So strange to think about how Vine could’ve won this and an American company could’ve been the leader here.
Or YouTube. Short form animation was the largest draw of views in the early days before they chose to kill it and become a "serious platform"
TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
91–100 of 222 posts
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#92I deleted TikTok and my Twitter account. Also stopped watching TV. I'm happier and more productive.
Fitter? Comfortable? Not drinking so much? Regular exercise at the gym? Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries?
A pig, in a cage, on antibiotics
https://genius.com/Radiohead-fitter-happier-lyrics
Ok Computer came out twenty-eight years ago (!)
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#93I’ll have to take your word for it, I’m not on TikTok.
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#94Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…
Sadly, some of the best contents aer 5-10 minutes, I pick up some investing tips from those, although some longer ones can be 2x-ed or seeked to only view a chunk.
I wish they'd give you more than 2x speed in the web player. Lots of videos seem to talk extra slowly to drag things out to the point 2x speed sounds like normal conversational speed.
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#95This post popped up a blocking window before I was even 3 sentences in, so maybe unsurprising that I clicked away in less than 60 seconds. If the author wants people to read whatever it is they have to say, maybe they should not put distractions in front of their writing?
OP is only here to promote their own content, never comments, never posts anything other than their own blog.
It is sort of impressive, they seem to have keyed to what sort of posts make it here quite quickly (two failures, then two successes at getting engagement).
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#96Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…
I won't even look at a youtube video essay about an obscure vintage RPG (my preferred form of guilty pleasure viewing) if it's under 20 minutes long.
In my case, YouTube has figured out that I love Pokemon videos where the streamer does really silly things with old Pokemon games (like resetting the emulator 9001 times to find a shiny in order to have a full on Shiny only pokedex, including the starter pokemon. In my case I don't care how long the videos are though.
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#97I've banned shorts from my house [0]. The more you watch it, the more your attention span gets scrambled. If a joke doesn't land in 15 seconds, you skip it. If the video that just started doesn't reach its climax now, you skip it.
There's actually a format for movies now, where a short scene is shared with the contrast cranked to 11, and background music. And it pays off in under a minute. Shorts is short for climax, and everything over a minute is boring.
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#98Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…
I think HN is getting old - nobody has mentioned second screen viewing! imo, youtube videos are getting longer because everyone is just turning stuff on in the background while they're on their phones.
My wife and oldest kid who have ADHD are like that. My youngest, myself, and the middle aged kid never have anything on other than what we are actively paying attention to.
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#99So strange to think about how Vine could’ve won this and an American company could’ve been the leader here.
Or YouTube. Short form animation was the largest draw of views in the early days before they chose to kill it and become a "serious platform"
I thought the kept incentivizing longer content so they could cram more ads into the videos. Hard to get some one to watch a 20 second ad for a 2 minute video, but if you can convince everyone to pad that thing up to 10 minutes you could stuff at least 2 ads in there.
Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning
#100Information compression and hyper-stimulation are two different things. Many forms of content online have become meaningless long form slop that could get to the point in less than 10 seconds, but are drawn out to drive view-time advertising metrics.
Fast and compressed is also a sign of intelligence rather than 'stupidity' as so many faux iconoclasts like to say. Our media storage over the last 5,000 years has most been about compression and speed, and to those who dismiss that... I dunno I guess I'll just quote Socrates succinctly "Books are for the stupid."