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How YouTube is helping me decide on my watch list
By Phil/Kords | Published | No Comments
Word Count: 572
Time to read: 4 min 24 sec
I am a movie buff. Since my childhood, I have been a movie fan. I was exposed to Indian, Western and Eastern cinema at a young age. Thanks to cable and satellite television. For a typical buff, there is no favourite region. If anyone loves cinema, then the region does not matter. It is the same with me. There was no YouTube at that time.
Long before the internet, all the latest movies were released only in single-screen cinema halls. English language films weren’t easily accessible. Back in my school days, to have the ultimate movie experience, one had to go to Regal Cinema in Colaba, Bombay (now Mumbai).
It was far and if coming from far, the only way you could travel back in the day was by train.
Fast-forward a few decades later, multiplexes arrived and made English language films particularly Holywood films close to one’s home. There was no excuse now!
The watch-list conundrum:
In the past, trailers on TVs were the sources contributing to your watch list. Family and friends who have already watched the movie were critiques. Their recommendations formed the deciding factor whether or not you would watch it.
The transition from offline to online was not easy. Let’s face it – trailers are more prominently online than offline. YouTube is the only video sharing platform I see.
Ever since social media has witnessed an explosion of viewership around the world, movie trailers have gained an exponential reach. This is irrespective of the type of movie and regional cinema you watch. YouTube is multi-linguistic and anyone who speaks any of the world’s language and if there is a market for that cinema – there are chances you can find references for it on YouTube.
How YouTube is helping me decide on my watch list: To answer this question, I will briefly explain how YouTube works: let’s say you watch Gordan Ramsay’s channel and the recipe he’s making is breakfast. You watch the entire length of the video. YouTube algorithms know what you have watched and so, will try to populate your home page with other cooking channels or another cooking-related lifestyle channel to gauge your interest.
This how unique viewers discover your channel. On rare occasion, a viewer may be looking for such content.
It works similarly when you watch movie clips. You watch one which consists of hardcore action, then YouTube will similarly populate with such genres of clips. Now, there are chances you haven’t seen that movie but that piques your interest. Here your curiosity takes hold and you may watch several clips of the same movie or similar genre’s movies.
This is how my watch list is created. I know what to watch next. Although, this is not a hard and fast rule that may compel me to watch. But, at least I would know that such a movie exists. So, shortly when any of these films comes up on Amazon Prime or any other platform, I can watch it.
I cannot debate the accuracy of YouTube’s algorithm. I know it is not perfect if you are a YouTuber. But, as a viewer, it is fairly accurate in recommending what I should watch next. I am strictly speaking this in terms of movie recommendations.
You can give it a try and see how it works in your favour. Different people have different tastes and the fairly accurate YouTube wouldn’t stop trying to give you what you want to see next!
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