Why are YouTube comments so much different than any other comments made online

not too long ago, YT comments were some of the most toxic on the Internet

Absolutely. Do you remember the herp derp extension that would turn them all into ‘herp derp herp derp’ so that you wouldn’t have to read them?
- Never saw that, but it sounds hilarious 😆
I can still remember a time when I would never read any comments at all. It was usually about furious debates, name calling, hate speech etc. You know, pretty much exactly what Twitter is known for.

One word: bots

That's what I figured, too. YouTube comments are infamous for being absolute cesspits of the internet. This must be Google's way to drown them out.
I don't think so really. Google accounts are pretty hard to bot. I think they're just idiots and children and with Poe's law you can't really tell the difference.
- Google accounts are hard to bot.
  
  Not to google itself. They might use those bots to create fake engagement, like on reddit. We can never prove if google is doing it or not, but they would certainly benefit from doing so.
- I'm pretty sure "tap for segs and free bobux!!!!111!1!1!1!1!" Is a bot
- Google accounts are pretty hard to bot
  
  If you do a quick search you can find sites selling google accounts in bulk at prices ranging from a few cents to a couple dollars a piece, depending on the account attributes. I guess SMS-verified accounts with a US phone number costing over a dollar might constitute "hard to bot", but spammers don't need one of those to comment on youtube.
That’s three words.

That means you are also a bot!

🤖🙀🤖

YouTube comment sections are weirdly positive always.

Sounds like it has changed since I last looked

Not only can the creator delete comments, but YouTube itself seems to algorithmicly delete comments, especially longer comments.

They also auto delete comments with links, I was doing a tutorial and saw lots of comments asking for help with some issues so I replied to as many as I could.

I reloaded the video later during the day and saw that only some of my comments were visible, I checked the history and saw only some comments were there. Since I had originally written my comments in Notepad++ I saw only the ones with links were removed. You can bypass it by making the link not look like one but it's annoying if you wish to help people.

the amount of coments I've seen that simply go something like "isnt it amazing that x creator is out here entertaining/educating us for free" is huge. once i saw one video where nearly every comment was like that.

Same, which is why I don't look at comments. It was funny looking at them a couple years back when it easily turned into fights over mundane shit. But somewhere around the time when people stopped commenting and just started commenting vacuous support was also when the whole thing stopped having aggressive interactions.
It's so utterly bizarre. I don't generally see comments like this, but there is this one channel that I had been watching recently where every single comment of every video on their channel is like that. Feels like I'm in some sort of weird bizarro world.

Who else is here in 2023? ✌️

fiRsT
"Wish I had been born in the ${songDecade}'s they had good music then, not like the shitty music my generation produces"

Self-selection bias. The YouTube algorithm is very good at showing you things you want to see, so generally speaking, most people who comment are going to like the content. Especially music.

That said, it's not all positive everywhere. I assure you Gamer comments can just be as toxic there as they are everywhere else.

When I still used YouTube it recommended me crap I could hardly have cared less about or even things I actually disliked.

To me, Youtube was always synonymous for faulty algorithms.
- YouTube recommendations are emblematic of a greater trend I've noticed in tech where instead of catering content towards us, we're starting to be catered towards the content they want to show us. Managing your own subscriptions and keeping the things you don't want out of your feed just keeps getting harder.
- The YouTube music algorithm is a pile of shit. It always wants to lead you to more well known stuff. It's like you are only ever as few related tracks away from top 50 pop.

I believe the channel is able to hide comments and basically gets rid of any negative ones.

I think this only applies to popular channels, I've noticed this on critikal's videos, maybe someordinarygamers, but when it comes to smaller channel sizes (around 100k), I see people having discussions about the video's content more often.

It's definitely bots that plague more popular creators, but I don't doubt there's also people who see these bots getting popular by posting the most generic bot-like messages just to get likes.

The content creator can delete comments from their own videos.

Weirdly enough, I see a very similar top comment on a lot of music videos for, it's always saying how that song was their mom/daughter/wife/loved one's favorite and how they played it on their funeral or how they would sing it when they were happy before they passed away due to cancer/incurable disease.

I get that it's a very likely and possible scenario and that people would like to share similar situations but I find it funny how often I see that type of comment.

If I didn't know better I could be responsible for one of those.
There is literally tens of millions of people dying every year, so it's not unlikely that over the years thousands of comments gather with stories where a song meant something to one of the millions of dead. It just feels a lot compared to YouTube videos.

YouTube also took steps a few years ago to clean up the comments cesspool.

I have the opposite experience. I can't count how many time I got insulted over a simple opinion

Negative comments are purged. I think a lot is done automatically with semantic analysis, but the owners can also delete things. This is why you hear about YouTube comments being a cesspool in the videos, but when you look it's all bland praise agreeing with whatever brain dead position the video took. They have to read them to delete them.

This is such a weird change that has happened in the last decade or so. I remember the comments on youtube videos being the absolute worst. There were definitely memes about "Youtube comment section being vile". I think that an improvement in moderation tools, plus a switch to an engagement model (aside from all of the negatives that brought) really changed the culture of commenting on youtube.

Youtube comments are still a meme. Useless vapid nonsense isn't much better than mean comments. Looking at the YouTube comments section is always a mistake.

I swear man, I can't find a coherent comment on a critikal video without wading through a sea of "Can we just take a moment to appreciate how Charlie hobo jesus chungus absolutely never fails to deliver?" comments that are filled with bots the moment they're posted. I have to wait hours later for anything relevant to the actual content.

Aren't they deleting everything else? It's YouTube. :)

small channels especially for niche stuff you have people who actively sought out the material and are happy to offer thanks or constructive comments. large "mainstream" channels comment sections are a mixed bag of rants, irrelevant nonsense, sometimes a comment on the subject matter, abusing other commenters and people who can't help wedge their politics and toxicity into any bloody conversation

YouTube comments don't really encourage conversation about the content and are largely used nowadays as a way for people to leave messages for the creators. In addition at one point (possibly still ongoing), the YouTube algorithm really responded well to comment engagement so in videos, creators would encourage commenting alongside liking and subscribing.

I think in combination this led to people commenting on the content they watched, which was largely of creators they have fondness,but having nothing to really say, in addition other like-minded people would open the comments and like the positive one, catapulting them to the top.

It must have been about 5-10 years ago that it was standard practice to block YouTube comments because they were so toxic, so it's interesting how times change.

What you’re describing just sounds like they paid to have a bunch of bots comment and probably like the video.

Most of the time I've seen it, it seems to be more of a parasocial relationship. Even documentary channels have often one or more persons associated with the content which people feel close to. Like, you're posting somewhere where the creator may actually read it. People probably don't expect a creator to look into the comment section on Reddit or under a news article. But, it's more likely in their own channel, many content creators encourage that feeling by actually mentioning reading the comments and sometimes even replying in their comment section.

That's why comments on many youtube videos are more personal (good and bad), because it's a place where they can direct feedback semi-directly to the creator.

Personally, ther wieredst comments are on SoundCloud

The comments in the early years of YouTube were entirely filled with childish flame wars. I honestly think the only reason that this didn't kill the site is because they started purging the negativity. Nowadays I'm sure it's a lot easier for them with the developmental upgrades in bots.

When I look at comment section of every fireship's video, it's always:

how he manages to make video about something that I'm learning right now
great, now I can add x to my résumé

I only subscribe and comment on channels I REALLY like. I only have 13 and one of those is just so I don't forget to watch a follow up video tomorrow. I think it's because it's video content. Every video has click bait titles to appease the algorithm and I don't think anyone is sure if they're sarcastic or serious unless they watch the video, so they're not sure if they should be mad about it and just don't bother commenting. Text based content is easier to skim for the authors actual point of view. If their position is already known, I think you'll find plenty of shit talk based on the title alone from people that were just driving by.

Paid for comments.

If you remove the bots and people who are pay for comments, then you left with a society where everything is become to public domains, where every name have a face linked on a social network. People are scare to say fuck you and they want to give only a good impression.