And in the blessed name of Elvis, well, I just let it blast

August 15, 2024 3:47 AM

YouTube If It Had Channels
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs (26 comments total)

best. (yt)interface. ever.
posted by HearHere at 4:15 AM on August 15

Am I supposed to be getting something other than snow?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:30 AM on August 15

Nostalgia! Much better channel flipping than what's on actual TV
posted by freethefeet at 4:32 AM on August 15

I note a distinct lack of ads for drugs, and financial products.
posted by DigDoug at 4:42 AM on August 15 [3 favorites]

Huh, this is strangely neat and attractive and pleasant.

I got 12 channels of a fairly limited selection of content (PBS-politics, PBS-science, kitchen/food stuff, real estate stuff, a "travel" programme, an individual giving a straight-to-camera talk/explainer, something about movies, two people sitting across a desk chatting shit, a sport, a music, a car thing). It's not mapping the breadth of youtube as much as throwing up some particular TV-adjacent styles of youtubery, and in that sense it's a 100% like flickin through TV.
posted by Joeruckus at 4:43 AM on August 15 [1 favorite]

Am I supposed to be getting something other than snow?

Maybe try banging on the tops and sides of your set, or put a bunch of aluminum foil on your rabbit ears?
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 4:49 AM on August 15 [11 favorites]

But no, a video should resolve after a second or two. Can you see the controls on the right hand side? Maybe try changing the channel and see what happens.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 4:52 AM on August 15

static's all wrong
posted by logicpunk at 4:54 AM on August 15 [2 favorites]

I just realized I have a ton of ad blockers and such, and some specifically target Youtube and that's probably blocking things. As you were.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:59 AM on August 15 [1 favorite]

A strangely limited number of channels (I didn't have to click very many times to get taken back to stuff I'd already seen), so it feels kinda like, "What if YouTube were TV in 1980." I presume the creator wanted to limit the possibilities to stuff that wouldn't suddenly go R-rated without warning. Fun, and I appreciate that it defaults to no sound.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:29 AM on August 15

Yeah I thought it was an interesting take but I don't think the person who wrote it has ever seen snow on a CRT. Probably never tried to make out the porn through the suppressed horizontal sync scrambling on channel 51 either.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:47 AM on August 15 [4 favorites]

I want my kids to see this.

So they'll know.
posted by heyitsgogi at 6:05 AM on August 15

I really wish there was info on the different channels. I'm watching a comedian right now, and I'd really like to know who she is.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:15 AM on August 15

I think this might be my preferred way to watch YouTube now v
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:16 AM on August 15

If whoever made this could do Twitter next, that'd be great!
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 6:22 AM on August 15

I really wish there was info on the different channels. I'm watching a comedian right now, and I'd really like to know who she is.

That's the authentic experience!
posted by trig at 6:25 AM on August 15 [9 favorites]

Kelsey Cook. Never heard of her, but she's hilarious.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:26 AM on August 15

@Thorzdad – At the bottom of the channel clicker you'll also see a short string of letters and numbers (e.g. zG10W6HYKTk), that's the youtube video that's currently being shown, so control-c and go to youtube.com/watch?v= and paste that string after the = sign and you'll get the video (or go to youtube and search that string).
posted by Joeruckus at 6:30 AM on August 15 [5 favorites]

Not realistic enough -- every time you change channels, it should be the last half of a commercial break, which you have to watch all the way through to see what's actually on TV
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:52 AM on August 15 [3 favorites]

But, then it would be almost like actual YouTube.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:51 AM on August 15 [4 favorites]

Channel 1: welcome to the microcosmos. Great start!
Channel 2: some British fascist touring Uganda and talking about how they need a strong daddy and should cane people who are accused to theft.

Yep, it's pretty much youtube.
posted by phooky at 9:07 AM on August 15

I like the interface. It also reminds me that I hate television. Can one use the interface solely on one's own YT subscriptions?
posted by the sobsister at 9:16 AM on August 15 [1 favorite]

> static's all wrong

I had a project a few years ago where I needed to synthesize TV static for a website. It's surprisingly tricky to make it look convincing. I finally got there, but it took a lot of trial and error.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 11:11 AM on August 15

Oh, this reminds me of surf.city, which was basically the same concept (but weirder channels) from a few years ago. The site seems to be in hibernation though, or possibly it changed hands after being abandoned and whatever new incarnation lives at the URL won't be the same as the old site? Dunno.
posted by chrominance at 1:49 PM on August 15

(Metafilter thread on surf.city)
posted by chrominance at 1:51 PM on August 15 [1 favorite]

This person got the analog stuff right (use up/down arrows to change channels). Sadly. the source repo seems to have been deleted. Would have been a lot of fun to merge the two.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:13 PM on August 15 [1 favorite]