The 2024 Legal Defense Fundraiser has ended early due to the Board's decision to settle the suit. Donations will go towards the creation of a legal defense fund. Discussion on the matter can be found at the RationalMedia Foundation noticeboard. Thank you for your generous support.

Information icon.svg Campaigning is open for the RationalWiki 2024 Board of Trustees election.

Bright Side

From RationalWiki
Revision as of 20:39, 20 July 2020 by WhatIsAGoodUsername (talk | contribs) (removed extra period)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Like and subscribe
YouTube
Icon YT bullshit.png
Up next

BRIGHT SIDE is a YouTube channel that purports to be a regular infotainment channel, often consisting of listicle videos along the lines of Buzzfeed or The Infographics Show. As of 11th of November 2019, BRIGHT SIDE is the 36th most subscribed channel on YouTube, with approximately 31.5 million suscribers and over 6 billion views[1]. For this reason, BRIGHT SIDE videos are often recommended by YouTube's algorithm to people who regularly watch videos from legitimate infotainment channels. However, BRIGHT SIDE is also known for pumping out material that is clickbait at best, and at worst malicious pseudoscience aimed at minors. This has led to some to call for the channel to be banned from YouTube.[2]

Content farming

BRIGHT SIDE is only one of 140 different channels owned by media publisher TheSoul Publishing, including 5-minute crafts which is also known for its dubious content. Since their videos usually have high production values, they are often easy to mistake for legitimate infotainment videos. Many of these videos are often plagiarised from other infotainment channels (most notably The Infographics Show), or contain only a small amount of information which is then stretched out over ten minutes using tricks such as slow speaking and long Dora-the-Explorer style pauses after rhetorical questions.

Misleading information

BRIGHT SIDE is known for being a major proponent of pseudoscience and pseudohistory in its channels; we probably don't need to explain why a video titled "Titanic Survivor Claims an Iceberg Didn't Destroy the Ship" is probably not terribly factual. Other examples include their video "What Your Hand Shape Says About Your Personality" (it goes without saying that there is no correlation between the two) and "12 Signs of High Intelligence You Probably Have" where they implied on the thumbnail that sleeping on the sofa was a sign of high intelligence[3]. Most insidious however are their videos relating to health pseudoscience.

Riddle Videos

BRIGHT SIDE has recently started producing videos on riddles usually targeted at primary-school aged children, the most popular having 39 million views[4]. Although these are usually more harmless than their pseudoscience videos, they often feature very dark themes such as death and suicide that are considered unsuitable for young children.

External links

References