It’s Official: YouTube Sucks

Posted May 12, 2008 | by Rich Menga  

In case you hadn’t heard, more than a few YouTube users are stating that “it isn’t like it used to be” (more or less) and that the site is nothing but a big ball of boring. In addition to that, users of that site are abso-frickin’-lutely sick of the negativity that goes thru that place like a never-ending tidal wave; this means video-makers either “play it safe” with video content or just don’t post anymore.

I pondered this and came out with a well-thought-out pie chart showing what the content of YouTube is like.

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As you can see, YouTube is overwhelmed with crap.

But maybe it’s the community that makes YouTube great? I don’t think so.

Here’s a screen shot I took of a random video comment section on YouTube. I blurred out the names (because I’m not about to make them “famous”, thank you very much.)

Bear in mind that other than the blur-outs, this is UNEDITED.

image

Want more proof? Check out Metafilter vs. YouTube and see for yourself.

YouTube is teeming with morons and people are abandoning it left and right (for good reason.)

It’s official: YouTube sucks.

But you probably already knew that.

Which Of These Traits Applies To YOUR Computing Life?...

52 Responses to “It’s Official: YouTube Sucks”

  1. YouTube is a piece of crap says:

    I also agree with all the above posts. Google doesn’t give a shit about anything, not even the users. The most major thing that they care about is… money. They will gladly let an employee die, just to get the insurance money. They will also murder some of their employees also to get insurance. YouTube needs fixing, but I guess it’s impossible. With the mass amount of stupid retards or idiots, espicially on cubing vids, YouTube is unfixable. There is no way that YouTube can be the same unless they shutdown youtube forever. But if they shutdown youtube, there will be another site that will get polluted, so I guess we must make the right decision: Screw YouTube.
    Just “Beat It – Michael Jackson” and get the heck out of there. It is a piece of shit now, and there is no way. I mean why not even have a language filter? And look at all the shit, and useless AMV. Make a YouTube AMV .com and then we sure will be happy, and guess what? copyright crybabies are taking them all down, which is making us more happy, but their not just after AMVs, they are after awesome videos. If you have seen TheRealWorldWeeklyNews, he said that he just got falsely copyright claimed by Viacom. This is why everyone at YouTube is who is sincere and honest is actually hating Viacom. The fair use claim doesn’t do bullshit anymore, so I guess youtube is bye bye. So, Beat it. You cannot be a macho man in this one.

  2. Alexander says:

    My FSXC182RG account got suspended today.

  3. NaziTube says:

    I as of today em not using the site ever again im so sick of it and yeah it did hit me hard becouse youtube was a place to make friends and share ideas and it was all by the people for the people but not enymore. The comments have been getting much worst and there is no respect on the site both from google and eny random wierd person stalking you or abusing you on youtube. Its not what it use to be at all. This sux we need somthing new.

  4. YouTube has gone downhill exponentially since this was posted.

  5. Gabystelistu95 says:

    Youtube suspend my account, but i don’t make any copyright, i hate youtube, it sucks
    Youtube, you suck

  6. mightycowhero says:

    Youtube is garbage. They’re watching the wrong people. they do absolutely nothing about the trolls whose sole purpose is to infuriate users by posting offensive or derogatory comments, or the spammers, but if you put up a certain video, they pull it down because of copyright laws. They even pulled down videos I favored!! Then there’s that stupid rick roll nonsense. Try to watch a video and what happens? You get that singing asshole. And what about the jumpy video glitch? Nearly every video I try to watch on Youtube has that jumping problem, even videos that never did that before.

    Youtube is littered with assholes who open accounts for no reason other that to stalk or infuriate people. Check into their accounts and you will find nothing, no videos, no subscriptions, no favorites, and yet these people are forever popping up on other people’s videos posting stupid or derogatory comments. Youtube is also chocked full of racists: neo nazis, skinheads, grand wizards, card carrying white supremacists, you name it. Youtube knows what’s going on yet they do absolutely nothing about it, because they don’t care, except about money and getting sued by the you-know-who’s over “copyright infringement”. Screw youtube. There is something better. It’s called Dailymotion.

    • Joe says:

      When you mention jumpy video glitch, you mean buffering problems, right? About 75% of all videos on YouTube either freeze in the middle of streaming or do not load at all. You have to hit F5 to refresh the browser in order for the videos to fully load. Additionally with some videos, when you try to drag the cursor to view a certain part of a video, the cursor always warps to the beginning of the video. Total garbage! Recently, YouTube has been swapping audio on some videos replacing the videos’ original music with some random crap due to copyright issues.

      About Dailymotion, I tried it and the first video I tried to play, guess what? Same buffering lockup garbage as with YouTube. If you want a video website with the best streaming performance, no garbage spam and pointless thumbs downs, and no 10-minute video length cap, two words for you: Google Video.

  7. dskfjlsdf says:

    Youtube community is now a melted snicker bar. Everyone should know that.

  8. dskfjlsdf says:

    I wouldn’t say metafilter are bad comments(because it’s not a true), but, man, it actually makes me say inside, do they have lives? Or, do they have over 80 wpm? Man, so much stuff.
    Hanging out with youtube comments will drive me crazy because of their stupidity.
    Hanging out with metafilter comments will bore and drive me nut because of how snobbish it looks.
    Ugh…

  9. Someone says:

    I agree FULLY with everyone here about how much YouTube sucks. YouTube is like some sort of intellectual slum nowadays. EVERY SINGLE video is covered in racist, xenophobic, ignorant, and offensive comments. Just yesterday I watched a history video about China only to find a racist arguement. Once in a (isolated) while would you see normal comments, with proper grammar and spelling, and intelligent conversations, but the rest of the comments consisted mainly of racist idiots pissing people off.

    And this doesn’t just effect the documentaries, oh god no… Music videos, Lets-Plays, Trailers, ect. ALL VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE ARE FULL OF COMMENTS POSTED BY IDIOTS WHO HAVE NO RESPECT FOR OTHERS. I mean seriously, the author isn’t lying. That screenshot with the comments, is not an exaggeration.

    And don’t get me started with the damn glitches. Youtube is horribly laggy at times, sometimes unusable. The video quality on average is utter shit. And once, I tried to change my avatar picture, and it took 2 BLOODY HOURS!

    The only reason I go on it nowadays is to watch music videos, but one day, when a better site appears, I will cease using this sorry excuse for a video-sharing site for good.

  10. Joe says:

    Quote: “…but one day, when a better site appears, I will cease using this sorry excuse for a video-sharing site for good.”

    I totally agree with you. It’s a damn shame that so many good videos are on YouTube, but the garbage comments and unacceptably poor buffering quality ruin the experience. I tried to watch an NFL video, but every damn time I tried to play it, it keeps stalling. I even tried to download the video, but the .flv file only contains about 30 seconds of the video and even THAT was unplayable on REAL player. I was so pissed and deleted the video file. What we need is a worldwide petition for Google to shut down YouTube and transfer all videos to Google Video. Google should then moderate all comments and require administration approval before the comments are posted. Then we can wash our hands clean of the stink from YouTube.

  11. Someone says:

    It’s also strange How people on YouTube think they’re so tough and get into “intelligent” discussions they know nothing about. Their rebuttles consist mostly of “IDIOT!!!!!!”, “WELL, I HAD SEX WITH UR MOM LAST NIGHT!”, and lets not forget (my personal favorite) “UR GAY”. Honestly half of these people haven’t learned to ’spel’ or ‘reed’, let alone use proper ‘grammer’.

  12. Anony says:

    There’s very little of what can be done. As said above, “Screw YouTube” is the best options. If you want to help, Gather your friends, loved ones, acquaintance, someone-that-could-be-your-friends, or anyone as much as you can and evacuate the horrible city of YouTube immediatly!… Or just ignore it and keep your eyes fixed to the video, and not the comment section. Good luck.

  13. mightycowhero says:

    think google owns youtube? WRONG!! youtube is owned by neo nazis. just read the comments.

  14. Rhedosaurus says:

    I’m glad to not be the only one who realizes this. YouTube just suspended me, because of a copyright claim for a fanart.

    Fanart.

    YouTube, go screw yourselves.

  15. Demon X says:

    I also hate youtube because of the vulgar comments the people used. If you say something to them about in your own opinion they keep on getting your case. Like one time I agreed with someone about a Country Time commercial me and my sister joke about when I was little. All of sudden a dumbass name Kirkrules66 started to insulted me for some joke me and my sister did back in the 70’s. There’s another dumbass on there name Geewhiz76 I just wish I could smash his face in. Sorry I carry on so long but I just these people you say vulgar things about women and racist things and Youtube don’t do nothing to them.

  16. mightycowhero says:

    i say boycott them.

  17. TEMPESTSPARK says:

    I left Youtube after using it for about 4-5 years, I Closed my account for good, when YouTube changed my channel to the new lay out which is so anoying to use and it hides your videos and playlists, YouTube also riggs its Rating system, where before if a video I made could be seen by everyone equaly as the big partners and now they are hidden. the you tube user dosnt feel like he/she is part of the comunity anymore but you now have a guest page on one huge advertising site, where the Iphone and the xfactor gets more trafic than someone with a cool video(or not), at least before the comunity could decide what was good and what wasnt. There are thousands of videos from users threating that they are going to “leave” or “boycot” youtube but I think these youtubers have no balls or theyve put so much work into their channel that they just wont, this is a bad thing because it means youtube can walk all over them, and they’ll take it. If any one would like to Start a projest to build a site with a format similar to what yotube was, I’d be intrested in volunteering my spare time to it.

  18. Lurr12 says:

    It amazes me how little in the way of seriousness is raised about some of the things people put as comments on YouTube… I thought things like sexism, rascism, homophobia, and religious intollerance were supposed to be unacceptable (and mostley illegal) in modern society. Yet just pick a random video, and see what sorts of things are being posted in the comments. If you said out loud those same things on a public street, you’d be arrested in seconds and charged with a hate crime. But, oh it seems perfectly acceptable on YouTube apparently! Where are the authorities kicking up a storm? Where’s the equal rights people closing in?, for that matter, wheres anybody!?!?

    I hear all the time how people are posting content on YouTube less and less now, well what do you expect. You post a decent little video that you’ve spent time making, just to get some weirdo saying all manner of offensive things… Who wants that?! If I wanted nothing but childish, ignorant names and accusations flung at me all the time, I wouldn’t have left high school. They seem to have free reign and act with impunity. So much for equality, tollerance and understanding! But, of course if you post a little slideshow with Flo Rider playing in the background, the sound is cut off that same hour. All to quick to get “legal” then aren’t they!

    To me YouTube are not keeping people, simply because they don’t seem to care about how their users are being treated by some of the “trolls” on the site, and let’s be honest some of these cooments are extremely offensive, even to the thick skinned! Add to that all the system malfunctions and BANG, instant decision to upsticks and never return. C’mon YouTube, get a grip will you!!

    • racerxbmw540i says:

      I agree with you 100% about the toxic attitudes displayed.These are stressful times and it is not always easy to keep from projecting our stress onto others. It’s like if there were hidden microphones in cars recording drivers courteous comments about other drivers. I will say that the functionality of the site has diminished terribly since the Google merger. You can’t contact their customer service without sifting through limitless pages of nothingness. I have seen their customer support responding to sites like these all over the net but I haven’t been able to get a response after 90 days of daily attempts to help fix a problem. Maybe the quality of the site drives away the courtesy and fosters the acidity. Maybe Google wants this site to fail on order to promote another venture. Either way, the responsabilty lies within the users to keep searching until an appropriate venue can be found or created. I hope that time is no too far away because my friends and I have some great drag racing videos to share. I look forward to finding a better place and sharing videos and comments with people who are like the ones found on this page. Thank you for typing your opinion and taking the time to read mine. Have a great day!

  19. willie says:

    It is amazing how hateful and obnoxious people display themselves in tasteless comments. However You tube does give people the option of banning whoever they please and they can delete any comment they feel is offensive to them.
    .
    At least this gives people a free choice to pick and choose what they think is offensive rather than having someone else decide for you. Also you can choose to not allow any comments at all. Bad spelling is truly obnoxious because you know they can do better by just using spell check .

    And the morons always typing “u” rather than you or “Dis” for this or “Dat” for that is mostly kids that do it on purpose because they somehow got into their tiny brain that it’s cool to talk like a moron.
    Or it’s done on purpose just to piss people off.

    Rule number one should include auto spell check free for anyone posting. Why they don’t do this seems to show that they don’t really have any goals other than trying to cram in as many intrusive advertisements as possible . When I see these really stupid advertisements , ie: “ Do you know the name of the celebrity who has these lips? “
    The target audience seems to fit the class of slack jaws posting badly on YouTube

  20. mousepotato says:

    I am actually very new to the YouTube community – I opened my account a little over a month ago. I have used YouTube for viewing for quite a while though – just didn’t share anything on there. Already, I am looking for an alternative. I am so glad to see all the well-worded comments from everyone on this post (it is oh-so refreshing after sifting through those dreadful YouTube comments – YIKES!). These people have forgotten, or perhaps never learned, the meaning of a debate. Everything escalates into a pissing contest over there now. It doesn’t matter which community it is, either – it could be blacks vs. whites, theists vs. non-theists, gays vs. straights … the discussion just DOES NOT stay civil. There is no way to contact customer support. The ads are annoying. The DMCA is abused by false claims – or it is used as a tool to threaten people. And it is true – the only thing YouTube responds to is copyright infringment claims. They SAY they review the videos for content, but it is painfully obvious that they just pull at the first provocation. And yeah, sure – so copyright is the law – yes, I understand that. But so is the speed limit – and if every cop started ticketing every driver doing 28 in a 25 – the city officials would get quite an earful. So following the letter of the law to the absolute may not be the best course of action – particularly in this new media-rich, inter-connected world we live in. The old copyright laws need to be amended (which, unfortunately, was not properly addressed within or by the DMCA) because we don’t live in a “printed word” society anymore. Everything is digital. You would think that the music industry would have a good understanding of this by now (ahem – Napster bring back any memories?) but noooo – they are still snoozing away in the past. People don’t want to buy a 10 song album with 2 good songs and 8 pieces of total shit – AND they don’t want it in CD format anymore. People want MP3s and CDs may well be going the way of the cassette, 8-track, record, and reel-to-reel. Hm – now that I think on it, perhaps the record companies are a bit slow, aren’t they? What I find to be the most sad about the whole thing … the internet was so free and unencumbered, an oasis of non-advertising and free-speech. Slowly but surely, it is getting commercialized, regulated, and basically as bastardized as any television network or local newspaper. I would conclude this by saying “Well, that was my two cents worth,” but I think that it was a bit more than that, even adjusting for inflation! Toodles!

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