4 ms·

I so completely don't understand the mindless things people watch on YouTube. My kid loves watching videos of people providing excited (cartoon-like) commentar

I so completely don't understand the mindless things people watch on YouTube. My kid loves watching videos of people providing excited (cartoon-like) commentary over some third party playing a video game. It is like getting high on the suspense of something that is going to happen, but there is never a disappointment because its so stupid and mindless it doesn't matter if that thing never actually happens. Personally, it just seems like mindless crap to me, and yet people get absolutely fixated on it.

mgiannopoulos 9y ago
So, a bit like watching sports? :)
- austincheney 9y ago
  Somewhat, I guess. Sports are generally exciting when live though. None of this stuff making money on YouTube is live. I don't really watch sports either, unless I am attending a sporting event in person.
  - askafriend 9y ago
    I think you're heavily projecting your own value system onto the content. The reality is that for people who enjoy that content, it is exciting, and they really do enjoy watching other people play the game and talk about it.
jjcm 9y ago
I think it's a simple low pressure way to engage with something. As a kid I used to watch my older brother play SNES, and I think this in a way kinda follows that. You get to tag along for the journey without the fear of failure. I do worry that the ability to just absorb others' social interactions/experiments/failures will lead to less risk-taking kids, but there's probably an element of it that we as adults can't grasp without the same amount of free time that kids have. It's interesting - I recently taught year six kids computer programming as part of an outreach program though where I work, and all of the kids wanted to know two things: if I could hack things, and most importantly, what my twitch name was and if I streamed. They all watched things together - it was a social hangout for them. Really interesting dynamic.
- kaybe 9y ago
  They wanted a stream of what, you coding? Maybe teaching? Maybe twitch is not a bad platform to teach..

mgiannopoulos 9y ago

So, a bit like watching sports? :)

austincheney 9y ago
Somewhat, I guess. Sports are generally exciting when live though. None of this stuff making money on YouTube is live. I don't really watch sports either, unless I am attending a sporting event in person.
- askafriend 9y ago
  I think you're heavily projecting your own value system onto the content. The reality is that for people who enjoy that content, it is exciting, and they really do enjoy watching other people play the game and talk about it.

jjcm 9y ago

I think it's a simple low pressure way to engage with something. As a kid I used to watch my older brother play SNES, and I think this in a way kinda follows that. You get to tag along for the journey without the fear of failure. I do worry that the ability to just absorb others' social interactions/experiments/failures will lead to less risk-taking kids, but there's probably an element of it that we as adults can't grasp without the same amount of free time that kids have. It's interesting - I recently taught year six kids computer programming as part of an outreach program though where I work, and all of the kids wanted to know two things: if I could hack things, and most importantly, what my twitch name was and if I streamed. They all watched things together - it was a social hangout for them. Really interesting dynamic.

kaybe 9y ago
They wanted a stream of what, you coding? Maybe teaching? Maybe twitch is not a bad platform to teach..