A first amendment auditor resorted to pan handling in the street holding up a “Will Work 4 $” sign along a busy road in Texas on Monday as YouTubers prepare to mark the one-month anniversary of YouTube’s decision to demonetize most of the channels in in the category.
With Wednesday marking the one-month point since YouTube turned off monetization for most first amendment auditing related YouTubers we are again checking in on those impacted by the social media giant’s decision.
We start with Jose “Chille” DeCastro, who was not at all impacted by the demonetization decision. Though that’s not exactly what he has told his audience.
DeCastro has begun to fundraise off of the idea that his videos are “demonetized” by YouTube as the videos are too controversial for the service and that he only makes revenue off of super chat donations.
Turning each punishment for violating YouTube’s guidelines, DeCastro encourages his audience to donate to help him in his fight against authority and has been quite successful at it, pulling in an estimated $14,000.00 for September so far.
While DeCastro’s characterization is lacking in truthfulness, he does lose revenue streams when his videos are limited. A limited status means that the video was flagged for having mature content, violence or sensitive topics.
Ads by family-friendly advertisers are no longer displayed on the videos and the recommendations for the videos are greatly reduced.
The diminutive YouTuber has used this to his advantage, promoting himself as a “bad boy” who is fighting against the oppressive YouTube powers that be. While he has complained bitterly at times that no one is buying his products, his ability to raise money through super chat donations is unparalleled and he is the only one in the first amendment auditing community who has maintained or increased his revenue stream since demonetization hit.
The former king of all first amendment auditors, SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes, has gotten creative in his quest to maintain his lifestyle following demonetization by YouTube.
Unlike DeCastro, who livestreams for hours at a time, often starting and stopping streams multiple times to get a better slot in YouTube’s overnight coverage, Reyes has pretty much stuck to the same programming strategy that had brought him over one million subscribers.
His short lives that update his court cases and a regular upload schedule have been enhanced for constant plugs for his Patreon page and for his other money-making venues, including an offer to run ads on his streams from local businesses.
Reyes seems to be directing his fans to his Patreon page, which currently has 2,800 members, with 1,300 of those members paying to watch his videos.
The basic revenue from his Patreon earnings (based on every member taking the $5.00 base membership) is roughly $6,500.00 or about half of what DeCastro is earning from his super chat-based livestreams.
Reyes has been the most successful of the post-demonetization auditors so far, as he’s also taking in significant donations from his four active GoFundMe campaigns. However, his Patreon memberships have stayed at the same levels for two weeks now and may show a sign that there is a limit to the number of paid memberships he can attract.
With no change to his style, other than hiding parts of his YouTube content to his “exclusive” content on Patreon, the former “king” of all auditors is treading water and is expected to earn $78,000.00 in pre-tax earnings in the next year.
That’s great for a low level YouTuber, but significantly less than the $360,000.00 from YouTube revenue he had been projected to make from the platform before demonetization.
In contrast to the success of DeCastro and the never say die attitude of Reyes, Bao “Clash with Bao” Nguyen has a limited audience and had never been successful in building a money-making empire before demonetization.
Things seem to be so bad for the YouTuber spent 90-minutes Monday afternoon on the side of a busy road panhandling with a sign reading “Will Work 4 $.”
Nguyen was always on the lower end of the monetized first amendment auditing channels and routinely looked for donations from his fans to help out with basic winter weather clothing items and to pay for hotels when he was traveling.
His streams often were known for restreaming others’ content on both his main channel and his Smurfwatch Transparency channel. He would make his money off of donations during the streams as he was known to immediately take down streams to avoid getting copyright hits from the sources he restreamed.
Monday’s stream saw him get a small number of leads on jobs as drivers stopped to talk to him on the side of the road. Bao joked that no one was going to pick him up since he looked dirty and tired before giving up for the day.
The other continuing sources of revenue continue to include crowd sourcing, though the dedicated “give us money because we’ve been demonetized” campaigns have failed to gain traction with the larger audience.
However, as the first couple days of this week have proven, some of the first amendment related auditing accounts are still making serious money from those donating to their causes.
SeanPaul “Long Island Audits” Reyes won Sunday with a $200.00 donation to his Support The Fight Against Tyranny & Corruption! Campaign to take the day.
Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney won Monday with $8,668.00 in new donations to his GiveSendGo account, with second place going to Lane Myers, whose GiveSendGo account brought in $2,000.00 for the day.
John “First Amendment Protection Agency” Medaglia placed third with $360.00 donated to his CDS AWARENESS!!! GOOD PEOPLE, FOR A CAUSE! Campaign.
No other campaigns that we follow saw donations for either day.
