4 ms·

Just an aside, but I've noticed a lot of popular video trends among the younger generation revolve around watching somebody you don't really know, doing things

Just an aside, but I've noticed a lot of popular video trends among the younger generation revolve around watching somebody you don't really know, doing things I would I've done with friends. Reaction videos, eating things, hanging out and making jokes, making a stupid contest, trying some new experience... It's like there is an entire part of the children/teen population that have such a bland life they feel good while watching somebody else living it. Just read my comment and realized how "old man yells at cloud" it sounds, but hey, maybe someone will have something interesting to answer.

csydas 4y ago
Keep in mind, childhoods are a lot different now because you are exposed to a lot of information and people you never would have had a chance to meet when you were a child. As a kid in the 90's, my parents gave my brothers and I a choice: cable TV, or DSL once DSL came to our area of the city. We chose DSL, and definitely the Internet experience I had growing up was way different than every other kid at school since it was actually feasible to download a few small movies or games at the time, and to talk on chat apps/message boards at a very early age. All the online activities became part of my childhood along with my friends who lived locally and my other activities, and turned out, I enjoyed those a lot more than the in person activities which I mostly just _could_ do, as opposed to wanting to do them. So I had a pretty good balance I felt between physical activities, meeting with friends locally for bike rides or playing games, and the online social life also. Edited addition: One of the most positive parts about this was that it was so new that my parents had very little to say because they did not understand it; if I wanted to join a message board or crack a game, my parents and teachers and other authority figures in my life absolutely could not say anything about it in a reasonable way; it was brand new, there were no guides or playbooks, I had to learn this all on my own. While I was a very independent child, it was mostly stuff in a familiar scope for my parents. They "knew" that if I went on a bike ride with friends, probably we were up to some mischief, because that's what happened when they were kids. Same with if I went to a friends house to play games, to the park, etc. The Internet was (and still is) completely out of their scope along with all the tech and knowledge required to use it at the time, so it was a major point of growth for me to learn this new world and how to survive in it. That felt really nice as a child, as I'd slowly start to learn the skills that helped me succeed as an adult. I think that the current childhood experience probably would be what most of us would have had as online is now a normal aspect of kids lives, whether it's games or various chats/message boards, etc. When you write: >It's like there is an entire part of the children/teen population that have such a blend [sic] life they feel good while watching somebody else living it. (I assume you mean "bland") I'm not sure it's about a bland life. There is a lot of social interaction, just in a different form. Some people have trouble with understanding that online light interactions don't have the same weight as in real life impersonal interactions, but that's pretty normal I think. Most adults from the previous generation still have troubles with communication in my opinion (at least a fair amount of persons from businesses I work with have weaker communication skills that most children I know), so I'm not sure it's that these children are missing anything or have a "bland" life, it's just different. A lot of my younger friends are often in shock at my childhood pastimes before I had a nice computer and access to the Internet, cause man my friends and I used to get into a ton of trouble and do really dangerous/mean stuff to each other sometimes. We meant it in good fun, but in retrospect, I think that I'd rather my children were doing social stuff and learning/reading like I did when I got Internet as opposed to the stuff I used to do as a kid, which frankly speaking, was petty vandalism at times even just because we were so bored and wanted something "fun". So it's not really that one is worse than the other or that modern life is bland, it's just different. There are lots of videos you can watch about early 2000's and 2010's internet culture, and it's really interesting for me because it wasn't the Internet I experienced as a kid; stuff like virtual worlds or alternate reality games that pop up on message boards seem like they were a lot of fun, and looks to have sparked a ton of creativity in the kids participating. I don't think this is a bad or bland life at all; just different.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  > (I assume you mean "bland") Yeah, Frenchman here :) Let met edit that.
  - csydas 4y ago
    happens :)
AlecSchueler 4y ago
They also had two of their developmental years during lockdowns with the minimal social exposure. I've heard from some teachers that the younger children they see coming up find it very scary to interact with real kids.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  I though as well, and without a doubt it added to it (I have teacher friends that give me bleak reports for the cohort that went through it), but this thing started before the pandemic. Also, I told myself, it's like watching sport instead of playing it, but something seems different.
  - Last5Digits 4y ago
    I think it's more like sitcoms. A cast of slightly funny and charismatic characters going through mildly interesting experiences has been a mainstay of entertainment media for some time now.
    - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
      Possibly, like latino soap opera but for kids. I never could grasp the former, so maybe that's why I don't get the latter. I browse youtube anonymously and so I get the neutral youtube experience, with what it things the average user wants. Today I say a video suggestion with kids in the pics and a title "we made a blind test to distinguish frozen food from real one". It's a really easy thing to do with your friend and family, unlike the soap opera scenario. It's typically stuff I have done, and actually still do. So there must be a component I miss.
      - Last5Digits 4y ago
        No, I meant American sitcoms like Friends, Seinfeld, Home Improvement, Modern Family, etc. None of these shows show anything dramatic or larger than life - it's just a couple of friends or a family going through relatable yet sanitized everyday situations. Many of these shows were the pillar of people's evening ritual - the whole family would gather around the TV to watch a fictional family experience life.
throw74648284 4y ago
I relate to your sentiment, and then I think about how hard it was to explain to my parents why I enjoy watching others play video games.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  In person, I get it. You chill with someone you like, you don't need to do much to enjoy it. Like reading together, or just being there. However, I don't get watching pewdiepie playing something. I just can't groke it. You don't know the person, the person is not in the room, the person is not even currently playing since it's a recording. It's a flat image of someone else having fun. And not somebody particularly good, interesting or special. I tried to tell myself it's like watching porn: you watch somebody else having sex, why not play video game? But something doesn't click for me. I miss the point entirely.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    I've explained it to myself like this: It's exactly like watching sports. You want to watch it live on tv, even though the fact that you're watching has zero impact on the result. You're just watching other people play a game. You could do anything else and just check the scores afterwards, but still you want to watch it. Some people will watch a recording of the game and still enjoy it even though the scores were determined hours ago. The younger generation does the same thing, but instead of sports they watch someone play a game. I don't understand either, but I can live with it =)
    - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
      See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35207785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35207785 But I can live as well with it. I don't blame the kids that watch those. I just don't understand it.
  - andersa 4y ago
    Why watch sports or tv shows or anything at all? It's other people having fun.
pxtail 4y ago
It's not "old man yells" - your observation is very on point, a lot of people are simply lonely for one reason or other and I think that this kind of videos or livestreams serve as substitute for real person. There are many popular services where it manifests: twitch, youtube, vtube, OF, etc. And of course it's not only teenagers who are feeling lonely and isolated and of course answer is not simple "just have friends, lol" There are even quite popular threads from HN, examples below in the footnote. As I already written in other thread - I'm very convinced that this need will be a target for software developments especially with what's happening recently with AI. There are even early birds like Replika AI but I belive that more will come with more and more advanced "personal assistant/companion". Vision straight from Bladerunner https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/DiJi https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/DiJi :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17279773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17279773 - How do you meet new people? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24492550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24492550 - How to Make Friends as an Adult https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32197381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32197381 - How to make friends in your 30s? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25817605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25817605 - Can you treat loneliness by creating an imaginary friend?
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  To the 4 questions: 1. Go outside 2. Go outside 3. Go outside 4. No. Go outside. It sounds dumb, but really. I'm an introvert, I have social anxiety, I've had periods where I don't see another human face for months. On the other hand I've made good friends just from random strangers talking to me in public. Even the most socially inept can make friends. It's just a matter of placing yourself in the physical vicinity of other human beings on a regular basis. If you struggle talking to people Like I have, have a few drinks. That's been my experience anyway.
  - houseinthesky 4y ago
    > If you struggle talking to people Like I have, have a few drinks. That's been my experience anyway. This is a lot of people's experience... and a whole lot of us really, really, really regret it years later. Alcohol is an incredibly dangerous and insidious tool to use for social anxiety. It works great at first, so you ignore the negative effects. But over time, it makes everything worse. Drinking alcohol decreases anxiety initially, but over time causes the body to raise base anxiety levels. It also lowers testosterone, messes with the lining of the gut and gut microbiome (which can also increase anxiety and negatively impact mood due to the strong gut-brain axis of emotional regulation and signaling) and negatively impacts numerous other parts of the body. My education around "alcohol is bad" was either warnings about bad behavior while inebriated or vague intangible health risks in the distant future, both of which were easy to ignore. Sharing because I wish someone had informed me that the drink in my 20s to temporarily blunt social anxiety would make my life so much worse by my 30s.
r0fl 4y ago
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. I go one step further with this logic. Grown men watching other men play a sport that they like to play with their friends is equally weird.
- breakpointalpha 4y ago
  This is pretty narrow minded. I like playing basketball. I will never be as good as Lebron James. It's fun to watch someone else play at the edge of what is possible. I might even learn something I can use myself. I like software development. I'll never be as good as John Carmack. It's fun to watch someone else talk and think about what I like. I might even learn something. Don't steal other people's joy just because you don't understand it.
  - raydev 4y ago
    > This is pretty narrow minded As narrow minded as claiming people who watch a certain type of YouTube video must necessarily have a "bland life"
raydev 4y ago
> It's like there is an entire part of the children/teen population that have such a bland life they feel good while watching somebody else living it. Or consider that some portion of the population would always be interested in such videos at any time in history, and it's only in the last decade that they have unlimited access.
thunkshift1 4y ago
My browsing of internet forums has led me to understand this issue as “living vicariously” among the youth. They have outsourced even the joy of experiencing new things in life to tech. And the tech companies are also getting paid in the process. Truly 21st century stuff.

csydas 4y ago

Keep in mind, childhoods are a lot different now because you are exposed to a lot of information and people you never would have had a chance to meet when you were a child. As a kid in the 90's, my parents gave my brothers and I a choice: cable TV, or DSL once DSL came to our area of the city. We chose DSL, and definitely the Internet experience I had growing up was way different than every other kid at school since it was actually feasible to download a few small movies or games at the time, and to talk on chat apps/message boards at a very early age. All the online activities became part of my childhood along with my friends who lived locally and my other activities, and turned out, I enjoyed those a lot more than the in person activities which I mostly just _could_ do, as opposed to wanting to do them. So I had a pretty good balance I felt between physical activities, meeting with friends locally for bike rides or playing games, and the online social life also. Edited addition: One of the most positive parts about this was that it was so new that my parents had very little to say because they did not understand it; if I wanted to join a message board or crack a game, my parents and teachers and other authority figures in my life absolutely could not say anything about it in a reasonable way; it was brand new, there were no guides or playbooks, I had to learn this all on my own. While I was a very independent child, it was mostly stuff in a familiar scope for my parents. They "knew" that if I went on a bike ride with friends, probably we were up to some mischief, because that's what happened when they were kids. Same with if I went to a friends house to play games, to the park, etc. The Internet was (and still is) completely out of their scope along with all the tech and knowledge required to use it at the time, so it was a major point of growth for me to learn this new world and how to survive in it. That felt really nice as a child, as I'd slowly start to learn the skills that helped me succeed as an adult. I think that the current childhood experience probably would be what most of us would have had as online is now a normal aspect of kids lives, whether it's games or various chats/message boards, etc. When you write: >It's like there is an entire part of the children/teen population that have such a blend [sic] life they feel good while watching somebody else living it. (I assume you mean "bland") I'm not sure it's about a bland life. There is a lot of social interaction, just in a different form. Some people have trouble with understanding that online light interactions don't have the same weight as in real life impersonal interactions, but that's pretty normal I think. Most adults from the previous generation still have troubles with communication in my opinion (at least a fair amount of persons from businesses I work with have weaker communication skills that most children I know), so I'm not sure it's that these children are missing anything or have a "bland" life, it's just different. A lot of my younger friends are often in shock at my childhood pastimes before I had a nice computer and access to the Internet, cause man my friends and I used to get into a ton of trouble and do really dangerous/mean stuff to each other sometimes. We meant it in good fun, but in retrospect, I think that I'd rather my children were doing social stuff and learning/reading like I did when I got Internet as opposed to the stuff I used to do as a kid, which frankly speaking, was petty vandalism at times even just because we were so bored and wanted something "fun". So it's not really that one is worse than the other or that modern life is bland, it's just different. There are lots of videos you can watch about early 2000's and 2010's internet culture, and it's really interesting for me because it wasn't the Internet I experienced as a kid; stuff like virtual worlds or alternate reality games that pop up on message boards seem like they were a lot of fun, and looks to have sparked a ton of creativity in the kids participating. I don't think this is a bad or bland life at all; just different.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago
> (I assume you mean "bland") Yeah, Frenchman here :) Let met edit that.
- csydas 4y ago
  happens :)

AlecSchueler 4y ago

They also had two of their developmental years during lockdowns with the minimal social exposure. I've heard from some teachers that the younger children they see coming up find it very scary to interact with real kids.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago
I though as well, and without a doubt it added to it (I have teacher friends that give me bleak reports for the cohort that went through it), but this thing started before the pandemic. Also, I told myself, it's like watching sport instead of playing it, but something seems different.
- Last5Digits 4y ago
  I think it's more like sitcoms. A cast of slightly funny and charismatic characters going through mildly interesting experiences has been a mainstay of entertainment media for some time now.
  - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
    Possibly, like latino soap opera but for kids. I never could grasp the former, so maybe that's why I don't get the latter. I browse youtube anonymously and so I get the neutral youtube experience, with what it things the average user wants. Today I say a video suggestion with kids in the pics and a title "we made a blind test to distinguish frozen food from real one". It's a really easy thing to do with your friend and family, unlike the soap opera scenario. It's typically stuff I have done, and actually still do. So there must be a component I miss.
    - Last5Digits 4y ago
      No, I meant American sitcoms like Friends, Seinfeld, Home Improvement, Modern Family, etc. None of these shows show anything dramatic or larger than life - it's just a couple of friends or a family going through relatable yet sanitized everyday situations. Many of these shows were the pillar of people's evening ritual - the whole family would gather around the TV to watch a fictional family experience life.

throw74648284 4y ago

I relate to your sentiment, and then I think about how hard it was to explain to my parents why I enjoy watching others play video games.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago
In person, I get it. You chill with someone you like, you don't need to do much to enjoy it. Like reading together, or just being there. However, I don't get watching pewdiepie playing something. I just can't groke it. You don't know the person, the person is not in the room, the person is not even currently playing since it's a recording. It's a flat image of someone else having fun. And not somebody particularly good, interesting or special. I tried to tell myself it's like watching porn: you watch somebody else having sex, why not play video game? But something doesn't click for me. I miss the point entirely.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  I've explained it to myself like this: It's exactly like watching sports. You want to watch it live on tv, even though the fact that you're watching has zero impact on the result. You're just watching other people play a game. You could do anything else and just check the scores afterwards, but still you want to watch it. Some people will watch a recording of the game and still enjoy it even though the scores were determined hours ago. The younger generation does the same thing, but instead of sports they watch someone play a game. I don't understand either, but I can live with it =)
  - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
    See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35207785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35207785 But I can live as well with it. I don't blame the kids that watch those. I just don't understand it.
- andersa 4y ago
  Why watch sports or tv shows or anything at all? It's other people having fun.

pxtail 4y ago

It's not "old man yells" - your observation is very on point, a lot of people are simply lonely for one reason or other and I think that this kind of videos or livestreams serve as substitute for real person. There are many popular services where it manifests: twitch, youtube, vtube, OF, etc. And of course it's not only teenagers who are feeling lonely and isolated and of course answer is not simple "just have friends, lol" There are even quite popular threads from HN, examples below in the footnote. As I already written in other thread - I'm very convinced that this need will be a target for software developments especially with what's happening recently with AI. There are even early birds like Replika AI but I belive that more will come with more and more advanced "personal assistant/companion". Vision straight from Bladerunner https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/DiJi https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/DiJi :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17279773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17279773 - How do you meet new people? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24492550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24492550 - How to Make Friends as an Adult https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32197381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32197381 - How to make friends in your 30s? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25817605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25817605 - Can you treat loneliness by creating an imaginary friend?

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
To the 4 questions: 1. Go outside 2. Go outside 3. Go outside 4. No. Go outside. It sounds dumb, but really. I'm an introvert, I have social anxiety, I've had periods where I don't see another human face for months. On the other hand I've made good friends just from random strangers talking to me in public. Even the most socially inept can make friends. It's just a matter of placing yourself in the physical vicinity of other human beings on a regular basis. If you struggle talking to people Like I have, have a few drinks. That's been my experience anyway.
- houseinthesky 4y ago
  > If you struggle talking to people Like I have, have a few drinks. That's been my experience anyway. This is a lot of people's experience... and a whole lot of us really, really, really regret it years later. Alcohol is an incredibly dangerous and insidious tool to use for social anxiety. It works great at first, so you ignore the negative effects. But over time, it makes everything worse. Drinking alcohol decreases anxiety initially, but over time causes the body to raise base anxiety levels. It also lowers testosterone, messes with the lining of the gut and gut microbiome (which can also increase anxiety and negatively impact mood due to the strong gut-brain axis of emotional regulation and signaling) and negatively impacts numerous other parts of the body. My education around "alcohol is bad" was either warnings about bad behavior while inebriated or vague intangible health risks in the distant future, both of which were easy to ignore. Sharing because I wish someone had informed me that the drink in my 20s to temporarily blunt social anxiety would make my life so much worse by my 30s.

r0fl 4y ago

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. I go one step further with this logic. Grown men watching other men play a sport that they like to play with their friends is equally weird.

breakpointalpha 4y ago
This is pretty narrow minded. I like playing basketball. I will never be as good as Lebron James. It's fun to watch someone else play at the edge of what is possible. I might even learn something I can use myself. I like software development. I'll never be as good as John Carmack. It's fun to watch someone else talk and think about what I like. I might even learn something. Don't steal other people's joy just because you don't understand it.
- raydev 4y ago
  > This is pretty narrow minded As narrow minded as claiming people who watch a certain type of YouTube video must necessarily have a "bland life"

raydev 4y ago

> It's like there is an entire part of the children/teen population that have such a bland life they feel good while watching somebody else living it. Or consider that some portion of the population would always be interested in such videos at any time in history, and it's only in the last decade that they have unlimited access.

thunkshift1 4y ago

My browsing of internet forums has led me to understand this issue as “living vicariously” among the youth. They have outsourced even the joy of experiencing new things in life to tech. And the tech companies are also getting paid in the process. Truly 21st century stuff.