Observation: Video links go unwatched

I wil almost never watch a video that has been linked with no additional comment from the poster. Did they even watch it? If so, why did they post it? Why do they think others will want to watch?

Anecdotally, I’m often browsing on my phone which is…

a) …a terrible form factor for watching long-form video content, and…

b) …a mostly silent medium that is acceptable among others in a quiet room, but as soon as it starts playing a loud video it’s quite disturbing and rude to others in the same space.

I’m happy to read most links posted on Tildes or similar sites. But I need to be in the right viewing context to watch a video. I need to be alone, and preferably watching on a full-size computer or at least with headphone on. There’s also the time commitment that you mentioned, which is very true. I can meaningfully engage with most posts within the span of a few minutes, but even if I’m well-situated to watch a video I’m still required to invest at least the full runtime of it before I can discuss it.

That’s a lot of star-alignment that needs to happen for a video post to succeed with me. It does happen sometimes, but the barrier to entry is so much higher than for other forms of content. Sometimes if a video looks really interesting I’ll bookmark it to watch later, but then when later comes I’ll have forgotten about it, or so much time has passed since it was posted that there’s no point in trying to comment about it.

We watched on /r/Videos over on reddit as our subreddit went from being one of the largest and most trafficked defaults, to being smaller than a lot of cringey meme subs. Part of that was that we refused to allow the sub to devolve into the annoying political spam that has taken over the entirety of /r/All, but I think a lot of it is just that people don't like watching long videos anymore, short form video and memes have taken over as the dominant content on reddit, and I'm sure that preference is spreading further outside that sphere.

I would rather read than watch a video, so I hardly ever click.

I am one of those that never opens YouTube. My reasons are:

1. videos are not my preferred way to take in entertainment. I am almost never alone, so text is preferred, but if I am alone, I'm doing mindless stuff like tending to farm duties, and that's the perfect time for audio.
2. they're never as short as they could be, and they're often rambling and repetitive.
3. I refuse to watch YouTube ads, as they've gotten pretty excessive.
4. my phone is a piece of junk and I refuse to upgrade, and, for whatever reason, YT is worst of all. If I click a link, it takes 45 seconds for it to load, during which the back button doesn't work. Then there's a pretty good likelihood that mid-video the tab will just crash to my home screen. This problem may be restricted completely to me, and I'm probably too frugal for my own good sometimes, but if ever expanding RAM requirements and heavy websites keep me from visiting, I'll happily obsolesce myself right out of their ad revenue ledger.

I primarily use tildes on my phone so I'm rarely in a spot to watch a video in the moment. That means I need headphones and such before I watch any videos posted here. If I am using my phone with headphones already on, I'm likely cooking or cleaning and watching YouTube or listening to music already.

That said, a short summary might encourage participation in the discussion without engaging with the content which seems... Counter intuitive? But I can't say if it's worse than them having zero information before they comment without watching.

Also, some of the videos I regularly watch will later get posted here, so I can comment without watching when it's posted because I already watched it.

I dunno, I'm torn. I've certainly found new and interesting videos from tildes, so I wouldn't want to discourage posting things, but it is also a bigger problem on other sites (fediverse, Bluesky, discuit) where I have greater amounts of "Did you watch the part where they explain this exact scenario?" interactions.

I recently started making long-form (>10 min) videos on music theory for my YouTube channel, so I'm in a unique position to theorize about this trend.

It's definitely true that some video content niches are disappearing, but you'd have to expect that as technology, society, etc. evolve there would be some changes. As others have pointed out, short-form meme videos for low attention spans are ascendant right now, but I think there's also a growing niche for long-form, podcast-style videos. A lot of these are just '3 dudes in a room chatting' style content, which might reflect growing parasocial tendencies, but also I've seen some video essay deep dives on a particular subject (even those >1 hr in length) perform pretty well. Though perhaps some of this reflects my own viewing biases rather than broader trends.

With my own content, I'm trying to buck some of the ostensive issues people have with long-form content, especially that this type of video is boring/repetitive due to being padded out to meet a more monetizable length. My videos are generally 15-35 minutes long, but I pack them with as much content as possible. I talk as fast as I can, and rarely repeat myself for the sake of being didactic. I figure it is easier for people who can't keep up with fast-paced content to pause the video as needed, than for people who get bored with slow-paced content to somehow compensate for that.

I also take a no-frills, 'education, not entertainment' approach, which is probably bad for metrics, but is more in line with my personal values. You won't be able to get anything out of my videos unless you are willing to pay close attention. As video content migrates towards memes and other low-attention material, I feel like going the opposite direction might be able to find a small but consistent fanbase of people who are interesting in learning something instead of just passively wasting time. The topic of music theory is already geared towards learning, in some ways, so I try to make content that demands the viewer work to understand the subject, something incisive enough that it won't just be forgotten hours later.

Between the subject of music theory in general, and my particular approach to it, this is a small niche, but I am heartened by comments on some of my videos that express profound gratitude and fascination. But also I get comments (surprisingly often) that essentially say 'I don't understand any of this but I watched the whole video', and those are the best ones. I think there's a vitalizing effect to exploring content that is far, far beyond your level of understanding of a subject. Seeing how complex the whole thing is, which hopefully inspires you to make a real attempt to start understanding the basics, so that you can get to the expert stuff one day.

I almost always check comments on post before even thinking about clicking a video link, if there's no interesting commentary on it then there probably isn't much point in watching it. A good summary might change my mind if it's a unique enough topic.

I actually "found" a ton of good YouTube creators from tildes posts. But that was years ago, before I knew that YouTube had more than vlog slop, home videos, and bad comedy.

Nowadays, I feel like I'm maxed out on content creators, so I'll only check something out if there is a lot of activity in the post. I don't know why, but it's hard to jump into a new YouTube channel. It's like trying someone else's take on a food your mom loves to make. You understand everything that's happening, but it's not done the way you're used to.

If, by chance, I happen to be interested in the post, then 90% of the time I'll just bookmark it for later because I am not mentally prepared to sit through 20-90 minutes of video.

The prolific use of AI narrators and clickbaity bs headlines splashed over the thumbnail ("SHOCKING REASONS YOU NEED THIS!") have turned me off to most YT videos. I never click the links on here either.

I post videos from the same creator once a week: Perun. He's a defense economics analyst and puts out a weekly hour-long powerpoint presentation about various defense topics. I can confidently say that the content passes a high bar for quality, with none of that quality being in video effects, and all being in analysis.

They get upvotes, and (though intermittently) they get discussion on Tildes.

I assume you mean when posted on Tildes. If it is a longer video it very much depends on the OP on Tildes leaving a comment. In some rare instances a title might make me click on a video post. But that's mostly when it is about a subject I am already interested in.

I also draw the line at 30 minutes or so unless someone makes a very strong case for the video being worth the longer watch.

I suspect that many people who do watch videos from tildes posts also forget to vote or comment. Simply because it takes you away more (specifically longer videos) than other media.

For those with auditory sensitivity or processing issues, video (especially on YouTube) is often unpleasant.

Most producers/presenters aren't trained speakers. Their enunciation, volume, variation, low quality audio, music, and background noise make it inefficient and tiring to absorb their content. When there are multiple presenters, they frequently talk over each other. Longer productions are exhausting.

However much I'm interested in the material, I'd much rather read than encounter more noise. I can just about tolerate Philosophy Tube because Abigail Thorne is a trained actress with glorious UK pronunciation, it's visually interesting, and longer speeches frequently have text blocks. Anyone know of a captioning tool, or channels that provide transcripts?

People watch the videos I post to some extent, at least. I often post without a comment, but I will sometimes edit the title to clarify the content. Tags are important too. I do filter the videos tag, but that is not because I dislike videos. I just prefer listing them separately, and sometimes I watch. There is a somewhat narrow scope of subjects Tildes users find interesting and that apply to videos as well. They are also well informed, so if something is common knowledge, it won't get much attention. One thing to have in mind is that some content is improved by being in video form, while others are better as text. My videos on the video thread get votes sometimes. I don't find it particularly difficult to engage users in video content.

I do tend to watch the ones I'm interested in (and there are plenty) & it's even caused me to add new people to my quasi-subscriber list on newpipe, but considering:

a. I basically never upvote posts because I forger
b. I watch those videos days later
c. Outside the weekly MC thread I'm mostly a lurker, usually

I do not contribute any apparent activity on those threads

I'm not a fan of video essays in particular, unless they happen to be very well presented. In general, if reading the subtitles would be an equivalent experience at a fraction of the time, I'm going to shove the video through an ML video summarizer (example) to get the gist of it and move on.

I'll click on basically anything else, though, especially bits of art (such as the mixed-media, sensory overload clip from a few weeks ago. That was quite a trip)

I do watch posted videos sometimes, but the premise has to be fairly intriguing before a click happens, except if it’s from a creator I know but then there’s a decent chance I’d watched it prior to it being posted.

It’s likely that I would click through more liberally if I somehow returned to my teenage lifestyle, where I had lots of time on the internet and few responsibilities. I don’t foresee this turn of events any time soon, though.

I even have some custom CSS that hides the YouTube designation, because the red just hoovers the eye way too much with dark mode on.

.topic-info-source[title="youtube.com"] {
  display: none;
}

h1.topic-title > a[href*="youtube.com"] {
  display: none;
}