'Watch Something Wonderful' Brings Back the Charm of the Algorithm-Free Internet

Before modern social media, a browser extension called StumbleUpon let you click a button and see a random website. I, like many people, find myself missing this site a lot. Partly it was the serendipity of it: You'd click a button and get one of a curated collection of sites.

Watch Something Wonderful is a simple website that brings that same experience to YouTube. Using the site is simple: Just click a button and you'll see a random YouTube video pulled from a curated collection. The videos are a blend of comedy and infotainment—notably with nothing outright political. I ended up watching a half-hour vlog-style documentary about the origin of sparkling water—something I'm glad I've seen and know I wouldn't have watched otherwise.

There's not a lot of information on the website about who built it and how they choose videos—it just says "A Team 7 Product" without any kind of link. This made the site feel mysterious, so naturally I had to track down the people behind it. I finally got in touch with Akhil, one of the four people behind the site. Team 7, it turns out, isn't a company or anything—it's "a team of four builders who like making fun stuff for people to use." The other three members are Ankit, Vidhatha, and Devesh.

The idea for "Watch Something Wonderful," according to Akhil, came from wanting something to watch during lunch.

"We always watch YouTube while eating, but finding good videos takes too much time," he told me. "So we made a site that picks random videos for you." The site currently cycles between 300 videos, mostly taken from the creators' favorite playlists and the subreddit MealTimeVideos. The plan, according to Akhil, is to add a form for users to add their own videos.

Is this a site I'm going to use every day for the rest of my life? No. But it's worth checking out and seeing what you find. Think of it as a website that feels like the old internet—a chance to get outside your YouTube algorithm for a while and, well, stumble upon something new.

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