Boycott YouTube Movement Enters Second Week
The Boycott YouTube movement has entered its second week, with organizers reporting “significant” membership growth in the face of “aggressive fabrication” from offshore YouTube farms.
“This is not random junk,” said Leonard Voss, 56, a digital-media researcher who keeps screenshots of clickbait in folders labeled by degree of falsehood.
“Fact-checkers have traced AI-generated false stories to an operation based in Vietnam, which churns out nearly identical false narratives about many musicians and other celebrities. They aren’t even writing new lies anymore. They’re just changing the names on the old ones.”
“I have not opened YouTube in nine days,” said Marjorie Fennimore, 61, a retired title examiner who is documenting her withdrawal in a three-ring binder labeled ABSTINENCE LOG.
“I watched a video about tomato blight,” Fennimore said. “Now YouTube is suggesting ‘Frank Sinatra DESTROYED John Lennon on Live Television,’ which did not happen, narrated by a voice that sounds like it’s reading a ransom note through a fan.”
Boycott YouTube’s initial grievance, ratified at a folding table outside the Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, Public Library, cites a proliferation of bogus talk-show confrontations, invented celebrity feuds, and videos promising “five people they secretly could not stand,” all employing the same three-dot clickbait construction regardless of decade, genre, or whether the alleged participants were even alive at the same time. There ought to be a law, or at least a posted warning.
Harold Pruitt, 74, a semi-retired notary, has taken matters into his own hands. “I turn off Watch History so it stops learning what upsets me,” said Pruitt, who has filed eleven 311 complaints about a recurring video claiming Perry Como once “went off” on a studio audience member. “Then I mark everything ‘Not Interested’ or ‘Don’t Recommend Channel.’ It isn’t always foolproof. Another one might show up next week, probably about Andy Griffith finally snapping on Barney.”
Boycott organizers have advised members not to search YouTube for information about the boycott after several participants reported immediately receiving videos titled “Why Everyone Is QUITTING YouTube …” and “The REAL Reason YouTube Is FINISHED …”
“That’s how it gets you,” said movement coordinator Denise Carstairs, 58, a dental office manager who keeps her passwords alphabetized. “You complain about YouTube, and YouTube recommends videos about people complaining about YouTube.”
The boycott will continue indefinitely, organizers said, or until YouTube can produce documentation confirming that any of the eleven celebrity feuds currently circulating on the platform actually occurred.
A signature drive is scheduled for next Thursday outside the library, weather and Wi-Fi permitting.
Organizers have asked participants not to film it.
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