How does Youtube look without comments?

Just like it usually does, but without the comments! But what’s interesting is that by turning off the comments on Youtube, the world pre-2000 comes back, where you can get away with saying whatever you want just because you have a media channel, because the viewers don’t have a channel for their critique. Without the comments I can watch an interview with Jimmy Fallon and start believing that Jimmy Fallon is an important person who knows his thing, because he is on my screen and that’s where I get all the information that creates my worldview! It wasn’t that long ago you either had to work for a large media company, start a large media company or work for the government to send information to the people, which feels weird today, because I have this website and it’s obviously better than all of them. And no, it’s not only the comments that differ Youtube & the internet from TV & newspapers (it’s also the fact that you can upload stuff!), but it surprised me how the harmless and generic Youtube comments actually are a huge part of a huge power-shift that affects everything (the power-shift of internet giving you the same possibilities as all big and small media companies + the government). Binge-reading comments, getting tired of them and turning them off to free my mind made me realize that I actually need them to understand that there’s a lot of good guys in low positions and a lot of bad guys in high positions.

Tip to get less generic Youtube comments: Sort by “Newest” instead of “Top”, every time I do it I’m reminded that people aren’t one-line:r machines with identical opinions, they’re actually weird and not the same.

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