How The YouTube Algorithm Promotes Thievery

Here are the chapters for this video. Feel free to jump around accordingly:

0:00 Introduction
0:39 A Little Context
2:50 My Reaction to Asmongold's Reaction
4:02 The Issue with Reaction Uploads on YouTube
5:14 How the YouTube Algorithm Promotes React Content
7:39 My Viral Tweet and What I Learned
8:39 The Problem with Super Streamer Fan Bases
9:25 Grey Areas and Why These Conversations Matter
10:07 What’s the Solution?
12:45 The Worst of It
13:41 The Future and Important Notes

Addition resources on react content:

How Reaction Videos Ruined the Internet:
How to Steal A YouTube Video:
The Dark Side of Reaction Content:
The WAR on stolen content:
Why React Content Harms Everyone:

Note:
I deliberately leave the channel icons and video titles on each video for reference in case anyone wants to see the full videos featured in these documentaries. If anything is unclear, or for additional references, please reach out, and I will happily provide a link to any of the following content discussed, featured, or used as a b-roll in the video.

Copyright Note:
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

Music:
All songs featured in the video are from:
- YouTube's Audio Library
- Ian Taylor's RuneScape Music library owned by Jagex LTD. Please check out their music on Spotify if you are into that style. I cannot emphasize enough how good the music is.

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Creators note:
Hey everyone! I just wanted to make a quick video to explain what happened last week and hopefully clear a few things up. I released a video, noticed some things afterward, and wanted to share my thoughts with you.

I’m incredibly grateful for the recent support. Honestly, I’m still amazed that so many people watch my content, and it motivates me even more because I have some really exciting things planned for the future.

Thanks so much for watching,

Zackary Smigel

#youtube #videoessay #zackarysmigel

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Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more engaging video commentary!

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[janineteneleven]

"you can be appreciative and critical of something at the same time, that's healthy" !!!

[JoshStrifeHayes]

The constant mental battle of:

- create original content, take time and spend resources to research, script, record, edit, upload, hoping the vid does well.

Vs

- just react to a vid, take no risks, reap rewards.

[ChaseCares]

I can't wait for the flood of streamers reacting to this video lol

[DrDoomBloom]

“Just because it’s normalized, doesn’t make it okay for everyone”

A quote that belong its own T shirt

[grabasandwich]

YouTube shorts also suck. It's mostly just reposting old viral clips with AI voiceovers saying "this guy..." and those brain melting single word captions. The internet is ruined.

[NathanielBandy]

The idea of a react streamer being forced to share revenue with the original creator would honestly change things a lot. If it were like a 50/50 split, I'd imagine we'd see a lot less reaction videos because it would be such a big loss in income for the streamers, and probably not be as worth spamming out videos. It would be really interesting to see YouTube make this a feature at some point

[PrimeHylian]

Wow, didn't expect my tweet to be featured! Thanks for shedding light on this issue, it's something that makes me feel a bit powerless. I really hope YouTube implements some solution in the future because it doesn't seem like it's gonna change without one.

[TastingHistory]

This video needed to be made. Thank you.

[Glenners]

People who actually create stuff do it at a slower frequency, because they're doing the actual work. Reactors just have a constant stream of this content from all of you, so they can upload "good" content at a waaay higher frequency, hijacking the algorithm.

[mrfriendhorror]

This was great. I hadn't thought of it like this before. I have a LOT of people react to my content, and generally, I appreciate the exposure and enjoy watching them. But now I am wondering if it has stunted my potential views.

Great video mate!

[TheUltimateBlooper]

There is a reason why I always ignore Asmongold and "reactors" - I just hate the braindead approach to "content". I WANT longer-form, thought out essay videos, not some dude's face on the screen while ANOTHER video plays in the background.

[EzaleaGraves]

I feel cheated whenever I stumble across what seems like a really good video only to find out it's a reaction.
It's more prevalent with shorts, and I really wish it was possible to filter them out

[robertjr]

"How The YouTube Algorithm Promotes Thievery | Asmongold" within 24 hours lol

[kalodawg]

react youtubers: wow, another video to react to

[eegaming]

Absolute banger of a video! It's interesting because YouTube already has a copyright system that flags unoriginal content from other channels and gives us the opportunity to submit removal requests, yet they don't suppress those videos (even ones that the system recognizes as 100% reuploads). The revenue split seems like the perfect solution to this, as you mentioned YouTube already puts a great deal of effort into their music copyright system. I also remember the days when RE: videos were an integral part of the platform and 2024 seems like the perfect time to bring this back. They have so much of the infrastructure already in place, I just hope YouTube listens to this!

[CrimVulgar]

DarkViper's series (which I know you linked in the description) takes a different, more systemic tack to the general point you're making - you point out that small channels suddenly blowing up because of a react don't take away from the negative impacts on other channel, but it ends up being more insidious than that when you pull the lens further back and look at the whole ecosystem. Reactors will take $1 from 1000 different people, and occasionally give back $50 to one of them. It's hard to directly notice $1 going missing but the $50 boost is super obvious, and the ones who got lucky suddenly have a platform to support Reactors as a force for good!

Basically, just because some people win the lottery doesn't mean it's not exploitative en masse.

I'd recommend his series a lot - once you understand that dynamic, the other aspects he talks about follow very naturally, and he goes into a lot (like, a lot) of depth on it. He's a divisive character, but he's the only person I've seen talk about this as a systemic dynamic.

[A_Charmander]

Idk if you’ll see this, but I just wanna say that i’ve been watching you ever since the “why youtube feels different” video, and you are genuinely one of the most well-spoken and creative people i’ve subscribed to on here. I love how each video is (usually) totally different than the last. Most of the topics… I honestly don’t care about. I don’t care about malls or fast food prices, but you make the topics interesting enough for me to sit through the entire video. Keep up the awesome work ❤

[thaumana]

Saw that tweet around that time, and it really nailed my sentiment about the repost and reaction culture. That exploiting system does not only affect smaller youtubers. Small independent artists on social media who depends heavily on the reach and exposure to gain potential new supporters and commissions often suffer from invisibility, while big repost accounts just graze and collect fanarts and artworks from other accounts for reposts without any credits while at the same time offering promotion slots in exchange for fees while getting pushed by the algorithm. Also big account youtubers often use artworks from artists without their content and knowledge, making their content more appealing and gaining more clicks and attraction, while not having the decency to link the original creator's art post at the very least. It's sad that algorithms and numbers benefit such a one-sided, parasytic system among creators.

[SolaireIntensifies]

As much as I hate react content as a concept, your idea of having the video being reacted to directly link to views for the creator is a genius idea, and if youtube isn't going to do anything to stop react content, this is definitely the bare minimum they can do. This should have been implemented years ago and I hope this video blows up too so they can get their act together.

[MariYumeCh]

I really like your suggestion on YouTube introducing a video tagging system. Especially since they have that for shorts right now. You always come up with banger ideas and I think you making this video really brings to light a lot of unspoken issues on YouTube. Keep up the good work man, super proud of you ❤❤❤