Why Do We Put Stock In Dislike Counts?
It has not been a full months since the trailer for Snow White came out and it has already clocked over a million dislikes on YouTube. Considering that YouTube has made the dislike count hidden to the public and it is only viewable by browser extension, you're probably wondering why this matters. I'm not here to say we should look at the dislike count (or the like/dislike ratio for that matter) as a legitimate measurement of general audience interest, but rather that the continued coverage of this measurement just contributes to the intended purpose of the campaign waged to drive the dislike count that high.
To be clear, I am not defending the live-action Disney remakes. I think the majority of them have been average at best and almost all of them lack the imagination that the animated originals have. More than likely Snow White will also fall into that category, especially since the trailer in question has a lot of the same trappings we've seen multiple times before. The CGI resides squarely in the Uncanny Valley, there will certainly be new songs or story arcs that feel out of place when compared to the rest of the movie, and the trailer is the same first trailer they've put out for The Lion King and Aladdin and The Little Mermaid.
That said, there is nothing in this trailer that warrants approximately one out of every nine views netting a dislike (as of writing the trailer has 8.6 million views and allegedly a million dislikes). Nothing about this trailer looks any worse than any of the other live action remakes, especially considering the fact that it is, again, EXACTLY THE SAME as the trailer for the previous movies. It's a parade of iconography with part of a famous song from the movie being sung by the new cast. The only thing that sets this and The Little Mermaid (the other live action remake that has over a million dislikes on the trailer) apart is that they are taking a character who was portrayed as white in the original animated version and casting a non-white actress in the lead role.
Which brings me to the point of this, why are we talking about this and why are news sources who don't exist subsidized by the racist troglodytes of the internet reporting on this like it is a legitimate story? The original point of the dislike counter was a form of community moderation that is designed to push people towards "good" content instead of "bad" content. The problem is that this system is very easy to exploit by people trying to push an agenda. If a movie did not align with their worldview, they'd dislike it which would de-prioritize it from being seen or dissuade potential viewers from clicking on the video and watching it. Considering this number ended up hyperinflated a lot of the time by racists trying to push an agenda, YouTube eliminated the metric from public view.
At the end of the day, if YouTube has conceded that this is a useless metric that is only there to be exploited, why are sources reporting on this as if there is anything to this story. Racists will act racist and the longer that the fire is given oxygen to burn, the longer it will. We've reached a point where it should be known what it is that's causing this ridiculously high number of dislikes and it is the responsibility of journalists covering the story to include this information beyond just a footnote at the end of the article. Let's wait for the movie to come out or hit Disney+ or whatever and not let people pushing an agenda make up our minds about its quality six months before it is released.
