Commodified is so on the mark for that face on YouTube, too. It's well-known the algorithm of the website looks for faces with lots of emotion as a criteria for what gets promoted, so the soyface is an easy way to check the box, since YouTube seems to think open mouth equals emotion.
I remember Linus from LTT making a joke at one point about how he'd be taking photos for the thumbnails and be like "yeah there we go, my face looks cringe enough for the algorithm". They know it's just to game the system, lots of them hate it but do it anyway because they see the analytics on videos without soyfaces in the thumbnail consistently get less views even if they cover the same material.
Jesus, the algorithm takes it into account? That's already SocietyoftheSpectacle.jpg, I've got 95 theses to nail on someone's door about the fucking algorithm, but beyond their time and content and money and ideology it's holding their face hostage.
Commodified is so on the mark for that face on YouTube, too. It's well-known the algorithm of the website looks for faces with lots of emotion as a criteria for what gets promoted, so the soyface is an easy way to check the box, since YouTube seems to think open mouth equals emotion.
I remember Linus from LTT making a joke at one point about how he'd be taking photos for the thumbnails and be like "yeah there we go, my face looks cringe enough for the algorithm". They know it's just to game the system, lots of them hate it but do it anyway because they see the analytics on videos without soyfaces in the thumbnail consistently get less views even if they cover the same material.
Jesus, the algorithm takes it into account? That's already SocietyoftheSpectacle.jpg, I've got 95 theses to nail on someone's door about the fucking algorithm, but beyond their time and content and money and ideology it's holding their face hostage.