YouTube wants to bring back old-school discovery and let you “Play Anything”

It’s time to add YouTube to the list of platforms that are harkening back to the Web 1.0 era. The latest update to the YouTube Android app expands the availability of the Play Something button, which lets users play random videos with a single tap.

The Play Something button was first spotted more than a year ago, but it has received more attention since the introduction of version 19.50 of the YouTube Android app, which arrived on December 19. Though the feature is still in the testing phase, users who have access to it will find that it’s hard to miss; it’s a floating black button that contrasts against the white background of the YouTube app’s home screen.

Tapping the Play Something prompt opens up the vertical Shorts player and initiates playback on a seemingly random upload. The button also surfaces long-form videos, which are refitted for mobile consumption. Once the player pops up, the Play Something option disappears from view.

There are plenty of experimental YouTube features that never see a wide rollout, but Play Something feels like an appropriate way for YouTube to satisfy viewers’ growing appetite for an old-school browsing experience. The rise of decentralized, federated social platforms like Bluesky 

has catalyzed the launch of apps like Surf, giving users the ability to encounter new content from disparate sources.

YouTube has been pulled into that trend as well. A website called IMG_0001 got a lot of attention for surfacing random, little-viewed videos from the long tail of YouTube’s library. IMG_0001 harkens back to the internet of the 2000s, when websites like Digg and StumbleUpon — not on-platform recommendation algorithms — led users to relevant, novel content.

Major social media platforms like TikTok and Threads have embraced this pivot to a more organic form of discovery. The Watch Something button feels like YouTube’s take on that concept.

If global regulators continue to push for depersonalized algorithms on social media, features like Watch Something could offer a new way for viewers to come across their next obsessions. On the other hand, there are already a handful of YouTube videos showing viewers how to remove the Watch Something button, so the demand for the feature may not be as high as it seems at first glance.