When you center a good chunk of your career of it, is it surprising? You reap what you sow, that's the point.
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[Jim Sterling] - "Youtubes algorithm absolutely pushes negative content. Negativity will always be popular."
- Thread starter lowhighkang_LHK
- Start date
Interesting. My Youtube recommendations are always food, lots of live music, some giant bomb stuff, some animals...I don't really every have anything negative show up for me. I wonder if it's not more that if you're watching a lot of "negative" stuff from "negative" youtubers, that's kind of what you end up getting recommended? And then you get stuck in the negative feedback loop. I'm trying to screenshot, but there is not one thing that I'd consider even remotely "negative" in my recommended feed.
Whenever Jim has made a video or a comment/tweet whatever that has inadvertently lead to someone being harassed he has taken responsibility for it and condemned those who did the harassing. This is being extremely unfair, there can absolutely be criticism and negativity without being hand-in-hand with harassment.
Jim always knew his negative videos did better, but that doesn't erase his contribution to a flawed system; especially when it influences cultural norms within gaming YouTube, which is hard to directly measure. Nor does it deflect other's viewing Jim's recent statement as self-awareness. You can't have it both way: outwardly portray something in a manner that receives more views (his YouTube videos) but wanting to be seen as not as toxic as others by providing nuance takes on less popular channels (Twitter).
If I'm not mistaken if you watch one of Jim's videos you start getting recommendation for some unsavory people who aren't just putting on a show.
If I'm not mistaken if you watch one of Jim's videos you start getting recommendation for some unsavory people who aren't just putting on a show.
Yup
Sterling does what he does his way.
Video game companies are not your friends they only want to part you from your money using every means available to them.
Thank god there are some people that do this (and not being biggots at the same time).
Video game companies are not your friends they only want to part you from your money using every means available to them.
Thank god there are some people that do this (and not being biggots at the same time).
Amusing series of tweets, coming from him.
He lives off Patreon, not YouTube views.
He's frankly no better than the people swayed by Youtube's algorithm. He clearly enjoys the negativity.
He lives off Patreon, not YouTube views.
He's frankly no better than the people swayed by Youtube's algorithm. He clearly enjoys the negativity.
I feel like you can watch anything of any genre on YouTube and it's only a matter of time before YouTube starts pushing you towards Alt Right shitbag content
Who else is there within gaming Youtube other than Jim who leans left, or who isn't a giant prick?
If I watch any gaming videos that aren't like
2001 Armored Core MADs or PC88 or something niche like that, I get unsavory people, either talking about games or comics.
I'm finding myself avoiding toxic content. I stopped watching a lot of "General Gaming Info" channels that report out news stories and started following channels that focus on specific games and genres.
I think the only general channel I watch now is Gameranx, and I don't get bad suggestions
Lol, this is by far the best way to sum up at least 50% of thread titles on era. You can just imagine the youtuber face accompanying it in the thumbnail as well.
With the odd exception, Jim Sterling's entire output can be summed up as "man who shits on things for a living shits on a thing". He's the height of tedium.
But you said it was people's fault. I'd argue it's YouTube's fault since they made the algorithm to peruse engagement at the expense of everything else.
Yep. Your feed tends to reflect what you seek out. You also got to take time to go through your feed and filter shit out too that you dont want. You got to essentially teach it not to put up crap in your feed. The only time I'll ever get shit like that on my feed or reccomendations is if I fall asleep watching someone I dont normally watch and YouTube just does its thing. I watch Jimquisitions on occasion, but my feed aint full of trash either simply because they tend to skew negative.
He is floating in his own bubble and comes to conclusions he expects to see.
Like a smoker who grudgingly tries to quit and gives up after some weeks. "See, i told you it wouldn't work"
He is making negative and borderline toxic videos with a sprinkle of positive videos and tells himself that positive videos don't work. While there are thousands of channels with cute kittens and puppies who have millions of views.
Same with his view on Steams algorithm. he actively looks for and buys shitty games and Steams algorithm thinks he likes that kind of games, so the algorithm shows him more shitty games. Jim Sterling comes to the conclusion there are only shitty games.
The point about one-game-channels: Either the viewers come to your channel because they like the personality or the thoughts of the personality on game xyz or they come because they saw the game they like played by some random person.
In the first instance most of the viewers will watch other content from the uploader, in the second instance they will look for a different uploader who plays the game they like.
Like a smoker who grudgingly tries to quit and gives up after some weeks. "See, i told you it wouldn't work"
He is making negative and borderline toxic videos with a sprinkle of positive videos and tells himself that positive videos don't work. While there are thousands of channels with cute kittens and puppies who have millions of views.
Same with his view on Steams algorithm. he actively looks for and buys shitty games and Steams algorithm thinks he likes that kind of games, so the algorithm shows him more shitty games. Jim Sterling comes to the conclusion there are only shitty games.
The point about one-game-channels: Either the viewers come to your channel because they like the personality or the thoughts of the personality on game xyz or they come because they saw the game they like played by some random person.
In the first instance most of the viewers will watch other content from the uploader, in the second instance they will look for a different uploader who plays the game they like.
I don't keep cookies nor use a youtube account so my recommendations are reset every time I close all open youtube tabs, and even then I'm using a script to block certain channels from being recommended at all because I was sick of having shitty controversial clickbait and racists on my screen while I'm watching the Easy Allies Podcast, the new Unraveled or something like that. Even from watching simple game trailers I got TheQuartering recommendations once 💤
I feel like Jim's aware; you're the person who's seeing what they want to see. Nothing Jim's saying hasn't been backed up by other YTers and people who've actually done the research. People want the drama and the rage, thats what drives the clicks.
It stuns me that there are still people who don't get his shtick.
Is this an American thing?
I think reviews are different, in that if people like you and your opinions, then they'll watch whatever you produce because they want your opinion
It's also not really possible to know how you feel about a game from the thumbnail
Jim comments on the industry and speaks out when it tries to do shitty things, so you know the jist of the tone of the video from the title alone
Unless people are 100% happy with everything in the industry at present, I don't get why people are so mad at a left leaning critic who doesn't seem to have any awful views articulating his issues with the industry
Would they rather commenting on the shitty things the industry does is left 100% to people like The Quartering, Yong Yea and Alpha Omega Sin?
Ya its not just reviews though I am talking about.
This is crazy and completely true.
This literally happened when Crowbcat made a positive video. People accused them of being a paid shill and the video got deleted.
And it's going to be worse with gaming as most of the big names in gaming on YouTube are pretty shitty people who either hate women or have their fair share of heated gaming moments
There are people who actually take his Commentocracy videos seriously. People are dense.
I'm subscribed to your channel and mostly only seem to see reviews come up, so my apologies
I'm gonna check to see if YouTube is messing around with what appears in my subscription feed
Oh ya. This is also true. This for sure happens.
I had someone go nuts after I rated a game a Deep Deep sale. They were dead set in the belief that a company told me to say a game was worth 5 bucks when it was a 60 dollar game. So fucking insane.
Concluding that the positivity/negativity is what matters doesn't appear valid unless you narrow the scope down to a specific type of video. When it comes to the kind of videos Jim Sterling makes, it is probably true.
Reaction videos are very popular, even in gaming, and the most successful ones appear to be when someone is gushing enthusiastically over the material. I don't know if I have ever seen a successful reaction video where the reactor is relentlessly critical and negative. Let's plays also have a lot of room for very positive content to become incredibly popular. There are successful youtubers like RogersBase that put out primarily positive content like this.
If you make a Jimquisition video and change nothing except for swapping out the criticism for praise, I'm not surprised that it won't do well, but that doesn't mean the reason is solely that the algorithm/audience prefers negativity.
Reaction videos are very popular, even in gaming, and the most successful ones appear to be when someone is gushing enthusiastically over the material. I don't know if I have ever seen a successful reaction video where the reactor is relentlessly critical and negative. Let's plays also have a lot of room for very positive content to become incredibly popular. There are successful youtubers like RogersBase that put out primarily positive content like this.
If you make a Jimquisition video and change nothing except for swapping out the criticism for praise, I'm not surprised that it won't do well, but that doesn't mean the reason is solely that the algorithm/audience prefers negativity.
Yep. 100% accurate. Somehow, I got some conspiracy theory shit on my feed watching PBS Spacetime on a fresh account
Literally, you can start your Monday watching feet videos and by Wednesday you are somehow watching a video about skull sizes.
No. I'm not letting that pass by.
wat
I don't want to start a big thing here but didn't he do exactly that with his Breath of the Wild review score of 70 and video "Weapon Durability, Fanbase Fragility"?
Sadly this was pretty obvious and it sucks that's the current trajectory.
He should get back to those lol
He should get back to those lol
Yeah, and famously the Nintendo fan community laughed that off and didn't lose their minds and have a complete meltdown over one review
They were not fragile at all
Like five days ago, didn't he suggest that game developers were making file sizes big because of a conspiracy to keep you from buying other games by filling your harddrive and it took multiple developers, including Rami Ismail, making fun of this take before he went "Whoops! That might not be right then!"
Like, I don't know how much more cynical and for-profit negativity you can get than the take of "These games don't have to be that big, developers just hate you and are manipulating you with file sizes."
My account says different.
I have seriously never gotten ANY of these alt-right, bigoted, videos pushed to me. Again though, I watch lots of live music (so I get lots of live music recommendations), I watch lots of Giant Bomb and some Polygon videos, so I get those recommended, and I watch lots of cooking so I get lots of Bon Appetit and Munchies and stuff. That's literally 90% of my recommendations. I just find it hard to believe that i'm the only one that this algorithm doesn't apply to...or maybe it's that a lot of people watch a lot of toxic, negative youtube channels/people, who you don't really realize how they fit into that toxicity.
Noticed that before, I start watching pretty inoffensive videos on a subject and suddenly the "suggestions" on what to watch next are filled with drama channels on that topic. I never click over but it seems other people do so it's always the same cycle no matter the topic. My pet peeve is watching movie trailers and then they suggest those stupid reaction channels that just leech off the main content. Super annoying and I never click over.