American Charles “Cr1TiKaL” White Jr. (29) is not exactly known for family-friendly entertainment on Twitch and YouTube. However, he apparently went too far with his current music video, because it cost him a sponsor.
What kind of collaboration was that? In a Jan. 28 video, Cr1tikal stated he had just lost a major partnership. It was a collaboration with a larger brand, whose name he was not allowed to name.
At a later point in the video, the streamer speaks of a “Fortune 500” company – one of the 500 largest companies in the USA. They had planned a really cool project, according to Cr1tikal, but just before the start, the company suddenly didn’t want to have anything more to do with him.
The reason for this is said to have been his current music video.
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Music video costs streamer cooperation
What was that video? Cr1TiKaL makes music together with singer-songwriter Troy Mckubre under the name “The Gentle Men”. The two like to experiment with different styles, sometimes the songs are quite provocative.
On January 12th they released their latest single “Filthy”, followed by a music video on YouTube the next day. And the song packs a punch: Cr1TiKaL says he’s collected the most disgusting lyrics he could think of. He was a “cauldron of disgust boiling over”.
The final version was still comparatively tame, because at some point his partner told him he had to scale it down a bit. Nevertheless, the end result was too much for his cooperation partner, as the streamer now reveals:
I posted this music video just about a week before the collaboration started. And pretty much exactly two days after we released the video, they sent us a panicked message saying they don’t want anything to do with us anymore. “Filthy” went too far.
According to Cr1TiKaL, who can’t really understand it, the company broke off every relationship with him. You can watch his video about it here:
Streamer says it’s art
How does Cr1TiKaL see it himself? The streamer says he’s aware that his content isn’t necessarily family-friendly. However, that does not automatically make it a “brand risk”, i.e. a risk for the brand.
The song is pretty extreme, graphic – but also silly. However, the collaboration had nothing to do with it at all. Had it been a musical collaboration, he could have understood. But no one would have associated the brand with the song, it was all quite removed from reality.
Looking back, would he have done anything differently? Not at all. Cr1TiKaL says he’s damn proud of the song and stands behind it 100%. He is willing to lose 1,000 partnerships for this, the track is so great.
I think we’ve created something special in the best sense. Yes, it’s dirty, wild, even obnoxious in places, but that’s what art is all about.
The streamer couldn’t understand the attitude that someone was unsuitable for cooperation because he was vulgar – after all, he didn’t set churches on fire.
Nowadays everything should be so sterile and sparkling clean, says Cr1TiKaL. Advertisers would only want “uninteresting, indecent garbage”. He, on the other hand, would rather produce something entertaining and unforgettable, which should actually be much more important to the brands.
With this, the streamer also refers to the new guidelines for monetizing videos on YouTube:
One wrong word is costing people their entire earnings on YouTube right now: “I’m devastated”