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YouTube. We all know what it is. Now If you’re like me, the way you get on to YouTube is by searching ‘YouTube’ or a variation thereof on Google. Now, the first hit is YouTube proper, but the second or third hit is YouTube’s X account with a preview of the most recent posts. I often glance at these posts before clicking on YouTube, and they are cutesy, saccharine nonsense. If we were to anthropomorphise YouTube’s social media account, it brings to mind an archetypical scatterbrained Zoomer, the kind that probably only lives in people’s imagination.
I have seen YouTube ask readers ‘What animal would have the best YouTube channel’ and note that ‘trying a new hair tutorial doubles as an arm workout’. I have also seen them run a poll for people to decide their favourite clothing fasteners (won by zippers, if you care to know) and asked people to tag a friend they wanted to send good vibes to.
While there is a corporate engagement angle at play in these posts, it’s clear that YouTube’s public face is all sunshine and rainbows, positively bursting with joy and wonder. I find this fascinating because of the bizarre dichotomy it creates. This image of YouTube as this quirky, happy-go-lucky company is completely at odds with what happens when you actually go onto YouTube.
I don’t go on YouTube as often as I used to, and the main reason is that YouTube as a platform has grown worse and worse as it caters more and more to low-effort content where people are angry about frivolous stuff. I don’t know what it’s like in the other YouTube subcultures, but in the gaming and popular culture space people are angry about the so-called woke liberal media ruining (heavy air quotes around ruining) their video games and movies. I don’t have YouTube save my watch history, so I don’t have a curated suggestions list, and this uncurated algorithm really wants me to know about the supposed ongoing culture war where the soul of popular culture is at stake.
If YouTube’s algorithm was also a person, it probably would make videos deriding the sort of person the social media account is. This dichotomy between these two personas will no doubt continue as the dregs of Gamergate continue to fester behind YouTube’s inane polls and ‘wholesome’ statements. As such while YouTube’s algorithm tries its best to push me down the alt-right pipeline, the public face of YouTube will post about how it’s manifesting warmer weather ‘one tropical travel vlog at a time’ and its desire to bring back ‘designated snack times’.
Written by William Robertson
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