Utubedrama.com and Trevor Rieger

Celebrities have the supermarket tabloids running exaggerated or dramatized tales of their every move, misquoting their every step. YouTubers have Trevor Rieger and his "news" site, www.utubedrama.com (URL 9.4), as shown in Figure 9-4.

Figure 9-4. Utubedrama.com's Trevor Rieger gives well-known YouTubers their own page on his site; here's mine.

Trevor began on YouTube with the username utubedrama. He made videos in which he exposed high- and low-profile YouTubers for cheating, "gaming the system," or participating in other unfair practices. He found users who autorefreshed, and he grabbed screenshots of their behavior over time to present "evidence" of their actions. He looked through subscriber lists and shined his spotlight on those creating ghost accounts and sock puppets just to subscribe to themselves. He entertained a few people, got a few people removed from the site for breaking the terms of use, and made more than one person cry and threaten to leave YouTube after they were exposed.

DROPPING DOCS

Dropping docs is the act of posting someone's personal information on the Internet. It can be their legal name (if they use a screen name), address, telephone number, or any other piece of personal information. This is usually done by haters, users who take pride in and have fun disrupting the lives of others. Sometimes the numbers of the user's employer, friends, and family members are posted instead, and other haters are encouraged to call and harass these people. Most consider dropping docs a serious violation of trust and netiquette. It clearly violates YouTube's community guidelines:

"There is zero tolerance for predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, invading privacy, or the revealing of other members' personal information. Anyone caught doing these things may be permanently banned from YouTube."

http://youtube.com/t/community_guidelines (URL 9.3)

Dropping docs is a violation of the terms of service of almost every social networking site in the world. In some cases (resulting in harassment or physical injury of the people being outed), it results in criminal prosecution. You could go to jail. Don't do it.

Eventually, Trevor upset enough of the right people, and his account was suspended. Trevor now continues exposing cheaters and YouTube celebrities on his own server. Utubedrama.com collects each day's activities from cheaters, or users gaming the system, typically by using one or more of the gimmicks listed in this chapter. The site also embeds a few key videos from the last few days, usually of e-beggars or people claiming they're leaving the site because of this or that.

The site is entertaining, even if most of what it "reports" seems to be taken out of context or tends to perhaps be misquoted. Trevor claims most of his information comes from other YouTube users ratting on each other and also boasts that he will keep all emails and messages in the strictest of confidence. When you're first starting out, you probably don't want to end up on one of Trevor's drama reports—that usually means you're doing something you shouldn't be. However, as your channel grows and you gain a few thousand subscribers, you'll become a target for people like Trevor, and at that point, you'll be able to laugh off most of what he reports. I certainly did.