“Hey everyone, let’s hang out together for a day, talk about charity and mess with YouTube’s head” was the initiating idea behind the Project for Awesome, and that idea hasn’t changed much in the last three years.

We get big YouTubers involved so that they can reach their large audiences with messages that coca cola would pay six figures for. Jeez, I’m so sorry.

And we get smaller YouTubers involved so that we can spot new talent, make connections in the community and teach a younger generation that philanthropy in a secular society isn’t just for Bill Gates, but that we can all do our part. Again, my apologies if this seems like a horrible thing to do for the world.

I mean, I’m thrilled that we’ve found a way that we can accomplish all of those goals in one day with one project, it’s a testament to the power of community and it’s something I’m really proud of.

The fact that anyone could hear the idea and immediately assume that it’s some kind of money-making scheme for my brother and I makes me worry a bit about the state of the world…but I was pretty worried already, so I guess it’s all good.

- Hank Green

Then again, even if people don’t give a crap about Jesus, he these days is accepted as a good guy, and *he* received a ton of hate. Mostly from people who saw him as a threat. Why attack this project? Are you threatened by what is happening? If you’re upset about it, then don’t log on to YouTube for like three days. I promise, epic FAILS and cute kittens will be back when you return.

And also, I’d like to note that this assumption is ill-informed if not entirely spurious:

“The Vlogbothers pyramid works by promising the people at the bottom of the pyramid they will get lots of comments that will generate lots of views when their video hits the honors pages if they take part in the spam. The truth of course is that only a few YouTubers that already have large followings will appear on the honors pages and of them only a tiny number will make it to the Most Popular pages.”

For one, no one was promised lots of views. The idea was that views generated would be for charities instead of the general funny and cute things generating views. No where was it promised, written, or anything that your specific video would receive anymore attention than you would normally get.

The other part of this is that the large-following crowd would be the only ones to be promoted. Unless you consider my 85 subscribers a large following, then my video being promoted challenges your theory, “1000″.

First: One thing is for sure; whatever issues you have are not going to be resolved by anonymous rants here. Why would anybody give a rat’s ass about your perceived injustices if you don’t even have the guts to declare your position in the scheme of things.

Second: Whatever criteria there are for getting featured / promoted, people will always figure it out and exploit it. Such is the cutthroat nature of marketing. It is also impossible to create a perfectly fair system for everybody, all the time. (The problem inherently overconstrained in the case that it is nontrivially well-defined.)

Third: You do realize that the content creators don’t own YouTube, right? It is owned by Google and they are entitled to run it however the hell they want. Nobody has a constitutional right to equal opportunity promotion on YouTube. YouTube isn’t obligated to feature you or anyone else. Obviously YouTube wants to keep its creators happy, but as with most businesses, it’s often not who you are but who you know. If you don’t like it, go find somewhere else to build the Utopian community you are seeking.

Either stop your damned bitching, or grow some balls, reveal who you are, and do something besides whining about how life it unfair.

first, you’re anonymous.

second, you know way to much about youtubers in general, especially Phil, and it’s close enough to look pretty unhealthy.

third, you’re speculating all over the place.

fourth, other than Chad and Steve Mark Day isn’t the only guy who works and gets high at YouTube.

fifth, if this is such a big deal why not put all your cards out on the table and say who you are? What’s your channel? If you’re going to play tuber advocate then get up off your ass, come out and take a real stand cause I’ll tell you this, using your approach does nothing for change.