How Do Echo Chambers Form in the YouTube Comment Section?

Did you watch a YouTube video (be perfectly honest)?

I also bet that you lurked around in the comments section. You might even have left a few spicy comments yourself! 🌶

If my previous posts have done any good, it’s to have convinced you to start your own YouTube channel. 📺

If you’ve started your own channel, then you will know that the comments section serves a slightly different purpose to you, the creator, as opposed to the viewers…

For many viewers, the comment section is another valuable place to be social. This really interesting study from Sun M et al. (source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9739846/) shows that the YouTube comment section in fact forms a user comment-reply social network 🤯! And just like any other social network, echo chambers can form. Pro tip: if an echo chamber can form, this means that you’re probably looking at some form of social network. The reason is that an echo chamber is impossible without social interaction.

Here are the 3 main mechanisms, whether good or ill, deeply affecting the way users interact and form a social network within every single video’s comment section:

💉 Virality: The diffusion of information benefits from virality due to the openness of information on the web and a drastic decrease in communication costs.

🛸 Misinformation: This is a problem in real life amongst groups of friends, colleagues, family, and etc… But this issue is even greater in a world where virality applies and there are no so-called gatekeepers.

💻 Algorithms: Social media algorithms heavily influence the way information is acquired and then presented. I touch upon algorithms in another post, but for now let’s just say that these are incredibly complex and obscure. Each popular platform has its very own algorithm. Naturally, those will strongly dictate which kind of social network will form.

In sum, to understand what kind of mini social network forms in a YouTube video’s comment section is to both understand the topic discussed, the zeitgeist surrounding it, the viewers, and the algorithm.

My current company is working on an AI platform that allows you to better understand and interact with your YouTube audience via the comment section and conversational AI! Get in touch with me if interested 😉

Are you ready to earn that side-income, which can easily overtake your main income? Start your YouTube channel today!