If at any point in the past seven or so years you needed a "chill lo-fi beat to relax and/or study to," you've probably had a certain sweater-clad anime girl diligently doing her homework, casually bobbing her head to the beat on in the background. Started in 2015, the LoFi Girl YouTube channel is one of the longest running videos of the platform, with the 24-hour loop of nondescript hip-hop beats having amassed 668 million views, spawning countless other livestream radio channels in its wake. Which is why, when two of the platform's most popular online radio streams were taken down overnight, alarms went off.
On Sunday, both the “lofi hip hop radio — beats to relax/study to” and “lofi hip hop radio — beats to sleep/chill to” streams were taken down over multiple reported copyright strikes. The channel's Twitter account was quick address the take downs, labeling them as the result of “false copyright strikes" and making a direct appeal to YouTube to help fix the issue.
\u201cThe lofi radios have been taken down because of false copyright strikes, hopefully @YouTubeCreators @YouTube will sort this quickly...\u201d— Lofi Girl (@Lofi Girl) 1657444098
Fortunately, YouTube was quick to respond, confirming that the multiple takedown requests were "abusive" and "terminated the claimant's account," and reinstated LoFi Girl's account and videos. The support team account also advised that it might take up to 24 to 48 hours for the account and videos to be full reinstated.
\u201c@lofigirl @YouTubeCreators @YouTube confirmed the takedown requests were abusive & terminated the claimants account \ud83d\ude14 we've resolved the strikes + reinstated your vids \u2013 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 \u2764\ufe0f\u200d\ud83e\ude79\u201d— Lofi Girl (@Lofi Girl) 1657444098
This isn't the first time that LoFi Girl's account has been shut down as the result of malicious copyright claims. The channel was removed in 2020 after it was erroneously determined that the account was found in violation of their Terms of Service. Once again, YouTube was quick to admit their mistake and issued an apology on Twitter. LoFi Girl previously got in trouble in 2017 over a looped gif from Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart, but was quickly remedied when they replaced it with the studious green sweatshirt clad girl we all know and love today.
As of this writing, both streams are still down but given LoFi Girl's massive community and the outpouring of support thats since followed, it's only a matter of time until our intrepid student gets back to her relaxing/studying.
Photo via YouTube
- Viral TikTok Singer MASN on New Track, "Fire" - PAPER ›
- Keshi Is the Internet's Triple Threat - PAPER ›
- Lion Babe Says Their New Album Is 'Futuristic Nostalgia' - PAPER ›
- A-Wall Premieres Music Video for "Dropout" ›