YouTube star Fousey is letting anyone submit a video to his channel, but is
there a catch? You're watching What's Trending, I'm Shira Lazar. Be sure to like
this video and subscribe for more social media news daily. The last few months of
Yousef Erakat’s life have been hectic to say the least.
He hosted an event at the Greek Theatre called Hate Dies, Love Arrives that ended
abruptly after a bomb threat was called in. He then gave an impromptu
motivational speech in the parking lot to his fans. No matter who tries to stop
us. It's not a mistake. It was supposed to happen. Something bad could have happened
at that event. God didn't want it to. I wanted that event to be a success
tonight. I wanted my picture with Drake. I met Drake last night.
This set off a wave of speculation about Fousey's state of mind and whether or not
he was making the best decisions for his mental health. And let's back up a bit.
Fousey's been open about his own bipolar disorder and how it's impacted his life.
He told CNN in 2016: "I just decided to be completely open with my audience and to
tell them the struggles that I go through, and surprisingly it was the best
decision I ever made in my career." And in April of this year, he told his fans he
was entering a rehab facility for addiction. So the speculation about
Fousey's mental health is no surprise, though as someone who lives their life
in public, it's probably not so easy to witness, which might be why he's deleted
many of the videos on his channel, scrapped entire social media accounts.
Then on September 15 came a major announcement.
Yousef's girlfriend's, creator Simmi Singh, read a message from him saying that he
was going to be giving away his channel to other creators who submitted videos
to him. Every single day there is a new email from one of you asking for a
chance and opportunity. Some of you would send your music, some would send your
incredible edits, some would express their interest in becoming an actor or
actress, and some just needed someone to talk to. And, for that reason, FouseyTube
is being handed to each and every single one of you. Okay, so
how does this work? Well, you can go to GoFousey.com, fill out a quick form and
submit your video. It's that easy! And he's already published several of these
videos to his over ten million subscribers. The first video was for a channel called
"ObeyMyHumor" titled "How To Sneak Into A College Party".
This whole idea might be paying
off for smaller creators. Since the video went up, Obey My Humor's channel has
grown from 500 subscribers to over 4,000. But at the beginning of the
video we hinted that there's a catch, and here it is. Any ad revenue from the video,
well Fousey gets to keep. The fine print on GoFousey.com says that by submitting
your video, you're giving FouseyTube the right to use edit, publish, and otherwise
exploit your user content and your name in connection with your user content
without any obligation or liability to you or any other party whatsoever. So
it's up to you the creator to determine if that's worth it.
Fousey pockets the hundreds of dollars of ad revenue you might have been able to
receive but you do get a boost of exposure you might not have had
otherwise. And Obey My Humor is certainly pleased with the results. Thank you
to Yousef, thank you to FouseyTube for doing what he did. Especially having a platform
and being able to help other smaller YouTubers is amazing and, and thank you
for being... I'm the first one on there... it's unreal. Everything's still... I'm
still in shock here. I'm still... it's literally been a day and I'm still kind of trying to get
used to what just happened okay? But there are some people out there who
are skeptical about this arrangement. The Verge thinks Fousey may have been using
his mental health including suggestions that he'd considered suicide as a
promotional tool. They take aim at the second user-generated video posted to
FouseyTube called "Fousey Bought My Dad A Car" from creator YouKnowRem. The Verge
writes: "Jose, the Uber driver, does repeatedly thank Erakat for buying him a
new car, but the whole thing seems forced -- he doesn't really seem excited, for one,
but also, the whole thing comes across as an advertisement for FouseyTube's immense
generosity, as if to make you forget he messed up the man's car in the first
place. And Oliver Colton, also known as Colossal Is Crazy,
who's been a frequent critic of Fousey's, told Polygon:
"It's all an illusion. 100%. The only big shocker to me is that
people continue to fall for it. I just can't believe that people have
fallen for it for so long. Everything he's done has been under this guise of
positivity. The event was called Hate Dies, Love Arrives". It was going to end
racism, but really the event was about getting attention and being relevant. One,
I think using your channel to spotlight other smaller creators is awesome.
Guess what? What's Trending distributes our stuff to other places. Some we get
paid from, some we don't. That's kind of what it's like to be a creator these
days. You need to think about revenue and exposure. And, if, you know, him posting a
video can help a channel in the long run, I think it's worth it.
Like, it's not a big deal to just lose a few hundred dollars from ad revenue of one
video. In this day and age in general, not a lot of people are making money on
YouTube, so while it is a big deal to like get your video on his channel, it's
not like you're gonna be making a ton of money otherwise, so just get the boost
and enjoy it. Hey, you know what? I think other creators
should be doing this, so there you go. Fousey, hopefully you're starting a
positive trend. On the mental health side, I think it's actually really dangerous
and in bad taste for anyone, including a journalist or a publication, to be making
assumptions on someone's mental health, including when they have no real
evidence. When it comes to mental health, if someone is honest about what they're
going through, we need to support each other and not drag each other down. And
part of what I think people don't realize is when you're going through
that, you go through extremes and you might not be making decisions that make
sense and so to keep spotlighting this part of this individual, I just think is
is wrong. So what do you think? Will you be sending your videos to Fousey? Let us
know in the comments below and be sure to like and subscribe for more of What's
Trending.