BatAAr Comments On Recent YouTube Debacle

As many of you may know, BatAAr recently had their most popular music video on Youtube ("MALIGNITION") age-restricted and thus demonetized. This caused a huge disruption to the band's momentum in addition to adding causing the band much concern about released future music videos with similar content. Thankfully, the band was finally able to get the video remonetized, although the damage to their channel's growth can't be undone. With the crisis behind them, the members of BatAAr gave VKH their thoughts on the entire situation. Check it out!

Links for context:

VKH: Could you please give us an update of why you were demonetized and how the issue was resolved?

Patrik (guitarist): YouTube does not give out reasons for why a video gets demonetized or restricted, which forced the band to guess what the problem with the video might be. In the end we figured it probably had to do with the fact that one of the models featured shows quite a lot of skin. Even so, there are much more sexually suggestive videos by artists in all kinds of genres, with Rihanna showing bare nipples in one of her videos, as well as bands like Dir en grey and Marilyn Manson utilizing naked people in their music videos. We did some research and found out that none of those artists' videos were demonetized at all. So we made a plea that our video was an artistic work and that the skin showed in the video was never gratuitous or made with pornographic intent.

However, YouTube decided to not agree to our plea and the video was, according to them, permanently restricted from now on with no chance of further pleas. That's when our guitarist Patrik made the announcement video of what we believed to be unfair treatment.

This led to an outcry of support from fans, and one fan in particular told us about a person on Twitter called @TrustedFlagger who helps people out when they've been unfairly treated by YouTube. In the end, @TrustedFlagger found our case interesting and got our "MALIGNITION" music video remonetized and unrestricted again, so we owe everything to him.

So it all ended on a good note. The one thing that kind of hurts is that right before the music video was restricted, it was receiving record numbers of views with thousands of people watching every day. That suddenly came to a halt with the restriction and the video hasn't really picked up since...But that's just how the world of YouTube's algorithms works. If the video were to receive some promotion it might start gaining the same traction as before.

It also has made us rethink and reevaluate how we release our next music video, which is going to be even more extreme with its content. We are currently looking into different methods of getting it out there, from censoring scenes to making different versions. We don't know which route we'll take yet though. All we can promise is that it's going to be more provocative than you've ever seen from BatAAr so far.

VKH: Can each of you give your thoughts on the situation?

Endigo (vocalist): As someone having YouTube being my full-time employment, and thus also my main source of income, the whole concept of demonetization is a very real terror that breathes down my neck every single day. It's important, however, not to forget that this is true for every single YouTube creator in the world. This is a global problem on a massive scale, and I believe it won't be long until we see some big change on YouTube's end regarding the issue. Either that, or the industry is potentially facing some permanent damages.

Patrik: I think this shows a kind of double standard in how people like Logan Paul or way more established and famous artists can get away with more, while independent creators and artists like us get treated unfairly and scrutinized way harder. I hope YouTube eventually comes around and solves this lack of judgement and cold way of treating people that keep their platform relevant.

Simon (guitarist): As I'm the one who worked on all the editing of the music video by myself, it's very discouraging to see hours upon hours of extremely hard work having its chance to get seen by people squandered so carelessly by YouTube. If they don't step up their game they will make a lot of young talents out there lose their motivation to create new cool things.

Tobias (drummer): I'm actually a bit surprised the video was up for almost a year without getting targeted as inappropriate by YouTube. That makes it even weirder to me. They should have let us know from the start if there was objectionable content in the video. It's a relief to see that the video is up the way it should be again, as it would have been such a shame to have to censor ourselves.

VKH: What's the best way for fans to support BatAAr moving forward?

Patrik: You can support the band by getting our merch at our official store ( or buying/streaming our music through iTunes, Spotify or Bandcamp ( which is the best alternative. But an equally good way to help the band out is to share our stuff on your social media, tell your friends about BatAAr, and most of all, contact people in your local music businesses on how you want a BatAAr concert in your country, or want us played on your local radio stations, etc... Just spread the word like crazy, it means so much to us, really!

Special thanks to Patrik and BatAAr for answering our questions!
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