6 ms·

YouTube Gives Us Love Without the Messiness

79 points by emptybits 7y ago

mettamage 7y ago
> The only cure for loneliness is to master the art of solitude. Most important sentence to take action on in this article, IMO. > But perhaps we fool ourselves in thinking our desires for love, comfort, and belonging can be sated with an inanimate object. No, not perhaps, I think it can be phrased more strongly (at least, speaking for myself). I believe this to be true as I have cross-checked these type of YouTube experiences with real-life experience, looked at the similarities and differences. It's then easy to see that the YouTube thing is an illusion. The real thing is much better. With YouTube I feel soothed. With my significant other, all of my existential crises are gone and I feel soothed. Yes, it includes fights, but feeling part of a soul-mated team who support each other is totally worth it (I don't believe in soul mates, but I can still feel that way). > The whole point of boyfriend videos—and of ASMR, mukbang, and the rest—is to create a one-way interaction from creator to silent consumer. This is the case with all YouTube shows even that have a personable approach. I think the problem is much bigger than this article portrays (see also an earlier comment on it that I made).
netcan 7y ago
"The medium is the message" is one of my favourite cliches. It always punctuates the same recurring insight. Socrates' had famous thoughts on the importance of medium choices in his day: reading, writing and libraries or people in gardens trading questions and answers and using memory. The choice of medium isn't neutral. Imagine 5 people in a garden talking about their feelings, political views, or whatever. Alternatively, imagine them writing essays, making youtube videos or discussing on a HN thread or creating a wiki... same topic, same people. The content would be totally different. The thoughts that people shared (or even had) would be different. The perspectives, emphasis and everything else about the content would be different. The internet is like a queen-medium. It spawns an endless brood of different mediums, digital and otherwise. Twitter, Tinder, Meetup, Youtube... and thousands of smaller ones. Not one of them is a good "replacement" for another type of medium, but they do replace them. I agree with the jist of this article, I think. Where internet "mediums" replace important personal ones, we're at risk of replacing "home-cooking" with "junk food," and the results will be the same.
LocalH 7y ago
YouTube’s debacle regarding COPPA is becoming a train wreck, however. Thousands of animated videos that are very clearly not for kids (violent or other adult content) are nonetheless being marked as such. They really just need to split YouTube into three platforms - YouTube, YouTube Kids, and YouTube Mature.
jffhn 7y ago
>desperate for a soporific remedy This is the best channel I found to fall asleep: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKSolaVsFrN7qTFL7lFkfw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKSolaVsFrN7qTFL7lFkfw The person disassembles hard drives to investigate, in videos that can be hours long, is very calm and doesn't speak much. It retains attention, due to some suspense, yet it's extremely boring. I usually get sleepy after a few minutes. Beware though: there is one with a long moment of silence, and then he sneezes suddenly very loudly.
mettamage 7y ago
Edit: I read the article. My comment that I made (before I read the article) is still valid IMO. She scopes the issue too narrow. The issue is much bigger. Even when I watch something like funfunfunction (where the point is education) or Joe Rogan (i.e. podcasters) this point also exists. My original comment: I watch YouTube a lot. About 2 hours daily at the moment and have subscribed to 300 channels. I see one huge issue with it. It's a one-way interaction. You give all your attention to them, but they don't give anything back. This is not an issue if you use YouTube every once in a while, but I've noticed that for me it's becoming problematic. There are many great reasons for watching YouTube, but with this title (love without the messiness) this issue becomes a big thing quite quick. Consider this: if I'd talk to a friend 2 hours per day versus watching YouTube 2 hours per day. What would be healthier? Well, if it's a good friendship, talking to a friend would be way healthier actually. And I actually know this, because I do tend to have a few friends that I talk a lot to. Both my friendships and my need for watching YouTube stem from similar/the same desires even. But one gives you attention back, the other doesn't. This problem was stated in the article, but it doesn't only pertain to ASMR or boyfriend hairdressers. It pertains to any video that has a personable approach. That doesn't mean that a personable approach is bad. IMO, it's simply a strong reason as to why one shouldn't watch too many videos in general.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  Yeah you should definitely read the article. (I know it's against the rules to imply someone hasn't read the article, but since you outright said you didn't, I feel like this is in bounds.) It is about the simulated giving back of attention that certain YouTube videos do.
  - mettamage 7y ago
    Thanks, so that means the title is clickbait, in my opinion.
- theterriblestid 7y ago
  Assuming by name, author is a ‘he’
behindsight 7y ago
Although the post doesn't mention it, you might also be interested in reading about parasocial interaction[0] 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
marban 7y ago
Related and b/c it's mentioned in the article: https://www.mashed.com/182485/the-untold-truth-of-mukbang/ https://www.mashed.com/182485/the-untold-truth-of-mukbang/
est31 7y ago
Don't date robots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrADTN-dvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrADTN-dvg
- alexis_fr 7y ago
  ...because dating is the motivation for young men to accomplish awesome things, according to this video. It’s a fun thought experiment, though: - On one side, women provide half the work (a recent article on HN said they were now the majority of US workers), - On the other, if access to family life was a motivator in the 50ies, what is the motivator in the 2020ies, now that dating isn’t... vetted by parents/society/social status? Will we keep accomplishing awesome things? How much motivation will one put into it given the rewards are now rather inversely correlated with work? (Working out, travelling the world, doing NGO work is opposite to having a career, and it’s not even enough to grant one hopes in relationships).
  - Kye 7y ago
    My motivation is the growing list of friends' Patreons/Ko-fis/fundraisers/etc that I don't have the means to support. Yet.
  - est31 7y ago
    Of course the video is an exaggeration. It still has a true core I think. People put a tremendous amount of work into attracting mates.
zokier 7y ago
I wonder how long it'll take to get lightly personalized ML generated variation of such content. And how long it'll take to people notice that it's generated and not a "real" person
- toxicFork 7y ago
  Wait until the generated content realizes that it is itself generated, then the real trouble will begin
avip 7y ago
With all its overly discussed faults, YT is such an invaluable resource. There is so much free high-quality content: educational, sport, music, spiritual. YT should get some respect and recognition. I'm an avid yt music user. There is practically infinite musical content there never released on any other medium. It's an irreplaceable cultural treasure.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Yeah I pay for YouTube Premium and spend a lot of time watching the extremely high quality arts, current affairs, and documentaries you can find on there. Follow the Royal Opera House for example! Super high quality production values and frequent posting. Better than what you'd regularly find on even high-quality broadcast TV like BBC 4, or a subscription service like Netflix.
- aabhay 7y ago
  I totally agree with you, but I also notice the slow but steady increase in ad content before, between, below all YouTube videos, that also seem to call back to my preferences, feelings, tastes, past interactions, etc. The question I always ask is: how long until YouTube removes the ability to skip ads altogether? How long until a painfully nontrivial portion of our browsing time is spent directly consuming propaganda?
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > How long until a painfully nontrivial portion of our browsing time is spent directly consuming propaganda? They'll be running commercials on television in a few years at this rate.
  - roel_v 7y ago
    The $10 a month I pay for Youtube Premium improves my life a lot more than some other things I pay that or more for.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    If you don't want to pay for it and you don't want to be 'consuming propaganda' who do you think should be paying to run YouTube for you?
aabhay 7y ago
From all visible metrics, sex and social activity are plummeting precipitously across the developed world——lower rates of sex, lower sales of condoms, higher marriage age, lower birth rate, more suicide, higher rates of antisocial mental disorders, and on. It’s easy to see that not just YouTube but communication technology in general is partially, if not greatly responsible. But what’s even more concerning to me is the idea that all this feels in some ways inevitable. I think this has been so plain that even science fiction has grappled with it extensively from the musings in Neuromancer, Snow Crash, Transmetropolitan, etc. The biggest question to me is: as feeble biological beings who are prone to replacing healthy social interaction with the kind of social hallucinations provided by technology, what would lead us to a better life? Technology seeks to mediate all things, and is possibly more successful at this than even capitalism writ large. What can fallible humans possibly do to combat this malaise?
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  Embrace it. Focusing on what is inevitable isn't healthy. What we can do is develop tools that will evolve us to combat tech. Fight the tech with tech. Biotech may solve current problems forever. Gene therapy and modification is the future, probably. So you need not worry, give in your fate to the tech overlords. Or wait until you can live with AR that is good enough to replace your actual social interaction without you developing health problems. All we need to do is create good enough replacement for humans. That is the problem with current social platforms. They are too static. They fail and result in uncanny communication. They aren't able to convey body language, emotions and many other details that actual humans give off. plays black mirror episode I am waiting for my robot partner because everyone else in my life just sucks and I can't relate to any of them. Internet provides you power to embrace different culture and world than the one you live in, and sometimes it creates in inevitable environmental and cultural dissonance where you are nothing like anyone else you know. Well, that explains my internet addiction at least. Where else do you think am I going to find buddies to talk about free software, anime, startups and odd bizarre stuff? Post is meant to be satirical.
slx26 7y ago
really engaging article. a couple comments: > treat loneliness as a serious health problem that could even lead to early death italics are mine. I've seen this written a lot of times, and I find it disappointing that we are focusing so much in reduced life expectancy. in my opinion, the real issue deserving the attention is the reduced life quality. now adressing the topic of the article: I think we should reflect more deeply about spaces, and how modern society is losing them. nowadays, practically every exchange involves money, products, services. if a space doesn't make sense in an economic sense, it tends to disappear. the only big "free" space left seems to be the internet, so it's no surprise that people tries to find everything they feel they are missing there. but it's clearly not enough, not a good alternative. we have become really good at hacking everything, and now we can't trust anything. it's not just that we don't want the messiness... to me, it seems like it's becoming harder every time to find good places to get messy, unless you are really thinking explicitly about it and going somewhat out of the road. it's some kind of natural contradiction for humans: we don't want a messy world, because it hurts us, so we are trying to steer away from that, but at the same time we need it. how do we reconcile everything?
- keiferski 7y ago
  This is a good reminder to support your local library - one of the few public places left that doesn’t expect you to purchase anything.
- dnewms 7y ago
  Great point. The sharing economy destroyed an entire set of spaces like this... when hosting a couchsurfer, I was told that I could make a ton using Airbnb instead. That money wasn’t the point was lost on this guest — but thankfully not the many other world travelers I was able to share my local area with. Airbnb or VBRO offers great experiences on their own, but introducing a transaction turns everyone into a service provider or customer, and brings a set of expectations to both.
  - mhb 7y ago
    Dan Ariely considered this distinction in his discussion of market vs. social transactions: Described in: https://escherman.com/2009/04/09/social-norms-versus-market-norms-implications-for-social-media-and-online-pr/ https://escherman.com/2009/04/09/social-norms-versus-market-...
keiferski 7y ago
A similar phenomenon is the use of pets as pseudo-children or relationship partners. Babies are expensive and ruin your sleep for years. Significant others can cheat on you, leave or simply get boring. A cat, however, just like these YouTube boyfriends, is fairly inexpensive, practically takes care of itself, will always love you and will never leave. It is a sort of infantalization of the relationship process. I think the only solution will be a cultural recognition that the consumeristic mentality of easier = better isn’t necessarily true, and that difficulty, struggle and suffering are inherently worthwhile, more authentic and character-building.
- dannyw 7y ago
  There is nothing wrong whatsoever with wanting companionship and getting a pet. Extra points if you take it from a shelter.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    That isn’t what I said, at all. Pets are awesome. But they aren’t replacements for human connection.
    - CathedralBorrow 7y ago
      And if someone tells you that it is for them, will you inform them that they are wrong to feel that way?
      - endothrowho333 7y ago
        No, because remaining polite is important. But I will make a mental note of it, and infer that said person was socialized improperly (f.e poor family life, severe bullying, inability to form strong bonds, unstable or has no non-surface relationships with other people), and thereby stay away. I don't in anyway mean to offend, and I am certain the other would reply with "I don't want such a judgemental person in my life, anyway."
zabana 7y ago
This is a fascinating topic, thanks for sharing. If anyone reading knows of any other such article or youtube video / podcast segment on this topic, please share them under this comment. Thanks in advance.

79 points by emptybits 7y ago

> The only cure for loneliness is to master the art of solitude. Most important sentence to take action on in this article, IMO. > But perhaps we fool ourselves in thinking our desires for love, comfort, and belonging can be sated with an inanimate object. No, not perhaps, I think it can be phrased more strongly (at least, speaking for myself). I believe this to be true as I have cross-checked these type of YouTube experiences with real-life experience, looked at the similarities and differences. It's then easy to see that the YouTube thing is an illusion. The real thing is much better. With YouTube I feel soothed. With my significant other, all of my existential crises are gone and I feel soothed. Yes, it includes fights, but feeling part of a soul-mated team who support each other is totally worth it (I don't believe in soul mates, but I can still feel that way). > The whole point of boyfriend videos—and of ASMR, mukbang, and the rest—is to create a one-way interaction from creator to silent consumer. This is the case with all YouTube shows even that have a personable approach. I think the problem is much bigger than this article portrays (see also an earlier comment on it that I made).

netcan 7y ago

"The medium is the message" is one of my favourite cliches. It always punctuates the same recurring insight. Socrates' had famous thoughts on the importance of medium choices in his day: reading, writing and libraries or people in gardens trading questions and answers and using memory. The choice of medium isn't neutral. Imagine 5 people in a garden talking about their feelings, political views, or whatever. Alternatively, imagine them writing essays, making youtube videos or discussing on a HN thread or creating a wiki... same topic, same people. The content would be totally different. The thoughts that people shared (or even had) would be different. The perspectives, emphasis and everything else about the content would be different. The internet is like a queen-medium. It spawns an endless brood of different mediums, digital and otherwise. Twitter, Tinder, Meetup, Youtube... and thousands of smaller ones. Not one of them is a good "replacement" for another type of medium, but they do replace them. I agree with the jist of this article, I think. Where internet "mediums" replace important personal ones, we're at risk of replacing "home-cooking" with "junk food," and the results will be the same.

LocalH 7y ago

YouTube’s debacle regarding COPPA is becoming a train wreck, however. Thousands of animated videos that are very clearly not for kids (violent or other adult content) are nonetheless being marked as such. They really just need to split YouTube into three platforms - YouTube, YouTube Kids, and YouTube Mature.

jffhn 7y ago

>desperate for a soporific remedy This is the best channel I found to fall asleep: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKSolaVsFrN7qTFL7lFkfw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKSolaVsFrN7qTFL7lFkfw The person disassembles hard drives to investigate, in videos that can be hours long, is very calm and doesn't speak much. It retains attention, due to some suspense, yet it's extremely boring. I usually get sleepy after a few minutes. Beware though: there is one with a long moment of silence, and then he sneezes suddenly very loudly.

mettamage 7y ago

Edit: I read the article. My comment that I made (before I read the article) is still valid IMO. She scopes the issue too narrow. The issue is much bigger. Even when I watch something like funfunfunction (where the point is education) or Joe Rogan (i.e. podcasters) this point also exists. My original comment: I watch YouTube a lot. About 2 hours daily at the moment and have subscribed to 300 channels. I see one huge issue with it. It's a one-way interaction. You give all your attention to them, but they don't give anything back. This is not an issue if you use YouTube every once in a while, but I've noticed that for me it's becoming problematic. There are many great reasons for watching YouTube, but with this title (love without the messiness) this issue becomes a big thing quite quick. Consider this: if I'd talk to a friend 2 hours per day versus watching YouTube 2 hours per day. What would be healthier? Well, if it's a good friendship, talking to a friend would be way healthier actually. And I actually know this, because I do tend to have a few friends that I talk a lot to. Both my friendships and my need for watching YouTube stem from similar/the same desires even. But one gives you attention back, the other doesn't. This problem was stated in the article, but it doesn't only pertain to ASMR or boyfriend hairdressers. It pertains to any video that has a personable approach. That doesn't mean that a personable approach is bad. IMO, it's simply a strong reason as to why one shouldn't watch too many videos in general.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
Yeah you should definitely read the article. (I know it's against the rules to imply someone hasn't read the article, but since you outright said you didn't, I feel like this is in bounds.) It is about the simulated giving back of attention that certain YouTube videos do.
- mettamage 7y ago
  Thanks, so that means the title is clickbait, in my opinion.
theterriblestid 7y ago
Assuming by name, author is a ‘he’

behindsight 7y ago

Although the post doesn't mention it, you might also be interested in reading about parasocial interaction[0] 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction

marban 7y ago

Related and b/c it's mentioned in the article: https://www.mashed.com/182485/the-untold-truth-of-mukbang/ https://www.mashed.com/182485/the-untold-truth-of-mukbang/

est31 7y ago

Don't date robots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrADTN-dvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrADTN-dvg

alexis_fr 7y ago
...because dating is the motivation for young men to accomplish awesome things, according to this video. It’s a fun thought experiment, though: - On one side, women provide half the work (a recent article on HN said they were now the majority of US workers), - On the other, if access to family life was a motivator in the 50ies, what is the motivator in the 2020ies, now that dating isn’t... vetted by parents/society/social status? Will we keep accomplishing awesome things? How much motivation will one put into it given the rewards are now rather inversely correlated with work? (Working out, travelling the world, doing NGO work is opposite to having a career, and it’s not even enough to grant one hopes in relationships).
- Kye 7y ago
  My motivation is the growing list of friends' Patreons/Ko-fis/fundraisers/etc that I don't have the means to support. Yet.
- est31 7y ago
  Of course the video is an exaggeration. It still has a true core I think. People put a tremendous amount of work into attracting mates.

zokier 7y ago

I wonder how long it'll take to get lightly personalized ML generated variation of such content. And how long it'll take to people notice that it's generated and not a "real" person

toxicFork 7y ago
Wait until the generated content realizes that it is itself generated, then the real trouble will begin

avip 7y ago

With all its overly discussed faults, YT is such an invaluable resource. There is so much free high-quality content: educational, sport, music, spiritual. YT should get some respect and recognition. I'm an avid yt music user. There is practically infinite musical content there never released on any other medium. It's an irreplaceable cultural treasure.

chrisseaton 7y ago
Yeah I pay for YouTube Premium and spend a lot of time watching the extremely high quality arts, current affairs, and documentaries you can find on there. Follow the Royal Opera House for example! Super high quality production values and frequent posting. Better than what you'd regularly find on even high-quality broadcast TV like BBC 4, or a subscription service like Netflix.
aabhay 7y ago
I totally agree with you, but I also notice the slow but steady increase in ad content before, between, below all YouTube videos, that also seem to call back to my preferences, feelings, tastes, past interactions, etc. The question I always ask is: how long until YouTube removes the ability to skip ads altogether? How long until a painfully nontrivial portion of our browsing time is spent directly consuming propaganda?
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > How long until a painfully nontrivial portion of our browsing time is spent directly consuming propaganda? They'll be running commercials on television in a few years at this rate.
- roel_v 7y ago
  The $10 a month I pay for Youtube Premium improves my life a lot more than some other things I pay that or more for.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  If you don't want to pay for it and you don't want to be 'consuming propaganda' who do you think should be paying to run YouTube for you?

aabhay 7y ago

From all visible metrics, sex and social activity are plummeting precipitously across the developed world——lower rates of sex, lower sales of condoms, higher marriage age, lower birth rate, more suicide, higher rates of antisocial mental disorders, and on. It’s easy to see that not just YouTube but communication technology in general is partially, if not greatly responsible. But what’s even more concerning to me is the idea that all this feels in some ways inevitable. I think this has been so plain that even science fiction has grappled with it extensively from the musings in Neuromancer, Snow Crash, Transmetropolitan, etc. The biggest question to me is: as feeble biological beings who are prone to replacing healthy social interaction with the kind of social hallucinations provided by technology, what would lead us to a better life? Technology seeks to mediate all things, and is possibly more successful at this than even capitalism writ large. What can fallible humans possibly do to combat this malaise?

thrwaway69 7y ago
Embrace it. Focusing on what is inevitable isn't healthy. What we can do is develop tools that will evolve us to combat tech. Fight the tech with tech. Biotech may solve current problems forever. Gene therapy and modification is the future, probably. So you need not worry, give in your fate to the tech overlords. Or wait until you can live with AR that is good enough to replace your actual social interaction without you developing health problems. All we need to do is create good enough replacement for humans. That is the problem with current social platforms. They are too static. They fail and result in uncanny communication. They aren't able to convey body language, emotions and many other details that actual humans give off. plays black mirror episode I am waiting for my robot partner because everyone else in my life just sucks and I can't relate to any of them. Internet provides you power to embrace different culture and world than the one you live in, and sometimes it creates in inevitable environmental and cultural dissonance where you are nothing like anyone else you know. Well, that explains my internet addiction at least. Where else do you think am I going to find buddies to talk about free software, anime, startups and odd bizarre stuff? Post is meant to be satirical.

slx26 7y ago

really engaging article. a couple comments: > treat loneliness as a serious health problem that could even lead to early death italics are mine. I've seen this written a lot of times, and I find it disappointing that we are focusing so much in reduced life expectancy. in my opinion, the real issue deserving the attention is the reduced life quality. now adressing the topic of the article: I think we should reflect more deeply about spaces, and how modern society is losing them. nowadays, practically every exchange involves money, products, services. if a space doesn't make sense in an economic sense, it tends to disappear. the only big "free" space left seems to be the internet, so it's no surprise that people tries to find everything they feel they are missing there. but it's clearly not enough, not a good alternative. we have become really good at hacking everything, and now we can't trust anything. it's not just that we don't want the messiness... to me, it seems like it's becoming harder every time to find good places to get messy, unless you are really thinking explicitly about it and going somewhat out of the road. it's some kind of natural contradiction for humans: we don't want a messy world, because it hurts us, so we are trying to steer away from that, but at the same time we need it. how do we reconcile everything?

keiferski 7y ago
This is a good reminder to support your local library - one of the few public places left that doesn’t expect you to purchase anything.
dnewms 7y ago
Great point. The sharing economy destroyed an entire set of spaces like this... when hosting a couchsurfer, I was told that I could make a ton using Airbnb instead. That money wasn’t the point was lost on this guest — but thankfully not the many other world travelers I was able to share my local area with. Airbnb or VBRO offers great experiences on their own, but introducing a transaction turns everyone into a service provider or customer, and brings a set of expectations to both.
- mhb 7y ago
  Dan Ariely considered this distinction in his discussion of market vs. social transactions: Described in: https://escherman.com/2009/04/09/social-norms-versus-market-norms-implications-for-social-media-and-online-pr/ https://escherman.com/2009/04/09/social-norms-versus-market-...

keiferski 7y ago

A similar phenomenon is the use of pets as pseudo-children or relationship partners. Babies are expensive and ruin your sleep for years. Significant others can cheat on you, leave or simply get boring. A cat, however, just like these YouTube boyfriends, is fairly inexpensive, practically takes care of itself, will always love you and will never leave. It is a sort of infantalization of the relationship process. I think the only solution will be a cultural recognition that the consumeristic mentality of easier = better isn’t necessarily true, and that difficulty, struggle and suffering are inherently worthwhile, more authentic and character-building.

dannyw 7y ago
There is nothing wrong whatsoever with wanting companionship and getting a pet. Extra points if you take it from a shelter.
- keiferski 7y ago
  That isn’t what I said, at all. Pets are awesome. But they aren’t replacements for human connection.
  - CathedralBorrow 7y ago
    And if someone tells you that it is for them, will you inform them that they are wrong to feel that way?
    - endothrowho333 7y ago
      No, because remaining polite is important. But I will make a mental note of it, and infer that said person was socialized improperly (f.e poor family life, severe bullying, inability to form strong bonds, unstable or has no non-surface relationships with other people), and thereby stay away. I don't in anyway mean to offend, and I am certain the other would reply with "I don't want such a judgemental person in my life, anyway."

zabana 7y ago

This is a fascinating topic, thanks for sharing. If anyone reading knows of any other such article or youtube video / podcast segment on this topic, please share them under this comment. Thanks in advance.