YouTube’s Latest Pop-up Button Prompts You to “play Something”
YouTube is testing a pop-up “Play Something” button that will play a random video for you. As noted by 9to5Google , the new feature is currently exclusive to the popular video site’s Android app and is not available to everyone.
This isn’t the first time YouTube has tried a “Play Something” feature, and Netflix fans may remember seeing a similar button at some point in the past. But unlike the Play Something banners and buttons from past tests , this button appears on top of your feed (so be careful when clicking) rather than as a tile built into it.
Clicking on it will take you to a random video selected by YouTube’s algorithm and shown in the same vertical player used in YouTube Shorts. Oddly enough, these videos can include both short and longer content, but both use the short video player – standard YouTube videos will just have big black bars at the top and bottom.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any way to use “Play Something” as some sort of shuffle feature, since the app reverts to normal Shorts player controls as soon as you click the new button, meaning you can only use it to play one video at a time. time. However, once you enter the short video player, you can simply swipe up to load a new random short video (although longer videos will not appear this way).
Unfortunately, 9to5Google doesn’t mention any way to close the new button other than playing a video, so if you see it, you’re just stuck with it on the screen until you actually start watching something. This is a bit annoying because in site screenshots the button hides the thumbnails and video titles.
It’s possible that this button is an attempt to encourage users looking for alternatives to TikTok to start trying out the Shorts interface—a smart move given the looming deadline for a potential TikTok ban .