#blame my YouTube algorithm

[howlingday]

Me: Man, I love this series!

YouTube: Oh, really? Would you like to see more~?

Me: YEAH!

YouTube: OKAY! Here's thirty different videos of people calling this show garbage and why it's a colossal waste of time to get involved.

Me: ...

[boyrevival]

So... YouTube, am I right?

[madsgotmadagain]

Took an image from fucking Thomas and friends and turned it into my oc Lilith

[gali-la]

Damnit why is it always at the busiest time in a fandom I get lured into another one. I HAVE NO TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS I CANT BALANCE THEM

Fuckin. Swear to god if I didn’t love one piece so much I’d be back to my multi fandom slut ways. Unbearable. Unbelievable.

[lackadaisycats]

I hope you know that literally nobody is going to be able to live up to the standard you, V*v, and Glitch have set and your arrogance and exploitation of your fanbase and connections has screwed millions of creatives out of their dreams because Hollywood is a joke that isn't worth telling and wealthy e-celebs like yourself have claimed the indie scene all to yourselves and moved the goalposts into the stratosphere.

Nope. This isn't a zero sum game. There is not some limited, prescribed number of indie trophy slots that a few studios greedily filled up, blocking everyone else out. That is not how it works. Nothing any other creator is doing - short of personally sending hired goons to your doorstep or stealing your credit cards - is taking anything away from you or preventing your success. In fact if an indie creator can manage to demonstrate that they've got something viable going, it may help to map out a pathway for others.

I think I'm not going to bother trying to address whether or not cartoons in return for support from fans - an entirely voluntary exchange - constitutes exploitation. And I'm living in the Midwest driving a 2007 economy car with 200k+ miles on it, but let's just skip past the assumptions that I'm wealthy and connected too.

Instead, let's get to the weirdly myopic notion that the indie scene is held captive by three studios. Maybe YouTube algorithms or Twitter bubbles are somewhat to blame, but in actuality there are so, so many individual people, friend groups, and small production houses out there making independent animation, I cannot possibly name them all.

Here are some anyway:

Far-Fetched Worthikids Satina | Scumhouse Noodle and Bun Punch Punch Forever Ramshackle Noodle Papajoolia | Pipi Angel Hare | The East Patch Jonni Peppers Salad Fingers Monkey Wrench Studio Heartbreak Felix Colgrave JelloApocalypse Odd1sout (started indie, got picked up by Netflix) Allie Mehner JaidenAnimations Lumi and the Great Big Galaxy Cloudrise | The Worlds Divide Telepurte RubberRoss James Lee ENA Godspeed | Olan Rogers Ollie and Scoops Meat Canyon Port by the Sea Kekeflipnote Boxtown Kevin Temmer Weebl Joel Haver CircleToons Long Gone Gulch Atlas and the Stars Animist Skibidi Toilet A Fox in Space Alex Henderson Talon Toniko Pantoja Sr. Pelo Hullabaloo Kane Pixels (started indie, picked up by A24) Homestar Runner Fennah Gods' School Alan Becker Dungeon Flippers JazLyte Psychicpebbles (started indie, Smiling Friends picked up by AS) Piemations vewn Metal Family Dead Sound chluaid Jacknjellify Betsy Lee | No Evil My Pride Cranbersher GeoExe | Gwain Saga Horatio the Vampire Mech West Playground | Rodrigo Sousa The Brave Locomotive Finchwing (+ many other Warrior Cats animators) Quazies SamBakZa Kamikaze: Trial by Fire

By no means a full list. That's just YouTube, and mostly just English language stuff, and I didn't even get to the multitudes of Warrior Cats animation collabs.

The point is, the indie landscape is vast and populated by creators new and old, making all kinds of animated media from skits, to shows, to ARGs, to films. Audience sizes vary as much as the content, stylistic approaches, subject matter, and budgets do. There are no compliance standards, no gateways to entry, no goalposts. There's not even any preset definition of success except what you decide for yourself.

Anyway, instead of nurturing your resentments, consider making something. I assure you, it's a far more rewarding use of your time and energy, and pretty much no one can stop you. ------------- EDIT- Made some additions to the list based on comments. Thanks!

[cipheramnesia]

Here's my less complicated guide to people from TikTok.

Well, you're here, instead of YouTube (where it's still possible to make influencer money) or RedBook (more similar to TikTok). So probably whatever you do already is fine. Do that. You can share stuff by reblog so you shouldn't like copy and paste or screenshot or whatever a thing you wanna share. You probably know that.

Reblogs are kinda like stitches, you can add comments. Tags are like reaction videos. People are always dogpiling other people for something here but you don't have to do that. It's like life, someone out there is always gonna think something you've done is wrong and write a three page essay blaming you personally for Ruining The Internet because you typed "k*ll." You can usually ignore that too. Basically everything is fine and you're probably doing fine. Relax.

What else, uh, look up twitter migration posts because they'll help you set up an algorithm free dashboard. There's a "For You" tab that is algorithm driven so you probably want to actually turn off features like "in your orbit" and "based on your likes" and "best stuff first" because again the For You thing does that anyway, so why do it twice right?

Yes you can chase and get clout but it doesn't really translate to anything off tumblr so I guess live your life but if you want clout you'd be on YouTube right now I think. The staff on this site is a skeleton crew, it's a mess. Like, do whatever. For every "we don't do that" thing there's a bunch of people who do that.

Also you should try to be transgender here. That helps.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

... y'all know Lae'zel is acting scared, right?

Video transcription: I've seen a lot of comments on my short about Lae'zel dismissing her entire character because she's mean and… I'm just checking in here… you guys know she's scared, right? She's terrified. She was kidnapped by the worst monster she knows, infected with the most horrifying death anyone in her culture can have, and then stranded on a hostile world, alone, with nothing to guide her except the dogmatic military cult indoctrination of a cruel lich demigod, telling her that her only hope of salvation is to follow Gith doctrine with total unyielding faith. And still she tries to save you. When she keeps insisting that you must get to the Githyanki crèche, it's our only hope, she's trying to guide you towards the only salvation she knows from the parasite, so she can share it with you. And Gith... aren't supposed to do that, saving an outsider is not part of the doctrine, she's breaking the rules trying to do right by you. None of that means she's not being an asshole, she's rude, dogmatic and unpleasant. But everything she does comes from a genuine, very misguided and abrasive, desire to do the right thing. It doesn't make her behaviour okay, but there is more to her character than just "being the mean one."

To expand on this a bit more than I can in a 60 second short, people acting from fear and from their damage is a major theme among the Baldur's Gate 3 companions.

Lae'zel is terrified and falling back on the only thing she believes will give her back some control over her situation, which is the dogma of the military cult she's in. Shadowheart is much the same, amnesiac and grasping on to the only solid thing she knows, which is her faith, which preaches deception, loss and duplicity as the only certain factors in life.

Gale is an inveterate people-pleaser desperately dependent on other people to help him feed his magic addiction, with his overtly affable exterior hiding a rolling boulder of guilt, ambition, greed, arrogance and legitimate hurt. Asterion is... well, no way to really lay out his deal without spoiling, but the boy has been through it and his self-destructive, hedonistic and selfish impulses are all coping mechanism and self-defense all the time.

None of that make their shitty behaviours okay, but in a fictional story, those kinds of flaws and toxic behaviours are what make for interesting stories and characters. I don't blame anyone for finding Lae'zel unpleasant and abrasive, but I do get a bit Old Man Yells At Cloud about people who casually brag about shoving her off a cliff-side, or murdering her because "she was a bitch" or whatever.

Like... being unable to face discomfort in your media is not a virtue, and lashing out reactively against fiction that doesn't validate your power fantasy isn't a flex.

Of course, I saw a lot of those reactions in YouTube comments and on social media, so my sample is biased by those algorithms, but still. A lot of people seem aggressively proud that they never engaged with her story because the terrified indoctrinated child-soldier wasn't immediately nice to them and I can't explain it but something about that reaction feels puritan to me.

[themousefromfantasyland]

Pixar's latest film Elio released recently, and many people aren't even aware of its existence. It opened with the worst box office results in the studio history.

Many people are blaming this on the "lack of marketing" from Disney, and they may be right, but was the marketing really that bad?

I'm not interested in Disney's successes or failures at the box office, but about movie marketing.

With Elio, I was aware that this movie was coming out. I saw a few trailers of it. I even showed them to my sister. It had the same amount of trailers of Moana 2 and Inside Out 2, and these films turned out to be behemoths at the box office.

For me, it received the usual promotion that Disney films get. Pixar's Instagram and YouTube accounts are still filling my feed with reels of it.

I was aware that this film was coming out, so people complaining "I didn't know this film existed" feels really weird for me.

And then I remembered all those films that I saw trailers for, and then never heard of them again. Trailers I first saw on YouTube and then never heard of them again.

I need to make this question: Is social media algorithm destroying movie marketing?

Like, unless a movie is using gorilla marketing and being on everyone's feed 100% of the time, 24 hours a day, every single day, people won't be aware of its existence.

Either you are Barbie and you are constantly spreading pink everywhere to the point of some people being overfeed and saturated of you, or you are Elio and no one knows about your existence. There's no middle ground anymore.

Honestly, I hate how this puts an extra stress on original movies. You are not only asking movie execs to invest in original ideas, but to make them an inescapable social media phenomenon, something that many films tried and failed miserably. It's like asking the most risk averse people in the world to gamble twice.

@ariel-seagull-wings @thealmightyemprex @the-blue-fairie @mask131 @princesssarisa @maimoncat @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @tamisdava2

[danandphileselevel4]

Okay, so if any of you are an older phannie like me and watched this creator in the 2010s share valuable information about WLW sex education, this new video describes her battle with the YouTube ad apocalypse targeting LGBTQ+ creators by limiting ads. This was in the news around hiatus time and creators sued YouTube for discrimination (their lawsuit was lost and all of this occurred 2017-2021).

The reason I bring this up in the Dan and Phil tag is around the 23:00 timestamp she describes how sponsorships help creators and the damaging negative stereotype of labeling creators as ‘bad’ for having sponsored content.

My DNP related thoughts below:

I know there’s been discourse about how DNP are over sponsoring their content (hello dragon city/nord vpn and the capital Lester jokes) and how they over price their merch, or the recent livestream cost, etc. I had not realized (probably because they are white and male) that it’s very likely that DNP do not get a lot of ad revenue due to being LGBTQ+ and how YouTube’s algorithm doesn’t always support that.

Dan and Phil have been brave to come out of the closet and be authentic with us and often reference being gay in their content showing their genuine selves. This is a big reason the vibes are so immaculate now. They do this even though they could be targeted on the very website that gave them a career. I’m personally grateful they are out (being in the LGBTQ+ community myself) and it helps my feel more connected to their content.

I believe that one of the only reasons we have free content is because Dan and Phil do sponsorships and merch and I think their millionaire status is probably greatly exaggerated. I also think they want to provide quality content to us, so they spend a lot of time and money on their big projects (hence always ‘joking’ they spent all their money whenever they have a tour).

The merch is optional and so are the livestreams (they put TIT up for FREE weeks after). You can click through the sponsored segments if you want. If we want them to continue to provide content they unfortunately have to play the YouTube game. The alternative would be something like a patreon or some other paid service outside YouTube.

Another thing to think about is half of our duo are vocal about their moral opinions on ads and things done related to capitalism. It’s obvious Dan doesn’t love it (and I don’t blame him) but he does it probably because he feels he HAS to, which I think we should try to understand.

TLDR: I think we should be supporting and not judging the fact that Dan and Phil have to do sponsorships and sell merch in order to provide us free content, while understanding it’s a requirement of their job. We should try to be grateful they decided to be out and proud when it’s considered risky for their income, especially in today’s political climate.

@a-human-beann also put a post about this video in the DNP community tab if you want to discuss there!

[project-r1ver]

I think it’s kinda sad that games don’t really get fandoms anymore and are more treated like trends to hop on. If mouthwashing came out in say 2015 or something then it’s fandom would’ve lasted years and we could’ve had in depth conversations about it for a long time but for some reason fandoms just don’t have that kind of pull anymore. I get that not every game is gonna be as big as that kind of undertale-era of indie games, but it really did make me so incredibly heartbroken to see how fast people move on to the next game like it’s just another thing to make a video on. It just feels like fans aren’t treating their games like artworks anymore, and more like another TikTok dance to learn. I’m seeing it again with that blue cookie guy from that mobile game (I’m sorry I don’t what it is or what he’s from LOL) and I can just sense it you know? It’s just a passing fad. Something cool to make artwork of and maybe farm some likes but in my opinion most to maybe even all of the recently released game titles, updates, or whatever have you, have had this weird undertone or trendiness to them and honestly I’m really growing to resent it. I know fandoms come and go but it just doesn’t feel like their allowed to get BIG anymore you know? Yeah everyone agreed mouthwashing was GOOD. I mean it’s a total masterpiece to say the least, but it feels like everyone kinda just played it and moved on. Didn’t soak it in. maybe a moment of silence before going “wow good game!” And then onto the next one. No room to breathe. Dude once again (and this is just my observations so maybe I’m just crazy and my algorithms don’t show me any good content as they often tend to do.) I feel like if mouthwashing or any recent title (ultrakill, deltarune, hell I’m scared that even tomodachi life is gonna suffer from it at this point) were released during the big indie boom of the early 2010’s, they would’ve survived at least 5 YEARS. Not barely 2 months. Again not every game has to be this big spectacle that changes the gaming scene forever, but I really just hope yall get where I’m coming from. Games are an art form and I’m tired of half of the internet hopping off of these masterpieces after a few weeks with barely any discussion like they’re trends. Oh yeah and of course I blame TikTok. So if you’re an artist or YouTuber or just like ranting, it’s ok to still discuss and make fan content of games that people aren’t talking about anymore. I really hate the TikTok-ification of fandom. It’s gross. This isn’t how the internet is supposed to be.

[quinton-reviews]

What advice would you give to someone considering making video essays?

Don't be weighed down by the expectations of others. It seems these days there are now too many people assuming that if you want to make something labeled a "video essay," you have to match a certain style or tone. In many ways, it's overbearing - if you make something that has too many skits, too many jokes, that doesn't have a strong thesis outside of "this thing is bad", people say you're "failing to find a point." But if you put weeks of work into the filmmaking process and you want to call it a documentary, it feels limiting to have people insist that it's just a rant video instead of something more.

In truth, I recommend just trying to make *videos* first and trying to find your voice. No one starts off on YouTube being totally original, but as you learn the craft you will find your own brand and style. I think it is important for smaller creators to experiment, in spite of keyboard warriors being obsessed with the idea of everything under the sun needing to be new.

Starting off, your biggest struggle will be finding contentment in the experience of making videos - finding your closure. If you don't have an audience watching your stuff right away, spending weeks working on a video with 0 views can feel pointless and frustrating. Without finding a resolution for each project, you'll start to wonder why you're doing it.

So instead, find a friend in your personal life who will watch the videos with you. Make content for you and the people you know, and find contentment in that experience. And when you start to grow and gain real followers, pivot your style to match that new status quo.

Creating content for YouTube is a process of throwing things at a wall until something sticks. The big secret is the moment something sticks, you drop everything you're working on and do *that thing* five more times. This helps build trust in the algorithm and helps build your brand to new viewers finding your content. But don't write yourself into a corner - allow yourself to experiment and evolve even as you're finding success. If I didn't do that, I'd still be making drama videos about LeafyisHere. I'd be burnt out, miserable, and bitter. But because I allowed my style to evolve with my own tastes, I now am at the highest point in my career (to the loud annoyance of many people online).

But the biggest advice I can give is that if you think being a YouTuber will solve any issues in your private life, it won't. That's the biggest mistake I made starting out, I thought having this parasocial connection with other creators would fix my loneliness and anxiety. It didn't, in fact, it made things worse; and I am the only person to blame for that. I quickly learned that the most important people in my life still were (and still are) my real-life friends - people I go to bars with IRL and people I chat with on Discord - and not other creators. Sure, having this mindset has made me more isolated in many ways, but honestly I think that's the way it has to be for someone like me.

Final piece of advice - create your YouTube channel with a secret email you never post about online. It makes it much harder to dox and hack you. Peace out!

[betterbemeta]

because I love to cook the youtube algorithm pushes me a lot of food porn videos which I guess are adjacent. But over time, something about them feels cruel to me. The influencers are living in an alternate universe. 'Surf n' turf fried rice?' 40 lbs of it for a tailgate?

I live in the USA, and the absolute cheapest online price for snow crab legs I could find was $10 a lb and I have no idea if the product's any good quality. As of November 2024, the wholesale prices before markup were over $8 a lb. I haven't seen them in my grocery store for under $14 a lb. Online, 10 lb cases of crab like he's carrying there go for almost always over $100. Sometimes over $200. There was a 2018-2019 population collapse due to a marine heatwave that knocked out over 10 billion crabs.

The stated price of a beef tenderloin varies wildly depending on where I look. I can find a USDA report that states that the retail cost of beef tenderloin in my area in 2024 was around $8-$11 per lb but I have NEVER seen it for under $15 a lb on sale in the store, at least recently. Grass-fed beef costs a lot more. Maybe I am not looking hard enough, and there ARE definitely ways to get meat cheaper, like buying a cow share. But like... do you get what I am saying? That meat fried rice guy is holding is potentially over $100 by itself. and why the hell do you need tenderloin to make fried rice, anyway? It's one of the more expensive cow parts, it's filet mignon.

I kind of find it fun to watch videos where a butcher cuts up wagyu beef because it's a luxury that I can't justify spending on myself. But after a certain point this stuff stops feeling like fantasy, and begins feeling cruel. Maybe this guy has special connections where he can get that much crab for below wholesale prices, or has special deals with farmers to get a $60 whole tenderloin when he wants. But its more likely he's just rich, or is projecting the image of being rich using investor or sponsorship money.

The USA has leadership right now that dismantled any agency that can control bird flu and is blaming egg prices on its enemies. Normal people will be watching their grocery bills further skyrocket due to isolationist tariffs, rent, utilities, and medical prices take more out of their food budgets than ever before. And it would not surprise me if the plan to make up the difference after the feds round up low-wage immigrant workers is to send them right back to work but like, even more literally enslaved.

And youtube wants me to see the altreality where some random guy brings the economic collapse of largely indigenous alaskan fishing communities, and cubed filet mignon, to a tailgate??? what 'let them eat cake' bs is this???

[toomanywatchers]

My Thoughts on WatcherTV

Hi, I am here to put away my meme-making skills to express my genuine thoughts on Watcher’s announcement; WatcherTV. Before I get into it, this is for any of those at Team Watcher who might be seeing this message: Just know we love and support everything you do for us. Y’all truly do not get the credit you rightfully deserve. I hope with this change to a separate streaming platform you guys can create the content you want to make, pull in creators that you’ve always wanted to work with, and share voices/topics that may have not had the chance to shine because of YouTube’s heinous algorithm. I know myself, and many others, are excited to see what WatcherTV brings. For instance, I already watched Road Files and the trailer for Travel Season on the new platform. And guess what? I love it! I just love BTS-centric shows and seeing the vibes established on Travel Season. Along with more Lizzie/possibly-more-sightings-of-other-Team-Watcher-peeps content?!? If this is what holds for the future of WatcherTV- oh boy, do you already have me more on board than I already was.

I also send my sincerest regards too. We all know that the internet can be a negative space with many sharing their uncensored thoughts, and I hope none of you take the hate to heart. I also hope you can take the weekend to breathe, drink some water, spend time with loved ones, and celebrate this huge step you all are embarking on. I am truly excited to see what is to come on WatcherTV will be there with each step to support.

Now to my fellow fans of Watcher. I understand the concern and it is okay to have concerns. It shows that you truly care for Watcher as a company and don’t want anything negative to come about with this decision. BUT on the other hand, spreading hateful messages? Not. Fucking. Cool. It is quite simple to express concern in an appropriate/respectful manner. Remember, this is a company full of living and breathing human beings. Trying to justify “who is to blame” and pointing fingers is just childish. Guess what? No one is to blame, it was a company-wide decision that they all made and spent months upon months to create.

Yes, it does suck to see content that was free for years be moved to a paywall, but remember they are independent artists that have to pay employees, freelancers, locations, and themselves! Have we not been advocating for fair pay among creative individuals when it comes to WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes and then AI art taking jobs away from artists? If this is what the company needs to do to survive while not sacrificing the high-quality content they make for us, then we should give it a shot! Plus with the current discount available, the subscription is not that pricey for the amount of shows they produce! Literally for January and a bit of February, they were uploading 2 podcasts and 2 separate shows… that’s a lot of content! If you have never sat down to produce, direct, write, perform, edit, and all other aspects it takes to make a fine-polished YouTube video, it takes a lot of work!

To add to this, Watcher already makes content that far expands past what is recognized as normal for YouTube. They build individual sets for each show that is produced, and they travel all over the place for Ghost Files and soon-to-be Travel Season. It costs money to produce content and YouTube?- It’s just not how it was years and years ago. Views on long-form content have been dipping and with the over-saturation of sponsorships, I am assuming they are not making enough profit to sustain the business on the current platform. Also, monetization on YouTube has been a killer for many channels because of vulgar language issues and just being demonetized for no rhyme or reason. By moving over to a streaming platform of their own they can continue to create what they want to create, and make it without any restrictions or rules holding them back. Too pricey? Find some friends who also like the content and split the pricing evenly. Only want to watch certain shows? Then make a monthly subscription for the time that show airs. There are many solutions that you guys see as a huge problem, and don’t get me wrong I have my concerns. I shared those concerns briefly in my theory post about them still being a young channel, but I’m also unaware of the actual analytics and revenue that is currently being brought in currently to the company from YouTube alone. 

It’s a huge step that has garnered negative feedback from those spreading hateful messages about the company and to other individuals for supporting the boys *cough cough I see your messages and comments cough cough* is truly uncalled for. I will be taking a bit of a break from my socials as I wait out the storm though if I have the energy, I might stream on Twitch again and talk through this with y’all if you can sit down and have a civil discussion. As for now, it’s your choice if you continue to support. My goal is to continue to make funny little memes, and if I am allowed to I will be working on a crack video pt.2 after Travel Season premieres. Remember to be kind and to put yourselves in their shows. Just the boys even though they are receiving the brunt of the hate, but for everyone at the company.

Your local memester watcherina - Fritz.

[violainebriat]

Watching you on both Tumblr and insta is wild bc the perception is wildly different. Karen is my favorite character and like obviously I want everything to end happily but a big thing I want is justice for her,, and on Tumblr your audience is a lot more compassionate towards her but on Instagram everyone but 3 people are always like "BURN THE WITCH"

RIGHT???? It's a phenomenon I have noticed too even with pet videos. On YouTube people tend to be more jokey, and on insta people have more of an inflammatory mob mentality. I blame the outrage algorithm, Meta is known to use it, and I think Tumblr doesn't? Discussions on the discord server are also different. it's very interesting cross posting for this! Overall as the author, I do think Karen is in the wrong but I have compassion for her, and that's why I made last chapter in her POV.

[physalian]

Ok but somebody just sent me one of those Gary Vee videos (and I have very mixed feelings about motivational speakers in general) specifically about underperforming content.

In the clip the bulk of Gary’s argument is: Stop blaming the algorithm, your content sucks. The algorithm is your customer, figure out how to appease it and make it work for you, because “blaming the algorithm” makes you sound like one of those “well it’s not *me* people are just too basic for my content”.

And. Yes. I fully appreciate and acknowledge that my content sucks… on platforms where I have to pretend to be something I’m not to appease the algorithm.

And yes it is its own thing, not simply the will of the people. If it were the will of the people, I wouldn’t have my Instagram infested with scam accounts every time I so much as hint at marketing. The “will of the people,” Mr. Vee, is this hellsite right here.

“Shut up and figure out how to enjoy the process” some comment said.

Friendo, I will never enjoy the process of being on social media, as social media continues to grind inevitably toward the brain-rotting content generation machine to satisfy diminishing attention spans.

I’m not mad that “the algorithm” doesn’t like my content. I’m pissed that there’s an algorithm at all and that because it exists, people are encouraged to saturate the market with unoriginality and play it safe, over being experimental and unique. I can’t tell you how many times on YouTube alone I’ve seen videos by some of my favorite creators that didn’t perform well and say “I know this won’t do well, but I had fun” and it’s some of the best content they’ve made in part because they know they’re not under pressure to perform and can be so much more human.

I don’t want to appease the algorithm because I don’t want there to be a goddamn algorithm. When you have a robot deciding what videos to show you based on numbers and not soul, you have a game you can rig. Which is great! If your goal is to encourage a bunch of people desperate for audiences to play that game and over-produce the exact same content.

Booktok is a shining example.

It encourages people to put on acts and adopt attitudes and arguments that they might not agree with because that’s what’s trending and they’ve made their livelihood dependent on clicks and ad revenue. Or am I imagining the deluge of rage bait out there on TikTok?

I could mindlessly and spitefully pinch out artificial enthusiasm (or rage) for things I don’t care about for attention. I could have ChatGPT write me a month’s worth of cheap tweets. I could make an assembly line for Instagram reels with all the depth and uniqueness of a gutter puddle. I could write “what sells” and glue it together in a Canva AI-generated cover to add to the steaming pile of romantacy.

But I’m an artist, and for fuck’s sake, if this is what I have to do to reach people, the people that I’m reaching won’t enjoy my work anyway. I have a day job, I’m not doing this for money. If I end up with a cult following, I’d rather have a loyal few than sell my soul to feeding the algorithm. Fuck the algorithm.

[netscapenavigator-official]

I'm sure this is just a me problem and not super widespread, but for some reason, YouTube's algorithm has gotten so sensitive lately, and it's forcing me to use the "Subscriptions" box more than ever.

Like, you watch one interesting science video with a couple million views, and now YouTube thinks you're a normie who wants to watch vaguely ignorant (but majorly harmful) centrist clickbait.

So then I have to go back to my subscription box to find stuff I wanna watch and eventually reset my algorithm. But still: That didn't used to happen so easily. I know it's easy to blame A.I. for a lot these days, but like... Google... Come on. If you're gonna collect all that data on me, at least use it for something competent, ffs.