#5in5

So, folks, here we are. Another social media post about Betterhelp and their campaign.

I guess you could say I saw what’s being referred to as a “scandal” coming.

It’s twenty eighteen. We all know that mental health is important, or at least I like to hope so. And now, technology is more present and vital than ever. It only makes sense that a service like Betterhelp would exist in today’s culture. That being said, the necessity behind Betterhelp’s support leaves the opportunity for the company to become fragile. Lots of room for mistakes. If you’re one of the few YouTube dwellers that hasn’t heard of Betterhelp yet, you are bound to see it mentioned in the trending page. Let me explain why:

Betterhelp is marketed as a therapist at your fingertips. Its mission statement promises “convenient, private, professional counselling online”. Most commonly, a subscription is purchased for $65 a week. That’s $260 per month. Depending on what your background is like, and what coverage you have, that little sum can be a considerable cutback compared to face-to-face therapy. The fact that Betterhelp is mobile and online also means that recipients of therapy don’t need to go through the gruelling process of having to confront somebody with problems in a physical way, so you’re also paying for the experience of the whole when setting up for membership.

 Once you subscribe, you are matched with the therapist that Betterhelp believes is qualified to take on your case. The website prompts you to answer a series of questions about your personal life, such as gender, age, status, and sexuality. They build you a profile for the purposes of finding somebody compatible to your comfort zone and needs. Depending on what your answers are, the company might suggest that you try assist your website that offers more tailored services of the same kind to niche communities. For example, Betterhelp also has a platform dedicated to LGBT + counseling services and one for youth between the ages of 13 and 19. Betterhelp oversees all aspects of these outlets too. This is unlike any other mental health service that the Internet has seen before.  Betterhelp is viewed as a tool that really holds your individual needs to high regard instead of linking you with our “stranger” as other online therapy sites would, like if you’re using a crisis chat. Betterhelp guarantees that you will have the consistency you need to not have to start fresh and revisit your issues with someone you haven’t spoken to before. In theory, having a therapist you can access at any time who was chosen specifically to meet your needs is life-changing.

That was the hope in 2013 anyway when the brainchild of Alon Matas grew into this company after his own personal struggle with mental health inspired him to create something bigger.

So why do we have a slew of titles in all caps suggesting the opposite on YouTube?

The company gained its momentum by partnering with content creators on YouTube. When I first saw an ad for Betterhelp about a year ago, I thought this was a great initiative because of the audience it would reach. Sponsoring videos on YouTube means starting a bigger conversation about mental illness and breaking down the stigma associated with it.  

There’s only one problem: Betterhelp might not be as credible as it seems. According to the unedited terms of service on the website that was posted earlier this fall, Betterhelp stated that “while we may try to do so from time to time, in our sole discretion, you acknowledge that we do not represent or verify, and do not guarantee the verification of skills, degrees, qualifications, licensure, certification, credentials, competence or background of any counselor.” You read that right. It says directly that the brand is not responsible for providing competent staff.

Betterhelp doesn’t guarantee their staff’s competence and capability of taking on your case. But isn’t that what the entire service is there for? The old text goes on to say “it is your responsibility to conduct independent verification regarding any counselor that provides you with counseling services.”

It has since been taken down from the site

To me, this stuck out as a red flag. How is a patient of Betterhelp services supposed to pinpoint inconsistent behaviour if that’s a unique service that the website promises new users regardless?

There are layers of problems with this, but the main one that really drew me back was how heavily this website was being promoted with this policy in place. We live in such a fragile time where mental health services with the concept of Betterhelp are more needed than ever. That being said, advertisements that are in favour of a domain that has such a vague and concerning policy could be doing more harm than good for our society. The Betterhelp story was one that really made me rethink the sponsorships I was seeing content creators go through with, and on what terms they were endorsing something. The scary thing is on a platform like YouTube, you can be reaching millions of people with a broad variety of audiences. That brings me to my next point: although it was a smart move on Betterhelp’s part to reach out to YouTubers, it creates quite a horrifying cycle. For example, take Shane Dawson. He is blowing up on the Internet right now primarily because of a series documenting the life of none other than Jake Paul. The videos received more than 80 million views within the first few months of being posted. Dawson’s audience is primarily teenagers and twentysomethings, and he can thank the documentary style videos for a sort of revival of his online career. Now I’ll let you take a guess as to who sponsored its production. Yep, Betterhelp!

These days it’s become quite typical to read alarming statistics regarding youth mental illness. Mental problems are becoming increasingly potent for those in their high school years. Now think about how many sad teenagers were watching that screen as Shane Dawson hurried to tell his viewers about Betterhelp. If Betterhelp conducted itself differently, there’d be no problem with this. It’s an efficient and productive way of benefiting both the creator and the company while spreading an important reminder to viewers. Unfortunately though, Betterhelp has developed quite a negative reputation because of the things they disclose within the conduct information. And this could spiral down further into something even more destructive, because sooner or later, a large portion of Betterhelp users will become unsatisfied because of the flaws within the system. So, it’s actually hurting the company more for them to be advertised right now. Betterhelp has the potential to be a fantastic resource, but they don’t have the means to follow through at this moment. It’s disrespectful to those struggling to put their trust and their money into something you state that you can’t guarantee is legitimate.

Another notable figure that was affected by this is Philip DeFranco. He has become known as a sort of “YouTube journalist” and has openly sponsored Betterhelp on multiple different locations. You can imagine the distaste towards his image when it was released that Betterhelp had these facts against them. After being asked about his stance on the many gaps within Betterhelp’s vague terms and conditions, DeFranco actually suspended his partnership with Betterhelp as a whole. This was a bold move on his part because they are a primary source of revenue for his own company and his individual brand. He uploaded a video to his main channel in early October titled “so let’s talk about this Betterhelp situation…” Where he reiterates that he has been transparent in all of his partnerships and that he would still recommend the service to anyone who wanted to seek help. In my opinion, he spends more time covering up his own affiliation rather than speaking his mind on the actual developments.

To expand on this, feel free to watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzRqPFtKiYU

All of this aside, Betterhelp isn’t the first company to find themselves in this predicament and won’t be the last. Undoubtedly, there are countless services with broad statements similar to theirs that do exceptional things for our world. Most people don’t bat an eye when notified of a user agreement when signing up for something. This is no disrespect to Betterhelp’s initiatives, merely just an observation. One can make the claim that it’s just as much of the creator’s responsibility to protect their own presence by carefully selecting what they choose to broadcast as a sponsor in their videos. Where do you draw the line?  Obviously, YouTubers rely on sponsorships to keep their career lasting. Without ads, there would be no YouTube. At the same time, you have to treat your brand with dignity and choose to magnify things you truly believe in. So maybe creators thought they were doing social justice by accepting a sponsorship, or maybe it was pure ignorance. But anyway, now both sides of the story are being demolished by the worst population: people with opinions on the Internet. Betterhelp is a new buzzword, the company’s name has been associated with “scam”. Those who backed it are being accused of profiting off of the pain of others. That’s not what anyone wants to contribute to today’s online world. Perhaps proposals like this should be treated with more caution. Ironically, Swedish gamer Pewdiepie who usually is in hot water because of controversial digs he makes in his videos, made a very compelling video on the subject, explaining why he had never sponsored Betterhelp to begin with. In summary, he expresses that he feels giving so much attention to a company like Betterhelp is actually reversing the progressive narrative toward mental health assistance. Within all of this drama filled environment is redirecting the conversation and not allowing those who are actually in need of consultation to be taken seriously.

Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PLgOaVXmGU

Even the CEO’s statement was kind of minimizing the impact that this had on the bigger mental health movement. In a statement he wrote on Medium, he says “It was fascinating to see how the most bizarre and senseless ideas can spread. One person writes a wild speculation and then a second person quotes it as a fact. Then it’s quoted and repeated by the third and fourth person, and by the time it gets to the fifth, he already heard the same thing from four other people and if so many people said the exact same thing it surely must be true! At some point, BetterHelp was the second highest trending thread in the “conspiracy” section of Reddit, next to some other really weird stuff.”Let this be a warning and a lesson to the brains looking to partner with online creators. YouTube isn’t just a place for makeup tutorials done in bedrooms on WebCams anymore. It’s a place of employment, and brands that are willing to offer themselves to the entrepreneurs of YouTube should be taken at more than face value because you wouldn’t want your name to be going viral in a bad way. They say any kind of publicity is good publicity, but this kerfuffle created more of disruption within the online culture than it should have. And to the kids out there: don’t believe everything you see online. Maybe not even this.

Sources: 

Terms and conditions

https://www.betterhelp.com/faq/

Fast Company:

https://www.fastcompany.com/40423793/online-therapy-shows-promise-but-raises-plenty-of-ethical-questions

Shane Dawson's "The Mind of Jake Paul”: part two- "The Dark Side of Jake Paul“

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTLkSpY_aYg

Pewdiepie “We need to talk about YouTubers promoting this"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PLgOaVXmGU

Philip Defranco-"Let's Talk about This Betterhelp Situation"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzRqPFtKiYU&t=527s

Alon Matas Response: "When Betterhelp Found Itself in a YouTube Controversy"

Goal/Concept

To experience what is like to be colorblind.

The original video

The adjusted videos