"Just start!" "It's worth it!" (I'll write a more serious response after I finish watching this vid in full. Just wanted to make light of the "500 subscriber" thing.)
Regarding your point at 9:40: it's hard to know where to draw the line, but some amount of "TH-cam optimization advice" does lead to better, more enjoyable content. There's a craft to audience retention and it's not all bad. Everything lands on an ethical spectrum between audience manipulation and showmanship, and that spectrum gets complicated when you realize that, as a viewer, you *enjoy* being kept on the hook. A lot of TH-cam "hacks" just amount to well-paced writing that opens and closes questions as it goes along. Some people will look at the algorithm through the lens of data and patterns and get stuck in a "repeat what works" mentality, and some of those people will see a lot of success, but you can still appease the algorithm just by writing a great script and doing great filmmaking.
Very fair point. It's a really thin line to walk. and I don't think the people who make that kind of advice content have bad intentions. The advice just has some side effects that I don't enjoy. When things lean too far towards a formula I feel like it restricts the content. And that's when I turn into the old man with my fist balled up at the sky lol. But the last part you said is true for sure. You can still please the algorithm just by delivering something of high quality. Thanks for watching!
I think the current state of TH-cam can be especially disappointing to those of us that witnessed its growth from the beginning because we remember when people being themselves and simply recording it was what drew an audience. The good ol' days before things were full productions and a business. *grumbles in millennial frustration*
Idk what’s up with my internet right now but the videos been bufffering at 17:14 for like 2 minutes so ima just close TH-cam, don’t worry bout your audience retention it’s just an internet problem with me ( love the video )
I've seen people try to game the algorithm for over a decade. Hot girls in the thumbnail regardless of the content, funny faces, bold colorful lettering, length of video, topic of video (whatever's trending) and like you said copying each other.
I wish their was a way to flag the misleading thumbnails. Ive definitely seen those floating around. Somehow I feel like with AI being what it is now it'll only get worse.
@@CerealSensei410 I've seen AI voice overs more often now. I've also seen a few science videos that look like they are completely AI generated. Like a video about far off galaxies and it's all random space images and info you could find on a wiki page, presented by an AI voice.
Ok, now for the more serious comment: The first thing that came to my mind as you were ranting about the copy-and-pasting of TH-cam wasn't content creation at all; it was actually basketball. Being an NBA fan for nearly my entire life, I have an understanding that the sport has been a "copycat league" for decades, with most contending teams trying to emulate the successes of a recent champion to the best of their ability. However, it's only been in recent years where I felt like watching basketball is becoming a stale experience for me. I feel like the more analytical and optimized nature of the "3 and D" model of playing basketball has stripped the game of some of the dynamism and contrast I once appreciated about the sport and those who once played it. As great a team like this year's Celtics may have been, it's just not the same watching an entire team run its offense around the three-point line, and this really hit home during the Finals. I say all of this to make the point that I believe the problem you speak of isn't limited to TH-cam or even social media. Our entire society is approaching a state where everything is being optimized to a fault. As someone who's been on the job search for years now, I've also witnessed how this plays out in ATS tracking systems weeding out applicants of well-qualified people and making finding work needlessly tedious and difficult. As a practicing artist, it feels like most well-known artists are more interested in the latest popular trend or character for engagement than expressing unique ideas. This, too, gets rather annoying at times. Algorithms, keywords, numbers... they consume so much of our attention that we can't see how unoriginal and mundane we've become. In that sense, I certainly appreciate that you had the mindfulness to see this problem and the willingness to be openly critical of it. There aren't enough serious conversations being had about the dangers of an overly optimized space, partly because we're always in such a hurry to take advantage of the next algorithmic breakthrough. I'll end it here because I'm also starting to find myself ranting into a frenzy. lol Great video!
Rant away lol. But I feel you. it goes so much deeper than content creation. and if you spend too much time thinking about it youll either get depressed or angry, maybe both. Everybody is trying to copy a formula and cut corners. And in the long run the quality of everything suffers.
I was talking about this with the homies how monetized the internet is. From google results being just amazon partner links, to everyone being a "content creator" , its just ugly as hell to be on the internet in general. It sucks cause like you said back in the 2000s everything was just for the love of the game. Nobody cared about quality or professionalism, it was just vibes.
Facts. If I hadn't have freestyled this convo I would have been in a bit about how I'm starting to hate the term "content creator" lol. Thanks for watching!
Hey man, I understand exactly your thoughts about this whole atmosphere of content creation being super skewed towards replicating and copying already successful content so the algorithm will push what it "knows will work" and there's the question of whether you give in and try to form your content in a different way to try to conform to that but you gotta keep steady and look past it. You really should keep doing what YOU want to do. Now, a nice looking thumbnail of course doesn't go amiss for getting more eyes on the videos but at the end of the day you got to keep your enjoyment and passion in it. There are those who will try their hardest to pursue content creation to get as much money and/or fame as possible, but if you GENUINELY ENJOY making the content and that's the biggest drive behind it, then you should definitely just keep on doing you. I'm sure you'll get to see more growth over time and eventually you'll have many more people than there are already just sticking around to see exactly the content that you enjoy making. But I do agree with your ending thoughts - I also believe the pendulum is swinging back and people are waking back up and snapping out of this carbon-copy-consumption that is destroying this space that is capable of holding true art. Keep up the authenticity - soon it will be the new success.
Thanks for the comment. I for sure just gotta keep pushing, fighting the good fight. Every now and again I just have to stop and scream into the void before i get to moving again lol. Thanks for watching!
I had to do some serious digging to find this lol th-cam.com/video/61plogIF-xU/w-d-xo.html The whole video is worth a watch. But the main part I was referencing starts at 5:10.
There's a shift among us. Keep the authenticity going. It'll pop when it pops, we just have to get it in front of the right eyes
Yeah, the eyes will come for sure. People are gonna start looking and I'll be here lol.
"Just start!"
"It's worth it!"
(I'll write a more serious response after I finish watching this vid in full. Just wanted to make light of the "500 subscriber" thing.)
lmao i forgot the "it's worth it part"
Regarding your point at 9:40: it's hard to know where to draw the line, but some amount of "TH-cam optimization advice" does lead to better, more enjoyable content. There's a craft to audience retention and it's not all bad. Everything lands on an ethical spectrum between audience manipulation and showmanship, and that spectrum gets complicated when you realize that, as a viewer, you *enjoy* being kept on the hook. A lot of TH-cam "hacks" just amount to well-paced writing that opens and closes questions as it goes along.
Some people will look at the algorithm through the lens of data and patterns and get stuck in a "repeat what works" mentality, and some of those people will see a lot of success, but you can still appease the algorithm just by writing a great script and doing great filmmaking.
Very fair point. It's a really thin line to walk. and I don't think the people who make that kind of advice content have bad intentions. The advice just has some side effects that I don't enjoy. When things lean too far towards a formula I feel like it restricts the content. And that's when I turn into the old man with my fist balled up at the sky lol.
But the last part you said is true for sure. You can still please the algorithm just by delivering something of high quality. Thanks for watching!
I think the current state of TH-cam can be especially disappointing to those of us that witnessed its growth from the beginning because we remember when people being themselves and simply recording it was what drew an audience. The good ol' days before things were full productions and a business. *grumbles in millennial frustration*
*Grumbles in millennial frustration* is always the mood, always lol.
Idk what’s up with my internet right now but the videos been bufffering at 17:14 for like 2 minutes so ima just close TH-cam, don’t worry bout your audience retention it’s just an internet problem with me ( love the video )
Internet providers might be the biggest haters of them all. Thanks a lot for watching!
insert mark jackson "what happened to the game i love" meme. it's a sad state
Mannnn this meme has never been more relevant lol
I've seen people try to game the algorithm for over a decade. Hot girls in the thumbnail regardless of the content, funny faces, bold colorful lettering, length of video, topic of video (whatever's trending) and like you said copying each other.
I wish their was a way to flag the misleading thumbnails. Ive definitely seen those floating around. Somehow I feel like with AI being what it is now it'll only get worse.
@@CerealSensei410 I've seen AI voice overs more often now. I've also seen a few science videos that look like they are completely AI generated. Like a video about far off galaxies and it's all random space images and info you could find on a wiki page, presented by an AI voice.
Ok, now for the more serious comment:
The first thing that came to my mind as you were ranting about the copy-and-pasting of TH-cam wasn't content creation at all; it was actually basketball. Being an NBA fan for nearly my entire life, I have an understanding that the sport has been a "copycat league" for decades, with most contending teams trying to emulate the successes of a recent champion to the best of their ability. However, it's only been in recent years where I felt like watching basketball is becoming a stale experience for me. I feel like the more analytical and optimized nature of the "3 and D" model of playing basketball has stripped the game of some of the dynamism and contrast I once appreciated about the sport and those who once played it. As great a team like this year's Celtics may have been, it's just not the same watching an entire team run its offense around the three-point line, and this really hit home during the Finals.
I say all of this to make the point that I believe the problem you speak of isn't limited to TH-cam or even social media. Our entire society is approaching a state where everything is being optimized to a fault. As someone who's been on the job search for years now, I've also witnessed how this plays out in ATS tracking systems weeding out applicants of well-qualified people and making finding work needlessly tedious and difficult. As a practicing artist, it feels like most well-known artists are more interested in the latest popular trend or character for engagement than expressing unique ideas. This, too, gets rather annoying at times.
Algorithms, keywords, numbers... they consume so much of our attention that we can't see how unoriginal and mundane we've become. In that sense, I certainly appreciate that you had the mindfulness to see this problem and the willingness to be openly critical of it. There aren't enough serious conversations being had about the dangers of an overly optimized space, partly because we're always in such a hurry to take advantage of the next algorithmic breakthrough.
I'll end it here because I'm also starting to find myself ranting into a frenzy. lol Great video!
Rant away lol. But I feel you. it goes so much deeper than content creation. and if you spend too much time thinking about it youll either get depressed or angry, maybe both. Everybody is trying to copy a formula and cut corners. And in the long run the quality of everything suffers.
I was talking about this with the homies how monetized the internet is. From google results being just amazon partner links, to everyone being a "content creator" , its just ugly as hell to be on the internet in general. It sucks cause like you said back in the 2000s everything was just for the love of the game. Nobody cared about quality or professionalism, it was just vibes.
Facts. If I hadn't have freestyled this convo I would have been in a bit about how I'm starting to hate the term "content creator" lol. Thanks for watching!
I thought I was the only one honestly, thanks for being here man!
It's definitely not just you. Good to see a lot of us are feeling the same way. Thanks for watching!
Hey man, I understand exactly your thoughts about this whole atmosphere of content creation being super skewed towards replicating and copying already successful content so the algorithm will push what it "knows will work" and there's the question of whether you give in and try to form your content in a different way to try to conform to that but you gotta keep steady and look past it.
You really should keep doing what YOU want to do. Now, a nice looking thumbnail of course doesn't go amiss for getting more eyes on the videos but at the end of the day you got to keep your enjoyment and passion in it.
There are those who will try their hardest to pursue content creation to get as much money and/or fame as possible, but if you GENUINELY ENJOY making the content and that's the biggest drive behind it, then you should definitely just keep on doing you.
I'm sure you'll get to see more growth over time and eventually you'll have many more people than there are already just sticking around to see exactly the content that you enjoy making.
But I do agree with your ending thoughts - I also believe the pendulum is swinging back and people are waking back up and snapping out of this carbon-copy-consumption that is destroying this space that is capable of holding true art.
Keep up the authenticity - soon it will be the new success.
Thanks for the comment. I for sure just gotta keep pushing, fighting the good fight. Every now and again I just have to stop and scream into the void before i get to moving again lol. Thanks for watching!
Playing catch up on your videos. I loved this one.
Thanks man. I had been wanting to make a video like this for a long time. The TH-cam landscape is something else.
2:13 what was that video called?
I had to do some serious digging to find this lol
th-cam.com/video/61plogIF-xU/w-d-xo.html
The whole video is worth a watch. But the main part I was referencing starts at 5:10.