Lately, there’s been an annoying trend of YouTube channels producing podcast-style content in the form of “after-show” thoughts and discussions. One of my favorite movie critics now regularly publishes snippets of conversation from hours-long “discussion” podcasts, and produces these far more frequently than he does actual movie reviews. They are sometimes tolerable in such small chunks, but in my opinion, it’s also a cheap way to grab content without putting in the effort to edit something of higher quality (not that I want to complain too much about free content). Another favorite channel mostly covering video games and technology, which had a humorously bumbling style, has now started doing live news content, and it’s terrible. Every channel seems to have a second channel used for recording hours of conversation with other YouTube personalities.
My suspicion is that this is all due to declining ad revenues. YouTube has apparently massively changed its algorithm, and many channels have admitted to struggling financially in ways they didn’t before. One channel gave the story of its rise to popularity and stated that nothing really happened until they started creating “shorts” as teasers for the show and doing live streams after production to “discuss” the show with fans, and only then did their popularity take off.
I find this hard to believe, but I don’t think they’re lying. For some reason, people really do want to spend hours listening to other people talk, even more so if they can pay $5 to have a question answered by their favorite hosts. It’s absolutely bizarre to me, but it’s possible that people really are this lonely.
I despise “live” style podcast content. Now, to be clear, I’ve listened to podcasts that were highly edited and professional presented, and I sometimes like those, but not the “surround yourself with people who share your opinions and reinforce each others’ thinking for 3 hours” content, which is what some channels descend into. I think it’s terrible. If I’m going to spend 3 hours with people, they are going to be good friends of mine, not some random internet personalities. If I’m actually part of the conversation and actually know the people, yeah, I like hanging out and having long conversations. But why would I want to to just sit there listening to other people talk?
Some channels only do it because they have to in order to survive on YouTube income. It means that people are actually watching this crap. But I also think it’s a sign of massive decline.
This hasn’t just been on YouTube. After scrolling down on Facebook for a little while, it’s become common for 90% of the content to be “suggested for you”. It’s all absolute garbage, and it strikes me as Facebook’s desperate attempt to increase engagement, when people are otherwise leaving the platform in droves. It’s so horrendously terrible, I’ve pretty much given up any realistic expectation of seeing the important updates from my friends, and it’s clever enough that it isn’t entirely clear, without carefully paying attention to the source, whether it was actually posted by a friend or by Facebook’s stupid algorithm. It essentially means that I login for awhile, scroll for a bit, get tired of being advertised to, and log off.
Honestly, I think we’re going to see a massive decline in social media greater than anything we’ve seen before. I can’t speak for the younger generations, but I think my generation has woken up to the fact that these companies exist purely to manipulate people. Very few friends actively post on Facebook, and I find myself going several days without thinking to check, which unfortunately often means missing important things. I don’t know anymore. Aside from vaguely keeping up with people, and wanting to say happy birthday to a handful of friends, maybe hoping to catch updates from close friends in time to drop a like, there really isn’t much purpose to me being on Facebook, as it’s made itself as annoying as almost possible.
YouTube still has good content, and I still watch it, but I find myself struggling more and more to avoid these stupid 3+ hour podcasts. Why do people watch this garbage? And then I remember that I actually do usually see or interact with friends each week, and I wonder if that is just exceedingly rare. YouTube also hates me and will skew all of the content I see if I watch too many episodes of a channel in a row (I’m never logged in when I watch).
It never ceases to amaze me how these tech bros always think that technology can solve everybody’s problems, when it really, really can’t.
I have a post about loneliness I want to put together sometime, but I haven’t felt much motivation to write lately. This is just as well, as I honestly feel I’m starting to run out of meaningful things to write. I certainly don’t talk much about money these days, so the focus of this blog has definitely shifted, and I’ve started questioning what I want to do with it in the future.