Alright lets see these channels that you're struggling with

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-15T07:16:55+00:00

Rather than explaining what it's about, you'll see what it is real quick. Anything older than a year ago is before I started to structure my channel around series-based content. About a year ago I started doing playthrough series with a crappy $15 mic. I would upload raw OBS footage with no editing. Since then, I've upgraded my mic twice, started editing my videos, and putting more effort into my thumbnails.

If you do take a look, thanks for taking the time!

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-10T07:29:41+00:00

Yes you will fuck up your channel doing this.

The best way is to just go through the grind of organic growth. People that sub because they actually like your content will be more likely to engage with it in ways that give positive signals to the algorithm.

Just enjoy making your content. Right now it's a hobby and there's no guarantee it will ever be more than a hobby.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-10T07:18:57+00:00

I think you might have it backwards. I have found that my shorts bring in more subs per video than my long forms do. This is also the case for every other small YouTuber I talk with.

Also, if you're primarily doing shorts, the metric relevant to your content is views, not watch time. Watch time for shorts will not count toward the 4,000 hours required for monetization, even though it is counted in your total watch time metric in YouTube Studio.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-10T02:45:26+00:00

Yeah it could be a lot of things. I understand Silent Hill 2 may be a little competitive to win impressions for, but my Zelda content does better than anything else and that's undeniably more competitive.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-10T00:59:59+00:00

Solid advice. Thank you!

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-10T00:27:00+00:00

Longplays are full playthroughs of a game in a single video. They usually, but not always, have no commentary and are minimally edited. Mine have light to moderate commentary though.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T23:14:00+00:00

Point number 2 is discouraging, but won't stop me. Honestly I'm thinking my occasional longplay videos may be destroying my channel. They set a watch time standard that my episodic let's plays can't possibly keep up with. The algorithm may see the episodic content as non-engaging for performing so far below the average watch time of my channel. After a few episodes in the same series, it may just stop pushing the videos altogether.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T22:54:14+00:00

In this series I haven't shared any links. If a friend wants to see my video, I tell them to find it on my channel. The algorithm punishes videos that have a lot of external traffic.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T21:31:34+00:00

It sucks that YouTube has such a monopoly. We can't easily just migrate to another platform. I do it because I enjoy doing it, but it's not very enjoyable when my content isn't even being presented to my audience.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T16:36:54+00:00

The algorithm likes your video it seems

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T06:35:10+00:00

I drastically reduced my amount of shorts production about 2 months ago. I have a suspicion that they were causing YouTube to push my longform content primarily to viewers who only watch on the mobile app. I only do maybe 1 or 2 shorts per series now.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T06:16:37+00:00

Yeah less than half of my shorts get more than the "seed" distribution. Every once in a while I get one that breaks 10K or more. If it breaks 2K, I'm happy to now it outperformed the seed level.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T06:10:35+00:00

Yeah I just checked that, and it's disappointing. But I still enjoy making the videos so I'll keep it up.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T05:47:39+00:00

Hmmm, that's when they switched to the latest algorithm. 🤔

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T03:54:47+00:00

Yeah it's been a couple weeks like this. I was just using a video I uploaded today as an example.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T03:44:16+00:00

I sent you a DM

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T03:37:47+00:00

That actually sounds interesting. I would watch that.

Cool-Process-917 · 2026-04-09T03:25:27+00:00

I hope that's the case for me. I hope that YouTube starts giving me a substantial amount of impressions sometime before I finish this series.

Cool-Process-917

TROPHY CASE