Comment by mrkramer
5 days ago
So formula for success on YouTube is to be constantly making crazy and then even more crazier videos and hope they become viral so more people discover you?
I knew that even 15 years ago when I was watching crazy pranks pulled by French YouTuber Rémi Gaillard[0]....he was so popular back in the day on YouTube.
The formula for success is more basic than that.
Make people watch more YouTube.
Crazy videos might become passe or burn people out, at which point the 'formula' will change, but the underlying reality is the same. It's a paperclip maximizer. To succeed at YouTube make people watch more YouTube.
>To succeed at YouTube make people watch more YouTube.
Yea but how do you do that? By making more compelling content than competitors. That's the basic formula.
What he's trying to say, is that compelling content is not necessarily what you think it is.
There's whole subcultures of people doing unboxing videos. People framing existing videos as "unintentional ASMR" (https://www.youtube.com/c/PureUnintentionalASMR)
The point is : it doesn't matter what you upload. As long as it allows Google to show ads to people.
You might (or might not) be interested to know that, among other things, he went on to make a movie, and even (semi-successfully !) run for mayor !
Also, I think his videos might be predating YouTube, or at least predating YouTube dominating the format ? IIRC he used to self-host as well as publish on other platforms ?