Kylan deGhetaldi's story: Why YouTube removed all his music videos

A single anti-vax video, even if it is parody, can result in YouTube removing all your content over 16 years and banning you for life.

Speed of Science can be found on Odysee. Go upvote it and leave him a tip in the tip jar.

Executive summary

Kylan deGhetaldi is an amazingly talented musician.

Over the past 16 years, he’s done hundreds of recordings on this on his YouTube channel with no problem.

Then he posted this video: “The speed of science” (view on Odysee) which is sung to the tune of the MTA song.

Can you guess what happened next?

Yup. YouTube blew him away:

Not only was his one song banned from YouTube, but they removed his entire YouTube channel forever. Hundreds of videos.

Why? Because he dared to do a parody of the MTA song. I guess you don’t mess with the MTA!

This should serve as a warning to anyone posting to YouTube.

If you do ANYTHING they don’t approve of, they will wipe out all your content and cut off your revenue stream in a heartbeat. No questions asked. No appeal.

As I’m writing this, he’s live streaming now on Odysee

Ragtime Rising - March 19, 2023 with just 16 people watching. Check it out!

Introduction

I reached out to Kylan for his story. Here it is:

I grew up listening to the Kingston Trio and that song was always a favorite...I never imagined it would come back into my life like this!

It's so cool how the parody works even for those who've never heard the original before, but it's especially poignant for those who have! It's a darn shame that the "folk" music era used to be one that *resisted* the status quo...and yet, where is the resistance among artists today? I'm just trying to fill a role that is being neglected, and not surprisingly, people are *hungry* for this type of art. It's a release for many, not just for me! That's why we're being banned.

My original "Speed of Science" on YouTube was about to hit 100,000 views (WITH suppression, the real count was much higher), and instead of just removing the song they decided to delete my ENTIRE 16-year channel with hundreds of videos.

The crazy thing is 99% of them are RAGTIME piano vids that aren't remotely controversial. Talk about excessive force.

Since I never developed a Twitter following, I had to essentially start over in January after the ban which was really tough.

But thanks to people like you I really do see the light. I'm serious when I say that you and your colleagues will go down as the great heroes of this dark time.

The fact that I can even feel like I played a small role in this awakening is enough for me to feel an incredible sense of accomplishment that I will cherish always.

I've been following you since the beginning! Getting your endorsement means so much to me, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I have several other tunes you might get a kick out of, like maybe this little ditty I wrote for Fauci...thank you again for everything!

-Kylan

History of the MTA song

Kingston Trio performance

The history of the original song. Note that the politician named in the song was Walter A. O’Brien, but they changed the name when they recorded the song.

Unfortunately, O’Brien lost the election and Charlie is still missing.

People have asked why Charlie’s wife didn’t hand him the money to get off the MTA instead of a sandwich at 2:15pm everyday at the Scollay Square station (now the Government Center station).

That question, as well as Charlie’s fate, is still unknown at this time.

An article from 6 years ago

At the second annual Santa Cruz Ragtime Festival, old music is new again describes how Kylan organized a 3 day ragtime festival with over 50 musicians!

Art Tatum's Tiger Rag - Kylan deGhetaldi, piano

The performance

Kylan wrote:

I consider this the toughest 2 minutes and 30 seconds of piano music ever recorded. Art Tatum is the greatest pianist of the 20th century, and this is perhaps his most monstrous work...his Tiger Rag rendition.

To this day, this remains one of the only times I ever memorized and performed an entire Tatum transcription, and one of my greatest claims to fame will be that I could play Tatum's Tiger Rag by the time I was almost 22. Although this style, and Tatum himself, were both still very new to me, and although this performance leaves much to be desired, especially when compared to the original, the fact that I reached for such heights on my fifth video ever on YouTube speaks to my boundless ambition and confidence as a young, budding musician.

This performance should have put me on the map...and in some ways it did, even though YouTube consistently prevented these videos from getting more popular.

This performance, along with my take on "Handful of Keys" by Fats Waller was seen by the next generation of ragtime pianists that grew up watching YouTube.

Many of them have told me how they were inspired by seeing my Tatum/Waller videos during the early days of YouTube.

Keep in mind, there's a significant gap of musicians in my generation with respect to this style.

Although ragtime and stride piano saw significant revivals over the years, the last serious one was in the 70's after the release of the film "The Sting".

As a result, almost no one was learning and playing ragtime when I grew up in the 90s. There were no teachers, and schools were not interested. But we grew up with Mario music and ragtime finding its way into other video games and TV shows. Because of this generational gap, there are virtually no ragtime pianists in their 30s/40s today (just 50+ and now 20s and younger).

Because of this, I was in precisely the right place at the right time at the birth of YouTube to share this style. I feel honored to have played what I believe to have been an important role in the rebirth of ragtime and early jazz by sharing these videos at the inception of social media. It's only right that these videos aren't forgotten, as they are now a piece of musical history!

His latest work is dedicated to former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki

Click the image:

Summary

Here are some links if you want to help Kylan out:

1. Buy the song: https://foundring.gumroad.com/l/speedofscience… Name your price!

2. Support: https://subscribestar.com/foundring OR https://paypal.me/foundring

3. Videos: https://odysee.com/@foundring https://rumble.com/user/foundring

4. Livestreams: https://twitch.tv/foundring #SpeedofScience #foundring

You can find all his videos on Odysee.