Comment by klustregrif
13 days ago
> You can't just find one hook that works and reuse it forever
That seems to be exactly what succesfull acounts are doing. They go a year or two creating content in a theme and then find that one hook that makes people stay a second to see what heir content is and then their entire personality and content becomes that one hook repeated until naseum and no matter what they do to try to escape it it's impossible since they don't control their content exposure newcommers will aways be flooded in a repeat storm of that same hook, and people who get tired will move on no matter what. So the only reliable way of trying to "pivot" to anything else is to create a new account, but that's going to get you back at the start with no guarentee that you'll have another hit in the next 2 years, so they just accept their fate as "the cucumber guy" or "the funny outfit girl" and then ride that as far towards the sunset as possible.
Yeah, I instantly disagreed with that point in the comment you replied to - TikTok's algorithm seems to reward sticking to your niche.
Does TikTok even have persistent personalities of this type? I thought a big part of the service was its recommendation algorithm that will keep recommending you other new stuff, not just reruns of the same influencers.
It's both. Since most videos are a couple minutes long at most, and a TikTok doomscrolling session can last for hours, the algorithm can show you all the new videos you haven't seen of accounts you seem to enjoy (or are following), and a ton of new stuff as well.
This definitely seems true to me, from my limited short content usage. I try to avoid getting sucked into the feed (Youtube Shorts is the one I have used), but if I do find myself scrolling through the morass of clips from Shark Tank or Family Guy [1], the one guy I'll almost always stop for is FunkFPV, who just does a duet on clips of stupid "hacks" and incidences of dumb stuff happening in factory / warehouse / construction settings.
He's just a blue-collar type guy who is mildly funny when critiquing the stupidity of, say, a guy walking up a badly placed ladder with a mini split condenser on his shoulder - but it's a niche that for whatever reason I enjoy, and I don't think I'd remember his handle if it wasn't for his very specific niche.
Interestingly enough [2] I've noticed a number of other creators seem to have sprung up in this niche and will occasionally find a video of some other blue-collar-lookin-dude doing the same schtick. I doubt FunkFPV is the first (in fact he sort of reminds me of an "AvE-lite") to tap this weird market, but he's my touchpoint, at least.
[1]: Yes, it is embarrassing that the algorithm has determined that these are likely to garner my attention
[2]: it's actually not really interesting because almost nothing on the topic of short-form video is actually interesting by any reasonable definition of that word, so this is just a turn of phrase
Hello! My name is Xandiloquence Bizarre the Ab3rd, and today I will make a hat entirely out of dried cucumber.
not true because the meta changes constantly. The accounts that are popular for a long time have someone talented at the head.
yes except all of this stuff...fundementally sucks, right? its why influencers generally don't become actors. there's very little depth to it. Versus for example Hank and John Green who sure, they have good hooks, but they also have depth?
idk can't tell if this is me hoping or coping