Evan Emory YouTube Interview -- "I Don't Feel Like I'm a Criminal"

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• published: 20 Mar 2011
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Evan Emory is interview by Grant Crowell of ReelSEO, about his plea deal for a convicted felony of posting a YouTube video. On on March 14, 2011, Evan Emory pleaded "no contest" in a Michigan Court in Muskegon County, to a reduced felony charge of "unlawful posting of an internet message with aggravating circumstances" -- a plea deal to the child pornography charges that the district prosecutor and parents wanted. The case has sparked a national debate on the generational, cultural and technology gap in this country that YouTube has exposed. Do we now need new laws? Or perhaps, a new education around YouTube and social media, along with understanding the legal consequences? ABOUT THE EVAN EMORY "YOUTUBE CRIMINAL CASE" Evan Emory, a 21-year old aspiring musician and comedian from the Ravenna area of Michigan, was originally charged in January with creating and publishing a sexually-themed YouTube video he shot in a classroom that featured local first-grade students and vulgar lyrics. The joke was supposed to be that the video was edited to make it appear that the school children were reacting to the vulgar song version rather than the G-rated version, which he performed. He acknowledged using bad judgment, saying he had intended it as humor; and apologized to the parents and the school for being deceptive. Emory's case gained national media attention on the disparity between the justifiably harsh laws for child pornography; and the gross exaggeration of applying those laws to the type of activity that Evan Emory did in his YouTube video, which is becoming more commonplace online. Part of the problem is that many of the younger generation of YouTube users have grown up much of their formative years in a "virtual culture," where popular shows on television and the Web are featuring increasingly edgy and inappropriate things in video. It has resulted in a serious backlash in some communities like the one Emory resides in, where people are making little or no distinction between activities online, and the physical communities they reside in.