How YouTube's Year-In-Review 'Rewind' Video Set Off a Civil War (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: You might guess that a surefire way to make a hit video on YouTube would be to gather a bunch of YouTube megastars, film them riffing on some of the year's most popular YouTube themes and release it as a year-in-review spectacular. You would be wrong. YouTube tested that theory this week, releasing its annual "YouTube Rewind" year-end retrospective. The eight-minute video was a jam-packed montage of YouTube meta-humor, featuring a who's-who of YouTube stars along with conventional celebrities. The video was slickly produced and wholesome, with lots of references to the popular video game Fortnite, shout-outs to popular video formats, and earnest paeans to YouTube's diversity and inclusiveness. It was meant to be a feel-good celebration of a year's worth of YouTube creativity, but the video started a firestorm, and led to a mass-downvoting campaign that became a meme of its own. Within 48 hours, the video had been "disliked" more than four million times. On Thursday, it became the most-disliked video in the history of the website, gathering more than 10 million dislikes and beating out the previous record-holder, the music video for Justin Bieber's "Baby."

The issue that upset so many YouTube fans, it turns out, was what the Rewind video did not show. Many of the most notable YouTube moments of the year -- such as the August boxing match between KSI and Logan Paul, two YouTube stars who fought in a highly publicized spectacle watched by millions -- went unmentioned. And some prominent YouTubers were absent, including Felix Kjellberg, a.k.a. "PewDiePie," one of the most popular creators in YouTube's history, who had appeared in the Rewind videos as recently as 2016. Some YouTubers enjoyed the video. But to many, it felt like evidence that YouTube the company was snubbing YouTube the community by featuring mainstream celebrities in addition to the platform's homegrown creators, and by glossing over major moments in favor of advertiser-friendly scenes. The Times says the Rewind controversy "is indicative of a larger issue at YouTube, which is trying to promote itself as a bastion of cool, inclusive creativity while being accused of radicalizing a generation of young people by pushing them toward increasingly extreme content, and allowing reactionary cranks and conspiracy theorists to dominate its platform."

"But people like Mr. Kjellberg and Mr. Paul -- stars who rose to prominence through YouTube, and still garner tens of millions of views every month -- remain in a kind of dysfunctional relationship with the platform. YouTube doesn't want to endorse their behavior in its official promotions, but it doesn't want to alienate their large, passionate audiences, either," reports the NYT. "And since no other platform can rival the large audiences and earning potential YouTube gives these creators, they are stuck in a kind of unhappy purgatory -- making aggrieved videos about how badly YouTube has wronged them, while also tiptoeing to avoid crossing any lines that might get them barred, or prevent them from making money from their videos." This tension is at the heart of the controversy over YouTube Rewind.

"A YouTube recap that includes only displays of tolerance and pluralism is a little like a Weather Channel highlight reel featuring only footage of sunny days -- it might be more pleasant to look at, but it doesn't reflect the actual weather..."

Comments

You have to use the word War

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans don't understand anything else, War on drugs, war on terror, war war war.

Shame they don't understand what winning is anymore

Re:You have to use the word War

[Red_Forman]

Maybe they should start a war on ignorance.
What a bunch of dumbasses.

Re:You have to use the word War

[Anonymous Coward]

America did. The surrender was 20 years ago.

Re:You have to use the word War

[novakyu]

Clearly, we need a War on Hyperboles. It really boils down to a real need to standardize the English language.

Re: You have to use the word War

[novakyu]

If that's true, then it was a real injustice, anti-democratic (lower-case "d") move to ban Alex Jones.

If that's not true, then there was no real need to ban Alex Jones, and this was a capricious use of power.

For those who would silence^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hshape speech, there are few principled reasons for them to do what they would do.

Re: You have to use the word War

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, bullshit. Alex Jones is a lying idiot catering to dangerously stupid people. If he was wearing a sandwich board in front of my store, I'd kick him to the curb the same as Youtube. Dangerous morons are bad for business.

The free market sometimes works. Alex Jones is free to fuck right the fuck back to his momma's basement and record anything he wants and post it on Breitbart or anywhere idiocy is still in vogue.

Don't like it? Aww.

Re: You have to use the word War

[novakyu]

We are no better for having heard your profanity-laden opinion. And yet, I would never advocate that you should be silenced.

Re: You have to use the word War

[DogDude]

Nobody silenced that crazy sack of shit. A business told him to get the hell off of their property. He can say whatever he wants from his own property.

Re:You have to use the word War

[arglebargle_xiv]

Well they're not doing so well with the War on Drugs, War on Terror, War on Whatever, so they have to distract themselves with a War on some random crap on Youtube, obviously the most important social and political issue of our time. Bread and circuses!

Re: You have to use the word War

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nobody silenced him"

Same breath, "he was silenced by YouTube."

I never listened to Alex Jones, but I wonder what he says that gets fragile fascists like you all hot and bothered?

Re: You have to use the word War

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If that's true, then it was a real injustice, anti-democratic (lower-case "d") move to ban Alex Jones.

Why? Is YouTube a government agency?

Re:You have to use the word War

[Opportunist]

Considering the success of America's "War on ...", we should start a war on intelligence. We sure need more, and all the various "wars on" something have accomplished is that today we have actually more of the thing that we wage war on.

Re: You have to use the word War

[Meneth]

It's more powerful than several government agencies.

Re:You have to use the word War

[necro81]

Shame they don't understand what winning is anymore

That's probably because we're supposed to be tired of winning by now. Personally, I'm fairly exhausted, but it doesn't feel like winning.

Re: You have to use the word War

[necro81]

It's more powerful than several government agencies

That may be a true statement. It's a naive view of "power," but you can argue the point if you'd like.

Even it what you assert is true, that doesn't mean there's a constitutional or government argument to be made about YouTube banning Alex Jones.. It's simply out of scope. Kind of like asking Sundar Pichai why your iPhone doesn't work.

Re: You have to use the word War

[tepples]

Since when does YouTube ceasing to do business with a particular person "silence" that person? Nowadays, it's never been more practical to buy a domain name and cloud hosting and upload your videos for viewing in any HTML5-compatible player.

who the fuck are those people...

[Anonymous Coward]

It sucked because there was no actual youtube talent. Where's EEVBlog, Mikeselectricstuff, AvE, Electroboom, Big Clive, This old Tony, Numberphile, Space Time.

Re:who the fuck are those people...

[Trimaz]

It was chock full of those cringe-inducing vloggers. Not an ounce of creativity or talent in anyone except the animation person that threw in all the PewDiePie references.

Re:who the fuck are those people...

[Frederic54]

Who? I don't know who this Logan Paul or PewdiePie is, and I've no clue who those Electroboom or Numberphile are.

I'm the only one who don't watch youtube and have no clue who youtubers are?!?!!?

People don't lie knowingly being told.

[Mal-2]

People don't like knowingly being told what is cool and what isn't. I mean when it's a friend or even a complete stranger saying "check this out, it's cool", that's all well and good (provided it actually is, and not a rickroll). A friend knows your tastes to some degree. A stranger can assume some things about you by where you are and how you're dressed and such. YouTube can't do any of these things, because they're only making one video, aimed at billions of people.

And that would be a best case scenario, where YouTube really does just want to promote what's cool. However, it is incredibly obvious that what they really want to promote is advertiser-friendly content, much of which is quite good, while silently glossing over the parts they don't like. Unfortunately for them, the parts they don't like are the parts their various viewing populations do like. This is why television could only be cool in small batches, the world is simply too big to all have the same tastes.

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[Red_Forman]

Check this out, it's cool.

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[AmiMoJo]

Most of the stuff they left out isn't really cool, it's just edgy bullshit for edgy teens.

Most of the popular stuff on YouTube is that kind of rubbish, or stuff for very young kids, or music videos, or meta-outrage. Would be nice if they included some really cool and interesting stuff, like some of the more niche channels. Show us some wood/metalworking stuff instead of 50 different Fortnight clips.

Re: People don't lie knowingly being told.

[j33px0r]

Hahaha! I clicked on it and grinned...was quite pleased...was worried it be the old goat...

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[Anonymous Coward]

Resident SJW claims anything he doesn't like is "just edgy bullshit for edgy teens."

While also laughably claiming he is for inclusiveness, compassion, communication, and diversity.

Video at 11.

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[David_Hart]

Most of the stuff they left out isn't really cool, it's just edgy bullshit for edgy teens.

Most of the popular stuff on YouTube is that kind of rubbish, or stuff for very young kids, or music videos, or meta-outrage. Would be nice if they included some really cool and interesting stuff, like some of the more niche channels. Show us some wood/metalworking stuff instead of 50 different Fortnight clips.

Yeah, in my opinion, most of the "popular" stuff on Youtube skews towards tweens and teens, it's not cool, innovative, or even good.

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[Mashiki]

Would be nice if they included some really cool and interesting stuff, like some of the more niche channels. Show us some wood/metalworking stuff instead of 50 different Fortnight clips.

Those metal and woodworking is advertiser unfriendly so those channels got demonitized beside channels for gear heads, hobby shooters(of everything from BB guns to high power pistols and rifles), center and right wing political commentators first and so on.

So you'll take your fortnight clips and like it.

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[Bengie]

because they're only making one video, aimed at billions of people

Ahh yes. The one-size-fits-all that fits no one. The "the average airman didn't exist" paradox.

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[Mal-2]

No, there's a formula to making movie trailers. That's why they all look about equally appealing, but prove not to be when actually viewed: it's easy to make an excerpt that makes you look good, and practically every movie has enough material to do so. This doesn't necessarily translate into having enough to sustain interest for two hours, though.

News pieces are sensationalized, which is not the same as "being cool". It's much more akin to clickbait.

Advertising is not the same either. Very few, if any, companies make ONE ad and run it around the world. At the very least, they make localizations, but usually there are multiple ads for the same company running in the same market at the same time, each one aimed at a different demographic.

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[stealth_finger]

Video at 11.

On your patreon first?

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[Mashiki]

Yeah bullshit. There is nothing advertiser unfriendly about This Old Tony, ABom79 and so on.

You should let youtube know, obviously your understanding of what's "advertiser friendly" is far more reaching.

The ones that are advertiser unfriendly are not because of the shop stuff, it's because of what they say. In fact it seems a good guess that AvE intantionally says things to demonetise his videos given what he's said about in the past.

So how about clive's channel? Oh...right, it must be because he's critical of shitty product design right, and the companies file copyright strikes against him.

So take your endless stream of paranoid drivel elsewhere.

Maybe it's time for you simply to grow up, and stop jamming your head into your ass?

Liks Alex Jones, that wll known centrist.

You mean like Styxhexenhammer666? Or Razorfist? Or Tim Pool? Chris Ray Gun? Mans1ay3r? Kadokawa? Laci Green?

Yes, I think it is time for you to take your head out of your ass.

Re:People don't lie knowingly being told.

[tepples]

The ones that are advertiser unfriendly are not because of the shop stuff, it's because of what they say.

But is that more common than a channel becoming demonetized once YouTube raises the minimum bar to 1,000 subscribers and 240,000 monthly watch minutes?

Mired in Controversy

[Luthair]

Interesting how the summary doesn't mention (though the article does) that both Logan & PewDiePie have been mired in controvesy for a few years. Hardly surprising that Youtube wasn't interested in showcasing them.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[Kohath]

Interesting how the summary doesn't mention (though the article does) that both Logan & PewDiePie have been mired in controvesy for a few years. Hardly surprising that Youtube wasn't interested in showcasing them.

"Mired in controversy", as used here, means a bunch of officious jerks complained. When a special set of jerks complains about you, you become "controversial", regardless of what the overwhelming majority of people think.

Google does their bidding to avoid being "controversial".

Re:Mired in Controversy

[The Cynical Critic]

Mired in controversy? Sure, but only of the blown-spectacularly-out-of-proportion-for-clicks kind of controversy.

With Kjellberg these involve a joke by comparing some people to nazis, sharing a video by someone who's made videos doing the same, trying to see if people on a service called "Fiverr" will do very inappropriate things for next to nothing and blurting out a bad word in the middle of a live stream. In the latter two cases he immediately apologized for it and in the case of the Fiverr video he apologized downright profusely when he thought the people would have refused, but didn't.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[thegarbz]

Hardly surprising that Youtube wasn't interested in showcasing them.

So when celebrating creators a bit of "controversy" suddenly becomes the reason why you don't feature your single biggest (for the most of the year anyway) creator?

There's nothing interesting about this at all. In fact the summary mentions everything you need to know about the situation: People disagree with Youtube and the video became the most disliked video as a result showing clearly that the controversy was irrelevant.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[Luthair]

I think the overwhelming number of people would consider the n-word and showing the bodies of suicides in videos convroversal.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[Trogre]

And yet Kanye West's music videos persist on the medium.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[war4peace]

You know what stops you from being labeled because of such things? By not actually doing something that the overwhelming majority of people dislike.

A great way to stop any sort of progress.
The majority of people disliked the Eiffel Tower project at the time. Same goes for the car, trains, electricity, abolition of slavery, science (remember the Dark Ages?), many forms of art and so on.

Now, in this particular case, the (in)famous PewDiePie is as much of a shallow creator” as any other so-called creators” featured in the Youtube Video. They're all a bunch of clowns figuratively eating shit for the enjoyment of huge crowds of retards. That's modern society, and that was pretty much any society in the past, with one exception: Average Joes were never a good source of income until now, so they were largely ignored by celebrities. They had to entertain each other for pennies. But in today's society, Average Joes are wealthy enough to produce vast amounts of money if they are entertained with relatively insignificant costs. Film yourself absurdly and exaggeratedly reacting to other people's stupid videos, make millions of dollars a year. Get rich being retards' servant. Hurrah for contemporary entertainment!

Re:Mired in Controversy

[Pluvius]

Actually, the overwhelming majority of people above the age of 12 do think that Logan Paul is a shithead, particularly in regards to the Suicide Forest video. Doesn't mean that the bout with KSI shouldn't have been referenced in the Rewind, but most people are fine with him not being actively included. You're right about PewDiePie, though.

Rob

Re:Mired in Controversy

[Luthair]

Hey, we're talking controversy not idiocy here :P

Re:Mired in Controversy

[Opportunist]

Well, then we might have a bigger problem at our hands than we currently know, because for all we can tell, this is what people want to see. I don't have a clue why, but if there are people subbing to them, and we're not talking about a few 100 fringe interest loonies, then I guess you'll get this reaction. Especially if you sell that video with the slogan "everyone controls rewind".

Last I checked it's absolutely a-ok to downvote a video with a misleading clickbait title...

Re: Mired in Controversy

[Nidi62]

Most youtubers are shitheads. My favorite was this Mormon family my wife would always watch. They put on a show of being the happy, perfect family. The dad even made a deal with Disney, made some good money off it. Turns out he was also an alcoholic and sexting other women on the side. YouTube is more of a lie and fabrication than TV ever was.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[GameboyRMH]

Pewdiepie really is a centipede working carefully and methodically year after year to introduce his audience to alt-right ideology without getting banned from YouTube. Or at least he's indistinguishable from one to an outside observer:

https://www.vox.com/2018/12/13...

Logan Paul on the other hand just does stupid trashy shit like showcasing people's corpses in his videos so I don't know why you're defending him.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[Luthair]

Murder is PG-13 too. There is a big difference between a depiction in fiction and doing something yourself.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[penandpaper]

Youtube wasn't interested in showcasing them.

I don't think the downvotes came because they excluded Logal Paul or PewDiePie or because those two have been controversial in the recent past. They haven't been in previous Rewinds and the trend of disliking the Rewinds have been growing but never to this extent. Hell, the rewind video even referenced the Suicide Forest and the PewDiePie chair.

Youtube is turning into TV 2.0 everything that is featured has to be polished with corporate fanfare and values. If it isn't corporate it isn't welcome. Soon (if not already) the top youtuber will be a corporation, TSeries. When that happens it will mean the end of an era for youtube. It's no longer about a single individual doing their own thing. It's about the corporate control that silences, kicks off, and campaigns corporate values.

This "civil war", as named by TFS, has been going on for a while in the form of the "Subscript to PewDiePie" campaign. Even slashdot covered it.

People have been hating youtube ever since it was apparent that google wanted a "certain" type of content and user. Subscriptions that don't work. The bell icon that is now the new subscribe button but no one knows how it works. Views and dislikes that disappear. Likes that appear and disappear. Comments that disappear. Disabling money transactions on live chats after the "adpocolypse". An algorithm that promotes creepy Spiderman videos to kids.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[penandpaper]

Do you really believe Vox opinion pieces? Good gravy man have some dignity and self respect.

"working methodically year after year to introduce his audience to alt-right ideology"... Everyone who doesn't think exactly like me is promoting alt-right ideology. The left is blind to their own bigotry and hatred and project that bigotry and hatred onto others that point it out. Hello Women's March.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[GameboyRMH]

Did the events described in the opinion piece not happen?

But calling the Women's March bigoted and hateful suggests that you're some kind of Social Injustice Enthusiast who isn't exactly making a factual judgement.

Judging by his actions, PewDiePie really is one of the alt-right's most valuable assets - even if, for the sake of argument, he doesn't realize it himself.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[penandpaper]

But calling the Women's March bigoted and hateful

From the beginning it was bigoted and hateful but it was accepted, kept secret, and lied about because the left is generally blind to leftist bigotry and hatred. See reporting of antifa as another example.

https://www.nationalreview.com...
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewi...

Did the events described in the opinion piece not happen?

Sure. Smear campaigns and lies are best told with truth.

It makes leaps, implies intention, and conflates various internet cultures and people with "alt-right". Things are presented in isolation (How was the video recommended to him, does he normally watch anime review, was that video recommended by YT algorithm? How many other videos did he watch of the channel in question?). A few racial slurs does not a racist make. Racism requires intent. Are they said in jest or endearment (rap) or are they said with malice (actual racism). Calling Jordan Peterson a "right-wing personality and alt-right hero" is very disingenuous. "Dropping redpills" as in, "the wage gap is a myth". Yea, shame on him for attacking our ideological litmus test that is a complete lie based in faulty statistics and ideological propaganda.

Making nazi jokes does not make you racist or alt right ( I can't believe I have to even say this). Following people who have ideas that contradict left ideology does not make you "alt right".

Re:Mired in Controversy

[GameboyRMH]

A few individuals don't and can't define a movement's goals, is a pair of anti-semites meeting with Women's March organizers all you've got? And you think this defines the movement while Pewdiepie's long-running history of maybe-I'm-kidding racism shouldn't?

You're giving Pewdiepie a lot of benefit of the doubt, exactly as he wants, even though he's done the same thing many times despite being asked to stop by Youtube and most everyone else. At some point repeated behavior following warnings and arguments to stop has to be seen as intentional. At some point you have to consider that the blonde-haired blue-eyed guy who keeps using the N-word, making extremely racist jokes, and "accidentally" sending Youtube's largest audience (largely of children) to channels full of nazi propaganda may actually be a nazi. How many unfortunate accidents and off-color jokes should we assume were not intentional from this millionaire professional media personality after he makes the occasional half-assed not-apology about it?

And if Jordan Peterson isn't a right-wing personality and alt-right hero (who associates with the right wing and is heavily promoted by the alt-right) then what is he? Recently I've come up with the job description of "professional intolerant jackass" for people in his line of work, is that a suitable substitute?

Re:Mired in Controversy

[penandpaper]

The people that organized and planned the Women's March that started the whole "movement" (if you can call it that) accepted and lied about bigotry and hatred. The entire movement was complicit with that bigotry since the beginning and anyone that called it out was called a racist. Even Vox didn't care. This is not the only example of "the left is blind to leftist bigotry" the reporting on antifa is another example. I am not saying everyone on the left is a bigot but that the left is blind to leftist bigotry.

You're giving Pewdiepie a lot of benefit of the doubt, exactly as he wants,

I have no idea what he wants because I am not a mind reader. Are you? Is Vox? I have seen enough lies about him to make me doubt it. Including, a video where he mocks media lies that take him out of context only to be used by media to take him out of context to say "he is nazi". Being edgy does not make you a nazi.

arguments to stop has to be seen as intentional.

You are assuming intent. What if he makes a lot of money because of the media hype? I don't know but from what I have seen of him he isn't a racist/nazi/alt-right w/e. He is an edgy youtuber comedian that memes.

off-color jokes should

Jokes are not secret nazi recruitment methods... Good gravy.

Jordan Peterson isn't a right-wing personality and alt-right hero (who associates with the right wing and is heavily promoted by the alt-right) then what is he

I said that calling him those things was very disingenuous. You have demonstrated why. It goes from " a personality watched by alt right or hero of alt right" to being alt right. In one instance you have control over your intent, belief and ideas. The other is guilt by 2nd hand association or being watched by people we don't like. I don't know what he is but he isn't alt-right. He doesn't have control over who watches him. What ideas does he have that is alt-right?

Re:Mired in Controversy

[GameboyRMH]

What a hilarious double-standard you display. You think the Women's March was hateful because there were a tiny handful of racists almost-involved at some point who weren't publicly outed, even though there was no hateful messaging or action associated with the march itself, and you would do the same for Antifa, but when Pewdiepie gleefully dances with racism for years, literally spewing racial slurs and linking to sources of racist propaganda against repeated requests to stop, you cut him every break and mulligan in the book. When Jordan Peterson basically restates every alt-right position sugar-coated with a dash of pseudo-intellectualism and euphemism, again you don't see a problem. You are the embodiment of disingenuity.

Racist jokes actually ARE a secret nazi recruitment method, accept it, it's a tried and tested method they've used successfully. This can be mistaken as "being edgy" if you ignore the pattern to the "edginess."

And again, if a person is completely indistinguishable from a subtle and clever alt-right propagandist to an outside observer, we can treat them as one, no need to read minds for confirmation.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[penandpaper]

I said the left is blind to leftist bigotry. It took two years to out the racism and anti-semitism in the Women's March even when a known anti-semite was given center stage in DC. Meanwhile, invisible dog whistles and invisible innuendo from anything not left is called out as racism. Is my point.

Racist jokes actually ARE a secret nazi recruitment method, accept it, it's a tried and tested method they've used successfully.

Monty python promoted racism. Got it. Anyone that has ever made a nazi joke is promoting racism. Thanks for clarifying.

The article you linked says:

“Cultural Marxism” is a conspiracy theory holding that an international cabal of Marxist academics, realizing that traditional Marxism is unlikely to triumph any time soon, is out to destroy
Western civilization by undermining its cultural values.

Is that a fair and accurate description of the below quote? Is the below wrong? What is wrong about it. Why is it wrong. What is the conspiracy? It looks like there could be truth but good propaganda and good lies have truth. Who is telling the "truth" and who should I believe?

The most insidious part of the "conspiracy" being "out to destroy Western Civilization by undermining cultural values" seems best represented by "Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci wrote that the problem was the Christian bedrock of Western European cultures. He encouraged Marxists to develop a fifth column inside these countries to destroy the foundations of Western cultures. Only then would international socialism be achieveable."

Looking at his wikipedia: "To counter the notion that bourgeois values represented "natural" or "normal" values for society, the working class needed to develop a culture of its own. ... it must exert intellectual and moral leadership, and make alliances and compromises with a variety of forces. ... This bloc forms the basis of consent to a certain social order, which produces and re-produces the hegemony of the dominant class through a nexus of institutions, social relations, and ideas."

Honestly, it looks like the DailyCaller got it right (about that specific piece). What is the lie? What is the conspiracy? Peterson is in academia and maybe he found some truth to it. Is the mere linking of that article demonstration of being 'alt right'? Why? What is promoting white ethno-nationalism?

'Cultural Marxism" is the Marxist dialectic fused with Freudian theory and applied to identity and culture. Like all forms of Marxism, it is based upon categorizing people into abstract groups and then creating a narrative of historical oppression between them. The strategy of Marxists is always to cultivate a victimized group and then convince its members that solidarity is required against the oppressors. This creates resentment and hatred and is how Marxist ideologies fulfill their revolutionary objectives.

The cultural Marxism that our societies are infected with is a particularly Western phenomenon. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Marxists in Europe believed that the dictatorship of the proletariat was at hand. They were wrong. The revolution failed to spread. In despair, and in one of Mussolini’s prisons, a young Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci wrote that the problem was the Christian bedrock of Western European cultures. He encouraged Marxists to develop a fifth column inside these countries to destroy the foundations of Western cultures. Only then would international socialism be achievable.

This call to subversion was picked up by Marxist scholars based around the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany. In the tumultuous milieu of Weimar Germany, theorists such as Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno and Georg Lukacs integrated the theories of Sigmund Freud with classical Marxism to develop the foundations

Re:Mired in Controversy

[GameboyRMH]

Wow, you're actually quite fargone to take that howling nonsense from Jordan Peterson seriously. "Cultural Marxism" is just a meaningless angry right-wing barking noise directed somewhat at the left and descended directly from Nazi propaganda, and Peterson's attempts to explain it as anything more than that are an insane mashup of angry right-wing concepts that's just as nonsensical. Explains why you think the mere touch of an antisemite can taint an entire leftist movement on contact, while you see nothing racist about defending the "Christian bedrock of Western European cultures" - based on ahistorical nonsense and a ridiculously warped view of Gramsci's ideas, amounting to more of a bullhorn than a dogwhistle, which you'll no doubt claim not to hear.

I also think you know the difference between jokes about nazis and joking endorsements or support of nazi ideology, but choose not to. I think you have good personal reasons to dislike Antifa. Have fun.

Re:Mired in Controversy

[penandpaper]

By reading your article and asking a few questions based on it and the article it references means I fargone. Bygolly, piety on the left is a thing. Even if it is all true I still don't see the calls for a white ethno-state. Culture != race. It's not alt right and being against a form of Marxism is hardly "right wing". If it's not true then it's against some historical Marxist figures and their ideas. So what? You haven't addressed anything about the claims that Peterson is alt right, how the left is blind to their own bigotry, and how PewDiePie is alt right for linking to people like Peterson that is apparently against Marxism in all its forms.

But I noticed you have changed your tune from "alt right" to "right wing". It's a start.

I think you have good personal reasons to dislike Antifa.

Yes, I don't like people that dress up in black and masks shouting racial slurs and beating up people for no reason.

difference between jokes about nazis and joking endorsement

Sure. Can you give me examples?

Re:Mired in Controversy

[penandpaper]

I also forgot to ask about " Christian bedrock of Western European cultures."

Was that the words of the Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci or the words of the DailyCaller and Jordan Peterson? The DailyCaller article says: "Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci wrote that the problem was the Christian bedrock of Western European cultures."

If I am to understand this correctly, you're calling Peterson and the DailyCaller article alt-right for being against what an Italian socialist said.

Gee Sus.

[furiousgeorge]

A bunch of kids downvoting a video to be trolls is not a 'civil war'. This is firmly "things that don't matter to anybody".

A dose of perspective would be healthy.

Re:Gee Sus.

[Anonymous Coward]

10 million Russian bots pretending to be kids pretending to be alt-right nazi trolls is as impressive as it is dangerous. How long will this country allow Drumpf let his butt buddy Putin get away with it? Impeach NOW!

Re:Gee Sus.

[c]

This. "Pissing match" is the same number of words as "civil war" and is ten times more accurate.

Re:Gee Sus.

[William Baric]

Calling this "civil war" is indeed ridiculous, but don't think that those who downvoted this video are "kids". It may surprise you, but a lot of adults do care about politics. Google, like all companies, must begin to realize that pandering to a minority of people and their extreme ideology does have bad consequences.

Re:Gee Sus.

[thegarbz]

A bunch of kids

the most-disliked video in the history of the website

Dismissing a movement that made a professionally prepared video the most disliked video in the history of the second most popular service on the internet as "a bunch of kids" is precisely the brain-dead response that causes this mismatch between creators and consumers in the first place. You realise that this represents a fundamental disconnect between a platform and their viewers right?

A dose of perspective would be healthy.

That's my line.

Do you by any chance work in marketing? I mean we've had a killer year for marketing.
Blizz.con's Diablo Immortal Announcement.
The NVIDIA RTX release debacle.
and now a celebration of Youtube being the most disliked video in history.

Great stuff produced by people who desperately lack perspective, specifically that of their user base.

Re:Gee Sus.

[phantomfive]

that causes this mismatch between creators and consumers in the first place.

Oh, what a shame.

Re:Gee Sus.

[Opportunist]

I wouldn't call consumerism an extreme ideology...

Re:Gee Sus.

[Opportunist]

"Movement"?

Oh, sorry, I didn't know that you need a movement now to dislike something that's garbage.

Re:Gee Sus.

[penandpaper]

If it is a "movement" (honestly not sure what to call it), then it has been going on for a while and this spike in downvoates for a youtube video is the most recent incarnation. The trend of disliking youtube videos have been going back for a few years now.

Re:Gee Sus.

[thegarbz]

Oh, sorry, I didn't know that you need a movement now to dislike something that's garbage.

Oh sorry. I didn't know saying something is a movements implies that you need a movement. You must be speaking a different kind of English than I am.

How can it be about creativity...

[SuperKendall]

It was meant to be a feel-good celebration of a year's worth of YouTube creativity

How can that be true when it doesn't feature most of the CREATORS that make YouTube so popular?

A parade of B-List celebs doing Fortnite dances is not a "celebration of creativity".

I don't really follow YouTube much at all, but this seemed like a big tone-deaf misstep on the part of YouTube that is trying to pretend like some people do not exist. Absurd. Celebrate what you are, all of it, or say nothing at all.

Re:How can it be about creativity...

[Kohath]

...this seemed like a big tone-deaf misstep on the part of YouTube that is trying to pretend like some people do not exist.

Google doesn't respect users or content creators.

Re:How can it be about creativity...

[quantaman]

It was meant to be a feel-good celebration of a year's worth of YouTube creativity

How can that be true when it doesn't feature most of the CREATORS that make YouTube so popular?

A parade of B-List celebs doing Fortnite dances is not a "celebration of creativity".

I don't really follow YouTube much at all, but this seemed like a big tone-deaf misstep on the part of YouTube that is trying to pretend like some people do not exist. Absurd. Celebrate what you are, all of it, or say nothing at all.

How is it supposed to be feel-good if the big creators you're referring to are extremely controversial due to repeated racist statements and making fun of dead bodies?

There's always been two ways to approach fame, you can be mainstream, and your audience will probably be very small, but if you do make it big then virtually everybody will be happy to associate with you.

Or you can be controversial, and you'll get a big audience just from the notoriety, but you'll piss off a bunch of people who aren't your audience and make yourself toxic to mainstream venues. Like the videos that YouTube chooses to showcase itself.

Logan Paul and PewDiePie made their choice, they went for controversy and got a boatload of cash and fame at the cost of mainstream acceptance. Everyone needs to deal with the consequences of their choices, I don't see why YouTube stars should be immune.

Re:How can it be about creativity...

[thegarbz]

like a big tone-deaf misstep on the part of YouTube

Youtube saw the Diablo Immortal announcement and wanted to get in on that "being booed by their users" action.

YouTube Stars

[PopeRatzo]

Nobody cares. Not even their immediate family cares. The most-viewed videos of 2018 were all music videos of bad records. You could literally show videos of goats being hypnotized instead of every single "YouTube Star" and YouTube would make just as much money. If you can name five of these YouTube Stars you should be ashamed of being such a giant loser.

Get over yourselves. Pewdiepie spouting racist shit isn't that interesting and the people that watch him don't buy shit anyway. Advertisers are starting to realize they're better off targeting their parents. The only good YouTube videos are the ones that show you how to de-bone a chicken or unclog a toilet.

Re:YouTube Stars

[DNS-and-BIND]

Hey grandpa, YouTube stars have bigger audiences than prime time TV or the network news.

Re: YouTube Stars

[Cmdln Daco]

Po'Ratso stars in one on how to bone a chicken.

Re:YouTube Stars

[apoc.famine]

There are plenty of them. Here's the first one that google showed me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This is the internet, after all. And if you had ever lived in the country, you'd know that this is a thing.

Re: YouTube Stars

[locketine]

There's a YouTube star who consistently gets over 30 million views?

Re:YouTube Stars

[PopeRatzo]

Hey grandpa, YouTube stars have bigger audiences than prime time TV or the network news.

YouTube stars don't even have the biggest audiences on YouTube. Check for yourself. Go see the list of the most-watched videos on YT for any year, including 2018. Not a single YouTube "star" on the list.

Re:YouTube Stars

[raftpeople]

You've set the bar pretty low. Nobody watches prime time TV anymore other than grandma and grandpa.

Re:YouTube Stars

[Anonymous Coward]

That's cute. You were shown to be wrong so invented an irrelevant point that doesn't refute anything.

Typical Trump supporter.

Re:YouTube Stars

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Hey grandpa, YouTube stars have bigger audiences than prime time TV or the network news.

Except, they don't. Top 50 channels average 4 million views. Broadcast TV networks average 27 million. I mean, sure it beats out Fox News (barely), but cable is always lower in viewership.

Oh, and YouTube's numbers are worldwide, the TV numbers are in the US. So, you know, any given person is far more likely to have seen broadcast TV than a Youtube star recently

Re:YouTube Stars

[Anonymous Coward]

You are comparing 50 distinct shows to entire networks. A fairer comparison would be to divide 27 million by the number of shows or multiply 4 million by the number of channels. Either way youtube has more views.

TV has gone the way of the buggy whip, anyone that disagrees is a luddite living in the past.

Re:YouTube Stars

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Fair enough. By that methodology the top 50 YouTube channels* is about equal to the viewership of broadcast TV.

* Two caveats. First, that assumes that people watch at most one of the top 50 channels, as the TV numbers have duplicates who channel surf between them removed. That seems unlikely as a lot of channels crosspromote. Second, that's, again, global viewing for YouTube and US for broadcast. So, if we assume US TV is as popular as other countries that have internet access, it would add another 1.9 billion to TV viewers.

Re:YouTube Stars

[Opportunist]

Umm... so TV is for old people, YT-stars are watched by kids without any income, what the fuck do people in their 20s to 50s do?

Wait, right, we're working...

Re:YouTube Stars

[Opportunist]

Now do one where you de-bone the toilet.

Re:YouTube Stars

[argStyopa]

You realize of course that your point and PopeRatzo's point aren't mutually exclusive, right?

Re:YouTube Stars

[PopeRatzo]

they aren't the real audience

That's utter nonsense.

Re:Advertiser Friendly

[Trimaz]

I'm going to guess that you happen to think that the orange man is bad, too?

It's the SJWs stupid

[DNS-and-BIND]

All these words and all The Times can come up with is people are downvoting because they fear YouTube for the same reason The Times does, because YouTubers get more views than them and present alternative viewpoints? That's it? That's the best their intellects could come up with? How parochial, narrow-minded and most of all self-serving. It's because the video was widely perceived as nodding to SJWs, the plague of our age. Weird that never occurred to them as a possibility when it's right in front of your face.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[guruevi]

This is exactly the problem. The media is deep at the whims of the left, as it requires government handouts for its survival. All the classic media outlets from paper to cable are dying and taken over by YouTube-like systems where people can pick and choose what viewpoints they want to hear, even *gasp* multiple opposing ones.

YouTube and Facebook itself however is in an echo chamber amongst its own decision maker community and continues to pander to an evil yet very vocal minority and thinks that this is a popular, majority opinion amongst their consumers. In the meantime, people are flocking away from even these modern media platforms as more and more content gets censored or hidden or subliminally mislabeled as wrongthink.

Bigger "wrongthink" media producers are now setting up their own "YouTube" not through any major platform but simply by replicating YouTube functionality which is not nearly as costly or even going as far as "the dark web" - really, a place with protocols where the consumers own the content. The pendulum will once again swing from centralization on YouTube to decentralization into Napster-style content networks such as IPFS so people can have civil discourse without interference.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[Fly Swatter]

I disagree, at least the summary here makes it sound more like downvotes from people because their 'superstar' wasn't mentioned, and this is how they throw a tantrum. (yep I'm going to make a political reference so stop reading if this might offend you) This is sort of like how the democrats started acting when their presidential candidate lost.

Re: It's the SJWs stupid

[phantomfive]

I don't really want to hear viewpoints, they're all garbage. As much as possible, I'd like to hear the facts, please

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[apoc.famine]

...because the video was widely perceived as nodding to SJWs, the plague of our age.

Are you a conservative 12 year old? Why not get out of your parents' basement once in awhile and check out the real world? Every time I see some asshat like yourself moaning about SJWs and self-flagellating themselves I have to laugh. What happened to you that your precious snowflake of a self needs a boogie man to fear at all times? Could you please grow some balls and stop pissing and moaning about "SJWs"?

I live in a very liberal college town, and I never run into "SJWs". Maybe they exist on the college campus? I walk through pretty often, and I never see any signs of them.

I spend a lot of time on the internet. And the only time I hear a peep about the scary "SJWs" is from asshats like yourself, here. What shitty parts of the internet do you go to to get all riled up, so you can piss and moan in other places? Here's a pro-tip: Don't go there, if it pisses you off.

Seriously. Do you not have anything better to do with your time than being a victim of your imaginary "SJWs"?

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[DNS-and-BIND]

The story here is how The Times, wise beyond all, completely whiffed on the story and could not see past its own nose. It came up with the idea the downvoting was caused by people dissatisfied that YouTube isn't doing more to suppress speech that The Times itself fears. W-T-F. Maybe they're not as smart and insightful as they tell us they are.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[AmiMoJo]

Here's what TFA actually says, since apparently you can't be bothered to click on the link:

The issue that upset so many YouTube fans, it turns out, was what the Rewind video did not show. Many of the most notable YouTube moments of the year â" such as the August boxing match between KSI and Logan Paul, two YouTube stars who fought in a highly publicized spectacle watched by millions â" went unmentioned. And some prominent YouTubers were absent, including Felix Kjellberg, a.k.a. âoePewDiePie,â one of the most popular creators in YouTubeâ(TM)s history, who had appeared in the Rewind videos as recently as 2016.

Some YouTubers enjoyed the video. But to many, it felt like evidence that YouTube the company was snubbing YouTube the community by featuring mainstream celebrities in addition to the platformâ(TM)s homegrown creators, and by glossing over major moments in favor of advertiser-friendly scenes.

What part of that counts as "people dissatisfied that YouTube isn't doing more to suppress speech that The Times itself fears"?

Re: It's the SJWs stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Which facts you hear, which are left out, and how it is presented is affected by the creator's viewpoint. It is very rare to find someone who is thorough and will present things in an unbiased way. If you think you have found such a person it is possible you are just blind to their bias. Your best bet is to listen to both sides and get good at detecting bias and dishonesty.

Re: It's the SJWs stupid

[grep -v '.*' *]

I'd like to hear the facts, please

One man's garbage is another man's ... fact? Is THAT how it goes?

Then again (and where DID this come from?) you "have to" be considerate and look at ALL ideas EVERWHERE.

Fine, but we're all not 4yos arguing 1+1=11. Having a discussion on Calculus or Interplanetary Orbits does NOT need to include that.

You can argue limits are stupid (beginning Calculus) or the Earth is Flat (beginning Geology -- then again, if it's not Australians who live at the "bottom of the world" then who is it? (Oh, sorry, I got underneath and bottom confused. Can we also have a discussion on how some words don't mean what I want them to mean and we should all change to suit me?)

Just like old school Primary and Secondary Schools, and College, some concepts and approximation details are better kept for later until people can understand them. But that doesn't mean the advanced classes are still stuck in the gross approximations the noobs and neophytes are.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[DNS-and-BIND]

If your town is liberal, it's no wonder you're unfamiliar with SJWs. Liberals believe in free speech. They might disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. SJWs are leftists, not liberals. They agree with Google that being able to speak your mind is a great blight and must be done away with.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's right next to that. Much like The Times, you totally missed it.

The Times says the Rewind controversy "is indicative of a larger issue at YouTube, which is trying to promote itself as a bastion of cool, inclusive creativity while being accused of radicalizing a generation of young people by pushing them toward increasingly extreme content, and allowing reactionary cranks and conspiracy theorists to dominate its platform."

Thats why they think the downvoting is occurring. There's not enough censorship.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

"You're so stupid and not an independent thinker like me!" /proceeds to use literally every NPC insult in the official Soros N' Pals Handbook To Internet Commies Handbook

Re: It's the SJWs stupid

[phantomfive]

Getting exact perfect facts may be hard, but someone who is attempting to present the facts will do better than someone who is trying to convince or entertain.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[Rockoon]

Do you even have the capacity to step back and look at yourself?

I've stepped back and looked at both of you.

To be very clear. You are on the ugly side of this, supporting, defending, and propagating malevolence.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[AmiMoJo]

Sigh. Relevant part from your own quote:

pushing them toward

What about that says censorship? No, they are talking about the crappy YouTube recommendation system that gives you flat earth bullshit and conspiracy theories when you are looking for NASA videos.

Is not recommending something censorship? Does free speech depend on your ability to game the ranking algorithm now? Are people who block spam fascists?

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[drinkypoo]

"The media is deep at the whims of the left, as it requires government handouts for its survival."

Well, that was a typically stupid thing to say. The conservatives are the ones who wield government against media. Therefore big media is always trying to placate them. Sadly you never actually can, if you give in and feed them you just get bushes and trumps.

Re:It's the SJWs stupid

[squiggleslash]

Odd how these people who are unrepresentative of anyone and appear to not exist (the definition anti-SJW people use is almost always contradictory and whenever someone says "Aha! Person X is an SJW" it usually contradicts 99% of the definitions in use, including the one that person came up) are somehow managing to flood videos with downvotes.

I don't buy it. I think there's a lot of garbage on YouTube. I think even the stuff that's "famous" is often utter crap. The simplest explanation is normally right.

If you saw CBS's schedule and people were able to downvote programs on it, I'd expect you to see a huge number there too. Not just during the day, but during prime time. 90% of everything is crap. We only remember the good stuff when we're not actually being subjected to the crap.

Re: It's the SJWs stupid

[guruevi]

How those facts get represented to us though is the media. If you just wanted facts, you can get an unlimited stream of data on all sorts of events, however if you want to do anything else besides analyze data for the rest of your life, you get a journalist to condense and reference the material for you.

Condensing statistics (which is what journalists basically do) is a tricky field however, you can make all sorts of conclusions simply based on your world view. If you FEEL that a certain population should be allowed to enter your country, how you represent or highlight an underlying statistic such as a child trekking through a desert without food and water by its parents for 5 days, becomes an issue of framing.

Re: It's the SJWs stupid

[phantomfive]

Condensing statistics (which is what journalists basically do) is a tricky field however, you can make all sorts of conclusions simply based on your world view. If you FEEL that a certain population should be allowed to enter your country, how you represent or highlight an underlying statistic such as a child trekking through a desert without food and water by its parents for 5 days, becomes an issue of framing.

Indeed, but journalists get better results by trying to be objective than by not trying to be objective.

Re: It's the SJWs stupid

[guruevi]

CNN/Fox/NBC would beg to differ.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Anonymous Coward]

Every alternative eventually gets destroyed by having their payment-processor/hoster/registrar/etc pulled.

Build your own my ass!

Re:Advertiser Friendly

[Red_Forman]

The orange man is bad. I've never seen a more annoying dumbass in my whole life.

Re:Advertiser Friendly

[Trimaz]

That is true, the orange man does annoy.

Whitewashing

[argStyopa]

There's no other word for it, and it's why people found this so repellent.

Let's not forget that it took bieber what, 9 years to get to that many dislikes, this virtue-signaling shitshow got there in a week?

Re:Whitewashing

[Opportunist]

I am pretty sure you can't say that, "whitewashing" is certainly racist or something these days.

May I suggest the term "cleaning with a biodegradable, fairly-traded detergent"?

Get a fucking life

[DogDude]

If you're upset about what Youtube said were the most popular videos of the year, then you really need to get a fucking life. It's just stupid fucking entertainment.

Re:Get a fucking life

[apoc.famine]

Yeah, but that doesn't drive clicks. Outrage does. Do you think they yelled about this shit from their front porch? No, they made videos about it. With advertisements in them.

Re:Get a fucking life

[thegarbz]

If you're upset about what Youtube said were the most popular videos of the year, then you really need to get a fucking life. It's just stupid fucking entertainment.

Indeed that is the perspective of the users, but that is not why this is "news". This is news because it shows that a platform fundamentally has no idea what makes its community tick. Remember this is "we know everything about everyone" Google showing that they don't have the slightest clue about people.

The kids complaining need to get a life, but Google, ... oh there is some real meat in the fact that this is the news today.

Re:Get a fucking life

[Opportunist]

The outrage is not that this is supposed to be popular. What gets people pissed is that not only this video was in the "suggested" video pile of EVERY user while at the same time not fitting into the viewing habits of what seems to be the majority of users.

If you are using a social media platform or product, you'd expect this platform or product to somehow match your expectations. What people learned in this Review video is that YT doesn't match their expectations AT ALL.

People are resisting political correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Inclusion has become code for exclusion. It’s a bit like saying direct action when what someone really means is violence. Inclusion is simply another way of saying progressive or politically correct. As has been shown time and again these values are very exclusionary.

It also means that the winners will be determined based on their politics, gender and skin tone. No consideration will be given to merit. Why bother watching when you can predict the results based on whether or not they support progressive values?

Conservative, anti-abortion, white, male, Christian, straight? All of these things are grounds to exclude you. Especially if you belong to a group that is supposed to be progressive. Black and conservative? Progressive but anti-abortion? Your life will be ruined and you will be treated as a traitor.

People are seeing through the charade that is political correctness. Political correctness is nothing more than fascism with good manners. The intolerance of the politically correct is becoming known by the masses.

for context...

[dbreeze]

https://qmap.pub/players/read/...
https://qmap.pub/players/read/...

DGAF

[sound vision]

Fortnite, PewDiePie, Hollywood celebs... I don't give a shit about any of it to tell you the truth. I don't even care enough to open up and down vote it... That'll put bullshit in my recommendations.

The real travesty here is not what they left out of the video... It's that the alt-celeb internet culture is as useless as the traditional one. It's that there is a market, and marketers, for this video to even be conceived.

Re: DGAF

[sound vision]

In my day we gathered round the N64, put in Mario Kart and yelled at each other in person... And you could even yell back and actually communicate... It built what we call a personal relationship. Why do we have this teen suicide epidemic, Why do I feel so old when I haven't even hit 30...

Re:DGAF

[HornWumpus]

People are wired to 'follow' about a thousand others. The size of a primitive community. It was important to know who you could trust. (There is a name for this 'constant' it just escapes me at the moment.)

'Celebrity' is just an evolution of that wiring against modern urban life, you interact with much more than 1000 people, but actually 'know' much fewer (how many people do you think you know by name?). So people fill in the empty spaces with 'public' persons, 99% of which will be categorized as 'untrustworthy', DC and Hollywood both being gold plated trailer parks (so to speak).

Celebrities are just overpaid versions of 'Jerry Springer' sideshow, 'I fucked my sister' type geeks. The smart ones know it.

Re:YouTube what?

[shoor]

No Mr or Ms A. Coward, you are not the only one not understanding anything at all.

(Actually, if I want to be really precise, I think you and I both understand something, just not that much.)

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Luckyo]

Yes thank you, I mean people like this one.

Different worlds

[ruddk]

I watch YouTube all the time and have no interest in the people in this rewind thing because I am an old fart. :D
My favorite channel at the moment are a about a guy sailing up and down the canals in England in his narrowboat. Very relaxing. :D https://www.youtube.com/channe...

"I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me, and it'll happen to you, too"

But my point is that there's plenty of stuff on YouTube that seems to (thankfully?) be off the hype radar and lives it own quiet happy life. A lot of people my age don't seem to know that, maybe because they are not logged in to google/YouTube when they get the front page. I tried that once, it's awful.
Cheers.

Re:Different worlds

[coastwalker]

I Agree that the most interesting entertainment youtube channels are often about quite everyday things but it often helps if their presenters are a little eccentric or unusual. I follow a few on wild camping, one on nail polish (seriously, they just gave $10k to a cat cafe from sales of teeshirts so they must have something about them), some insane Ukranians playing about with very high voltages from microwave oven transformers, a housewife teaching how to cook chinese food, a senior Ham in Florida testing cheap radios and another explaining how mains or battery six tube radios work and how to restore them. Most of them are not making big bucks from their channels but they all have a passion for their subject. Maybe it is just me but most of the people who realy get my respect in this world are enthusiasts of some kind or another, not "Celebrity" entrepreneurs manufacturing random entertainment or doing bollocks like giveaways at subscriber number increments in order to increase "engagement" - a real turn off in fact.

On the other hand all this stuff is the entertainment side of things and my real interest in YouTube are the university talks, lectures and colloquia on various science subjects. You would be suprised just how interesting Dengue fever actually is. I have learned a lot about microbiology for example even though my background is in engineering. The knowledge available on YouTube is absolutely amazing and is actually the strongest reason for hoping the "cat videos" continue to pay for this side of its existence. I have saved playlists of videos I have watched by subject on a dedicated channel - the content out there is just mindblowing. Level ranges from Public to near graduate, (there are some exceptional teachers like Leonard Susskind who can get the guts of the idea over even if you could not repeat the math.)
https://www.youtube.com/channe...

There are also historically important things on there like the first video of an actual rocket taking off and going into orbit to meet up with the ISS - as seen from the ISS. The first time in history that most of the planet can see for themselves what it looks like for an actual real rocket to take off and power up into orbit to join you. Not a "Star Wars" Hollywood movie or a cartoon. The real thing, and I saw it on YouTube. Ace.

Re:Different worlds

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of them are not making big bucks from their channels but they all have a passion for their subject.

20-30 years ago, all of those would have had their own websites rather than being hosted by YouTube. We've lost something important by giving up the web to a few megacorps.

Re:Different worlds

[ruddk]

I used to be sad about the decline of the "science" based channels on cable tv(back had cable TV) and their change into reality TV. But there is just so much on YouTube where I can learn new things that are far better than the shows on TV provided in terms of information.

Do they care?

[Dan East]

Does Youtube even care? Why should they? The video has 138 million views in 10 days. Mission accomplished.

This is the value of growing up

[Millennium]

Paul and PewDiePie earned their ostracism fair and square. Maybe if they started acting like people, they'd gain an audience outside basement-dwellers, sockpuppets, and dead accounts.

Re:This is the value of growing up

[Opportunist]

I agree. Still, at least I know PewDiePie (ok, I know of him, never seen any of his videos), but who the fuck are the people in the Rewind video? I actually had to look them up, and now I sit here and want my time back because they're even MORE uninteresting than PewDiePie could ever be.

I never watch any of the so-called YouTube "stars"

[MpVpRb]

The University of YouTube is a great place to learn things
I watch graduate level physics lectures from top professors
I also watch glassblowing, welding, knifemaking, woodworking, surgery, engineering and business analysis
Even some of the "commercials" are educational. I learned a lit about mining by watching Caterpillar promotional videos
Of course, I sometimes goof off and watch mindless stuff like dead malls

Nothing to do with celebs left out

[esperto]

The number of down votes doesn't have much to do with youtube pseudo-celebreties being left out, but everithing to do with being a HORRIBLE video.

Truly, it is really that bad, they poured huge amounts of money into it and they've got something simply unwatchable, i've seen (or tried to see it) on the first day, before any of those news about it being the must disliked video on the site, or the analysis said that so and so are missing and some other random guy that only stream on twitch is there, and I still could get to half of it.

The video is the most disliked because it was pushed to everybody that visits the site and it was writen by a committee that has no idea of what it is doing.

Re:Nothing to do with celebs left out

[djinn6]

Hit the nail on the head.

For the 2018 rewind:

There's no music for the first 30 seconds, just talking. The music finally starts, people jump out a flying bus. Fast forward to 0:55, music stops, it's more talking time, followed by some obvious CG. At 1:10, cut to more people talking, this time around a campfire. The topic is what should be in the video. At 1:30, there's finally some decent music and dancing.

The good lasts just 20 seconds, and then back to the campfire with someone speaking a foreign language. Now finally we have a funny moment with a woman marrying a cartoon cat. Then they go back to the campfire and now more talking. The train wreck continues from there. And just when I think it's over, they start talking social change and politics. Sigh.

Now compare this to the one from 2012:

We start with a band of 5 people playing Gangnam Style on one guitar. 10 seconds later, just as the they finish the intro, Psy shows up and smashes the guitar. "Rewind YouTube style" he says, and the music continues with full accompaniment. Fake Obama shows up doing the dance in a stable, with a fake horse watching from the side, followed by Kassem dry humping on top of Grace Helbig in an elevator. More people show up dancing, including many I know. Music keeps playing all the while.

Eventually they switch to playing Call me Maybe. A girl washing a car flirts with a guy wearing some ridiculous boots. Some food YouTubers start throwing bacon at the girl, who falls off the car. Now more dancing in a bus. As they finish a stanza, the music seamlessly transitions to a mix of Gangnam Style and Call me Maybe and we see everyone dancing together on a big stage all the way until the end.

Now, I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. But it's got several things going for it.

First, I can listen and enjoy the music. Both tunes are pretty catchy and they're not cut up into so many pieces that it breaks the flow. Second, it's got all of this ridiculous stuff going on that makes it interesting even on a rewatch. Then it's got all of these familiar faces that makes me go, "hey, it's that guy / girl". And finally, it's not long enough for me to get bored.

The 2018 video has none of that. The music is broken and impossible to enjoy. There's some visually interesting stuff happening, but most of it is unfunny. I recognize almost no one besides Will Smith and a few TV personalities. Everyone is terrible during the talking scenes. The only thing it's got going for it is the part where the animated characters forget the lyrics, which is pretty funny. And then there's the politics. Would it kill them to leave that out?

If they want to make it good, they need separate videos for all of the non-English YouTubers, then stitch the music together so it all flows. Now throw in random funny scenes in between the dancing and don't virtue signal. It really isn't that hard.

Who cares?

[AndyKron]

I only recognized one person there, the girl who makes shitty robots and I'm not subscribed to her because her robots aren't just shitty, they're stupid. Here's a partial list of my history today: Scotty Kilmer, TMM, BBC Earth, This Old Tony, PZ Myers, Logos By Nick, StarTalk, MIT OpenCourseWare, TED, GreatScott!, iBiology, Dalibor Farný

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Powercntrl]

Payment processors and other similar organisations simply get massively lobbied by this well connected and loud group of crazies that are very skilled in using platforms like twitter to organise their hate mob.

If fringe group nationalists really gave a shit, they'd drop checks in the mail if they had to. Funny thing about conservatives is they're perfectly happy to expect others to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but when it's their turn, suddenly the whole world is fucking them over. Oh, the irony.

Re:Slashdot's 2018 Year In Review

[Stomper_Stoddard]

This was the year Slashdot ignored Q Anon for the entire year.

wtg

That is because covering a practical joke perpetrated against idiots is not funny, news worthy or interesting, it is just sad.

Re:Who cares?

[belg4mit]

Familiar with some of these, not others. Some other under-appreciated folks:

Art of the Problem - great information theory videos
Captain Disillusion - special effects debunking
Jay Foreman - Wry British humour-laden takes on infrastructure and "mips" (maps)
Pask Makes - Aussie wood worker
Scott Rumschlag - Ben Krasnow mixed with Adam Savage?
The Science Asylum - Accessible and well thought out physics explanations that I've often found to yield new insights even for someone familiar with the subject
Trekspertise - Think-pieces about science fiction
Zogg form Betelgeuse - sadly lost to earlier advertising algorithm changes, but a brilliant animated Alien Hitchhiker's Guide to Earth

I'm not even talking about Pew

[SuperKendall]

Logan Paul and PewDiePie made their choice

I can sort of understand leaving out Pew as punishment for gaffes (he''s not actually racist though, try not to spread lies m'kay?).

But there are a world of other very popular creators on YouTube, as as I said it had none of them. It was not a reflection of YouTube, or what people saw through the years. I don't even have a beef with sugar-coating it and presenting only nice moments... just don't make things up that do not reflect the YouTube people know and use through the year.

They would have been better off just having the crazy Russian dude make stuff that science every day guy could explain as it exploded.

Re:I'm not even talking about Pew

[serviscope_minor]

he''s not actually racist though, try not to spread lies m'kay?

Yes he is, so try not to whitewash, m'kay?

Or is this a whole "oh he uses racial slurs but he's not racist" sort of deal. If you call someone a "fucking black person" except you spell "black person" with two g's, then yeah you're pretty racist.

Paying people to say racist shit? Yeah kinda heading in the racist direction and then on a bit there. It's not exactly controversial or news that you can pay people to do that.

And then there's him promoting the pretty racist channel E;R.

Maybe one or the other could be excused, but there's a pattern of behaviour here.

Oh and it's not satire simply to do racist shit just because you can.

Re: I'm not even talking about Pew

[c6gunner]

Don't forget that he's a heretic and a blasphemer also. YouTube should excommunicate him.

Re:I'm not even talking about Pew

[Anonymous Coward]

The minute I read "m'kay" in your comment, I stopped reading and thought "who is this douche?" Then looked at the user name.

Oh right, your normal MO, maybe have a point somewhere, and undermine your own argument with grade school level snark.

Re: I'm not even talking about Pew

[serviscope_minor]

Well aren't you just the most sensitive little snowflake on the planet.

Yeah I criticised someone you apparently like. You're response is to clutch your pearls and shriek all sorts of extreme things. For someone who love free speech so much you sure seem to hate it when someone deviates from your echo chamber.

Now, I fully expect to be silenced by your fellow free speech warriors for this.

Re:I'm not even talking about Pew

[serviscope_minor]

Wow yeah the right wing "muh freeze speech" crowd censors are out in force. Fir all your complaints about being silenced by JW hoo boy do you leap at the oppotunity when you have the chance!

Claiming pew die pie isn't racist: +4

Pointing out a bunch of racist things he's said: -1

Anyway I've got karma to burn.

Re:I'm not even talking about Pew

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, this is unhinged even for you. Try stepping away from your computer.

Re:I'm not even talking about Pew

[SuperKendall]

Maybe he listens to a lot of rap, where the word is used casually?

I don't use the N word myself, but's that because I have class and some aversion to slang.

At this point though I don't see how anyone can consider the word in casual use racist the way many, many people use it so casually even when referring to friends.

Re:I'm not even talking about Pew

[quantaman]

Logan Paul and PewDiePie made their choice

I can sort of understand leaving out Pew as punishment for gaffes (he''s not actually racist though, try not to spread lies m'kay?).

I was very careful to be accurate. I didn't say he was racist, I said he made "repeated racist statements".

Now is he actually racist? I'm not sure, I don't really follow him well enough to make a judgment.

I do know that "oh I'm not actually being racist, I just said X as a joke" is a deliberate tactic used by racists in order to normalize racist views while keeping some deniability. I'm not claiming that PewDiePie does that, but there are real consequences to jokingly using racist language.

Re: I'm not even talking about Pew

[c6gunner]

You're free to speak whatever nonsense you like. I have no problem with either of your comments; I'm quite happy to let you show people what an idiot you are.

Re:Who cares?

[Leuf]

You should try South Main Auto instead of Kilmer.

Re:Civil war where?

[Fly Swatter]

Nope, you pretty much covered all there is to this 'news story'. Just join the rest of us in rolling our eyes.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Megol]

Because we all know that all non-far left, center, right crazies (we're all crazy in the eyes of someone) thinks intentionally provoking people with something is not only acceptable but something to embrace, right? I don't mention the far right that obviously had their right arm projecting upwards in appreciation.

Given the number of times right wing (US standards) people have protested against something small that provoked them your perception of the world is interesting.

Re:Aren't you the same dumb Luckyo plastic eater?

[Megol]

You should have stopped with the first sentence.

SJW's are right wing. Not left wing. Sorry.

[Uberbah]

All their bullshit is designed to keep people divided by race when they should be uniting by class. From people who would all be neoliberal and/or neoconservative Republicans, in a universe where the Southern Strategy wasn't a thing.

Re: That means Youtube has won

[c6gunner]

She is the last time that a business caved to right wing protesters?

Why the downvotes

[Opportunist]

Take a step back and find out just why people downvoted it. There's got to be a reason. And no, it's not that "all the alt-rights that felt slighted" did it. Sorry, no. I'm far from alt-right. Even though I still don't get what's "alt" about it, unless you're German (where "alt" means "old") this doesn't make sense, it's the same old assholes they always were, there's nothing alt about it. Yes, they downvoted it too, maybe for that reason, but you think that's all? I doubt it. I'm pretty sure with this video, they managed to piss off the left too. Maybe even more than it could piss off the right.

Take a look at what is celebrated in this "rewind": Blatant fucking consumerism. The "celebrities" in this video were (and I know this now that I spent quite a bit of time trying hard to figure out who these bozos actually are) vloggers that basically do nothing but peddle some wares they get paid to endorse, "beauty tip" channels that either promote some goods they get paid to promote, promote their own line of good or both and people who do crazy shit like sitting in a bathtub of sugary breakfast hazelnut cream (sponsored by Nutella) or do otherwise completely useless, random and weird shit that is probably interesting if you're 10-13 years old and not too interested in anything that could potentially actually show or teach you something. Add some random endorsement of a game that apparently EVERYONE but me plays and you're basically done with the whole review video.

In other words: YouTube apparently assumes that its average viewer is some teenager with too much time and not enough brain to identify blatant advertising, mistake it as content and mistake the overpaid "celebs" that peddle that crap as "friends".

And guess what: People who don't fall into this demographic (read: About 11 millions so far) get pissed at this.

Re:YouTube what?

[Opportunist]

No, you basically got the reason of the insane amount of downvotes just fine.

Re:Nobody cares about your manufactured celebrites

[Opportunist]

And this is exactly why the rewind became the most loathed video in YT-history: It's everything YT-viewers do NOT want, why we cut the cord and went from cable TV to the internet.

What this "Rewind" was is an endorsement of home-order-television shows mixed with very bad reality soaps. Actually, not even reality soaps. It's mostly random people doing random weird shit. Even cable didn't sink that low (yet), but here we are.

And if we wanted this kind of lowbrow "entertainment", we'd have stayed with cable.

They can fuck off with their loud commercials too

[drinkypoo]

The loudest thing on YouTube is Google's commercials. And it's not like it's an accident either, because there is no audio distortion characteristic of clipping. They deliberately engineered their commercials to be as loud as possible. It's not a new tactic, but it is a desperate little bitch move.

who cares?

[sad_]

did you, for yourself, enjoy the rewind video or not?
yes, good for you. if not, well, too bad.
who cares about how many downvotes a video gets?

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Pinky's Brain]

They are a big draw, there are just few advertisers who want to target them.

Which is why Youtube's formula works so well, they allow all legal speech ... they just don't monetize all of it. This prevents even a niche competitor from arising.

Outrage culture

[peppepz]

It's just the outrage culture at work. In normal times, it would have been just another a cheesy promotional video to ignore. Nowadays, it has to be OMFG THE WORST VIDEO EVER MADE LOL (SUPREME) (100 POINTS). And about it there have to be newspaper articles, slashdot stories, sociologist analyses, youtuber rants, facebook pages, talk shows on tv, ...

Re:Outrage culture

[peppepz]

In the case of YouTube, I'd draw the line at the moment when monetization was brought in. Remember when one couldn't earn money by YouTube? Ironically, not making enough cash from monetization is everything those content producers are moaning about, all the while professing that the true spirit of the old times has been lost because of the commercialization of the platform.

Who is trolling who?

[Anonymous Coward]

... most the trending stuff is trolling clickbait anyway, it looks like youtube is trolling the video trolls and getting trolled by the click trolls, this whole article is just trollish clickbait in the old school meaning of trolling.

Re:Who cares?

[Whorhay]

I read through the list of you tubers involved and yeah I hardly recognized any of them, let alone had watched any of their stuff. That said Primitive Technology was apparently in there, and he's got a really good channel.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[penandpaper]

Yes, as a new competitor arises the Silicon Valley hive mind unites to stamp it out. Bitchute anyone? But their formula work!

"They allow all legal speech" is a misnomer. Youtube doesn't allow all forms of legal speech. Alex Jones had legal speech yet was kicked off for his speech. China allows all legal speech. The Soviets allowed all legal speech. Just don't upset the politburo and you can say anything you want.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Luckyo]

I've visited enough developing countries to develop a strong immune system. I'll manage.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Luckyo]

They're already doing that in case you missed it. It's simply less economically feasible and reduces efficiency, which leads to economic hardship caused by systemic discrimination.

Which notably is the exact problem that decent people had with treatment of black minority in US after WW2. Glad to see you admit that you're not among the decent people in that particular group as far as mindset goes, fully willing to systemically discriminate against minority you don't like causing them hardship and strife just because of your bigotry.

Click bait

[Your_spleen]

I thought based on the description of the article that an actual civil war had broken out somewhere, but after reading so far you realize the author was just sensationalizing something far more trivial. A far more accurate title would be "Large company manipulates its media to try and conform to some ideological model created by a focus group and revised by stuffy corporate executives out of fear of hurting the company's reputation and profits". Well maybe that's a bit long, and likely not as many people would read it.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Luckyo]

Your projection of your personality on me would be adorable, if it didn't say a lot of negative things about your personality.

Re:Aren't you the same dumb Luckyo plastic eater?

[Luckyo]

He can't stop. He's been stalking me on slashdot for quite a long time now after I exposed his science denialism for everyone including himself in that one thread.

It takes deep emotional pain to drive someone to stalk someone for extended duration. I half want to apologise to him at this point, because it's clear that I caused severe emotional distress where I didn't actually intend to do such a thing.

Then I look at his behaviour while being in distress, and I think that he actually got what he deserves.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[ch0knuti]

0 Troll? Come on mods. Even if you don't agree, his point doesn't seem trollish despite the language used.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Luckyo]

You may not have noticed, but there's a significant amount of attention that is getting paid by PR companies to social media on certain issues nowadays. And they don't really care about details, their job is to get eyeballs away from some points and on others.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[yuriklastalov]

Exactly! Why, all these fringe voices should be doing the following:

"Hi everyone, it's me, Pseudonym, in order to support me, a fringe voice at risk of suppression by the establishment and far left lunatics, please send checks to:

Real Name
1234 My Address
Some town, Cityville 10234

Ps. Please don't use my personal information to send death threats, harassment, or any other not nice things. Pretty please, with a cherry on top!"

I fail to see how this could possibly go wrong! This is a great idea if you think people should be doxing themselves at every opportunity! Definitely the kind of top notch thinking one has come to expect from neoliberal bootlickers and left wing hooligans.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Luckyo]

Post boxes and shell companies exist for just such a thing.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Powercntrl]

It's simply less economically feasible and reduces efficiency, which leads to economic hardship caused by systemic discrimination.

It's the exactly the same argument made by the gays who wanted that wedding cake. Go to another bakery, or start your own.

Re:That means Youtube has won

[Luckyo]

Except that, of course, it was nothing like it. But since you've already shown yourself to be a bigot, it's not like you're going to suddenly stop with justifications for your innate desire to be a bigot and actually try to address it.

Seven dirty words; hoop skirts

[tepples]

Two differences:

1. "Civil war" contains fewer words banned for broadcast by the US Federal Communications Commission than "pissing match".
2. For a proper "civil war", you'll need more hoop skirts. Perhaps a #MeToo-leaning fashion magazine can help bring them back in style by calling them "personal space skirts".