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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   3970 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 23, 2023

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Who's behind those really weird Facebook recipe videos? The ones that always start with some sort of (even beyond) innuendo, and then are just insane? Cabbage stuffed with ground beef wrapped with bacon, with a "cheese cream" (not cream cheese!), heavy cream, and pickle sauce, for instance. Aside from the use of non-American names for things (afore-mentioned cheese cream), all I can tell is that they use grams with ounces in parentheses.

There was an Economist article about this sort of thing a while back: https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/07/28/hocus-focus-how-magicians-made-a-fortune-on-facebook

In summary: Weird stuff gets people to watch long enough for an advertisement to play, which earns the creators money. Weird stuff also gets people to comment, which increases reach in the algorithms.

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