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Cat soap operas and babies trapped in space: the ‘AI slop’ taking over YouTube
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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Technology
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There is definitely content on there that I value still
This is only me describing my personal taste, but:
Almost all video essays and podcasts I would rather just read. It takes half the time. Include pictures, diagrams, and animations if needed. But I can read much faster and retain much better reading than listening to someone talk. Listening at double speed is faster, but can be uncomfortable.
I can imagine some value in some other niches, like you're saying, but the amount of slop and trash out there is too high for me, and the companies selling it are the worst.
Every time I see some parasocial YouTuber making That Face I just get irritated.
You don't get the animations and other visual aids to understanding like that.
Don't know why you'd get a downvote for personal preference. I would argue that a lot of the content I watch doesn't have a suitable book form, so even if I did prefer that method of osmosis, I'd be out of luck.
Got a recommendation for a book (or audiobook) for a nerd like me? I'd describe myself but the internet already knows too much so.... Conservation and technology (new or ancient)
Is that a fair ask?
Yeah I don't know about the down votes. I tried to be clear I was talking about a preference and personal experience, but I guess some people took offense.
The last non fiction book I read that was really interesting was "The Ghost Map". It's about when people figured out Cholera. That's kind of technology adjacent.
That sounds great. I'm bad at reading (not bad at it. Just don't do it lol) but I'll put that in my audiobooks for long trips pile. It sounds very much up my alley.
I don't think any of the following videos work as reading.
All of them are made from the start as videos (the last one is quite meta in that regard) and if you want to have them as text then you'd need to restructure them from the scratch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vfbVVkwdQw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxV14h0kFs0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUF4afxMpQk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoldOz5YyAw