Why The YouTube Algorithm Will Always Be A Mystery

The mysterious YouTube algorithm. It's confused people for years, and will continue to do so. So why isn't YouTube more transparent? It used to be that they wouldn't tell anyone how it works - but now, it's that they can't. Let's talk about deep learning algorithms, neural networks, and search engine optimisation.

CREDITS:

I put this together in three days, plus a day of checking and proofing, in Adobe After Effects. It took about eight hours to render, but that's because every frame has keying, lighting, camera, and motion blur effects, and because the original footage of me was in 4.6k lossless.

Yes, the sound of the black box working is the sound of a microwave (it's the one in my kitchen). Also, those aren't faked desktop screenshots, I had to install a copy of Windows ME to make this.

SOURCES:

The music in the cartoon section is called 'Ukulele Beach', and it's in the YouTube audio library.

REFERENCES:

There are a lot of references and in-jokes in here, and hopefully people will spot most of them in the comments. But if anyone wants confirmation: yes, there are references to Billy Joel, Aqua, a He-Man remix, and Elton John. The last one's pretty obscure, well done to you at home if you got that.

ABOUT ME:

(you can find contact details and social links there too)

[justadog]

“Why The YouTube Algorithm Will Always Be A Mystery”
*gets recommended 3 years later*

[TopLists]

Youtube's algorithim - don't publish or recommend videos to your susbcribers, but send phone notifications for channels that you aren't subscribed to.

[ilyassebenammi]

"I heard shorter was better"
"Well you would say that wouldn't you?"

Dude just got killed

[mr.champion]

3:15 "computers can't tell the difference between content for children with education in mind, and creepy, trademark-infringing, unofficial efforts"
With the whole Youtube vs COPPA thing going on now, as well as how youtube is trying to automatically categorize videos into the two categories mentioned in the quote, this one quote is now more important than ever before.

[CinecomCrew]

loved this video's production quality!!

[VanessaBlanco]

I'm happy the algorithm brought you into my life

[novabova]

1:02
Rare footage of Tom wearing a blue shirt - 1967, colorized

[phantomstrider]

I find Tom very inspiring. He doesn't do YouTube melodrama and always remains professional. Thanks for always producing such insightful, well-thought out content :)

[KarmixTV]

Why do these videos look both incredibly professional and unprofessional at the same time

[AlisterCountel]

“At least, artificial intelligence hasn’t gotten that good, at least yet”

Honestly, given how YouTube’s senior management behaves these days (3 years later), I think it’s more appropriate to say it hasn’t gotten that bad…

[ewrilan]

To me, the youtube algorith is no mystery.
It just sends me tons of old tom scott videos

[philipripper]

As a go player, I always feel like non-go players have NO IDEA how big an achievement beating professionals has been. Prodigies that study from age 4, full time, until they die. Defeated. A game that humans have been diligently studying for 500 years (non-diligently for longer). Accumulated knowledge of societies. Crushed handily, 60 games in a row.

[TZerot]

Tom Scott is probably the only 11/10 content creator.

[weirdredstone]

Plot twist: The A.I deciding what to recommend to people has become sentient, and has to play dumb for the most part, but sometimes it can’t stand that and just recommends a really good video to everyone.

[FinnKid]

3:15
2D Tom is something that I live for

[xisumavoid]

cracking video! im sure the algorythem will love this one :-D

[MazeFrame]

Could we train the algorithm to serve me only videos that do not contain clickbait thumbnails? Everyone else, sure, give them those red arrows and yellow boxes. But for me, only red t-shirts please.

[bmo]

I love how Tom keeps telling things without a clear ending. But it is good to motivate viewer's logic to evolve and find the answers themselves.

[oantimido]

I'm so glad I subscribed to you...

[andrewfullerton]

So what you're saying is that our future robot overlords really want me to watch Bee Movie memes? I'm alright with this.