Simone WilsonVimeo not only beats YouTube in film-school cred and picture quality — it also wins for tolerance!
Fred Karger, our favorite gay Republican for president (OK, our only gay Republican for president, and only gay person for president, in general), says his smokin' new Venice Beach campaign video, whose raciest moment is a brief kiss between two gay men in beach wear, was pulled from YouTube yesterday…
… for violating the site's notorious “Community Guidelines.” (Need we remind you of L.A. porn star Aurora Snow's totally PG banana blowjob?) Apparently a large number of users had flagged Kagan's video as inappropriate, and YouTube agreed.
However — after the controversy was posted to FireDogLake last night, and Vimeo started to get all the glory, YouTube scrambled to re-post the thing by this morning. And it's already gotten around 10,000 more views than it had before the blackout.
Here's the original take-down notice that YouTube sent Karger, courtesy of FireDogLake blogger Lisa Derrick:
As you'll see below, Kargar's campaign vid is no more scandalous than any Baywatch episode (er, Gaywatch?), and certainly a lot less frightening than your average Mitt Romney ad. It appears to be filmed somewhere between Venice Beach and Santa Monica, with the pier in the background:
Sexy Frisbee from Fred Karger on Vimeo.
In a statement posted to FireDogLake, Karger says that Andrew and Michael, the total babes who kiss at the end, are “a couple who have been together 7 years.” The candidate asks: “Is that kiss what YouTube considers inappropriate? There are gay kisses on television every day and certainly lots on YouTube and other popular video sharing web sites.”
Karger vows to start an online petition, but it looks like that won't be necessary.
Hey YouTube, and whoever thought it appropriate to flag a beautiful moment between hunks in love: Thanks for giving Karger's hot politics the extra controversy points they needed to go viral. Muah!
[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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