Becoming a Youtube star seems to be a dream job throughout Gen-Z. Getting to put out videos according to your accord, uploading videos that are fun while making money from ads, does not sound bad right ? I mean who wouldn’t want this job? Even though is it seems great to the eyes of an everyday teen, is being a YouTube creator really all that perfect and fun? 

YouTube creators put out videos whenever they want unless under contract. This classifies them as independent contractors since they are paid by Google directly through a program called AdSense. It might sound easy to just upload videos and make money off it, but there is more to it. Creating content on YouTube comes with more than setting up a camera and speaking to your audience. There are a lot of logistics that go into a single video. Creators have to deal with copyright issues, customer service issues, and great financial stress. Take it from me, student by day and YouTuber by night.

“I try resolving the copyright issues but sometimes my appeals get denied,” says Julian, p/k/a JuOnDaBeat, a musical producer & YouTube creator, “Even if I can prove the video is originally mine, YouTube doesn’t take the extra step to actually solve your problems.” 

Here are the typical steps for copyright claims: you upload a video, the video or audio looks or sounds like another one, the video’s distributor claims that video, and now your video can no longer have ads run on them. No ads mean no money. This is not a problem that happens now and then, it happens to me and many other people like JuOnDaBeat several times a month, which causes a strain on money.

With any ordinary job comes financial stress. However, the stress from creators differs from that of 9-5 workers. Since YouTube creators get paid from ads, they need to get a lot of viewers that actually watch those ads, meaning if viewership goes down, money also goes down. 

Graphs depicting my personal viewership and revenue show that not only do I have to worry about how to get the views up, but I have to worry about my money also taking a deflating hit. Throughout all the dips in both viewership and revenue, I was running around my room wondering how to bring my numbers back up so much that my normal uploading schedule was affected. I made fewer videos and so my money took a toll as well. It’s fairly easy to make a few thousand dollars from YouTube, but it’s even easier to lose it.

Working from home, editing your videos, and getting paid well was a dream job at one point for many of us . Like any other job, being a YouTube creator brings about several issues that aren’t much talked about. With abundant copyright claims, poor customer service, and a difficulty-to-keep regulated income, the dream job everybody wanted is harder than what they might have imagined.

Where do you go if you are having trouble with your account? If your AdSense payment has been delayed? If you need to resolve a closed claim that you believe is still wrongful? No one. Google has most of their policies online, meaning most questions people have are online as well. “They don’t really do much,” says Bryan, p/k/a Sito, “I think they’re confident in their policies so they don’t even have customer service just in case.”