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YouTube Oddities

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Re: YouTube Oddities

#81

Post by Tommy430 »

twisteriffic wrote: post #10

Least favourite behavior of YouTube these days is the mass of pimple popping and wart removal videos that show up near the top of search results for damn near anything. "Fluke 87v power on options"? Pimple popping. "Generator repair"? Wart removal. And it isn't just one, it's dozens of them, to the point where there might only be one or two relevant results and the rest are basically gore/grossout videos. It's still…

Honestly, the search has been broken for a while. Half of the search results aren't even related and another thing I hate is YouTube Shorts.

Anyways, for me, I just loathe how the whole site is designed in general. Opening YouTube today on a modern browser is slower than opening it on IE6 back then and the whole site relies on a JavaScript framework even though frontends like Invidious, Piped, and YT2009 (and possibly even more) show that you don't need JavaScript or have to make the entire site rely on it just to view content.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#82

Post by chch »

nonethewiser wrote: post #77
015a wrote: post #75

My favorite YouTube oddity: If you hunt over the CSS the site downloads on, IIRC, every page; you'll eventually come across this selector: ytd-watch-metadata[video-id=QrGrOK8oZG8] h1.ytd-watch-metadata { color:#e6d140; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:250%; font-variant:small-caps; font-weight:normal; transform:skew(-5deg,0deg); text-shadow:1px 1px #000,1px 1px .1px #000 } A selector that appears to be referencin…

That is fascinating. Wonder why that video in particular (or any single video that in theory) would need its text style changed.

Less a need, more an easter egg.

The short itself is based on the stereotypical American family sitcom;s opening credits, which would tend to show a character doing something 'representative' of their character, while showing the actor's name on screen that played that character. Without too much spoilers for the video itself, the names popping up is a pretty key aspect of the video itself. It gained a pretty good following in 2014 when it came out, and I guess someone on the YouTube UI team thought it would be a fun addition to add the text style from the video onto the video page itself. I remember being happily surprised the first time I saw it (similarly to the first time I saw someone added the Wadsworth Constant[1] as an actual feature, though that's unfortunately since been removed).

[1] A user on Reddit once posited in 2011 that the first 30% of every YouTube video was a waste, so they would just click to around the 30% mark to skip to the important part. A reply deemed this the "Wadsworth Constant", after the user, and it tumbled from there. Eventually, YouTube had an official feature where if you added ""&wadsworth=1" to a URL, it would start the video 30% in, for any video! I'd used it several times when sending instructional videos to friends who didn't need to see the intros.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#83

Post by throwanem »

twisteriffic wrote: post #65
verve_rat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, no option on desktop either. This is obviously not based on viewing history, YouTube is doing something weird just with the recommendations embedded into search results. For me these "you also might like" sections in search results are 50 woodworking and 50 gross out garbage.

It's nice to know my misery has company.

It's nice to know that as poorly as I think of Youtube, that's still a significant overestimation...

Re: YouTube Oddities

#84

Post by chii »

dspillett wrote: post #71
crazygringo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think somebody watched a lot of pimple-popping videos while logged into your account. You might want to take a look at your viewing history: https://www.youtube.com/feed/history Because that's definitely not a default. I've never seen YouTube recommend one of those in my life.

Never watched them myself, and doubt anyone did with my account, but I sometimes get such videos presented as if it is something I'd want. I have had lodgers and sometimes have guests who will obviously have appeared from my IP addresses while on my wireless so that may be part of why I get certain things (one of the lodgers was Italian - that was many years ago, and I still occasionally get adverts in the language).…

It's also possible that the videos you do watch are similar to people who _also_ watch those pimple popping vidoes, and so the algorithm guesses that you might also enjoy it.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#86

Post by albert_e »

smashah wrote: post #85

Did you all notice that when the video says "like and subscribe", the subscribe button is highlighted with a rainbow border? must be new. Example: https://youtu.be/z815XfakQCE?t=26

Yes i noticed this a few weeks ago

And I confirmed it by rewinding a few times and getting the behaviour to repeat (most if the times)

Re: YouTube Oddities

#87

Post by shiroiushi »

Tommy430 wrote: post #81
twisteriffic wrote: post #10

Least favourite behavior of YouTube these days is the mass of pimple popping and wart removal videos that show up near the top of search results for damn near anything. "Fluke 87v power on options"? Pimple popping. "Generator repair"? Wart removal. And it isn't just one, it's dozens of them, to the point where there might only be one or two relevant results and the rest are basically gore/grossout videos. It's still…

Honestly, the search has been broken for a while. Half of the search results aren't even related and another thing I hate is YouTube Shorts. Anyways, for me, I just loathe how the whole site is designed in general. Opening YouTube today on a modern browser is slower than opening it on IE6 back then and the whole site relies on a JavaScript framework even though frontends like Invidious, Piped, and YT2009 (and possibl…

>Opening YouTube today on a modern browser is slower than opening it on IE6 back then

This is true for so many things on computers these days: websites, various software, etc.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#88

Post by adra »

dspillett wrote: post #71
crazygringo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think somebody watched a lot of pimple-popping videos while logged into your account. You might want to take a look at your viewing history: https://www.youtube.com/feed/history Because that's definitely not a default. I've never seen YouTube recommend one of those in my life.

Never watched them myself, and doubt anyone did with my account, but I sometimes get such videos presented as if it is something I'd want. I have had lodgers and sometimes have guests who will obviously have appeared from my IP addresses while on my wireless so that may be part of why I get certain things (one of the lodgers was Italian - that was many years ago, and I still occasionally get adverts in the language).…

You can see your YouTube watch history through the account settings. I've found the watch recommendations are VERY sensitive to oddball videos watched a long time ago. Through the same interface though, you should be able to seek out and delete watch history for garbage that may throw off your recommendations. It's mostly worked for me.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#89

Post by adra »

johnnymorgan wrote: post #29
qup wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen one recommended, just a counter-point. I watch YouTube daily.

Do you never see content that has no connection to your viewing habits? It happens all the time and I got hit with the warts and pimples a few months back, just a counter point, I watch YT daily. It's mostly shorts where you will see it

Never heard of this myself... but the algorithm doesn't present you with content based on you watching the video but though others that are highly correlated with you. Maybe you started watching some weird fringe video channel that somewhat mirrors your habits but is also highly linked to viewers of these other things? The algo is just going to start grouping you into these groups if you like it or not. Don't like it? You can always do an rng spin of all posted videos and hope to find something you like, or just cut out your weirdly correlated video watching preferences.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#90

Post by rezonant »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #2

Okay just in case someone who knows reads this. Why doesn’t Youtube Premium background play work with members-only videos? Became a member of a channel with spoken content and can’t even lock my phone when playing a member’s only video. Posts and complaints on this go back years, with zero explanation from Youtube as to why this is, if it’s intentional or a bug, etc.

Yes this is perplexing. I have asked YouTube reps point blank about this but have never received any useful answer. As far as I can tell, it seems to be because the members only stuff uses the same system as YouTube's paid video rentals/purchasing system. If you rent a video on YouTube (or if you own one) you'll note that the behavior is the exact same: it acts as if you don't pay for YouTube Premium.

My guess is that the original "YouTube Sponsors" feature (which is now "YouTube Memberships") was built on top of the video rental/purchase system and now it is too hairy / not worth it to fix it in the eyes of the YouTube product managers.

I really wish they'd fix it.

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