An algorithm for the left-handed?
February 2, 2025 9:04 AM Subscribe
This is so weird (or maybe it's not)! I have been watching a LOT of smaller YouTuber art channels, mainly sketchbook tours, timelapses and vlogs. Last night I watched a video from a left-handed artist. I noticed it enough to comment on it - I think this is the first left-handed artist video I have seen, it's so interesting! And then literally 4 of the next 6 videos were left-handed artists. What?
Some possible explanations:
Some videos are reversed (because I am very novice at the whole video thing) - but I think you can actually tell for other reasons, that the person is left-handed. (Also, more than one included text in the scene that was not reversed.)
Then I thought maybe I just never noticed before? But I don't think so? Holding the pencil and adjusting the page are different. I suppose it could be confirmation bias because I just started noticing this? I think there are probably thousands (?) of smaller art YouTube channels, and my criteria for choosing out of the huge numbers of options is actually video length (generally under 10 or 15 minutes - because 1) I want to support lots of different people, 2) I need to spend most of my time doing my own art instead of only watching videos. Though I sometimes put longer videos on in the background if I'm filming something without speaking.
I feel I have ruled out the other explanations I can think of, including that I haven't noticed any of the artists mentioning their left-handedness in the text of the video (titles or descriptions). Does this mean that YouTube is noticing that people are left-handed and specifically choosing left-handed artists because I had already watched one, then several more? Am I just the last person to notice this sort of thing? I am sort of fascinated by this and wondered what other people think.
Some possible explanations:
Some videos are reversed (because I am very novice at the whole video thing) - but I think you can actually tell for other reasons, that the person is left-handed. (Also, more than one included text in the scene that was not reversed.)
Then I thought maybe I just never noticed before? But I don't think so? Holding the pencil and adjusting the page are different. I suppose it could be confirmation bias because I just started noticing this? I think there are probably thousands (?) of smaller art YouTube channels, and my criteria for choosing out of the huge numbers of options is actually video length (generally under 10 or 15 minutes - because 1) I want to support lots of different people, 2) I need to spend most of my time doing my own art instead of only watching videos. Though I sometimes put longer videos on in the background if I'm filming something without speaking.
I feel I have ruled out the other explanations I can think of, including that I haven't noticed any of the artists mentioning their left-handedness in the text of the video (titles or descriptions). Does this mean that YouTube is noticing that people are left-handed and specifically choosing left-handed artists because I had already watched one, then several more? Am I just the last person to notice this sort of thing? I am sort of fascinated by this and wondered what other people think.
Response by poster: But how does it know the artist is left-handed? It just never occurred to me that this would be the sort of detail it would not only collect, but base its suggestions on. For what it's worth, the next two have also been left-handed.
posted by Glinn at 9:30 AM on February 2
posted by Glinn at 9:30 AM on February 2
The algorithm doesn't know. The more likely process is this:
1) You engage with some particular video X (the secret variable is that X features a left handed artist).
2) The algorithm looks for other people who also engaged with video X, and builds a list of all of those folks.
3) The algorithm looks at what most engaged people on the list from #2. Whiz-bang, now it's got a list of videos guaranteed to be bangers for whatever cross-over intersection of interests might exist between you and the people on the list.
4) It ranks those videos so that the higher ranking ones appeared on more people's lists.
5) It starts to recommend you videos off the ranked list.
It's a bit more complicated than this (there's probably more dimensions at play, more complicated ways of ranking) but hopefully this gets the idea across. When it works it seems like magic but the trick is that people are a lot more alike than we prefer to believe. When it misses (e.g., the list of people from #2 aren't interested in the left-handedness, but say the subject being depicted) then it just seems like a bit of a weird reco. But your brain dismisses that more easily since you get lots of "miss" recommendations all the time.
posted by axiom at 9:41 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
1) You engage with some particular video X (the secret variable is that X features a left handed artist).
2) The algorithm looks for other people who also engaged with video X, and builds a list of all of those folks.
3) The algorithm looks at what most engaged people on the list from #2. Whiz-bang, now it's got a list of videos guaranteed to be bangers for whatever cross-over intersection of interests might exist between you and the people on the list.
4) It ranks those videos so that the higher ranking ones appeared on more people's lists.
5) It starts to recommend you videos off the ranked list.
It's a bit more complicated than this (there's probably more dimensions at play, more complicated ways of ranking) but hopefully this gets the idea across. When it works it seems like magic but the trick is that people are a lot more alike than we prefer to believe. When it misses (e.g., the list of people from #2 aren't interested in the left-handedness, but say the subject being depicted) then it just seems like a bit of a weird reco. But your brain dismisses that more easily since you get lots of "miss" recommendations all the time.
posted by axiom at 9:41 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
literally 4 of the next 6 videos were left-handed artists
Are these definitely all from different channels? YouTube tends to show a few videos in a row from the same channel.
Besides that, and if it's really not plausible that it's a coincidence, I'd wonder if there are enough people actually looking for left-handed videos such that YouTube's algorithm has learned that 'people who like this video [because there's lefty drawing, though YouTube doesn't know that] tend to like these other videos [which also have lefty drawing, though YouTube doesn't know that]'
There's also the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon where you think you've never seen a thing and then suddenly keep seeing it everywhere - while in reality you just didn't notice a lot of previous instances you'd been exposed to before, and are noticing all of them now.
posted by trig at 9:43 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
Are these definitely all from different channels? YouTube tends to show a few videos in a row from the same channel.
Besides that, and if it's really not plausible that it's a coincidence, I'd wonder if there are enough people actually looking for left-handed videos such that YouTube's algorithm has learned that 'people who like this video [because there's lefty drawing, though YouTube doesn't know that] tend to like these other videos [which also have lefty drawing, though YouTube doesn't know that]'
There's also the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon where you think you've never seen a thing and then suddenly keep seeing it everywhere - while in reality you just didn't notice a lot of previous instances you'd been exposed to before, and are noticing all of them now.
posted by trig at 9:43 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
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posted by cooker girl at 9:24 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]