YouTube’s obsession with the perfect recommendation

Every time you open YouTube, the homepage looks less like a video site and more like a psychic desperately trying to guess your aura. The algorithm acts like a clingy ex who memorized your Spotify playlists, your favorite pizza toppings, and that one time you googled “how to tie a tie” in 2016. It will never forget. YouTube isn’t here to entertain you. It’s here to trap you in a never-ending buffet of oddly specific videos until your eyeballs resemble glazed Krispy Kremes.

The real obsession? Finding that mythical perfect video recommendation. You watch one documentary about penguins and suddenly you’re knee-deep in a six-hour playlist called “Penguins That Could Totally Survive in Miami.” YouTube doesn’t just suggest. It insists. It’s like a waiter who keeps bringing dishes you didn’t order, nodding confidently while you choke on your fourth plate of sushi boats.

This platform treats human attention like Pokémon cards: collectible, tradable, and best hoarded in bulk. The algorithm studies you harder than your high school crush stalking your Instagram likes at 3 a.m. It knows you clicked on one cooking video, so now it assumes you’re a Michelin chef in training. Ten minutes later, you’re watching a 47-year-old man in Idaho build lasagna in a canoe. YouTube calls this “curated discovery.” Normal people call it “help I can’t stop scrolling.”

And honestly, it works. Every user is stuck in a personalized rabbit hole deeper than the Mariana Trench. People come for one cat compilation, and by sunrise, they’re convinced they can run a llama farm in Peru. YouTube’s ultimate goal is not to entertain you but to keep you guessing what weirdly perfect, absolutely unnecessary video is coming next. That’s the addiction formula.

So here’s to you, YouTube. May your obsession with predicting my soul keep serving me 4K drone footage of bread factories I never asked for but now absolutely need.