u/Bigger_biscuits4

The sheer number of people I see asking why 'tHiS rEaLLy GoOd sHorT iSn'T gEtTinG viEWs, aM I ShAdOwBaNNeD?' is honestly astonishing.

If you have not been uploading for more than a couple of months, have less than 10 videos and are making content that could be made by anyone in your niche in 20 minutes, stop asking why you're not getting an audience.

You have not even begun to try yet. The amount of information out there publicly both on YouTube and across the internet for how to start a YouTube channel is vast.

It spans almost every niche and the reason why the best advice is so generic and vague is it works. It doesn't make you viral overnight to have a good title and thumbnail, it means you can upload a video. It doesn't make you a qualified content creator to have a good hook and 170% retention on a 50 second short, it means you can upload a video. Doing these things FOR A WHILE makes you consistent and worth watching.

The reason the best on YouTube exist the way they do is because they have spent years uploading and refining their video process to a stage where their core audience knows what to expect and YouTube knows who to recommend their videos to.

You haven't even given YouTube a chance to get to know your channel yet before you've started complaining. It's like buying a tennis racket and complaining that you didn't qualify for Wimbledon by tomorrow even though you really really tried your best.

If YouTube was about a formula or really wanting it, everyone would have a million subscribers. The first few months will always be a slow, horrible slog and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a statistical anomaly.

Growth on YouTube has always come with time, dedication, effort and passion. This isn't something you can do overnight and the lack of patience these days is genuinely starting to blow my mind.

A lot of the posts I see in New Youtuber subreddits and threads are starting out in gaming, usually with faceless playthroughs and lets plays. This is not a viable strategy for new YouTubers to experience meaningful growth and is essentially playing the YouTube lottery.

To give you some context about my channel, I run a small gaming channel with 1.2k subscribers, my 8 most recent uploads have averaged between 2-5k views with two now exceeding 6k and still growing

When I was originally making content for the channel I was averaging around 30-80 views per video, I grew from 20-150 subscribers in this time and managed to build a small community who helped with contributing video ideas and challenges.

Between mid 2021 - 2026, I wasn't uploading to my channel, 3 of the tutorial videos I made became the go to tutorials within the community, each of those videos climbed above 70,000 views over the time I wasn't uploading.

I started making videos again in March with each video having a more focused and complete goal and paying more attention to my thumbnails. In the 4 weeks since returning to the YouTube sphere I have again managed to build a core audience of over 500 returning viewers across multiple videos.

The largest problem I find with 'let's plays, playthroughs, first looks and update thoughts' is that style of content is directed towards viewers who watch YouTube with the question, 'What did [YouTuber] get up to today?'

It is very difficult to expect growth especially early on in personality based spheres because paradoxically, you need a core audience already and dedicated subscribers willing to click on videos like this to boost your initial CTR, retention and engagement.

You can't expect a viewer to want to keep watching a slightly poorer edited version of someone playing through a game as any other big name YouTuber whose brand they're already familiar with. This isn't to say you shouldn't make this style of content at all but when it's the only type of video on your channel, it makes it very hard to get into your content.

I welcome any and all questions, I am happy to take a look at some channels in my free time as well and provide a personalised review after some time. I am also happy to answer questions related to the video making process from other similar channels who are struggling to get off the ground.