This is the longest and shortest username possible on a real YouTube play button.
I've done a lot of crazy stuff with play buttons over the years,
but just as I thought I'd done it all, I was sent this.
Why is there a burger emoji on this play button?
This is a tweet from a fella called BigT seven months ago.
He said, "This is so awesome, YouTube done put a burger on my play button."
There's the burger on the play button,
and there's him with a burger on a play button.
Now, immediately, loads of people were tagging me this,
and when I first saw it, I was like, "Nah, that is definitely fake.
He's just got a burger emoji sticker, and stuck that on a play button."
But when people started calling him out for it being fake,
he responded with this video.
BigT in video: "Nah, I got the crabby patty right on this, James.
Look at this. Not even a sticker.
Not even a sticker.
It's laminated on this.
They put a goddamn cheeseburger on my goddamn plaque."
What is going on? It looks kinda real, doesn't it?
Will YouTube actually print an emoji on your play button?
Well, I guess we're going to have to get another channel to 100,000 subscribers,
so we can find out.
Now, if you go on the actual BigT's channel,
you can see he is completely burgerless in his username.
So when claiming his play button,
he's just added the emoji into the name, I guess.
I don't know.
But if I was to try and do that, the next time I claimed a play button,
I think that due to my history of society awards,
they'd probably decline me
and they wouldn't print the emoji, even if it is technically possible.
So to prevent that from happening, I'm going to make a new channel,
and I'm going to put an emoji in the channel name from the start.
And that is why I've come up with Geography Stuff.
You might be thinking, Jack, what is Geography Stuff?
Well, not everybody watching this will know, but I actually have
another YouTube channel with over a million subscribers
called JackSucksAtGeography.
And on that channel,
I do things like naming all of the countries,
naming all of the flags, looking at cool maps, etc, etc.
And I think seen as YouTube is making such a big thing about YouTube Shorts
at the minute, there is potential for me
to turn those long videos into YouTube Shorts,
and upload them on a brand new channel.
And that is where Geography Stuff comes in.
But you might be thinking, "Jack, where is the emoji?
There's no emoji." Hold on a second.
Yes...!
See, it's about geography.
It's a world emoji. It makes sense.
So I guess step one, is create the channel.
So with help from editor Arian,
I immediately started churning out the content on Geography Stuff,
sometimes releasing two or three YouTube Shorts per day.
And exactly one month after the channel was launched,
we reached 100,000 subscribers.
But what's even crazier than that is how many views this channel is getting.
You can see that immediately from the channel's launch,
it was doing pretty good.
But after a couple of weeks, oh, my God!
We had a week where I was getting nearly a million views.
YouTube Shorts are mental.
But anyway, the views are not important
because this video is all about this little fella, the world emoji.
I want to see that on a real play button.
So now that we've surpassed 100K,
let's see if we can apply for the play button.
Okay, we are logged in to Geography Stuff.
Now, a potential issue that I've got, is if we go to monetisation,
the channel is not actually in the partnership programme yet,
and I've never applied for a play button without already being a YouTube partner.
But apparently with this new link I've been sent, I might be able to do it.
So I need to confirm that is the correct email.
It is. Continue.
Read the eligibility criteria. Okay, go on then.
Okay, yes, it's passed 100,000 subscribers.
The channel is active.
We comply with community guidelines.
We comply with terms of service.
We've not been suspended.
We've not been terminated.
We're not deceptively spammy or a scam.
Your main content is original.
Well...
Oh, don't worry. I think we're okay because it isn't
someone else's copyrighted content.
It's my own copyrighted content.
So yeah, this is kinda new.
You don't have to be a member of the YouTube Partner Programme
to be eligible for an award.
I think we're fine. Let's click continue.
Enter my channel URL. There we go.
Oops, you've entered an invalid URL.
Oh, do I just get rid of the https?
Okay, that's fine. Oh, I've done it again.
All right, cool. T-That's excellent.
What do you want from me?
For example, youtube.com.
Yeah, I've done it like that. What's going on?
Oh, there we go. We're good. We're good.
Oh, look at this.
It loaded it in. That was exciting.
Congratulations on reaching 100,000 subscribers for a Silver Award.
Our teams are currently reviewing your channel against our overall criteria.
This may take up to 10 days.
Wait, I've been given a redemption code, but let's try and redeem it now.
They said it's still being reviewed, but then they've given me a code.
I don't know what's happening.
I'm just going to click redeem.
Okay.
I guess I do need to wait about 10 days to be reviewed.
Hopefully, we don't have any issues and we'll be back in 10 days' time.
All right, it's actually only been three days,
but I've been trying the code every day, and it looks like it's been approved
because I've been given access to this page.
And pretty strange timing.
Only 13 hours ago, a YouTuber called Softwilly tweeted out this.
As you can see, he's got a skull emoji on a gold play button.
So that's two now, and they both look pretty legit.
I think this might actually be a thing.
When it was just the burger emoji, I wasn't sure.
But now, I'm kind of convinced that I will actually be able to get an emoji
on a play button.
And just like BigT, Softwilly, does not actually have a skull emoji
in their username, whereas I actually do.
So they surely cannot deny this to me, when they allow other people
that don't have emojis in their name, to get emojis on their play button.
So let's paste it in.
Oh, that looks nice. That looks so beautiful.
I wasn't sure if it would be visualised here, but there it is.
Oh, the blue, with the contrast of the grey.
Oh, yeah. Hey, guys, what if we did this?
No, I'm not getting greedy. I'm not getting greedy.
I mean I want to, but I don't want to jeopardise anything here.
So let's approve and check out.
Please don't give me any problems. I think we're okay. I think we're okay.
Yeah, we're good. It took us to the shipping page.
Hang on. Item is in cart. View details.
Oh, that's concerning, but hopefully we'll be all right.
The emoji is gone. There's nothing I can do at this stage.
I assume it's just invisible on this particular page.
Okay, everything's filled in. Let's click next.
Emoji still isn't showing up here, but there's nothing we can do about it.
Let's just hope for the best and place the order.
Thanks for your order.
Oh, I've got an email. Hang on.
Oh, this is good.
It isn't on the actual play button,
but you can see there's an emoji here and here in the actual email,
so I'll take it.
Well, I guess all we do now is wait.
Look what I've got!
It is time, once and for all, to find out.
Will YouTube actually print an emoji on their play buttons if you ask them to?
The answer is in this box.
What is my prediction before I open this?
Both BigT and Softwilly, why are both of their names so phallic?
W-W-Why is that happening?
Both of the pictures they shared, the emojis look legit.
But the fact that neither of them actually
have emojis in their channel names to begin with,
just confuses me.
But then if you look at BigT's play button,
it would be off centre without the emoji,
and they wouldn't have printed it off-centre.
So I am so confused.
I think that this is real.
I think you can get emojis on a play button,
and it is time for us to answer that question once and for all.
I am very, very nervous.
All right, here we go.
We have some felt.
The answer is on the other side of this felt.
Will there be a cute little globe emoji?
Side note, thanks for 100K on Geography Stuff, by the way.
I actually do really appreciate it.
Anyway, this is it. I'm too nervous.
We've got our classic YouTube letter. Very nice.
That all looks fairly standard.
I'm going to dip my hand under.
What else can I find?
Oh, oh, oh.
We've got another package by Rick card.
There's the little fella. Standard, unsigned.
Now the moment of truth.
I can't wait any longer.
Do we have an emoji on a play button?
No. No, we don't.
But the Softwilly and the BigT, they looked real, right?
Where is it? Where is it?
At this point, I was truly heartbroken by what had just unfolded.
Where was the emoji?
Was it a lie all along?
Totally defeated, I turned off the recording.
But that night, I couldn't sleep.
I wasn't ready to let go.
The emoji play buttons I'd seen looked so real.
But hope was not lost.
I had an idea.
Hope is a four-letter word.
Do you know what else is four letters?
Rick.
Rick: "Hey."
A couple of months ago, I got this award
for 1 billion total upload views.
The award came with this handwritten congrats note from Rick,
the fellow who oversees manufacturing the YouTube awards.
As well as this lovely note,
he gave me this beautiful card that has Rick's contact information on the back.
I emailed Rick to ask him directly.
Are emojis on play buttons a thing, yes or no?
Rick got back to me.
I have started seeing symbols and emojis on plaques recently.
What? What?
It's real. It's all real.
But why didn't my play button have one?
So I then begged Society Awards for a new redemption code
so that I could order a replacement play button.
And for the first time in two years, they accepted my request.
I ordered the play button again, and I then emailed Society Awards again
just to make sure that they will definitely add the emoji this time.
And they told me, "I'll make sure the symbol is added to your order."
However, nothing's arrived yet and it's been a couple of weeks.
So this saga will continue into 2023.
See you next year for my first video back
when I will finally confirm if it is possible
to get an emoji on a play button.
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