YouTube’s Spammy Sex Bots Make a Ton of Money

Here’s how scammers turn those ubiquitous, meaningless comments into profits

Zulie Rane
OneZero

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Photo: Leon Bublitz/Unsplash

My YouTube channel is extremely wholesome. I post helpful, friendly tutorial videos. I sign off, rather cheesily, with, “Happy writing!”

That’s why it’s so annoying when my videos get flooded with decidedly not-PG and nonsensical comments from what the YouTube community has dubbed “sex bots.”

If you’ve posted a YouTube video, or even scrolled through the comments of one, you’ll probably know what I’m talking about:

Screenshot of sex bot comments taken by the author.

These sex bots are pervasive and obviously not real people. But it’s such a weird strategy that, though I was irritated, I was also deeply curious. As I recently did with spammy Instagram requests “dm to collab,” I decided to investigate the strategy behind these YouTube sex bots.

What were these sex bots trying to accomplish? Why were they leaving oddly horny comments? Why were they targeting my videos? (How could I get them to stop?)

The answer was not as straightforward as I’d hoped. You can read below or check out the video I made…

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Zulie Rane
OneZero

Writer and cat mom. Opinions are my own. This is my just-for-fun profile! My official Medium profile is @Zulie_at_Medium.