Reflections on 1 Year of (Trying to) Become Successful on YouTube | Hacker News Reader

Reflections on 1 Year of (Trying to) Become Successful on YouTube

chaserensberger.com

I actually find it quite reassuring that YouTubers with an individual style and personality end up doing better than those trying to make generic me-too Mr. Beast style content. Looking at the OP’s channel, there is basically nothing about their videos which screams “unique individual”, which is probably why they are struggling. I have discovered dozens of creators that maybe don’t have the most optimized thumbnail, titles, or production values, but still manage to convey a unique personality that comes through in their videos.

As I said, this is actually pretty reassuring and is probably why YouTube, all things considered, is the most authentic social media platform nowadays.

I hope that wasn’t too harsh, and my advice to the creator is to think more about what your unique brand is, how you can convey it in a thumbnail or video title instantly, and just generally be more authentic and original in your videos.

I actually don't disagree with you at all. I think that is the kind of content that Luke is most suited/wants to make. Him being a close friend of mind I just want to help him succeed. My goal for this article was to be a kind've meta look at the process of it all. Super interesting to hear your perspective. Appreciate you checking out the article!

Same here. I discover and follow youtubers organically mostly - from a search for a specific topic or a "related" offer by YT. If the youtuber is interesting and pleasant and a good videographer and editor (which is quite a bit about MY taste - so, not very predictable by you), THEN I will gladly dig through the rest of their videos and return again and again.

In there, it doesn't matter if you get inspiration from other youtubers. Not my problem. I don't care if it's original - but I care that it's well done. This is one thing you can control: "good videographer and editor", and the good news is that it's a learned skill. Good taste is not a learned skill, harder, but seeking feedback and learning from it, is.

This being said there are clearly many different kinds of YT watchers. The parent and I may or may not matter to any specific youtuber.

with all due respect i find the type of content you (and the myriad other people who post the exact same type of mr. beast-molded content) tiresome and repulsive.

Moreover, every single video is about “I”. An “I” video only works if people care about who “I” is, otherwise it’s just self centered, unhuman content creation.

I actually don't disagree with you at all. I think that is the kind of content that Luke is most suited/wants to make. Him being a close friend of mind I just want to help him succeed. My goal for this article was to be a kind've meta look at the process of it all. I certainly would love this channel (and YouTube) to move away from this kind've wrapping paper though. Appreciate you checking out the article!

Good luck. The primary downside to the approach is that, if the primary goal of the videos is virality, and you don't strike fame after a while, the impetus to make these videos dies down.

You should all continue to your approach and learn as much as you can, but I hope you can find continued motivation to make these sorts of videos. Most people I know make art for themselves. Your desires and your tastes, as a motivator, are tireless.

Seems to be just counting on a lucky viral success as there is no theme/niche, I generally only sub where there's a track record of content that is both quality and multiple videos that interest me

They seem to imitate the MrBeast format. But they are missing the storytelling, pacing, execution and scale of MrBeast videos. (And also the banter that makes MrBeast videos feel a bit like a sitcom episode)

Luke used to work there so I think some of that style may bleed in, especially during the editing process. Appreciate you taking the time to read the article. I'd love to hear more about how you think we could improve in any of the areas you mentioned.

Sincerely appreciate you checking out the article. Thanks for your feedback.

Nitpick - the point of parentheses, as used in the article title, are to add optional extra context without being required to make the sentence complete. The sentence "Reflections on 1 year of become successful on YouTube" isn't complete. Either remove the parentheses (thus making those words part of the title), or consider a different sentence structure.

Probably become=>becoming whould help

"Reflections on 1 Year of (Trying to) Becoming Successful" isn't correct either.

People write like they read and speak, which is where this mistake comes from

The right way is to replace the parentheses with a pair of dashes, one before and one after the deemphasized clause

Or just remove the parens. They don't really add (much of) anything. (See what I did there?)

Or maybe:

"... trying (unsuccessfully) to succeed..."

I think these are all really good points. I certainly need to improve at my article writing abilities. I have removed the parentheses from the title.

Probably em-dash in a formatted document rather than pair of hyphens like I'd use here. I'm pretty sure there are some stylistic recommendations about parens vs. em-dashes. I probably used to overuse parens but, in spite of being on my company's style committee for almost 15 years, I'm not sure I was ever all that consistent and I'm not sure we had hard and fast rules.

OP has been "trying" for 1 year, not "becoming" for one year.

I love this nongrammatical/idiomatic use of parentheses actually. Language is a tool, and its rules can be just as powerful when violated as when upheld.

In this case they convey a subtext you can’t get as gracefully by being a slave to syntax— that the author hoped the post would be about how they did achieve success, but that didn’t happen, forcing the parenthetical qualifier. I don’t think another treatment would express that quite as well; you can almost feel the wince.

you’d normally use square braces [for this kind of thing]

Square braces are used to show you are editing a quote for grammar or brevity, not to change the meaning of your own sentence. Ex:

> I love this [...] use of parentheses. [Rules] can be just as powerful when violated as when upheld.

you can also use it in place of commas.

Nitpick to your nitpick:

You've offered a linguistically prescriptive interpretation that ignores nuance and flexibility of language.

While it may be the case that the canonical "point" of parenthesis is what you've described, the purpose only remains for as long as we culturally accept that definition.

The usage of parenthesis as an aside to indicate a certain emotion somewhat playfully is not only acceptable, it's entered into the cultural zeitgeist. We all understand the meaning. The sentence is complete -- regardless of the rules you've cited -- because the reader doesn't eliminate the parenthesis from their context like a robot, and we have a common understanding of what the aside is trying to communicate.

I appreciate the nitpick. I am certainly not the strongest writer but hope to write more articles in the future. Thank you for the feedback.

My favorite advice I've ever heard on creating engaging content is from Ludwig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i9gkprYekI

Some aspects are obviously reflective of his style specifically but I resonated with his pushing of "stakes", i.e. consciously instigating a good payoff for the viewer with the title and thumbnail, and then delivering the payoff and more. I realized after watching this that I almost never watch videos without stakes. Just speaking personally, this might be the most impactful thing missing from the videos on your channel.

Your titles and premises are quite similar to Ryan Trahan's (https://www.youtube.com/@ryan/videos), but Ryan's consistently have stakes ("I tried every Airbnb Category" -- ooh, are there interesting categories I don't know about? "I Tried Every Drive-thru's Most Expensive Item" -- ooh, how expensive do they get?). In contrast, the titles here just strike me as more uninteresting ("I Let AI Control My Vacation" -- ok but I can do random things already without AI? "I Hiked a Mountain Blindfolded" -- ok but you're not actually in serious danger?) I'm not too surprised the GeoGuessr one performed well, since the stakes practically write themselves -- "ooh, can he figure out where he is? what if he gets dropped in the middle of nowhere?! how long will he have to walk?!".

Props to OP for their good-natured attitude and engagement. YT seems like such a tough business nowadays where it'll take years and a very thick skin to succeed. In contrast to some other commenters, I think some of the pieces that make a great channel are already there. Hope you accomplish your goals and I wish you well :)

Thanks for your feedback! Yeah, I think those 2 videos you mentioned are probably my least favorite that we've made. Frankly, we don't make the kind of content that I would generally consume myself so I certainly don't always give the best feedback when it comes time to give a video a title and thumbnail. Comments like this are always really helpful for that reason. Thanks a ton for checking out the article. I wish you well also :)

I wonder if they have a specific goal in mind that they use to define success. Maybe it's a more general "we will know we are successful when we get there", or maybe it's a specific metric like the number of views. The latter feels like a real grind.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41549649 - How to succeed in MrBeast production (2024-09-15, 1352 comments)

I don't think we have a number in mind. Just trying to have fun and film it.

Smaller YouTubers can do pretty well, i.e., a thousand devoted fans (and sponsors), and a year isn’t that long. Most of my follows are smaller YouTubers. Everyone wants to be the Musk of YT and not a “regular Joe” FIRE-guy. Both live pretty nice lives

I can drop a list after work

Totally agree! Our biggest goal, I think, is to just have a good excuse to do fun stuff. I look forward to that list.

It really surprises me how much competition YouTube videos have gotten over the years. Back in 2009, I recorded a video of burning a Coke can soaked in alcohol, and it got 20,000 views.

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