6 ms·

My favorite YouTube oddity: If you hunt over the CSS the site downloads on, IIRC, every page; you'll eventually come across this selector: ytd-watch-metada

by 015a 3y ago

My favorite YouTube oddity: If you hunt over the CSS the site downloads on, IIRC, every page; you'll eventually come across this selector: ytd-watch-metadata[video-id=QrGrOK8oZG8] h1.ytd-watch-metadata { color:#e6d140; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:250%; font-variant:small-caps; font-weight:normal; transform:skew(-5deg,0deg); text-shadow:1px 1px #000,1px 1px .1px #000 } A selector that appears to be referencing a very specific video ID; as far as I can tell, the only video in the billions of videos on YouTube to receive this treatment (at least, in terms of a "css selector with video-id in it"). The video: Adult Swim's "Too Many Cooks" skit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGrOK8oZG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGrOK8oZG8)

nonethewiser 3y ago
That is fascinating. Wonder why that video in particular (or any single video that in theory) would need its text style changed.
- chch 3y ago
  Less a need, more an easter egg. The short itself is based on the stereotypical American family sitcom;s opening credits, which would tend to show a character doing something 'representative' of their character, while showing the actor's name on screen that played that character. Without too much spoilers for the video itself, the names popping up is a pretty key aspect of the video itself. It gained a pretty good following in 2014 when it came out, and I guess someone on the YouTube UI team thought it would be a fun addition to add the text style from the video onto the video page itself. I remember being happily surprised the first time I saw it (similarly to the first time I saw someone added the Wadsworth Constant[1] as an actual feature, though that's unfortunately since been removed). [1] A user on Reddit once posited in 2011 that the first 30% of every YouTube video was a waste, so they would just click to around the 30% mark to skip to the important part. A reply deemed this the "Wadsworth Constant", after the user, and it tumbled from there. Eventually, YouTube had an official feature where if you added ""&wadsworth=1" to a URL, it would start the video 30% in, for any video! I'd used it several times when sending instructional videos to friends who didn't need to see the intros.
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    Also, YouTube implemented Randall Munroe's "Listen to Yourself"[0] at one point, however it's sadly removed later. [0]: https://xkcd.com/481/ https://xkcd.com/481/
  - pests 3y ago
    There is another video, that I can't find right now, where YouTube has paused the views in the <100s. It's part of the joke or title but I always thought that was neat too. Not sure if it was just cosmetic or they did something in the backend.
    - cedilla 3y ago
      You probably think of Numberphile explanation of why YouTube videos (used to) stay at 301 views for a while - leading to lots of confusion when the site showed 301 views with 5728 comments and 37592 likes. https://youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI https://youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI
      - pests 3y ago
        Yes! That's it! I was a little off on the number but I knew it was along those lines. Thanks.
  - a_gnostic 3y ago
    It don't work [1]. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYgsVCfLhWg&wadsworth=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYgsVCfLhWg&wadsworth=1
- 015a 3y ago
  Watch the video; its definitely just 'someone at YouTube really liked this video'. The styling of the title is attempting to mirror the actor nameplates in the video.
  - joe_hills 3y ago
    Wow, I was wondering at first how good a video had to be for a YouTube engineer to add css like this—and after watching this twice now, I'm deeply startled by how many brilliant and resonant choices were made by the folks who created it. A piece this artistic deserves a curative touch.
    - geoelectric 3y ago
      Next Christmas, or next time you’re feeling Christmas-minded, find the Adult Swim Yule Log movie, aka The Fireplace. It’s on Max, among other places. It’s Casper Kelly’s (the creator of Too Many Cooks) first full length feature—a 90 minute horror-comedy film that Adult Swim stealth-released a couple of years ago disguised as an airing of a Christmas fireplace video. It actually has very little to do with Christmas, though a surprising lot to do with Yule logs. Max also has an Adult Swim series called “Infomercials,” which is where Too Many Cooks originally debuted a decade or two ago. The series consists of a bunch of other very creative short films in a similar vein that aired very late at night. The TV guide block Adult Swim created for them just said Infomercials, much like what every other basic cable station scheduled after hours, except these were all designed to go off the rails partway through and mess with your head. Too Many Cooks is the only one with a catchy theme song though!
from-nibly 3y ago
Wow Georgia font for a movie about Georgia actors
Narushia 3y ago
Not exactly the same, but back when Gangnam Style passed 1 billion views, they added a small looping animation besides the video title (it was PSY doing the dance). Not sure how long it was there, certainly not anymore. Edit: I found a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Di3sxO8zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Di3sxO8zw
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I mean I like easter eggs, but why not make it so that CSS is only downloaded on that page? Adding 286 bytes to every one of the billions of pageviews YT gets every day seems wasteful.
- xenophonf 3y ago
  That would entail adding a branch instruction and risking a cache miss on every single video playback in order to save a couple hundred bytes in a data stream at least four orders of magnitude larger.
  - refibrillator 3y ago
    Speculating? I think branch predictors would eat this for lunch
    - xenophonf 3y ago
      Hence, my use of the word "risk".
  - kazinator 3y ago
    Why not also show the same video title, thumbnail, content, comments and side bar regardless of the video URL?
    - xenophonf 3y ago
      I mean, it's an Easter egg. These things aren't known for their practicability. If one were to object to this, it's because it pushes unnecessary computational costs on every single end-user device that has to render that CSS since the comparison and branch now happens client-side at page styling time. I wonder how many billions of CPU cycles that's wasted.

by 015a 3y ago

nonethewiser 3y ago

That is fascinating. Wonder why that video in particular (or any single video that in theory) would need its text style changed.

chch 3y ago
Less a need, more an easter egg. The short itself is based on the stereotypical American family sitcom;s opening credits, which would tend to show a character doing something 'representative' of their character, while showing the actor's name on screen that played that character. Without too much spoilers for the video itself, the names popping up is a pretty key aspect of the video itself. It gained a pretty good following in 2014 when it came out, and I guess someone on the YouTube UI team thought it would be a fun addition to add the text style from the video onto the video page itself. I remember being happily surprised the first time I saw it (similarly to the first time I saw someone added the Wadsworth Constant[1] as an actual feature, though that's unfortunately since been removed). [1] A user on Reddit once posited in 2011 that the first 30% of every YouTube video was a waste, so they would just click to around the 30% mark to skip to the important part. A reply deemed this the "Wadsworth Constant", after the user, and it tumbled from there. Eventually, YouTube had an official feature where if you added ""&wadsworth=1" to a URL, it would start the video 30% in, for any video! I'd used it several times when sending instructional videos to friends who didn't need to see the intros.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  Also, YouTube implemented Randall Munroe's "Listen to Yourself"[0] at one point, however it's sadly removed later. [0]: https://xkcd.com/481/ https://xkcd.com/481/
- pests 3y ago
  There is another video, that I can't find right now, where YouTube has paused the views in the <100s. It's part of the joke or title but I always thought that was neat too. Not sure if it was just cosmetic or they did something in the backend.
  - cedilla 3y ago
    You probably think of Numberphile explanation of why YouTube videos (used to) stay at 301 views for a while - leading to lots of confusion when the site showed 301 views with 5728 comments and 37592 likes. https://youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI https://youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI
    - pests 3y ago
      Yes! That's it! I was a little off on the number but I knew it was along those lines. Thanks.
- a_gnostic 3y ago
  It don't work [1]. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYgsVCfLhWg&wadsworth=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYgsVCfLhWg&wadsworth=1
015a 3y ago
Watch the video; its definitely just 'someone at YouTube really liked this video'. The styling of the title is attempting to mirror the actor nameplates in the video.
- joe_hills 3y ago
  Wow, I was wondering at first how good a video had to be for a YouTube engineer to add css like this—and after watching this twice now, I'm deeply startled by how many brilliant and resonant choices were made by the folks who created it. A piece this artistic deserves a curative touch.
  - geoelectric 3y ago
    Next Christmas, or next time you’re feeling Christmas-minded, find the Adult Swim Yule Log movie, aka The Fireplace. It’s on Max, among other places. It’s Casper Kelly’s (the creator of Too Many Cooks) first full length feature—a 90 minute horror-comedy film that Adult Swim stealth-released a couple of years ago disguised as an airing of a Christmas fireplace video. It actually has very little to do with Christmas, though a surprising lot to do with Yule logs. Max also has an Adult Swim series called “Infomercials,” which is where Too Many Cooks originally debuted a decade or two ago. The series consists of a bunch of other very creative short films in a similar vein that aired very late at night. The TV guide block Adult Swim created for them just said Infomercials, much like what every other basic cable station scheduled after hours, except these were all designed to go off the rails partway through and mess with your head. Too Many Cooks is the only one with a catchy theme song though!

from-nibly 3y ago

Wow Georgia font for a movie about Georgia actors

Narushia 3y ago

Not exactly the same, but back when Gangnam Style passed 1 billion views, they added a small looping animation besides the video title (it was PSY doing the dance). Not sure how long it was there, certainly not anymore. Edit: I found a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Di3sxO8zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Di3sxO8zw

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

I mean I like easter eggs, but why not make it so that CSS is only downloaded on that page? Adding 286 bytes to every one of the billions of pageviews YT gets every day seems wasteful.

xenophonf 3y ago
That would entail adding a branch instruction and risking a cache miss on every single video playback in order to save a couple hundred bytes in a data stream at least four orders of magnitude larger.
- refibrillator 3y ago
  Speculating? I think branch predictors would eat this for lunch
  - xenophonf 3y ago
    Hence, my use of the word "risk".
- kazinator 3y ago
  Why not also show the same video title, thumbnail, content, comments and side bar regardless of the video URL?
  - xenophonf 3y ago
    I mean, it's an Easter egg. These things aren't known for their practicability. If one were to object to this, it's because it pushes unnecessary computational costs on every single end-user device that has to render that CSS since the comparison and branch now happens client-side at page styling time. I wonder how many billions of CPU cycles that's wasted.