Lofi Girl Goes ‘Missing’ From YouTube, And Fans Are Desperate To Get Her Back
Image via Firstman2507 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Everyone’s favorite study or work companion has gone offline. On Sunday, the famous ‘Lofi Girl’ went poof as two widely-streamed videos—‘lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to’ and ‘beats to sleep/chill to’—were immediately taken down by YouTube after copyright claims were made against them.
The official Lofi Girl Twitter account detailed that the removals were caused by “false copyright strikes.” As Polygon notes, YouTube’s system is wired such that videos accused of copyright infringement are automatically removed without investigation.
The claimant is named as one FMC Music Sdn Bhd Malaysia.
The disappearance of Lofi Girl has spurred an outcry on social media, with the hashtag #BringBackLofiGirl floating around Twitter. It’s even inspired some fan art:
:( #BringBackLofiGirl @YouTube @YouTubeCreators pic.twitter.com/Jr0jOhZ282
— Catstyle (@Catstyle0) July 10, 2022
Some have remarked that the girl deserves this break, having studied nonstop for the past few years. The live videos had been running continuously for two years, four months, and 18.5 days before its streak was cut short on Sunday.
Lofi Girl on break. pic.twitter.com/7czHqMy6bg
— DailyLofiDoodles (woa gay) (@lofi_funkin) July 11, 2022
— güder daily news (@gudernews) July 11, 2022
she finally stopped studying for her exam 🥲 hope she passes #BringBackLofiGirl pic.twitter.com/bxDperccve
— Dogg0 (@thats_ur) July 11, 2022
It’s been a disruptive couple of days for users who have been relying on the playlists for concentration and relaxation, but they can now rejoice in knowing that Lofi Girl will be back soon.
YouTube quickly responded that the nature of the takedown filings was “abusive” and that it has since terminated the account of the channel who made the complaint. The platform promised that the streams would be back within 24 to 48 hours.
confirmed the takedown requests were abusive & terminated the claimants account 😔 we've resolved the strikes + reinstated your vids – it can sometimes take 24-48 hours for everything to be back to normal! so sorry this happened & thx for your patience as we sorted it out â¤ï¸ðŸ©¹
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) July 11, 2022
Notably, live streams only display the number of real-time views they have amassed, but not the total number of views of all time, unlike regular YouTube videos. As the two videos have gone offline, it’s now apparent to viewers that they’ve been streamed over 668 million times. Just wow.
