Movie Review: The YouTube Effect

© Drafthouse Films

The YouTube Effect is a fascinating documentary into the history and controversies of YouTube.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Cast: Caleb Cain, Steve Chen, Hany Farid, Carrie Goldberg, Ian Hecox, Loann Kaji, Ryan Kaji, Shion Kaji, Talia Lavin, Dave Lauer, Becca Lewis, Anthony Padilla, Andy Parker, Nitasha Tiku Tyler, Susan Wojcicki, Brianna Wu, Natalie Wynn, Jillian C. York, Documentary, Mystery, Thriller
Rating: ★★★

YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the Internet -- everyone from little kids to grandparents use it all the time, and there’s essentially infinite content on there of every genre available. Trying to explain it all in one movie is impossible, of course, but considering all of the many, many controversies and changes over the years, only experts really know it all -- otherwise it’s hard enough just to talk about the recently terrible things at least.

The YouTube Effect documentary comes from writer/director Alex Winter, formerly of Bill & Ted and also the director of a few well-received documentary films. By virtue of who he is, Alex Winter has gotten a lot of interesting access and interviews with quite a few relevant personalities related to YouTube. The film starts with an interview from Steve Chen, one of the co-founders of the site, explaining about the history, as we also get historical context from activist author Jillian C. York and journalist Talia Lavin.

But we also hear from some of the early viral creators like Anthony Padilla of Smosh and the bizarre nature of virality in those days, leading up to how Google bought it in 2006. Over the course of the documentary, we also keep cutting back to former CEO (until quite recently) Susan Wojcicki as she gives her perspective on why things worked or didn’t -- but Alex also holds her feet to the fire when it comes down to some of the more troubling aspects of the site.

© Drafthouse Films

As more modern YouTubers like Natalie Wynn of the ContraPoints channel explain the new version of the model and how people can make money on this everchanging site, we get frightening statistics like 10% of all recommendations are conspiratorial in nature. Contrasting with the site where Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jephsen got their start to a lot of insight from former alt-righter Caleb Cain and how we fell into and out of the radicalization pipeline.

At first this back and forth is a little muddled, although to be honest it’s not like the history of YouTube is anything but simple, but after this introduction about radicalization the movie pivots into the more nefarious ideas. How radicalizing channels like PragerU and OAN get consistently promoted, leading to events like the infamous Gamergate -- and we actually get interviews from Brianna Wu, a video game developer that was one of the major victims of that mess.

It gets further muddled about the legal code Section 230 that protects websites against users that violate laws -- a necessary concept in the early days on the Internet, but argued strongly here that it needs to be amended or changed substantially since large corporations control the biggest sites on the Internet. Susan Wojcicki uses a lot of CEO-speak here with pleasant smiles -- the movie isn’t exactly on her side even if it doesn't rake her over the coals either.

But the ultimate point is also a little unclear -- YouTube is a site that does a lot of bad and a lot of good, and it’s hard to know the best way to deal with all of that. Still, I appreciate the insight from all of the different people here, even if it’s clearly biased towards a particular angle and perspective. Alex Winter has become a pretty decent documentarian at this point and this movie is fairly entertaining, although I’m curious what those who aren’t eternally online like me might think about it all.

The YouTube Effect has a run time of 1 hour 39 minutes and is not rated.