This post made me want to re-read "You Are Not a Gadget." One of Lanier's points in that book is that technology can both augment expression and bound it. The Like Button is a classic example of bounding because it reduces your thoughts and feelings about a piece of content to a thumbs up, whereas a simple textbox would let you note whatever you want about the content (text is also harder to monetize and analyze and control).
I personally have been noticing more and more how technology and algorithms seem to bounding expression online and off, particularly around content creation, but also with influencers and personal branding and so on. It feels like 90% of the shit being pumped out is super amplified to draw notice or for signaling, and while this is not a new phenomenon of course, it still feels weird to see ordinary people at restaurants taking pictures of their food, or sucking up to some corporation online for the chance to win a prize
I feel this pressure too. The pressure to get noticed. To tailor content to what will rack of the most views. To post that tweet that will make me look like a smart, funny guy who has something valuable to say and oh by the way you should totally follow me. And I hate it. And I try not to care about numbers. But it still feels really shitty when something you spent a month working on and genuinely find really cool gets a total of ten views while a picture of a goat in a sweater just when viral. And what if the audience is right?
There has to be something better. I hope that we can grow beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm, and re-focus on using technology to create new ways of sharing and expressing and relating to each other. One fun example of this that Lanier gave: creating technology that would let people communicate like cuttlefish (specifically the shifting skin colors and textures). That optimistic vision still feels as radical and fresh today as it did when I first read the book in 2010. I just hope it's not too late
>I hope that we can grow beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm
I personally think you are in for a very rude awakening. This is exactly what people are trying not to do with Machine Learning. It is always, almost, about profiling you, about finding out who you are in order to offer you what you already know, to limit your horizon, to "tailor" your "experience" and the span of possibilities.
As a very technical fellow told me: "when you read three political news in a row we set a badge, you are now politically minded."
This, sadly, doesn't fit your yearning for us growing "beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm."
My prediction is that it will get worst before it gets any better at all.
For me this is where these YT tropes get interesting. When you get past the thumbnails of the mega channels with multiple full time employees who are obviously doing something very baity and strategic, you’re left with the ordinary channels who mimic these tropes likely without deep consideration or even consciousness.
It’s just more of a will to survive kind of thing, and thus an entire ecosystem shapes its own desires by way of unknowingly optimizing for an algorithm which itself is based on honing in on community trends.
> The Like Button is a classic example of bounding because it reduces your thoughts and feelings about a piece of content to a thumbs up
People do write replies, but I feel the conversation is much terse these days. I enjoy HN because in general the crowd here is more mature and willing to invest in an informative thoughtout reply instead of just witty one-liners for karma (which I'm glad people here downvote).
But yeah, I wonder what if we took away the "likes". We had an internet and community without them before.
Quality over quantity. Seek ten views that let you engage with another human being rather than however many views which will never let you really make contact
> The Like Button is a classic example of bounding because it reduces your thoughts and feelings about a piece of content to a thumbs up
This is an interesting thought. It does simplify expression, but in sum I don't think it's that much different than life before the like button.
We press the like button all the time in real life. Giving thumbs up, a quick nod of the head, or clapping.
From that standpoint, the like button is just the digital manifestation of how we showed engagement with "content".
Where I see we run into problems is that a "like" has different meanings depending on the person and context. Unfortunately algorithms aren't able to fully understand these nuances yet, so we end up with the same stream of youtube videos in our feed or the same 5 songs in our pandora playlist. Which means on the backend we're stuck with a certain set of "almost-but-not-quite-right" labels in a system which will then make "almost-but-not-quite-right" decisions.
Folks at the edges may get incorrectly lumped into the wrong group and, in milder cases, receive content they aren't interested in, in extreme cases, be flagged as a "potential terrorist".
It's tough. I do think my life is generally better off with intelligent algos removing friction, aiding in discovery, and anticipating my needs. But to do so, those same algos need an almost infinite amount of info about me to be able to infer context and nuance.
I guess then in a way it speaks to how commercially "successful" youtubers have become for it to adopt "best practices" that are efficient and save money -> although it can be called clickbait, most artisan things tend to become more standardized and costs fall, etc. if they are commercially successful and expansive.
Has anyone else noticed how much this min-maxing is effecting all different areas of the world? I played the last World of Warcraft expansion and got to the stage where I could start raiding (Blizzard is trying to make this easier to break into for casual players) and 95% of raiders only wanted to raid with those who had already done the raid before and had an item level higher than anything the raid drops!
I find this really frustrating in the arts and entertainment space - the bar for entry seems to be getting higher and higher because of these ultra competitive optimisations. I guess the difference now is that people view making video content on the internet as a career (or at least a way to make money) rather than just as a hobby.
I was talking with a colleague at the coffee machine, telling him how this weekend I went to the supermarket to do the groceries, and how it was a pain to carry bags around.
He replied 'I haven't stepped in a supermarket in months, I do all my groceries online. It is much more efficient'.
I have to admit I felt dumb for not optimising my time like he does. But reflecting on it, I feel sad that our private time is becoming a soulless corporate enterprise where everything has to be optimised.
Completely agree. Like real world personal KPIs drain the fun and dynamic nature of a team trying to solve problems together.
I recently started playing Sea of thieves and it is a breath of fresh air. There are no gameplay changing items, and no real purpose to grinding, meaning the journey and execution of your goals are the focus. Sure you are getting sweet loot, but when it boils down to it there is actually no real purpose for getting more gold in the game.
It really shifts the focus and also means there is no "perfect play" or wholy correct way to play the game.
I feel like the unfortunate part is that the most visibility-optimised content isn't often the same thing as the best content. So if you just set out to make a Good Thing it gets lost, unless you also do other things that are seemingly unnecessary (like adding a silly face to your YouTube preview).
> I played the last World of Warcraft expansion and got to the stage where I could start raiding (Blizzard is trying to make this easier to break into for casual players) and 95% of raiders only wanted to raid with those who had already done the raid before and had an item level higher than anything the raid drops!
I was Raid Leader and Guild leader (my guild was second on the server) in WoW and it was always like that. It's about time optimization, raids are really hard for newbies, they stand in shit and some of the raids on early stages are for example DPS oriented (kill the boss before he enrages etc) so you need to have good gear and know your rotation. When raid wipe because of you after 10 minutes of boss fighting and then again same thing on same boss happens, people get angry because you are holding them down, the whole team. If someone has 60 minutes that day to clear whole raid then he wants to play with experienced people and not to wipe very often.
You should do LFR first couple of times, all dungeons and special daily quests to get around your BiS gear from non-normal+ raid sources. You should watch on youtube guides to know how to fight particular boss too, you should come prepared for raid.
The uncontrolled/unchecked monetary incentive is starting to cause things to get out of controll.
I recently spotted a channel that features what seems to be animal traps (for mice, snakes, fish etc). All of their videos have hundreds of thousands of views, and all are 100% fake. It's hard to know if you're not outdoortsy, but they're all fake.
Essentially they're not just producing garbage content, they're also intentionally damaging the perception and world model of the people watching their videos.
Why is this "allowed" to run? Why aren't the knowledgable people calling them out? Because Youtube completely destroyed the comment feedback system.
Negative comments and critisism is burried, new comments and unpopular/harsh comment are deranked, so all you get is dumb catchy comments that increase view time.
Of course this is only the top of the iceburg in a sea of garbage content, but it shows where we're heading, and it'll only get worse with the proliferation of machine learning tools, especially lifelike text-to-speech technologies.
Alternatively, it serves as a pretty good filter for content I will actively try to avoid. Playing a video and immediately hearing that "HEY GUYS" voice makes me click the back button instantly, and block the channel.
Idunno, Cody from Cody's Lab does "Hey guys" sometimes (probably most of the time) and it's one of the most fascinating channels on youtube (where else would you learn how to extract gold from scrap metal, fire bullets made of mercury or refine uranium ore?)
While looking at the screenshots in the article I wondered why all video titles default to ALL CAPS. Browsing YouTube feels like walking through a shopping arcade with all store owners shouting at you what they offer.
Maybe I should look into a browser extension that de-caps such texts...
I find it funny that the AVGN is featured; he's been making that face since before YouTube's been monetizing. He may be the originator of the phenomenon.
It used to be that in order to drive clicks you needed to have female cleavage in your thumbnail. One YouTuber (RadicalSoda) still includes an image of a cartoon woman showing generous cleavage in each of his videos, despite himself being the only person actually appearing in most of them.
And then there's YouTube voice. I don't even think I can imitate it but there's a distinctive cadence and inflection that YouTubers seem to have embraced. I once saw a ten-year-old use it in a toy-company-sponsored video. Yes, ten-year-old kid paid to hawk toys on YouTube instead of just playing with them or whatever. Then again, we have stories of some Hackernews hearing their 3-year-old use "don't forget to like and subscribe!" as a farewell.
I’ve been uploading more content to YouTube recently and I noticed that their AI automatically picks the video frame that has the most exaggerated facial expression and uses this as the default thumbnail. This is probably why YouTube face appears to be everywhere!
I didn’t upload this thumbnail, YouTube picked it. If you looked through the video manually you might not even notice that such an expressive YouTube face was in there, but YouTube found it when I uploaded it and picked it as the thumbnail.
The really interesting question to my mind is what comes next. This is a wildfire sweeping across previously unspoiled plains, and yes, it's very impressive and a bit destructive (fortunately these metaphorical plains aren't built up with too many valuable bits of infrastructure) and worth a story... but what comes after the fire sweeps through? What happens when the bulk of people have already clicked on their thousand videos advertised like this and realize there's no great need to click on 1,001? Obviously it doesn't mean a nirvana will arise in which people will suddenly seek out "real" content, but something will have to shift.
These YouTube thumbnails are basically pushing all the buttons in the human brain as hard as they can without getting whacked from the site. The only harder button I can think of is nudity but that won't be permitted. (In fact, if you've never thought of it this way before, consider that it won't be permitted precisely because it hits the buttons too hard. There are reasons beyond stereotypical moralistic "prudery" to resist slathering public spaces in nudity and sexual content.) So once they burn out this button... which they will, eventually, though much like the market, people can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, so to speak... what comes next? People will eventually develop a sort of mental callous around this and on one level or another resist being yanked around so casually. What will replace it?
I'm increasingly seeing comments on videos loudly complaining about click bait headlines and saying they down thumb them because of it. Seems like YouTube at least allows some kind of reaction against this from the users.
Youtube "recommended" videos, if you open it in incognito mode are very revolting to me. This is why. The quality is so atrocious. The video recommendation in my google profile are not as bad, but every now and then it will recommend me a picture of The Donald making an ugly face.
The Strange Parts previews don't seem so bad compared to some of the more egregious examples.
He seems to have the same facial expression in all of them. I don't think putting a big picture of your face on the preview is a bad thing, it makes it easier to visually filter videos by creator.
Channels that specialize in reviewing virtual reality content are especially fun. Since the head mounted display obscures the eyes, they must make up for the loss of expression with terrifyingly exaggerated gaping maws.
They really are effective, though. The conscious part of me is actually turned off by videos with these kinds of title images, but they still draw my attention and produce an impulse to click.
We should probably expand on this notion of Clickbait that assumes readers are merely tricked into clicking. Catering to some 'lowely' urge is way we usually think about these, but there is more.
Traditionally, clickbait refers to a type of optimisation for more 'static' media outlets- those with more rigid publishing chain: writer <editor <owner.
Youtube's low barrier to publishing disrupts that, so we now have viewers assuming editor + owner role with their newfound power of directing attention. So now users demand to be catered to. Sense on entitlement is at the center of this thing.
I remember seeing a tutorial on making stock pictures. Doing exaggerated expressions is their number one advise.
The idea is that these pictures will be in a library of thousands, and it has to stand out, regular faces don't. It is not a YouTube thing. It happens even in traditional newspapers as they battle against each other in the newsstand.
I did journalism in high school and in learning the art of page layout & design was taught that putting faces on stuff is always a good idea. People like faces. Faces draw readers in. It's sort of a universal idea that was inevitably going to end up applying to mediums like YouTube.
Also, I wouldn't say all of these are clickbait. The Needle Drop's videos are basically all just him making hilarious faces.
Someone should make a Terminator style film, actually a book would probably work better, where the robot apocalypse is hastened by a whole bunch of different people, some kind of skeezy and up to no good but most just trying to make an honest buck and not realising the impact of the out of control AI they are working for until it's too late.
I mean, I know we are living through basically the same thing with climate change and large corporations in reality but a novel would be cool too.
Seeing that always made me think that everything would be exaggerated, and the video was likely not worth my time; I also spend very little time on YouTube, so the two are probably related (namely that I don't like video-based content)
He's a musician and synthesizer enthusiast, granted electronic music and synths have taken on a pretty youthful market in recent years (thanks to cheaper products and a larger acceptance of the genre) but Andrew becoming a YouTube personality in this space was definitely met with backlash from the community.
It wasn't for the content itself, I really respect the guy as both a musician and video editor, but it's the gimmicky persona, the little "signature" things he does in his videos, the all too-perfect sheen put on top of his content, the silly faces on the video thumbnails that draw people's attention, the inauthenticity of it all. It rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, at least in the electronic music/synthesizer communities I visit (full of people who have been working with synths and modular instruments since the 70s/80s).
Now I realize it's not just his gimmick, it's everyone who hopes to ranks' gimmick!
[+] [-] mattbierner|8 years ago|reply
I personally have been noticing more and more how technology and algorithms seem to bounding expression online and off, particularly around content creation, but also with influencers and personal branding and so on. It feels like 90% of the shit being pumped out is super amplified to draw notice or for signaling, and while this is not a new phenomenon of course, it still feels weird to see ordinary people at restaurants taking pictures of their food, or sucking up to some corporation online for the chance to win a prize
I feel this pressure too. The pressure to get noticed. To tailor content to what will rack of the most views. To post that tweet that will make me look like a smart, funny guy who has something valuable to say and oh by the way you should totally follow me. And I hate it. And I try not to care about numbers. But it still feels really shitty when something you spent a month working on and genuinely find really cool gets a total of ten views while a picture of a goat in a sweater just when viral. And what if the audience is right?
There has to be something better. I hope that we can grow beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm, and re-focus on using technology to create new ways of sharing and expressing and relating to each other. One fun example of this that Lanier gave: creating technology that would let people communicate like cuttlefish (specifically the shifting skin colors and textures). That optimistic vision still feels as radical and fresh today as it did when I first read the book in 2010. I just hope it's not too late
[+] [-] ILikeConemowk|8 years ago|reply
I personally think you are in for a very rude awakening. This is exactly what people are trying not to do with Machine Learning. It is always, almost, about profiling you, about finding out who you are in order to offer you what you already know, to limit your horizon, to "tailor" your "experience" and the span of possibilities.
As a very technical fellow told me: "when you read three political news in a row we set a badge, you are now politically minded."
This, sadly, doesn't fit your yearning for us growing "beyond changing ourselves to fit the algorithm."
My prediction is that it will get worst before it gets any better at all.
[+] [-] fiatpandas|8 years ago|reply
For me this is where these YT tropes get interesting. When you get past the thumbnails of the mega channels with multiple full time employees who are obviously doing something very baity and strategic, you’re left with the ordinary channels who mimic these tropes likely without deep consideration or even consciousness.
It’s just more of a will to survive kind of thing, and thus an entire ecosystem shapes its own desires by way of unknowingly optimizing for an algorithm which itself is based on honing in on community trends.
[+] [-] et-al|8 years ago|reply
People do write replies, but I feel the conversation is much terse these days. I enjoy HN because in general the crowd here is more mature and willing to invest in an informative thoughtout reply instead of just witty one-liners for karma (which I'm glad people here downvote).
But yeah, I wonder what if we took away the "likes". We had an internet and community without them before.
PS Thanks for the book recommendation.
[+] [-] __s|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstandard|8 years ago|reply
This is an interesting thought. It does simplify expression, but in sum I don't think it's that much different than life before the like button.
We press the like button all the time in real life. Giving thumbs up, a quick nod of the head, or clapping.
From that standpoint, the like button is just the digital manifestation of how we showed engagement with "content".
Where I see we run into problems is that a "like" has different meanings depending on the person and context. Unfortunately algorithms aren't able to fully understand these nuances yet, so we end up with the same stream of youtube videos in our feed or the same 5 songs in our pandora playlist. Which means on the backend we're stuck with a certain set of "almost-but-not-quite-right" labels in a system which will then make "almost-but-not-quite-right" decisions.
Folks at the edges may get incorrectly lumped into the wrong group and, in milder cases, receive content they aren't interested in, in extreme cases, be flagged as a "potential terrorist".
It's tough. I do think my life is generally better off with intelligent algos removing friction, aiding in discovery, and anticipating my needs. But to do so, those same algos need an almost infinite amount of info about me to be able to infer context and nuance.
[+] [-] booleandilemma|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taneq|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forkLding|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackgolding|8 years ago|reply
I find this really frustrating in the arts and entertainment space - the bar for entry seems to be getting higher and higher because of these ultra competitive optimisations. I guess the difference now is that people view making video content on the internet as a career (or at least a way to make money) rather than just as a hobby.
[+] [-] angarg12|8 years ago|reply
He replied 'I haven't stepped in a supermarket in months, I do all my groceries online. It is much more efficient'.
I have to admit I felt dumb for not optimising my time like he does. But reflecting on it, I feel sad that our private time is becoming a soulless corporate enterprise where everything has to be optimised.
[+] [-] ehnto|8 years ago|reply
I recently started playing Sea of thieves and it is a breath of fresh air. There are no gameplay changing items, and no real purpose to grinding, meaning the journey and execution of your goals are the focus. Sure you are getting sweet loot, but when it boils down to it there is actually no real purpose for getting more gold in the game.
It really shifts the focus and also means there is no "perfect play" or wholy correct way to play the game.
[+] [-] lfowles|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nition|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lossolo|8 years ago|reply
I was Raid Leader and Guild leader (my guild was second on the server) in WoW and it was always like that. It's about time optimization, raids are really hard for newbies, they stand in shit and some of the raids on early stages are for example DPS oriented (kill the boss before he enrages etc) so you need to have good gear and know your rotation. When raid wipe because of you after 10 minutes of boss fighting and then again same thing on same boss happens, people get angry because you are holding them down, the whole team. If someone has 60 minutes that day to clear whole raid then he wants to play with experienced people and not to wipe very often.
You should do LFR first couple of times, all dungeons and special daily quests to get around your BiS gear from non-normal+ raid sources. You should watch on youtube guides to know how to fight particular boss too, you should come prepared for raid.
[+] [-] John_KZ|8 years ago|reply
I recently spotted a channel that features what seems to be animal traps (for mice, snakes, fish etc). All of their videos have hundreds of thousands of views, and all are 100% fake. It's hard to know if you're not outdoortsy, but they're all fake. Essentially they're not just producing garbage content, they're also intentionally damaging the perception and world model of the people watching their videos. Why is this "allowed" to run? Why aren't the knowledgable people calling them out? Because Youtube completely destroyed the comment feedback system. Negative comments and critisism is burried, new comments and unpopular/harsh comment are deranked, so all you get is dumb catchy comments that increase view time.
Of course this is only the top of the iceburg in a sea of garbage content, but it shows where we're heading, and it'll only get worse with the proliferation of machine learning tools, especially lifelike text-to-speech technologies.
[+] [-] aphextron|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PinkMilkshake|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zaarn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aidenn0|8 years ago|reply
"One weird trick to find the 13 most extreme reaction faces to mundane topics (you won't believe how number 5 lets you make money from home!)"
[+] [-] gitgud|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tatami|8 years ago|reply
Maybe I should look into a browser extension that de-caps such texts...
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] russdill|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crysin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ino|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russdpale|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|8 years ago|reply
It used to be that in order to drive clicks you needed to have female cleavage in your thumbnail. One YouTuber (RadicalSoda) still includes an image of a cartoon woman showing generous cleavage in each of his videos, despite himself being the only person actually appearing in most of them.
And then there's YouTube voice. I don't even think I can imitate it but there's a distinctive cadence and inflection that YouTubers seem to have embraced. I once saw a ten-year-old use it in a toy-company-sponsored video. Yes, ten-year-old kid paid to hawk toys on YouTube instead of just playing with them or whatever. Then again, we have stories of some Hackernews hearing their 3-year-old use "don't forget to like and subscribe!" as a farewell.
[+] [-] einr|8 years ago|reply
There's a link in the OP to an article analyzing this: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/the-l...
[+] [-] Asooka|8 years ago|reply
Eh, it's basically newscaster voice with added emotion. Not any weirder than any other profession where clear understandable diction is important.
[+] [-] pmuk|8 years ago|reply
You can see it on this video: https://youtu.be/qhV4xCmPy4g
I didn’t upload this thumbnail, YouTube picked it. If you looked through the video manually you might not even notice that such an expressive YouTube face was in there, but YouTube found it when I uploaded it and picked it as the thumbnail.
[+] [-] sp332|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerf|8 years ago|reply
These YouTube thumbnails are basically pushing all the buttons in the human brain as hard as they can without getting whacked from the site. The only harder button I can think of is nudity but that won't be permitted. (In fact, if you've never thought of it this way before, consider that it won't be permitted precisely because it hits the buttons too hard. There are reasons beyond stereotypical moralistic "prudery" to resist slathering public spaces in nudity and sexual content.) So once they burn out this button... which they will, eventually, though much like the market, people can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, so to speak... what comes next? People will eventually develop a sort of mental callous around this and on one level or another resist being yanked around so casually. What will replace it?
[+] [-] alanfalcon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinkingemote|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itissid|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] post_break|8 years ago|reply
And it bothers me. Even Linus put up a video explaining that he's sorry for the annoying thumbnails but it drives views.
[+] [-] OhSoHumble|8 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzRGBAUz5mA
[+] [-] toomanybeersies|8 years ago|reply
He seems to have the same facial expression in all of them. I don't think putting a big picture of your face on the preview is a bad thing, it makes it easier to visually filter videos by creator.
[+] [-] doomlaser|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsxwolf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccostes|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] myt6fore|8 years ago|reply
Traditionally, clickbait refers to a type of optimisation for more 'static' media outlets- those with more rigid publishing chain: writer <editor <owner.
Youtube's low barrier to publishing disrupts that, so we now have viewers assuming editor + owner role with their newfound power of directing attention. So now users demand to be catered to. Sense on entitlement is at the center of this thing.
[+] [-] GuB-42|8 years ago|reply
The idea is that these pictures will be in a library of thousands, and it has to stand out, regular faces don't. It is not a YouTube thing. It happens even in traditional newspapers as they battle against each other in the newsstand.
[+] [-] artursapek|8 years ago|reply
Also, I wouldn't say all of these are clickbait. The Needle Drop's videos are basically all just him making hilarious faces.
[+] [-] hartator|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kelukelugames|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|8 years ago|reply
I mean, I know we are living through basically the same thing with climate change and large corporations in reality but a novel would be cool too.
[+] [-] pragone|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmschulman|8 years ago|reply
He's a musician and synthesizer enthusiast, granted electronic music and synths have taken on a pretty youthful market in recent years (thanks to cheaper products and a larger acceptance of the genre) but Andrew becoming a YouTube personality in this space was definitely met with backlash from the community.
It wasn't for the content itself, I really respect the guy as both a musician and video editor, but it's the gimmicky persona, the little "signature" things he does in his videos, the all too-perfect sheen put on top of his content, the silly faces on the video thumbnails that draw people's attention, the inauthenticity of it all. It rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, at least in the electronic music/synthesizer communities I visit (full of people who have been working with synths and modular instruments since the 70s/80s).
Now I realize it's not just his gimmick, it's everyone who hopes to ranks' gimmick!