posting good things is always good, regardless of views and analytics

"big number" mentality will kill your creativity if you let it

Hi. I’m writing this from the CCCRU studio in Toronto. Someone here a bit upset because his video is performing badly (10/10, if you know what analytics mean you know that’s bad, it means “worse performing video you’ve done in months“). Here’s a super short essay on why he shouldn’t care!

If you want a longer answer as to why you shouldn’t care about analytics, professional hottie CJ the X wrote one for you a few months ago. I am going to add my perspective on top of this :)

You might already know this, but Youtube first recommends your videos to those who are more likely to watch it (your “core audience“ if you will, those who maybe have watched a lot of videos from you in the past few months and are more likely to watch another one). If the video performs well with this core/test audience, then it gets recommended to other people who are likely to be interested (folks who have watched maybe a couple of videos from you but aren’t super fans, people who have watched other videos about this topic, etc).

Now, youtube wants me to get views, because that is how youtube makes money. But that doesn’t mean that when my video doesn’t get views it was “bad“. It just wasn’t (as) profitable for youtube. But the person in control of what I consider “bad” is always me. It is up to me to accept the judgment of youtube, or to add more nuance to it. And I choose the second.

If a video I made gets lots of views, I am happy, because (well ok because it benefits my career but also because) more people get exposed to my writing and my art, and hopefully it enriches them.

If a video gets less views, I am still happy, because that means that the video is being watched only by those people who watch everything I make. This is an incredible privilege that is only awarded to very few artists, and I refuse to let an algorithm paint it as a failure.

My goal as an artist is often in line with youtube’s financial incentives, which is why I post my work there. I am grateful for the platform, and I like making youtube videos. I often feel like my efforts are appreciated, because they are in line with what the platform wants. Not many platforms make me feel that way.

But also, sometimes my goal as an artist is bigger than what youtube wants me or needs me to do. From my point of view, I am either reaching a new audience or I am consolidating the old one. For me, it’s a win regardless of the number of views.

I’m not going to pretend like numbers don’t matter, because they are often what makes the difference between working our dream job or some shitty minimum wage thing that, albeit perfectly ok, is boring and weighting us down. So I get my friend’s frustration.

But my friend’s video is also good. It’s funny, it’s researched, it’s yet another piece of quality that his most hardcore fans get to have. That is still good! As long as I’m posting something good, it’s a success.

That’s it, just a micro essay to remind y’all to put algorithm things into perspective. I’ll see u soon <3