I posted a bunch of minute long math solution videos to tiktok while improving an old admission test score. Some of them caught on and the most popular has 16k views. Slightly tempted to continue, but I find myself pouring my energy elsewhere.
If you have not found it, you might be a part of an untapped market. If that’s the case: start the stream yourself (you’d be surprised how helpful it can be to be the streamer)
I'm occasionally doing literally this on Twitch.tv, while working on some side projects that otherwise I wouldn't time for to work on them. So far it's working pretty well, even if I don't have half a million of audience.
I did it for a while. But I am super bad at narrating what I do in real time. I couldn't stream myself doing my job so I thought I should do puzzles and stuff, which is also something I am horrible at. So, I thought let's try learning and exploring new programming stuff (vim, jupyter notebook, de/da, stats, github projects) and stream that but guess what I am bad demoing stuff too.
But I do enjoy filming myself on a webcam and seeing the emotional ride I go through on a routinely basis in my attempts to solve problems.
There’s generally little or no narrating in these study videos. The specific one talked about in this article sometimes has 5-10 mins of discussion every 50 minutes.
In "The Truman Show", it was so easy to despise Ed Harris' character; little did we know that we will be practically vying to become the same show monkeys - no deceptive confinement by villainous scheming director required.
Yeah this is a weird side effect of streaming. I've been streaming a live cam on dlive of a project thing im working on, and the amount of people who sign in, donate, and disappear is very odd. what could the possible motivation for this be?
Watch for a few minutes, figure out it looks cool, 5 bucks isn't much, donate before you leave. There's no particular motivation, just a "huh, that looks cool".
Clever way to motivate himself to study, though I wonder if it worked more by physically separating himself from his phone more than it psychologically encouraged him to do what he said the stream was for.
For others, I’m kind of mystified. Maybe it also works to separate one’s eyes from the feed. But some of the quotes mention people checking in because they wanted to study with another person. How lonely we must be as a society if that’s true in aggregate? In uni, we all would show up in conference rooms even if we weren’t actively talking through concepts or problems. That gave us a sense of collective struggle through finals week. This seems to me like another example of social media induced detachment.
At my university we didn't have study rooms, only regular lecture halls and rooms that were either locked or in use. We had to study at the cafeteria which worked as well as you'd expect. So we studied in a small group of 3-4 people at someone's place if possible or via discord.
Is studying at university and public libraries not a thing elsewhere?
At the universities here you have to get up early to grab a good seat on one of the better floors (higher/better view and smaller/less noisy) around the end of semester.
The public libraries are usually full of university and non-university students on Saturday mornings. Charging points are highly prized.
That may be a regional/cultural difference. Certainly loud talking has always been discouraged in my neck of the woods, but there are now quiet study rooms, and everywhere else talking is more acceptable.
When half a million people follow something you are doing I think it should be time to ask yourself what the effects of your actions are. Do most people just waste their time watching you? Does what you do actually help people study or concentrate? Does your livestream just give young people a parasocial experience to feel coddled while being lonely?
I don't think I could keep doing such things with a clear conscience if I had even the slightest concern about my livestreams being a time waster for so many people: and knowing social media mechanics it's not just a slight concern but a certainty.
That’s a healthy perspective. It made me wonder who has the opposite take? There have to be more than a few people seeing this and wondering how it can be monetized…
Regardless of the number of people involved we should all be thinking about the effects of our actions. And honestly, wasting somebody’s time is the least of the problems caused by our everyday actions and choices.
I’ll admit it’s more fun to judge others than look in the mirror though.
To quote wikipedia: To date, no widely accepted neural or computational models have been put forward to describe how mirror neuron activity supports cognitive functions.
There’s lots of guff in the media and lots of speculation in the discussion section of papers about what they might be important for in broad hand-wavy terms, but really we don’t have a good understanding of them.
is this why i have a monitor just playing various interviews im not interested in while im coding? I used to have a tiny black and white Bentley portable TV above my desk playing FOX all day long on low volume, then when that died, I moved to a separate monitor that currently appears to be running through police interrogations. anything at a constant volume, any type of long format talking, is what I go for. I always wondered what it was, because it doesnt have to be something im interested in, just a normalized volume with not a lot of noises punctuating it. I listen to a lot of loud music when Im not doing that. never knew this was due to adhd, I just assumed it was so that I don't hear boogers rustling around in my nose when breathing, or the sound of my heartbeat.
I use this to sleep. General-knowledge videos on Youtube, generally, constant voice, interesting facts. Otherwise I develop stories in my mind and become angry (to the point of breaking stuff, relationships, and probably suicide if I let it run unchecked). I’m quite a fine person and even appreciated if I use this method to suppress my internal dialogue.
Do those symptoms match with ADHD? Or is it simply the mundanity of solitude around 40, when one has a few extremely bad experienced that tend to not get forgotten easily? I avoid alcohol, but do normal people’s use of alcohol helps with deleting those memories? Do normal people have a nagging girlfriend that plays the role of keeping the mind busy with something else? Or would anyone suggest another diagnosis that I should investigate?
I find myself in quite unhealthy mental health because of that. I’ve always thought it’s just solitude turning me crazy, but it would be sad to not be aware that it’s a specific condition.
I can't speculate on any diagnosis given you have not given us enough information.
> I use this to sleep. General-knowledge videos on Youtube, generally, constant voice, interesting facts.
> I use this method to suppress my internal dialogue.
classic, pretty normal
What's weird is the underspecified
> develop stories in my mind and become angry (to the point of breaking stuff, relationships, and probably suicide if I let it run unchecked)
I mean, If people have no distraction at night, it's not uncommon for many to be too mentally excited to fall asleep. But your other symptoms means you have something else going on. It doesn't need to be catalogued as a mental disorder, it could just be you have e.g. bad/cringe memories of the past or minor emotional traumas. You should attempt to reconciliate those memories, relativize their importance or plain forget them. You should attempt to have a meaningful lifestyle routine by doing meaningful activities/virtues. e.g. I encourage you to maintain a hapiness scale journal, where you note and rank what makes you the most happy when you experience it. Note relevant metadata such as how much is this specific activity reconsummable (recyclable pleasure) this accounts for sports, arts in all mediums, etc
Loneliness in excess can be like a disease and must be fighted as a priority. It's not that hard to socialize, humans are generally quite welcoming in the right contexts. But like a muscle it needs practice. You could e.g easily contact again an old friend and see him while doing a cool activity (e.g. laser tag or karaoke) or you could start a new passion like being taught dancing, and meet new people there like a highschool 2.0
as for pharmacological "solutions" to pathological excessive anger, I don't know if specifics exist for this emotion but I assume e.g an NMDA antagonist could help during a crisis (magnesium lthreonate) or more potently memantine, memantine induce brain fog though at least at first. This reduce a neural excitatory overload. You could also calm yourself with l-theanine, ashwaganda and/or glycine (very underatted, help to sleep too).
I would also recommend taking an antioxidant like ALCAR for general health.
While what I suggested is benign and can be combined, that is not the case for memantine. it is a potent medication with side effects and tradeoffs, although trying doesn't cost anything. But it is essential to understand that generally pharmacology is not a proper solutions and is generally a slippery slope with side effects and tolerance mechanisms (except for the benign things I mentionned) and you will get much more in life through meaningful lifestyle changes than with pharmacology. And while durable lifestyle changes are hard to instill, again body doubling comes to the rescue, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivatedBuddies/
Alcohol should be strongly avoided, it can destroy lifes. Alternative to podcasts at night and glycine for sleep would be calm ambient music, meditation and ASMR. You might also wanna check your blood pressure (unlikely).
Indeed you might benefit from therapy/paid coaching.
Hyperthanks for this… overview. This summary of possibilities. I’ll discuss them with my psychiatrist.
> Missing part
Yeah, the missing part is the dark mundanities of living. I’ve been late in dating (started at 23), I have weak negociating stance (I don’t like supermanly men who step upon others, so I don’t do it), so, many people profit from it and step onto me, especially girls unfortunately, so I became misogynistic. But you know what they say at kindergarten, if you didn’t kiss at girl at 8 that means you are gay, and my psychiatrists keep fixating on the gay part, and I don’t mind being gay (but I’m not sure I am, really) I’ve had the gay life and dated men and did my coming out, but that’s not the problem, the problem is being misogynistic. Living at a period where women have priority for everything “for fairness” doesn’t help - which it isn’t, if you work more you should be the one promoted - So I took my revenge, slammed the door at every company that only promoted women, founded my own and became millionaire in ~7 years - I’m not ungifted, it’s just people who are assholes with me, because I leave room for others and they take it as an opportunity to step upon me. So now I’m the cliché of a white misogynistic male CEO 39 years old with a big house and a big car who eats meat, and it’s sad both for me and for my opponents, because the loop has reproduced itself, and I, like my opponents, wish it hadn’t. I’d have been perfectly happy with a 2BR flat with a loving girl with whom I’d share the housework equally, but every time I dated, the girl played games, and the world helped her win.
But psychologists fixate on me being gay, that’s the only explanation they have for me being misogynistic. It’s tiring, and I’m clearly not getting the mental health response I need. For mental health, one needs to live in an intelligible world. I’ve tried living the gay life recommended by the various psychiatrists, and it didn’t solve my misogyny (obviously). My problem is I’d like to live an equal life with women, and society keeps giving women priority for everything, the discrepancy between society’s wording and society’s actions is unreconciliable for me, and the degree we have to battle to obtain the normal things is exhausting. I’ve tried to move from programmer to a more talkative job because I knew I’d get bitter if i didn’t, and companies kept promoting women only, and moving to a talkative job is something my mental health required. But they kept promoting the women. That’s unfair to me. I didn’t get the basic things I needed in life, and really, being a CEO is an unhealthy revenge.
(On the plus side, I’ve increased all my employees 30% this year, I’ve donated a dozen thousands along the years, I was the one accompanying the friend who got cancer in the group, I’ve helped in many charities in my life until I discovered that people would never help the white male back, I’ve done my share in this world).
I have many ADHD symptoms and I personally cannot concentrate on anything unless I have absolute silence and no distractions. Any background videos playing would ruin my ability to focus. Even being able to hear someone in the next room is too distracting for me.
Developing stories in your mind that make you angry sounds like some other issue. I have never experienced that. I would genuinely recommend talking to some sort of mental health professional because that is not healthy.
In my case it is from frontal lobe injury, I just need the stimulus for things to be normal sometimes. It's not debilitating, it's just aggravating to be in silence or understimulated. Things get weird, time stops, and impulse behaviors show up shortly after.
Having the window open and listening to nature/neighbor noise and birds works sometimes.
These internal conversations you have are sometimes referred to as "rumination" or "chatter". Here are some links you might wish to visit that have tips that have helped me somewhat.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24444431
I feel like it's an unpopular opinion regarding remote work, but this is a big positive effect I feel being in an office that only works when others are there too, hah.
It may not be popular on the internet, but it’s true for many. Context switching into an office where people around you are focusing sets the tone for work.
Conversely, switching into an office where everybody is chatting away will hurt focus for the same reasons.
This is why it’s important to have good working context whether you’re in the office or at home.
Depends the type of job! For the little story I had a job at a small startup 50+ people. We were like 20 people at the tech and we had 20 sellers. The whole company was in the same floor open space one big room. Sellers loved to chat all the time, be loud, cut each other in what they were doing… A big contract closed on the phone? They had a small belt to be ringed! At some point it was so noisy that even with headphones we couldn’t concentrate. Of course the tech part of room was quite silent. One time we asked them how can they ever focus with this noise and be productive?? They said that for them it’s like giving them the smile, being chatty being part of the job, the adrenaline rush to make it seems like the next big deal is right there on the next call.
I'm sure it helps some people focus, but also sure it's counterproductive for some.
Overall, I find I usually get better non-interactive work done when not in such close proximity that social behaviors are activating. (Interactive real-time collaboration is a different matter, and that has its moments.)
Someone sitting across right across from me, or right next to me, when we're not collaborating, for example? I'll be lucky if I can mindlessly tweak UI visual details, or spit out design or code that I've thought about only superficially. There's no way I could fairly rigorous thinking-through and creative connection-making, in that context, like I can in some other contexts.
I experience this as well. I remember that in school, I would always seek out the most remote corners of the library in order to work. And before Covid times, working in an office that was anything but dead silent was a constant source of "activation" and therefore subtle distraction.
Working from home has posted its own distraction challenges, but I do not miss that "nonfunctionally distracted" feeling I often got in the office.
Sample of one: I have many markers of ADHD but do not wish to be diagnosed as such because there are stark warnings about holding certain types of jobs and health insurance increases.
But, being around people does not help me focus at all, I have an anxiety about them interrupting me, maybe I need to pay attention to something going on in the environment because there are people.
Open offices are a nightmare, and I talk about it openly.
Strangely, this issue does not exist in coffee shops. I think it’s something to do with the fact that people are extremely unlikely to interact with me in a coffee shop. So, take that for whatever it’s worth. Body doubling certainly isn’t universal among people with ADHD markers.
Same here; I have an ADHD-PI diagnosis. Obviously everyone with ADHD or adjacent symptoms is different, but the idea of having talking on in the background while working is untenable to me. Open offices have been the worst working environments I've ever used. Even having gentle, instrumental music on with headphones is too distracting for me to work. Silence, or no work is done. If people are close by, even if they're not interacting with me, just them being close by is distracting enough to make my productivity tank. Same issue with these "remote doubling" services, in my experience.
Maybe it's different for people with a "primarily hyperactive" diagnosis, where the doubling is more an aspect of keeping them in their seat than anything.
For some reason this article stirs a lot of internal conflict in me.
A part of me wants to view it without any judgement but another part, the old man part, feels there’s something deeply wrong with this. The problem is that I cannot think of a substantive reason it’s wrong other than “half a million people don’t have something better to do than watch someone study?” Or “do kids have such a weak will that they cannot study by themselves?” Or, “are we so lonely/needy that we have to broadcast ourselves/watch others doing mundane things rather than something more important?”
Neither of these are really true and in fact it’s a positive that others are accomplishing they study goals by watching him.
I’m just in my 40’s but it feels like the old Simpsons joke “old man yells at cloud”. This is a bit unsettling.
I'm in my upper 30s and I can relate to the post. Am by no means lonely or alone (I have a wife, family, and friends all around). But for me some times it is nice just to know someone out there is doing the same thing as you. Whether it is studying a book or any solo activity I find it inspiring/motivating. It's not a matter of having a weak will either as I have learned plenty of things on my own (in fact I tend to learn the best through self study). But all I can explain it with is that it is motivating and comforting.
As I mentioned in my own reply to the top-level commenter, this[1] notion of 'body doubling' is interesting to read about. I can definitely relate to it.
Every time I studied "with" a classmate at e.g. the university library I would end up still just studying by myself, though just knowing there are others around doing the same/similar thing had a positive effect on me.
No idea if the study streamer in the article does this, but a lot of popular streamers make it a priority to interact with their viewers - e.g. CohhCarnage, Day9, Pestily. It's a great thing to do if there is some amount of 'down time' between games or during loading screens and such, but from what I've seen it does help make their viewers feel more heard and such.
In the article they mention he studies with a pomodoro timer, so I guess he interacts with the "stream chat" during the off time and such.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Definitely not for everyone! But I can see the appeal.
> Or “do kids have such a weak will that they cannot study by themselves?”
For what it's worth, people have been heading to libraries and coffee shops for the communal-work environment for ages, this is just the parasocial analogue to that practice.
I clicked on the post thinking it must be because the streamer is a hot young woman. That was the stereotype of popular streamer doing something uninteresting that came to my mind based on what's been going on with the game streamer community on twitch. Some girl in a microbikini with fake glasses pretenting do read a book and winking at the camera from time to time. Like, yeah, ok, I'm sure you could get as many viewers with sexy beekeeping.
It actually seems a lot more wholesome that people are wanting a virtual "study pal" as motivation. That's pretty normal and healthy. We're a social species. If this helps people not feel alone and it helps them get started, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. I'm sure some people also watch this guy because they think he's attractive, but at least he's giving them a positive stereotype, attractive because he's doing something good for his own development vs attention grabbing and attractive because skimpy outfit.
It is about the screaming. Just like old horror movie, the selling point is an attractive young woman screaming as she is attacked by something. Then there is the bonus of her having to rip off clothes and/or jumping into water to escape. Then the older male rescuer, a veteran beekeeper, can show up and mansplain the correct method of handing bees. This is perfect for the History Channel's demographic. It can go right between the Hitler/WWII hour and that show about the best boardwalk restaurants for peoplewatching.
Hmm, I’ll empathize that there was a time when I would have assumed that, but ive used tiktok enough to not think that from the headline or by surprised at all by the article
maybe just use tiktok for a while, its time. it took a while for my feed to not be cringy but just follow people you hear about (like this article) or that get reshared on other social media sites (all videos have a watermark with the username), and your tiktok feed will warp to stuff like that very quickly
In my experience people often want something on 'in the background' basically at all times. Music, a TV show, sports, a podcast, or a livestream of some sort.
I'm guessing most of this guy's viewers aren't actively just watching him study, but rather have his stream open on their phone or a second screen while studying "with" the guy. Sounds like a great idea and something like this may have helped me back in the day.
This[1] other comment mentions "body doubling" which sounds about right.
This does remind me of preferring to do homework in a moderately loud study hall at school instead of at home back in the late 90s. Then doing the same in quieter halls in college. Just feeling that others around me were in a similar situation was a motivator to just get the work done, and stop putting it off.
A discord I’m on has a ping we use called “Office Hours.” Any given day 2-5 of us will be on the general voice channel chatting and working, with people muting/deafening if they need to be heads down or get a call or something. It’s really nice when my work is a bit more rote. As someone with ADHD having a background hum of activity is just really helpful too.
Young people are much more lonely and isolated. Partly demographic decline, partly culture. They have a longing for connection as always though, and they find it online
I'm 27 and I kind of feel the same way. But what I do have an aversion to is the idea of watching digital influencers and being, well, influenced by them...
It's not much different from old-fashioned celebrity worship, though. At least it's more productive.
I think of it more as a digital version of studying in a library or coffee shop. I don’t think I’d classify the young man in the article as an influencer.
For me, the unsettling part is that this has to be done virtually now.
I remember fondly during my college years the times I was studying in silence with my friends. We were bonding over the shared experience of working towards our goals together. And I felt motivated by being with them.
There’s nothing weak-willed about benefiting from accountability devices. But I do wonder if the unidirectional nature of it (his followers know him and not vice versa) actually fulfills a social need for his followers rather than just feeling like it does.
I had someone send me a bit of malware they had received (I like to pick it apart in my spare time occasionally).
Too my shock, the guy asked if I could stream my work. No one even wants to watch me play games. I tried to explain that it was probably going to be slow and boring, but he insisted.
I don't think there's anything wrong with watching it to learn something new like malmare dissection. I can appreciate the rawness of it, even if some consider it "boring", because it accurately shows how it really is. Editing it out presents a false idea about what really happens.
That said, watching something for the sake of it, without purpose or end goal feels odd4
It isn't week will. It is a lack of confidence. Kids are socially aware. Group dynamics are more important than grades. They don't like doing anything on their own because that risks doing something that might not be socially acceptable. Studying with a partner means constant validation that studying is a worthwhile activity. It is like a young dog that will not settle until it sees another dog do so first. So it isn't lack of will rather the very modern need to comport with social norms that drives people to stream someone studying. It validates their decision to study too.
Think of echo chambers/bubbles in politics. People think one thing, then find other people online who think the same. Finding other people saying the same things then reinforces their beliefs. So someone wanting to spend a few hours studying finds someone online doing the same, reinforcing their choice to study.
There is some genuine insight here, but it is needlessly bundled with defending the kids. Blind conformity is bad, and falls under the umbrella of having a weak will.
Don't blame the kids for their blind conformity. That is dictated at them from above. Kids today live in fear of being singled out in an negative manner. It can destroy your future. Mistakes are now permanent. A viral video of you doing something stupid as a teenager might come up in job applications decades later. Getting caught drinking alcohol in the park on a Friday night might mean jail/expulsion from school. And don't get me started on grade inflation. Study the wrong material, bomb a test, and you can say goodbye to that 97% average needed for university applications. So every kid is desperate to make sure they are studying exactly the same material as everyone else. That is the only safe way to make sure you don't waste time on a tangent. Kids today do and should fear breaking social norms. They live in a very rigid society.
> Kids today live in fear of being singled out in an negative manner.
This is not a new phenomenon in the slightest. Bullying and teasing have been around forever. The only thing that changes are what people will be bullied and teased about, but ultimately it doesn’t impact whether the bullying happens.
Kids will always find a way to identify themselves by what they are not, or single out someone for not conforming, even if it’s completely innocuous or out of their control. Hell adults do it too. Kids just don’t have the ability to couch it in dog whistles or cover it with some window dressing. They will pick on a kid for being different until an adult teaches them to respect differences. That has always been the case.
There is nothing inherently blind about following because there is normally multiple examples to chose from. Picking a stream of someone studying among all the other possible streams is very much a choice even if that choice provides some validation.
In aggregate culture is a back and forth of people pushing in new directions or independently discovering existing ones and others following their lead, but it’s the followers who determine what’s normal more than the pioneers.
Followers do not determine what's normal, they only do what they consider is already normal. And pioneers do what they care about regardless of whether it is 'normal'.
If only 1 person does something it’s not normal. Hell if 1,000 or even 100,000 people on the planet do something it’s still not nominal but the vast majority of that first 1,000 let alone everyone after that going to be followers.
Put another way the first person to ever make pizza didn’t suddenly transform it into a cultural phenomenon. It was enough people copying the idea that transformed the initial concept into one of the most popular types of food.
The group you’re describing are still as you just said following someone else.
But even if you add a new group of early followers it also works in the other direction. Stuff most people do also stops being popular because of what the largest groups of follower’s decides to stop doing.
The largest group of followers "deciding" to "stop doing" something, is something that never happens automatically, they are always influenced by a pioneer.
That’s not what I meant. I mean do people stop on day 1 with the 57th pioneer, or day 20,037 with the 847,529th pioneer, or keep going? That’s a choice and individual followers don’t make the same choice.
I was talking about this today with my wife, who is incredibly introverted, but who actually does enjoy these ‘study with me’ videos. I had read a post on reddit where someone was asking for public zoom meetings where they could go ‘for the atmosphere’ of other people working, which helped them work. Like how you felt about this article, this reddit post rubbed me the wrong way. There was something weak, dirty, unsettling about that posters need for vicarious work. It made me think of those gross ‘mukbang’ videos which are popular now.
Anyway, my wife explained that the videos encouraged her to focus, no more and no less. She is always comparing herself to others, so I guess this is why it helps her. I think zoom calls are different though. Very strange. I cannot study without silence, and can never study with people around. Horses for courses.
> half a million people don’t have something better to do than watch someone study
They’re not watching him study, he’s modeling studying behavior and his audience is leveraging that to trigger their own studying. (Mirror neurons are a thing.)
There is a South Park episode about exactly this. With the message that the younger kids' new thing (watching streamers) being seriously lame. I.e. "youth these days" sometimes are just accurate.
Humans have been this way longer than you've been alive.
When I was in college (early internet, pre social media) I found it MUCH easier to study in the library. I went from getting Cs in non-CS classes to getting As and Bs and my confidence shot up. Why? Because the library is for studying and I'm surrounded by other people doing the same. Absolutely nothing wrong with a virtual version of that.
Thank you for putting into words exactly how I was feeling. I often find myself wondering how much time people spend on social media and wonder how much loss to society all this “wasted time” is - but of course it’s not “wasted” for the participants. They get something in return. It is no different than wondering in previous decades how much time people spent watching TV or reading books. It all depends on what content you consume and why. Come to think of it I spend a lot of time on HN….
Tim Pool threw a camera up on his chicken coop and makes about $1500-2k a day in super chats ("Chicken City" on YouTube). Super chats just trigger a song and some animated chickens dancing on an overlay. $36k a month. It's literally just a live feed of a chicken coop and once in awhile someone feeding/cleaning. Zoos should take note lol. He started it like 2 months ago and it keeps growing.
>Or “do kids have such a weak will that they cannot study by themselves?”
Yes, but this isn't new. Half of the job of a teacher is precisely this. They're there to make you do the work. After all everything the teacher teaches you is already there in the textbook. All you have to do to learn it is pick up the book and read it. But very few will actually do it without being prompted.
I'm approaching 40 so I don't really disagree with you, but I do find it fascinating in its own way. I tried TikTok a couple years ago and deleted it after a week. I could tell that it was massaging my brain in the right ways to keep me scrolling and scrolling so that I ended up wasting tons of time in the app, and I didn't like it. The guy from TFA is essentially hijacking the algorithm to help break people free from the endless scrolling and time wasting that's encouraged by the algorithm. I assume he's benefiting from it, of course, but still it's an interesting commentary on the modern world that young people especially have to wade through.
I'm also in my 40s and had the same "old man yells at cloud" judgmental reaction, but when you think about it, it's no different than watching TV. I think of all the dreck on that glowing rectangle that my generation wasted hours of each day on, passively consuming. It's pretty much the same as watching some streamer, so hey, whatever floats their boats.
I think I'm just way too old to understand the specific allure of streaming random people talking about random, mundane things. My daughter watches a few streamers, and in my view, watching over her shoulder, they are all just bland, boring nobodies[1], talking about nothing in particular. They just talk about their day, talk about video games sometimes while playing, talk about other videos they're simultaneously watching (yes, streaming someone talking while the streamer himself streams another video!). It just seems such a pointless waste, but I think back to the stupid things I liked as a kid and I guess it's no different. I just hope she grows out of it and (with my parental guidance) starts getting motivated to do actual things rather than sit there watching other people do things.
1: I know some streamers have particular interesting or extraordinary talents, but I'm not talking about those shows.
I very strongly doubt people are “watching him study”, more likely they’re studying along at the same time. This isn’t very different from a peloton class or a fitness instructor having people work out with them - he’s setting the pace with the pomodoro timer, setting the mood with unobtrusive music and keeping everyone accountable by doing it himself and setting an example.
Think of it more like the world has always been Darwinian and this has made it slightly more accommodating for people that would get weeded out from forms of social/upwards mobility.
I've always felt the same about Twitch in general.
If I had to choose between the two, I'd much rather my kid waste his time playing games than watching someone else play games. At least do something.
I managed to even make Twitch a daily habit for a year in my 20s, so I understand the allure of it just like I understand the allure of passively consuming anything else. I was never proud of it.
I wonder if theres any auditing of these engagement numbers. I’d think advertisers would require it as due diligence but I’ve never seen any independent analysis
Ads are not featured in the "Live" section of their app. TikTok makes more money from their gift economy (TT takes a cut when a user buys "coins" to send to another user) and then taking 50% from the content creators when they attempt to withdraw those gifted coins and turn them into cash.
All these comments about enjoying being around other people doing the same thing, getting more motivated, etc. All I can think is that this must have some relation to wfh.
I sometimes watch cab rides on youtube as a sort of "moving wallpaper". Well, I don't actually watch them, it's just a decoration like a picture on a wall.
Tik Tok is just the latest in an endless waste of time social media networks.
The real utility for something like this is where you are working and leave a Zoom room with camera running so folks can drop in and ask you questions then leave. Sort of like in a non-remote setting at an office. Quite effective.
Counter of viewers does not equal amount of people who watch. Bots, people who only listen, people who forgot to disable video, autoplay (that time you find out your YouTube has been playing for days and you ended up in that video), attention span diversification, etc. Pageviews does not equal amount of people who read a page either. Its annoying when such gets extrapolated.
I feel like a lot of what's in the category of "you wont believe this is getting popular" on tiktok is a result of them faking views and follower numbers to rope in creators who then go on to think tens of thousands of people are watching them do some random videos, which makes them double down and focus and then eventually gain a real but still much lower real following.
I don't have any evidence to back up the claim that they are faking views, but I know for a fact that the hundreds of followers I have gained making almost no content are not real. And it seems extremely suspicious that they've engineered their whole "creator fund" around trying to not pay creators based just on views/likes and subs, if they where real that would be the most accurate measure to target. But feels like they've decided to completely ignore them and to "sort" creators, likely because they know there's some creators with majorly fake followers that they don't want to pay, but still want to keep on the platform so they keep their fake engagement metrics high, and then there's the "real" popular names that they know they need to pay, but still underpay compared to other platforms. But creators still stick to tiktok because "they have a much larger following". It smells.
He readily admits that he's not the most sociable person (which is corroborated from watching pretty much any of his self-described "rant videos"), but the flow he gets into when doing board repair is remarkable. I'm not sure if he owes it to a really impressive knowledge of EE or the fact that he exclusively repairs Macbooks, but it's crazy how every single feasible repair looks like it's second nature to him.
When writing my thesis I met with a group of strangers online who were also studying or other computer-based activities. We had a pomodoro bell go every 25 minutes or so, when we'd chat for a few minutes during the break. Just having people around, really made a huge difference and helped me get through months of hard work. I've seen some startups come up with this idea - seems a bit sad to make a business out of people keeping each other company but I suppose some prefer to have that curated for them.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] threadThe guy's a certified legend. Sadly he 'quit' streaming but the hundreds of hours in the archive should suffice.
But I do enjoy filming myself on a webcam and seeing the emotional ride I go through on a routinely basis in my attempts to solve problems.
Unlike in The Truman Show, you can make a fortune being “show monkeys” here, so hardly surprising.
For others, I’m kind of mystified. Maybe it also works to separate one’s eyes from the feed. But some of the quotes mention people checking in because they wanted to study with another person. How lonely we must be as a society if that’s true in aggregate? In uni, we all would show up in conference rooms even if we weren’t actively talking through concepts or problems. That gave us a sense of collective struggle through finals week. This seems to me like another example of social media induced detachment.
At the universities here you have to get up early to grab a good seat on one of the better floors (higher/better view and smaller/less noisy) around the end of semester.
The public libraries are usually full of university and non-university students on Saturday mornings. Charging points are highly prized.
Would you say people at bars and cafes and libraries and churches are lonely? Only as much as people at a restaurant are hungry.
I don't think I could keep doing such things with a clear conscience if I had even the slightest concern about my livestreams being a time waster for so many people: and knowing social media mechanics it's not just a slight concern but a certainty.
No, I don't think he has any responsibility to protect his viewers from themselves.
I’ll admit it’s more fun to judge others than look in the mirror though.
There’s lots of guff in the media and lots of speculation in the discussion section of papers about what they might be important for in broad hand-wavy terms, but really we don’t have a good understanding of them.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C10&q=mir...
Do those symptoms match with ADHD? Or is it simply the mundanity of solitude around 40, when one has a few extremely bad experienced that tend to not get forgotten easily? I avoid alcohol, but do normal people’s use of alcohol helps with deleting those memories? Do normal people have a nagging girlfriend that plays the role of keeping the mind busy with something else? Or would anyone suggest another diagnosis that I should investigate?
I find myself in quite unhealthy mental health because of that. I’ve always thought it’s just solitude turning me crazy, but it would be sad to not be aware that it’s a specific condition.
> I use this to sleep. General-knowledge videos on Youtube, generally, constant voice, interesting facts. > I use this method to suppress my internal dialogue. classic, pretty normal
What's weird is the underspecified > develop stories in my mind and become angry (to the point of breaking stuff, relationships, and probably suicide if I let it run unchecked)
I mean, If people have no distraction at night, it's not uncommon for many to be too mentally excited to fall asleep. But your other symptoms means you have something else going on. It doesn't need to be catalogued as a mental disorder, it could just be you have e.g. bad/cringe memories of the past or minor emotional traumas. You should attempt to reconciliate those memories, relativize their importance or plain forget them. You should attempt to have a meaningful lifestyle routine by doing meaningful activities/virtues. e.g. I encourage you to maintain a hapiness scale journal, where you note and rank what makes you the most happy when you experience it. Note relevant metadata such as how much is this specific activity reconsummable (recyclable pleasure) this accounts for sports, arts in all mediums, etc Loneliness in excess can be like a disease and must be fighted as a priority. It's not that hard to socialize, humans are generally quite welcoming in the right contexts. But like a muscle it needs practice. You could e.g easily contact again an old friend and see him while doing a cool activity (e.g. laser tag or karaoke) or you could start a new passion like being taught dancing, and meet new people there like a highschool 2.0
as for pharmacological "solutions" to pathological excessive anger, I don't know if specifics exist for this emotion but I assume e.g an NMDA antagonist could help during a crisis (magnesium lthreonate) or more potently memantine, memantine induce brain fog though at least at first. This reduce a neural excitatory overload. You could also calm yourself with l-theanine, ashwaganda and/or glycine (very underatted, help to sleep too). I would also recommend taking an antioxidant like ALCAR for general health. While what I suggested is benign and can be combined, that is not the case for memantine. it is a potent medication with side effects and tradeoffs, although trying doesn't cost anything. But it is essential to understand that generally pharmacology is not a proper solutions and is generally a slippery slope with side effects and tolerance mechanisms (except for the benign things I mentionned) and you will get much more in life through meaningful lifestyle changes than with pharmacology. And while durable lifestyle changes are hard to instill, again body doubling comes to the rescue, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivatedBuddies/ Alcohol should be strongly avoided, it can destroy lifes. Alternative to podcasts at night and glycine for sleep would be calm ambient music, meditation and ASMR. You might also wanna check your blood pressure (unlikely). Indeed you might benefit from therapy/paid coaching.
also.. any youtube podcasts to recommend?
> Missing part
Yeah, the missing part is the dark mundanities of living. I’ve been late in dating (started at 23), I have weak negociating stance (I don’t like supermanly men who step upon others, so I don’t do it), so, many people profit from it and step onto me, especially girls unfortunately, so I became misogynistic. But you know what they say at kindergarten, if you didn’t kiss at girl at 8 that means you are gay, and my psychiatrists keep fixating on the gay part, and I don’t mind being gay (but I’m not sure I am, really) I’ve had the gay life and dated men and did my coming out, but that’s not the problem, the problem is being misogynistic. Living at a period where women have priority for everything “for fairness” doesn’t help - which it isn’t, if you work more you should be the one promoted - So I took my revenge, slammed the door at every company that only promoted women, founded my own and became millionaire in ~7 years - I’m not ungifted, it’s just people who are assholes with me, because I leave room for others and they take it as an opportunity to step upon me. So now I’m the cliché of a white misogynistic male CEO 39 years old with a big house and a big car who eats meat, and it’s sad both for me and for my opponents, because the loop has reproduced itself, and I, like my opponents, wish it hadn’t. I’d have been perfectly happy with a 2BR flat with a loving girl with whom I’d share the housework equally, but every time I dated, the girl played games, and the world helped her win.
But psychologists fixate on me being gay, that’s the only explanation they have for me being misogynistic. It’s tiring, and I’m clearly not getting the mental health response I need. For mental health, one needs to live in an intelligible world. I’ve tried living the gay life recommended by the various psychiatrists, and it didn’t solve my misogyny (obviously). My problem is I’d like to live an equal life with women, and society keeps giving women priority for everything, the discrepancy between society’s wording and society’s actions is unreconciliable for me, and the degree we have to battle to obtain the normal things is exhausting. I’ve tried to move from programmer to a more talkative job because I knew I’d get bitter if i didn’t, and companies kept promoting women only, and moving to a talkative job is something my mental health required. But they kept promoting the women. That’s unfair to me. I didn’t get the basic things I needed in life, and really, being a CEO is an unhealthy revenge.
(On the plus side, I’ve increased all my employees 30% this year, I’ve donated a dozen thousands along the years, I was the one accompanying the friend who got cancer in the group, I’ve helped in many charities in my life until I discovered that people would never help the white male back, I’ve done my share in this world).
I have many ADHD symptoms and I personally cannot concentrate on anything unless I have absolute silence and no distractions. Any background videos playing would ruin my ability to focus. Even being able to hear someone in the next room is too distracting for me.
Developing stories in your mind that make you angry sounds like some other issue. I have never experienced that. I would genuinely recommend talking to some sort of mental health professional because that is not healthy.
Having the window open and listening to nature/neighbor noise and birds works sometimes.
https://behavioralscientist.org/how-to-channel-your-minds-in...
Wish you all the best
Conversely, switching into an office where everybody is chatting away will hurt focus for the same reasons.
This is why it’s important to have good working context whether you’re in the office or at home.
Overall, I find I usually get better non-interactive work done when not in such close proximity that social behaviors are activating. (Interactive real-time collaboration is a different matter, and that has its moments.)
Someone sitting across right across from me, or right next to me, when we're not collaborating, for example? I'll be lucky if I can mindlessly tweak UI visual details, or spit out design or code that I've thought about only superficially. There's no way I could fairly rigorous thinking-through and creative connection-making, in that context, like I can in some other contexts.
Working from home has posted its own distraction challenges, but I do not miss that "nonfunctionally distracted" feeling I often got in the office.
But, being around people does not help me focus at all, I have an anxiety about them interrupting me, maybe I need to pay attention to something going on in the environment because there are people.
Open offices are a nightmare, and I talk about it openly.
Strangely, this issue does not exist in coffee shops. I think it’s something to do with the fact that people are extremely unlikely to interact with me in a coffee shop. So, take that for whatever it’s worth. Body doubling certainly isn’t universal among people with ADHD markers.
Maybe it's different for people with a "primarily hyperactive" diagnosis, where the doubling is more an aspect of keeping them in their seat than anything.
A part of me wants to view it without any judgement but another part, the old man part, feels there’s something deeply wrong with this. The problem is that I cannot think of a substantive reason it’s wrong other than “half a million people don’t have something better to do than watch someone study?” Or “do kids have such a weak will that they cannot study by themselves?” Or, “are we so lonely/needy that we have to broadcast ourselves/watch others doing mundane things rather than something more important?”
Neither of these are really true and in fact it’s a positive that others are accomplishing they study goals by watching him.
I’m just in my 40’s but it feels like the old Simpsons joke “old man yells at cloud”. This is a bit unsettling.
Every time I studied "with" a classmate at e.g. the university library I would end up still just studying by myself, though just knowing there are others around doing the same/similar thing had a positive effect on me.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31303234
When I study with someone there’s a real life component. We take breaks together, chat, ask each other questions.
Also, studying in common places can remove environmental distractions. For some reason during finals time I had the urge to clean the apartment.
I can relate to the physical in-person-ness of the experience. I cannot relate to the non-interactive, passive watching of it.
In the article they mention he studies with a pomodoro timer, so I guess he interacts with the "stream chat" during the off time and such.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Definitely not for everyone! But I can see the appeal.
For what it's worth, people have been heading to libraries and coffee shops for the communal-work environment for ages, this is just the parasocial analogue to that practice.
Set and setting, not just for drugs!
It actually seems a lot more wholesome that people are wanting a virtual "study pal" as motivation. That's pretty normal and healthy. We're a social species. If this helps people not feel alone and it helps them get started, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. I'm sure some people also watch this guy because they think he's attractive, but at least he's giving them a positive stereotype, attractive because he's doing something good for his own development vs attention grabbing and attractive because skimpy outfit.
Greenlit. 12 episodes. Where do I send the check? Do we see them being stung or is that CGI?
But I bet a latex catsuit would prevent stingers, show all the curves, and fall right inline with this concept.
If anyone wants to seriously pursue this, I have the perfect Quebec actress for this role.
Bam, take it up a notch! Sexy french, latex clad, beekeeping.
"Zee bees, zey are my passion mon cheri"
This could seriously work.
The only downside, societially speaking, would be those which fetishize the bees + sex. That's just not going to end well.
maybe just use tiktok for a while, its time. it took a while for my feed to not be cringy but just follow people you hear about (like this article) or that get reshared on other social media sites (all videos have a watermark with the username), and your tiktok feed will warp to stuff like that very quickly
I'm guessing most of this guy's viewers aren't actively just watching him study, but rather have his stream open on their phone or a second screen while studying "with" the guy. Sounds like a great idea and something like this may have helped me back in the day.
This[1] other comment mentions "body doubling" which sounds about right.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31303234
It's not much different from old-fashioned celebrity worship, though. At least it's more productive.
I remember fondly during my college years the times I was studying in silence with my friends. We were bonding over the shared experience of working towards our goals together. And I felt motivated by being with them.
There’s nothing weak-willed about benefiting from accountability devices. But I do wonder if the unidirectional nature of it (his followers know him and not vice versa) actually fulfills a social need for his followers rather than just feeling like it does.
Too my shock, the guy asked if I could stream my work. No one even wants to watch me play games. I tried to explain that it was probably going to be slow and boring, but he insisted.
That said, watching something for the sake of it, without purpose or end goal feels odd4
Think of echo chambers/bubbles in politics. People think one thing, then find other people online who think the same. Finding other people saying the same things then reinforces their beliefs. So someone wanting to spend a few hours studying finds someone online doing the same, reinforcing their choice to study.
This is not a new phenomenon in the slightest. Bullying and teasing have been around forever. The only thing that changes are what people will be bullied and teased about, but ultimately it doesn’t impact whether the bullying happens.
Kids will always find a way to identify themselves by what they are not, or single out someone for not conforming, even if it’s completely innocuous or out of their control. Hell adults do it too. Kids just don’t have the ability to couch it in dog whistles or cover it with some window dressing. They will pick on a kid for being different until an adult teaches them to respect differences. That has always been the case.
You could turn it around and criticize people for being anti-social in their independence and disrepst for other people's needs and wisdom.
In aggregate culture is a back and forth of people pushing in new directions or independently discovering existing ones and others following their lead, but it’s the followers who determine what’s normal more than the pioneers.
Put another way the first person to ever make pizza didn’t suddenly transform it into a cultural phenomenon. It was enough people copying the idea that transformed the initial concept into one of the most popular types of food.
That group plus pioneers are most important to entering the mass market of followers.
But even if you add a new group of early followers it also works in the other direction. Stuff most people do also stops being popular because of what the largest groups of follower’s decides to stop doing.
Anyway, my wife explained that the videos encouraged her to focus, no more and no less. She is always comparing herself to others, so I guess this is why it helps her. I think zoom calls are different though. Very strange. I cannot study without silence, and can never study with people around. Horses for courses.
They’re not watching him study, he’s modeling studying behavior and his audience is leveraging that to trigger their own studying. (Mirror neurons are a thing.)
When I was in college (early internet, pre social media) I found it MUCH easier to study in the library. I went from getting Cs in non-CS classes to getting As and Bs and my confidence shot up. Why? Because the library is for studying and I'm surrounded by other people doing the same. Absolutely nothing wrong with a virtual version of that.
I’m more focused with work at Starbucks surrounded by other people than on my couch alone.
Yes, but this isn't new. Half of the job of a teacher is precisely this. They're there to make you do the work. After all everything the teacher teaches you is already there in the textbook. All you have to do to learn it is pick up the book and read it. But very few will actually do it without being prompted.
I think I'm just way too old to understand the specific allure of streaming random people talking about random, mundane things. My daughter watches a few streamers, and in my view, watching over her shoulder, they are all just bland, boring nobodies[1], talking about nothing in particular. They just talk about their day, talk about video games sometimes while playing, talk about other videos they're simultaneously watching (yes, streaming someone talking while the streamer himself streams another video!). It just seems such a pointless waste, but I think back to the stupid things I liked as a kid and I guess it's no different. I just hope she grows out of it and (with my parental guidance) starts getting motivated to do actual things rather than sit there watching other people do things.
1: I know some streamers have particular interesting or extraordinary talents, but I'm not talking about those shows.
If I had to choose between the two, I'd much rather my kid waste his time playing games than watching someone else play games. At least do something.
I managed to even make Twitch a daily habit for a year in my 20s, so I understand the allure of it just like I understand the allure of passively consuming anything else. I was never proud of it.
Well, high likelihood anyway:
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-number-of-views-in-TikTok-video...
Personally, any app that serves people what to watch; is going to be subject to a lot of bias counts anyway.
I guess a loot of the views of those kind of videos are as ambient videos.
E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkgIWGM60z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuX8Ew3OyJk
There are plenty. The bridge in the 2nd one is my favorite.
The real utility for something like this is where you are working and leave a Zoom room with camera running so folks can drop in and ask you questions then leave. Sort of like in a non-remote setting at an office. Quite effective.
I don't have any evidence to back up the claim that they are faking views, but I know for a fact that the hundreds of followers I have gained making almost no content are not real. And it seems extremely suspicious that they've engineered their whole "creator fund" around trying to not pay creators based just on views/likes and subs, if they where real that would be the most accurate measure to target. But feels like they've decided to completely ignore them and to "sort" creators, likely because they know there's some creators with majorly fake followers that they don't want to pay, but still want to keep on the platform so they keep their fake engagement metrics high, and then there's the "real" popular names that they know they need to pay, but still underpay compared to other platforms. But creators still stick to tiktok because "they have a much larger following". It smells.