And over time, the recommendation algorithm has introduced me to other content providers, video essayists in particular. Contrapoints, Patrick H. Willems, and Lessons From the Screenplay have all entered my regular rotation, initially recommended, no doubt, because I'm a big fan of Breadtube regulars, Lindsay Ellis and Kyle Kallgren. Lately it's been pushing Jenny Nicholson awfully hard. I've watched a few of her videos, but I'm not that interested. I have nothing against Nicholson, who is lovely and talented, but her format and hee style of analysis aren't for me.
It's easy enough to get Youtube to stop recommending Jenny Nicholson videos to me. I just stop watching them, and go through and remove any of her videos from the octobox as they come up, and any of the recommended channels, which are listed right beneath it. The majority of these channels are actually Youtube's AI created channels that group videos by subject matter, non-curated and arranged by popularity. For instance, a channel might be devoted to "adult animation" clips or "Keanu Reeves." These are harder to banish, because there are so many overlapping subject matter categories. If I dismiss the "Marvel Movies" topic channel, it doesn't get rid of "Marvel Superheroes," "Marvel Studios," "Marvel Comics," "Avengers" or "Iron Man." You have to be persistent.
I've had less success trying to get the recommendations box to generate more of certain types of content that I actually do want to see. For instance, I like keeping up with current movie and television trailers. However, the few times I've subscribed to specific channels for trailers, I usually end up having to fend off other marketing clips and commercials that I have no interest in, or compilation and reaction videos from the fan sources. The octobox will usually show me the really big, high profile trailers when they come out, but I have to search out trailers for foreign and independent films on my own. Really, anything even a little niche tends to take some digging.
With the recent bad press about Youtube being a tool used to radicalize alt-righters, and the whole Elsagate mess from a while back, the site's recommendation algorithms have been getting a lot of flak lately. However, I think it overlooks how inherently unsophisticated they are. The system is pretty awful at identifying content beyond a few basic descriptors, is slow to react to various inputs, and everyone is constantly trying to game it. Once you understand how it works and what its limitations are, it's not difficult to see what it's doing. And that awareness is important.
The goal of Youtube recommendations is to keep the viewer watching, and where the system gets into trouble is its unfortunate tendency to start pushing extremist or inappropriate content with high viewing metrics whenever someone watches videos involving certain topics. Rabbit holes can develop real fast. And even though I'm picky and tend to stay away from hot button issues, this works on me too. Contrapoints, for instance, really has nothing to do with any of my usual interests aside from very peripheral academic pop culture analysis. I'm happy to have found the channel, but how I found it is another matter.
For the most part my Youtube recommendations are benign, because I watch remarkably benign videos and actively curate my octobox and other recommendation feeds. I delete way more than I ever subscribe. However, every once in a while Youtube still puts a Jenny Nicholson video in front of me, as if it's making sure that I'm really, really sure I don't want to see more of her or subscribe to her channel. And sometimes I hesitate, just for a second.
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