Tom Guarriello backs Rodney's critique of YouTube's algorithm, which favors professional videos over amateur creators. He argues the platform needs better discoverability tools and warns that failed community projects like E-Nation over-promised on topics viewers didn't care about. Guarriello calls for pushing Rodney's video viral as a step toward building a stronger creator community.
Hey guys, it's Tom Guarriello. Gorgeous day here in Connecticut. I'm making this video as a response to a video by Hello Rodney. I don't know if you guys have ever seen Rodney, but Rodney is a dedicated vlogger. Difficult to describe all the time what it is that Rodney does, but Rodney's fun to follow. Rodney made a video, I think it was yesterday, asking YouTube to make some changes in the way it handles most viewed. What Rodney did was, in a classic kind of Rodney way, was to read the titles or kind of give a thumbnail summary of the top 100 most viewed videos, I think, of the day. That day. And his point was, you know, they were videos about soccer, they were videos about, um, Princess Diana concert. They were mostly— they were, they were videos that were either made by mainstream media outlets, or they were videos that had that kind of mainstream a professionally produced appeal. They were not videos produced by amateurs like most vloggers are. And Rodney's point was twofold. First of all, he was a little pissed that, you know, vloggers don't get recognition by virtue of having videos featured in the top viewed categories because they're impossible to get viewed as many times as these other more mainstream, uh, videos are. And secondly, which I think is the, the point that I wanted to support, it's much more— it's, it's, it's next to impossible to discover new people unless you get recommendations from others. In other words, if YouTube were to have— now of course there is the Blogger, there is the, the Blogs and People category, and I'm sure people will say, well, if you just go to the Blogs and People category, that will show you the top 100 viewed blogs and people videos of that day. And I guess that's true, but I did want to point out that it is very clear that as long as YouTube continues to feature the work of— and I don't mean feature as in the feature page, but to have the most viewed only be made up of these kinds of videos— that it's going to skew the nature of what goes on out here. And it's going to reduce the possibility for— and I'm going to use the dreaded C-word here— for community. Now, you know, there have been a lot of efforts made over the past few months to rally the support of YouTube users around the creation of a stronger community sense. E-Nation, of course, being one of the major ones of that attempt. Those have not been particularly successful in my view, and I think one of the reasons they haven't been particularly successful is that I think these movements are— have gotten— had gotten out ahead of themselves. In other words, there was an awful lot of talk about governments, and there was an awful lot of talk about currencies, and there was an awful lot of talk about an awful lot of things that were assumed, presumed to be important to people, which turned out not to be important to people. Most people come here to YouTube to watch videos, and in fact most of them come here probably to watch videos like the ones that are on the top 100 viewed list. Kinda makes sense, doesn't it? If they're the ones that are being viewed most, they're probably the ones that most people are interested in viewing. But there is this other strong element that YouTube continues to say is an important aspect of its site and of its, um, uh, mission, and that is to create this community of amateurs, those of us who are out here just wanting to make videos talking about things that are important to us. And I just wanted to support Rodney's way of suggesting that the grass— the grassroots nature of a community movement is what is still lacking here at YouTube. And it's not anybody's fault. I don't blame YouTube for it. YouTube could make it easier by doing the kinds of things that Rodney suggests, or other things. But I do think that the, the major reason that there hasn't been an uprising of community sentiment It's because most people who come to YouTube aren't interested in having that kind of community. Many of us are and continue to engage with people who are also interested in doing so, but I think it's a long— a longer road than many of us expected, and so be it. I, you know, I think Everybody wants things to happen on a schedule that we kind of make up, and I don't think that's the way things happen most of the time. Things happen when they're ready to happen. And, you know, I think Rodney's call to arms for people to, as he put it, spam his video, make it go viral and have more people talking about this, I think that's a step. So Rodney, thanks for your video, and I'll see you all soon. Looking forward to seeing you guys on 777. I think that's a major milestone in the history of the YouTube community. Certainly the San Francisco gathering was a major milestone. It's been several months since then. It's going to be interesting to see what the New York gathering is like. So I know from communication I had with Damian Estrich that there are going to be quite a few representatives of YouTube at the New York gathering. So let's see what comes of it. I think it's going to be— it's certainly going to be fun. I think it's intriguing to see what kind of an impact this sort of gathering has on YouTube as a community. So take care, see you all soon. Bye.
