YouTube: intrusive ads in feminist talks

[boatyardblues]

I’ll preface by saying I don’t watch a lot on YouTube and I’m not signed up, so view as a guest. Watching Benjamin Boyce’s talks with Stephanie Davies-Arai a few days ago, I was struck by the number of ads. Today, watching his 2019 talk with Kathleen Stock I’m only at the 26 min mark and there have already been 5 or 6 ads, pretty much every 4 mins. It’s really irritating, but it occurred to me that perhaps it is meant to be. Is this common across YouTube or are feminist topics and speakers being targetted with more intrusive advertising? Given the shitty behaviour of other platforms towards silencing feminists and women in general, I would not be at all surprised. It seems to be getting worse too. I’ll continue watching, noting the products (so I can actively avoid them) and skipping the ads, but I’m willing to bet the endless videos of petrolheads drivelling on about cars, rednecks fishing in muddy creeks, silly Australian men dropping stuff off towers to see it smash and overwatch-type streamers are far less intrusively targetted, ‘cause important manly topics. Amirite?

I think it's anything perceived as unwoke. Even for people who have been demonetised, so they don't benefit in any way. It does seem to be a pattern anecdotally (with Posie Parker etc), it would be interesting to see if other Boyce videos on different topics get the same treatment or whether he himself has been marked as a wrongthinker.

My adblocker stops all this. I was able to concentrate on the lengthy and informative discussion between Stephanie and Benjamin with no interruptions.

Which adblocker do you use?

Posie's videos have lots of ads. I agree that it's deliberate and a way of trying to put people off. As if that would ever work!

This is actually a good sign!

Ad revenue is shared with the person who posted the video. If YouTube disapprove of content they "demonetize" it, which means no ads and hence no revenue for the video creator.

Ad revenue is shared with the person who posted the video. If YouTube disapprove of content they "demonetize" it, which means no ads and hence no revenue for the video creator.

They do this to some creators they have demonetised. So no, not always.

OP - STANDs - the Fair Adblocker.

You Tube has become very annoying lately. Randomly pausing, videos in the middle of tracks etc. I am guessing it is more to do with trying to push people onto the paid platform rather than some great anti women stance.

I use uBlock Origin (it's free) -- never see any youtube ads.

Must try a better as blocker, clearly - I get infuriated when there's an ad mid phrase in a classical music video.

I never watch anything gender critical or feminist related on YouTube. The irritating ad breaks are on everything. This is not a conspiracy. Bernadette Banner's Abigail Cox's, Rachel Makesy's and the bloke analysing the 10 best ever acoustic guitar/ drum fills/ bass lines videos are plagued by them. You can avoid them by using YouTube premium. I'm on a free trial and it's great but it's £11 per month thereafter.

@OhHolyJesus

Posie's videos have lots of ads. I agree that it's deliberate and a way of trying to put people off. As if that would ever work!

It really isn't a deliberate way to put people off the content. It's to make money. The ads happen across all content.

I've been watching a lot of exercise videos lately and they're all increasingly interrupted by adverts. Like a pp said, I think they're pushing their paid version really hard.

Its especially fun in the "hold this stretch" moment or the "just a few more seconds of fast running on the spot". Really helpful for the general rhythm!

Yes I don't think YouTube are targeting "non woke" content specifically. They're just making it all deliberately annoying so you move to Premium.

@zzizzer

Its especially fun in the "hold this stretch" moment or the "just a few more seconds of fast running on the spot". Really helpful for the general rhythm!

Eek, that puts my mild annoyance in the middle of "I wish it could be Christmas everyday" into perspective.

I have heard, though not yet tried it, that if you start the video then pull the time slider to the end of the stream then back to the beginning, most of the ads get removed/ don't interrupt as often.

Thanks Lefthanddown. I’ll give that try.

The ads are there to try to sell the things being advertised. The idea that they are deliberately placed on Posie Parker and similar videos to discourage viewers watching the video content makes no sense at all.

Oh and OP you might want to consider reeling in some of your own prejudices. Your sneering list of "manly videos" is quite a tell.

Most of the adverts (most but not all) come with a little box on screen that counts down to when you can click the little box to “Skip Advert”, usually after 3 to 5 seconds. I very rarely see adverts where there is no option to “Skip”.

I can’t say that I have noticed more ads on feminist videos than others. It seems unlikely as if it was true it would be an indication that YouTube was deliberately rewarding feminist creatures by giving them extra income from in-video adverts.

Bear in mind that the Benjamin Boyce - Stephanie Davies-Arai video was over 1 hr 45 mins long, so there are bound to be more ads than in a 10 to 30 minute video.

It’s across the platform. I watch quite a lot of “manly” videos about powerlifting and an Australian one about fishing, (I don’t fish, but they travel into some astonishingly wild and remote country, which is fascinating) and they’re all regularly interrupted by ads. Generally the ads appear most in the first half of the video. You can see how many ads there are by looking at the timeline - the yellow parches are ads.