual case will be different.

All this to say, I am rather indignant of YouTube’s refusal to let me choose my own audience settings for the video.  I understand they have to act as a middle man between users and federal commissions, but in this case they are acting as the final judge and jury.  Originally when the COPPA rules were enforced on YouTube they said individual creators would be held responsible for incorrectly identifying their own content’s audience, but YouTube has been so overbearing and heavy-handed that I haven’t heard of any cases actually going through to the FTC.  I am hoping that creators like me can responsibly choose their intended audience for themselves, and if found in violation of the rules can have a fair trial.  I believe I have enough evidence to present a solid argument to a courtroom why “Stepney Train Stunts” is not made for children as I intended it to appeal to audiences of all ages, myself included.

I don’t mind the lower revenue due to loss of targeted advertisements; the video has still made $143 after a month of being on the “Made For Kids” setting.  But I do miss the comments, which allowed me to interact directly with my audience, and the ability for users to add the video to playlists, and the ability to link to other videos at the end of this one.  I am hoping for these to return someday and am not sure why those features were affected by the COPPA rulings as well.  Please let me know if you find any frustration of mine worth rectifying.  I am prepared to accept defeat if specific reasons accompany the ruling, but I am having a hard time remaining complicit or subservient to YouTube as the “Made For Kids” audience setting on my video does not align with my conscience and beliefs and intentions.

Sincerely,

Robert Carlson

5MadMovieMakers

P.S. Any links, media or evidence needed I can supply on request.

New website!

Hello and welcome to the new 5 Mad Movie Makers website!  Stay tuned to this blog page for more news, opinions and behind-the-scenes.  Since most of my videos don’t feature a whole lot of talking, this page will be the place to make up for that.

I hope you enjoy the new site!  My friend Justin put a lot of work into it.  If you want a similar site you can contact him and he can give you a quote.  If you have any topic ideas for future posts, send them my way through the contact form!  I can also be reached on Facebook and Twitter.