My original Dark Souls 3 parody was demonetized yesterday, now it's back (kinda).

I think my hair turned gray yesterday. I was livid, thinking of the future of my Dork Souls 3 series and why such a decision was taken. First think I did, was changing the thumbnail and ask for a manual review. Later at night the monetization was apparently back (didn't get any email, but it was showing as "green" in my video manager, and it still is).

It goes without saying that this was huge relief but some damage has been done. You can see it from the graph, the cartoon was no a roll in terms of views (and i'm so grateful for that, you guys love watching this toon)...then the demonetization took effect (the flat-line), and today as you can see the views (and recommendations) are still not as good as before. I just hope that this is just a temporal thing and the toon is not stained forever.
I think of all the fellow animators that get unfairly striked by this type of stuff. It just sucks. I'm sure my video was targeted because of its high popularity....still, the system has major flaws that shouldn't be there. It's a cartoon for fuck's sake, not a terrorist shooting clickbait video.

Which brings me to the topic of artistic integrity: to avoid any possibility of not getting the monetization back, I changed the thumbnail by covering the "middle finger". Which still bothers me a bit. There's no way to know for certain if THAT was the real reason why it got demonetized, it could just be a random algorithm or other factors, but I didn't want to take any chances. I might switch the thumbnail later, I was thinking of having Cinder doing the "metal horns" instead. Which has 3 fingers sticking out, symbolizing Dark Souls 3 (get it?). But what do you guys think? Still, I'll wait a couple of days for the dust to settle.

Anyways, I'll see you guys tonight, I really want to stream and chill out with all of you. <3 I need it.

https://www.twitch.tv/matthewshezmen