I would like to believe that I am actually open for the discussion of things I don't agree with, or don't want to hear. But these things are unfairly balanced on a different scale about how emotional the presentation is, because I pretend that is so, or because it actually is.
Exhibit 0. Veritasium* and also to a much lesser extent Ben Syversen* don't even often say blatantly false or offensive things, so my "opinion on facts" shouldn't play a role. However, I seem to get mad at even the slightest hint of clickbait, meaningless storytelling, or exaggeration, so I don't enjoy their videos as much, and also click them later, if there are exaggerations, or even just salient generally true facts in the title. For example, the Veritasium xz video is named something like, "The Internet was Weeks away from Disaster and no one Noticed". Even if it implied an even less contentious claim like if it was named "The Foiled Plan to Hack Millions of Webservers", it would still feel emotionally repellent, so this doesn't really seem to be only about my opinion.
Exhibit 1: Carl from InternetOfBugs* and Siliconversations* are each capable of implying very directly in their titles that they think someone is lying (or repeating learned falsehoods) about AI. The only thing Carl has going for him is that recently, I've watched his videos more, and I've stopped watching Siliconversations* at some point in the past for an unknown reason. (Actually, maybe it was because my Moral Machines° professor told us AGI safety is too speculative, or even bullshit). I'm right now debating if i should watch SCs new video. I ask myself what title would get me to click on the video since i've reacted so negatively to the Blatant Announcement of SC wanting to tell me about how "one of him and Carl are lying about AI". So I think if SC had caught my attention with a less charged title, and then told me his opinion, I think I would be more likely to stick around. In general, I don't like being made to feel emotions, so If someone gives me their opinion or worldview without trying to do that, I'm more likely to listen.
Exhibit 2: I just tried to watch a video called "are you a narcissist?" by some random guy with 2.83m subscribers*, because other that literally being about emotions, title and thumbnail weren't emotionalized or sensationalist. However, i stopped, because the editing was too fast paced and/or emltional and/or signalling cheapness in some other mysterious way, and also their voice was annoying to listen to? Like there was a part where another person spoke and that was fine, but the narrator sounded like they were American but didn't care to be understood by the largest possible audience, though their audience is large.
Exhibit 3: The First BGM Track and the entire corresponding section in Ben Syversens Cube Doubling Video* is really hitting the wrong emotional buttons. It would probably have worked better with animation and Music that try to evoke mysteriousness or curiosity, not with something that sounds at home in some cheap documentary/ad about tech or investing or exercise with the implication that the really cool character in the ad has it all under control.
Exhibit 4: Probably because dishonesty and clickbait (Tabloid™ Journalism®), clickbait and storytelling (Veritasium), and maybe also dishonesty and storytelling, feel correlated, I told my Science Communication° professor that when she explained utilizing Storytelling in communicating science, I expected it to be very perilous to try not to misrepresent the truth while using storytelling to tell it. She was surprised by this.
*on Youtube
°this exists in Germany
