Changes Occurring on the Normie Web

[Orlando Smooth]

Post the Changes You're Noticing on the Normie Web!​

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TikTok

I've never had a tiktok account, but I like this guy's style and the video is what encouraged me to make this post. Originally I was going to make a whole post about tiktok alone, but I realized I was basically just agreeing with the point that short form in general is probably at the peak of its popularity and will decline as people actively seek alternatives and businesses come to terms with the fact that it will never actually be profitable despite its popularity.

The one speculation that I would add on to this is that regardless of the legal fate of the forced sale in the U.S. (it's not a ban, and it's worth being pedantic), people will end up blaming the decline on the legislation even though it's obvious that it's already going down hill. So I'm glad this video was made to document the enshitification of tiktok prior to the forced sale.

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Rëddit

Yes I still visit the dumpster fire a few times a week, sue me. Primary purpose is my hometown has a reasonably good sub that is much better than the "local" newspaper, which is really just part of a conglomerate that publishes national stories. Ever since the IPO it seems like what gets put into your news feed is changing. I see a lot more posts from subs like r/letstalkmusic that have a 0 vote count and 30+ comments. The posts themselves generally have rather innocuous titles at first glance (but are counter narrative to what is typical of the sub), have a couple paragraphs of low to mid-tier writing, top comments are basically "You're wrong, and I won't explain further" and replies to top comments are just "Yeah OP's an idiot and I also won't discuss it further." It's disappointing because that was one of the few subs I felt had retained quality for several years after the site as a whole had gone downhill. My speculation is they tweaked the algorithm to try and maximize engagement, to maximize time on app, to increase ad revenue. Overall the site is as much of an echo chamber as ever, but even still the language of the echos has become so mind-numbingly simplistic that I often find myself wondering if I'm truly looking at a comment section of >85% bots. There really aren't even flame wars anymore, just "You're so dumb" or "Omg yesss!!!" -tier commenting.

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Spotify

This is the one that upsets me the most. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I loved how many new (to me) artists I discovered when I first got a paid Spotify account, seemed like every week I found several new artists that I truly fell in love with. Naturally, the service has been on the decline from the perspective of both artists and listeners for a long time now. Lately though it seems like they're not even trying anymore. My "Rock Mix" (which I listen to pretty frequently) hasn't been updated in over three days. In case you don't know, these sort of mixes are "made for you" and are supposed to change every day, only ever playing music that you like from the given genre, and keeping a constantly fresh rotation. It's not that it hasn't changed as much as I wish it had or contains music that I wish wasn't there, it's no longer changing at all. Similarly, I have one of those "User + User Blend" playlists with my lady. Nominally they're supposed to be there to blend in the songs that you're both listening to lately so that each person can be reasonably happy with the queue. Lately it seems to be selecting songs completely at random, and the number of times that one of us says to the other "Spotify says you've been listening to this?" only for the response to be "I've literally never heard this song before, lets' skip it." has increased dramatically. Oh and they push big artists WAY more than they used to. I have never listened to a single song from that new Beyonce country album on that account (very much on purpose), but it is still being blasted in my face every single time I open the app.

Overall I rate SoulSeek + PlexAmp on a home server a 10/10 and would highly recommend to music lovers. The integration of a GPT model within the past year to analyze your library for you and make personalized playlists and mood radios is just *chef's kiss* perfect. And please, for the love of God, support your preferred independent artists and go to live shows.

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YouTube

I've actually been... pretty happy with YouTube lately? Videos from channels I subscribe to are suggested to me in a timely manner, ad blockers have caught up with the "you have 3 more videos with ad blockers before your account is locked" nonsense, interesting videos from channels I've never heard of get suggested in my homepage and shorts don't anymore. The weirdest thing I have noticed is more in the cultural aspect of the site, that being videos that are obscenely long. I'm talking several hours long or more. I was astonished when I first saw these and had never clicked on one (ain't nobody got time for that) and didn't understand how it could be real until someone told me they're actually super trash-tier content that is churned out basically for no purpose other than to provide background noise to people who can't be alone with their thoughts for more than 7 seconds. There's a very select group of creators who can make something longer than about 15 minutes and still have it be worthwhile, but 5 hours? 12 hours??? Stupid. Thankfully with these videos, and others that I am not interested in, it seems the algorithm learns pretty quickly and stops suggesting them to you. Because oh yeah, I don't get suggested weirdo philosophy videos from terminally online dropouts anymore, either, thank God.

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What changes have you been seeing online outside of Agora?

 

[LiraTirsoCaduceo]

I actually watch a lot, or rather listen to a lot of longer videos, on Youtube. Sometimes I don't even consider clicking on a video if the length is as short as 15 minutes unless the topic is really interesting to me. But I really enjoy listening to what are basically podcasts while I'm commuting or while I am working. I really enjoy it when someone I follow releases a 3 hour video talking about a topic I enjoy, which is often things like philosophy or history so you can't really boil it down to 15 minutes without being overly reductionist.
I guess these could be better clasified as podcasts than videos but that's the primary use I give Youtube other than listening to music.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

I actually watch a lot, or rather listen to a lot of longer videos, on Youtube. Sometimes I don't even consider clicking on a video if the length is as short as 15 minutes unless the topic is really interesting to me. But I really enjoy listening to what are basically podcasts while I'm commuting or while I am working. I really enjoy it when someone I follow releases a 3 hour video talking about a topic I enjoy, which is often things like philosophy or history so you can't really boil it down to 15 minutes without being overly reductionist.
I guess these could be better clasified as podcasts than videos but that's the primary use I give Youtube other than listening to music.

Could you recommend some particularly good examples?

 

[LiraTirsoCaduceo]

Most of what I listen to is in Spanish, I actually enjoy finding some smaller channels with low subscriber counts.
But to give an example of a longer video in English I enjoy the Astrology Podcast, which is like I said a podcast but it includes enough visual content that I would consider it a valid Youtube video. I honestly struggle a lot with short videos because it always feels like when I'm getting into the topic the video ends. This happens a lot to me with shorter conferences of an hour or so. I always end up feeling like the whole hour was just the introduction and you could then actually start talking about the topic in depth.
Anyway here's one episode on astrology in ancient Egypt:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuwb94Hh8xk

 

[Ross_Я]

I only drop onto >reddit very, very ocassionaly to ask a question or two. To this day I'm surprised somebody there recognized a rather obscure piece of late 80's electro from the part of the mix I uploaded there.
Do not use nothing else from the list, apart from YouTube. Can't really say anything about it - as I mentioned it somewhere around here, YouTube is big and often obnoxious, but comfortable enough at the same time and it basically has no alternatives in terms of speed and video quality, especially if you are willing to take some extra time and cheat a bit.

There's a very select group of creators who can make something longer than about 15 minutes and still have it be worthwhile

Now I wonder if I fit into that club.

 

[silktrader]

theres this site i stumbled upon called spacehey, supposed to be a spiritual successor to myspace. went in figuring that itd be filled with millenials and gen x. almost all of them were 14-17 years old. and south american too, dont know why. they had super detailed and customized pages and web sites along as well. i think between this and the "influx of newfags in agora" (as punp puts it), theres a group of zoomies out there who are tired of the modern bread and circus that current social media provides and want something more quiet and personal (i should know, im one of them). as for youtube, downloaded freetube and never looked back. objectively the best way to use that app. 4chan is garbage, in other words the sky is blue.

 

[Ashman]

Why do we even care about this?

 

[eyes]

Maybe it's just me but I feel like youtube's search algorithm has gotten shittier. Aside from the "inserting shit you didn't search for in the middle of your search" thing I feel like I have more trouble finding what I want on youtube.

 

[Vector]

short form in general is probably at the peak of its popularity and will decline as people actively seek alternatives and businesses come to terms with the fact that it will never actually be profitable despite its popularity

I want to talk about the rest of your points later on, but I'm not about it right now lol. I do want to discuss this point, though.

I think that a lot of people are becoming more aware of just how shitty short form content is for you. These are anecdotal, but here's what I've been noticing:

• I'm seeing more and more accounts across a number of apps called something along the lines of "getoff[app]" that posts nothing but videos telling you to get off the app.
• A lot of my friends don't use TikTok or browse other shortform content. Even the ones who did have slowed down with them. The general consensus seems to be that it's just "not hitting" the same. I'm not sure why that is, but maybe it's that nagging feeling that content like that is just meaningless filler 99% of the time.
• More people online in general, from YouTube to here to everywhere, are speaking out against shortform content. The geist appears to be trending not only away from it but also against it as a whole.

My running theory is that it's becoming hipster to eschew shortform content because "it just isn't good for you, man, so just read books!" or something along those lines. Hipster/counterculture always becomes THE culture if you give it enough time. Some of the trends toward a nostalgic longing for pre-Internet days like the 80's/90's (I know, not really "pre-Internet," but y'all know what I mean) seem to have morphed even further back into the 60's or 70's almost. It's hard to explain, but it's like design trends seem to celebrate that kind of 70's hippie vibe with colors, fonts, and rounded, natural themes. Maybe that's just the bulwark of a longing for simpler shit that isn't melting your brain.

That's just my take on it, though. I'm not expert lol

 

[splashy]

Why do we even care about this?

agora road is used quite often for what you could call meta discussion of the internet. social media is so massive at this point that it's really hard to ignore. even i still binge youtube and occasionally have to browse a >reddit thread every so often to see half decent discussion.