The TheBenCrazy Update Update
By TheBenCrazy
Posted 10/20/23 12:00 AM
Why the new website? Where did your install tutorials go? Why Haven't you uploaded a video in a while?
Well, it's a long story...
On September 9th, 2019 I released my NASCAR Racing 2003 Installation Tutorial. It was one of my bigger videos and one that I did for three reasons. One was I wanted to preserve the game and give everyone an easy walk-through because installing the game without a guide can be hard if you weren't tech-savvy. I wanted a safe download location so everyone was not downloading viruses and malware. And lastly, people were and are still being told to disable Data Execution Prevention (DEP) on their computers to get the game running correctly which was not only false information but also dangerous to anyone that does it. The real reason the game was not loading was an incorrect No-CD patch (The correct one is 3.7mb and the incorrect one is 4.21mb) which my download location had the correct patch.
It was smooth sailing on YouTube until a year later on June 25th, 2021, I got an email that the video was demonetized and an age restriction had been placed on it. Now looking at it from YouTube's side, it made sense. During that period, there were a lot of videos being released on how to illegally download new games and games that were still available for purchase so it was understandable that my video would be put in the same category, even if that was not the case.
Now, even though it was only two years ago, YouTube was handling things differently. This was just an age restriction and it didn't cause the removal of the video or any actions to be taken on my channel.
Although I was angry that I wasn't making money, that wasn't the reason I made the video and users that were signed in to Youtube were still able to view the video.
I did appeal the decision stating that the game was no longer being sold and had become abandonware which was successful. The age restriction was removed but I was still not able to make money on the video.
My interests later began to change and soon after so did the content on my channel, I made all the NASCAR Racing 2003 content I could and it was time to make content on stuff that I was excited to make. I started uploading some opinion pieces, iRacing guides, race vlogs and other things I was interested in.
I was also getting into restoring my old family VHS tapes which soon led me to restore my old NASCAR tapes I had since I was a kid. It was great to be able to see these old tapes upscaled and restored which drove me to start searching on eBay for more of them.
It was not long after that I had amassed quite a sizable collection of tapes dating from the late 80s, 90s, and some from the early 2000s. Of course, it wouldn't make sense to keep this all to myself so I began a series on my channel called Throwback Saturday where every week during the NASCAR off-season I would release a restored video on my channel.
It also helped that NASCAR was going into its 75th anniversary as it led nicely into the 50th anniversary which was around when most of these tapes were made.
Once the NASCAR season started, I was pretty much through my collection of NASCAR tapes and my uploads began to slow down as I was more focused on helping Moonhead continue to grow MOONCAR as well as building up the CORE League.
With my experience growing, I soon was running race control for other leagues and major iRacing events whenever they needed help which took focus away from my YouTube channel.
But one thing that I could not miss was my traditional April Fools Day video.
As most of my free time has been spent on race control, I didn't have the time needed to do a proper April Fools video, but I did have a copy of Fish 'N' Bloopers by Bill Dance. So for April Fools, that was my upload and I thought nothing of it until a couple of months went by.
IT BLEW UP
Unexpectedly and completely out of the blue, the YouTube algorithm decided it was the day to pick up the April Fools video and run with it. Normally, these restored videos would get around a thousand views and some would get slightly more. The Bill Dance video was at 3,000 views until the next day it was 10,000, and then 25,000, and then at the end of the week 60,000 views.
At the time, this was amazing news. This meant I could order more tapes and continue feeding this hobby of restoring these old videos that people of my generation and younger were never able to watch. But there's a bunch of sayings about this kind of situation. Don't count your chickens before they hatch, don't look a gifted horse in the mouth...
Demonetized
It seemed that the video was getting popular, way too popular. So much so that it caught the eye of YouTube. In their eyes, all of this restoration work was reused content and because of that, not only is this video demonetized, your whole channel is demonetized and you have to wait 3 months before you can reapply.
I was mad, but I understood the reasoning. I mean, it is reused content. I understand that they do not care how much time was spent messing with plugin settings to get each video to look as best as possible. In their eyes, I'm simply re-uploading other people's work.
Now, I wish it was handled differently of course but I also know this is the new YouTube and they handle things differently than two years ago. Fine, I'll take down the restored videos and move them to a secondary channel and I'll eat the three months of lost revenue.
Community Guidelines Warning?
"Really? Haven't I already taken care of this two years ago when I won the appeal for NR2003? Now you are taking down an install tutorial of a game that's even older and on top of that giving me a warning!?" - I said, screaming into the black void that is YouTube's team.
I didn't want to risk getting a strike on my channel so that meant removing the NR2003 install tutorial as well. YouTube decided it was time to pick on the small channels recently and unfortunately, I was part of it. I understood YouTube's side of it the first time around but I would think there would be some kind of system that would note the previous actions taken on my channel and that my previous successful appeal would show but that's too much for a little multi-billion dollar company to handle.
What Now?
Well, a new website. For the past couple months, I have been building this website as a new and improved resource for sim racing guides and information. A new install guide and graphics guide has been made for NASCAR Racing 2003 and there is more to come. Some links will continue to point to previously made YouTube videos while others will lead you in the correct direction. There is also merch around my brand, race control phrases, and around some NASCAR Racing references which you can buy to support me and all of this content. In the future, I hope to build upon this with news articles, opinion pieces and so on but for now, I'll start with putting the easy puzzle pieces together first. In the meantime though, I'm TheBenCrazy and I'll see you later.