How to lose your YouTube account in 26 easy stages.
This is a true story. Under a cut for length.
a) Open a YouTube account in the dim and distant past (in internet terms) - say about 2005/6.
b) Be really lazy (or just naive, back then) and use the same username and password that you use for LJ on the grounds that most of the vids you view are recced by your f’list and it saves remembering another password if you want to favourite something.
c) Open a gmail account dedicated to role play stuff connected with one of your LJ persona and use your LJ name and password. (Yes, I know.) N.B. This is not the same username and password as the LJ connected with YouTube. Quite different. So they couldn’t get confused, could they?
d) Have problems with the email service - well, all service, really - provided by your ISP. (Remember, this is in the distant past.)
e) Decide to go with gmail in future and have a wonderfully confused time trying to explain to your family etc. why your email has a role-play style name. Give up and open another gmail account in more or less your real name but make sure it feeds into your primary gmail inbox. You only have to remember to change the sender box from time to time after all. Eesy-peesy.
f) Get really adventurous and start a website. Get a domain name that is memorable for your f’list..... (Guess what?!)
g) Accept the need for a connected and perhaps dedicated email for the website and go with gmail again. Use the name you used for your website - and your main LJ... And the password... (Can you see where this is heading??) Make sure everything feeds into the same inbox.
h) Go on your way happily for a number of years - LJ, gmail, website and YouTube work like clockwork (provided you always remember that your family regard emails from a role-play name as spam). Although you have had to start keeping a book with all your names and passwords in it and it will be the first thing you rescue in case of fire or flood.
i) Become vaguely aware that Google have taken over YouTube but ignore the matter because it can’t possibly affect you - right?
j) Get irritated that every time nowadays you watch a YouTube vid and sign in to favourite it you are then thrown out of your primary gmail (despite having ticked to say you want to be kept signed in) and precipitated into your website-connected gmail inbox which for all normal intents and purposes is a waste of space, besides not being customised with pretty themes, carefully arranged labels, chat facility, task list, etc. etc. etc.
k) Growl every time you have to sign back in again to access your normal mail. Be vaguely aware that this is connected with Google’s attempt to take over the parts of the world Microsoft has not yet grabbed. At one point find that Google no longer likes your password but have no problem instituting a new one - just the old one with a number added.
l) Start reading the Pros Big Bang stories and watching the vids. Quite a few of them are on YouTube. Find yourself growling more often.
m) Investigate and follow instructions for unlinking your YouTube Account and your gmail account. and linking YouTube with one of your other gmail accounts. Instructions from YouTube/Google, not from well meaning friends or strangers.
n) Find that Google/YouTube has a severe case of hiccups and can’t recognise either of your user names or passwords.
o) Investigate further and realise that as with gmail, there is no customer support. This is because hey, they’re a free service and they do eventually respond to reports about bugs but just not on an individual basis.
p) Wonder why they think they’re free when the consumer is paying by watching advertising... Think back to the days when you studied contract law and mutter under your breath. A lot.
q) Enter a help forum where you find that you are not alone. Half the world’s population seems to be having the same problem, often having reached the lockdown via diverse routes but always with the same end result.
(And some of these people are professional vidders using the service to showcase their skills.)
r) Consider that the advice to re-unlink and link again is not actually helpful unless you can access the account in order to unlink. And of course, if they won’t recognise your username or password...
s) Find that in order to request a new password or user name you have to have at least one of the old ones recognised...
t) Bang head against nearest hard surface repeatedly.
u) Sigh, and continue to watch vids but be unable to favourite.
v) Look back with nostalgia to all those favourites you used to be able to watch at will and now can’t remember the URLs or titles for.
w) Hate Google and YouTube almost as much as Microsoft.
x) Thank the gods of the internet that at least all your gmail accounts are still working, so far, as well as LJ and your website though you wouldn’t put it past Google to mess those up as well.
y) Wonder just which world the people who program this stuff are living in because it doesn’t seem to be yours.
z) Moan to your f’list who are always willing to at least listen. Unlike Google. Although, to be fair, Google were very good when my work got pirated and posted on Blogger - except that I had to deal with them by snail mail. But then that was back in the days of customer support. Ancient history.
My LJ is f’locked (because of the Blogger affair) but if you want to pass this on to anyone feel free to copy/paste. Or tell me how to unlock one entry without changing the default. And without wrecking my LJ. ;)
ETA: now unlocked, courtesy of kat_lair. (I knew you would know...)
a) Open a YouTube account in the dim and distant past (in internet terms) - say about 2005/6.
b) Be really lazy (or just naive, back then) and use the same username and password that you use for LJ on the grounds that most of the vids you view are recced by your f’list and it saves remembering another password if you want to favourite something.
c) Open a gmail account dedicated to role play stuff connected with one of your LJ persona and use your LJ name and password. (Yes, I know.) N.B. This is not the same username and password as the LJ connected with YouTube. Quite different. So they couldn’t get confused, could they?
d) Have problems with the email service - well, all service, really - provided by your ISP. (Remember, this is in the distant past.)
e) Decide to go with gmail in future and have a wonderfully confused time trying to explain to your family etc. why your email has a role-play style name. Give up and open another gmail account in more or less your real name but make sure it feeds into your primary gmail inbox. You only have to remember to change the sender box from time to time after all. Eesy-peesy.
f) Get really adventurous and start a website. Get a domain name that is memorable for your f’list..... (Guess what?!)
g) Accept the need for a connected and perhaps dedicated email for the website and go with gmail again. Use the name you used for your website - and your main LJ... And the password... (Can you see where this is heading??) Make sure everything feeds into the same inbox.
h) Go on your way happily for a number of years - LJ, gmail, website and YouTube work like clockwork (provided you always remember that your family regard emails from a role-play name as spam). Although you have had to start keeping a book with all your names and passwords in it and it will be the first thing you rescue in case of fire or flood.
i) Become vaguely aware that Google have taken over YouTube but ignore the matter because it can’t possibly affect you - right?
j) Get irritated that every time nowadays you watch a YouTube vid and sign in to favourite it you are then thrown out of your primary gmail (despite having ticked to say you want to be kept signed in) and precipitated into your website-connected gmail inbox which for all normal intents and purposes is a waste of space, besides not being customised with pretty themes, carefully arranged labels, chat facility, task list, etc. etc. etc.
k) Growl every time you have to sign back in again to access your normal mail. Be vaguely aware that this is connected with Google’s attempt to take over the parts of the world Microsoft has not yet grabbed. At one point find that Google no longer likes your password but have no problem instituting a new one - just the old one with a number added.
l) Start reading the Pros Big Bang stories and watching the vids. Quite a few of them are on YouTube. Find yourself growling more often.
m) Investigate and follow instructions for unlinking your YouTube Account and your gmail account. and linking YouTube with one of your other gmail accounts. Instructions from YouTube/Google, not from well meaning friends or strangers.
n) Find that Google/YouTube has a severe case of hiccups and can’t recognise either of your user names or passwords.
o) Investigate further and realise that as with gmail, there is no customer support. This is because hey, they’re a free service and they do eventually respond to reports about bugs but just not on an individual basis.
p) Wonder why they think they’re free when the consumer is paying by watching advertising... Think back to the days when you studied contract law and mutter under your breath. A lot.
q) Enter a help forum where you find that you are not alone. Half the world’s population seems to be having the same problem, often having reached the lockdown via diverse routes but always with the same end result.
(And some of these people are professional vidders using the service to showcase their skills.)
r) Consider that the advice to re-unlink and link again is not actually helpful unless you can access the account in order to unlink. And of course, if they won’t recognise your username or password...
s) Find that in order to request a new password or user name you have to have at least one of the old ones recognised...
t) Bang head against nearest hard surface repeatedly.
u) Sigh, and continue to watch vids but be unable to favourite.
v) Look back with nostalgia to all those favourites you used to be able to watch at will and now can’t remember the URLs or titles for.
w) Hate Google and YouTube almost as much as Microsoft.
x) Thank the gods of the internet that at least all your gmail accounts are still working, so far, as well as LJ and your website though you wouldn’t put it past Google to mess those up as well.
y) Wonder just which world the people who program this stuff are living in because it doesn’t seem to be yours.
z) Moan to your f’list who are always willing to at least listen. Unlike Google. Although, to be fair, Google were very good when my work got pirated and posted on Blogger - except that I had to deal with them by snail mail. But then that was back in the days of customer support. Ancient history.
My LJ is f’locked (because of the Blogger affair) but if you want to pass this on to anyone feel free to copy/paste. Or tell me how to unlock one entry without changing the default. And without wrecking my LJ. ;)
ETA: now unlocked, courtesy of kat_lair. (I knew you would know...)