Vent Contents on YouTube
According to a research, YouTube will be pushing "self-improvement" content about 15 minutes after you clicked on one. That will slowly get more extreme, pushing you into an echo chamber of the "Manosphere".
But in a less problematic and controversial field, there've been so much content on "why Gen Z won't ...", "Gen Z can't date", "The world is in fire" on my feed recently. To a degree, I shall consider them as "vent content".
The problem presented is often well understood already especially those about the generation already in a bad place. So the reason that leads to watching these content would be better explained by affirming our own opinion and also its comforting aspect where it tells viewers "you're not to blame".
In most of these videos, even the more infographic videos, the title frames the view of "You are affected by this problem" or "why is your life bad". Then the content within presents statistics and also information that points the blame to a more general entity such as the economy or the rise of ai where no one single person is to blame. There is sometimes the opinion of "the last generation made the world a harder place", which is evidently true to an extent.
Although the presented information are often facts, they are also filled with bias where the progression we have experienced so far is little mentioned instead of our current problem. That information affirms the viewer's own take on the world, thus providing a positive experience. After all, it is rather boomer to say, "the world has gotten so much easier compared to back then".
In this age of consumption, people aren't as incentivized to write and express their complaints in words and there isn't a lot of mediums to vent their desperation with less people to have these conversations with. This, I believe, is further converted to watching someone who talks about their frustrations and speak out their thoughts.
As a result, the large view counts on these videos represents people's frustration on the problem presented. And having someone to say "No, it's not your fault. They did this to you" just feels really, really good.
-Rui
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