First of all I want to say thank you to each and every Bangkok 112 subscriber and viewer. You are all the reason for the channel’s previous success over the years.
The long story short is the Bangkok 112 YouTube channel was demonetized in early April 2020. After that I took a break but Covid kind of wrecked everything.
It is 2023 now and the channel is now remonetized after a lot of videos were permanently deleted. Access to Super Thanks $ and a members section is now available. Also a secondary channel ‘Bkk112‘ with daytime travel videos is up and running.
Q. What really happened?
I’m 100% ok and not dead yet (contrary to some online reports). I was on a Visa run at the end of March 2020 and was caught in no mans land. I couldn’t return to Thailand and had to return to my home country.
When I was at home in early April 2020 I found out that the Bangkok 112 YouTube channel had been totally demonetized for ‘sexual content.’ The YouTube SJWs had finally won.
I tried to appeal and sort out the issues but the YouTube support was a total nightmare. They kept on with the ‘just stick to the terms and conditions and you’ll be fine’ answer which was totally useless.
I was in a catch 22 situation as I couldn’t film any new content or start another similar channel as I was stuck in Europe.
I wasn’t even sure what the offending videos were as it was really hard to figure out from Youtube’s guidelines. There were multiple times in the past where daytime videos were demonetized for no reason which left me puzzled.
So I decided to take a well earned break. That was supposed to last a few months but it lasted nearly 3 years. I ended up doing other things. It was a very bad time. To say I drank too much is definitely an understatement. I won’t bore you with my sob story as nearly everyone was negatively affected by the Covid pandemic mess.
Q. Why didn’t you respond to subscribers enquiring about what was happening?
I felt very depressed about the whole situation. I was contemplating deleting the channel and website and walking away from it all. Imagine building something for over 7 years of your life only for the rug to be completely pulled out from under you. I should have been prepared for it but I totally wasn’t.
It left me with no motivation to continue producing content and in a strange way I wanted the channel to die. I think it was self sabotage? I kept on thinking of the quote ‘It’s better to burn out than to fade away.’
I also wanted to leave all the videos free and available to watch for the 1 million+ subscribers during Covid. People had a lot of time on their hands and viewership on YouTube was at an all time high.
The channel actually picked up 90k new subscribers since March 2020 with no new content posted which must mean something.
Moving forward
I always wanted every Bangkok 112 video to be free and available for anyone to watch but it seems the channel grew too big and became a victim of it’s own success. This happens to all Thai nightlife channels at some point. Some of the older videos can’t be replicated now but they were the reason many people watched the channel in the first place.
A lot of the offending videos have been permanently deleted and the channel is now remonetized for 2023. Access to Super Thanks $ and a members section is available. Although still no adverts play on any of the content.
Right now I can’t get any video on the Bangkok 112 to have the green tick for ads and every new video uploaded is automatically manually refused ads (if anyone is a YouTube monetization expert then feel free to email me about how to potentially fix this?). It’s a headache and means the channel can’t operate as it did previously.
Videos will still be posted on the Bangkok 112 YouTube channel but unfortunately not anywhere near the same quantity as before. Maybe one or 2 a month plus there is the option for sponsored posts in the future. One good thing is I don’t have to worry about music copyright claims anymore (Over 100 Bangkok 112 videos are currently claimed by 3rd parties.)
A Members only video section has now been created where nightlife videos in the same style as before will be posted. The current schedule is one video a week will be released.
A new travel channel (Bkk112 link here) has been created for ‘normal’ videos. This is free and available for everyone to watch.
You can also ‘buy me a beer’ by using this link if you’ve ever enjoyed Bangkok 112 content in the past : Buy me a beer
The bangkok112.com recommended hotels are now all up to date for 2023. There have been some changes but most of the main recommended places are still going strong.
You can also support this website and channels moving forward at no extra cost to yourself by booking hotels through the links below:
It’s so good to be back. I didn’t realise it but I missed everything so much. It would be a shame to let the channel die without at least trying to revive it.
There are a few more issues now moving forward. The bar scene has changed massively since pre-Covid times. Prices are up up up, quality seems to be down and other changes are happening. Live streamers are now here in the bar scene which is plain weird. 3 years of phone technology improvements have meant everyone now has a great low light camera in their pocket.
Other things have changed such as being away from the bar scene so long has left me out of touch a little (I found that out the hard way on my first night or 2 back filming!). But in a way it could work out better as I’m looking at things with a fresh perspective.
Thank you for watching the videos during the pandemic and beyond. I’m looking forward to making my best content ever and hopefully you will be alongside watching! 🙂