'No One: Meme' Goes Wrong, As YouTube Apologized After Its Tone-Deaf Tweet

A meme should be funny. Done in an incorrect way can result to catastrophe, as YouTube has shown.

In a then-deleted tweet on Twitter, YouTube poked fun at how long many content creators on its platform are taking to get to the subject, by using the 'No One:' meme.

While it was certain that YouTube didn't meant to mock, but many content creators were displeased.

The seemingly harmless tweet that appeared comparatively innocent, quickly went controversial, and met with criticism and backlash.

This prompted YouTube to delete it, and issue an apology.

According to the YouTube Social Team, the tweet was meant in good faith, but it admitted that it "missed the mark and did not reflect the spirit of the Creator community."

"We hear you. You’re right and we apologize," said the YouTube Social Team.

"Our now-deleted Tweet was intended in good faith, but we missed the mark and did not reflect the spirit of the Creator community that we love."

YouTube extremely values content creators who are capable of holding viewers as long as attainable.

On the other hand, its algorithms somehow value quantity over quality, meaning that it can crush channels that don't bring much views or engagements, or activities. This in turn can make the videos difficult to get views to start with.

And in this then-deleted tweet, YouTube is like insulting every single content creator on its platform who struggles to get their work seen.

Simply put, YouTube criticized content creators that wants to make a living through the incentives that YouTube decides.

"It is like giving your daughter allowance based on hours studied, not grades, then complaining she studies too much," wrote a Twitter user who complained.

This is where YouTube missed the mark.

Before 2012, YouTube used 'total number of views' as its primary factor in ranking videos.

After updating its algorithms, YouTube put 'watch time' higher up.

Watch time, that is also known as audience retention, is the total amount of time in aggregate that viewers spend watching content creators' videos. With a higher watch time, YouTube is more likely to promote the channel through its search and recommended videos.

This in turn, can translate to even more views.

So ideally, videos topping in this metric result in higher overall viewing sessions.

It's this fact that often made many content creators create longer-than-needed videos to explain subjects and topics that can be briefly explained. For example, a 15 minutes videos to describe something that can be simply explained in just a few sentence.

But for a good cause, a longer video does bring a lot of benefits.

For example, it allows content creators to put a character to their videos, which in turn allows them to create a brand for themselves. This will make their channels unique, and able to compete with others similar.

With longer videos, not only that watch time will increase, as engagement can also get higher, with the videos receiving more comments and likes. This will make YouTube a community that is active and informational to the general audience.

So indeed, YouTube was rather tone-deaf on its then-deleted tweet. But it's a good thing that it quickly realized its mistake.