Tricks and Trash.

I was browsing my YouTube recommendations this afternoon and learned a few interesting facts. One channel, for example, informed me that the streets in China are littered with dead bodies and the country is in catastrophic meltdown. Another said that Paris is little more than a pile of shattered masonry because the city is collapsing. New York is also collapsing because huge gangs of angry people are setting fire to everything. And China is currently preparing for war with Japan. It didn’t take long to find those four. YouTube is full of outrageous claims like that because clicks are profitable, which is preferable to being authentic.

I was mildly disappointed that I never came across ‘Aliens ate my hamster’, but reasoned that even the average YouTuber would know that that story was debunked about fifty years ago.

So then I started to compile a list of the phrases used by YouTubers to convince the gullible that there’s something deliciously hidden to be found, and this video will let you in on the secret. Surprisingly they were few and far between in the couple of minutes I was looking, and so I’ve only picked up three so far. There’s usually more than that. They are:

… will shock you

… which they don’t want you to know

… it’s not what you think

I’ll keep looking and add some more another time.

I find it sad that a platform with the potential of YouTube should have degenerated into having a large proportion of its output clearly aimed at those for whom The National Enquirer has become too highbrow, but it appears that there’s a growing consensus that it’s just the way the western world’s mentality has progressed over the past few decades.

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And I think I need to put a notice up somewhere in the village:

Lost: JJ’s sense of humour. Please check your sheds and outbuildings, and if you find it call this number urgently. No reward, I’m afraid, except that attaching to the attainment of virtue.