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Sardonik posted:More concerningly I believe I may have significantly overestimated the mainstream appeal of my thumbnail concept: Meanwhile, waiting patiently on the sidelines ....   E: Amanda Tapping's expression still makes me laugh
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Feb 9, 2024 07:48
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:Meanwhile, waiting patiently on the sidelines .... Hah, oh god, still tempting for sure! Worth a try for a few days with your permission perhaps at least...
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Feb 9, 2024 08:21
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Sardonik posted:Hah, oh god, still tempting for sure! Worth a try for a few days with your permission perhaps at least... Ha ha lol yeah I'd love to see that. I'll whip up a higher resolution version with less lovely photoshopping if you want, let me know if there's any other source images you'd prefer to include
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Feb 9, 2024 08:46
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:Ha ha lol yeah I'd love to see that. Oh honestly I think those sources are perfect, especially Carter's 'guess I'll die' face there! Same thing at higher res at thumb dimensions would be perfect, maybe I could try running that thumb all next week even!
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Feb 9, 2024 08:50
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Inspired by Sardonik's excellent postmortem of the SG-1 video (watched it about as soon as you published -- really enjoyed it!), here are a few additional observations about my own most recent video now that it's been out for a couple of weeks, albeit not as well-structured: The vase build video is doing... kinda well, by my standards? It's showing a very slow but persistent creep up in view count:  I think it's my first video YT actually started recommending to viewers because all previous ones would have the views peter off after a week or so. But the the source of views is the conclusive bit of evidence:  Compare that against the video before and the difference is pretty stark:  I hadn't bothered looking at the Suggested Videos which were driving my views until Sardonik mentioned the  Westerns thing so I got curious. At least in my case the, uh, "source" videos made sense: I actually recognize several of the channels in question, so thankfully there's no weirdness there. Thoughts to wrap up:
Anyway, feel free to correct me if I'm misinterpreting any of this
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Feb 9, 2024 18:44
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Sardonik posted:Oh honestly I think those sources are perfect, especially Carter's 'guess I'll die' face there! Same thing at higher res at thumb dimensions would be perfect, maybe I could try running that thumb all next week even! I'd cleared out my recycle bin and it was taking me forever to track down the source photos all over again but then I realised the online photo manip app I use autosaves files so I still had them all in there lol 1280x720 pixels  Alt version with the cool fluorescent green outline that's fashionable these days  Sardonik posted:I hadn't bothered looking at the Suggested Videos which were driving my views until Sardonik mentioned the An impressions click-through rate of only 1.4% isn't great, which tells us that the thumbnail really isn't doing you any favours. Also note that if people see the preview text like this:  The phrase "This piece of woodturning isn't perfect but" makes me instantly lose interest, you gotta stop downplaying your work in your pitch (Edit: unless you actually screw up and make that part of your pitch eg: "Everything goes wrong, can I save the project or will it be a total bust? *frowny face*") Snowglobe of Doom fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 13:51
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:
Good point!s I used your previous suggestion and changed the thumbnail to:  and also tweaked the description. Given that the views have plateaued, it'll be an interesting test to see if this makes a difference. It's like a puzzle... where I'm vaguely aware of the rules and have few skills to complete
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Feb 10, 2024 22:09
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:I'd cleared out my recycle bin and it was taking me forever to track down the source photos all over again but then I realised the online photo manip app I use autosaves files so I still had them all in there lol Alright, the thumbnail is in place, let's light it up!   Gonna run it for a week or so and report back with the results, currently the CTR graph looks like this:  Man I wish they'd release AB testing already. Though admittedly I've read the system required 5k impressions to get results, which would take quite a while at current rates, still, good for video launching in the future I bet.
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Feb 10, 2024 23:06
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Trabant posted:Good point!s I used your previous suggestion and changed the thumbnail to: Just a minor nitpick but the text isn't very legible when the thumbnail is at preview size, even on my big desktop screen. I'm a real stickler for fonts though, one of my previous jobs was at a company that did AV tech & presentations for corporate events and I swear the guy who used to put together the slide presentations used to deliberately pick fonts that looked okay-ish on the laptop screen in full resolution but when you projected them onto a huge screen in a venue they were nigh illegible from the back of the room since he knew I was just going to go in and change them anyway and he was an annoying dick.
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Feb 11, 2024 05:29
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oh cool, didn't realize we had our own YT creator thread! My channel covers the history and impact of popular video games, developers, and figures in the gaming industry. only have a tiny handful of videos so far, and just finished my most recent video on New Super Mario Bros. for the DS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdwJb-ViYcM&t=489s any and all advice/criticism is welcome 
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Feb 11, 2024 08:51
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Hi folks, I've been doing a failed marxist political stream on Twitch for a few years and only just found out about this thread so I've been using Streamlabs unfortunately. Recently some friends of mine approached me to start a podcast with them, so I guess I'll try failing at podcasting too. They sometimes come on my twitch stream and have a blast so they wanna do more. My question is regarding recording a podcast over zoom/discord since we live in two different countries, if this is feasible. I'm in Canada, they're in the US. We all have mics of varying quality. I have a shure sm7b and a focusrite that I got used at a music shop for dirt cheap but they're mostly using the $50-70 usb mics. I've had good results with these cheaper mics through Streamlabs' audio mixing and I was wondering if there's a mixer app that I can use to apply filters to their audio tracks during recording so they can be tuned individually on their ends. One option I was considering is having them all record their audio separately and I mix it all together on my end in Audacity and we'd have to sync it up but that's a lot of variables and I'd like to keep the technical side as idiot proof as possible and focus on the content. Is there a way I can get all audio at once from their end with some filtering/noise cancelling/mixing? Ideally I'd like to do as little post-production as possible.
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Feb 13, 2024 05:56
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The Archaic posted:Hi folks, I've been doing a failed marxist political stream on Twitch for a few years and only just found out about this thread so I've been using Streamlabs unfortunately. Recently some friends of mine approached me to start a podcast with them, so I guess I'll try failing at podcasting too. They sometimes come on my twitch stream and have a blast so they wanna do more. I used to record and edit a podcast over Discord and I'll say this - if you want the audio to reach a decent level of quality you'll need to put in a lot of time in the edit suite. Discord lags and in order to get natural sounding discussion every sentence from every speaker will need a hard cut. I had a two hour record, and to edit it down to forty five minutes it took an average of nine hours of cuts. I absolutely hated it. I'd also recommend recording the whole thing locally in one program on your end. Syncing several streams in Audacity isn't reliable and you'll most likely end up with a delay/overlap. Especially when using the delete silence function. But if you record on your end using your DAW it'll be synced from the start. In terms of filter apps I'm unaware of any as I prefer to mix and master on my own. That said - sweeping for frequencies and compression etc doesn't take that long once you're familiar with the basics. 7seven7 fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Feb 13, 2024 |
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Feb 13, 2024 10:26
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Don’t do it over discord or zoom. Use OBS or something similar to do a group stream. Zoom/discord/FaceTime/etc is fine for an interviewee to use or guest spot but it’s absolutely unacceptable for cohosts of the broadcast. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Feb 13, 2024 |
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Feb 13, 2024 10:31
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The Archaic posted:My question is regarding recording a podcast over zoom/discord since we live in two different countries, if this is feasible. I'm in Canada, they're in the US. We all have mics of varying quality. I have a shure sm7b and a focusrite that I got used at a music shop for dirt cheap but they're mostly using the $50-70 usb mics. I've had good results with these cheaper mics through Streamlabs' audio mixing and I was wondering if there's a mixer app that I can use to apply filters to their audio tracks during recording so they can be tuned individually on their ends. What you want to do is use Skype with NDI enabled which will give you individual, separate AV feeds for everyone dialed in and you can then directly pipe those into OBS as sources. Beware disconnections though, that will make the outputs jump around a lot. I’d also recommend getting everyone to dial in on Skype accounts instead of guest accounts because it’ll get very messy otherwise since guest scouts are impossible to distinguish in OBS since it’s all just a random string of letters and numbers. Make sure you turn on the Skype cloud recording function as a back up because stuff can and will get screwed up. Also also beware of this resizing issue because it will also screw things up if you don’t accommodate for it: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34853/what-is-skype-for-content-creators
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Feb 13, 2024 11:51
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Alright while this was definitely a worthwhile experiment I think I'm going to revert to the previous thumbnail: I'll totally grant that if it had had this thumbnail at launch it may have accelerated things with that set of impressions, but for the set of impressions it's getting now I think the best bet is to use the previous thumbnail. Thank you again for letting me experiment with that thumbnail design, and the tips on crafting the other one!
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Feb 16, 2024 18:21
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Sardonik posted:Alright while this was definitely a worthwhile experiment I think I'm going to revert to the previous thumbnail: Yeah I'd be switching back as well
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Feb 16, 2024 19:14
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Mr Interweb posted:oh cool, didn't realize we had our own YT creator thread! With the disclaimer that I'm probably not your intended audience, here's my impression of the video you linked: It's clear that you had a wealth of information and thoughts on the topic, and what to me looks like quite a bit of research backing it up! Both the video and audio were well done, and I liked the thumbnail as well. I thought it could benefit a bit from some more structure or delineation, at least for someone like me. Having sections like (Ancient) History, Creators, Reception, Legacy -- those would give me a breather as you go through the history of the game. Whether you have a formal title card breaking it up into sections is probably a stylistic choice. I like those, but I might be a lunatic. I'll add that even though I'm not a gamer, I would absolutely be interested in some of the things you have in the channel description, including what a game did for the company or genre or, like in this case, the franchise. I imagine financial specifics might be tricky to get a hold of though, and those happen to be extra interesting in the big picture.
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Feb 18, 2024 00:55
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Trabant posted:With the disclaimer that I'm probably not your intended audience, here's my impression of the video you linked: Agreed - I might be the target audience. I watched the whole video and enjoyed it. Your voice, knowledge, and presentation are all up to snuff, but this video would've really benefited from some title cards just to break up the pacing issues. Other than that - good video!
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Feb 18, 2024 20:44
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Got a new video ready to go. Last release I tried a spicy title and a spicy thumbnail, and while it did more than double my usual views, it also go me ratio'd in the likes and the vast majority of the comments were not positive. The views also absolutely tanked after the first week. I'm talking no new views at all. This time I've been a lot more focused on the thumbnail concept. I've read in a fair few places that simplified thumbnails using red and white are doing numbers recently. That and simplification - getting your idea across with as few elements as possible. I still don't have the A/B testing for thumbnails yet, so thought I'd try my three ideas here: This is my favourite, but might be a bit niche and the characters are hard to make out on a phone, but hopefully the idea still comes across to fans.  This one looks good small, but the Tekken logo may be illegible. I might swap it out for something a bit simpler but keep the rest of the image. I'd say it's the one most similar to my one successful video, so I'm leaning towards this.  This one might be good for the meme factor, but the text needs addressing. I'm finding it hard to get it readable in small form, but if it's worth a shot I'll keep at it. Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2qO6T4Lor8 EDIT:: Tried a cleaner logo but I feel like it doesn't pop/grab the eye as much?: 
7seven7 fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Feb 22, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2024 21:14
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7seven7 posted:This is my favourite, but might be a bit niche and the characters are hard to make out on a phone, but hopefully the idea still comes across to fans. You could always split the difference 
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Feb 22, 2024 12:11
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:You could always split the difference Great idea - clean logo and it still pops. I'll give it a go - thanks!
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Feb 22, 2024 16:25
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Wow, great thread and appreciate how much info is in the OP and I’ll totally be reading all of it, even the stuff that has no relevance to me. Information is fun afterall. Does anyone here do a channel mainly utilizing screen cap to guide people through software? I’m into a niche set of tools that doesn’t have much representation on YT, and the videos that do cover it hit the 20-50k mark which is neat. So it seems an area where I might be able to do things of interest to people. My main curiosity is workflow for this. For instructional videos, do people tend to script things out ahead of time, then read and record the audio, then make videos of the appropriate actions to place underneath, which feels more effort but better output with less mistakes etc, or are most people just winging it with maybe a set of topics to cover but doing live talking and computer operation at the same time? I need to find some good tools for my Mac to record as my ultrawide resolution isn’t going to be YT friendly and I’ll definitely need to censor information like IP addresses and usernames etc.
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Mar 15, 2024 21:49
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Not posting my channel right now (I do ukulele covers as a hobby; been doing it for about 6 years on-and-off), but I recently had a video pass 1k views for the first time. An original song too, which is neat because those usually never do better than covers. After that happened, one of my friends from high school (who didn’t know about the channel) texted me to let me know the video got recommended to him which was pretty cool. I dunno. Definitely makes me want to take it more seriously!
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Mar 16, 2024 01:22
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I still laugh that I used to upload my stuff to Vimeo because of better quality and longer runtimes, and some dude grabbed one of them and cleaned up the audio some and then got a few hundred thousand views on YT. He credited the source at least, and he can’t monetize it because it’s copyright flagged for sure, but had to laugh.
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Mar 16, 2024 01:52
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EL BROMANCE posted:I still laugh that I used to upload my stuff to Vimeo because of better quality and longer runtimes, and some dude grabbed one of them and cleaned up the audio some and then got a few hundred thousand views on YT. He credited the source at least, and he can’t monetize it because it’s copyright flagged for sure, but had to laugh. platformowned
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Mar 16, 2024 04:02
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Got a new thing ready to go. It's a fairly wanky thing about grief tied into gaming. It's a way slower tempo than anything I've tried before and I'm really struggling with the thumbnail, Here's what I've got so far if anyone fancies weighing in:   I think they're OK at conveying the message but I'm worried they're not serious enough. If someone comes in expecting something funny based on the thumbnail they're gonna click away in two seconds as soon as they see the visuals. Or am I wrong and I should just go with the most eye grabbing thing regardless of a tone mismatch? EDIT: The video in question - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsPaC24A7Hc 7seven7 fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 02:14
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7seven7 posted:Got a new thing ready to go. It's a fairly wanky thing about grief tied into gaming. It's a way slower tempo than anything I've tried before and I'm really struggling with the thumbnail, Here's what I've got so far if anyone fancies weighing in: BRB gonna make a video essay comparing the Yakuza series to Dostoevsky’s The Idiot
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Mar 30, 2024 04:44
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trilobite terror posted:BRB gonna make a video essay comparing the Yakuza series to Dostoevsky’s The Idiot Dang - is it too poncey? I tried to be self aware and keep the language plain. Sorry if it's super cringe.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:04
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7seven7 posted:Got a new thing ready to go. It's a fairly wanky thing about grief tied into gaming. It's a way slower tempo than anything I've tried before and I'm really struggling with the thumbnail, Here's what I've got so far if anyone fancies weighing in: Sorry about whatever's happening. I didn't really see any religious themes in the video, so I'd maybe avoid the symbolism in the thumbnails. Here's a couple of random ideas I'd personally test if I was making thumbnails for this: 1) The person crying in a puddle meme and a couple of whatever videogame characters you like crouching in sympathy next to them and maybe 'IT'S OKAY' in text above it.  2) A screenshot of the swingset scene from Disco Elysium. Again, some consolatory text above it. 
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Mar 30, 2024 17:28
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7seven7 posted:Dang - is it too poncey? I tried to be self aware and keep the language plain. Sorry if it's super cringe. FWIW I like it so I didn't think. It's real and you're being vulnerable and hell, I found it relatable. (here's hoping everything will work out for you )Though to answer your original question - just as a viewer, not a creator, I don't remember how I found this thread - I would be expecting something different from the thumbnail, like... "oh, did they make a Super Noah's Ark style thing for the PS1??"
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Mar 30, 2024 17:29
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7seven7 posted:Dang - is it too poncey? I tried to be self aware and keep the language plain. Sorry if it's super cringe. no lol not at all. I was half being facetious in a general “video essays, amirite” kind of way, but half being semi-serious after one of your comments in the video about Ichiban being an unrelenting fountain of optimism and selflessness and goodness in the face of constant abuse and hardship and skullduggery from others made me legit think of Prince Mishkin I was worried you might take it as too insulting of a comment, but I’m only ribbing you a little bit. It’s a great essay, although I will say that I don’t think that any of the thumbnail images you posted really fit with the subject matter appropriately. I get using the image of the crucifix to convey spirituality, but maybe something more in keeping with the topic of grief might be more appropriate. Maybe even consider just doing text in the thumbnail, given the seriousness of the subject matter. Like a black background with a center fade to white or gray with text Processing grief through games Or if you want a funnier option, “Press X to pay respects” trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 17:35
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I thought it was pretty solid! I've used games for escapism for a sizable chunk of my life so I definitely get it. I'm probably not the person to talk to about thumbnails but I could see the concept of a game box with arms hugging a person under distress, literally comforting them.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:46
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Not to give you notes, but you could probably expand the scope of the essay quite a bit if you wanted to further contrast games as escapism vs games as meditation by talking about games that explicitly deal with the concept, and particularly with regards to your thesis/focus of being in a state of anticipatory grief where you’re expecting somebody to pass in the near to immediate future. That Dragon, Cancer comes to mind.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:57
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Megazver posted:Sorry about whatever's happening. The Disco Elysium shot is an especially good idea. I'm gonna see what I can do with that one first then give the other idea a go if it flops. Both super good ideas and I'm annoyed I didn't come up with something as clear as them. You're absolutely right about the missed symbolism. I'm still really struggling to convey concepts in my thumbnails so this is excellent advice. EDIT: Here's what I came up with -   Angryhead posted:FWIW I like it so I didn't think. It's real and you're being vulnerable and hell, I found it relatable. (here's hoping everything will work out for you Thanks for the criticism - I definitely whiffed getting the message and the tone across. trilobite terror posted:no lol not at all. I was half being facetious in a general “video essays, amirite” kind of way, but half being semi-serious after one of your comments in the video about Ichiban being an unrelenting fountain of optimism and selflessness and goodness in the face of constant abuse and hardship and skullduggery from others made me legit think of Prince Mishkin All good - I'm overly sensitive at the moment what with the things going on and all. I do like the idea of a more serious thumbnail. I'm not really sure why I went with the jokey one. Sardonik posted:I thought it was pretty solid! I've used games for escapism for a sizable chunk of my life so I definitely get it. This is also a really good idea that I'm gonna play around with. Much appreciated! trilobite terror posted:Not to give you notes, but you could probably expand the scope of the essay quite a bit if you wanted to further contrast games as escapism vs games as meditation by talking about games that explicitly deal with the concept, and particularly with regards to your thesis/focus of being in a state of anticipatory grief where you’re expecting somebody to pass in the near to immediate future. That Dragon, Cancer comes to mind. I tried expanding the script on a rewrite, but in the end I settled on keeping it shorter since it's a fairly heavy topic. I haven't played That Dragon, Cancer but I'm definitely going to now. 7seven7 fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 18:49
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Planning on dropping a video this Friday, think this one has real mainstream potential. Does anybody know offhand if there's any truth to the rumor that sharing the video around causes the algorithm to push it less in the initial impression pushes? Or does the information of people viewing the video prior to any big algorithm pushes help the video target where the impressions go? The algorithm being what it is I doubt there's any hard and fast answers to this but I would be curious what lines up with people's experiences.
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Apr 3, 2024 02:26
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Sardonik posted:Does anybody know offhand if there's any truth to the rumor that sharing the video around causes the algorithm to push it less in the initial impression pushes? Or does the information of people viewing the video prior to any big algorithm pushes help the video target where the impressions go? It’s very ymmv depending on who share it and where they share it. The way I got to 100 subs early on was because someone shared one of my videos on a subreddit. I have personally had less luck with sharing my stuff in places so I don’t go out of my way necessarily to share it unless it comes up in conversation. It’s mainly whether the video is gonna get a bunch of views from people who are the target audience for that video and then hoping it’ll spread because YT will try and show it to other similar viewers.
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Apr 3, 2024 11:14
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7seven7 posted:EDIT: Here's what I came up with - I like both of these! If it was my own video I'd probably use the meme one, because I am incapable of earnestly discussing my feelings without being jokey about it, but I think the DE picture fits your vibe more.
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Apr 3, 2024 11:28
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Sardonik posted:Planning on dropping a video this Friday, think this one has real mainstream potential. My evidence is entirely anecdotal and backed up by zero research, but my most successful videos are the ones where I resisted the urge to share them with friends or Reddit and just let the algorithm do its thing. I've tried sharing them to some relevant subreddits after a week or two if the video doesn't do well on YouTube, but that's never gone well for me. I've also just started posting snippets of my videos on TikTok but nothing promising yet. Not that I'd expect much crossover traffic between competitors. I've just got my YouTube URL rendered on the video with no mention of YouTube in the description or my bio. This might be dumb but I wonder if TikTok picks up the mention of YouTube from the video itself. Megazver posted:I like both of these! Unfortunately the video tanked. I launched it before the DE thumbnail finished uploading so I'm guessing that had an effect. I'm thinking of relaunching - it got about a hundred views. Is it ever worth relaunching a video or would that be detrimental? 7seven7 fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Apr 4, 2024 |
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Apr 4, 2024 01:24
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Try just changing the thumbnail first.
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Apr 5, 2024 01:00
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Welp, here goes nothing! It hasn't hit the algorithm proper yet but I'm feeling fairly confident about this thumbnail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6moe69uWtp4
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Apr 5, 2024 23:13
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