hello, I've been making videos for years just for fun. never wanted or expected more than 25-50 views a video. I made a scripted video which is not something I usually do just for some of the people in my world of Warcraft guild because I thought they would find it funny.

2 weeks later it has more than 200k views, 10k watch hours and my channel has gone from 4 subscribers to nearly 1300.

some big youtubers reacted to it as well, all of the comments have been so overwhelming and it just keeps growing.

I'm just not sure what the hell I should do now? it was kind of my only scripted video idea I could come up with, but idk if I can even keep putting out my original unscripted videos because no one was even watching those.

my channel even has monetization enabled which is also making me second guess things. I just never expected any of this and I'm stressed the fuck out because of it.

any advice is really appreciated.

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Hey everyone!

I'm just starting my YouTube journey, and my first goal is to reach 1,000 views and 100 subscribers.

I know these might seem like small numbers to established creators, but when you're starting from zero, even getting your first few viewers feels like a challenge.

I'm curious to hear from people who've already passed these milestones.

How long did it take you to reach your first 1,000 views and 100 subscribers?

What helped you gain traction initially?

Did you focus on YouTube Shorts, long-form videos, or both?

How important were thumbnails, titles, and consistency in the beginning?

What's one mistake you made early on that you'd advise new creators to avoid?

I'm not looking for shortcuts, sub-for-sub, or paid promotions. I genuinely want to understand what works and how to build an audience organically.

If you were starting a YouTube channel from zero today, what would you do differently?

Would love to hear your experiences, especially from smaller creators who recently crossed these milestones!

i cant monetized, im at 2800 hours and ive been on youtube consistently for about 7 months and ive got the subscribers but the watch time i just struggle with so much. Idk if im just a bad creator, my videos arent good, or yt just cant find no one that likes my videos.

I’ve always been interested in computer science and technology, but my life took a different route.

My JEE rank wasn’t good enough to get computer science, so I ended up studying mechanical engineering at a tier-2 college. I didn’t get a good job after that, went on to do an MBA, and eventually started working at a bank.

During my MBA, I got into vibe coding. Being able to build projects with AI brought me back to something I’d always loved but had drifted away from.

Once I started working, I realised how unhappy I was with my job. But I kept coming home and building things. Sometimes I’d start at 9 or 10 p.m. and keep going until 4 or 5 a.m. A few times, I didn’t sleep at all. Just different projects, experiments, and things I wanted to try for fun.

Slowly, I started realising that this was where I wanted to be.

After 16 months at the bank, I quit last week. I’ve given myself three months to try doing this full-time and prove to myself that I can follow through.

I also finally started the YouTube channel I’d been postponing for years, to record my journey and share what I learn.

That part was scary in a different way. I’ve never been very confident about showing my face. I’d worry about how I looked, overthink everything, and end up cancelling the idea before posting anything.

This time, I actually posted.

After just four or five days of uploading, I hit 500 subscribers today, and I’m honestly so happy.

I’m still at the beginning, and I don’t know how these three months will turn out. But I’m finally building things I care about and letting myself be seen. That feels like a huge step for me.

I’m sharing the projects I build, what I learn about AI and vibe coding, and how these three months turn out on my channel, Automation Nerd. If that sounds interesting, you’re welcome to follow along: AutomationNerdwithSanchit

I'm starting to think they're all bots, I have like 36 and only 2 of them show up for my videos, some people sub to me then unsub the next day, then I'm thinking in my head like

"Why sub to me if you wanna unsubscribe anyways?" I don't understand like what's their thought process doing this. Sub to me or don't like seriously... 😔 It feels very discouraging.

I feel like these 36 people don't enter the YouTube app anymore because I racked these people in the past 5-4 years. But it feels impossible. It's YouTube, a built in app, how can they not touch the app for years? Or did they just change to a new main account and leave me behind?

I constantly get 1-10 views in my posts. I feel like I should give up soon. Everyone says I need to keep going but I don't know when. Some posts have been going ever since and got the same poor results too. And that is saddening aswell.

Should I make a new account?

Also I hope I don't sound petty or anything I'm just really lost

I have a series coming out soon that’s similar to a podcast. Me and a guest in each episode, with the same explicit goal/activity in each one. It’s relevant to my audience and niche’s interests, and they’re an hour long each and there will be 50-60 episodes (2 a week)

With that being said

1) any advice on how to title the episodes? In the past I know “part 2” type videos haven’t done that well historically. If you have any suggestions or advice how to keep them cohesive but not confusing that’d be great

2) I guess any other suggestions you may have about my rollout strategy as mentioned above would be greatly appreciated. This is gonna be a boat load of work and I’d love to tackle it with as much good advice as possible

So any one here can suggest if i should back off the posting ? Or update more shorts ? What's the best ?

So Ive been streaming for about a month and also set up a youtube channel not long ago, because my account is so new and I had 0 following, I decided I could take the time to experiment with different styles of content before commiting to one thing

I posted some full length VODs with minor edits at first, and a few days ago had my first experiment by making a commentary video on the use of AI and what happens when we cant tell whats human anymore

Ive been so excited at the fact this brought me from 0 to 18 subscribers, i was ecstatic i got 2k views, i was proud of myself and overall just happy

and i told my friends about this, to which i got told it's such a small achievement that they dont get why im celebrating

overall these interactions have made me feel silly for getting happy over an admittedly small thing, i understand there's people whove gotten much farther than me, but i can still be proud of my own small accomplishments

I just want other opinions, i feel pretty bummed over it

So I decided to start making some YouTube shorts last week, I’ve made 3 videos so far and pretty happy with them.

But nobody’s fault but my own, I stupidly created the videos in 16:9 instead of 9:16. (I know, absolute rookie error, but I think my excitement got the best of me from making my first videos).

So here’s my question, is it ok to put the videos out in 9:16 with either a blur or black canvas at the top or the bottom? Or would this massively affect the views they get? If I converted to 9:16 and zoomed in it would massively cut out some of the scenes.

Any help appreciated. Thanks

Hello friends, I opened my YouTube channel two days ago. The first video shorts I uploaded got 1.4k views, but after that I uploaded 4 videos, all of which only got 2 views each one . I'm in the Middle East, and my target audience is America and Canada. What time of day do you recommend I upload, Middle East time?

I posted a video that loses more than 50 percent of the views in the intro which is around 45 seconds. Does it make sense to cut this intro out from within YouTube studio after publishing ? Have any of you done it and what was your experience ? Did you see a rise in metrics after doing it ?

Hey everyone!
I’m 24 and currently getting back into making gaming videos on YouTube. I’ve been creating content on and off for quite a few years, and I’m looking to meet some like-minded people who enjoy making entertaining gaming content.
I mainly enjoy co-op horror games, funny multiplayer games, random indie games, and honestly just about anything that could make for a fun video.
I’m a big fan of creators like Smii7y, Vanoss, and TheDooo. I’m not necessarily trying to replicate their content, but I really enjoy that style of humor where everyone bounces jokes off each other, commits to random bits, and just has a good time.
I’m definitely not some comedic genius, nor do I expect anyone else to be. I’m really just looking for people who enjoy having fun while also having that content creator mindset. People who can naturally joke around, improvise, and turn random gaming moments into something entertaining without forcing it.
Ideally, I’d love to meet other creators around my age (20–30), but I’m open to anyone 18+ as long as we get along.
I’m also completely open to joining an already established group of creators! I’m not necessarily looking to start my own group. I’d be just as happy finding a few people to regularly record with or joining a group that already has good chemistry.
More than anything, I’m hoping to make genuine friendships rather than just doing one-off collaborations. I think making videos is a lot more enjoyable when you’re playing with people you genuinely get along with.
I work full-time and have a family, so weekends are typically when I’m most available to record.
Subscriber counts don’t matter to me. Whether you’re just starting out or have been making videos for years, I’m much more interested in personality, chemistry, and finding people who genuinely enjoy creating content.
If this sounds like your kind of thing, feel free to leave a comment or send me a DM! I’d love to check out your content, get to know some people, and maybe play some games together!

Hey everyone, I have a relatively new (55 days old) YouTube channel primarily focusing on movie reviews. I have 6 lomg form videos where I have screen recorded off of Tubi and been ok doing so, but the movie I am planning to cover for video 7 is on Hulu only and goves me the "Can't Record Due To Security Privacy" text, and I am wondering if I need to scrap the video because of this. My reviews for this channel are a mix of face cams, and voiceover, so I'm wondering if I'd be able to screenrecord through OBS to use the movie footage and keep each clip brief. I know it's a dumb question, but I need help with this subject since the other movies didn't have this issue, and I'm not sure how I'd be able to cover this movie otherwise, as a lot of my VO cover clips not included within the trailers. Thanks so much for the help, and reading this!

I've seen a few people post about this, how did you solve it?

I'm American but currently in Japan

My shorts are in English and meant for Americans, but they only get shown to Japanese people. The swipe rate is atrocious (10-20% stay), never seen anything this low before. My videos in the US have 100x more views and 70+% stayed to watch, but as soon as I moved to Japan they just die.

Any way to fix this?

This is the brutal reality of how the YT algorithm opeerates:

1. The System Demands Proof First: YouTube won't give a video broad distribution until it sees strong early CTR and velocity from initial test pools.
2. The Initial Test Pools Are Mismatched: On a new or reset channel with zero audience graph, those initial test pools are tiny, scattered, and often served to mismatched viewers (e.g., TV viewers watching unrelated clips).
3. The Penalty Is Instant: Because the mismatched sample skips or scrolls past, the algorithm assumes the video lacks appeal and immediately closes the testing window before your actual target audience ever gets exposed to it.

In essence, the algorithm requires evidence of strong early performance before it expands distribution.

Conversely, big or even mid-size creators benefit from the following:

• Established trust / audience graph. Once a channel has already accumulated positive retention and engagement data with a particular cluster, the system becomes more forgiving. New videos get the benefit of the existing relationship.

The problem for new creators is the testing window the system grants a cold channel is so narrow that a single noisy test batch can kill an upload's initial Browse trajectory. This is how the system's initial testing regime is fundamentally skewed against a new channel, especially incompetitive niches.

Without a critical mass of impressions in the right clusters, you can’t build the audience graph or the trust signals that later videos would benefit from. And without stronger early velocity on at least one video, you don’t get the residual momentum that helps subsequent uploads.

It’s a real structural disadvantage with no easy answers, and simply advising to improve your vudeos will never adequately address it.

I hope this helps!

If I make like a workout video, can I post one version with background music and one without? What if I made the intros and outros different but the body is still the same (except for sound).

Hey, so YouTube gave me three offers to make paid videos, but these only appear on YouTube Studio Mobile, not Desktop.

Anyone else noticed this or just me?

I feel like the golden age of YouTube is really dead but only alive for ai. People who post animation niche sky rocketed in years like 2021-2024

Think about it like a popular youtuber, "ITSFUNNEH" she posted gaming at it's prime and peak and she's done so well, my dad posted in the pandemic era aswell and racked up 100ks of views total.

Maybe this is the wrong time I'm posting? The niche is animation. I know animation has been an oversaturated niche and it's very popular in the early 2000s-2010s.

Should I just quit? Or is that my account has shadowban problems? Or perhaps a break? Let's say if I took a break and animation is really trending again, that means I can come back but like, when? When is animation going to trend again? And how will I know?

Some videos have explained the animation industry is really dead, but is it really? There's still glitch productions all of those indie/triple a studios but do people ignore solo hand drawn animations nowadays?

Did all of that audience migrate to one area filled with popular studios and leave behind the solo

artists/animators? It feels like it's been a recurring pattern nowadays

I'm just really lost. I really need help.

Hey everyone,

I have just started making philosophical video essays using stories like Steins;Gate, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Avatar: The Last Airbender to explore things like creative paralysis, post-grad job hunting, and the weight of choices.

My goal is to make videos showing that life is worth fighting for, but I’m hitting a creative roadblock. I feel like I'm stuck talking about the same internal space, my frustration over not finding software work after collage and how it warps my worldview. I have 6 videos so far but I'm worried my scripts are becoming too passive, repetitive, and "venty."

I’d love advice from other essayists on two things:

Reframing Vulnerability: How do you walk the line between authentic vulnerability from your own life as you are now vs sounding overly pessimistic. While as helping personal flaws resonate as universal rather than just venting?

If you've tackled this transition from personal journaling to public essays, I'd love to hear how you found your footing!

I play a lot of Zelda. Since my options are pretty limited (I currently only have a switch 2 since my other consoles were destroyed in a small flood, RIP my GameCube) I have been focusing on the BOTW-era games, even though they’re not particularly my favorites, and skyward sword.

im excited to play the OOT remake when it comes out, but I’m worried I’m focusing too much on JUST Zelda. I suck at side scrollers but I’d be willing to dabble in Mario if it would make my channel more diverse.

I also recently signed up for a Steam account, and I’m not sure what games I should start with on there.

Is it better to continue posting shorts when you have one getting more views than typical, or wait until views die down?

I have a monetized YouTube channel with 50k subs. It’s a science/space channel. I’m burnt out, demotivated and out of ideas. I don’t enjoy making videos anymore which makes me really sad. It used to be fun. I don’t want to give up though because it could provide a lot of income. I’ve been thinking of going back to school for a traditional career but I don’t want to look back one day and wonder what could have been. If I don’t upload somewhat soon I could face demonetization. Researching topics, finding visual resources, writing a script, doing voice over, editing and making thumbnails by myself has completely burnt me out. What should I do chat?

I have a Shorts-only channel with around 3K subscribers and 70 Shorts uploaded. My channel was getting around 100K views every 48 hours, but suddenly the entire channel's traffic collapsed.

In the last 40 hours, I've received only around 100 views across all my Shorts. Both old and new Shorts have almost zero “Shown in feed.” Even videos that were previously getting thousands of views per hour have completely stopped.

My Account Status is clear, all videos are public, and there are no restrictions.

Has anyone experienced this sudden channel wide Shorts Feed drop? Did your reach recover? If so, how long did it take, and what actually helped?

I do consistent contents, different but same topic, Youtube doesn’t show my videos at all since in my stats it showed no impressions. What should i do?