YouTube lacks a personality like Facebook/Instagram have. It just “is”.
It’s closer to infrastructure than any other social platform out there. Kind of blends into the background as you browse it.
Also, there’s a better separation of the content from the vitriolic comments than other platforms. I use YouTube all the time, and literally never read comments. Instagram/Facebook, the comments are integral to the consumption pattern, showcasing just how very fuckin awful almost everyone is when they can be internet tough guys vs basically decent human beings in real life.
I think it’s more about the centerpiece being subjects rather than people. I read Reddit threads all the time and comments there are front and center. There’s plenty terrible subs and people but they are easy to ignore and not the norm with what I look at.
It’s kind of fascinating to me that things have ended up like this. There was a period where Facebook was incredibly bland because people were using their real names. At some point that boundary got crossed and now most of what I see when I look at it is excoworkers who would have never gone on about politics around the workplace trying to get their message across. The rest of the people I followed who posted interesting moments about their lives have stopped posting altogether.
YouTube seems to have cleaned the comments up a huge amount over the years. Whenever I check them it’s always full of people thanking the creator, talking about the stuff they want to see more of, and continuing on the talking points of the video.
Sure it probably depends what kind of content you watch but I seem to remember old YouTube had a dumpster fire in every comment section.
It’s closer to infrastructure than any other social platform out there. Kind of blends into the background as you browse it.
Also, there’s a better separation of the content from the vitriolic comments than other platforms. I use YouTube all the time, and literally never read comments. Instagram/Facebook, the comments are integral to the consumption pattern, showcasing just how very fuckin awful almost everyone is when they can be internet tough guys vs basically decent human beings in real life.