Surprise! This month I’ve uploaded a video again! I rearranged my room at the end of last year and now that everything’s settled I wanted to invite you in for a look. Come hang out with me!
I also wanted to provide some links to where I got some of my art, because I thought people might be interested. This isn’t a complete list because I unfortunately didn’t retain the artist information for some of the prints (I’ve owned some of them for 10+ years), but it’s the best I can do.
My other two Utena prints are by vetiverfox. They don’t sell these anymore, but I love their work, so here’s their website!
I bought my big Van Gogh Almond Blossoms print from the poster merchants that always turned up at my college the first week of fall semester. I know it’s hung the wrong way, but I like it that way.
My lady knight is by Samijen, and they don’t currently seem to have an online store open, but here is their website.
Tempest by Heikala (which you might remember dredged up some feelings and inspired a post from last year).
Small Journey drawing by EiffelArt. He usually just sells originals instead of prints, but here’s his website.
Small waterfront painting by Danelle Malan, another one of a kind, but here’s her site!
It’s not a print, but the small ceramic ghosts are by Aubrey Aiese, here’s her shop!
I also show my pinboards in the video, so here’s just a list of artists I’ve often bought those kinds of little trinkets from:
In this new video I used a small clip from a YouTube video of mine from 2016, a song I wrote called “Hey, Hi, Hello.” I’ve always seen this as one of the better songs I wrote when I was in my songwriting phase, but I also recently remembered the fun fact that it was inspired by my initial interactions with a certain Ghost that I blogged about a few years ago. I linked this in the description of my room video, and figured I should toss it here as well.
I hope you’ve enjoyed hanging out with me via video and I’ll see you next month!
In September I went on a solo vacation to Cape May and I felt that I couldn’t entirely capture it the way I wanted using mere photographs and text, so instead I set out to make my first video in nearly five years. I’ve been going to Cape May since I was a child, and the script I wrote is chock full of ruminations on how it has affected me. I considered just dropping the script into the blog post here, but I’ve decided not to because I really want you to click on the video above and give it a watch. I probably will do a more traditional blog post about some aspect or other of this trip before the year is over, but for now please enjoy this video! I worked hard on it and I’m proud of it!
Probably most people who read this blog aren’t terribly familiar with my YouTube output of yore, but when it comes to travel vlogs I tried a few things here I had somehow never done before, like fading audio and video in and out and including little bits of the nature sounds in my source footage. I wish I could have included more ocean sounds, but I don’t have a nice mic for my camera kit so any clips of the sea had more awful wind noises than crashing waves.
It isn’t quite a perfect video — I wound up having to use footage and photos from past trips to show some of the things that I wanted to show, but luckily I am a bit of a digital hoarder so I had some choices! Also, there’s something weird about my voice over recording and I apologize for any unpleasantness about that. I think my microphone was picking up the sound of my ancient laptop’s fan, and by the time I realized that’s what it was I wasn’t able to do another voice over recording.
That being said, I really did enjoy the process of working on this overall! I’d forgotten how soothing and meditative the process of piecing together a video can be, so this probably won’t be my last project of this type. I can’t tell you when I’ll do another one. I know I for sure don’t really want to go back to the “talking head” style vlogs that make up most of my YouTube archive, since I now have this blog for posting those types of thoughts. But if I have the opportunity again to do something vaguely artsy like this and I feel inspired, you may see another video pop up here in the future and I hope you look forward to it.
Once upon a time, oh so long ago, I used to be very into making YouTube videos. I started in 2009 and uploaded at least once a month or so up until this past September. (I’m not saying I’ll never make a video again, but this blog has kind of replaced my channel.) I’ve had my YouTube account since the year the site opened, and by the time I actually began creating my own videos advertisements were becoming more prevalent on the site, but you had to be specially invited into the Partner program in order to collect any of that revenue yourself. I had quickly realized that probably I wasn’t going to have massive YouTube fame ever, so I wasn’t too fussed by being cut off from this program.
But then around 2012 I spotted a notice that had popped up in the video manager area of the site — my good conduct had earned me the right to hook my account up to the big monetization machine. I waffled a little bit before deciding to take the plunge and sign on. Why not? Who knew what would happen? It took me a year and a half to reach the payment threshold of $100. It was a nice accomplishment, but, again, I didn’t tie the worth of my work to the numbers it brought it. What mattered to me what that I was enjoying myself and maybe getting to connect to a few people, which I did get to do in greater numbers than ever before the following year! (#TeamCake!)
And then, in the spring of 2014, as I slowly drew close to the payment threshold for only the second time, I received an alarming message. My AdSense had been disabled for “invalid click activity.” I could file an appeal to try to save myself, but I only got the one appeal and if it was denied then that was that — banned from using AdSense for life. I had one video that was about hairstyling My Little Pony toys that had gotten many times more views than any other of my videos, and I assumed that this was the problem. I included any information in my appeal that I thought would help me, but ultimately I was rejected. And so I did what any good YouTuber would do and made an angry rant video.
I’m actually quite fond of this video. It really makes me laugh, even four years later! And I think I bring up some valid points about the whole process. For instance, they never even fully specified, in any detail, what I was supposed to have done to make the “invalid click activity” happen. (My research at the time told me there’s a whole variety of things that fall under this umbrella, from clicking your own ads, to using robots to do it for you en masse.) Google claimed the opaqueness is because they don’t want people to know how they figure out when misbehavior is happening. I thought (and think) that it’s so people have a harder time defending themselves so they can share money with fewer people.
(And, to go on a tangent, honestly that whole “we’re demonetizing all the small creators” thing they pulled this winter only serves to back up this opinion of mine, although I also feel that situation is related to their consistent lack of punishment when it comes to the massive fuckups that some of the massive personalities have made in the past couple of years. If they’d just properly discipline the PDPs and LgPls of the site, maybe advertisers wouldn’t be running away and Google wouldn’t have to steal from the poor to feed the rich. Taking away a person’s YouTube Red program, but still letting them have ads is NOT A REAL PENALTY. Anyway, tangent done.)
But if they were more specific perhaps I could have put together a stronger appeal because I was totally innocent. (Additional fun fact: as soon as you receive the, “You’re getting demonetized, try to appeal,” email, you’re locked out of the AdSense website, which might also hold helpful information for your appeal.) I am a huge square who is constantly worried about whether I’m behaving in all aspects of my life. I did nothing at all to deserve a permanent ban from what is probably the biggest advertising service on the internet. My numbers were the same consistently low numbers that they had always been. I don’t know how I got caught in the “invalid click activity” net, but I did, and I’m still slightly bitter about it.
If you actually take the time to watch the video I’ve included here, you might notice that I throw out the idea, “Hmm, isn’t it a little bit suspicious that they’ve disabled my AdSense shortly before they’re going to have to pay me?” And apparently I’m not the only person that’s ever thought that. I was recently cleaning up my various email inboxes, including checking the spam folders to make sure nothing important had wound up there by mistake. And in the spam box of the email for my YouTube account was an email telling me about a class action settlement, that I might be able to collect a little bit of money from!
The lawsuit is captioned Free Range Content, Inc. v. Google LLC. and to pull a quote from the settlement agreement, the most basic description of the complaint is: “Plaintiffs alleged that Google terminated AdSense publishers from the AdSense program and improperly withheld unpaid amounts in those publishers’ AdSense account.” They also alleged that Google would do these terminations shortly before money was due to be paid. At some point during the proceedings, the lawsuit became a class action situation, which is how I received a message about potentially receiving a piece of the $11,000,000 of settlement money. (The terms of the settlement still have to be approved by the court, as per this FAQ.)
I naturally did some research, because it sounded kind of fake. But after coming across severaldifferent articles corroborating the information, I submitted a Confirmation of Claim form to try and get my piece of the pie. I’m not certain that I’ll get all $90ish that was in my AdSense at the time Google disabled me, as there are going to be different payment groups that will receive different percentages of their balance depending on several factors. Since I work at a law firm, I’d like to point out settlement obviously does not mean Google is admitting fault. In fact, the settlement agreement I linked above specifically states that Google has denied wrongdoing.
But it’s still a good feeling for me that a lawsuit and settlement has happened at all! Even if I don’t get any money, I feel vindicated knowing that, yes, perhaps Google misbehaved in regards to me and others, and they are now going to pay up because of it.
I’ve been using YouTube since the year the site opened, and I’m at a point where I have over 400 videos in my favorites playlist. That playlist is hidden, you can’t see it on my channel page because it’s got a weird variety of stuff in it. But I thought it might be fun to go to the start of the playlist, and share some of the videos I favorited so long ago.
Early YouTube was a magical place that I didn’t really appreciate at the time. It was an environment where people felt free to post whatever they wanted regardless of how low production it was, or how weird. So I want to highlight a few of the weird things that made me laugh way back when, and that also still do today.
Here we have a lovely little ditty called “My Hands Are Bananas.” It was published in August of 2006 and is a take on stereotypical German techno/dance/industrial music (but in English). It’s utter hilarious nonsense that my friends and I used to sing back and forth to each other in the lunchroom.
“Go to McDonald – (Earthbound gigyas’s theme RONALDver.)” requires a little background information. Basically, there was a period of time where I was super into watching Japanese commercials and music videos because of a couple of friends I’d made on MSN messenger. Because of those friends I stumbled onto a genre I’d call “remixing songs using Japanese Ronald McDonald commercials.” This particular remix is of the final boss theme from Earthbound, and also includes some video distortion that is quite creepy, so just beware of that. This is another one that my friends and I would reference to each other (especially “daiski daiski daiski daiski,” which starts at 1:20 in the video).
This is called “Slumber Party” and it’s a video that I think about a lot, especially when High School Musical is referenced, which you’ll understand if you watch it. It’s a comedic horror short created by Neil Cicierega, who’s been one of my creative idols since I first discovered his work back in high school. (He’s also the creator of the Potter Puppet Pals and releases music as Lemon Demon, and when I realized all of these things were made by the same person, I was super impressed!) I can’t say too much about this one without totally ruining the suspense/mystery, but it’s only 5 minutes long, what do you have to lose?
And to close us off, I give you “Spiderman’s Epic Battle!” Just watch it. Hopefully you’ll laugh as much as I do.
Share all of your favorite odd YouTube videos with me! I always love to see new things.
In my previous post, I briefly mentioned that there are things that I can’t talk about on my YouTube channel. I wanted to talk about why that is, because you might be wondering why I, a grown woman, would feel the need to censor myself.
It all goes back to the 2012 trip to Germany I went on with my younger brother and my aunt. I vlogged a bit, and wound up showing this video to my aunt because I thought she would like it. It’s still one of my favorite videos I’ve made, and she enjoyed it so much that she asked me for the link so she could watch it again later. Rather stupidly, I somehow never thought that she would watch my other videos, because while my family was aware that I did YouTube, no one had really shown an interest in it, and I was pretty close-mouthed and private about it, because I didn’t want them watching.
When my aunt watches YouTube she’ll do it when there’s downtime at work because she’s not that technologically inclined and doesn’t quite understand how to use her home computer even though she can use her work computer just fine for the most part. Another essential piece of background info for this story is that my mom and aunt work at the same business.
One day my mom came home and said she’d had a small fight with my aunt at work that day because of a little video I’d uploaded called “Virgin Territory.” This video was inspired by an MTV reality show of the same name that came out around that time and followed the lives of several different virgins who were in their early to mid-twenties. In it, I discuss my own virgin status, and some of the circumstances surrounding that. My aunt was rewatching the Germany video, and then picked this one out of the recommended videos on the sidebar.
My mom and aunt’s desks are close to each other, but still far enough apart that you have to raise your voice slightly to speak between them. My mom’s recollection of the argument opened with my aunt reacting to the video intro in which I tell my mother not to watch the video by calling to my mom and saying, “She doesn’t want you to watch this one!” My mom responded that she wouldn’t have wanted to watch it anyway. And then when my aunt got to the part of the video where I say that I’m a virgin, she yelled, “Oh! She’s a virgin!” across to my mom.
My mom then got into it with with my aunt about how you shouldn’t just shout things like that across the office because even though no one was really around the office at the time, the office is small and what if someone else had heard?
At this point in her recollections, my mom stopped to say to me, “I don’t even understand why you feel the need to talk about stuff like that online anyway.”
Because I want to. Because I can. Because telling all my uncomfortable and/or unusual stories could maybe help someone else, whether it’s by actually relating to what I’m saying and gleaning some advice from it, or even as a distraction from their own troubles by using me for entertainment.
In that moment, sitting there in a room loaded with my mother’s disapproval, I felt something inside of me close off.
I’m non-confrontational by nature, and in order to avoid possible future confrontation with my family, I decided that there are certain topics I could never address in video (not all of them sexual in nature, by the way). It’s a loss and a limitation that still annoys me, which I part of why I wanted and needed to start this blog.
And the next time my aunt decides she might want to rewatch one of my videos, I will burn her a DVD.
This is Krys 