Is Anyone Else Bothered by What YouTube Content Has Become?

[VanitasFan26]

I've been on this platform (YouTube) since the vlog/sketch era, and lately, the soul of YouTube is getting buried.

Everything is optimized to death:

• Streamers pushing the edge of what's legal/ethical just for clips
• AI-generated content with zero human input
• Fake generosity for views
• Manufactured drama that dominates trending pages

Yes, there are still great creators out there—but you have to dig to find them.

YouTube used to be about connection and creativity. Now it feels like a machine that rewards manipulation, negativity, and chaos—because that's what keeps people watching.

It's not just sad—it's dangerous. Especially for younger audiences who are growing up thinking this is normal.

I would love to hear if anyone else feels this way, or if I'm shouting into the void.

 

[Beanz]

youtube and social media in general has definitely shortened my attention span. i can’t imagine what its doing to young children on these platforms, my attention span is terrible but theirs must be horrendous since they’re growing up with this type of nonsense.

also youtube ads.. almost all of them are low effort and AI or straight up inappropriate.

i can’t speak so much for actual videos since i never pay attention to youtube’s trending page but yeah.. probably not good. i hate how basically every little thing is monetized now. it’s complicated because monetization is good in a way but not everything has to be done to make money. also what happened to just making videos for fun?? not everybody needs to be an influencer.

 

[Seastar]

I haven't actually seen most of the content mentioned. My recommended page is pretty specific and about half of it is video game music.
Though I do find it really annoying to be trying to listen to music and then I get an ad I consider low effort? Got one for Walmart that I just couldn't believe was made by Walmart... It looked so unprofessional...
Also, I think it should be illegal to get ads on a 3 second long video. Yes, I have seen that!
On a different note, I don't really like YouTube Shorts. I don't know why but the whole format they have just displeases me. I don't need people talking fast to explain something. I would have liked a normal video at normal speed.

 

[VernalLapin]

Yeah, I think all the ai slop and algospeak is genuinely bad for the brain in every single way imaginable. It’s depressing.

 

[pawpatrolbab]

Yes, this and every single other social media platform. I hate how broken the search feature is too, just reccomend me TikTok short videos - like I do not want to see those, go away!

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I’m more annoyed with the ads constantly playing before and after videos. I don’t want to pay money just to not see the ads.

 

[QueenCobra]

I get recommended a lot of video essays. Some of them I enjoy listening to, as they cover interesting topics (history, politics, fashion, entertainment, etc.) and others center on topics that I think could easily be summed up in five words— like they’re dragged out to fill up time.

 

[Neb]

YouTube was where I spent much of my free time during my teenage years. I was exposed to tons of excessive swearing and forced skits, but it didn't feel corporate. People just made content because they wanted to. As the years progressed, I started using YouTube less and less until now, where I only open it occasionally.

I despise the current state of the website. Everyone is trying to make a living from the website and create videos as long as possible to maximize watch time, which in turn leads to more ad revenue. This investment is then used to upgrade equipment and outsource work to paid editors. Since everyone on the site needs professional-looking videos to attract more customers, I mean, viewers. An unrelated product is advertised in almost every video, as nearly everyone with a sizable following is trying to make a living off the website, and they don't care that they look like shills.

My recommended tab went from rough around the edges, but entertaining game reviews and memes to "life advice" videos with the most vague suggestions possible and a clickbait headline or overly long video essays on entertainment with either the coldest takes ever conceived, or they bash basic quality of life features for "ruining immersion". I love Pokémon; it's my childhood series, but I don't want to watch an 8-hour "analysis" of Pokémon Omega Ruby (summarizing the game in the most verbose way possible to keep viewers watching longer). I do not want to listen to an 8-hour "analysis" of a children's sitcom that was cancelled after two seasons. (verbose, rambly summary) I have hobbies, friends, something vaguely resembling a life. I might be a college dropout who lives on social security, but I don't want to fall into the watch time ad trap.

Consise, 5-30 minute video game videos are so hard to find now. I ultimately gave up. Whenever I thought it'd be something better, I just got another rambly video with a sponsorship deal for some mobile game the YouTuber doesn't actually care about. It was either that or they covered a game that they got a "review copy of," and I couldn't trust their judgment of the game since I had no idea if they were being sincere or just shilling it.

Now that generative AI is public, the site is also infested with obviously generated content, primarily to increase ad consumption and profit for the human behind all the accounts with no effort required. The site is now a balancing act of avoiding corporate accounts and AI-generated content just to find a channel that is made from actual passion.

There's also the issue of the endless shady people who get famous off the website, only to get into drama because they were secretly evil. Those people have always been around on the website, but now it feels like the drama is fabricated for the sole purpose of generating online discourse, leading to more views, and, you guessed it, more ad revenue.

I hate feeling this way about the website since I was introduced to so many video games and books I loved through the YouTubers I enjoyed. They loved what they did and just wanted to talk about their hobbies. It was like having an older sibling tell you about the cool media they just had to say to you about. Now I feel like I'm watching a manufactured product.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

I didn't really spend much time on Youtube until a year ago or so, so I can't really make an in depth comparison of new youtube to old youtube. But I manage to find a lot of interesting stuff on youtube; I like that it sometimes recommends me new videos with barely any views, it kinda makes me wanna start my own channel if the algorithm really works like that.

I mostly go on Youtube for cooking/baking/sewing tutorials, music videos, and shorter video essays.. oh and animal videos of course. I would never watch anything like reaction content or mr. beast

Ads are annoying, I do remember the days when ads weren't on every single video... but whatever.

I wonder if we will ever get a true youtube alternative!

 

[StarlitGlitch]

I was very into YouTube for a long time (over 10 years) but just within the last half year or so I’ve been able to pull away from it, and now there are a lot of days I don’t watch it at all.

The main way I was able to do it was through reflection. I’d think before watching a video what I was expecting to get out of, and at the end I’d think back if I did or not, and if I felt it was worth the time. I found a lot of it, I didn’t. Then when I’d see a similar video crop up, I’d realize the same thing would probably happen. I started to see content creators as much set out to waste my time (even though that isn’t exactly true).

I’m spending more time on streaming content, but in my mind it’s still a step up from YT. Although I do still need to stay on top of social media.
In general I’m trying to get away from “lower quality content” like scrolling based sites and trying to do things that are going to make me happier. That’s why I’d prefer if I watch something now that it be an actual show.

 

[-Blue-]

I don't really see a lot of that stuff cause I edited my browser so nothing trending shows on the homepage or the 'what is recommended to you. It's just blank. Because half of it is nothing even remotely close to what I would want to see. It's all some negative farming algorithm to net a reaction. So I cut that noise out.

I don't use YouTube or a lot of those places anymore, especially because most ad-blocking that I have doesn't work on there anymore so the video will play and then it will keep reloading itself until I turn it off for YouTube. And at that point my patience is lost and I move on to some other place that doesn't try to shove its motives down my throat.

I'm glad that I did use coding to hide the trending homepage. Most of it is AI slop. It's sad that it's everywhere.

 

[moonbyu]

i'm extremely bothered by it!
i've been trying to cut out youtube/watch certain youtubers so i don't have to see content like that for as long as i can.

 

[Solus]

I like how creative people used to be especially with tight budgets. Now in days, it feels like everything short, repetitive and have the same format. Every video is basically a Johnny Test episode! haha

What I really hate about YT now in days is how difficult it is to find genuine content about any subject. I would look something up like "Just Dance", and I get the worst type of context possible. Sometimes it's not even related to what I look up. It's really frustrating and I missed how I used to be able to look something up on youtube and it was one of the first things listed.

 

[-Blue-]

I like how creative people used to be especially with tight budgets. Now in days, it feels like everything short, repetitive and have the same format. Every video is basically a Johnny Test episode! haha

What I really hate about YT now in days is how difficult it is to find genuine content about any subject. I would look something up like "Just Dance", and I get the worst type of context possible. Sometimes it's not even related to what I look up. It's really frustrating and I missed how I used to be able to look something up on youtube and it was one of the first things listed.

Pretty much this, but with every search engine anymore. You have to wade through so much slop to find anything that you're actually looking for. I remember reading this story about a soldier during the Civil War. He fought in Gettysburg. It was a very compelling and bittersweet article. Had such a hard time finding it again when I wanted to remember a line from it. I couldn't remember his last name just that his name was William. So any search with William, Civil War, Gettysburg, and the unit he served in United States 2nd resulted in searches about Prince William, Harry, and Meghan. It was so annoying.

 

[Solus]

Pretty much this, but with every search engine anymore. You have to wade through so much slop to find anything that you're actually looking for. I remember reading this story about a soldier during the Civil War. He fought in Gettysburg. It was a very compelling and bittersweet article. Had such a hard time finding it again when I wanted to remember a line from it. I couldn't remember his last name just that his name was William. So any search with William, Civil War, Gettysburg, and the unit he served in United States 2nd resulted in searches about Prince William, Harry, and Meghan. It was so annoying.

Yeah! LOL It's gotten so bad that some people use Reddit as an alternative for Google. I don't even use Google myself anymore. I use AI to work around it.

 

[TheSillyPuppy]

Totally agree that finding content and creators that truly speak to me (unfortunately) increasingly feels like trying to find a needle in the haystack. One would think that with the amount of data that YouTube/Google has on each of us, the recommendation algorithm would be much higher quality than it is, assuming one's goal is to look for new creators to support.

Nowadays, I pretty much tune out my home page. I know what I like, so I stick to my subscriptions page.

From the creator perspective, I wish the algorithm was much less punishing to creators, especially smaller ones, that don't upload frequently or consistently. From the creators that I follow, I find it tragically ironic that the ones who aren't so worried about pleasing the algorithm, are the same ones who can financially afford to step away from content creation for prolonged periods of time without much fear of losing their long-established audience.

Ultimately, I think what I'm most grateful for about it nowadays are the independent journalists who have chosen YouTube as their main platform to stay up-to-date on relevant world news. It's refreshing and enlightening to hear from diverse, nuanced, and even dissident voices in order to learn about important stories that are overlooked or straight up covered up by traditional, mainstream media.

 

[Ghost Of Mascevanje]

I've never really cared to watch or follow any "content creators", so I can't say I'm bothered in regards to that.

99℅ of the time I use YouTube it's just to sample or listen to music that I don't physically (or digitally) own yet. One of the few things that does bug me a bit is the increase of ads. In the past, when listening to an album I would only get about one or two ads for every three songs played. I didn't ever complain then because I thought it was just a small price to pay for being able to stream music for free (and without even needing an account). But now I get like 2-3 ads after (almost) every single song and that is kind of dampening my listening experience.

 

[xSuperMario64x]

yeah I'm not gonna lie, I tolerated Youtube Shorts for a long time but I'm at a point where I want to remove them from my feed entirely, and only see content from creators I follow. I've been seeing a rise in AI stuff and it actually disgusts me. I think AI can be effective in some cases, but I haven't seen sny good come out of it on Youtube. it's just a bunch of slop optimized to capture your attention and waste your time. I'm thinking about how content farms are probably using it now to make fake videos that are harder to differentiate from reality (and in speaking of content farms, holy frick the videos move so fast!! like are people really so understimulated that they need videos moving this fast??).

I wish a secondary platform would show up and give genuine content creators the refuge they deserve. like how Bluesky popped up in place of facebook/twitter. I've even considered supporting creators on platforms like Patreon and avoiding youtube entirely, partly because of youtube's TOS and how they remove videos for the dumbest reasons ever.

 

[-Blue-]

Yeah! LOL It's gotten so bad that some people use Reddit as an alternative for Google. I don't even use Google myself anymore. I use AI to work around it.

Reddit used to be the first search that would always pop up and it had the answer I was looking for all the time. Or usually. Sometimes even someone like 8 years ago would've asked the question I needed the exact answer for and it was so awesome finding that. Now Reddit is just as bad as every other place. AI has infected all of these places and it's not stopping. It's spreading like a disease and so fast and the government doesn't want to stop or regulate it. It's so annoying.

I used to use Reddit all the time, but I stopped. When Google and other search engines failed me years prior to the rise of AI because how convoluted finding anything was, Reddit was my go to and so easy to find what I was looking for. Now Reddit is so full of AI bots that infect every sub and thread leaving their propaganda posts to spread misinformation, bigotry, and shill out for some company with fake reviews.

For example Amazon doesn't show off it's customer service number on its website easily. Reddit posts have mention of this and some even share that they found it. Comments then thank them because they were looking forever. Both that post and the commenters thanking them are AI bots phishing and giving out fake scam numbers. Reddit isn't even reliable anymore.

It's getting out of hand.