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In the belly of the MrBeast

kevinmunger.substack.com

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Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#251

Post by CYR1X »

alecco wrote: post #33

Watching YouTube anonymously with different browsers and cycling VPNs frequently, I see it quickly ends up suggesting the same videos during the same week. Not similar videos but the same ones. Many of those videos are below 1M and not particularly notable. This is after only watching a couple of videos and those videos are different every session. Either it has some magic fingerprinting I am not aware of (and I go t…

> I've never, ever clicked on short videos with girls in skimpy clothing doing something "based" and yet it keeps trying to hook me up on those. Even after clicking around very different videos (infosec, low level code, workshop). It's like it refuses to learn what I want to watch.

This has made me realize that YouTube is like the leading platform for piracy and porn. If you have any interest in sports the frontpage will be littered with pirated livestreams from channels like ESPN, and while they may not be explicitly pornography, the skimpy girl content is basically that.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#252

Post by 1659447091 »

lupusreal wrote: post #196
Salgat wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some degree yes. Funny enough, llamaimperative's book suggestion goes into detail on how television is where this really started ramp up and how the Age of Reason was likely the peak of rational argument, where the focal point of transfer of information was through the written word. "He repeatedly states that the eighteenth century, the "Age of Reason", was the pinnacle for rational argument. Only in the printed w…

Reagan apparently hated reading and would often skip written briefs given to him by, for instance, the CIA. Then somebody got the idea to put those briefs in the form of a television news style video made just for Reagan. Some of them are on youtube now. They have the tone of spoonfeeding a midwit.

Trump was/is the same. At one point they tried powerpoint like presentations with graphics. I don't know about Reagan, but from my personal experience with dyslexia (though I love to read--and dislike videos--even as it takes forever), I think Trump may be dyslexic. I would not be surprised if Reagan were too. I only wish it was more public (if true). It would help eliminate the stigma and eliminate most of the cheap shots about how he can't read or spell and how his speech is "simple" (as he has trouble pronouncing more complex words). Things that those of us with dyslexia can have problems with also. *I did not vote for him

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#253

Post by islanderfun »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #26
mhartz wrote: post #5

> The ideal creator has no distance between themselves and their persona. They have been interpellated by audience metrics; their subjective experience already takes audience reactions into account. Isn't this sort of one of the themes from The Prestige(2006)? That certain magicians were so dedicated to their craft that they became inseparable from it. The performance never actually stopped

This isn't purely new, either. I'm perhaps dating myself a bit but I recall that over the years I have seen a few actors have this weird vibe where they're never "human", they always "on" and seem like their actor-thing has totally subsumed their humanity. David Cassidy and Shirley McClain come to mind for me on this.

I grew up watching The Rock. As an adult, it's hard to look past the persona he shows when talking about anything on any medium.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#254

Post by nvarsj »

iambateman wrote: post #4

First of all – the essay is phenomenal and his book is available online for free – https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/youtube-apparatus/36... > “Communication within the YouTube Apparatus has no meaning.” The rapid feedback loop between creators and audiences (as constructed by platform metrics) means that the system more and more responds to itself. Rather than trying to go somewhere (as is the case with politi…

> This idea – that meaning is replaced by intensification – helps me understand a lot about the world today.

I don't see much difference to the "old world" either. Yellow journalism existed in the 1800s. We just do it in a more modern format.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#255

Post by JasserInicide »

hn8726 wrote: post #30
infecto wrote: post #9

Not entirely related to MrBeast but related to YouTube. I genuinely miss the older algorithm where after watching a video you would go progressively further down a hole of videos somehow related to the one you just watched. It was quite entertaining and really uncovered fascinating videos.

I have no clue how to use YouTube. It seems like as soon as it latches on 3-4 interests of mine, the entire home page is exclusively filled with videos relating to that. I can mark videos as "not interesting" but it doesn't do much. I will see exactly the same videos on the home screen, ones that I'm not interested in and don't plan on watching, for weeks or months sometimes. I'm sure there's plenty of interesting co…

I've come accustomed to deleting cookies on browser close. The first ~10 or so YouTube page requests, the sidebar of recommended videos is pretty good. After that, as you said, it gets way too muddled. I think a good plugin for YouTube would be to always delete cookies before opening a video so that you're getting as close to a pure vanilla recommended feed as possible.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#256

Post by llamaimperative »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #232
llamaimperative wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theocracy is bad and neo-Nazism is bad. Trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes, who 1) is an open anti-semite, 2) praises Adolf Hitler, and 3) calls for white ethnonationalism. I don't need to write a treatise to explain why this is bad.

You don't need to write the treatise because the era of that kind of "logic" winning elections is over. (ie the left being able to label whole political movements as bad because certain bad people associate themselves with it)

I didn't label a whole movement as bad, ya goofball. Well except for neo-Nazism and theocracy, the latter of which is explicitly counter to the US Constitution and the former is... well... you can defend it if you'd like.

I said extreme ideologies (including the two I mentioned) are bad, and there's an asymmetry in their representation and proximity to power on the different ends of the political spectrum.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#257

Post by nemomarx »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #222
lalalandland wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creators publication frequency is also an important factor. If you don't put out content at least once per week you fall off the recommended and lose a lot of views. Once your content is shallow, simple and without reflection, you are trapped in a hamster wheel of click bait vapidness.

Is this accurate in all cases? Isn't Jenny Nicholson one of the bigger YouTubers, with videos coming out maybe once or twice a year?

Jenny Nicholson and similar accounts rely on other channels than YouTube notifications. basically their video releases become events big enough to get minor news attention, chatter on discord, xitter traffic, etc.

if your channel doesn't have dedicated enough fans to do that it's not gonna work on you. and you almost certainly aren't getting news coverage of your review of a star wars hotel, you know? Jenny is rare for that.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#258

Post by llamaimperative »

RajT88 wrote: post #250
llamaimperative wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See these are interesting questions. I don't have great answers. IQ gap between the sides?

This is a just-so rationalization, which feels good, but people have looked into many of these, and they don't really hold up. The most common one is that poor white people are overwhelmingly voting for Trump. The average household income of a Trump voter is something like 75k - hardly poor (depending where you're at). Anecdata: I know plenty of Trump voters who are very smart. A friend's dad has multiple PhD's and a…

This explains election results (agreed) but I'm more curious why outrage-generators and conspiracists seem to have culturally taken a stronger hold on the right over the course of decades.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#259

Post by walthamstow »

andrewla wrote: post #220
cedws wrote: post #138

I think MrBeast and other high end influencers like the Paul brothers are harmful to children. Kids see them flaunting their huge wealth and abandon all their other ambitions in favour of wanting to become a YouTuber. Which, now, is a very competitive platform few succeed on. Kids should be nudged towards working fruitful careers beneficial to society. Although MrBeast has done some good things with it, I find the wa…

In general I'm in agreement that they present a life where being an "influencer" is a goal in and of itself, but I think it's mostly harmless, like kids wanting to be a rock star or a professional athlete. These are unobtainable for most people but learning some music or sports or video production isn't a bad idea for anyone because you don't know where it will lead. The specific criticism of "flaunting their huge we…

In my opinion, giving away large sums of money, loudly and publicly, is very much flaunting wealth. It’s good too, it’s great, but it’s also flaunting wealth.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#260

Post by spiderice »

jasonmarks_ wrote: post #169
kube-system wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His viewers skew younger. Kids have a lot of time on their hands. Given how ubiquitously well-known he is among younger people, I doubt there's much fraud necessary.

I agree the kids will take it at face value all the more reason to not tolerate massive deception. What if his teaching them fraudulent representation pays. All pro athletes cheat a little bit at the highest levels but exceptional cheating is never tolerated.

What evidence do you have of him cheating other than your feelings?
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