first, i am not very notable so don’t bother trying to determine who i am lol. i am very close to 100,000 followers—just to demonstrate my minor success and relevancy to the topic.

i hate every algorithm-driven video sharing app. they are absolutely fantastic for the consumer; finding their likes and interests and exploiting them, but terrible if you are a creator whose content others regularly consume. i struggle to be seen by 10% of my audience. most days i wont crack beyond 400 views. Four hundred. And you might be thinking that’s 400 of my audience; maybe some new people in there as well, so at least a few are coming back regularly… right? no lol. according to my analytics, about 98% of my viewers are not following me. they’re from recommend pages and outside of my followers.

…so… what the hell? these people followed me because they wanted to see what i had to make. these companies are keeping viewers distracted with their recommended feed so they never check out who they’re following and only consume whatever the algorithm demands be seen. 2% of my audience are followers. that’s about it. i’ve seen it as high as 3% but never beyond.

i make content because i genuinely enjoy it and always will do it. i love the art of comedy and spreading laughter. i want a big audience to make more people happy. truly, i primarily create for myself as personal enrichment. the money aspect is enticing and makes me long for a chance at making this work professionally.

but it’s so unreliable… these algorithms are not rewarding, and they will zap you of your humanity and creativity. the cash i’m paid is like a reward i get for playing their game. it isn’t something i earn. i happened to do it their way accidentally to my benefit and theirs.

good boy 🙄

  • Megaman_EXE@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    7 hours ago

    First off, don’t cut yourself short. Nearing 100,000 is a pretty big deal, in my opinion. Congratulations! I’m sorry you’re finding the algorithm frustrating. I understand the frustration. I’ve been streaming for about a year and a half now, but im under the 250 followers mark. I used to stream gaming stuff on YouTube, which was actually going half decently until the YouTube algorithm decided to stop all reach for no discernable reason. So I swapped over to twitch and had to restart/continue from there.

    The thing I’ve always found troublesome is that the YT algorithm sucks at finding content people are interested in if the channel is smaller. And if that channel makes a variety of content, it’s super unlikely it’ll get pushed. as a viewer, I’m always seeing the exact same channels, which isn’t terrible if you like those channels, but trying to discover small channels is difficult unless the algorithm pushes something to you.

    On twitch I’ve been able to find really cool streamers through word of mouth. Lots of amazingly talented people with <500 followers.

    My main gripe is that in order to find reach, it feels like you have to participate in as many social media ecosystems as possible. I could pump out YouTube shorts and join tiktok. But I’m conflicted because I feel like shorts feeds aren’t the healthiest thing for people.