u/Freegirl86

I (39F) have been with my boyfriend (39M) for 3.5 years, we live together, and I have attended literally every major family holiday, birthday, and gathering with his family for nearly 4 years.

His step-sister in her early 30's is extremely Christian. And before anyone comes for me, I actually used to be Christian myself for years, so this isn’t me doing the edgy “religion bad” thing. I’m just not anymore because that life no longer aligns with who I am.

The weird part? She goes to the exact same church I used to attend, though not at the same time, and as far as I know she has absolutely no reason to know I was ever part of that church or even that I used to be Christian at all. I’ve never discussed my past religious beliefs around his family, made comments about leaving Christianity, or given any indication that I was ever involved in the church. So this may be completely irrational gut instinct on my part, but I’ve weirdly always wondered if she somehow knows anyway.

From day one, she has treated me like I’m vaguely offensive but in a way subtle enough that if I call it out, I look crazy.

Every holiday for YEARS, we walk in together, and she warmly says hi to my boyfriend while fully pretending I do not exist. Not even a polite fake “hey.” Nothing. I could probably show up dressed as a Victorian ghost and get the same level of acknowledgment.

Same thing at her child's birthday parties. We’re invited, but I feel less like a guest and more like someone who slipped past security. For the longest time, my boyfriend thought I was imagining it until I finally pointed out: “Have you noticed every single holiday card, birthday invitation, and family event invite over the last 4 years has ONLY been addressed to you?”

That actually made him stop.

Because it’s true.

Not once has anything been addressed to both of us, despite us being an established couple who literally live together.

I even sent her a Facebook friend request once. DECLINED.

Now she’s pregnant with another child, and today the baby shower invite arrived.

Addressed only to my boyfriend.

AGAIN.

And this is where I’m struggling.

Because as someone who used to be in Christian circles, I was taught things like “love others,” “show kindness,” “treat people with grace,” etc.

This? This feels less like Christian behavior and more like sanctified mean girl energy.

And again, genuinely no shade to Christians as a whole. I know plenty of lovely Christians.

But I cannot shake the feeling that because my boyfriend and I live together unmarried, I’m being quietly judged as morally inferior and excluded in the most passive aggressive way possible.

Like girl, if you don’t like me, fine. Not everyone has to like everyone. I’m 39, not applying for a friendship bracelet.

But at least have the decency to acknowledge my existence after FOUR YEARS.

AIO or thinking this is intentional??

Hey everyone I’ve been replying to a bunch of people in this thread already, but figured I’d just make my own post to see if anyone else is dealing with this too. Based on what I’ve been seeing here and across Reddit, I’m definitely not the only one… feels like a lot of channels got hit recently.

I’ve been monetized since October 2024, and then last Monday I got hit with demonetization for “inauthentic / reused / mass-produced content.” I appealed, got denied, and have now had multiple reviews with the same result.

For context, I’m still a smaller channel only 16 Videos around 3.4K subs and about 87K total views. Most of my videos are in the 1–3K range, with a few in the 20K+ range, so it’s not like nothing’s landing.

I make semi long-form true crime videos. I write my own scripts, do my own research, and edit everything myself. In one case, I even got permission and worked directly with a victim’s family, who provided additional details and photos for me to include. The only thing I consistently use AI for is thumbnails and narration, and occasionally to clean up image quality — not to recreate or alter anything. If AI changes an image in any noticeable way, I don’t use it (and anyone who’s used AI knows how often it tries to do that). I also always mark my videos as containing altered content to be transparent about that.

In my first couple videos, I did mess around with some AI video tools to help visualize parts of a case, but it was super minimal like 2–3 clips that were only a few seconds each in a 15–20 minute video. Everything else is original (research, structure, visuals, editing), plus fair use news footage.

After my appeal, I actually heard back from a YouTube Creator Support rep 4 separate times. He basically just repeated that my channel falls under “reused / inauthentic content” and pointed me back to the general policy pages, but none of it really made sense for my content. It felt super broad and didn’t actually line up with what I’m doing.

The most frustrating part is they won’t tell you anything specific, even when you ask repeatedly. I asked multiple times what exactly triggered it — like which videos, what elements, anything and they won’t give you details. This is basically what they said:

“We are unable to provide the exact internal findings or specific details as to why your channel was demonetized. We can’t provide specifics (such as which videos were seen as violative)  we can only share general policy articles.”

So you’re just left guessing. I get that YouTube is trying to crack down on AI spam channels, and honestly I agree with that. There’s definitely content out there trying to pass off AI stuff as real. But for a lot of us using AI as a tool, that’s not the case and this feels like a blanket system that’s catching legit creators in the process, especially when the only AI I’m really using is narration and minor image cleanup.

From what I’ve been seeing here and across Reddit, this doesn’t seem like an isolated thing at all. A lot of people are getting hit with the same vague reasoning.

So I’m trying to figure out:
– Has anyone actually gotten remonetized after this?
– Did you have to fully remove AI narration?
– Did you delete/rework videos, or just wait the 90 days and reapply?

Right now I just feel stuck because I don’t even know what I’m supposed to change. I really, really don’t want to have to take videos down and lose those views. Part of me does want to redo some of my older videos because my editing has gotten a lot better since then, but at the same time my earliest videos are actually my most viewed especially my first two so it feels like I’d be hurting my own channel trying to “fix” something I don’t even fully understand is wrong.

If anyone’s been through this and figured it out, please say something, because right now I’m just sitting here confused, lowkey pissed, and honestly kinda defeated.