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YouTube Oddities

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Re: YouTube Oddities

#91

Post by 015a »

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.

Watch the video; its definitely just 'someone at YouTube really liked this video'. The styling of the title is attempting to mirror the actor nameplates in the video.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#92

Post by joe_hills »

015a wrote: post #91
nonethewiser wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Watch the video; its definitely just 'someone at YouTube really liked this video'. The styling of the title is attempting to mirror the actor nameplates in the video.

Wow, I was wondering at first how good a video had to be for a YouTube engineer to add css like this—and after watching this twice now, I'm deeply startled by how many brilliant and resonant choices were made by the folks who created it.

A piece this artistic deserves a curative touch.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#93

Post by rezonant »

p1necone wrote: post #30
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.

Youtube background play being a paid feature is so brazen. Google are disabling a basic UX feature in their OS and then letting you pay for it in one app that they control.

This is somewhat true, and frustrates me to no end as someone who builds web video stuff. For what it's worth it's only somewhat true. If you exit the browser while video is playing, the video is paused. If you then go to the Media Notification that Chrome added for the video and hit play, it will continue playing in the background.

The same is true on iOS, but using the media center instead of the media notification, in which case it will work.

On Android native apps this isn't really true at all, but you should use a background service to handle playback to avoid getting killed by the OS on low memory situations. This does not work for YouTube on the web, because they simply use the web visibility API to stop you from resuming the video if you try, unless you have premium.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#94

Post by imp0cat »

jsheard wrote: post #22
rwmj wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like the kind of video spam that now shows up in searches for technical questions.

Those seem to be getting more common, it's very annoying. Another genre is autogenerated "product review" or "comparison" videos that are just ChatGPT-generated fluff copy read out by text-to-speech voice over a slideshow of product images, presumably to push an affiliate link in the description. Most of them get few if any views but they're so easy to make they just take the shotgun approach and hope some win the SE…

These reviews where the whole video is a slideshow + robotic voiceover are so annoying. They contain 0% information, they're just a delivery vehicle for ads.

And there is a ton of them!

Re: YouTube Oddities

#95

Post by dylan604 »

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

> It's mostly shorts where you will see it

Maybe that says a lot about the type of person that will actually watch a short?

Re: YouTube Oddities

#97

Post by dylan604 »

troupo wrote: post #3

> However, it is possible for 249 countries to appear in the allowed list. It's not clear why this happens as it is the same has having no restriction at all. It seems to occur most frequently with music videos, potentially they had actual blocks at one point and the only way it can be undone is to move everything to allowed? Most likely this is the list sent by the rights holder.

I've had to deal with rights, and it is annoying that they list them out individually. They also have a restricted list. They totally do not seem to understand the concepts of how white listings and black listings work. Rather than white listing all of them, just black list none. I've fought this for well over a decade. It's just a shit show to deal with.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#98

Post by dspillett »

chii wrote: post #84
dspillett wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe, in which case I'd be interested to see where the cross-over is.

Though I've had them come up on facebook too, which is why I'm erring on it being someone more actively engaged coming from my main IP address (home has had the same /29 for the last 10+ years). Unless youtube and facebook are fairly directly sharing information, I thought it more likely that someone has interacted with such content in both places than both algorithms making an obscure link. Of course, it could be that there is a cross-over, and it is a strong enough signal that both sets of data miners have picked up on it.

Edit: too early in the morning and my mind is refusing to switch tracks… Thinking about it, liking certain horror/scifi films is a potential link. Maybe people more heavily into body-horror than I are generally fascinated by real aspects of bodily function too.

Re: YouTube Oddities

#99

Post by roygbiv2 »

adra wrote: post #88
dspillett wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Watch history now include videos you've only hovered over. Very annoying since if you hover over something and then watch it later it doesn't start from the beginning, it starts from where it left off from the hover.
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