If you're the kind of person who spends too much time on the internet—so basically anyone reading comments here—it's been interesting to see the trickle-down effect of the things like different facial expressions, or big-font headlines, or a silhouette of the creator laid over a screenshot of the video, make their way across the YT ecosystem, even across very different forms of content. Beast's interview on JRE was the first time I heard someone explicitly lay out how his process worked, i.e. putting out the exact same video out but with different background colors and seeing which one grabbed more eyes, and then using that color and doing slightly different poses and watching for the uptick again.
As someone who doesn't consider themselves very creative in the classic sense, hearing how 'the magic' or virality can be broken down into a real process is very eye-opening.
Yeah, the amount of A/B testing that goes into this stuff is actually pretty scientific. They do realtime testing of different titles, thumbnails, etc. They know second-by-second how many people are dropping off the video and stop doing the things that cause people to close out. It's wild how deeply people think about this stuff.
Of course, it doesn't matter if the content sucks. You still need good content. But there are ways to hack the system.
This reminds me of that Slate Star Codex bit: "Everything you read on the internet is written by insane people": statistically most of the content on the internet is written by a small group of people who spend most of their time making internet content. Those people end up having very wildly different views and experiences, especially about real world things like politics, than the rest of the population, and so have normalized to themselves and to the internet ideas that would be nonsense in polite company.
I think it's at least mildly significant that Mr. Beast himself seems to think that avoiding politics (extreme or otherwise) brings in more traffic. This cuts against some "fans want to know influencer opinion" narratives
Not only does he avoid politics, he's stated he avoids having any personality at all, apparently after concluding that having a personality is a negative in the web race because some won't like it
> If you recognize the phenomenon, you can stop yourself from being entirely sucked into it.
Amen. Thank you for putting the work, with this post and all the ones before, to surface this kind of dynamics.
Knowledge of the pattern is the best way to break free from it.
When discussing the push that algorithms, echo chambers, and human nature in general have on our extreme behaviors on the internet, however, I fell it's crucial not to give up our agency. I wrote about it in this piece https://mokagio.substack.com/p/dont-blame-the-algorithms. The algorithms may nudge us, more than we care to admit, but we are still in control.
Your work here is empowering from that point of view, reclaim agency through understanding.
I always think of the apps that feed us algorithmic content as the cheap Chinese food buffets I loved growing up. If I'm the only customer that goes there and all I ever eat is some kind of chicken and maybe some rice, eventually the restaurant is going to stop putting beef-and-broccoli or lo mein out there. That's not the fault of the restaurant, it's just good business to give the customer what they demand, whether that feedback is coming in the form of meals purchased, or time watching a type of video, or clicks.
> You’re the one consuming this content. You all, in the collective sense, are the ones who make these children famous. You’re the followers, the commenters. You’re the ones who can’t get enough of dramatic stories, online beefs, and shocking social media antics. You provide the incentives for Lil Tay to exist.
I deleted TikTok from my phone after like 3 weeks for precisely the issue you outline with your post about IG. The algorithm there was too good, and I felt myself being sucked into it in a way that has never happened to me with IG, Facebook, or YouTube. I didn't think I had the willpower, fallen creature that I am, to keep the app on my phone and use it responsibly, and so *poof* off the phone it went.
If you're the kind of person who spends too much time on the internet—so basically anyone reading comments here—it's been interesting to see the trickle-down effect of the things like different facial expressions, or big-font headlines, or a silhouette of the creator laid over a screenshot of the video, make their way across the YT ecosystem, even across very different forms of content. Beast's interview on JRE was the first time I heard someone explicitly lay out how his process worked, i.e. putting out the exact same video out but with different background colors and seeing which one grabbed more eyes, and then using that color and doing slightly different poses and watching for the uptick again.
As someone who doesn't consider themselves very creative in the classic sense, hearing how 'the magic' or virality can be broken down into a real process is very eye-opening.
Yeah, the amount of A/B testing that goes into this stuff is actually pretty scientific. They do realtime testing of different titles, thumbnails, etc. They know second-by-second how many people are dropping off the video and stop doing the things that cause people to close out. It's wild how deeply people think about this stuff.
Of course, it doesn't matter if the content sucks. You still need good content. But there are ways to hack the system.
This reminds me of that Slate Star Codex bit: "Everything you read on the internet is written by insane people": statistically most of the content on the internet is written by a small group of people who spend most of their time making internet content. Those people end up having very wildly different views and experiences, especially about real world things like politics, than the rest of the population, and so have normalized to themselves and to the internet ideas that would be nonsense in polite company.
Great point, and some version of the 90/9/1 rule usually applies.
I think it's at least mildly significant that Mr. Beast himself seems to think that avoiding politics (extreme or otherwise) brings in more traffic. This cuts against some "fans want to know influencer opinion" narratives
Not only does he avoid politics, he's stated he avoids having any personality at all, apparently after concluding that having a personality is a negative in the web race because some won't like it
> If you recognize the phenomenon, you can stop yourself from being entirely sucked into it.
Amen. Thank you for putting the work, with this post and all the ones before, to surface this kind of dynamics.
Knowledge of the pattern is the best way to break free from it.
When discussing the push that algorithms, echo chambers, and human nature in general have on our extreme behaviors on the internet, however, I fell it's crucial not to give up our agency. I wrote about it in this piece https://mokagio.substack.com/p/dont-blame-the-algorithms. The algorithms may nudge us, more than we care to admit, but we are still in control.
Your work here is empowering from that point of view, reclaim agency through understanding.
Good stuff Gio! Really enjoyed the post.
Weird simile coming up, you've been warned.
I always think of the apps that feed us algorithmic content as the cheap Chinese food buffets I loved growing up. If I'm the only customer that goes there and all I ever eat is some kind of chicken and maybe some rice, eventually the restaurant is going to stop putting beef-and-broccoli or lo mein out there. That's not the fault of the restaurant, it's just good business to give the customer what they demand, whether that feedback is coming in the form of meals purchased, or time watching a type of video, or clicks.
Resonates with Jeremiah's earlier post on Lil Tay
> You’re the one consuming this content. You all, in the collective sense, are the ones who make these children famous. You’re the followers, the commenters. You’re the ones who can’t get enough of dramatic stories, online beefs, and shocking social media antics. You provide the incentives for Lil Tay to exist.
https://www.infinitescroll.us/p/the-wreckage-of-virality
Which also reminds me of https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11633651/Fat-fame-Social-media-stars-sacrifice-health-waistlines-clicks-money.html
Well.....that was....a thing I didn't know existed until now.
Farewell, sweet innocence.
Oh man Nikocado is wild, and a great way to emphasize what's happening with extremism.
I deleted TikTok from my phone after like 3 weeks for precisely the issue you outline with your post about IG. The algorithm there was too good, and I felt myself being sucked into it in a way that has never happened to me with IG, Facebook, or YouTube. I didn't think I had the willpower, fallen creature that I am, to keep the app on my phone and use it responsibly, and so *poof* off the phone it went.