Youtube Poop News

I just talked to someone on the phone (I called using Skype, actually, so I could record the conversation for future reference) from Colgate’s Global Professional Relations & Marketing department. The conversation was, of course, about why the Dr. Rabbit videos were all being removed. She was surprisingly friendly and sympathetic and actually displayed an interest in the pooping process.

“Well, actually, ewwa… the intent of the Dr. Rabbit cartoon was originally strictly for um, I guess educational purposes for kids, um, you know, so we can teach them about proper oral care, um, and basically getting them excited, um, you know, like, in different parts of the country, for our subsidiaries, and, so, that’s why we were distributing them in classrooms, and, um, I understand that, I guess, I haven’t seen all the footage, but, um, we took them down off YouTube primarily because it was, I guess inappropriate for, I guess, viewers to be watching. And, because of the copyright, it would be considered illegal? Um, so that’s why we took it down…”

Did you feel that that… I mean, was the reason they were taken down that viewers might think that Colgate had intended for these videos to be actual, official Dr. Rabbit videos?

“Exactly. I mean, I think it’s also, um, kind of like defamation of Dr. Rabbit’s image, right? So, I mean that’s primarily why we took it down, but, I understand… like, for instance Derrick had called earlier today, and saying that, you know, it was more of, like, an artistic expression, and that I understand. Um, I think that’s great you guys are able to do that, but I just don’t think it’s… appropriate for the audience that we intended.”

As to how Colgate first found out about these videos:

“I think it was just, actually, word of mouth. It was, um, somebody younger, and they were… (laughs) they saw it, and they knew Dr. Rabbit from previous, you know, previous, um… viewings, and they knew that it was… a little different from the version that they had actually seen.”

I wish I knew which one it was the child had seen, but she didn’t remember. It was probably whichever one was at the top of the list if you searched for “Dr. Rabbit” on YouTube, so I’m guessing it was Dr. Rabbit’s Disturbing Advice. I would feel so privileged if it was one of mine, though. Other things she said:

“Personally, I’m not… like… I don’t know that world very much, but I think it’s interesting that you, um… are able to do that. Um, but I think in terms of, again, the legal issues, I just don’t think it’s appropriate for the YouTube. (laughs)”

“Honestly, I think that if it SHOWS any kind of image of Dr. Rabbit, I would… I would suggest against it (laughs), kind of like, I guess, the Mickey Mouse thing.”

“I think there were a couple of different versions… actually, a lot of different versions… So, we just asked our legal department to take a look, and figure it out, so I don’t know exactly how many or what the means of each clip was, but… I guess… I guess the easiest thing to do would just do a quick Dr. Rabbit search and see what’s still up. Um, but I do know that we’re working on pulling those down, so just in terms of saving your time and (laugh) everyone else’s time, they will come down sooner or later, so… yeah…”

A this point the conversation shifted as she took more of an interest in the specifics of Poop culture.

“Just out of curiosity, does it take a lot of time to edit it and change it?”

Me: “Um, it can, depending on how elaborate it is, like, for example, if you’re editing the whole thing to completly change the whole plot, then it can take a rather long time…”

“‘Cause some of them just looked like… it’s kind of like… they’re just… it’s almost like a DJ, you know, when you… I mean, I’m not very… I don’t know how people create the videos or anything, but you know when the DJs kind of spin it back and forth? It looks like that. And I don’t know, I mean, just out of curiosity, how long does it take to recreate a video like that?”

Me: “Well, um… Honestly, a lot of them are actually, uh… low quality videos that people made quickly for the sake of making something silly…. Some of them people put a lot of time into. Um, it depends on what they feel like making, but apparently Dr. Rabbit footage was used so much within four or five months that it became considered ad overused video source, and it was considered a bad idea to continue making things with it because it had been used so much.”

“And then […] I guess this is just my own pure curiosity… How do, so I guess it becomes this popular thing on YouTube? But then, like… I guess, is it, is that how you initially heard about it, or had you heard of Dr. Rabbit even before?”

My recording cut off while I was talking about “Dr. Rabbit’s Disturbing Advice”. But, like I said, she was surprisingly amiable and interested in the Poop culture. I was thinking of pointing out that most people just re-uploaded their Dr. Rabbit videos under different names after Colgate took them down to see if they might give up, but I decided that was unlikely and didn’t want to risk having them taken down again.

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