Small Channel Update - Views and Unlisting Livestreams + Playlist Link
Hey folks!
As you may have seen, our view counts on YouTube have taken a pretty big hit over the last couple weeks.
On August 13, YouTube started experimenting with AI age verification (you can read about it here), and on August 13th the Fully Ramblomatic on Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound had a hard time cracking even 100,000 views.
That has never happened with the show.
The following week, Tales of the Shire did around what we expect at 150,000+, and then last week Mafia: The Old Country once again failed to crack 100,000 views.
Our viewership has stayed VERY consistent on Second Wind, with around 2.8 - 3+ million viewers every month, and last month it suddenly dropped around 500,000 views.
What I think is happening is YouTube is restricting our content for viewers it deems "underage" (if they're not signed in on YouTube) with this new experiment they're doing. There's really no other explanation for the sudden change in views, and it happened on the exact date that update started rolling out.
You can see how much of our content is potentially hidden by turning on Restricted Mode on YouTube. If you do have that mode on, make sure you turn it off!
I watch the data closely every week, and so when something changes, it's immediately noticeable for us a lot of the time. Views vary widely for our videos because we cover so many different topics with different personalities of varying fame, and that's normal.
What's not normal is for Fully Ramblomatic to suddenly decline in views, which is a very useful gauge to know if something is up with the channel.
We're not in any serious trouble aside from being very annoyed at YouTube, but there's nothing we can really do about that. We're still doing work for hire, still bringing in sponsors, merch, etc. When YouTube does a change like this, you kind of have to just weather the storm.
But we are going to do a few things.
First, we're going to make a big call to action to drive new people to the Patreon this week via a fun little update video. We've said since the very beginning we do not want to be reliant on YouTube, or chasing views because YouTube can and does make sudden changes like this which could seriously affect our business.
When we emailed YouTube, all they said is everything looks normal and basically gave us a "luv you bye!". This is exactly why we don't put much of any stock in the algorithm. It's just not our business model.
Secondly, we're going to take this time to change how much content we have on people's Home Feeds, which has always been a constant back and forth between us and the community.
Starting today we're going to unlist our livestreams once they have aired in hopes that reducing the amount of vods we have benefits our premium videos in some way, while the algorithm is kicking us in the teeth.
The vast majority of people that watch our livestream vods are Patreon backers, so we think just having the Livestream playlist link for you will help declutter things a bit.
Our livestream playlists remain unchanged and you'll find all the series you like watching in their appropriate playlists. Podcast vods will remain publicly listed.
Maybe it doesn't change anything at all and we later reverse this change. Time will tell, but for now we're going to try it to see if it improves anything on the channel.
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Thanks for your time and be on the lookout for some fun announcements soon including when we're filming Adventure is Nigh Season 5, the Balatro one shot release date announcement and other upcoming events we have planned!
Nick Calandra
Editor-in-Chief
Comments (31)
I have no idea if this is relevant to you, but a lot of content creators have a secondary channel (often a "clips" channel) which they use specifically for their less curated / VoD content. I've always wondered why since it would seem to just split the audience, but it seems to work for them.
I know you said you'll delist the vods, but can we still find them somehow? There's ones I didn't get to finish watching - New Vegas and Marty & KC's playthroughs especially. Thanks nick 👍
Yup, the playlist linked in this very post! And you can find the individual series on our playlist page on YouTube.
I know the timing doesn't completely line up, but have you considered that whatever just happened with the The Escapist YouTube channel might be having negative effects on you guys too? The algorithm obviously can tell that the content is similar (across the board, but especially in linking ZP and FR content). Whether it was a hack or they just sold the channel to get some quick clicks, is it possible there are halo effects with de-recommendation happening?
Nah, that wouldn’t do anything to our channel. When there’s such a big data spike like this, it’s pretty clear YouTube changed something somewhere.
I have been summoned ❤️ I’ve joined :)
Heard what happened, just signed up as a Patreon to support you guys.
This is a bummer and I wish you luck battling the algo. However, fyi I watch the Yahtzee tries VoD weekly and it was really difficult to find it today- it’s not on the playlist linked in this article. Please make it easier to find if possible. Thanks for everything! 🙏
Do you get the view count if we watch the embedded version in the Patreon app?
Believe so! But don't worry about it, you're a Patreon already. Counts for way more!
So YouTube has come up with another BS reason not to pay creators? Color me surprised. At
So I have no youtube account (or any google type account for that matter) as I don’t particularly agree with how they use people’s data… I do like second wind however and I have been a Parton for a good while. Personally I think you need a ‘back up’ way of hosting your glorious content on a different platform so that that peeps like my self can still see it regardless of what YouTube decides to do with/restrict it ect. Ideally something where you still get revenue but for a partition user it is just a seamless ‘click here to see non YouTube version’ type experience. As I guess appeasing the YouTube algorithm overloads. Will only get harder and harder. Well done to Nick and team for dealing with this BS
Sorry that YouTube is being a bunch of dicks. Because they are. A bunch of dicks. Have you considered joining Nebula?
You lovely people at Second Wind can just keep doing what you think is best for you as creators 👍 Your transparent communication and quality content are what keeps fans like myself supporting y'all
I swear to fucking god, one day YouTube will just delete itself from existence entirely, then put out a statement like “we are constantly innovating ways in which users interact with creator content”. I think the most unrealistic part of that would be YT putting out a statement after making a decision.
YouTube honestly sucks ass. Consistently tanks creators' prospects with their shitty algorithm and whenever they're challenged, give no explanation or make any admission of wrongdoing. It seems like the only content they're interested in is Mr Beast / Sidemen adjacent slop and reaction videos. You have to imagine that eventually another platform will plug this gap.
Sorry you're having to go through all this!
My YouTube account is old enough to drink legally, but I do think something else is going on here because YT’s been very weird this last month Test and see what works is about all you can do, it seems
I know a couple of people who have had this problem too. Abi Thorn of Philosophy Tube, for example, mentioned that her recent video didn't even do half of what her others did in the first few days. I'm willing to bet that a lot of queer and left leaning channels are having this problem.
Seems like it's everyone. SkillUP said he's having issues, Minnmax said the same thing, other creators in our sphere as well.
For what it's worth, my account is actually age-verified and I've noticed that for several channels I've been subscribed to for years some videos haven't been showing up in my "Subscribed" tab. I expect the homepage to not list all subscribed content (unlike half the Youtube viewers online it seems), but the subscription tab not showing videos is new. I think there's more going on than just the age verification thing, but I don't expect Youtube to ever admit to any of it until A/B testing is done and the changes are permanent.
I’ve noticed YouTube just pushing a lot of garbage recently. Lots of AI stuff like Reddit posts being read by an AI voice, and just clickbait/ragebait/listicles. Not surprising they are moving the stuff we actually want to see to push the junk forward. It’s really annoying to watch one video like a movie trailer and then the homepage is AI Generated content of that subject for the next week.
It's a good call. I've been getting a lot less notifications for the channels recently as well.
Good luck guys, I'll keep watching and liking videos. Hope this all blows over.
As someone who doesn't get to watch the livestreams actually *live* basically ever, I bookmarked that playlist so damn fast.
I'm a small leftist content creator and I have started uploading videos directly to my Patreon and Odysee recently. YouTube is making it harder for regular content creators to keep going/make a living. I'd say stick with YouTube but start considering uploading videos to Patreon directly or to Odysee, Dailymotion, etc and linking it in the Patreon.
Pinche youtube
Ah yes, nothing can go wrong when you combine the capriciousness of the youtube algo with the pearl clutching of a labyrinthine government. Surely, not a single person involved could have seen this coming.
Also, I feel like its fragging even unrestricted algos, i have premium and I didn't know those videos until I went looking for them from the patreon push notifications.
I will make a guess that some asshole finally triggered automatic shadow ban, because we can't have nice things. As YouTube keep chasing cable TV audience with subscription and same time trying to get ad dollars on board, this unfortunately is the future. I am Patreon for last three years and will remind so.
YouTube. *sigh*