This whole situation makes more sense once you remember that YouTube is balancing a lot of pressures at once. I watch a ridiculous amount of mashups and edits, and 'SpongeBob' YTPs are a weird intersection: they use a
Beloved kids' cartoon but then remix it into sometimes creepy, sexualized, or extremely violent directions. From YouTube's perspective, anything that looks like it could be exposing minors to sexual or graphic material gets flagged fast — either by automated systems, community reports, or manual reviewers trying to follow policy.
On top of that, there have been policy changes aimed at protecting young viewers and advertisers. That means clips involving recognizable childlike characters can get age-gated if the edits add mature context or even if metadata and thumbnails suggest adult themes. Creators often used shock cuts, explicit sound edits, or suggestive thumbnails to get views, and those are red flags now. I’ve seen creators appeal and sometimes win, but the system errs on the side of caution. Personally, I feel a little
torn — I love the absurdity of YTP culture, but I get why platforms clamp down when content involving young-looking cartoon figures is pushed toward potentially harmful territory.