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In the belly of the MrBeast

kevinmunger.substack.com

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Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#311

Post by hector_vasquez »

llamaimperative wrote: post #189
davrosthedalek wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The murder of the united healthcare CEO, or more specifically, the positive reaction towards it, seems rather associated with the left, doesn't it? People who want a certain party to be in power should hold that party to a higher standard. Independent of the party. Being "better than the others" is not good enough.

No, not really. Harris vs Trump voters who... Approve: 5-11% vs 2-8% Neither approve nor disapprove: 6-12% vs 7-13% Disapprove: 65-71% vs 72-78% Not sure: 6-12% vs 4-10% Not a super substantial difference. The outrage machine wins again! Source: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Reactions_to...

So among Harris voters, the assassination was about as popular as a Trump policy. And yet here we have people trying to say it's popular among lefties. We do not deserve nice things.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#312

Post by hector_vasquez »

llamaimperative wrote: post #236
flir wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BoingBoing is still very much made in Doctorow's image. Michael Moore is an earlier example. Not suggesting equivalence, in fact I would be really interested to hear theories as to why right-wing polemicists are so much more popular (and numerous) than left-wing polemicists. On the face of it, there are a lot of left-wing things to be justifiably outraged about (especially right now). So why isn't left-wing outrage r…

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

Comedy requires deep thinking, powers of observation, and self-reflection.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#314

Post by 65 »

dom96 wrote: post #261
dmonitor wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. As long as channels like Technology Connections can remain financially viable on the platform and not beaten down by the algorithm, I really don't care how many Mr Beasts are making "slop content".

I do. Slop content is melting the brains of the people watching that content to the detriment of society as a whole.

Probably. But this isn't really something you can control. So why bother?

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#315

Post by 65 »

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…

Usually the better content is down the page a bit on the YouTube home page. I use this CSS snippet to hide the first 12 videos from my home page.

    [page-subtype="home"] #contents > ytd-rich-item-renderer:nth-child(-n + 12) {
      display: none;
    }

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#316

Post by daedrdev »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #62

I'm interested in how many people here on HN watch Mr Beast - I've never watched any of his videos ever, and I spend far too much time on YT.

I watched many of his videos. They're pretty good. I dont understand the complaints of click bait. One of the main reasons why he works so well is he makes outlandish premises that seem like clickbait, and then delivers. If he claims they will blow a house up, they literally will pack it with explosives and blow it up. If he says he will show a million dollar hotel room, thats what I'll see in the video. Throw a lambo into a crusher? Its going in for real.

It's not even like he draws it out. Like lets say its time to blow something up as a finale: we see 2-3 shots of them waiting, we see it explode in 3 angles we get 2-3 reactions and boom video is probably over.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#317

Post by tartoran »

brandall10 wrote: post #141
Salgat wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people confused like me on what intensification means, it means maximizing the amount of attention and interaction that occurs. On Youtube this would be the metrics that drive engagement, including views, likes, comments, shares, and watch time. The issue is that the content focuses on driving engagement at the expense of communicating ideas with coherence and depth, for example by sensationalizing or oversimplif…

"at the expense of communicating ideas with coherence and depth" To be fair, while shorts is clearly designed to generate high virality and compete w/ TikTok, YouTube does incentivize longer form content. For regular videos the platform appears to optimize for engagement at about the 10 minute mark. Political/social discourse is complex and I believe goes beyond a simple soundbite problem. One could argue this began…

> YouTube does incentivize long

If they only gave you the option to remove shorts from results...

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#318

Post by 65 »

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #80
roland35 wrote: post #38

It's interesting how this is happening in software engineering YouTube content as well. It seems like things like "go sucks rust is great! Now rust sucks and zig is great!!" get way more views since it is basically clickbait for nerds. It's too bad that nuanced discussion doesn't do too well on social media.

It also reminds me how the most upvoted comments on Reddit often reflect the consensus opinion but not necessarily the truth.

Also, almost always highly emotional if you're on a popular subreddit's post.

I picked a random post on the home page, this one for example:

https://old.reddit.com/r/clevercomebacks/comments/1i1b4tn/i_...

The comments are all

"The oligarchs would never go for it."

or "It’s a cult." and on and on.

I think this is particularly true in rage bait posts on Reddit, which is most of the home page these days.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#319

Post by UncleOxidant »

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 is similar to what Vlad Vexler refers to as "being captured by the algorithm". That there are people on YouTube (and other platforms) that begin to mold themselves to fit into the algorithm's dictates so as to increase views and engagement. This means they may drift from their original political stance, for example, in order to please the algorithm. And this drift isn't always conscious - in fact it likely isn't conscious most of the time.

If you want to be a content creator on these platforms and you don't want to be captured by the algorithms you have to be very conscious that algorithmic capture is a constant danger. You have to be willing to lose algorithmic points and give up income that you're getting from the platform if push comes to shove. You have to constantly be on your guard.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#320

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

gobeavs wrote: post #308
OJFord wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I added uBlock filters so the home page is empty and recommended videos aren't shown. I only ever go to subscriptions now. There's a setting to turn it off, no need for uBlock filters for that

What setting is this? I'd love to disable the home page but I haven't seen any setting for it

Turn off your watch history.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/95725

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