Surf YouTube randomly with the excellent Skip-Youtube website

There is a world of weird and wonderful videos out there on YouTube but like most people I barely scratch the surface day-to-day. So a new project from Bertie Muller and Matthew Britton is helping address that with the aid only of a “skip” button.

“We wanted to alter the viewing experience and make the encounter a much more random affair,” Matthew explains. “We wanted to reinstate the element of chance and enable the viewer to discover content that they weren’t necessarily looking for. We have abolished titles, tags and descriptions as it is about limiting the control over information.

“You can view, but only randomly selected material. You can decide to skip content, but only after an initial exposure to it. To a certain extent, you expose yourself to the decisions of an algorithm that you don’t understand, you give up control over the media delivered to you, but can still derive enjoyment and pleasure from it.”

My random selection today included a yoga lesson with an old lady, an American football package and some kind of Japanese soap opera (maybe) but it doesn’t actually matter what you get; it’s about submitting to the serendipity and enjoying a rare lack of content-selection control.

Check it out here.