surasshu
@surasshu

i often think about this guy i saw on tiktok once, who did stuff about maintenance of kitchen stuff--how to sharpen your knives, clean your pans, stuff like that. really chill, just like "heres this dirty pan my friend wanted me to clean" and a bit of a how-to quality as well. and he made one video where he basically just said "don't worry about using soap on your cast iron pan bc modern soaps are not abrasive enough to affect the polymer".

i didn't see this guy's videos for a little while, and when i bumped across one of his videos it was like "if you're one of those IDIOTS who DOESNT use soap to wash their cast icon pan because your DeAd GrAnDmA ToLd YoU NoT To, here's how you can FOOL YOURSELF into doing it anyway. WHOOPS GUESS I SPILLED SOME SOAP IN MY PAN, OH WELL, wash wash" etc. etc.

and i was just struck by how you can become "that guy who talks about one subject with zero nuance" online very easily if you just follow the algorithm. like my guess is his video(s) about using soap on cast iron pans got a lot of engagement (good and bad probably), and as a result of that he doubled down repeatedly until his videos became hideously deformed from their original chill content.

anyway!


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in reply to @surasshu's post:

I saw this happen over a period of about a year with a psychology youtuber that I used to enjoy watching. His early videos were pretty basic explanations of what words mean, how people categorise personality disorders and mental health conditions. Like "Mental health professionals will talk about a person's 'openness to experience'. Here's what is meant by that and why it's important."

Every now and then he would insert a little aside, just a little hint of his personality outside of giving a genuinely useful professional explanation. His videos were otherwise pretty dispassionate and kind of "neutral". I noticed that the comments were always full of people complimenting him on his sense of humour and saying they loved his little comments.

... These days he posts hot takes about the latest "news", usually just dunking on celebrities or whatever. He still uses the same video format and delivery pattern but all of the educational information is gone and it's just him making fun of Meghan Markle or whatever. It blows.