Treasure Seekers: Brutal Truth

Gullible Is Not in the Dictionary
It might seem hard to believe, but YouTube hasn’t been around forever. And back in its early years, one of the most hated videos around was a two-minute sarcastic rant about how gullible is not really a word. Most people didn’t agree. Angry Little Girl, the YouTuber behind it, spends most of the short running time blasting cultural institutions, like education and religion, for the blatant lies and statistics they feed the masses, before asking her viewers to question what’s taught to them and not be so gullible. And, to be fair, that is exactly what they did.

Vlogs Gone Wrong
Everyone has that one epic moment they wish could have been shared with the world. Thankfully, YouTube’s got everyone covered – as a cheap smartphone is enough to reach an audience of potential millions. Thus the word vlog was invented. The “Gone Wrong” trend used to be memorable and surprising when it first started out, but that was before it blew up into a cultural phenomenon and easy click-bait. Once it became obvious that most of these mishaps were about as authentic as, well, any reality-show ever, it might have been time to put it to bed. That said, we did get one kick-ass parody video out of it, so…worth it?

Drama Alert
A channel that thrives on creating controversy, DramaAlert and its host Keemstar cover social media related “news”, with a focus on revealing “truths” about other YouTubers. In 2016, things were taken a step too far, when Keemstar exposed Tony, a 62-year-old Twitch user, as a pedophile who used Runescape to target minors. Unsurprisingly, this led to a massive witch-hunt, and the elderly gamer was harassed online to the point of tears. The problem is that Tony was completely innocent, and John Phillips, the culprit Keemstar was actually referring to, was already in prison.

Pop Song Parodies
Over the last few years, there has been no shortage of celebrities ripe for a good roasting. One of the most over-saturated parody styles is to transform a popular music video into a twisted vehicle of ridicule. The best not only leave the viewer rolling on the floor, but also effectively use the medium as a means to critique the hypocrisy of pop culture icons and society in general. The rest joke about the celebrity’s appearance, overuse gross-out humor, or dub in their own exaggerated vocals just for the hell of it. If YouTube has taught us anything, it’s that Weird Al Yankovic has nothing to worry about.

Prank Channels
With some of these entries, ‘too much of a good thing’ is the best way to describe them. Prank channels were fine in the beginning, when they were mild and enjoyable for everyone involved. As they became more and more commonplace, the creators started escalating the gags to try and continuously shock the audience. They went from being funny social experiments to plain old harassment, with the only defense being that ‘it was just a prank, bro’. Others would hire actors to play the role of the victim, which kinds of defeats the whole point: unless the audience members are the ones being pranked?

Children Videos
Some of these topics may be annoying, but this one is just plain creepy. We’re not talking about shows for children, but videos where the whole point is to watch some stranger’s son or daughter do completely normal everyday things. There is a whole range of channels that are dedicated to filming kids opening toys, or eating chocolate, in glorious HD. With some having a view count of well over 40 million, these little tykes have been seen all around the world and have yet to even hit puberty. We hope these videos don’t come back to haunt them when they’re older.

The Annoying Orange
Look hard enough, and anything can be found on YouTube. Where else could a sketch show about an anthropomorphic orange and a ragtag group of depressed fruits thrive? Now with just over 6 million subscribers, Annoying Orange premiered in 2009 and has featured in over 400 episodes. Most videos follow the titular Orange, as he mercilessly berates another fruit until the hand of God, or in this case the hand of Chef, puts them out of their misery; typically in as gruesome a manner as possible. Showing no sign of slowing down anytime soon, it might be a while before this rotten piece of produce is finally stuffed in a blender for good.

Google+ Takes Over YouTube Comments
Since launching in 2011, Google has been slowly incorporating Google+ into as many of their services as possible. This came to a head in 2013, when the company was announced that users would need a Google+ account to leave a comment on YouTube. Although this did reduce the number of troll accounts that would flood the comment section, most saw it as a blatant attempt for the technological juggernaut to gather even more data on users. In 2015 after an unsurprising backlash, Google stopped forcing their social network on YouTubers and went back to how things used to be.

Rebecca Black – “Friday”
Almost serving as a cautionary tale for any wide-eyed teen with aspirations of super-stardom, Rebecca Black’s “Friday” might go down in history as the worst pop song ever, whether it’s warranted or not. The painfully vanilla party lyrics, which, to their credit, correctly point out that Saturday follows Friday, are made even worse due to Black’s heavily auto-tuned voice and amateurish performance. With the original video eventually racking up over 166 million views, the 13-year-old singer’s propulsion into the public consciousness saw her on the unfortunate receiving end of widespread bullying and ridicule.

React World
Famous for shows like Teens React, the Fine Brothers’ sought to expand their media empire when they announced React World in 2016. The concept was that external content creators could license the react format to create their own videos; in return, Fine Brothers Entertainment would get a percentage of the revenue earned. But users saw this as an attempt to kill the competition, which was not helped by the brothers’ track record of takedown requests on similar channels. Despite multiple attempts to backtrack, React World was abandoned and the Fine Brothers saw a large drop in subscribers, which was probably not the reaction they were expecting...