Getting Fired from YouTube

I’ve been a monetized YouTube partner for about 10 years. It’s never been more than pocket change but at the height of my active years it was a fun little piece of pride. My channel has over 1.7 million views, 800k from my Cat Toilet Training video back in 2007. But still 🙂 it racked up over 2,000 subscribers and that was nothing to sneeze at. At least for me. Apparently it wasn’t enough for Youtube’s new partner program. Starting this February, my 1000+ hours of views isn’t enough to make the cut off criteria (4k hours per year) and I will no longer be eligible for monetizing my videos. So I guess the good news is that there shouldn’t be any adds on my Cat Toilet Training video coming up soon. But actually, I’m not sure about that … maybe Youtube slaps an ad on your video even if you don’t receive any income from it. We will have to wait and see!

For me, it is just another door that is closing. As I am in the final stretch of closing doors and wrapping up what it means to be chronically ill and winding down. There’s a sadness, as piece of “Do you know who I am?” falls away and in truth, I barely remember who I was. I certainly don’t have the stamina to make videos any more. Even small projects I take on, don’t seem to find their way to the light of day, as they once did back in my heyday which was always more like mayday if I am keeping it real.

Truth is, it was never about the money or the “status” — though I am as much of a material girl as the next avatar — I use to say that I’d do what I did in my career, even if I didn’t get paid. Because I have always been in the fortunate (privilege) position to love what I did and I still love what I do even as that amounts to much a do about no-thing.

So this is goodbye to something almost non-tangible, certainly insignificant. The auto-deposit won’t even be noticed since it is now so small and Life is so expensive. I tip the instacart driver more on a small delivery than I make in 90 days from Google. But it is yet another layer of the egoic mind which claimed an identity — of being “special” in some trivial way. That obviously wasn’t a small thing to me because it’s made it into the blog which is usually reserved to my own insanity or adorable things my kids bring to the light of day.

If truth be told … the redneck and I are working on a 100 Day Video. Which we started before I got fired from Youtube. It will be a few weeks before that project hits the can. So in any real way, the “change” won’t mean anything in terms of what I do or how I do it. I’ll still get “inspired” to create something that I want to hang on the virtual refrigerator. And it will get a few views now and Zen as people judge, snicker and contemplate whatever it is that feels personal to them in the moment and actually has nothing to do with “me”.

At this point in the game, I am getting use to being “less than”. And this is just one more reminder that who ever I use to be. I am no longer. If that sounds over dramatic, or slightly sad … I’ll own the tinge of melancholy over loosing my youtube partnership, but in truth over all I feel lighter with each passing year that I no longer have to hold up to somebody else’s standard of who I should be.

I am … currently Karma Ann Kelley … but beyond a name … I simply sit in the emptiness of any name, label, category or artificial affiliation. And on a good day, I very much like who I am. And on a bad day … I am grateful to those close to me who remind me that there will be good days again.