so starting yesterday (or technically the day before yesterday, technically yesterday still since i started at like 2am) i started doing this thing where i watch only old youtube for an entire week. or 10 days depending on how i feel by the 7 day mark. im on day 2 currently. i made possibly the WORST most UNOPTIMIZED ublock filter ever that checks for phrases like "month ago" or "2 years ago" to filter out those videos and hide them in as many pages as possible on YT. showing only 12+ year old videos, from 2014 and beforehoof. sometimes 2015 videos bleed through though, but thats fine theyre still old.
so like. why. why do this? well, curiosity. that and i think my experience doing this would maybe make for a good green hoodie cat video. DONT QUOTE ME ON THAT THOUGH if i feel too stuck on making this video idea i might move on to just make a... totally different video. in the event this is eventually turned into a ghc video then CONGRATS youre getting to see what the next ghc video is ahead of time.
if you want to try the filter out for yourself, you can find the ublock filter here! i wouldnt fully recommend it outside of a curiosity thing for a short time though. its probably super unoptimized and i doubt most people want to watch only old videos? i wont judge if you do want that though. this filter also only works with the V3 youtube frontend extension thing! since thats what i typically use to make youtube usable, even outside of what im doing with all this.
if you DO choose to use the filter, and have any interesting experiences or observations using it, feel free to email me with said experiences! you can also message me anywhere listed on my about page, but email is preferable. (also found on my about page)
on the first day of using this extension i noticed afew things, one, this is actually pretty fun and enjoyable. but that just makes sense given its the first day! another thing i noticed is that im kinda just... using youtube as i normally would. just with only older videos being watched. so far ive been using this time to watch "classics" for any specific fandom im in that i never really got around to watching, stuff like spy & pyro, or old mlp animations that i never noticed in my recommendations before. theres a fair few octavia and dj pon3 animations specifically ive noticed.
for the most part my watch history for this day consists of my little pony fan content (i specifically watched videos related to the twilight alicorn outrage from the time), aswell as portal 2 commercials (well made commercials for things you like really were the best stuff you could watch sometimes back then), and tf2 clips and commentaries and such. old tf2 muselk videos are still a fun watch even in current day.
i should clarify that i WAS using youtube during this time period, i remember using it and have specific memories of watching specific videos, but we're over a decade removed from that time period now, alot has changed both with youtube aswell as us, the people watching youtube. i promise this isnt JUST me telling people what was on youtube back then when people already very likely know. or atleast i HOPE this doesnt turn into that.
ok cool this blog is up to where i am now. first thing im realizing: wide/broad appeal videos dont exactly... exist. like sure you had random clips of life that would go viral, i saw this one guy doing crazy moves on a DDR machine which was cool, and i know just from memory that other stuff like that existed that got popular, but most videos outside of those short slice of life clips are from specific fandoms. i forgot how much people stayed in their own communities when it came to making and viewing videos. maybe this sounds obvious, but its never something i would have EVER thought of back then without the context of new youtube being FILLED with that stuff.
this isnt me calling wide appeal media bad either of course, theres nothing inherently wrong or bad about videos that appeal to a large amount of people, both freaks and average people alike.
like sure, maybe you could call something like, minecraft, or if you really want to stretch it, my little pony videos "wide appeal" due to the sheer size of their communities from back then, everyone likes minecraft! but if you were a random guy from before the internet and technology was literally required to do anything irl, whos never touched minecraft, a minecraft lets play would not really appeal to you at all i dont think. so, short viral slice of life clip videos it is.
youtube seems to be picking up on me watching only older videos, too. due to how the filter works, theres just a blank space where a newer video (or comment!) would be. this started off with literally NO videos showing on my homepage. maybe one would be there, two if im lucky but thats it. my homepage is beginning to fill out though. the music sections specifically are beginning to be totally full.
IGNORE ME SAYING WIDE APPEAL STUFF DIDNT EXIST. I SPENT ALOT OF TIME WATCHING VSAUCE TODAY I DONT KNOW HOW I FORGOT ABOUT HIM. i STILL do think wide appeal stuff wasnt as chased after then as it was now, but im willing to admit that i was kinda wrong on the wide appeal stuff.
one thing ive noticed in tiny bits the past 2 days but actually thought about today is that im kinda using youtube how i would have when i was younger, which is strange because i said im using youtube as i would normally in current day but with older videos. maybe what i said on day 2 was wrong, maybe we havent changed much, and its youtube and the stuff on it that has actually changed drastically?
im watching the same kinda stuff i would have back then, and im just generally using youtube differently based on the videos available to me. im back to getting hooked and fixiated on any specific niche fandom song and listening to it constantly while doing whatever. and lets plays are sometimes the best choice for what to watch while eating food. im currently listening to minecraft parodies (how do i craft this again specifically rn) while writing this.
speaking of music, most of the time i will use youtube to listen to my music, but i will go through phases of listening to the music ive downloaded, using a program like wacup. id imagine that doing something like this would prompt me into listening to music locally so i can listen to all the music i would regularly on any other day, but i dunno, ive still just been using youtube and listening to old stuff. this isnt me trying to say the new stuff is BAD and TERRIBLE, because its. not. but i think, ironically enough, so many of these old songs feel new to me, either because i havent listened to them in forever, which is the case for minecraft parodies, or because i wasnt in a given fandom when these older songs were being made, which is the case for really only MLP fan songs right now. occasionally ill listen to music locally but mostly ive still just used youtube.
i honestly.. dont quite know how the video is gonna go. my brain keeps just yapping on and on in a youtuber fashion (which is why writing scripts is super easy actually!) about what ill be potentially talking about in the finished ghc video, but neither extreme of "older videos were NOT AS GOOD and you cant PRETEND THEY WERE BETTER" or "this is SO MUCH BETTER!" for what the video will possibly be just. isnt forming. so far ive really enjoyed my time doing this and i havent felt much if any fatigue from watching only old stuff, but also i cant bring myself to say the new stuff is bad, because its 100% not. theres so much well edited and well put together stuff on modern youtube and on the modern internet as a whole. even if there is also more slop (i hate that word so much) online now.
the halfway mark has been reached! im not sure i really have anything insightful to say or whatever.. its been the same as the past three days, just more of it! i guess i could start with the fun i have watching videos that are very clearly outdated, but are fun to watch knowing what comes next!
there was an mlp analysis/theory video that was. really only headcanon. i think the creator was aware of it since their other videos (that i can see) are titled as headcanon stories. i think there were some other mlp videos i watched where i was like "oh, yeah, definitely got outdated by the story in later seasons" but im tired and feel sick ish so.. im not gonna try too hard to rember.
i was also searching "tyler mcvicker" to watch some of his old videos i remember watching, turns out he only has 2 public videos out by late 2014! ok well i think there were more but theyre unlisted or private probably. either way, watched a portal 2 cut content video i havent watched in forever and an everything we know about source 2 video. they were both enjoyable.
BUT thats not what i wanna talk about. i want to talk about the VALVE TIME STEAM UNIVERSE VIDEO..... where the youtuber covers the announcement of the original steam machine, steamOS, steam controller, and steam family sharing which apparently was part of all that??? i did not know that.
first off, the original steam machine and steamos was so funny. a core part of the marketing from what i can gather from this video was "you can stream from your windows pc to your linux steamos device. just have your windows pc on at all times" JUST USE THE WINDOWS PC THEN???? keep in mind this is 2013, proton wasnt a thing and if you wanted to play portal 2 through wine then have fun getting a seizure any time gel is visible (i remember having to use linux for a bit back then... the gels were just massive vertex explosions...)
secondly, they talked about how linux was supported by hundreds of games on the platform with probably millions of games. they said more was on the way or something which... makes me wonder, did they contact devs and tell them to make native linux ports for their games or something? anyways, im gonna lightning round the rest of the funny things from this video because this is getting off topic.
this comment:
this original in development steam controller design terrifies me. cue minecraft cave sound.
they for some reason used nvidia crap in the og steam machine when amd is what plays far nicer with linux?
spotify and other streaming services might have been almost added to steam?????? (thank god they werent)
not a valve thing specifically, but was in the video. for some reason omni treadmills were being focused on when vr was first being developed instead of motion controllers. what. why.
literally just compare this steam universe to the one we have now its such a funny crazy difference
ok let me wrap this up ive just yapped about valve. tl;dr looking at old stuff with the knowledge we have now is super funny and kinda interesting.
i WILL admit some of that "oughoguhhh i want to watch this new thing" has set in. so far its been easy to not have that feeling but seeing videos made by people i follow online linked externally from bsky or something, and not being able to watch them is kinda. bothersome. only one video has had me like that so far but if a half life 3 leak video comes out while im doing this i think i will actually go feral. overall though, still enjoyable! ive found and enjoyed a decent few new/old videos today that i havent watched before and, even if they arent as crazy well edited as videos today, i still like them. i will admit though, i am beginning to want to be able to keep up with some peoples stuff in current day again.
yknow i was gonna start this by saying how im realizing that, im watching more mlp videos from this time than sonic videos because as a newer mlp fan these videos are also new to me, but i went on to spend alot of today watching somecallmejohnnys old sonic stuff which i actually hadnt gotten around to until now somehow. also all those videos have a dying fire alarm in the background and it wont stop bothering me
im kinda back to wanting to do this for 10 days and not just a week, BUT at the same time more stuff i wanna check out from modern yt has come out that i, well, wanna check out! i keep flip flopping on what im thinking.. older youtube is so cozy and comfy and lacks any of the modern day half of the time ai generated slop for want of a better word, but at the same time new youtube has SO many youtubers and series' and even cartoons now that are so cool and well made! even if the 'slop' (still hate that word with a passion but im too tired to come up with a better way of describing what i mean) exists and is prominent. even if everything tries harder, more than ever to grab your attention. modern youtube can feel almost a little overwhelming with how almost every video in your recommended can he these massive attention grabbers sometimes. BUT AGAIN! THERES COOL STUFF THATS NEW ALSO AND IM STRUGGLING TO FIND A GOOD MIDDLE GROUND CONCLUSION FOR THIS POTENTIAL VIDEO BECAUSE EVEN WATCHING THE OLD STUFF ONLY IS FUN ALSO!
anyways, sorry that this one is late. i was doing something else last night and by the time i realized i hadnt updated this blog i was wayy too tired to do it right then and there, so im doing it the morning after day 5. ill try to update tonight for day 6 still though.
this may just be the late night ish everything sucks demons reaching my brain but I WANT TO WATCH NEWER STUFF AGAIN!!!!
this has been fun and all but im tired and cant bring myself to write much more. im bad at doing daily stuff consistently. maybe tomorrow ill go back to loving doing this without any caveats but theres newer shows, videos and newer music i want to watch. theres so much good stuff out there both back then but ALSO right now.
this may just be me because i dont care for travelling much, but its like the last few days of a vacation where you just want to go home, and keep counting down the days until you go home.
im tired of my homepage feeling sparse also. sure its filled out alot since i started but i sometimes feel like i have so little options. maybe i just need to use the search function more though.
I'M CONFUSED........... so that dread of not being able to watch new stuff followed me into this morning, but then as the day went on, it went away, my youtube recommended on my homepage and sidebar is more filled out than ever while doing this, and now that im faced with turning off the ublock filter and going back to modern youtube, i almost dont want to. i want to keep going. but also i know that dread and want to watch new stuff again will show again. maybe.
and yes, i know its not like these videos wont be watchable when the filter is turned off, but the filter makes it so easy to tune out everything that isnt the old stuff, which tunes out the BAD new stuff, and its easier to find older videos ive never seen or have forgotten about.
i dont know fully why i want to keep going suddenly. maybe its because ive gotten youtube to adjust my recommendations to showing old stuff super well? and if i turn off the filter now, and watch new stuff again, ill have to start from scratch when it comes to wanting to do this again? having to rebuild my recommendations again from the ground up over another week? or maybe its because i just want to have something i can go to to feel like im back in the past again? its not like i dont have reasons to wanna re-do the past or whatever.
look, i GET that the logical conclusion is that both old and new youtube are good, and that you should watch the new stuff but also hold some respect for the old stuff and watch it from time to time if you want to, i get the only sensical thing to land on here is that "well theres a balance to it" but for some reason that is not swaying my want to keep doing this.
apologies that theres no solid satisfying conclusion to this right now. ill have a better one figured out when i finish the video i swear.