Experiencing a telepathic link with youtube algorithm. I wish that was an exaggeration. I will explain.

You may know that I am a fan of several Vtubers. These figures keep their identity hidden, in many cases as professional policy. The only unfiltered trace of who they are is their voice.

Tonight my YouTube feed has been filled with unusual videos, along with many others who have watched vtuber videos. These videos may be from many years ago, have only a few views, and are usually untitled. Stuff like bandicam 12345, a date of recording, etc.

They are videos of Japanese girls streaming, in a classical sense, just sitting in front of their cameras. I’ve never seen them before. I don’t know what they’re saying. But I know their voices

They are Vtubers, in videos long predating their active persona even existing. There of course can be no information attached to these videos connecting them to the vtuber front. There is however metadata which weighs heavily in YouTube’s algorithm.

These seemingly random videos appear only to people who would recognize the voices. That is the only connection between the actual content and the targeted viewer.

At first I thought it was accounts posting doxes, and it would seem that is indeed a small part of it. But most of these videos are far too old and incidental. YouTube’s algorithm is finding them and presenting them only to people with a very specific and rather esoteric memory.

The most likely cause is a snowball effect where viewers who recognize the voice engage with the video, making it spread via algorithm to viewers with similar habits (vtuber fans). Most of the videos are now flooded with comments all saying without saying what they are seeing.

But it’s hard to fathom that this all started from a void, and it’s all set into motion so suddenly.
Is youtube able to match the voices? Was there a change in the algorithm that made this happen so fast?

What we have is the result. These videos only appear to people who know what they are. To anyone else it would be entirely meaningless.

There is nothing about the videos to suggest they might interest me, except that:
I know the people in them
And I didn’t even know that myself

This is the bottom of the rabbit hole, the void reaching back. A versatile computer code and the inevitable, unconscious group action of an online community have created a scenario where a website can show me something I don’t know that I know. It is showing me my own memories.

Imagine being recommended a video that seemingly has no connection to you, but when you watch it, something is familiar. A human aspect, like a voice or a face, you know it. Nothing in the title or description gives it away. How did this video find you?

There’s no information attached to the video saying “this is the voice of X, the face of X”. It shouldn’t be possible for the system to know that X is in this video at all, yet that is the ONLY thing that connects it to you and there it is before you, brought to your attention.

The internet has never gotten under my skin quite like this. It’s only appearing to me because I am participant, I only know what I’m seeing because of some other esoteric knowledge I have. The system is half algorithm half mass-human, and just by talking about it I am fueling it

It’s hard to put into words what this feeling is or what about it makes me feel so uneasy. I don’t doubt that there is a very simple explanation for why this is happening, but it doesn’t change the uncanny nature of the occurrence.

On the more obvious end, this is very fucking bad for Vtubers, though unless you have a certain degree of familiarity with Vtubers, you can’t tell who has been doxed in any of these videos. It is a real mindfuck at this point.

Thoughts?

I just feel like I need an analogy or something to explain this to other people in an emotionally recognizable way, but instead it’s an essay now

Looking at other videos it seems a lot of people went through this about a month ago. I have been almost completely offline for most of the last year and I’m experiencing it about as soon as I became active again. The timeline doesn’t change much, just metadata at work.