YouTube can’t separate negative and positive and negative videos; it just wants clicks. Vulnerable people gain ground. YouTube helps fire the culture wars and the dumbing down of discourse; the dark side of algorithm life is here.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 11, 2023

An ambitious documentary on one of the most intriguing, frightening phenomena of our time. The attempt to cover every aspect of a broad topic results in an intriguing if slightly disjointed watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 11, 2023

... an interesting time capsule that will be studied for years to come.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 4, 2023

The YouTube Effect is a worthwhile attempt at understanding how the site has changed society’s collective consciousness and its ability to develop empathy.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

My only complaint... Is that it's much big a topic for 90 minutes. But it's very well done.

Full Review | Jul 21, 2023

Really well done.

Full Review | Jul 21, 2023

Zappa was as terrific a music doc as you could find lately but Alex Winter's tech doc addressing the social issues of the platform is very little that we aren't privy to already and doesn't dig further to find a more probing thesis about its influences.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 18, 2023

Whodathunk that Alex "Bill of Bill & Ted" Winter would sound the clarion call of our current/future YouTube dread. The "effect"is YouTube/Google's ongoing convenient ignoring of false narrative, fascist, election denying channels. W/Alex Winter interview.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5 | Jul 15, 2023

It’s possible the director is trying to make a movie for the totally unaware, but in that broadness he allows too much to fall through the cracks.

Full Review | Jul 15, 2023

Core concern about its [Youtube] dangers is what really drives The YouTube Effect, and re-enforces its central finding that it has had an undeniably corrosive effect on our lives, even as we've fallen for its steady stream of pablum and bootlegged shows.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 13, 2023

The YouTube Effect is a bit of a jumble of information and perspectives, but it’s also never less than entertaining.

Full Review | Jul 13, 2023

While Winter's documentary shares essential information about a brand that's ubiquitous in many kids' lives, it's a traumatic, anxiety-inducing ride.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 12, 2023

An expansive look at how damaging technological growth on an unprecedented scale proves when put in the hands of cutthroat opportunists left to police themselves so a largely apathetic government can willingly reap the benefits of letting them.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 7, 2023

The YouTube Effect [is] an overly ambitious but succinctly argued documentary by director Alex Winter.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 7, 2023

Assembles a fair amount of information about the impact of YouTube on society, but struggles to find something new to say with it.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2023

The film is informationally dense; it must have been exhausting to put together, and watching it all at once highlights just what a roller-coaster ride life with YouTube has been.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 6, 2023

Effect offers no clear solutions, but this dizzying overview does emphasize that sweeping reforms have happened in the past for the sake of the public’s well-being.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2023

Exposes the downside to letting so much of what we know, believe and value be determined by blind, amoral algorithms and the unresponsive and mostly unaccountable corporate behemoth that imposes them on us.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 23, 2023

Every new medium, be it radio, film, television, video games, or now YouTube, has been blamed for being a possible downfall for our youth and society in general. Is it different this time?

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 20, 2022

[The film might] be a catalog of very recent history, but it serves the valuable function of connecting the many, seemingly randomly assorted dots into a clear narrative picture.

Full Review | Jun 11, 2022