Ah fuck: YouTube takes down basic ‘I can’t consider you’ve carried out this’ meme

Whether it desires to be or not, YouTube is a guardian of web historical past, with numerous basic movies sitting in its archives. That makes it jarring when the corporate acts like what it’s: a multinational company with no actual understanding of this worth. Case in level, this week YouTube eliminated the unique add of the “Ah fuck, I can’t believe you’ve done this” meme, rejecting an enchantment from its creator (and the man who can’t consider this was carried out) and claiming that the clip violates the corporate’s “violent or graphic content policy.”

In the phrases of Paul Weedon himself, star of and uploader of the unique video: Ah, fuck.

Weedon tweeted out the information of the takedown and his unsuccessful enchantment, noting that the video had been on YouTube for 14 years, and racked up 12 million views in that point with “no issues whatsoever.” The clip itself is a basic: low-res, contextless, and immediately humorous. And, in fact, countless re-uploads of the clip nonetheless exist (alongside the opposite, legitimately horrible content material that YouTube is glad to depart up).

The video has been remixed and re-memed in numerous methods because it first went viral within the mid-2010s, and Weedon himself has an attention-grabbing relationship with the content material. In an article for Vice revealed earlier this yr, he describes how the clip got here out of he and his buddies filming one another doing “stunts” within the vein of Jackass, and the way he offered the unique rights for the clip to the now-defunct Break.com and isn’t positive who even owns the IP now.

“At the time, going viral wasn’t really comparable to any other experience and it certainly wasn’t something I could discuss in solidarity with my friends,” writes Weedon. “All of a sudden you’re everywhere and it’s out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in. After yanking down several other videos on my YouTube channel, I opted for the latter.”

To add insult to damage, Weedon is at the moment within the course of of constructing a documentary in regards to the meme, so this takedown no less than provides slightly twist to the proceedings. We’ve contacted each Weedon and YouTube in regards to the information, and hope the corporate sees sense and restores the unique.