I'm in That Weird Part of YouTube

About

"I'm in that weird part of YouTube" is an expression used in response to a video post that may be deemed disturbing or eccentric in content. Commonly seen in the comments section of YouTube, it can be read as a viewer's lament upon watching an unrelated video that had been arbitrarily suggested as similar or relevant content, similar to what the f**k am I watching? or "I'm twelve and what is this."

Origin

While the phrase first surfaced in YouTube's comments section sometime in 2011, users' complaints surrounding the relevancy of suggested videos on Google's YouTube Help forum^[8] dates back to 2009. YouTube's "related videos" recommendation feature was first introduced in June 2007, which is designed to suggest videos based on metadata indexed from several sources, including tags, titles, description text, playlists and your viewing history. As of January 2012, comments like "I'm in that weird part of YouTube again" can be found in over 24,700 YouTube video pages.^[7]

Spread

The Urban Dictionary definition^[1] for the phrase "That Weird Part of YouTube" was first submitted on November 8th, 2011:

That Weird Part of YouTube: "an area full of video irrelevant to what you were originally watching."

According to numerous Yahoo Answer^[3] threads on the topic, the expression became closely associated with the common experience of watching unrelated content that had been arbitrarily suggested at the end of YouTube videos. When used in proper context, the comment will often rise to the top as more viewers arrive through the same route of "related videos" that turns out to be completely unrelated or irrelevant. The phrase can be also followed by concurrent responses like "how did I get here?" and "what did I just watch?"

Throughout the latter half of 2011, similar types of comments spread across number of other major online communities like Reddit_^[2], Facebook_^[5] and Tumblr^[6], most notably as "I'm in that weird part of the Internet" and "I'm in that weird part of Tumblr." Particularly on Twitter and Facebook, the expression has been adopted by the users as an introductory statement when sharing a video link.

On October 29th, 2011, FunnyJunk user sadfacemcgee^[9] posted a multi-pane comic with the Computer Reaction Guy, illustrating how one can easily end up in the weird part of YouTube by watching the videos described as related content:

Notable Examples

In addition, there are numerous YouTube videos and playlists titled "that weird part of the Internet,"^[4] which are mostly tied to to gross-out videos, Japanese comedy skits and YouTube Poop videos among others.

On Twitter

On YouTube

Search Interest

Search queries for the phrase "that weird part of YouTube" began to rise in volume as early as in September 2011.

External References