Reply To: Positive vibes

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An interesting part of the discussion was about something Guy at Midwinter Minis did on his YouTube channel.  He wanted to test the YT content algorithm and wrote two companion videos intended to be as alike as possible except for their title and focus, one was, “Warhammer is the BEST it’s ever been” and the other, “Warhammer is the WORST it’s ever been”.  The negative one has more than twice as many views and was the most watched video he made last year.  His point is that YouTube is “brainwashing you with negativity”, i.e. that the YT algorithm is pushing negative content at us and perpetuating a negative spiral as creators chase views and put out more negative focused content to match what is most successful/rewarding which the algorithm then adjusts to reflect.  His analysis is here and is well worth a look, and no, it hasn’t changed his intention to make positive content.  It is interesting that even someone like Guy with nearly 500,000 followers on YT can’t actually generate enough payments directly from YT to keep the lights on as a full time content provider, his income is primarily reliant on sponsorship and his Patreons.

I appreciate @sundancer ‘s point about just disconnecting from immediate access to social media.  Personally I have a different way of bypassing the negative waves.  I have set up my accounts to ‘curate’ my experience.  I do this by being very disciplined about what I look at and engage with on social media.  I only look at hobby content, and only engage with positive hobby content.  I also actively discourage content I don’t want to see by using blocking and “Show less of this” options.  This is easier on some platforms than others but even Insta can be made to only show hobby content if you are persistent enough.  This has also worked on Threads and Bluesky and to a lesser extent Facebook.  However, I binned Twitter/X because it was impossible to stop that platform pushing content I didn’t want. YT is also trickier and I’ve taken the suggestion from Gerry to have my Subscriptions page my homepage on YT and turn off Shorts.

We are not powerless.  We can make a difference.  I make my own positive contributions to the communities and platforms I’m on.  I post hobby content in most places I have an account and  make a point of liking as much content that others have posted as possible.  Let’s enjoy hobby together, and enjoy each other’s hobby.