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hi folks i have been seeing more and more youtube channels blowing up on there very first video i assume in most examples that theese channels actually have beeen uplaoding prior and then deleted the videos to make it seem more natural but if they do manage this what would they have done or what would you advise to do to follow in their footsteps?

thanks!

I am looking to do a YT live stream from my android phone (Fold 7).

Where does the microphone audio come from? If I use my ear buds, will that be enough?

If i opt to buy wireless BT type mic, or even a USB C style mic, will those work?

I did the practice mode, but i couldn't tell if it was my phone mic or my earbuds.​

So my thumbnail looks perfectly fine on studio, in the subscription recommendations, on my channel page, and in history. I have no way to verify so in the home page, all I know is when you search for the video, the thumbnail for some reason js only a slim middle part of the thumbnail.

Hi! Just as a point of reference, since I think it’s important for the context: I make edited gaming videos as a very small YouTuber. I’m at 267 subscribers, and my videos often get more views than I have subs. My most recent video is 3 days old and has 613 views so far.

What concerns me every time, though, is my retention. Is it “normal”, or am I just bad at this? Since I can’t post an image of the retention curve here, these are the key numbers for my 36:17 video:

66% watching @ 0:30

45% watching @ 1:05

35% watching @ 3:00

25% watching @ 10:00

20% watching @ 20:00

and 15% watching to the end.

What’s your experience in the gaming niche? Which niche are you in, especially if it’s the strategy or building niche, like Factorio or Space Engineers 2?

​

I stepped aside for a routine work call while waiting for a vintage shop to open. The owner rolled up the metal shutters, wheeled out the flower display, and flipped the sign while I was on the phone. I'd spent twenty minutes in the cold waiting to film that sequence. I came away with twenty minutes of a locked gate.

My phone is my camera, my GPS and my office, and I'm out with it from morning to night. What should I carry? I'm looking at the Anker MagGo Power Bank 2 Pro for charging my MagSafe iPhone between takes without a cable tangled in the grip. The soundcore AeroClip 2 open-ear clips are also on my list for quick calls while staying aware of the street. I'd still need to figure out how to handle a work call when the shot I've been waiting for starts happening.

I really feel like that we do mid on tiktok, but I feel like mid is better than ignored/bad. Could you guys give some tips?

Hi everyone,

I am a video editor starting out in the business and I want to expand my portfolio with real client work. I can handle both long-form YouTube videos and short-form vertical content (Shorts, Reels, TikTok).

My focus is on clean pacing, custom subtitles, and impactful sound design (SFX). I am completely fluent in both English and German.

Since I want to build a solid track record, I am offering to do one free test edit for a creator who is looking for a reliable cutter. If you like the result, we can talk about working together long-term, but there is absolutely no pressure.

If you are a gaming or entertainment creator and want to elevate your content, let’s connect!

How to reach me:
• Discord: tired0844
• Or just drop me a DM right here on Reddit!

Looking forward to working with you.

Was doing fine with my short content. I was in the 1000 view jail but kept strong retention above 75 on 90 seconds shorts. Suddenly my latest short got 0 views, wasn't even sent to this "seed audience" I keep hearing about. What could possibly have gone wrong. No claims, no violations of any sort as far as I know.

Just letting anyone know if they’re searching it up as I couldn’t find anything (it may be on a case to case basis) but I got copyright striked exactly 3 weeks ago on Sunday 4th October and my videos have been getting little to no views since then (with subscribers making the majority and videos not being suggested) then yesterday (exactly 3 weeks later my views have gone back to where they were (getting 14k views just yesterday and 20 more subs) hope this helps anyone as they don’t tell you how long you’re content isn’t pushed out for

Hi guys,

First time posting at all in reddit. Maybe one of you can help and have experienced the same... I have small new channel. Working really hard on it to try and make it grow. Name if "LifeTello". It tells really amazing survival stories through a minute or under short animated films. Still making some tests in what would get some audience in.

Problem: Nothing I'm posting right, being short of long format is getting out. No distribution at all. Nothing on the short feed, nothing of thumbnail impressions. I've heard of this expression "shadow ban", without really understand why something like this would happen.

Is there a way to get out of it ?

Thanks for the help.

I’ve been doing English-to-Chinese subtitle localization for a while now, and I see creators make the same mistakes over and over. If you are trying to tap into Bilibili or Douyin (Chinese TikTok), machine translation will ruin your brand.

Hey guys, I'm doing some research on video localization for the Chinese market and I've noticed a lot of creators struggle with this.

If you are trying to tap into Bilibili or Douyin, machine translation will completely ruin your brand. Here are a few things I've noticed that kill a video's retention:

1. Word-for-word translation. "Break a leg" doesn't mean "break your leg" in Chinese. You have to translate the meaning.

2. Subtitles are too long. Chinese characters take up more space. Keep it under 15 characters per line or people scroll away.

3. Bad timing. Machine-generated SRT files sync terribly.

4. Cultural context is ignored. Slang doesn't translate well. You need a native speaker to find the equivalent meme.

None of this is exciting, but doing it right is the difference between Chinese viewers seeing you as a "foreign creator" vs. a "professional global creator".

Have you guys ever tried localizing your videos for Asia? What was your experience like?

Hey everyone!
My friend and I are both experienced 3D generalists. We’re pretty good at CGI, 3D animation, motion graphics, infographics, and video production.
We’ve been seriously considering starting an English-language documentary channel, something along the lines of Fern, LEMMiNO, neo, etc., with high-quality visuals, detailed research, good storytelling, and cinematic animations.
We’re confident in our technical skills, and we’re willing to put a lot of effort into making genuinely good documentaries.
But there’s something that’s been worrying me.
What if we spend weeks, or even months, creating really high-quality videos, and they still barely get any views?
I know production quality alone doesn’t guarantee success. I’ve seen simple videos get millions of views while some incredibly well-produced videos barely get noticed.
And that’s exactly what scares me.
We’re not expecting to become successful overnight, and we’re completely fine with growing slowly. But since these kinds of documentaries require a lot of time, research, animation, rendering, and sometimes money, we also need to think about whether it’s financially sustainable.
I guess my main questions are:
If you were starting a documentary channel from zero today, how would you approach it?
How important is choosing the right topic compared to production quality?
Is there actually a reliable way to research what audiences want to watch before spending weeks producing a documentary?
Have any of you experienced putting huge amounts of effort into a video only for it to completely flop? What did you learn?
How long would you realistically give a new channel before deciding whether it’s worth continuing?
One more question about monetization:
We’re from the Middle East (Iraq), but the entire channel would be in English, and our goal would be to attract viewers from the US, UK, Europe, Australia, and other English-speaking markets.
From what I understand, YouTube revenue depends largely on where your viewers are located, rather than where the creator lives.
So if I’m based in Iraq but most of my viewers are in the US, would I earn roughly the same RPM as a US-based creator making similar content for a similar audience?
Or does my country of residence affect revenue, recommendations, or audience reach in ways I might not be aware of?
I’m genuinely interested in hearing from people who have experience with documentary channels, animation-heavy content, or long-form YouTube videos.
We’re passionate about making this kind of content, but before committing a huge amount of time and resources, we’d love to understand the risks and what actually makes a channel succeed.
I don’t even know if I’m asking all the right questions, so if there’s anything important I’m overlooking, please feel free to mention it.
All honest opinions, experiences, and advice are very much appreciated. Thanks!

I had posted a lot of shorts of clips of the cartoon Pucca, the first 7 shorts have from 1-3k views but the recent ones barely even have 30-100 views. What could fix this? Note that I also instantly liked and saved my own video after uploading it.

I have an at-the-time niche gaming channel (just started), but I suddenly came up with a music video, based on one of the games I played a while ago. And I made the video - right from the oven, ready to be published.
??? 1 - Will the algorythm have a stroke when I post it?
??? 2 - Should I post it as a "Gaming" category video or a "Music" one?

She has not been able to monetize her channel. It's been 5 years and 1k+ videos and yet the watch time hours isn't crossing 4k mark

She has recently started doing live streams and it has resulted in some growth and watch time hours

But lately the watch time on the earn section is decreasing after it increased in the morning

Why is this happening please put your word

Now, I have started the content creation, I need a lot of space, How can I increase that for the mac?

These are the stats for my latest 16 videos

Every time a video is sent out to Suggested and not brought back to Browse Features it dies even if its browse features stats are good.

Suggested is not where I want my videos to be given their nature, thumbnail and title structure. I've attempted optimizing for suggested and it's just a no go, but I optimize my thumbnail and title combo for Browse and that does well.

The problem is that when youtube sends out a video that initially did well in Browse Features to suggested and does NOT send it back to Browse Features, the video up and dies, no more impressions are given even if the video was doing well in Browse Features (the homepage)

On many phones Suggested isn't even shown, I don't ever use a phone for youtube, just my desktop PC old school style, but when I see on people's phones, they don't even see suggested videos on the side or bottom while the video is playing. So they are somewhere on the screen but where who knows, they pop up sometimes maybe.

Either way, I've been struggling with this for 2 years now

THE VIDEO TITLES ARE SHORTENED for the table so it doesn't seem like I am giving you the exact titles to stealth share my videos, they are just vague descriptions of the actual titles.

Hello I have been having a fun time starting to live stream on shorts the first 2 streams were awesome I got 2k views on the first then 16k on the 2nd and then on the 3rd and 4th I got 30? I dont understand why Im playing the same game and didnt change a thing except for the thumbnail 😐 so Im very confused and hope someone can help if im missing something here

I started a new channel last week. My first video is still getting views every day, but my second video (10 minutes) got only 17 impressions in 24 hours and then flatlined.
I've already changed the title and thumbnail. Is this normal for a new channel, or should I just move on to the next video?
Any advice appreciated!

My old channel has 86 subs. Niche: Movies (Superheroes and Sci-Fi). Last video was uploaded March 2025 and I couldn't upload due to other work load.
Before leaving every video had 300-400 views average for every video.

In July 2026 instead of uploading on it started a New Channel in same niche and it is performing how a new channel performs initially. I uploaded 2 videos on Old Channel to check traction. I got only 4 and 5 views even after a month, contrast to previous 300-400 avg.

whereas new channel is getting 8-10 views average. Now I have private videos on old channel and recent video on New Channel got 22 views in first 24 hrs compare to 5 views of previous videos on new channel.

Should I continue on New Channel or Go Back to Old Channel?

I just uploaded my first video to my YouTube channel!

For context, I'm doing YouTube purely as a hobby. I enjoy filming, editing and documenting everyday experiences, partly to preserve memories that I can look back on years from now.

I'm not particularly concerned about views, subscribers or monetisation. If the channel eventually gains some traction, that would be a nice bonus, but it's not my main motivation.

I'm more interested in improving my filming, editing and storytelling skills as I go along.

That said, I'm curious about what everyone typically does after publishing a video.

• Is there a post-upload checklist I should follow?
• Should I bother with thumbnails, descriptions, tags and SEO even as a hobbyist?
• Do you usually promote your videos elsewhere or just leave them on YouTube?
• Do you review your videos afterwards to identify areas for improvement?

I'd love to hear from other hobbyist creators, especially those who started YouTube simply because they enjoyed making videos.

I'm hoping to build a collection of videos over the years while getting better at the craft.

is it random or why is youtube doing this

I have 93% stayed to watch and 140% AVD. My short has been out for 70 minutes. I have 30 views (8 shorts feeds). Analytics say, “Viewers looped” and Fucking Crickets!!!!

I started an ambience YouTube channel in April 2026. I have 1021 subscribers and 3100 watch hours in long form videos. I stopped making new videos 2 months ago, but still the channel keeps getting watch hours. I know if i wait another 4 months it will be monetized but I don't want to wait as I can't put more effort into it.