The good and the bad in the YouTube community

(do not bother reading if you are not bothered by the YouTube community or do not like going into gritty topics)

I (being a person who watches MANY YouTubers) have recently begun to notice more and more how the YouTube community is doing both positive and negative things to people's lives and our society. 

For instance, take the "Zoella Beauty" range. 
As soon as I heard about this, I was so happy for Zoe - as well as excited to buy the range itself! Everything about it seems so sweet from what I've seen on her blog and her vlog channel. And it was all made possible by her blog, YouTube channel and general internet popularity. Isn't it great how someone's life can be completely changed by that?
You will also find examples of this when you look at YouTuber best friends such as Zoe&Louise and Dan&Phil. How else would they have met each other? Some people owe internet fame their friendships, and that is an amazing thing. 

However, there is always a downside to internet fame. Sometimes YouTubers are faced with a scary pressure to satisfy their audience, leading them to panic and upset themselves. Or, in more extreme instances, yes - the Sam Pepper problem. I am not the kind of person who writes bad stuff about people online, but this particular subject really gets on my nerves.

(For more information, watch Laci Green's video)

If Sam Pepper had not been lead to believe that his disgusting public experiment of the "Fake Hand Ass Pinch Prank" would satisfy his audience, would he have still pulled the prank? I think not. 

Why? Because as soon as he realised that what he had posted had caused so much controversy, he carried on to claim that what he had done was simply a "public experiment", and made such a show of it. If you watch his "THE REVEAL" edition of the prank, he claims that he did it all to make people think about sexual harassment and went into a whole lot of rubbish about why he did what he did. This is just a useless excuse. 

And this is not the only instance in which he has made young women feel vulnerable in his "pranks". In the past, he has handcuffed girls and told them that he would only set them free if they kissed him.
Obviously, I am only 14, so I am highly unlikely to be involved in this kind of thing. However, if he did that to me, I would call for help immediately. No matter how you look at it, he is essentially forcing girls to kiss him against their will.
Despite this, in the video, you see girls laughing in bewilderment. As I person who often laughs when in shock, what people don't understand is that laughing is merely a natural response to shock. Just because the person is laughing doesn't mean that they are amused. In situations such as this one, most people are upset, angry or just scared, even when they are laughing. 

This is why I am irritated by the fact that many people seem to be saying "she isn't uncomfortable, she's laughing because it's funny". Nooo. You don't understand what this laugh means. What this laugh means is: Did he really just do that??? -.- or I am terrified but I don't know how to object to this without seeming rude :(

The only thing more annoying than Sam's "prank" is the fact that so many people are defending him when what he did (along with everything else than can be labelled as sexual harassment) is inexcusable. 
It just goes to prove how YouTube, along with many other aspects of social media, can negatively affect people's views on serious issues that are not a laughing matter. Do we really want young people to grow up thinking it's acceptable to pinch people asses in the street, even as a joke??? No it's not, it is sexual harassment, and it is illegal!

This is why I am so happy that this also happened:

This is the kind of behavior that restores my faith in the YouTube community (not that my faith in the community really needs restoring when you look at how many wonderful people are part of it). 

Sorry this wasn't really a positive blog post. I just needed to rant for a while about this, and I figured I may as well blog about it since it is about recent events. I try to be a happy and positive person, but sometimes I feel you just have to vent before you can settle down. 

Rant angrily to you soon,

Lucy x

(jks... hopefully)

(P.S: It has also come to my attention that there is also something worse going on in the YouTube community between Sam Pepper and some very distressed people, though I'm not even going to TRY to go into that.)

For more information: click here to see YouTube Nation's view on this.