The Marxist Lens: Burnout and the Algorithm

YouTube has become a neat microcosm of the alienation that characterizes the capitalist mode of production. Relationships between creators and viewers have become relationships between content and views, regulated by “the algorithm” – a force external to the actual subjects of the platform, but which ultimately dictates both ends of the YouTube experience. Surprisingly, it is Marx that offers us an insight into how this platform has come to be what it is now. Capital's tendency to subsume everything under its own logic has transformed an initially user-driven, user-oriented space into the YouTube we know today.
--------
Narration, script, and editing by M.
Animated intro by Jack, co-host of the Auxiliary Statements podcast @AuxStatements on Twitter.
--------
Patreon:
Twitter:
--------
Recommended Readings:

Marx:
Volume 1 of Capital, particularly the section on commodity fetishism; Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Others:
Althusser, L., Balibar, E., Macherey, P., Rancière, J., & Establet, R. (2016). Reading capital: The complete edition. Verso Books.
---In particular, Part 2 by Ranciere, pg. 121-124

Rubin, Isaak I. (2020). Essay’s on Marx’s Theory of Value. Trans. by Milos Samardzija and Fredy Perlman. Vol. 23. Pattern Books.

"Alienation" by Sean Sayers, in Brennan, D. M., Kristjanson-Gural, D., Mulder, C. P., & Olsen, E. K. (Eds.). (2017). Routledge Handbook of Marxian Economics. Taylor & Francis.
--------
00:00 - 00:28 Background
00:29 - 00:43 Intro
00:44 - 01:28 Early YouTube
01:29 - 02:52 The Logic of Capital and Monetization
02:53 - 03:20 Subject-Object Relationship
03:21 - 04:02 The Algorithm
04:03 - 04:38 Effect on Creators
04:39 - 05:51 Effect on Viewers
05:52 - 06:15 The Object Becomes the Subject
06:16 - 06:45 The Objectification of the Creator-Viewer Relation
06:46 - 07:03 Creator Burnout
07:04 - 07:25 Shaping the Viewers
07:26 - 08:03 The Sentient Algorithm?
08:04 - 08:45 Summary
08:46 - 09:45 A Caveat and Final Thoughts

[RyRy]

im a simple man, I see a new marxist project video on my recommended and I click it

[RyRy]

this really feels like a marxist analysis of the novel ways in which capital's influence alienates us from production in the 21st century. I really appreciate that you made this video. there is so much for us to analyze and understand these days, I'm glad you're attempting to present your own analysis and understanding.

[JasperTedVidalTale]

The YouTube algorithm is bad. Because it makes it difficult for content creators to get monetized (It doesn't Help that the requirements to get monetized are also unreasonably steep). This is why we should help content creators who are not yet monetized (a.k.a. They don't have 1000 Subscribers & 4000 Watch Time or 10 Million Shorts Views)

[真夜中の橋]

We getting out of burnout with this one bois 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[DinoCism]

Not sure why you kinda walked it back at the end, you were right to begin with. As for "the internet not being real" its affects on the people around me seem pretty damn real to me. There are people whose literal job is this and people who are so alienated from human beings that consuming this stuff is the closest they get to socializing. I think it's actually incredibly difficult to overstate how real world and capitalist this is. We almost don't want to admit that it has that kind of power and so we say "oh, it's not real like what happens in your workplace" when increasingly this is just another workplace.

[AraelShinji]

Keep up the good work. Your channel is one of the best I can find in this god damn website/app. Even when you don't have many views, the quality is top notch. Very concise and thoughtful explanations.

[bigusj]

Explains why internet search engines are complete garbage now as well

[lars]

This is an excellent example that I think many people could understand, even if it is not perfectly applicable to the material relations of the real world. I hear way more people in my day-to0day life talk about "The Algorithm" and the alienation of online content creation than of the market and the real world. This may be because the internet is much newer/more novel and doesn't seem as omnipresent/omnipotent as the market, _and_ is still more controllable by the global proletariat than the global market (though not nearly enough-- capitalists certainly have a very strong hold on much of the internet, unfortunately). Great video.

[zainmudassir]

Thanks for solid Marxist analysis of hyper capitalist social media which relies on parasocial relationships

[iotaayushshrivastava]

Finally a marxist video talking about this.

[Barklord]

I recommend a collection of (free) essays by Sebastian Berger on *The Social Costs of Neoliberalism: Essays on the economics of K. William Kapp.*

Kapp's focus is mostly on the non-comprehensive nature of price signals, profits as value measurement, and cost-shifting in the formal rationality of orthodox liberal economics. He, like Marx, advocates for social production for need/use values rather than exchange values. Kapp, like Karl Polanyi, developed his critique during and immediately after WW2.

[captain-chair]

Thank you so much for making this video!

Recently I have become kinda obsessive about prefacing our need to conduct this exact kind if analysis! It needs to be done for other platforms too!

For me the reasons for this are twofold:

1. This content makes Marxism relatable and understandable to modern and online audiences. Which of course increases class consciousness.

2. I feel if anything our lack of or lack of mass proliferation of such information is in a way hindering Marxist organisation.

I personally have thought that the only way to solve the current predicament is a more radical solution and that is for Marxists to create our own social platform. Which isn't just a clone of already existing platforms like Lemmygrad to Reddit, or ProleWiki to Wikipedia... (These are fine of course)

But a new platform designed specifically with the intention of consolidating online theory into one place where it can mingle without... Alienation from each other.

These discussions are happening all in tiby microcosms all around the internet. Sure if you go looking for it you will find it but the problem is in a way... Social platforms are alienated from each other with vastly different cultures and protocols, user interfaces and etc.

The problem of all of this is that each of these social platforms are marketised and all of these works are in microcosms being viewed by only a microscopic amount of viewers... Because most others even interested parties are having their time sucked off into more neurochemically satasfatory content. Increasing alienation...

Why does this mean Marxists need our own social platform?

Because we have a lot to analyse but if we create a giant discussion space instead if being fragmented and hidden from each other we would have a space solely dedicated to our needs. With features intentionally designed to encourage users to collaborate and theorycraft and share news and information. In a way and form which really brings out the democratising elements of the internet without alienation and marketisation.

How would such a thing come into existence? Thats why we need more analysis of other platforms. We need historical analysis to see what social platforms work and what ones don't.

I would think that this would need a two pronged strategy. Much like the early internet this could be set up as a means for parties to communicate. Call it a new internationale even if you are especially into that. It would be an interparty dialogue which is run on infrastructure maintained by parties. This could be done via blockchain.

The second prong on this after the infrastructure is established and being tested and utilised... Then we utilise the power of social media. Marxist content creators could put out a combined statement endorsing and encourage viewers to check it out. In essence popularising it. With the infrastructure already set up, and all of the testing done before hand, this stage of testing would be public testing.

Sign up may require some kind of system to prevent bots and stuff. Bit that should be tested before hand.

This would require some formal connection and consolidation of will on the part of content creatirs of various platforms. But the rewards for doing so would help make our propaganda more efficient and our theory more interconnected and seem more legitimate in the online space.

Now, some may be skeptical that Marxists have the capacity to do this. But I posit this response to detractors...

If we can't even organise a social platform, what chance do we have at organising a social revolution?

We don't need more discord servers... We need to consolidate what we have and fully make use of our potential!

I will continue doing what I can to argue this position because this is how we must adapt to the conditions of the 21st century. The internet is both superstructure and economic base. It may not take a physical form but it's power over reality is often understated. We cannot ignore this any longer.

[lessonstolivefor]

All the more reason to vote socialist 2024

[icantaimpgd]

Hi man, good to see you still well. Nice video 👍!

[A.W.B.]

It is interesting that the algorithm is analogized to the market. It mirrors an early capital consolidation process, but without a meaningful sense of economizing (even though the algorithm is just the economizing preferences of the user base, it isn't about making a commodity that is less expensive and more preferable). In the early developing capitalist market, the reduction of socially necessary labour time squeezes out independent artisans in favour of industrial combines who are about to meet preferences more specifically with less net effort. This is a determinant to the independent artisan class, since they are economically squeezed out of the process. However, the lowering of the cost of commodities is also good for the working class consumer, allowing more of their needs and want to be satisfied with less of their time, the basis of their wages. Also, workers non-owners are able to exert more leverage over production in larger groups, since the group is harder to replace than the individual. Marxism, as I understand it, is not about undoing the artificiality of the capital consolidation process, which determines what broad preferences are among the consuming public, it is about the workers in the industrial combines exerting power over these more efficient operations more broadly in their interests, above the more narrow interests of capital. It is not the efforts to nostalgically restore artisan production due to the corrupting influence of the market. This latter form is right wing anti-capitalism which sees bourgeois freedom to buy and sell leading to monopoly as a form of corruption and some sense of a foreign intervention (the view of many right libertarians like Rothbard), rather than the outcome of the previous system itself, as an emergent outcome of its own process, which is based on greater freedom. I feel this nostalgic rejection of capital consolidation has confused left ideas with right ones. Capital consolidation is not bad, it is the basis of the potential for greater power and living standards of the working class and society in general. Labour and Luddism are at odds. This is true even though many forms of work gain a higher barrier to entry, thereby reallocation labour to other forms. What often goes undertheorized is that if the market is rejected, how are consumer preferences determined? I have studied the socialist calculation debate fairly thoroughly, but what often is not understood is that the socialist aim is often to take over the economized production form which are produced in the capitalist market. Without the market, it is hard to determine, with the same degree of specificity, which production methods are socially preferable to others. There are efforts at ex ante calculation but these are best with some sort of ex post feedback from consumers like Cybersyn. The algorithm for Youtube, is similar to its equivalent in Amazon and Walmart as the recent book 'The People's Republic of Walmart' clarified, which is, in a way, a development of the previous socialist attempts to plan, anticipate, and potentially to direct the market, like Cybersyn, administratively. We are often left in a pure negation, which is insufficiently dialectical. We have to see beyond this for a more positive politics, which doesn't just land in nostalgia for what generated the present moment.

[LibertarianLeninistRants]

All well and good. But I cannot help to wonder how we would shape platforms like youtube under a socialist paradigm. Would the totality of users be able to vote on specific modifications of the algorithm? I could imagine a referendum every year where people could vote on whether the algorithm should recommend more or less similar videos, or more or less long videos, etc. Or should every user be able to modify how the algorithm works for them individually in a settings page?
There could be a whole discussion about this, so I would like to read the thoughts of others on this topic

[rayz]

The algorithm is definitely a source of alienation but I feel like the role of commodifying YouTube has played a larger role in many ways. The 'careerification' of youtube definitely drove creators to enslave themselves to the algorithm and create videos for clicks and views instead of producing something personally fulfilling to them for it's own sake.

[animefurry]

Ive searched far and wide, I can't find any good videos on the "Sino Soviet Split" on any Marxist/Communist YouTube channels.

You should do one, please?!

[FP_]

Excelent work! Leaving my clouth token here. Cheers!

[conflagration]

This was an amazing analysis, I have a question though. Would people say that the problem is the actual monetisation of youtube? Does this mean that content creators should not be paid for putting in the time to create good videos? For many youtubers, releasing content regularly takes more time than a full time job. What are your thoughts on the socialist way to go about this?