I finally get why old viral videos hit different than the new ones

Tbh I was scrolling through some 2012 era clips the other night, ones with like 40 million views back then, and something clicked. Those old videos had this raw, unpolished feel because people just filmed stuff happening around them. No hooks, no trending audio, no 3 part structure. Now everything feels like it was made to go viral on purpose, and you can see the seams. I manage a store in Austin and last week a customer showed me a clip of a guy stacking paint cans that got 2 million views in a day. It was clearly staged, but nobody cared because the production was clean. That bugged me more than it should. Has anyone else noticed that the moment creators started optimizing for the algorithm, we lost the accidental magic that made virality fun in the first place?