The algorithm suddenly switched from showing me old movies to kids toy reviews overnight

Three days ago my YouTube recommendations were full of classic films from the 60s and 70s. I had been watching a few old westerns and documentaries, nothing unusual for me. Then out of nowhere every single suggested video became unboxing videos for toy trucks and plastic dinosaurs. I have no kids and never search for anything like that. I checked my watch history and nothing seemed wrong. My best guess is some glitch in the recommendation system just jumped tracks entirely. Has anyone else had their feed completely flip to something totally unrelated without warning?

2 comments

2 Comments

rubyj1110d ago

Oh man that happened to me once but it went from woodworking videos to weird ASMR of people eating pickles. I don't even like pickles and I definitely don't want to hear someone crunching on one in my ear for fifteen minutes. I spent like an hour trying to figure out if my little cousin had been on my account or something. Ticked me off so bad I cleared my whole watch history and started fresh. Still get random junk showing up sometimes though, just part of the deal I guess.

gracecarr10d ago

Oh @rubyj11 the pickle thing got me laughing but also like... I feel your pain. The algorithm really just throws stuff at the wall sometimes and hopes something sticks. I hate when you can't even figure out where it came from too, makes you feel like you're losing your mind.