Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

openspace.sfmoma.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 150 posts

Re: YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

#61

Post by myt6fore »

We should probably expand on this notion of Clickbait that assumes readers are merely tricked into clicking. Catering to some 'lowely' urge is way we usually think about these, but there is more.

Traditionally, clickbait refers to a type of optimisation for more 'static' media outlets- those with more rigid publishing chain: writer Youtube's low barrier to publishing disrupts that, so we now have viewers assuming editor + owner role with their newfound power of directing attention. So now users demand to be catered to. Sense on entitlement is at the center of this thing.

Re: YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

#62

Post by coldtea »

voltagex_ wrote: post #47
__s wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quality over quantity. Seek ten views that let you engage with another human being rather than however many views which will never let you really make contact

Yeah but how many views do you need to put food on the table?

To complete the parent's advice: "...and have a job that doesn't depend on whoring for views".

Re: YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

#63

Post by ILikeConemowk »

mattbierner wrote: post #30

This post made me want to re-read "You Are Not a Gadget." One of Lanier's points in that book is that technology can both augment expression and bound it. The Like Button is a classic example of bounding because it reduces your thoughts and feelings about a piece of content to a thumbs up, whereas a simple textbox would let you note whatever you want about the content (text is also harder to monetize and analyze and…

>I hope that we can grow beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm

I personally think you are in for a very rude awakening. This is exactly what people are trying not to do with Machine Learning. It is always, almost, about profiling you, about finding out who you are in order to offer you what you already know, to limit your horizon, to "tailor" your "experience" and the span of possibilities.

As a very technical fellow told me: "when you read three political news in a row we set a badge, you are now politically minded."

This, sadly, doesn't fit your yearning for us growing "beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm."

My prediction is that it will get worst before it gets any better at all.

Re: YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

#64

Post by downer61 »

booleandilemma wrote: post #42
mattbierner wrote: post #30

This post made me want to re-read "You Are Not a Gadget." One of Lanier's points in that book is that technology can both augment expression and bound it. The Like Button is a classic example of bounding because it reduces your thoughts and feelings about a piece of content to a thumbs up, whereas a simple textbox would let you note whatever you want about the content (text is also harder to monetize and analyze and…

Nice comment, I have upvoted it.

Alight, listen you! Quit horsing around, this is a very serious discussion.

Re: YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

#67

Post by einr »

bitwize wrote: post #20

I find it funny that the AVGN is featured; he's been making that face since before YouTube's been monetizing. He may be the originator of the phenomenon. It used to be that in order to drive clicks you needed to have female cleavage in your thumbnail. One YouTuber (RadicalSoda) still includes an image of a cartoon woman showing generous cleavage in each of his videos, despite himself being the only person actually ap…

YouTube voice

There's a link in the OP to an article analyzing this: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/the-l...

Re: YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

#68

Post by exodust »

written wrote: post #46
egypturnash wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will just go back to inserting a carefully produced image as the very first frame of their video.

Just make the algorithm select a random frame, and it will be solved.

The random frame may be a poor choice of representing the content to the point of being worse than a photoshopped thumbnail.

It's definitely a problem. Clickbait thumbnails blatantly misleading people into clicking. It comes down to poor link integrity, which Google was apparently against at one time, now they basically encourage it.

There's great stuff on youtube, but the trash pile is bigger than ever and gets more clicks.

The classic example one of the oldest custom thumbnails on youtube that I recall, is that roller-coaster in mid air. Millions of views, as people clicked to see a coaster they didn't know existed. Of course, the video has no such coaster, and as a result thousands of dislikes. But who cares about dislikes when you have 40m views and counting on a rubbish generic video with misleading thumbnail.

Re: YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

#69

Post by mattbierner »

ILikeConemowk wrote: post #63
mattbierner wrote: post #30

This post made me want to re-read "You Are Not a Gadget." One of Lanier's points in that book is that technology can both augment expression and bound it. The Like Button is a classic example of bounding because it reduces your thoughts and feelings about a piece of content to a thumbs up, whereas a simple textbox would let you note whatever you want about the content (text is also harder to monetize and analyze and…

>I hope that we can grow beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm I personally think you are in for a very rude awakening. This is exactly what people are trying not to do with Machine Learning. It is always, almost, about profiling you, about finding out who you are in order to offer you what you already know, to limit your horizon, to "tailor" your "experience" and the span of possibilities. As a very technic…

Yes I think you are right. Just today for example, many people seemed encouraged when Zuckerberg said facebook would have AI to effectively and automatically block hate speech in 5-10 years. And while it's hard to be, "oh no think of the poor hate speech!" that tech is actually very scary when you start thinking about how much it can be abused.

The first thing we'd probably do with cuttlefish suits anyways is stick ads all over them. Then the company that makes them would get acquired

Re: YouTube Face is clickbait, attaining human form

#70

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

datalus wrote: post #45
fiatpandas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it still feels weird to see ordinary people For me this is where these YT tropes get interesting. When you get past the thumbnails of the mega channels with multiple full time employees who are obviously doing something very baity and strategic, you’re left with the ordinary channels who mimic these tropes likely without deep consideration or even consciousness. It’s just more of a will to survive kind of thing, and…

that sounds a lot like a feedback loop.

Capitalism provides the feedback loop. The Internet enables it.

Can we not design a better fitness function?

Post reply on HN