Normally, I use YouTube very little (watch a couple videos a month). However, I’ve been in bed with an injury for some time now, which has led me to watch quite a bit of YouTube. The thing is, I subscribe to a small handfull of channels that I enjoy content from, but after a relatively short time I had watched pretty much all the new content from those channels.
Now, I would expect that the YouTube algorithm, which is supposedly designed by competent people to get me to stick around, would be able to suggest some decent content to me based on my subscriptions. However, the past week, I’ve opened YouTube only to find the same old videos being suggested over and over. Even worse: Whenever there’s something interesting-looking from a channel I don’t recognise, it always turns out to be some shitty AI voice over some generic animations or footage.
I know for a fact that thousands of hours of content are created on YouTube daily, but it genuinely feels like there are maybe five creators out there that are making anything worth watching. It’s either that, or the YouTube algorithm is just complete crap at suggesting creators that are in any way similar to what I’m already subscribing to.
What’s going on here? Why does it seem like there’s no real content out there?
As a “funny” side note: What’s with the “aggressively American” AI narrator-voice? I’ve heard it before, but thought it was some dude until I realised it’s the same voice in a bunch of unrelated videos. It reminds me of the Discovery-channel “action-narrator”-voice from back in the day, but now it’s showing up in all kinds of crap videos.
The youtube algorithm used to show users a smattering of all the types of content on the site. Everyone was getting random shit from one public algorithm.
Now, it only shows you the tiny section related to the search data you seeded your own personal algorithm with.
Hey, I get a good selection of content recommended by youtube.
A recent example: https://youtu.be/cNAdtkSjSps
my experience is that is def not made by competent people, and i have to train the algorithm by selecting garbage and tell it to shove it up and never recommend it while im alive…and MAYBE in the future im gonna get a watchable video
The moment I hear the AI voice, I instantly jump to the next video.
Oh, so much this. It’s gotten to a point where I feel physical revulsion when I hear them. The tiktok-woman voice is decidedly the worst, but there are others that make me sick to my stomach as well.
I can feel you. YouTube is my “tv” and I’ve been watching it for years. But lately the quality of the suggestions has gone completely out of whack, imo. I scroll through the suggestions and find nothing worth watching. Sometimes i try to improve it by hitting ‘not interested’ or ‘don’t suggest this channel’, but it’s not helping.
Maybe Spez has bribed Google to show us rubbish, so we’d return to Reddit?
It’s actually kind of nice to hear this. You’re the kind of person I was thinking of when I thought to myself that “there must be heaps of decent content out there, because a bunch of people use youtube as their tv”, so if it’s gone to crap for you as well, at least that indicates I’m not just going crazy from lying still for way too long.
I’ve noticed a lot of AI slop being recommended all of a sudden too, not just AI voice stuff but lazy AI generated thumbnails and titles too. I’ve been clicking don’t suggest channel every time it turns up but YouTube is still trying to push it.
When the algorithm stops reccomending new stuff I take a look at [email protected] or r/[email protected] and find something cool that isn’t in my recommended.
Subbed! Thanks :)
There is lots of great content on YouTube, but you need to do some work to shake it loose. On the thumbnail page, click on the dots next to the image and choose “not interested” to get rid of the same ones showing repeatedly.
Try searching for terms you are interested in. Once you watch a couple of videos on the same subject, they’ll keep trying to show you more, which one be a good thing or not, depending.
Creators come and go, so finding new ones is an ongoing process.
You clearly have the intelligence to spell the words ‘algorithm,’ ‘aggressively,’ and ‘the.’ The algorithm is not meant for you. It is made to suck children and idiots down into machine induced ADHD. If you have standards of any kind, you reject the obvious trash and end up where you are. You have my congratulations and my sympathies.
On desktop there’s a vertical triple dot button under videos that allows you to tell the algorithm that you’re not interested in that video or the entire channel. I assume there’s something similar on mobile. That somewhat reduces suggestions like the unwanted video in future.
When you refresh, you’ll see a different page of videos. If you do this to enough videos, you might start getting recommended videos you’ve already watched. You can give that as a reason for not being interested, so you can make those go away as well.
Speaking of which, you can also remove videos from your Watch History to prevent the algorithm from using those as examples. That’s often another way to effectively banish a channel where you only watched the one video.
Be aware that (as far as I know) the only way to undo directly telling YouTube you’re not interested in a channel is to completely erase your Watch History. Maybe finding and watching a few videos of theirs might also work, but I haven’t yet found the need to put that to the test.
The algorithm isn’t there to suggest you something enjoyable to watch.
It is designed to keep you on the site as long as possible by suggesting you what has kept other people on the site longer who also have watched what you watched, maybe.
Use the not interested button very liberally when it recommends you something you don’t want to see.
Or if you have already seen it, but it keeps getting proposed in your list, you can open it, like it, and it will disappear. Works for me at least.
I guess I’ve understood that “keeping me on the site” doesn’t necessarily coincide with “show me stuff I like”, but I honestly thought there was more overlap. I keep scrolling past loads of shit before leaving, and then just being shown the same shit again when I come back. I haven’t really used the “not interested” option, I’ll try that and see if it helps. Thanks for the recommendation!
If you only subscribe to a handful of channels and only watch a couple videos a month, you’re not really giving it much data to work with.
Also use the “Don’t recommend channel” and similar feedback options. I did this two a handful of AI channels and have never gotten a suggestion for them since. Other than that, you have just have to manually find some more content till the algorithm catches up.
I’ve thought of that, but would have thought the algorithm quickly caught up the past weeks when I’ve been watching several videos a day. Then again, I’ve been bored out of my mind watching whatever, so I’ve probably not given it much to work with now either, essentially telling it that I’ll keep scrolling and clicking stuff for quite some time before I leave, no matter what it throws at me…
I’ll try using the “Do not recommend” button more and see if things improve.
Youtube’s algorithm is now Show the user videos like the last two they watched and NOTHING ELSE
And it won’t take no for an answer (without actually selecting not interested). If I get a video from someone I kind of like but that video doesn’t interest me, I will see it every refresh of the home page for at least a week. But if i select not interested or don’t recommend channel I’ll miss videos I might want later on.
Google Exec: He clicked “not interested” again! Lmao loser! Have some more!
The other day I started off watching a video about fixing the vinyl on my center console in my car. Left to check a few things and when I came back it was some right wing BS.
On youtube your always 5 videos away from rightwing propaganda.
Mine autoplays physics concept explanation videos, lol
Sounds like you’re letting the algorithm do all the work. You can’t trust that shit. If you know what genre of content you want then you need to research what actual human creators make it. If it’s nerd stuff, look to see who’s got content on Nebula. If it’s stuff similar to (insert creator here) or on a similar topic, then search or ask around for suggestions on similar creators. And if it’s AI slop or TTS bullshit, just pretend that it doesn’t exist and move on.
I’m constantly adding and removing subscribed channels. A few I added recently with many hours of content are Contrapoints, Tom Nichols, and Ordinary Things. Very informative and entertaining.
My recos are great. 🤷♂️
There is a lot of garbage out there, but also some really good stuff. I like to stay logged out and clear history occasionally to try to keep from getting too algorithm bubbled. It’s not just automatically filtering content by subject matter, it also filters by length if you watch mostly long form videos you’ll get more long recommendations, and same for short videos. Try using more generic search terms for hobbies, interests, topics, etc you’ll get a little more variety in search results and won’t rely as much on the algorithm to filter recommendations.
