Barely Political Brings Back The YouTube Complaints Desk

Most companies outline their corporate policies in dry text documents, but leave it to YouTube to answer some frequently asked questions in the form of a video collaboration. For the second year in a row, the site opened a presentation at Vidcon with a Barely Political video that takes viewers to the YouTube Complaints Desk.

The video stars Laura McDonald as the YouTube Receptionist, who must address pressing complaints lodged by The Gregory Brothers, Prank vs. Prank, Hannah Hart, Beth Hoyt, and others. As with last year’s version, most of the complaints result in very cheesy riffs on a basic ‘what would happen if YouTube behavior occurred in real life’ joke.

A couple of the complaints do raise valid issues on YouTube, including the fairly negative response to the site’s recent layout changes. McDonald-as-YouTube offers that the new channel design allows for views on many different devices. Then there is then a very goofy joke about Russians mobile phones. Here, see for yourself:

Of course, the video doesn’t answer every complaint. For the second year in a row, the Gregory Brothers asked why views get stuck at 301, and YouTube once again failed to answer. Seriously, is it that hard to fix the glitch? Maybe xkcd was right when it claimed that a council of 300 is choosing which videos get to go viral. Regardless, I think we all appreciate YouTube’s attempt to answer its users most pressing questions, and increased transparency will help prevent its top creators from getting disillusioned and bolting for greener pastures.