Back, with Adaptations

Hi There. Long time no text-based communication.

For those of you who keep up with YouTube, you may have noticed that my last post (in January!) coincided with a teeny tiny little change to the YouTube interface. Namely, in the eponymous "Recommended for You" section, each video suddenly came with a new line, titled Because You Watched, followed by a video.

That's right -- all my inquiries were instantly demystified. Remember when I thought Celine Dion's "Beauty and the Beast" was recommended because I'd been watching both Disney and the Diva herself? Well, I was giving YouTube too much credit; each recommendation, I learned in January, is merely a direct result of one other video you watched. Not even one other video you "liked," or "favorited." I'll be honest, I was dramatically disappointed.

Recently, however, I started to notice that the little feature that seemed directly aimed at rendering my blog obsolete actually came with its own interesting quirks. Sometimes, the "transparent" Because You Watched line was even more perplexing than nothing at all.

Take, for example, today's recommendation:



In the blog of the past, I might have noted how many makeup tutorials I have watched over the years. Not because I ever intended to follow one -- especially one as grotesque as this -- but because it's fascinating to watch someone's DIY transformation without any cutaways like you'd see on TV. We get to see every single difficult step. Very cool.

But oh no. That's not why this was recommended. This was recommended, it turns out, because I watched "Get Outta Town," a short comedy sketch by a favorite YouTuber of mine named DisneyKid1. Relation? None that I can tell. Well, take that back -- I think both users are gay, so there is that.

Is YouTube sexual orientation profiling? Recommending a gay user's makeup tutorial because I enjoyed a gay user's comic sketch? Or is the Because You Watched line just an admission of how random the algorithm has always been?

One thing's for sure: I'm back, and I intend to find out.