What's up with these stilted, positive/wholesome youtube comments?
February 28, 2023 7:23 PM Subscribe
I recently clicked on interviews with Tom Cruise and Joe Rogan and Louis CK discussing Jay Leno (please don't ask why! didn't watch most of them and I am not fans of these people). The comments are strange! (more inside)
Anyway, I know this is a weird question, but the comments on both videos are so strange. There are a lot of stilted comments sounding similar in tone sharing "wholesome" anecdotes about both Tom Cruise and Jay Leno, in a fashion that is really inconsistent with youtube comments, which I read a lot of.
What's up with this? Can celebrities pay people to write positive things for them on media? Is it Scientology minions (in Cruise's case)?? Or am I just reaching?
Anyway, I know this is a weird question, but the comments on both videos are so strange. There are a lot of stilted comments sounding similar in tone sharing "wholesome" anecdotes about both Tom Cruise and Jay Leno, in a fashion that is really inconsistent with youtube comments, which I read a lot of.
What's up with this? Can celebrities pay people to write positive things for them on media? Is it Scientology minions (in Cruise's case)?? Or am I just reaching?
I agree, OP. The top comments under the Tom Cruise video all seem like they were written by the same person, or maybe now the same Chatgpt. Slightly less so for the Jay Leno one, but still too similar to not seem fishy. There's the same grammar and feel to all the comments which is unusual in my experience. And no typos? I'm gonna go with some sort of auto comment generating AI.
I didn't go so far as to look up other comments by the commenters, but that could also give some clues as to what's going on here.
posted by newpotato at 2:11 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I didn't go so far as to look up other comments by the commenters, but that could also give some clues as to what's going on here.
posted by newpotato at 2:11 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
If you sort by newest on the Rogan video the comments are less laudatory. Sorting by “most popular” does have a heavy positive bias but the fact that these are mostly from 6 months ago makes me think they are legit. Maybe upvoted by bots or click farms but probably not. As the previous reply said, these are popular celebrities with a certain type of heavily online dude. Also, generative text AI was not really mainstream just 3 months back so it also makes me lean towards actual fans.
For Tom Cruise I think you might be onto something. He’s a strange chap with a weird personality from the interviews I’ve seen, not forgetting his adherence to a religion/cult that is notoriously willing to do anything and everything to boost and protect itself and its famous members. The comments have a similarity to each other and a weirdly bland positivity that (ironically) maps pretty closely onto Cruise’s public persona. Who knows, man?
With ChatGPT producing infinite quantities of plausible sounding bullshit, the web is about to get weirder and much less fun.
posted by JohnnyForeign at 3:29 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
For Tom Cruise I think you might be onto something. He’s a strange chap with a weird personality from the interviews I’ve seen, not forgetting his adherence to a religion/cult that is notoriously willing to do anything and everything to boost and protect itself and its famous members. The comments have a similarity to each other and a weirdly bland positivity that (ironically) maps pretty closely onto Cruise’s public persona. Who knows, man?
With ChatGPT producing infinite quantities of plausible sounding bullshit, the web is about to get weirder and much less fun.
posted by JohnnyForeign at 3:29 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
The Tom Cruise one is interesting, and one I'm willing to talk about, because for other reasons I've been lurking into the general fandom and movie nerd circles in the last couple of months. Timing-wise it's his most recent interview, well into the swing of some kind of victory lap that's been happening right now since Top Gun 2 outperformed expectations, and Mission: Impossible Fallout also not bombing. The tone of the comments pretty much mirror the tone of the interview also - there's *definitely* a new era to his celebrity at this current moment. You can compare with his older interviews, even a few years ago, like around when his The Mummy bombed. The comments there would be much more critical or willing to talk about his cult associations.
But in the last.... Six or seven years... 1) people love a winner; 2) he's stopped talking about his cult in any significant way; 3) you can say a lot about the guy but he's never been directly horrible to people; 3a) his leaked audio telling off crew for breaking COVID protocols picked up positive attention actually; 4) top gun didn't bomb; 5) for some reason those Mission movies have genuinely cultivated a fandom with lore etc. It's to the point that if you track the twitter conversations there's not a clear sense that you'd go positively viral for dunking on the guy.
So are these comments astro-turfing? Never say never, and we're talking about semi-moderated spaces (comments of official videos). So it's likely some are planted but he's got enough organic goodwill ppl are feeding off on it as well as the fact that negative comments might be scrubbed anyway. But there's definitely been a steady tapering off. It used to be I can count on at least a couple of critical/dunking comments under any of his interviews.
posted by cendawanita at 5:45 AM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
But in the last.... Six or seven years... 1) people love a winner; 2) he's stopped talking about his cult in any significant way; 3) you can say a lot about the guy but he's never been directly horrible to people; 3a) his leaked audio telling off crew for breaking COVID protocols picked up positive attention actually; 4) top gun didn't bomb; 5) for some reason those Mission movies have genuinely cultivated a fandom with lore etc. It's to the point that if you track the twitter conversations there's not a clear sense that you'd go positively viral for dunking on the guy.
So are these comments astro-turfing? Never say never, and we're talking about semi-moderated spaces (comments of official videos). So it's likely some are planted but he's got enough organic goodwill ppl are feeding off on it as well as the fact that negative comments might be scrubbed anyway. But there's definitely been a steady tapering off. It used to be I can count on at least a couple of critical/dunking comments under any of his interviews.
posted by cendawanita at 5:45 AM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
A lot of "I bought this for my husband and he loves it!" energy in these comments. Sounds to me like white male celebrities who are in need of an image tune-up are buying these comments on social media the same way shady vendors buy 5 star reviews on amazon. Just a theory, OP. I agree there is something very off about this.
posted by MiraK at 6:31 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 6:31 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Could be bots/scammers?
posted by erattacorrige at 6:59 AM on March 1, 2023
posted by erattacorrige at 6:59 AM on March 1, 2023
Best answer: Can celebrities pay people to write positive things for them on media? Is it Scientology minions (in Cruise's case)??
The generic term for this is "astroturfing" and is usually professionally done by "reputation management" companies, but also you'll find it funded by straight up marketing or investors or other concerns.
I'm sure this is at least one kind of astroturfing, though some of it may be unpaid fan response or fan-botting. But yes the cult has a looooooot of low/unpaid administrative-acting members who do a good deal of menial work (I once had brunch across the street from the big building in LA and watched several separate groups of people wheel A/V equipment into an empty storefront next to the restaurant and then wheel it back out across the street a few minutes later - this is one of those Army-style techniques to keep entry-level Sea Org members busy without too much time to think), and this could be one vector.
These may also help game the youtube algorithm to show these videos as recommended more often.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:03 PM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
The generic term for this is "astroturfing" and is usually professionally done by "reputation management" companies, but also you'll find it funded by straight up marketing or investors or other concerns.
I'm sure this is at least one kind of astroturfing, though some of it may be unpaid fan response or fan-botting. But yes the cult has a looooooot of low/unpaid administrative-acting members who do a good deal of menial work (I once had brunch across the street from the big building in LA and watched several separate groups of people wheel A/V equipment into an empty storefront next to the restaurant and then wheel it back out across the street a few minutes later - this is one of those Army-style techniques to keep entry-level Sea Org members busy without too much time to think), and this could be one vector.
These may also help game the youtube algorithm to show these videos as recommended more often.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:03 PM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
The Tom Cruise comments do seem a bit more extreme, but because he's one of the most popular/admired celebrities in the world it's always been hard to distinguish Scientology fanboys from general action movie celebrity fanboys. I personally doubt anyone paid anyone money to post these comments because there are plenty of fans of all these people who would do it for free.
posted by JZig at 12:26 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]