Anecdotally, I watch a lot of youtube content of areas like hiking, camping, vanlife, survival, bushcraft, DIY, homesteading, exercise, etc. And I see more and more suggested videos that take these topics but add in a woman wearing a bikini or yoga wear while doing them, often not speaking any English or at all, with strangely named channels.
Imagine if every time you went to a library to go read and learn history or science or poetry you had to pass through and see Playboy/Maxim/Pornhub version of science and history pulling you away. And if you succumbed and opened a volume like that once, then the next time you visited that aisle you found they had removed 10% of the educational books and added in 10% more softcore porn.
China banned a lot of types of content from their local Tiktok for children, but honestly we need bifurcated apps or ways to filter search results for thirst traps for adults too. It's not any different than putting chocolate bars in a health foods aisle at the grocery store or alcohol vending machines in a rehab facility.
How many of our next would-be Einsteins, Edisons, Teslas, etc are being distracted by Tiktok, mobile games, etc.
Having read both the featured article and this comment, I had to look up the meaning of “thirst trap”, a phrase I had never previously encountered.
For the benefit of others not au fait with social media culture, Wikipedia describes thirst traps as ‘a type of social media post intended to entice viewers sexually. It refers to a viewer’s “thirst”, a colloquialism likening sexual frustration to dehydration, implying desperation, with the afflicted individual being described as “thirsty.”’
As someone who grew up with the term, the overly-analytical tone describing "thirst trap" is uncomfortable!
You're thirsty if you're horny, typically for a particular person but not always.
You're thirsting over someone if you're horny for someone in particular.
A thirst trap is an act (or video, or Instagram post, etc.) that intends to make others thirst over you. It's like a mating display, but with ulterior motives, if you want to look at it that way.
Except YouTube isn’t the equivalent of a library in the first place, it’s the equivalent of a slightly seedy corner store. Sure there might be some mildly informative magazines on a shelf next to the Maxims, but that’s not the point and never was.
My argument is, it's a vastly underpowered system in terms of the filtering options available to users. Those things ought to remain available, but I wish it were easier to tell Youtube my goals for a browsing session and turn off porn mode.
You could easily reword your comment as wishing there were convenience stores without the magazines.
I agree with the other person here. It’s just the context of YouTube. Take HN for example: there’s little to no adult content on this site.
I’m in a similar camp in that I’m frustrated daily that Facebook can’t figure out that I (admittedly a single 30 male) don’t want the lewd content. I say “show less of this” on every lewd post, but it can’t figure it out.
That being said, I think the answer is fostering/finding other communities with different natures rather than changing Facebook or YouTube to be something they aren’t.
How many content discovery systems can you point to that have the breadth and depth of video content that Youtube does?
I don't think it's too much to just give feedback into the void with the hope that if enough people chime in with the same thoughts, that some day some Google PM might actually do something about it.
That being said, I'm sure its a question of $ budget for ML recommender processing and/or the cost of labeling videos. But the labeling could be done by users.
>I wish it were easier to tell Youtube my goals for a browsing session and turn off porn mode.
I mean, this is a game of cat and mouse. YT is already very aggressive on sexual content. Content creators just find the next line and push it there.You could require everyone making videos to be wearing suits and people would still find ways to be evocative.
At some point your best move is to self moderate. Ignore those thumbnails or aggressively click "not interested" on any content like that.
>But the labeling could be done by users.
In these times? It'd be a bloodbath of political labels being thrown at various ideaologies. It'd be a wreck.
No, this can't be automated. YT would need to pay staff and set a rubric. But I'm guessing that it's not financially impacting YT as is.
Sure, but it has the same problems. Who makes the labels, and do you trust that consensus? It would simply take seeing some cryptocurrency cult webinar being labeled "educational" or something to that effect before suddenly the labels become as much noise as the "related videos" section (made up over half of your recommendations instead of related videos).
It could also go the other way. Add a "misinformation" label and suddenly everything is misinformation, from Jordan Peterson speeches to live recorded NASA space launches to Spongebob clips.
I agree it's an imperfect solution, but I do think in very broad strokes it would move the needle in the right direction. Surely a video about engine repair that one only finds when searching the specific make and model would garner fewer 'sexual' votes than a music video or thirst trap.
YouTube doesn’t want that. Their metrics show that less user control and more “algorithm” results in more users behaving properly: looking at more ads.
I wouldn't agree with that argument, though. What does 'true' in that sense even mean? Do we as a society want to weed out the easily distractible or do we want to ensure that more people are able to flourish?
Is a potential 21st century Einstein somehow "less valuable" because his surroundings ensured he could live up to his potential?
You can easily rebut that…no, they would, if you make a library with 90% porn in it they would have a harder time doing research in that library than a normal one.
Whether it's for the military or not, I find these women's behavior gross and their followers pathetic. It feels like we're veering into post-feminist territory where attractive, charismatic women can market themselves on the internet and society can't offer a reasonable objection without resorting to social conservatism.
I agree with you, but I'm surprised that you then go on to write off conservatism seemingly flippantly.
There is no reason to believe that social norms can only change for the better, and in fact a lot of evidence that they aren't moving in a positive direction.
The US right may be overreacting to this by rolling back too many changes and throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
But that doesn't mean that conservatism in general is a bad idea. There is certainly something to be said for assessing the outcomes of a change before running many experiments in parallel without a control group.
People here talk a whole lot about Chesterton's Fence when it comes to engineering topics and promptly forget it all when switching over to sociopolitical topics.
at the same time many here seem to think "not understanding a system" can involve totally good faith arguments like "sticking your head in the sand" and "putting a blindfold and earplugs in and saying LALALALALALALA!"
Conservatism offers no solutions here so we can safely write it off for this particular issue. There is no way to prevent content creators and media companies from running uncontrolled experiments to maximize advertising revenue or user engagement or whatever metric. In the USA we have the rule of law and constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression. The potential benefits of pushing right up to the line are so huge that there will be no voluntary restraint in the general case. Even if YouTube or Instagram were to restrict risque content the creators and consumers would eventually move on to a new service.
I agree that there is not a regulatory measure capable of curbing content creators from carrying out these kind of videos.
However, the previous comments were suggesting that a broader adoption of social conservatism could potentially influence the algorithm's function, mainly due to the increased likelihood of individuals shunning such videos.
> But that doesn't mean that conservatism in general is a bad idea.
It's crazy to me that conservatism has become a dirty word. And I wasn't immune to that either when I was younger. It's only as I've matured that I realized what the word actually means and that conservatism is actually the center on the reactionary-conservative-progressive axis. I also learned that progressivism is mainly ideologies driven from academic circles who consider themselves an intellectual elite that should decide where society is headed and that those circles have been catastrophically wrong in the past with things like eugenics and communism.
In my experience, conservatism means tax cuts for the wealthy and whatever it takes to sell them. "Family values" were the sales pitch when I was a kid and they could use that against a president who liked to diddle the interns. Nowadays, they seem to be taking a different direction since the leader of their party is a genital-grabbing philanderer, but he did get them their tax cuts.
I will say that the left leaning social policy in the US seemed silly to me at first until I became better friends with people who are in those groups and a bit of it is still silly but it does make a lot more sense from their perspective.
I didn't mean to write off social conservatism. I just meant that it's unappealing to roughly half the country and it's unclear what liberals are supposed to tell men and women to discourage this behavior.
I don't really know the situation on the ground in the US. In the UK I feel like we're a fairly conservative country in general, the majority of the population are socially conservative (if perhaps not fiscally), but then the political parties are split in a way that makes this complicated.
Put simply - in the UK, half of the country are capital C Conservative, but probably >80% are conservative.
IMO the only serious problem with social conservatism is when it's legislated. Accordingly, feminism was at its best when it was about liberation. Touting sex positivity vs touting traditional gender roles are on equal moral ground, and it seems to me as though you're looking to make a case against unmitigated sex positivity, while feeling as though this means you're necessarily looking to roll back liberation efforts. So long as the case is about "oughts" rather than "musts," I don't see the problem with you making whatever case you want.
Hi. I'm a feminist and I support women doing whatever they want of their own autonomous will. Including marketing dumb horny men that can't seem to keep their porn addiction out of every corner of their life.
Hi. I'm a feminist and I support women doing whatever they want of their own autonomous will. Including marketing dumb weak men that can't seem to keep their crystal meth addiction out of every corner of their life.
Lol wat. I guess that would be responsive if the e-girls were marketing to men with free meth but in fact that's not what were discussing. Afaict it's "omg booba I my tv, booba in my vida game, booba in the military", and contrary to what some here (hopefully jokingly) assert, not all men operate in such a way.
Which reminds me were just ignoring the true grossness of this marketing given the military's extreme issues with sexual assault.
My argument would be that as someone who is not addicted to porn/"booba", you might see it simply a decision to "operate in such a way", but for others they might struggle with addiction.
Huh, I got out empathied today, here. I think that's a useful take and does make me reconsider my gut reaction. Hm. Thanks for the thought and elaboration.
Hmm, lots of power dynamics and angles, especially given this all happening under the auspice of the state building their war machine.
Ironically, the widespread use of contraception and abortion means that women are much more likely to be used and abused, treated as objects, and discarded as disposable, rather than loved, respected, and cherished by men who are attracted to them.
They've claimed that this is their choice, that this is empowering, that the alternative was slavery and oppression, but I'm not sure how many sincerely believe those slogans.
This was all foreseen and predicted. The world was warned, but the world pressed on blindly.
So you believe women would be better off without access to abortions and contraceptives because men have to be shitty to women if the women choose to have sex? Not every guy feels the need to shame a woman for having a sex drive.
Why would a woman, forced into viewing sex as inherently risky, want to get married to a guy with those views? Wouldn't it be better to be dumped after a few dates instead of being married to someone who doesn't respect you.
In this world are married couple, also forced to only have sex for procreation or have their family size explode to levels where they can't afford their children. Why would men or women want that? Kids survive childhood far more often and most people don't need a bunch of free labor for the fields anymore.
This is also completely ignoring the huge health issues we are seeing now in states banning abortions, with women being forced to bring dead fetuses to term, doctors afraid of running afoul of the law to save a woman's life when there is an issue with the pregnancy, and raped children and women being forced to flee their state or have their rapist's baby.
It's a pretty sick future if we eventually encourage these mass shooters to rape someone on their way to the crime because they know their lineage will live on.
I don't understand what you mean by "forced" and "inherently risky". What risks are you talking about? Sex isn't ever "inherently risky" and I don't know anyone who would reason like that if they just thought about it for a few moments. There are circumstances and behaviors which may increase risk of certain outcomes when having sex. There is nothing "inherent" about these elements. You don't make any sense.
Sex is inherently exciting, enjoyable, holy, and very good. Sex is designed that way so that humans and other creatures will engage in it often. Christians understand this, and we promote that view.
Your comments draw a bleak landscape of discord and strife over sex, and nobody wants that. We want a Culture of Life, where human dignity is respected and upheld at every stage of life, for every person, equally.
If you were responding in good faith you would respond to my full post, instead of part of a single sentence, where many of the risk without abortion and contraceptive access are listed.
Edit: It's also poor form to stealthily edit your comment after someone has already replied to it and you've been down voted for it.
Well you're not posting in good faith; it's evident from your using emotive false equivalencies like "forced" and "inherently risky". If you weren't starting from false premises then we may have a chance at honest debate.
Historically, I don't exactly think women were loved, respected or cherished by men, at least not all the time, nor how we think of it in modern terms and I don't think contraception is the cause of it.
Women in many cultures and times were just seen as baby machines and failing to have children often led to intense shame especially if the women failed to produce the right gender. And for those with unwanted pregnancy - suicide was a common option either by failed abortion, or trying to make ends meet in other ways, or just straight suicide I read quite a lot of stories of it. People made things work or just didn't and finished it quickly, they were expected to and I'd say that the concept of love was a lot different then how we think of it now. People did things because they were supposed to (or were forced too), not always because they wanted to.
You can look at any time in history and see this, the Bible has a ton of examples of poor women in bad situations (Leah & Rachel, Hagar, Bathsheba, etc). It also even brings up when to abort a child as a way to prove guilt or innocence of sleeping around (Ordeal of the bitter water.) But you find concubine stories, slave stories, multiple wives all over the world, ... Women historical were often treated more like children or objects then treasure. The Bible also shows cases of women in power too (Deborah, Miriam, etc) and the love of them is mixed. I'm just saying you might think it's a 'modern problem' but it's always been a part of history. Conception has always been around too even if not well understood, the rich having the best access.
I do agree that relationships nowadays can be much cheaper though but for particular generations like millennials for example sex in general is at an all time historical low. I'd say in general more people are afraid of relationships then anything due to money, family trauma or many other cases be it America, Europe and Asian countries. It's more stress and fear related then anything I'd say besides the devaluing of children (in cities they are an expense, on a farm an asset). Plus with many families separated because of work, it's harder to rise children with lack of community in many places.
I’m having difficulty believing that you’re saying what I think you’re saying.
Are you really suggesting that the option of contraception and abortion should be removed, to ensure that women are loved, respected, and cherished by men?
Humanae vitae, Pope Saint Paul VI, 7/25/1968: released in response to the hormonal contraceptive pill (not to mention the "sexual revolution" while the Vietnam War raged on). HV is remarkably short, and I recommend reading it in full if you have a few minutes. But you want citations: Paragraphs 3, 7, 10, 13, 14, 16, and finally, the predictions and anticipation are laid bare in paragraph 17.
"Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection."
I think you are confusing science and statistics with made up 55 year old nonsense written by people living lives completely without women but pretending to have something worthwhile to say.
Is it only me who finds very creepy these short videos of influencers making grimaces with few seconds of indistinguishable deep bass music in the background? I feel my brain gets damaged when watching this. It's like sipping espresso through a straw all the time.
I'm frustrated because it has always bothered me and it tells me nothing, but people keep doing it, so there must be a demographic to whom it appeals to.
It seems like you're placing a lot of weight on the kind of intelligence that favors office work and ignoring all of the artists, builders, monks, healers and leaders whose names fill history books.
Brightest by your measure rarely get mentioned. Not to say historical impact is the most valuable metric, but it begs the question of what is your measure of brightness good for?
I'm sorry if that was your experience in the military, but it emphatically isn't what I've experienced, and is the extreme exception to what I've seen others experience.
This idiocracy meme is part of the distraction. Proletariat literally means "breeders". The elites very much know they need to keep the number of heirs limited while expanding the base of exploitable populace.
In reality, no. If you're attractive you and your actions will be perceived differently, and you can do a surprising amount of things in generak if you look like you fit in (attractive or not, but usually being attractive helps). There are hundreds of case studies of this over the decades.
The average civilian is more disposable than a service member. It is well known that a service member has more responsibilities and higher standards than their civilian counterparts. Hence the reason military experience is looked at with higher regard than a bachelors degree.
Any videos with "thirst traps" (as the article put it) gets a hard pass by me. I don't even bother anymore - I'm so tuned out from Instagram it's not even funny. I'm amazed at how effective it is at luring others in.
Peer pressure made me create IG account. Scrapped it after 4 years. Every uploaded byte of data, every character typed there, every second spent there was sucked out of me by attention vampires. It's such an emotional and time sucking hellhole. Increasingly I feel the same about my resourced spent on Reddit.
>I'm amazed at how effective it is at luring others in.
are you really? It's a very simple exploit of raw human urges. And the amount of push-back against eroticism in society makes it all that more desirable to seek that forbidden fruit when presented.
Combine that with the internet where you can make your own persona (or simply lurk, unbeknownst to any and everyone except the algrithm overlords) and eliminate any social risk and you got a recipe for drawing in almost anyone.
"Wait, that actually works on people?" is one of the more common hallmarks of the asexual experience. I always knew that sex sells but the extent to which it does is surprising to those of us that don't experience it. A whole other world. Especially for the segment of the space that are repulsed due to medical issues or difficult past experiences. The struggling religious segment probably gets it.
A despicable advertising campaign for military recruitment. Ironically our saving grace may end up being that such a large majority of Gen Z'rs don't come close to the minimum level of physical and mental fitness that this campaign is likely doomed to fail.
>Less than a quarter of young American adults are physically fit to enlist and have no disqualifying criminal record, a proportion that has shrunk steadily in recent years.
Mint Press News is a pro-Russian garbage blog and one of their "journalists" was recently caught spray painting neo-Nazi graffiti to implicate Ukrainian refugees.
I've never been in the military, but I doubt recruits are allowed to show up wearing full makeup and long flowing hair to shoot internet videos without at least the authorization of their superiors. And I doubt their direct superior has the authority to decide that by themselves. You never know which classified information can be guessed from a single picture, much less a series of videos.
As for the "droves of young men", propaganda works. The fact that the military had cooperated with 10k Hollywood Films attests to that. They may not join for her, but it all adds up in the effort for painting military life as cool.
> I doubt recruits are allowed to show up wearing full makeup and long flowing hair to shoot internet videos without at least the authorization of their superiors
They can. As long as they’re not on duty, violating uniform regulations, or OPSEC, it’s pretty much fine.
75% of Gen Z doesn't even qualify to join the US military from obesity and drug use.
I am pretty sure the military is doing whatever they can do to market to that remaining 25%.
Beautiful women doing this I am sure is rather effective too. I would have considered the military far more when I was young if my image of the military was not that of the movie Platoon. A large group of young men getting yelled at by older men in between running.
Imagine if every time you went to a library to go read and learn history or science or poetry you had to pass through and see Playboy/Maxim/Pornhub version of science and history pulling you away. And if you succumbed and opened a volume like that once, then the next time you visited that aisle you found they had removed 10% of the educational books and added in 10% more softcore porn.
China banned a lot of types of content from their local Tiktok for children, but honestly we need bifurcated apps or ways to filter search results for thirst traps for adults too. It's not any different than putting chocolate bars in a health foods aisle at the grocery store or alcohol vending machines in a rehab facility.
How many of our next would-be Einsteins, Edisons, Teslas, etc are being distracted by Tiktok, mobile games, etc.