I don't understand why this is surprising. I don't think you can become a YouTube influencer while ignoring the algorithm. It's absolutely not enough to be "naturally gifted" at creating interesting content, because your content will not get surfaced to more users unless the early engagement metrics are unnaturally good. You're always competing with clips that are engineered for engagement, so you have to play the same game.

This used to be different 10-15 years ago. I remember uploading some random stuff and getting 50k views. Now, I get 50 for essentially the same stuff.

And yes, there are some popular content creators who pretend not to care. I promise you that they spend a lot of time looking at metrics too.

> assumed he was somewhat naturally gifted in creating content that interested people

He is, but he also was one of the first youtubers who really figured out how to game the modern algos.

What’s crazy about it is that he already has more than enough money to do what he wants. He could scuttle his view-maxxing and just make what he loves to make and he’d still do well and live a lavish luxurious lifestyle with no worry for lost subscribers.

E.g., we see this with the way PewDiePie “retired.” My understanding is that he only makes videos that he wants and enjoys making these days.

But that idea assumes Mr. Beast isn’t just an amoral grifter who is in this job to do exactly what we see described here. He has no passion for making videos or the content of his videos, his passion is wealth and influence accumulation.

On the other end of the spectrum we see people like Technology Connections or Tim Traveler who are completely uninterested in sponsorships or marketing efforts and they get to just make the videos they love making. There is zero view optimization when Alec makes a 1 hour video about heat pumps. He knows there’s going to be massive drop-off and doesn’t care. It’s obvious to point out that Mr. Beast got his bag orders of magnitude above and beyond creators like that and could easily stop his insane operation and do the same thing.

You and I would call this a hellish nightmare but that’s not how narcissist and narcissist-adjacent folks feel about it.

>assumed he was somewhat naturally gifted in creating content that interested people

I think his first video was just a recording of him counting to one million.

> Being so obsessed with clicks and likes and retention and whatever. Then trying to earn money from it all

The pressure goes the other way around, though. Once somebody’s living depends on it, they have to make content that makes them money.

Like running an startup, numbers are the boss.

There is a PDF of "HOW TO SUCCEED IN MRBEAST PRODUCTION". You should read it. He is VERY clear what the goal is:

"Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. That’s the number one goal of this production company. It’s not to make the best produced videos. Not to make the funniest videos. Not to make the best looking videos. Not the highest quality videos.. It’s to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. Everything we want will come if we strive for that. Sounds obvious but after 6 months in the weeds a lot of people tend to forget what we are actually trying to achieve here."

That's a weird thing to assume. Popularity and top charts are never about fun, it's hellish work and attention engineering. Music industry knew this since at least Bing Crosby.

I ever heard of him in the context of having the most subscribers, tried to watch his videos and they look very non-Youtubish to me. They look old school reality TV-like and this is a genre I can’t stand. Maybe he doesn’t know anything special about YT or its algo, maybe it’s just that there’s awful lot of reality TV loving people.

Same here. I must have done a "Don't recommend channel" on enough crap over the years that the algorithm must have learned not to show this stuff to me.

Same. I guess I’ll give credit to the YouTube algorithm; it knows what I like. And I guess it knows I’m not the right viewer for his stuff.

Same but my son gets them A LOT. he was watching gaming content and that was that

Same, except I get bombarded with Joe Rogan videos. I never click on them, but I guess the algorithm says, "Middle-aged white guy. Give him Joe Rogan. Lots of Joe Rogan."

I'd say the same, except when I land there not logged in. Then it's a shit show.

It's exactly the same sort of SEO slop you see trying to game Google algorithms.

MrBeast stuff is professionally produced. He is only the face and boss of a large company with a lot of employees.

Lot of people like repetitive content it seems. And that goes for everything. I have no idea of music, but I have understood that people tend to listen to same genres inside which things are pretty much the same. Same goes for TV shows, soap operas and sitcoms are popular. Same thing repeated for countless episodes. In general lot of tv shows were a story of the week variety. Movies too. Sequel after sequel or some generic thing following same tropes and plot points... Oh and why not lot of books. Mostly same thing repeated in each book with slight variations...

I think people just might like formulaic repetitive content...

I watch a guy solve a sudoku every day. The puzzle is always different, but conceptually it's just a minor variant of the same video. I don't watch Mr Beast or that sort of content but I can't judge anyone who does.

> It is hard not to think of viewbotting.

I'm sure there are a lot of people (mostly kids) who legitimately watch MrBeast's content, but I'm also convinced that viewbotting to boost numbers is much more widespread than is generally acknowledged across YouTube, Twitch, etc, and the platforms don't really care so long as the advertisers don't make a stink about it.

It seems like every couple of years they'll do some bare minimum pruning of the most egregious outliers to make a show to the advertisers that something is being done and then things slide back to normal within weeks to months.

Children

Hard to know who's the biggest pos on that video, the sociopath or the serial rpist