[bgun]

People like Mr. Beast have managed to discover psychological attention hacks that are not too dissimilar from sex or fear-based content (porn or a lot of political ads), but more insidious because it’s much more tame and “fun” on the surface.

And while I don’t think either can be made explicitly illegal without some pretty nasty second-order effects on freedom of expression, we can’t expect the likes of Google to provide a social fix here. Government will need to take note, label, and activate against this at some level. The TikTok ban means we’ve noticed this can be dangerous at least when rival nation-states are involved, but the call is coming from inside the house.

[refulgentis]

YouTube Shorts is really dark, there's stuff that makes David Foster Wallace's 1996 vision of people hyperglued to a TV look prescient instead of allegorical.

There are many, many, videos that are literally the adult version of baby videos -- ex. Squeezing rainbow colored Play-Doh through a sieve, really bizarre just pure visual attention hacking.

Your comment reminds me that's the local optima for YouTube x creators and it's just sort of contracting the work of actually producing content out. It doesn't care what it is. Just hours consumed.

The abuse of FOIA for police bodycam content published with light commentary... Zoom court sessions enabled turning judges into stars on a show they have no part of it...

[taberiand]

I think schools need to start teaching "How to Train Your Algorithm" classes to kids, early and often - with a focus on critical thinking and how advertising companies manipulate them.

Couple that with regulations that require the companies to give greater control to the user over video feed customisation and I think it's possible to reign in the arms race for attention.

[sixothree]

Wow. Your feed is pretty messed up. Here is my youtube shorts feed:

- how programmers actually review code

- 3D Printed Latch Mechanism

- I Always Thought This Border Was Straight (about a border in australia)

- You need to go to a “better” place! (rescue of an injured raptor)

I think YouTube is a lot like twitter (5 years ago), in that what you view and follow affects what you're fed.

[refulgentis]

I'd say I get the adult baby videos 1 in 15 "swipes" and the bodycam / court stuff are for long form, and is definitely because I watch true crime - i.e. I found courtroom videos of long trials fascinating because I wanted to be a lawyer growing up

It's important to note it's not about individual feeds, but the basins that algorithmic content settles in given the data they have.

As things evolve, they optimize for brutally efficient production. "true crime" starts as "NPR award-winning podcast phenomena" and very quickly come to mean a swath of "DUI arrest" videos.

That's because the initial click, averaged across all of us, is *hyper*optimized for a thumbnail with an attractive scantily clad young female saying COPS DAUGHTER THROWS TANNTRUM AFTER BLOWING 0.24! It's not about individuals, or individuals feeds, it's about these niches get hyperdominated by nonsense because that's what best practice is. c.f. document's comments re: thumbnails vs. mine.

Note also, for instance, the curious absence of any programmer influencers making anywhere near the views of pretty much any other topic on YouTube. t3.gg is the top in software engineering videos by a mile, and they pull in 1/10th of what a bodycam video does.

[bear141]

I am intrigued by this Cops Daughter video. Do you have a link?

[refulgentis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5gdXvfve8A

not exact match, if i see the bac one again i'll share it.

but this is somewhat typical of the drama, only missing element is a generic slop voiceover that interjects every 2 minutes with two sentences: 1. vague statement about what's happened so far that could apply to any video. 2. "...but they weren't prepared for what happened next!" (nothing crazy ever happens) (except on the 'cop gets arrested for DUI' ones where they think they're gonna get a favor like its 1994 still)

EDIT: this ones a good subtle example of the adult baby video https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jan_KjEZd20

[someothherguyy]

These "adult baby videos" are the default content on TikTok.

My paranoid take is that it is a type of hypnotism or mind control yet to be deciphered.

In reality, it is just a cheap way of generating (remixing/stealing) content with TTS voice overs and algorithmic selections of video clips. I would bet there is software tailored for it, but I am not interested enough to find out.

[someothherguyy]

> I think YouTube is a lot like twitter (5 years ago), in that what you view and follow affects what you're fed.

Clear your cookies, cache, local storage, stay logged out, and see what happens. The baseline is junk.

[taberiand]

This is true, but it's a constant fight with the recommendation system, requiring a fairly strict approach to flagging "not interested" and "do not show this channel again" etc - as soon as you watch one junk-food video in a lazy day, prepare for another round of moderating tangentially related garbage.

[nicomeemes]

Well, at the very least Black Mirror will have plenty of ideas for next season.

[wussboy]

I’m not sure it’s still “Black”. I think it might just be “Mirror”.

[nitwit005]

The flavor of the cotent is a bit different, but all media is like that. Look at a horror film, or romance novel. It's very clear what human urges/interests are being targetted.

Part of his strategy is copying TV. He famously made a Squid Game episode.

[j45]

Online Advertising, and childrens videos have been doing it for a lot longer.

[qwertytyyuu]

Pretty sure TikTok’s vans were politically motivated