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This guy appeared in my YouTube recommendations a few months before the pandemic. They were there for weeks before I actually clicked on one, strangely persiste

This guy appeared in my YouTube recommendations a few months before the pandemic. They were there for weeks before I actually clicked on one, strangely persistent given the titles and screencaps on the videos: "What did middle English sound like?" next to this grubby college kid's face. What about my viewing habits to date triggered this recommendation? When I finally relented and clicked on one, it was kind of hypnotic. It's hard to put to words: the content is really interesting for all the reasons laid out in the article, but there's something else, too, an atmospheric thing. The guy's voice is almost a whisper, the ambient sounds from the garden or the forest or the road are oddly pleasant, and he's speaking pretty slowly, with none of these glitchy quick cuts you see in a lot of YT content. It's also unusually personal-feeling, like he's just talking to you. It's all pretty dreamlike, I guess. Especially when I stand back and realize I've been watching videos about Cumbrian accents for like two hours. I'm not even interested in this stuff. Kudos to this guy, he's clearly hit upon something, even if he is some kind of witch.

vmception 5y ago
Praise the algo!
jmcgough 5y ago
> The guy's voice is almost a whisper, the ambient sounds from the garden or the forest or the road are oddly pleasant, and he's speaking pretty slowly, with none of these glitchy quick cuts you see in a lot of YT content. It's also unusually personal-feeling, like he's just talking to you. This is how I feel about TheReportOfTheWeek, aka Reviewbrah. He reviews fast food items in his house or backyard in a single take and averages 100k-200k views per video (with some outliers). No fancy editing, no team of video assistants, just a genuinely charming guy reviewing cheap food in a nice suit in front of a fixed camera.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  As someone who records videos without editing, that one take video could still be 19th or 30th take :) Although he's probably practiced enough he can do it in less than that. For me though, I have to restart a bunch of times. Usually that final take still has flubs, but it had the least glaring ones. The ones I do are usually rules explanations or brief overviews of my game designs that are intended to enter into contests or pitch the game to publishers, often finished right before the deadline (sometimes just an hour before) so I don't have time to video edit even if I wanted to. Like here's the most recent one I did, for a dice puzzle coop zombie themed game (I know zombies are an overused theme, I wasn't even trying to design a zombie themed game at first, it just fit the mechanisms best). Still screwed up a few things: https://youtu.be/uEBKKW7I8RM https://youtu.be/uEBKKW7I8RM
phreeza 5y ago
I had almost exactly the same experience. For all it's downsides, sometimes the YouTube algorithm does do some pretty marvelous things.
Azaks 5y ago
He hasnt hit upon anything. Other than for himself. Youtube etc is like throwing sugar around a gigantic ant hill and watching ants reacts. The ants dont change into anything sophisticated consuming all that sugar. Learning takes time. Its requires the right environment and experienced guides. There are no shortcuts. And the chimp troupe learns that lesson again and again every single time they think they have discovered one.
- celticninja 5y ago
  I think you do people a disservice. I'm not sure the video are supposed to do anything other than pass on information to viewers. Some of those viewers my use the information, some may pass it on to others, some may act on it to research further and many will do nothing but absorb the content and move on. Is there a problem with any of that? Is there a difference between this guy and a non-fiction author of a specific subject? We don't expect non-fiction author to revolutionise the lives of everyone that reads their book do we?
g3e0 5y ago
> The guy's voice is almost a whisper, the ambient sounds from the garden or the forest or the road are oddly pleasant, and he's speaking pretty slowly, with none of these glitchy quick cuts you see in a lot of YT content. It's also unusually personal-feeling, like he's just talking to you. This sounds very much like ASMR. I find the most relaxing/entrancing videos are the ones that are unintentional/not forced, although obviously personal preferences do vary.
- verytrivial 5y ago
  I watched a video of a friend of mine who's become a semi-prominent Zen teacher. After a few moments of listening to one of his (rather lovely) pandemic/Zoom group meditations, it struck me that this was weirdly close to ASMR too -- intimacy, calm, human "touch". Philosophy too, yes, but the interpersonal dynamic is a mother cooing into your ear. I wonder if this resets you into some calm, receptive mood because that's an evolutionarily advantageous state to be in, and the cooing is a shortcut to it.

vmception 5y ago

Praise the algo!

jmcgough 5y ago

> The guy's voice is almost a whisper, the ambient sounds from the garden or the forest or the road are oddly pleasant, and he's speaking pretty slowly, with none of these glitchy quick cuts you see in a lot of YT content. It's also unusually personal-feeling, like he's just talking to you. This is how I feel about TheReportOfTheWeek, aka Reviewbrah. He reviews fast food items in his house or backyard in a single take and averages 100k-200k views per video (with some outliers). No fancy editing, no team of video assistants, just a genuinely charming guy reviewing cheap food in a nice suit in front of a fixed camera.

cableshaft 5y ago
As someone who records videos without editing, that one take video could still be 19th or 30th take :) Although he's probably practiced enough he can do it in less than that. For me though, I have to restart a bunch of times. Usually that final take still has flubs, but it had the least glaring ones. The ones I do are usually rules explanations or brief overviews of my game designs that are intended to enter into contests or pitch the game to publishers, often finished right before the deadline (sometimes just an hour before) so I don't have time to video edit even if I wanted to. Like here's the most recent one I did, for a dice puzzle coop zombie themed game (I know zombies are an overused theme, I wasn't even trying to design a zombie themed game at first, it just fit the mechanisms best). Still screwed up a few things: https://youtu.be/uEBKKW7I8RM https://youtu.be/uEBKKW7I8RM

phreeza 5y ago

I had almost exactly the same experience. For all it's downsides, sometimes the YouTube algorithm does do some pretty marvelous things.

Azaks 5y ago

He hasnt hit upon anything. Other than for himself. Youtube etc is like throwing sugar around a gigantic ant hill and watching ants reacts. The ants dont change into anything sophisticated consuming all that sugar. Learning takes time. Its requires the right environment and experienced guides. There are no shortcuts. And the chimp troupe learns that lesson again and again every single time they think they have discovered one.

celticninja 5y ago
I think you do people a disservice. I'm not sure the video are supposed to do anything other than pass on information to viewers. Some of those viewers my use the information, some may pass it on to others, some may act on it to research further and many will do nothing but absorb the content and move on. Is there a problem with any of that? Is there a difference between this guy and a non-fiction author of a specific subject? We don't expect non-fiction author to revolutionise the lives of everyone that reads their book do we?

g3e0 5y ago

> The guy's voice is almost a whisper, the ambient sounds from the garden or the forest or the road are oddly pleasant, and he's speaking pretty slowly, with none of these glitchy quick cuts you see in a lot of YT content. It's also unusually personal-feeling, like he's just talking to you. This sounds very much like ASMR. I find the most relaxing/entrancing videos are the ones that are unintentional/not forced, although obviously personal preferences do vary.

verytrivial 5y ago
I watched a video of a friend of mine who's become a semi-prominent Zen teacher. After a few moments of listening to one of his (rather lovely) pandemic/Zoom group meditations, it struck me that this was weirdly close to ASMR too -- intimacy, calm, human "touch". Philosophy too, yes, but the interpersonal dynamic is a mother cooing into your ear. I wonder if this resets you into some calm, receptive mood because that's an evolutionarily advantageous state to be in, and the cooing is a shortcut to it.