Hours of video uploaded to YouTube per minute

Between 2007 and 2022, every new country that legalized same-sex marriage was accompanied by an increase in the amount of video uploaded to YouTube, raising the important question of which was causing which. Perhaps marriage equality inspires people to document their lives more thoroughly, or perhaps YouTube's endless content created a cultural liberalism feedback loop. The r of 0.97 across 16 years is suspiciously tidy. At the current rate of YouTube uploads, every nation on Earth will have marriage equality by the time video uploads reach 1,000 hours per minute.

Both trends are expressions of the same broad global cultural and technological liberalization arc of the 2000s and 2010s. Countries legalizing same-sex marriage grew from a handful in 2007 to over 30 by 2022, driven by generational attitude shifts that were themselves accelerated by increased access to diverse media and global communication — including social platforms like YouTube. YouTube uploads grew from essentially zero in 2007 to over 500 hours per minute by the early 2020s. The underlying driver for both is increased global connectivity, urbanization, and the diffusion of progressive social norms through digital media networks.

Two things can be caused by a third thing and still tell you something real about the world, even if they tell you nothing real about each other. Progress tends to cluster in time because it shares roots.