The Atlantic: Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore. Why you’ve probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world.::undefined
The Atlantic: Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore. Why you’ve probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world.::undefined
An insightful thought from a TV critic I read years ago just as streaming was taking off :
There’s no such thing as the best TV show anymore, because there’s so much that’s generally good enough to be a candidate that no one person has watched it all and spent the time to assess it properly.
More broadly, this had happened to western culture with the internet. Previously, with only three tv channels and two major papers, we were all literally on the same page.
I’d go further and say there’s a vertical dimension too in terms of complexity. Society and its various aspects such as technology are now complex enough in total they I don’t think anyone can ever say they understand what’s going on.
There are tons of young millionaire youtubers who I’ve never heard of. It’s pretty cool actually that there are so many niches to fill.
And plenty of poor low-subscriber channels that are actually really good and could blow up at some point.
I’ve certainly watched some people from before they were big and from memory their content was more or less just as good in the “early” days. Which all up makes for a pile of stuff!
Probably doing stupid things like posting with useful titles and thumbnails without agape mouths…
That seems to be the only kind of trash content that Google is interested in pushing these days.
Google pushes what you click. Stop watching this kind of content and it’ll probably stop being recommended to you
Not true. I don’t watch it.
And even if I did, it doesn’t mean that I liked it. None of these tech companies’ algorithms seem to account for that little fact, even when I directly express otherwise.
they are not optimizing for your enjoyment, they’'re optimizing for your engagement. they don’t give a fuck if you hate what you’re watching as long as you watch it for longer.
Yes that’s my point.
Don’t know about you but I don’t spend my free time torturing myself.
Well I practically never see these kinds of thumbnails, it’s absolutely influenced by your behaviour whatever it may be.
Youtube “pushes” whatever gets more views and longer watch time.
If trashy crap is being suggested, that means other people are watching it in increased numbers.
No YouTube pushes what people will click on. They don’t care about the quality of the content, whether the people who watch it actually enjoy it (dislike = “engagement”), or what kind of content people are actually subscribed to because the ads come first.
That’s pretty much what I said.
There IS a best TV show and it’s Six Feet Under and it’s perfect and the ending makes me cri every time and I will FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES
But srsly it’s a 10/10
I use the phrase “societal decoheshion” to describe that. We (whoever that may be) just aren’t all that unified enough in our culture or information sources anymore.
Even just since Reddit became dead to us, my wife (who I met through Reddit) and I went to different platforms, and find ourselves often catching each other up on what our respective corners of the internet are doing.