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on watching DID Youtube (plus: Who’s Out First)
Youtube has started reccing me channels of “plural systems making educational content based on their own experiences,” so I’ve been watching the backlogs of a bunch of those recently.
It’s…complicated?
There’s a wide range of how personal/emotional people are willing to get on-camera. (I’m just going to say “people” here, rather than trying to specify “systems and/or headmates” all the time.) But the most mild or detached videos can still touch on really vulnerable content, even before you get to the ones that deal more directly with trauma.
On the one hand: I don’t want to be judgy and paternalistic about how other people handle their mental health. I’m not their PR person. I’m definitely not the Cringe Police. People are actively filming, editing, and uploading these videos, they have self-determination, I want to honor that.
On the other: When I follow the direct links of channels recommending each other (as opposed to “the algorithm has recs for currently-popular videos”), a lot of them have been privated and/or wiped. Most of the active ones where I’ve watched a lot of the backlog, I’ve heard them make a reference to some specific video they deleted. There were actually a handful of systems whose channels I subscribed to 10 years ago — all of those are gone.
So there’s this recurring question of, when does it stop being cool to watch something? Where’s the line between “this is interesting, I’m learning things, the creator(s) will appreciate the support” and “this is invasive, I’m being ghoulish, the creator(s) will ultimately feel exploited”?
Most of the time it doesn’t come up! (At least, not in the channels I’ve ended up subscribed to.) I’ve shared links to some specific videos, where they were on-topic, when I felt good about watching the whole thing.
But then some videos I tap out partway through. Or I make it all the way to the end, but then go “you know what, I don’t feel great about having watched that, I’m not going to save or share it anywhere.”
And how many of those videos can one channel post, before you feel bad (or should feel bad) about sharing around the channel as a whole?
Ugh. Like I said. Complicated.
…to finish this off on a nice note, I ended up on this 2002 archive.org capture of a page that’s no longer live, and there’s a collection of jokes at the end.
This sketch was fun enough that I wanted to copy and save it on a more-searchable, less-dead site. I didn’t write it, the source doesn’t say who did write it, I just like it.
(CW for the characters mentioning suicide.)
Who’s Out First (a parody of Who’s On First)
– Okay, so who’s out first?
– No, Who was out yesterday.
– Who?
– Yes, Who.
– Okay, I’m asking you who was out and you’re telling me Who?
– Yes, Who.
– Well who are you?
– I’m not Who, I’m Nobody.
– Nobody?
– Nobody.
– But you can’t be nobody – you have to be somebody.
– No, Somebody’s generally angry.
– Who is angry?
– No, Who is happy. Angry is also angry.
– Of course angry is angry, but you’re definitely somebody.
– No, I’m Nobody.
– Ok, let me see if I have this…. you’re no one..
– No, I’m Nobody…. No One was out this morning.
– No one was out?
– Yeah, No One.
– Well if no one was out, who was I talking to?
– No One.
– Nobody?
– No – No One.
– Something’s wrong here….
– No, Something has been sleeping for a while.
– Who has been sleeping?
– No, Something has been sleeping. Who was out yesterday.
– But something has to be someone, doesn’t he?
– No, Someone is a he, Something is a she.
– Huh?
– Huh is asexual.
– Huh?
– Yeah, Huh.
– Excuse me, I’m going to commit suicide.
– You can’t – that’s Suicide’s job.
– AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!
no subject
On a more serious note, I get you about getting a feeling odd when watching people at their most vulnerable. I had this feeling recently while watching a video by a creator called Wonderstruck Guy about how his boss, a fellow youtuber, treated him. I don't want to go into the full story, but I'll just say he moved to a different state on her suggestion, she stole and threw away many of his personal items, and then had the gall to talk about his mental health to her audience just to discredit him. At one point (maybe even two?) he breaks down into tears on camera and he at least blurs the visuals, but the audio is still in. On the one hand, I why it was there, it really drives home how it affected him deeply and it's not like the viewers wouldn't notice he was crying if he just made a cut. On the other hand... man, it felt fucking weird in a way I find hard to describe.
no subject
I get the sense that, for people where "produce a first-person Youtube video giving your personal take directly to the camera" is the center of their career, it starts to feel natural that that's just how you'd respond to anything? So any healthy instinct for "maybe this is too private to put on video and share with the entire internet" has been warped too far to be reliable.
You'd hope people could find a way to get their stories out there that didn't involve putting themselves in whole new extremely-vulnerable positions =(
[bee]
idk if you do French? just in case, Partielles' videos on DID (and plurality more generally) have been an Extremely Good resource for us, both personally and for educating others. some (not all afaik) videos have english subs! most, if not all, videos do have Actual Non-Automated Closed Captioning in French, so maybe autotranslating the captions would work well enough?
like, they've got 101 basic educational videos (which u probably do not need at this point) and other content that goes deeper in terms of mechanics, common (and less common) plural experiences, self-help for systems, etc. and maybe it's that their primary content focus is so clearly on educational, but with their stuff we've definitely never run into the "oh no, that's a super personal video about some extremely sensitive/private details that i'm not sure would be ok to share around" vibe we've gotten elsewhere (i see exactly what you mean unfortunately......)
also that skit is hilarious and a mood, i love it. thank u for sharing sdffsf (the page also was an interesting read -- behold!! an old internet DID page we didn't know about!!! -- and im still kinda digesting all of it, but. as a European. reading the description of what health insurance was (and still is afaik) like in the US gives me figurative hives ngl)
(complete only-mildly-related sidebar also, i find it so so funny how we stumbled upon your fanfics in like 20...14? 15? ish, and LB's multi stuff in 2016, from Completely Different Places And Purposes. and then years later got to have a "?????? why is the internet so small" moment the first time we saw you comment on LB's stuff here lol)
Re: [bee]
US health insurance is way better in 2023 than it was when that page was live! ...Still with more than its share of holes, sadly =(
Small internet indeed. (I'm sure it helps that we're both DW fans...who knows how quick we would've lost all contact if one or both of us had migrated to, say, Reddit.)
no subject
I feel like video is especially prone to parasocial pitfalls, and just about any multi in public has a learning curve over what they are and aren't willing to share, especially as the online world changes in norms. What may have been totally acceptable five years ago is basis for harassment now, and the easiest way to dodge is to just... shut down the account.
Multi Youtube is a place we have spent zero time on, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it has a terrible burnout rate, especially combined with algorithmic pressure and all.
no subject
I've mostly avoided the comment sections, and I've resolutely avoided anything that leans toward Youtube Drama (let alone any of the videos that are clearly about harassing people). But the bits I've picked up around the edges suggest you're not wrong.