# Damn, how many middle age white guys do "edutainment" videos on YouTube? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 11, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351 "2020-09-11T15:51:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![GMANCANADA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gmancanada/32/2837_2.png) [@GMANCANADA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GMANCANADA)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/62 "2020-10-28T12:26:41Z")
I had the same personal experience that you mention but I didn’t want to go into it because I thought my post was already too long. I was actually getting almost all middle-aged white guy woodworkers, until I began searching for specific projects ideas, for example a new workbench. As the algorithm started feeding me project specific suggestions rather than just generic “woodworking” videos, a lot a female woodworkers popped up because they’d done videos on those specific projects (Tamar Hannah, April Wilkerson etc). After I watched some of those videos I now get a very different feed of recommended woodworking videos. My personal reality has shifted quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/63 "2020-10-28T12:29:54Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > So unless YouTube’s algorithms are sophisticated enough to review the actual video content and identify the presenter as white and middle-aged, I don’t think it’s going to be fine-tuning suggestions down to the level of only those videos being served up by white-middle-aged folks. At least not yet. Google already knows so much about all of us (including the demographics of its subscribers, which would include channel owners), that I would not be surprised if they do do that sort of thing at some level, no tags needed. It may be as simple as a “Until other factors kick in, present User with videos by people demographically like themselves” directive. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/64 "2020-10-28T12:42:14Z")
I know fuck-all about what Google does, but I can confirm that the technology exists for a computer to examine an image or video and identify the features therein. If there is a cat, or a bicycle, or a man, or a woman, or whatever, it can see that. You could try searching for videos in a clean, historyless environment (so without logging in, browser or IP address history, etc.) and see what changes, if anything. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/65 "2020-10-28T21:17:21Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > When channel owners upload videos, they can supply all kinds of useful tags for viewers (and algorithms) to find them. “Woodworking” would be a tag that a channel owner might reasonably be expected to supply along with a video they upload, but it’s doubtful that they would also include tags like “white” and “middle-aged.” So unless YouTube’s algorithms are sophisticated enough to review the actual video content and identify the presenter as white and middle-aged, I don’t think it’s going to be fine-tuning suggestions down to the level of only those videos being served up by white-middle-aged folks. At least not yet. The algorithm doesn’t need to explicitly identify things like that in the video, but groupings could still come about if they are representative of other people’s existing preferences, that is to say: people can exert their preferences upon the algorithm by watching, clicking like/dislike, commenting, subscribing or unsubscribing, and when they do, the algorithm will tend to relay any bias within those preferences to other individuals that it identifies as being within a similar interest group. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/66 "2020-10-28T23:24:43Z")
He sounds like an older Black southern guy or a white guy _trying to sound like_ an older Black southern guy. Either way it sounds very over done and put on. I don’t know what that is supposed to prove. _Of course_ you cannot tell the race of _every single_ American person just by hearing their voice, but for the majority you can tell if they are Black or white. It is funny how the only people who object to this fact in this thread are not Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/67 "2020-10-29T00:34:28Z")
I don’t know what the argument is here. It’s absolutely true that among Americans, it’s usually possible to tell an African-American person by es voice. As someone pointed out above, linguist John McWhorter, himself African-American, has spoken about this. It’s absolutely true. McWhorter also points out how certain features of his own accent sometimes makes it difficult to tell whether he, in particular, is black or white. > **[The Blaccent: What Does It Mean to Sound Black?](https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/05/blaccent-is-there-such-a-thing-as-sounding-black.html)** > > Listen to Lexicon Valley Episode No. 84: > **[‎Slate Debates: The Blaccent: What Does It Mean to Sound Black? on Apple...](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blaccent-what-does-it-mean-to-sound-black/id500673866?i=1000367980414)** > > ‎Show Slate Debates, Ep The Blaccent: What Does It Mean to Sound Black? - May 3, 2016 > **[Thick of Tongue](https://www.guernicamag.com/thick-of-tongue/)** > > Future of Language: So what exactly is this “black sound” I am insisting exists? > Given that I am the kind of black person who is often termed “articulate,” it may seem surprising that I spend much of my life feeling quite thick of tongue. I am one of those unfortunate black people who sound white. It is, of all things, a social handicap. … > **[The Case for Black English](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/the-case-for-black-english)** > > In his latest book, John McWhorter celebrates the dialect that has become an American lingua franca. > This polarity—between a tragic sense of the world and the ability to make of it a kind of punch line—might help to unshroud, if only slightly, an enigma at the heart of McWhorter’s book. In a chapter on what it means to “sound black,” he is able to isolate several aspects of the “blaccent,” as he calls it—a tendency, for example, to clip certain vowel sounds and luxuriate in others. > **[It Wasn't 'Verbal Blackface.' AOC Was Code-Switching.](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-code-switches-black-english/586723/)** > > Her critics are misreading the linguistic reality of America’s big cities. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/68 "2020-10-29T02:16:13Z")
[quote=“MrDibble, post:60, topic:920351, full:true”] > [@jtur88](#): > > You mean, if you hear an American talking, you don’t know if he is black unless you see his face? Just curious - what ethnicity do you suppose this youtube edutainer is? [/quote]Assuming you cherry-picked an outlier to try to fool me, I’m not playing. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/69 "2020-10-29T03:10:57Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Just curious - what ethnicity do you suppose this youtube edutainer is? Man, I don’t know. But I’ve got another Youtube channel to watch. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/70 "2020-10-29T06:32:27Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > He sounds like an older Black southern guy or a white guy _trying to sound like_ an older Black southern guy. Either way it sounds very over done and put on. Not a put-on, it’s a legit Southern _White_ accent. > [@Acsenray](#): > > I don’t know what the argument is here. It’s absolutely true that among Americans, it’s usually possible to tell an African-American person by es voice. All your cites are about accent, not voice. > [@jtur88](#): > > Assuming you cherry-picked an outlier to try to fool me, I’m not playing. It’s an outlier, but not “cherry-picked to fool” you. Just to point out that theire are Southern accents that carry the same markers a lot of people perceive as “Black”, even though primarily used by White people. But refusal to stand by your own statement duly noted. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/71 "2020-10-29T06:33:18Z")
_The Crafsman_ is one of the best. He’s like the Bob Ross of making. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/72 "2020-10-29T07:19:02Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Just to point out that theire are Southern accents that carry the same markers a lot of people perceive as “Black”, even though primarily used by White people. In _Huckleberry Finn_, Mark Twain wrote > [@](#): > > In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. > > I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding. In other words, seven different Southern accents, including at least one Black accent, that outsiders cannot reliably tell apart. And that’s just where the action of the book takes place. ---
**Author:** ![GMANCANADA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gmancanada/32/2837_2.png) [@GMANCANADA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GMANCANADA)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/73 "2020-10-29T11:00:03Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > The algorithm doesn’t need to explicitly identify things like that in the video, but groupings could still come about if they are representative of other people’s existing preferences, that is to say: people can exert their preferences upon the algorithm by watching, clicking like/dislike, commenting, subscribing or unsubscribing, and when they do, the algorithm will tend to relay any bias within those preferences to other individuals that it identifies as being within a similar interest group. I agree 100% & I’d add to this that I think one of the problems we have here is that on a personal individual basis it’s hard to get your head around how their algorithms understand those preferences. However, you have to look at this in aggregate. There are literally billions of videos watched every day and all those video data points are aggregated together and cross-referenced with everything they know about you. And they know pretty much everything about you: who you are, where you live, age, sex, race, gender, marital status, children (& their ages), _lots_ of attitudinal data based on comments & likes, purchases, search history _plus_ also tracking all that for every single one of your contacts, plus plus plus plus. Big Brother is here and has learned how easy it is to manipulate our thoughts and actions. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/74 "2020-10-29T12:22:50Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > > > He sounds like an older Black southern guy or a white guy _trying to sound like_ an older Black southern guy. Either way it sounds very over done and put on. > > Not a put-on, it’s a legit Southern _White_ accent. > > > [@Acsenray](#): > > > > I don’t know what the argument is here. It’s absolutely true that among Americans, it’s usually possible to tell an African-American person by es voice. > > All your cites are about accent, not voice. Yes, we are talking about accent and pronunciation here, right? Or are you just nitpicking my terminology? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/75 "2020-10-29T12:34:40Z")
I’m not nitpicking - if someone says there’s such a thing as a recognizable Black **voice** , I’m assuming they mean they would recognize someone as Black even if they were speaking with a non-stereotypical “Blaccent” accent or dialect, like AAVE or one of the South African Black accents. So, for instance, my near-Estuary accent that in no way marks me as PoC (and make no mistake, I’d be Black in America). If all they’re claiming to do is recognize one of the common Black accents, that’s both believable and trivial (with obvious exceptions that would confound them, like the White Southern accented youtuber I linked to). ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/76 "2020-10-29T13:13:26Z")
I haven’t seen the movie, but in this trailer for [Sorry to Bother You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XthLQZWIshQ) Danny Glover gives a young black telemarketer some advice about using his “white voice” if he wants to be successful. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/77 "2020-10-29T15:25:18Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > I agree 100% & I’d add to this that I think one of the problems we have here is that on a personal individual basis it’s hard to get your head around how their algorithms understand those preferences. However, you have to look at this in aggregate. > > There are literally billions of videos watched every day and all those video data points are aggregated together and cross-referenced with everything they know about you. And they know pretty much everything about you: who you are, where you live, age, sex, race, gender, marital status, children (& their ages), _lots_ of attitudinal data based on comments & likes, purchases, search history _plus_ also tracking all that for every single one of your contacts, plus plus plus plus. > > Big Brother is here and has learned how easy it is to manipulate our thoughts and actions. I think also to some degree, the algorithm has been ‘let loose’ - that is, they’ve implemented machine learning that has the objective of making recommendations that result in views, likes, subs, and probably above all of that, ad clickthrough. It’s entirely possible that parts of the algorithm are doing things autonomously that no human completely has a handle on, or at least are not being explicitly invoked by human direction. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/78 "2020-10-29T16:00:21Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’m not nitpicking - if someone says there’s such a thing as a recognizable Black **voice** , I’m assuming they mean they would recognize someone as Black even if they were speaking with a non-stereotypical “Blaccent” accent or dialect, like AAVE or one of the South African Black accents. So, for instance, my near-Estuary accent that in no way marks me as PoC (and make no mistake, I’d be Black in America). > > If all they’re claiming to do is recognize one of the common Black accents, that’s both believable and trivial (with obvious exceptions that would confound them, like the White Southern accented youtuber I linked to). Is there anything about the context of my post that would lead you to believe that I meant that black Americans have genetically distinguishable physical vocal structures? If so, then I apologize for the ambiguity. Otherwise, I think it’s clear that I and others are talking about accent and pronunciation and “'voice” is often colloquially used to mean accent and pronunciation, as well as other cultural/social, and not anatomical, characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/79 "2020-10-29T16:09:41Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Is there anything about the context of my post that would lead you to believe that I meant that black Americans have genetically distinguishable physical vocal structures? Yes. It was the word “voice”. As opposed to the words “accent” or “dialect”. And that was also the way **E\_0\_D** seemed to be using it, in the larger thread context. And it’s not just me, **N\_B** also read it that way. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/80 "2020-10-29T16:10:15Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “'voice” is often colloquially used to mean accent and pronunciation, Not a usage I’ve ever come across. Seems like it’s also a new one for the [thesauruses](https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/voice) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/81 "2020-10-29T16:17:20Z")
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