I’ve been watching the drama with Suzy Lu play out for a while now, and came across it by chance.
If you’ve been following
I won’t do it unless it contributes to a bigger purpose.
This Suzy Lu drama in the anime community (and beyond) is one of those news stories.
Who Is Suzy Lu?
Suzy Lu is an anime and gaming reaction YouTuber from Glasgow, Scotland. You know, the type of YouTuber who watches anime videos and reacts in real time? That’s what she does in a nutshell.
She’s in a known relationship with Justin, her boyfriend.
Suzy started YouTube in 2013 according to her YouTube channel. But didn’t start publishing videos until 2014.
Most of which were video game walkthroughs and non-anime related content at the time.
How Anime Reaction YouTuber Suzy Lu’s drama began
It all started in 2017 (based on recorded dates).
During this time Suzy Lu went on Twitter and made a mockery of people at Mc Donalds who went on “strike”.
After ripping into so many people and refusing to backtrack her statements:
- The Daily Mail.
- Sun Newspaper.
And other news outlets in the UK reported on it, which took the controversy to a new level.
YouTube Rewind 2018
Suzy Lu on December 6th 2018 did a reaction video to her being featured in YouTube Rewind 2018. Because she was a “small” YouTuber at the time, relative to the vloggers who tend to be featured.
Her “Inclusion” has made people sceptical, which I’ll get into later.
Suzy Lu drama 2019
Suzy Lu’s drama in 2020 can be traced back to March 2019.
QUOTE:
“It began on March 11, 2019 when Suzy filed a copyright strike against Mark After Dark’s The Last Guardian VR video, which opened with a clip making fun of Suzy for her exaggerated reaction to the same game.
Suzy’s response claims she was in the right because she has copyrighted her face.”
I can’t speak on the content of MarkAfterDark’s video to Suzy Lu (I’ve never seen it), but Suzy Lu’s response of “I have copyrighted my face” is comical at best.
YouTubers react to Suzy Lu drama
As pointed out by Kiwifarms:
“This sparked outrage among smaller Youtube news and drama channels like GG Reloaded and Tipster, who began jerking off the situation for all it was worth.
They quickly pointed out the hypocrisy of Suzy, who makes her living off copyrighted content, complaining about someone else using her content.”
This is the gist of why Suzy Lu’s controversy is still going on in 2020.
She’s gotten attention for copyright striking YouTube channels that:
- Criticize her (even if it’s not malicious).
- Or point out inconsistencies and facts relating to Suzy Lu.
In some cases – just “mentioning” Suzy Lu whether it’s negative or not gets YouTube videos deleted, as she’ll go out her way to censor anything she doesn’t like.
The interesting thing about YouTube’s stance is there are big YouTubers who do this type of commentary, and nothing happens. So there’s double standards at play.
YouTubers point out Suzy Lu hypocrisy
YouTubers GG Reloaded and Tipster dug up this video to prove their point about Suzy Lu’s hypocrisy.
Their point is this:
Suzy Lu makes anime reaction videos with copyrighted content from Naruto, SAO and so on. But complains when her “copyright” is used and even flags videos for those reasons when it involves her content.
And yet Suzy Lu live streamed content taken from the BBC on her own YouTube channel. Back when she had 55K subscribers (2016).
This is the hypocrisy YouTubers speak of
Some days later after all the drama reached its peak and skeletons were dug out the closet, Suzy Lu responded to the controversy.
I noticed the original video was nowhere to be found on YouTube, but it’s archived and some people have got their hands on it.
QUOTE:
“On March 21 Suzy posted a video titled “Addressing The Hate – What ACTUALLY Happened!” where she played victim. She said she couldn’t understand why she was getting sh*t thrown at her for filing a strike against Mark’s channel.
She admitted she used BBC’s content in a non-Fair Use manner, but tried to say that it wasn’t wrong because she wasn’t doing it with the intent to grow her channel or doing it maliciously.”
On March 25th 2019:
“On March 25 Tipster did a livestream interviewing lawyer Youtuber Ian Corzine to discuss Suzy striking Mark’s video.
Ian said the clip would most likely be considered Fair Use based on case law and that Suzy was in the wrong. Suzy responded by flagging the stream VOD and getting it taken down.”
On March 28 Suzy repealed her copyright strike on Mark.
Tipster was able to re-upload his Ian Corzine interview.
Suzy Lu’s boyfriend Justin steps in to defend
As stated by Kiwifarms poster:
“Justin attempted to defend Suzy from questioning while claiming she couldn’t come on to defend herself because she was
picking up boulders“walking their dog.”This “walk” went on for over an hour and a half. After two hours Suzy finally came on just to tell everyone they were nobodies and she didn’t have to defend herself.
Justin sent a screencap of Suzy’s flagging history, revealing she had filed harassment complaints against three of GG Reloaded’s videos about her. The scroll bar was visible at the side of the screencap indicating her flag history went further than just those three.”
December 2019
Suzy Lu was featured again in YouTube Rewind 2019, despite her level of subscribers compared to the average.
Or in other words: you need 10 million subscribers to feature in YouTube Rewind. Hence why people think it’s suspicious seeing as she’s not even close. And never has been.
Copyright strikes from Tokyo TV (Dec 2019)
Quote:
“On December 27, 2019 Suzy’s channel was hit with multiple copyright strikes by TV Tokyo for her unlawful use of nearly full length episodes of Naruto. As is standard procedure on Youtube, Suzy’s channel was terminated for having more than three strikes against it.
This termination lasted for less than 48 hours. On December 29 she returned with a video titled “What The F Happened??”
As anyone knows with YouTube and copyright in general, once the company or person is aware of it they’re gonna take your content down.
In response Suzy Lu said she’s gonna “Sue TV Tokyo” for illegally striking her YouTube channel…. For copyright content TV Tokyo owns.
And then:
“She also claimed she had people at Youtube removing the strikes from her channel, without giving TV Tokyo 10 business days to begin court action as is required by law.
If true, this means Youtube is violating Safe Harbor copyright law and putting themselves at risk of legal action.
By rubber stamping her appeals against TV Tokyo’s DMCAs without giving TV Tokyo the opportunity to pursue legal action, Youtube may have violated Safe Harbor (Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitations Act).
The possibility of this had been hinted at when she first struck Mark as she said she “talked to people at Youtube about Fair Use,” though this could also just be her misspeaking as is the nature of idiots.
The reinstating of her channel, however, is not just an idiot stumbling over their words. People at Youtube put their holiday vacations on hold to get her channel back and told a major corporation to go f*ck themselves.”
Which lead to this in January 2020:
“On January 30, 2020 Suzy launched her own site, and began uploading her anime reaction videos there.
She genuinely believes hosting her videos off Youtube and simply blocking the site in Asia makes her safe from the likes of TV Tokyo.”
You can see why this drama has escalated overtime.
She’s now uploading the same content to her own website and blocking Asia with Cloudflare, almost as if to say “f*ck your copyright, you can’t do sh*t about it”.
It’s no different to what Kiss Anime and pirate sites are doing, except in a way that’s brazen and nonchalant.
How this ends? Your guess is as good as mine.
DMCA Take-down requests (Feb 2020)
In February 2020 MX International and Aniplex America made take-down requests to Google in the USA.
This DMCA request was for the website since Suzy Lu is uploading their copyrights directly to her website. And of course – profiting off it.
12 DCMA requests targeting over 200+ pages have been made in total.
Lying about Crunchyroll advertising on her website (March 2020)
“Hilarious considering Crunchyroll advertise on my website lol. You really don’t understand business, do you Robbie?”
Before Suzy Lu purged her Twitter account to hide evidence, this is what she said.
As someone who has a real partnership with Crunchyroll through Elation (Anime Motivation), I can already tell you Suzy was telling a blatant lie.
As proven by this quote:
“She even tried to play off Crunchyroll ads being featured on her site as proof she had carte Blanche to use whatever anime footage she wanted.
She does not have a business deal with Crunchyroll, those ads were placed by Google Adsense which randomizes ads based on keywords.”
Suzy Lu April 2020
Quote:
“Any inkling that Youtube wasn’t deliberately playing favorites with Suzy was broken on April 10, 2020. The official TeamYoutube Twitter responded to John Swan’s tweet complaining about Suzy striking his second video on her.
With an incredibly passive aggressive tone, they effectively announced Suzy was under their protection and any mockery of her massive, disgusting, unsightly, mutant forehead was absolutely unacceptable.”
YouTube jumped in on Twitter and defended Suzy Lu’s actions. And people aren’t happy.
In fact this is one of the reasons companies like:
- Funimation
- Viz Media
And others have been emailed about their copyrights, and how it’s being abused.
April 18th 2020 – The drama heats up
I have put up 2 videos on Suzy Lu. I wasn’t disrespectful, all I did was discuss the situation at hand. Today I was not only blocked by Suzy Lu but I also received a rather threatening (anonymous) email… Nothing to see here… pic.twitter.com/DPMqtiCWxO
— Vara Dark (@Vara_Dark) April 16, 2020
YouTuber Dark Titan Enterprises put out a video about how she was hacked after doing a video on Suzy Lu.
A video that:
- Didn’t hate
- Criticise
- Belittle
- Make fun of
Or “slander” Suzy Lu’s image. It was a video about what’s happening (the same as this article).
Whether the hacking incident and emptying Dark Titans back account is related to Suzy Lu is unknown.
It’s more believable to think it’s one of Suzy Lu’s fans.
I won’t get into all the response videos, but:
- TheQuartering
- Tipster
- GG Reloaded
- John Swan
And other channels have dived into the drama. And many of these videos in April 2020 haven’t been taken down, unlike the videos in 2019.
The trend of mass videos disappearing has died down a bit.
April 20th 2020 – Suzy Lu’s past as a bully
More news seems to be rolling out everyday.
Now tons of internet receipts are coming out, showing Suzy Lu’s past of sh*tting on people for their looks and plenty more.
In contrast Suzy Lu’s been flagging and banning videos for doing the same thing (or not). Regardless of intent.
April 22nd 2020 – Suzy Lu’s “fake” law firm
That’s a nice law firm you’ve got there, @SuzyLuOfficial! pic.twitter.com/bxLCgxP9YK
— Leinad (@leinadtxt) April 22, 2020
If the Crunchyroll lies weren’t bad enough, on top of everything else, now Suzy Lu’s “law firm” on her website’s TOS is nothing but a front.
It leads to Justin’s PO box. But the supposed law firm in question doesn’t exist and is completely made up.
For reasons I can’t make sense of.
Not only that, but TheQuartering called Suzy Lu’s “Lawyer” and they have NO idea who she is, and even thought the whole call was a prank.
This is further proof that Suzy Lu’s law firm is a sham and it doesn’t exist.
April 23rd 2020: Suzy Lu purged Patreon videos
@TheQuartering @JohnSwanYT @TipsterNewsTeam What is this? Did Suzy Lu take all of her vids off of Patreon? It appears there’s only ONE video for members now! #suzylu pic.twitter.com/6Vsl9XY3Q9
— Joe B. (@jobutex) April 23, 2020
Suzy Lu purged videos from her Patreon account.
On the image it only shows 1 video. But a Google Cache shows there was 93 beforehand.
It’s clear what’s happening here.
Suzy Lu Backpedalling
“Hey guys
So many of you may have noticed that I’ve taken down the backlog of videos that were on this Patreon.
That’s because we’re moving everything away from Vimeo and onto our own CDN (Cloudflare) that we run for the website.”
The long and short of this image is she’s setting up the equivalent of Crunchyroll on her own website.
The exception here is this is piracy because she owns none of the content.
It’s like KissAnime but without the hiding and ducking. Which is absolutely bonkers.
Another thing she mentioned is editing videos to keep in line with “Fair Use”, which has hypocrisy written all over it.
Suzy Lu: “Imagine doing a video dedicated to slamming someone’s appearance”
Also Suzy Lu: Makes a video slamming someone’s appearance. 🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/gbF5QeNSWJ
— 🇨🇺GG RELOADED🇨🇺 (@GOHGAMER) April 23, 2020
And more screenshots taken from deleted videos contradicting her own tweets (which she purged in February/March 2020).
As you can see – Suzy Lu’s known for making videos about someone’s appearance and yet complained about the same treatment.
April 25th 2020 – Discord “purge” messages
UMMMMM EXPLAIN @SUZYLUOFFICIAL???? pic.twitter.com/5vGyR24nkg
— John Swan 🦢 (@JohnSwanYT) April 25, 2020
More proof that Suzy Lu has been purging messages and hiding evidence is showing up.
The latest being a screenshot from her discord account.
April 26th 2020: YouTuber harassed by Suzy Lu confesses
A YouTuber who started around the same-ish time as Suzy Lu shares her story.
This video is over 1 hour and 24 minutes long. So it gets pretty detailed.
April 28th 2020: DMCA Takedown of Patreon videos
This was sent in January 2020 but has been archived and shown up on April 28th 2020.
This is why Suzy’s patreon videos eventually “disappeared”, which leads to the present.
May 5th 2020 Updates
Suzy Lu’s Patreon page was SHUT down not long after this image surfaced.
It’s clear copyright infringement is the reason why Patreon decided to act, probably because of pressure from anime companies.
It’s been confirmed that Suzy Lu’s “hidden” web host is called Abelo Host.
It’s a hosting company that hosts
Abelo Host s the type to not get involved even if pressured.
The reality is though all this will do is delay the inevitable seeing as Suzy has no intention on backing down.
And Suzy Lu’s website was down for over 18 hours on May 5th 2020.
This could be because of server issues, switching web hosts (which I doubt) or something else.
May 17th 2020 Updates
In a now deleted Instagram post, Suzy Lu was gas-lighting and victim blaming.
She even used mental health as a crux to defend against the drama she stirred from the beginning.
Even going as far as making a suicide clickbait title on YouTube after the deleted Instagram post.
After this was exposed, justification followed with a tweet admitting to doing clickbait. Regardless of it being clickbait related to suicide, which is nothing to joke about.
This was then followed by a mental health post on Instagram.
Posted on May 19th 2020.
Theory’s on why YouTube defends Suzy Lu
I want to say, I have a theory about Suzy Lu. I think she’s f*cking her “Manager”. There would be no other LOGICAL reason for a worker at YouTube to break Safe Harbour and copyright laws and save Suzy’s channel.
We need to investigate who she is screwing, and expose them!
(1/2)
— Violet (@MsHopePlays) April 19, 2020
We must stop Suzy, and to stop her, we need to stop who is helping her behind the scenes to manipulate the system.
This is war on Freedom of Speech!#StopSuzyLu@JohnSwanYT@TipsterNewsTeam@AugieRFC@Twizz_Fizz@Bowblax@SubToOptimus
(2/2)
— Violet (@MsHopePlays) April 19, 2020
The logic here is the reason Suzy Lu’s getting “special treatment” and has managed to get away with things that make no business sense on YouTube’s end, is there’s a personal relationship going on.
Otherwise YouTube wouldn’t have reinstated her account in 48 hours, Instead of giving TV Tokyo 10 days to take court action (as required by law).
Why this drama is relevant to the anime community
- If Funimation and Viz Media take action, YouTube’s anime reaction community will change.
- The same is true if TV Tokyo and MX International take down Suzy Lu’s platform.
- Anime reaction videos will never be the same again.
- YouTubers across the board may NOT be able to do reaction videos in future (thanks to copyright).
- And anime copyright infringement will become more strict on YouTube.
I’m not the type to watch anime videos from YouTubers as it is. BUT I’ve watched anime reaction videos before, and I don’t have a problem with them.
Is it original content in a literal sense? No. But that shouldn’t matter if it’s not a “rip off” or blatant abuse of copyright.
It might not even get that serious and they might just make an example out of what she’s done. Without it escalating and ruining Anime YouTubers careers.
But with the lies, pettiness and egotistical responses from Suzy Lu, who knows how this will turn out.
It’s like rubbing salt in the wound or ignoring a problem and hoping it’ll go away.
That’s only made this copyright drama (and false claims + purging Twitter to hide evidence) so much worse.
My stance on this issue
I’m all about freedom. Especially when it comes to self-expression.
Political correctness, SJW’s and other nonsense is rampant online when it comes to the LOUD minority.
Most in the USA., few in the UK. And it’s attempting to ruin creativity, art and other forms of opinion.
YouTubers can’t even speak on this without headache, so that’s one reason I decided to do it.
As for Suzy Lu? None of this drama should have got to this point. But dishonesty, pettiness and ego has taken it this far.
Remember – she’s the one who claimed she was gonna SUE Tokyo TV. Which is proof of how fat her ego is.
I can’t even imagine going through Twitter (or any platform) reporting people for having an opinion about me.
That’s an insecurity unless we’re talking about defamation and blatant disrespect.
Steeljo played a part in all this drama, Twitter purging, and everything else as well. Even if his intentions were in the right place (he’s Suzy’s BF).
Though It amazes me how drama never dies down, even during the coronavirus outbreak.
–
News sources:
- Kiwifarms
- YouTube
What do you think about all this?
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