Black Gamer CoryxKenshin Slams YouTube for Racism and Favoritism
CoryxKenshin is not backing down from a fight.
The Black gamer and YouTuber, who joined the video-sharing platform in 2009, has been one of the biggest creators on the platform for over a decade. But according to him, YouTube is now showing racism and favoritism against him.
On August 24, 2022, he uploaded a video titled 'YouTube: Racism and Favoritism,' where he explained his recent experiences with what he felt were racially discriminatory behavior from YouTube towards him.
CoryxKenshin Accuses YouTube of Racism and Favoritism
"The allegations I am levying towards YouTube are extremely serious, and I am taking this video extremely seriously," the gamer explained right off the bat, saying he would try his best to explain the situation as well as he possibly could so there was no "lost context."
He also did not want to be the person who made accusations of racism or favoritism just because he was Black. Cory even admitted to having his doubts about similar things in the past but let them go because he did not think they were worth making a big deal out of.
The YouTuber then accused YouTube of either "playing favorites," being racist, or a mix of both. Then, he delved into the context and the proof he had for his accusations, saying he could "no longer let it slide."
On August 18, 2022, he had uploaded a playthrough of The Mortuary Assistant. The video, soon after going live, got age-restricted for allegedly violating their Suicide & Self-Harm policy without a proper explanation from YouTube, which he discussed in a subsequent video.
He then saw everyone else playing the same game and uploading playthroughs on their YouTube channels and checked their videos out. Turns out, it was only his video that was age-restricted.
CoryxKenshin blasts YouTube for racism. (Photo: CoryxKenshin/Instagram)
After finding this out, he appealed the restriction, only for it to get rejected. He even got his YouTube representative to have a look at the restriction, who said a part of the video at the end might have something to do with the ban.
Cory said he again went back to other people's videos to see if they had the part his rep discussed, which pertained to a character dealing with mental health issues. As an example, he said Markiplier's video had something akin to his, and his video was not age-restricted.
After sending Markiplier's video clip to his rep and then to the policy team, he was surprised at YouTube's decision-making. He said he expected YouTube to stand their ground and instead age-restrict Markiplier's video. However, YouTube removed his age restriction.
Cory claimed YouTube used Markiplier's video to "verify [his] innocence." After this, he sent a lengthy email to his YouTube rep detailing his feelings about racism and favoritism he felt were at play in this situation.
He also expressed his wishes to sit down with the policy team to get some clarification on the matter.
He wished to know 1) if his video was bot-reviewed or human-reviewed, 2) if it was a human, who was the person, and why did they age-restrict his video, and 3) why did it take Markiplier's video to lift his restriction. After two or so days, YouTube re-age-restricted his video and did the same to Markiplier's video.
According to him, this was YouTube or the policy team's way to silence or stop him from bringing up the issue again. "You realize how bad this looks for you, YouTube?" he questioned. "You realize how unfair this comes across?"
CoryxKenshin Details Similar Experiences on YouTube Black
After the above timeline, Cory said he had been feeling YouTube's racism and favoritism for a long time.
Cory is known to leave and come back on YouTube. And every time he comes back, he immediately becomes the number one trending topic on the platform.
However, in his experience, he only remained at the top for a short while before YouTube found "some arbitrary issue" to drag him down each time. He pointed to the previous time he came back on the platform when YouTube copyrighted a 2019 video of him.
"Why don't these issues ever crop up when I'm not uploading?" Cory questioned.
Further into the video, he also talked about YouTube Black and said the move was "condescending and patronizing" to Black creators.
He thought the concept of a separate platform for Black creators assumed they were not good enough to compete on the regular YouTube.
"Fake! It's fake, that's what it is!" he exclaimed towards the end of the video. He also apologized for letting his emotions get into the video when it was never his intention.
While a plethora of fans and followers have been supporting the creator, YouTube is yet to make a public statement about this.