This is quite a topic I spent a lot time thinking about, even before this thread was made, and it's only made me think even longer and harder about how to respond concerning the platform and the content that's been put out lately. It also gave me pause for reflection of the YouTube I was first exposed to in the mid-'00s. This post may not end up being as verbose or elaborate as I would've wanted, but here are my $0.02 on this. Who knows? Maybe I'll add more to this post or something.
Not much bothered than I was in the last decade of YouTube. Not to say that it isn't worse now than it was ten years ago, but there was still A LOT of slop — A LOT of garbage content on the platform back then. Its "soul" was buried a long time ago because too many people were more concerned about getting as many views and subscribers as possible rather than actually creating distinguished, quality videos. This isn't an issue that just happened within a few years. The site was in decay long before then.
Within the last 20 years of this platform, I've curated my search to what I personally enjoyed most, rather it was popular or not. That's what I cared most about. The only things that have changed are my interests. Having to look for good content that I would enjoy is something I always did on YouTube. Low effort trash has always outweigh said good content, even in its early years. I do think it's actually worse, though — and I don't think it's just my hopelessly cynical worldview.
Since content is being generated (both by A.I. and actual humans) more than ever before, it's natural you'll get more crappy content recommended to you. This is why I took measures to install an app on my preferred browser to remove videos and "Shorts" that aren't from the few channels that I'm subscribed to. I especially hated the introduction to Shorts. Was this a feature that YouTube seriously needed to further erode whatever attention span viewers had left? The UI is clunky, unreliable (which is pretty much what YouTube's layout has been since 2009, in spite of the updates it's had afterwards), and some Shorts go on for more than a minute — too long to be considered a Short at that point. This is an instance of YouTube trying to copy what TikTok and Instagram are doing and failing miserably at it. It's also incredibly daft that there's a 30-day time limit when it comes to hiding Shorts. This might seem somewhat tangential since I'm talking about a feature rather than the content itself, but a lot of that **** is contained in these half-ass Shorts. Overly-drawn out clips that could just be regular (short) videos, clips directly taken from established videos, memes, and other vapid nonsense I'm not interested in. Speaking of memes:
I find memes generally stupid, so I tend to ignore videos that are obviously just meme BS, though what especially irritates me the most is how videos have been titled for the better part of the last decade. It seems really popular to just needlessly put the word, "but" in the title of the video just to garner a higher viewcount and I honestly can't understand how adding unnecessarily conjunctions will somehow make something more popular. "X but it's Y", "Y but it's Z doing these things". Exchange these letters for characters in a T.V. show or movie and you might know what I'm talking about. This also leads to another naming convention that bothers me more than it probably should. This "[insert character(s) here] being [insert adjective(s)/name(s) here] for however long the video is" is especially annoying. Hey, dumbasses. The length of the video is displayed on the ****ing thumbnail itself, so there's no reason to put it in the title, too. Seriously, if you're making a compilation video, just call it a compilation video. Goddamn.
There's also the insane amount of misinformation that's been spread all around the world, and dishonest charlatans and bad-faith actors have a foothold on YouTube. YouTube isn't as bad as say, Rumble, when it comes to politics and science, but it's still pretty bad, honestly. Misinformation kills, so I'm surprised A.I. is discussed on this thread more often. It's especially deadly when the government is responsible for regurgitating this falsehood to the susceptible (and suggestible) public and is targeting educational institutions, but that's all I'll say on the matter, for now.
In short, YouTube sucks even harder than it did before and more bad content is being pumped out.
Not much bothered than I was in the last decade of YouTube. Not to say that it isn't worse now than it was ten years ago, but there was still A LOT of slop — A LOT of garbage content on the platform back then. Its "soul" was buried a long time ago because too many people were more concerned about getting as many views and subscribers as possible rather than actually creating distinguished, quality videos. This isn't an issue that just happened within a few years. The site was in decay long before then.
Within the last 20 years of this platform, I've curated my search to what I personally enjoyed most, rather it was popular or not. That's what I cared most about. The only things that have changed are my interests. Having to look for good content that I would enjoy is something I always did on YouTube. Low effort trash has always outweigh said good content, even in its early years. I do think it's actually worse, though — and I don't think it's just my hopelessly cynical worldview.
Since content is being generated (both by A.I. and actual humans) more than ever before, it's natural you'll get more crappy content recommended to you. This is why I took measures to install an app on my preferred browser to remove videos and "Shorts" that aren't from the few channels that I'm subscribed to. I especially hated the introduction to Shorts. Was this a feature that YouTube seriously needed to further erode whatever attention span viewers had left? The UI is clunky, unreliable (which is pretty much what YouTube's layout has been since 2009, in spite of the updates it's had afterwards), and some Shorts go on for more than a minute — too long to be considered a Short at that point. This is an instance of YouTube trying to copy what TikTok and Instagram are doing and failing miserably at it. It's also incredibly daft that there's a 30-day time limit when it comes to hiding Shorts. This might seem somewhat tangential since I'm talking about a feature rather than the content itself, but a lot of that **** is contained in these half-ass Shorts. Overly-drawn out clips that could just be regular (short) videos, clips directly taken from established videos, memes, and other vapid nonsense I'm not interested in. Speaking of memes:
I find memes generally stupid, so I tend to ignore videos that are obviously just meme BS, though what especially irritates me the most is how videos have been titled for the better part of the last decade. It seems really popular to just needlessly put the word, "but" in the title of the video just to garner a higher viewcount and I honestly can't understand how adding unnecessarily conjunctions will somehow make something more popular. "X but it's Y", "Y but it's Z doing these things". Exchange these letters for characters in a T.V. show or movie and you might know what I'm talking about. This also leads to another naming convention that bothers me more than it probably should. This "[insert character(s) here] being [insert adjective(s)/name(s) here] for however long the video is" is especially annoying. Hey, dumbasses. The length of the video is displayed on the ****ing thumbnail itself, so there's no reason to put it in the title, too. Seriously, if you're making a compilation video, just call it a compilation video. Goddamn.
There's also the insane amount of misinformation that's been spread all around the world, and dishonest charlatans and bad-faith actors have a foothold on YouTube. YouTube isn't as bad as say, Rumble, when it comes to politics and science, but it's still pretty bad, honestly. Misinformation kills, so I'm surprised A.I. is discussed on this thread more often. It's especially deadly when the government is responsible for regurgitating this falsehood to the susceptible (and suggestible) public and is targeting educational institutions, but that's all I'll say on the matter, for now.
In short, YouTube sucks even harder than it did before and more bad content is being pumped out.
