My range of interests for YouTube videos is pretty limited, so it is always trying to serve me stuff I haven’t already rejected before. What I would like, sometimes, is to reject all instances of a particular genre, like games or sports or music videos. It seems there are two choices for rejecting a video: Not Interested, or Don’t Recommend Channel. If I select the 2nd, I may never see that channel again, but 5 minutes later I might (and the probability seems high) see another channel that is very similar, and in the same genre. If I select Not Interested, that particular video will stop being offered (apparently) but I might get the same channel again with a different video. Both of these results are fine as far as they go, but they don’t seem to do anything to prevent the same genre from being offered.
Then there is a row of topics or genres across the top for quick selection. and some of them represent things I have never watched, like some guy’s name I never heard of, or “role playing games” which I have never watched any video of.
Do you know of any effective tactics on YouTube to reduce the general level of genres I have already said I’m not interested in? Facebook has FB Purity, is there anything like that for YouTube?
Are you going to the YouTube website in your browser (if so, which one? and are you using any sort of cookie blocker?) or in the app (which version)?
It might be as simple as: don’t click on them and they’ll go away. For instance, a few days ago I must have idly watched one or two videos about stray kittens, and YouTube offered me lots more kitten videos; but just now, when I go to YouTube, there aren’t any more on my main page.
I use the DFTube extension in Chrome and don’t get any recommendations at all. It avoids the problem of slipping down a time wasting rabbit hole of YouTube viewing. I recommended it to parents that I know since home schooling became a thing and it proved popular with them.
I think in terms of what to do, it really does come down to ‘avoid until the algorithm gets the message’. It may help if you engage* more with videos on the topics you do want to see (*engage in the form of clicking like, commenting on videos you want to see more of).
Definitely don’t click the video in order to comment ‘wHy tF iS tHiS iN mY FeEd???!’ or 'OK Fine YouTube, I’ll watch it. Are you happy now?", because that’s engagement.
Or ignore the ‘recommended’ feed and stick with your subscriptions feed (YouTube takes you to recommended by default, not subscriptions, because they are in the business of trying to get you to click on more things)
I don’t recall ever seeing anything like either of those. Lots of videos are offered, and the only options I see are:
Click on something to watch it
Use the Search to find something else
Leave YouTube for another website
In other words, there’s no way to actually reject anything. In this respect, YouTube is exactly the same as Netflix or any other streaming service. I could very well be totally wrong on this, in which case, please describe these “Not Interested” and “Don’t Recommend” options better, because I don’t remember ever seeing them.
The YouTube recommendation algorithm really, really sucks. Compared to similar content-suggestion engines like TikTok or Netflix, it’s way, way worse. There’s no real way to make it better, on the user end.
Instead, I went into my personalization settings and turned off the “use viewing history to generate recommendations” control. (I think that’s what it’s called. Something like that.) Now the sidebar contains just videos that are vaguely related to the current one, probably based on other users’ clickthrough, and videos that are generically popular with lots of views. Not dramatically more useful, but at least the focus is not being clumsily narrowed.
What gets me is that a lot of the rec videos are ones I already watched. And not music videos or some such where it might make sense that someone (else) might want to rewatch.
I don’t want to click on anything like “not interested”, etc. since I still want recs for newer videos for that channel and I don’t want the algorithm to think I don’t like the channel, but come on. Show me new stuff.
And why do so many 6+ year old videos appear on the list? It’s extremely rare I would want to watch something remotely that old.
I’ll look into this, it sounds like the sort of thing I was hoping for, but if there are no recommendations at all, do you only get channels you have already liked or searched for in your feed?
The algorithm is trying to predict what you want based on analysis of what people (which it considers to have similar interests to you) have already demonstrated that they want (or at least, will click on).
You’re getting rewatch recommendations broadly because people a bit like you are accepting rewatch recommendations, and the algorithm is doing what appears to work.
Trouble is, there’s a feedback loop in this - the things that it has observed people to click on were also recommendations based on some previous iteration of the process.
But the main thing is: it’s not trying to help you to find what you want, it’s trying to maximise what you will accept.
I assume you use an adblocker. If it’s Ublock, it can remove that bar with suggestions at the top, giving you a bit more real estate.
As for gaming the algorithm, I’ve found two ways to improve the feed:
Subscribe. To a lot of channels (of course, those that do interest you). I have close to 200 in my subscription list and that gives YT a lot more info to tailor my feed.
Every so often, something pops up that make me think - Why the fuck do you think I’m interested in [insert topic]? Then I just click the video, stop it and hit . Similar clips seem to vanish after that. Sometimes I get a request to rate a video. If it’s one I’ve disliked, I take the time to let YT know, and that, too, improves the experience.
Thanks so much! There’s a category of videos I love and watch regularly, but the past couple of weeks they keep recommending ones by some new…which I made the mistake of watching a minute or two of. Guh! I absolutely HATE the narrator’s voice, his accent, his choice of words, everything about him. Worst of all instead of using his own image or innocuous nature shots or whatever he fills the screen with frenetic violent clips from video games! I guess he doesn’t like his own appearance, or maybe he needs annonymity, but it drags my attention away from what’s being said and damn near triggers occular migraines in just a few seconds!
Being able to ensure he’ll never turn up in my recommended page is a wonderful relief!
. Similar clips seem to vanish after that. Sometimes I get a request to rate a video. If it’s one I’ve disliked, I take the time to let YT know, and that, too, improves the experience.