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In the belly of the MrBeast

kevinmunger.substack.com

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Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#391

Post by infecto »

x187463 wrote: post #135
infecto wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think thats the case. Don't confuse homepage recommendations with end of video queue recommendations. It used to be end of video recommendations were heavily weighted on the current video or chain of videos you just watched. Essentially you could keep going to the next video and go down a weird hole of obscure videos. Now the algorithm will quickly circle you back to your profile homepage of videos as opposed…

Oh, I see. I suppose I do recognize more of the 'general recommendations' in the post-video grid rather than basing those solely on the video itself. That being said, I don't use that mechanism generally and tend to rely on the homepage-refresh and side bar to discover additional videos.

Thats exactly it. My best example of why I dislike it is you may be watching videos of live salsa music, the next two videos will be salsa and then all of a sudden the third video to play will be The Wiggles (an aussie kids singing group). I have a kid, we definitely will dance to The Wiggles but if we are watching Salsa I don't want to be recommended it.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#392

Post by artur_makly »

axxto wrote: post #375
artur_makly wrote: post #229

Dhar Mann’s channel is another interesting cultural signal of what kind of content tweens are being groomed with: https://youtube.com/@dharmann?si=vsNv2M2S7LfbVvVt What is abhorrently revolting is the total amount of “Gold Digger” videos +100 and counting.. https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=76583c995a4c1c88&rlz=1...

Wow. I expected this to be just bad clickbaity content, but I didn't expect this level of algorithmic-driven slop. Disturbing. 25 million subscribers, too; millions of views on every single video, one new hour-long video of this insane crap every few days. All clearly directed at children.

yeah it's totally f'd up.

This is the NEW children "fables" that are teaching the next-gen modern "morality". My 11yr old made me aware of it, and I've seen like 20 of them now.. about 22% are OK in terms of messaging/values. But the danger lies in that the 9-13yr old kids watching this stuff will take most of it literally as 'this is how the real-world works'.

Sadly no one else if filling this niche better and he seems to have found the algo.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#393

Post by s1mplicissimus »

tartoran wrote: post #317
brandall10 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

oh there is an X on the top right corner of the shorts block on the website. but don't you believe clicking it will remove the block for more than a couple days. and you're right, the mobile website/app doesn't even have that

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#394

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #384
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would tentatively suggest that it because the right lost the broader cultural "wars". Our story-telling media is, if not actually "leftish", generally progressive in the broadest sense of that term. Struggles over gay marriage, contraception, divorce, interracial marriage, civil rights were all, as of 2010 or so, pretty much wrapped up in ways that broadly speaking reflected a progressive win. So for quite a few de…

I'll nitpick terminology here, taking a larger view : has the Chicago school brand of economics been around long enough now to be considered "conservative" now ? And its rightward momentum seems to be much more liberal to me, considering how often it's about removing regulations...

The Chicago school was always "conservative" inasmuch its ideas, whether intending to or not, in practice produce results that maintain existing power relationships and economic distributions.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#395

Post by NoGravitas »

aiono wrote: post #210
cess11 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not "just saying random stuff", he was a very serious thinker. Unlike Derrida he wasn't much of a joker. Perhaps language is fundamentally metaphorical, and perhaps reality is actually abstract.

That's just what I feel I didn't claim that it actually is just random stuff. But I value clarity and Baudrillard doesn't seem to try to be. However, as I said I do find his general points very valuable just his style is not my cup of tea.

Part of it may be translation, too. English translations of French academic writing always seem to come out especially convoluted.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#396

Post by disqard »

stafford_beer wrote: post #177
llamaimperative wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an excellent, prescient, hilarious, and terrifying book on this topic, I highly recommend "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman.

OP here -- excellent suggestion, I've been heavily influenced by this book and would also recommend Postman's "Technopoly"

Thank you for writing this, and making it available online!

When researching+writing this, did you find it useful to look through McLuhan's "Medium is the Message" lens? If so, what are the "message" implications of this ouroboric/circular/whirlpool medium?

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#397

Post by disqard »

timewizard wrote: post #284
dom96 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you remove this they'll simply substitute it with something else. Some people don't mind "melting" their brains as they didn't have a primary use for it anyways.

Kentaro Toyama wrote that "Technology acts as an amplifier of human intentions".

We really are very susceptible to living in "default mode".

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#398

Post by BlueTemplar »

mrkramer wrote: post #23

So formula for success on YouTube is to be constantly making crazy and then even more crazier videos and hope they become viral so more people discover you? I knew that even 15 years ago when I was watching crazy pranks pulled by French YouTuber Rémi Gaillard[0]....he was so popular back in the day on YouTube. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9mi_Gaillard

You might (or might not) be interested to know that, among other things, he went on to make a movie, and even (semi-successfully !) run for mayor !

Also, I think his videos might be predating YouTube, or at least predating YouTube dominating the format ? IIRC he used to self-host as well as publish on other platforms ?

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#399

Post by olyjohn »

tartoran wrote: post #317
brandall10 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

And the stupid ass playables that they're spamming me with now. It's not enough that I pay for Premium.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#400

Post by olyjohn »

s1mplicissimus wrote: post #393
tartoran wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube does incentivize long If they only gave you the option to remove shorts from results...

oh there is an X on the top right corner of the shorts block on the website. but don't you believe clicking it will remove the block for more than a couple days. and you're right, the mobile website/app doesn't even have that

Yes it says 'hidden for 30 days' and every damn month I click it again.
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