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Comment by blahedo | Hacker News Reader

Yes! I've been saying versions of this for a while to people who dismiss Tiktok as just teenager dance and prank videos:

> If a video seemed repetitive or shallow or snacky in any way, I skipped it, and I tried hard to do this within the first few seconds..... if a video seemed nourishing or worthwhile, but was a bit slow-paced or challenging, I stuck with it... Quickly my For You page was transformed. I saw long thoughtful videos...

I haven't seen teenagers dancing or prank videos for months, and while it's far from perfect (in particular, they have some moderation problems), I learn a lot from the videos I watch and get a lot of value from it.

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OP here. That's great to hear. Yeah it's kind of interesting when people complain "TikTok only has teen girls dancing" or some similar niche, without them realizing they are basically revealing what they tend to watch. Although one flaw I think I'm hearing, with other social networks as well, is people see shock-content and cannot look away, and then they get more of that. Which seems like a flaw. Also, I find it's a skill game to very quickly detect a video is not worthwhile and skip it; it's often not easy, people work really really hard to grab your attention.

what they tend to watch

Human interests are versatile, but that’s what you look at first time opening it. I think youtube does the same – my decade old feed is nothing like rage/news/pop/teens – but most of us have no patience to train it.

Ideally I’d prefer switching between “moods” on the frontpage, where predefined options would be like “I feel like astronomy”, “I feel like laughing” or “I feel like watching teen girls dancing”. All in good time. The problem is the stupid algos think that I’m an invariable blockhead 24/7, because some ai counter says so.

You don't need to detect it quickly. TikTok lets you explicitly say "Not Interested" on a video, which is really handy if you end up watching too much of it while trying to figure out what the video is about.

> I find it's a skill game to very quickly detect a video is not worthwhile and skip it

Is there a name for this behavior in which a company decides how their system should work to make it easier for the user, but actually makes usage harder, and the company stands with its arms crossed for years never understanding what the user really needs, like in this case a simple "don't show me more/I want more" buttons and a little history list to up/down vote? Usage blindness? Distortion field?

I feel like the phrase "optimizing for engagement" summarizes it, but doesn't quite capture the self-defeating "making things worse for actual people" aspect.

I miss dancing videos. I make a point of liking any slutty girl I see just to keep the dopamine hits up.

But yeah, to get there it takes discipline and deliberate action. Any action (full view, like, share, favorite) is now a mix of "is it worth having this in my feed", "does the creator deserves a like", "do I enjoy this enough to like" and yeah, a good measure of keeping the fun in the mix.

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