Think about it for a minute. If you spend a lot of time on YouTube, how much of that time is actually spent consuming somebody else’s rumours, gossip, and speculation?
Because so much of YouTube, as well as social media, blogs, and those bloody shorts (God, those damn shorts), is content created simply for your eyeballs, for your attention. They’re not really serving a purpose.
They’re not giving concrete information.
They just want your attention!
That’s the price you pay!
And this isn’t a rant against credible sources of information. There are plenty of those, and they’re worth their weight in gold. This is a rant about the attention-sucking platforms that literally don’t have anything concrete or truly educational to offer.
The Educational Illusion
Many so-called educational channels don’t really show all the nuts and bolts that go into creating something. They don’t show the challenges along the way. And very often, they don’t show the final result. It’s all surface level, all teaser, all “smash that subscribe button” nonsense.
You get
- the highlight reel,
- the clickbait thumbnail, and
- maybe 10% of what you actually need to know.
The rest? Stretched out across seventeen more videos, each one promising to reveal the “secret” that never quite materialises.
The Drama Merchants
What about the so-called news channels, the information channels?
So much of it is pure and utter speculation. It’s rumour. It’s drama. It’s entertainment dressed up as journalism.
So many of these presenters are so dramatic about absolutely everything that it could be raining outside and they’d deliver it like it’s the end of days. Because it’s not about delivering absolutes and facts. It’s about delivering their own opinions, their own hot takes, their own manufactured outrage.
Just like I do when I write these blog posts, to be fair. These are opinions. But I’m not throwing them out there as a dramatic bloody YouTube video with a shocked face in the thumbnail and capitals in the title. And that doesn’t make me any better or worse, but it’s a completely different approach.
The Numbers Game
I don’t care if one person reads this or 1,000 people read it. I’m certainly not going to reach the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions that many of these YouTube channels reach. And I don’t care.
Because I couldn’t live with myself if I was delivering nothing but dramatic, hyped-up shit on a daily basis just for clicks, just for watch time. Delivering absolutely nothing that’s worth delivering.
The algorithm rewards frequency, drama, and controversy. It rewards thumbnails with shocked expressions and titles that promise you won’t believe what happens next. It rewards speculation over investigation, opinion over evidence, entertainment over education.
And fair play to anyone who can game that system and sleep well at night. But it’s not for me.
What’s the Alternative?
Look, I get it. People want entertainment. They want to feel informed without doing the hard work of actually being informed. They want the sensation of learning without the effort of understanding.
YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, the whole lot of them, they’ve perfected the art of giving people exactly that. Bite-sized dopamine hits that feel educational but rarely are.
The alternative? Longer form content. Proper research. Sources you can verify. Writers and creators who aren’t afraid to say “I don’t know” or “this needs more investigation” rather than filling seventeen minutes with baseless speculation to hit that monetisation threshold.
But that doesn’t get the same reach, does it? It doesn’t game the algorithm. It doesn’t manufacture urgency or outrage. It just sits there, waiting for someone who actually wants substance over spectacle.
Still Here, Still Writing
I pulled this thought out because it still pisses me off. The attention economy, the manufactured drama, the speculation masquerading as news. It’s exhausting, and it’s everywhere.
But I’m still here, writing these posts. You’re still here, reading them. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe there’s value in the quiet approach, in the blog post that doesn’t scream for attention, in the opinion that doesn’t need a thumbnail with three exclamation marks.
We’ve made it this far without becoming part of that noise. That’s something.
Let’s Answer some Questions
Why is so much YouTube content just speculation and drama?
YouTube’s algorithm rewards frequent uploads, high engagement, and watch time. Dramatic speculation keeps people watching longer than straightforward facts, so creators optimise for attention rather than accuracy.
Are there any genuinely educational YouTube channels worth watching?
Absolutely. Plenty of creators provide well-researched, in-depth content with proper sources and thorough explanations. The problem isn’t YouTube itself, it’s the attention-economy incentives that encourage drama over substance.
What’s wrong with YouTube Shorts and similar short-form content?
Short-form content is designed purely for attention capture and dopamine hits. It rarely provides concrete information or teaches anything meaningful, instead keeping users scrolling through an endless feed of shallow content.
How can I avoid getting sucked into the YouTube attention economy?
Be selective about subscriptions, turn off autoplay, and actively seek longer-form content from creators who cite sources and provide depth. Recognise when you’re being fed speculation and manufactured drama instead of actual information.
Why do YouTube creators use shocked faces in thumbnails?
Exaggerated facial expressions and dramatic thumbnails trigger curiosity and emotional response, increasing click-through rates. It’s pure attention manipulation, prioritising views over delivering genuine value to viewers.
A note on these nostalgia posts: I’m digging through old thoughts, half-finished rants, and scribbled observations from various points in my life. Some are recent, some are years old. They’re rough around the edges because that’s how thoughts are. I’m not polishing them into something they’re not. If they resonate, brilliant. If they don’t, that’s fine too. This is just me, working things out in public, one post at a time.