Video title: “How to unlock the demon door on the fourth level of Demon Smasher Elite”

“Hello, video game fans! Don’t forget to like and subscribe! Last week I posted a video that isn’t relevant to this video, but I need to drag out the time on this one to game the algorithm, so I’m going to rehash and plug that video. I’m going to shout out to my Patreon subscribers with ridiculous usernames I won’t pronounce well. Now let’s get to the part you’ve waiting for: I’m going to play through the entire thirty minutes worth of level four before you get to the demon door and I will stop to make useless commentary on the bad guys you encounter. Okay, now you’ve skipped forward to what looks like the area before the demon door part of the stage, but I’m going to talk about some unrelated anecdote about this game or maybe the game devs, and then plug my Patreon account and mention a completely different game that I’ll be streaming next. Oh and here’s the five seconds of the video you wanted to see when I tell you to click the right mouse button on the hidden lever next to the demon door in order to open it, except you aren’t seeing it because you skipped forward too far and gave up. Don’t forget to like and subscribe! This video has been brought to you by Nord VPN.”

Drives me crazy when I see this kind of format for things like programming. Nothing like pausing the video and trying to see what their code says.

@bstix couldn’t agree more!

Most of my students preferred video, even if with very few exceptions slides + text was better for them (for the stuff we did).

Also *good* video takes forever to make, good text+image tutorials slightly less forever but the search is much easier!

@bstix @Provider @benjiweber

You also can’t “copy and paste” code from their video screen.

@bstix @Provider @gvwilson writing is as hard as it ever was, but monetization of ad-hoc tutorial content is far easier and more lucrative on youtube. People are literally being paid to pollute your search results with video.

I’m actually optimistic; I think eventually youtube will face too much flak for this kind of garbage, it’ll start affecting viewership, they’ll tweak the algorithm or the partner program to punish bad tutorials and there’ll be a renaissance of the written stuff.

@bstix

OMFG this so much. Especially since most tutorials are ponderously slow and tedious. At the other extreme, are the ones with no subtitles and no sound where you are expected to follow a cursor flying around the screen clicking on things and are supposed to understand what happens. Those in particular should die in a fire.

@bstix @Provider God yes. I recently bought a bottle of rum that has a ridiculous ball valve built into the neck so my first attempt to pour it yielded nothing. Googled it & a YT video came up—something ridiculous like 7 minutes or longer—that could have been handled by a single sentence on the label. (Or better yet, not using a ball valve)

@bstix everyone wants to be a movie star

@bstix @Provider I’m not sure if it’s my neural divergence, but I actually find YouTube demos/tutorials quite intimidating. I will always pick a written one if I can find it.

YES, this is such a peeve for me!!! I’ve developed an aversion to viewing video content unless it’s for something I truly need to see done. And even then, I’m more likely to check wikihow and endure their gifs than I am to watch someone’s video. It’s just so overdone.

The worst are the videos that are little more than a Windows desktop and a syntesized voice of a tutorial that could be written. Additional negative points for instructions writen on Notepad on the screen on that video.