Thoughts on modern Youtube culture

[BartTheZech]

I'm not sure how anyone can watch Penguinz0 or Mutahar nowadays, they seem to drag a video out for 30 minutes or more for the most basic, vanila opinion. Although, maybe my attention span has just degraded...

But yeah, I can't stand how dramatic they can be. I mean, there's always horrible shit in the world and always will be. However "doomer", edgy, or just negatives opinions are more attention-grabbing for some. It's the negativity bias, it's why ragebait is a thing.

I'm not sure how anyone can watch Penguinz0 or Mutahar nowadays, they seem to drag a video out for 30 minutes or more for the most basic, vanila opinion. Although, maybe my attention span has just degraded...

I recall Mutahar actually making videos about wanting to go back to different forms of content and I know they started doing deep web browsing again, though yeah nature of most youtube content to be negative. Honestly I never saw the appeal of penguin, whenever I watch he doesn't really add too much to whatever he's commentating or playing? That might be a personal preference thing though.

[Inlusione]

I'm not sure how anyone can watch Penguinz0 or Mutahar nowadays, they seem to drag a video out for 30 minutes or more for the most basic, vanila opinion. Although, maybe my attention span has just degraded...

But yeah, I can't stand how dramatic they can be. I mean, there's always horrible shit in the world and always will be. However "doomer", edgy, or just negatives opinions are more attention-grabbing for some. It's the negativity bias, it's why ragebait is a thing.

People who are usually watching Penguinz0 often do so by having him talking in the background while they do something completely different. Or just eating. Or some activity where they 'need' a background noise. I think that's also why their videos are dragged out for so long, they know their audience well enough to just take advantage of these habits. It's a passive consumption model.

[Furbisms]

My biggest beef with modern youtube is that it is very hard if not impossible to like, have people see your stuff at all, if you don't do basically all this stuff we've all been complaining about, or at least get extremely lucky.

I am stubbornly continuing to do what I want and what makes me happy despite being punished by the algorithm for it. Ive looked into alternatives and have been curious about some but haven't had the chance to experiment yet. I think theyre all flawed in ways that makes them not practical for me to use entirely instead of youtube but I figure experimenting anyway couldn't hurt.

In the end I'm kind of whatever, because at least I have friends who care about my stuff, and I'm not intending to get huge anyway. So like, I'm gonna keep having fun. I just don't think it's healthy for the overall site culture that things are the way they are.

I think in reality there's probably tons of earnest videos made by genuine people, they just don't get boosted by the algorithm. Or at least, that's my theory anyway.

[starbreaker]

I'm not sure how anyone can watch Penguinz0 or Mutahar nowadays, they seem to drag a video out for 30 minutes or more for the most basic, vanila opinion. Although, maybe my attention span has just degraded...

(tl;dr: the internet should be for text, not video)

I don't know who Penguinz0 or Mutahar are, but their identities are irrelevant to the opinion I mean to express: people making video essays tend to talk too much and say too little. (I have a similarly low opinion of podcasters, but that's out of scope for this thread.)

Just as I've never been to a meeting at work that couldn't have been an email, I have never seen a video essay that couldn't have been a blog post or a book.

Furthermore, I think that the internet was never meant to be cable TV with a comments section, and platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are part of the problem. They are inaccessible to people with low-bandwidth connections and old, "obsolete", but otherwise functional devices. They are inaccessible to the blind and the deaf. Nor can you grep a video the way you can a plain text file. The infrastructure necessary for streaming video (and streaming audio) can only be provided by corporations; anything beyond plain text and still images is practical to self-host. I am happier when I avoid such platforms, I am glad I don't participate in "modern YouTube culture" as either a producer or a consumer, and I think we'd be better off without it.

But I'm old enough to remember what life was like before ubiquitous internet access, so I could be biased. Now get off my lawn. :)

People who are usually watching Penguinz0 often do so by having him talking in the background while they do something completely different. Or just eating. Or some activity where they 'need' a background noise.

I think such people would be equally well-served by radio, or by putting on music that doesn't require the listener's full attention.

[Furbisms]

I definitely think there's gonna have to be a lot of "agree to disagree" when it comes to video, because like, I definitely respect the opinion of you and other people who disagree with me about this, but making videos has been a lifelong passion of mine and a creative hobby I really love. It does suck that currently there isn't really a way to practically self host past a certain point. But honestly I do have optimisim that we won't be reliant on corporations forever, especially as technology improves.

I do kind of want to defend video a bit by saying it's a creative hobby of mine that can't really be replaced by anything else, I do what I do because I love it and there isn't anything quite like it. I know a lot of other people don't particularly see the value in it and that's fine, that's their opinion, but I will always have a passion for what I do and would never want to let it go, even if it may clash somewhat with what is seen as "period accurate" for an old web revivalist.

[starbreaker]

I definitely think there's gonna have to be a lot of "agree to disagree" when it comes to video, because like, I definitely respect the opinion of you and other people who disagree with me about this, but making videos has been a lifelong passion of mine and a creative hobby I really love. It does suck that currently there isn't really a way to practically self host past a certain point. But honestly I do have optimisim that we won't be reliant on corporations forever, especially as technology improves.

Like I said, I could be biased. As for making videos being a lifelong passion of yours: more power to you! Nobody's forcing me to watch them, so I don't.

What I should have mentioned, however, is that I dislike video essays, vlogs, and even podcasts for reasons that have nothing to do with old web revivalism. The reason is much simpler: I can read faster than you can talk, and setting playback speed to a level that matches the pace at which I read makes audio unintelligible.

[Vidknight]

I wanted to post in this thread for a while, but I wasn't exactly sure how to phrase what I'm thinking in the best way. In fact I still don't, but hey better to get it out there, and it to exist.

I want to start off by saying that I'm not necessarily part of the whole modern YouTube culture. I curated my feed, and subscription to be nothing except for animation, music, comedy skits, low view videos (Sometime as low as 500 views!), gaming channels (Stuff like Scott The Woz, and PBG. None of those low effort, garbage, drama related channels  which I do have a bit to say about later on.), and just quality high effort stuff overall. As such I'm not really all too exposed to the bad part of youtube as much as other people. I personally feel the same way about youtube as I do the internet as a whole. I see people claim that it sucks, but I feel that there is some great stuff it's just hard to find buried underneath a bunch of crap.

This is where I start getting ranty here, but I feel that the current go to strat for becoming successful on youtube is to to either start, or get involved in some random meaningless drama, or to pump out videos that has nothing to it. Heck why bother creating your own stuff? When you can just straight up watch somebody else video, add nothing to it, and get infinite views, while the original creator who worked hard on that video sees none of the attention, or praise.

It seems that the vast majority of big youtube channels just thrive off of outrage, and drama like VioletHeaven said, which sucks, and kind of frustrates me. The fact the somebody can spend hours creating a whole animation series by themselves, and get like 3000 views at most (Side note check out Wafellmaker's skifters it's pretty good, and crazy that it was done by one guy, and his wife.) meanwhile somebody can just read tweets in the most dull way possible, and get brand deals just rubs me the wrong way.

All of this to say that I don't really participate in this modern youtube culture. I feel that once you start training your algorithm (Which I found kind of annoying, but whatever) to actually show you good stuff you start getting A LOT of good stuff. To this day I'm still finding so many well done incredible animation, or at least passionate. In my recommendation. Just steer clear of the drama, that is pretty common, and I feel that your youtube experience would increase 10 folds. 

And while I do find it annoying that high quality stuff gets buried I still try my best to show my appreciation for it even if it's just showing it to friends, and liking the video any little bit helps in the long run. 

Also don't go into the comment section it's pretty toxic 9/10.

[starbreaker]

This is where I start getting ranty here, but I feel that the current go to strat for becoming successful on youtube is to to either start, or get involved in some random meaningless drama, or to pump out videos that has nothing to it. Heck why bother creating your own stuff? When you can just straight up watch somebody else video, add nothing to it, and get infinite views, while the original creator who worked hard on that video sees none of the attention, or praise.

I honestly think you can generalize this to social media as a whole, whether it's video-based like YouTube and TikTok, image-based like Instagram, or text-based like Twitter and its imitators (including BlueSky and Mastodon). The most successful people, at least in terms of drawing attention, are the most dramatic and the most parasitic.

But when they suffer a downfall, it's satisfying to read about it. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[xolta]

My bigest problem with youtube now of these days is my problem with most of the "corporate" big sites now of these days. It feels like it all become about the money or numbers a video dose rather then doing some thing for the pure desire to create things. We need to bring back the wild west/ socialist internet of yor.  Its why as of lately I been trying to go off the beaten path  and find new and intersing websites. To get away form companies and there algorithms.

[MediocreMetastasis]

It feels like it all become about the money or numbers a video dose rather then doing some thing for the pure desire to create things.

I have a friend who is a influencer on Youtube. I think he enjoys making his videos, but him ripping off the style of channels such as Drew Goodman and Danny Gonzalez and hopping on trends show he's primarily in it for the money.
I also sometimes make videos but it's only very obscure topics I like with some skits thrown in. In my opinion, making videos you like will be good in the long term and prevent burnout, but he did get a $1000aud paycheck from two of his videos reaching 100k views so what do I know. He might slowly develop his own style he prefers also.