Get Popular On YouTube Through Mediocre Content

If you ever release a video on YouTube your main goal is probably to get millions of views. In most cases great videos get thousands of views, but if you actually create a mediocre video that others want to respond to you can get millions of views.

YouTube Tetris

The image above shows that the Tetris video got over 2 million views and more importantly 18 responses. The video was so mediocre that it became popular because others wanted to show how they could play Tetris on the piano better than this person.

So what did we learn from this? If you create something that sucks so much that makes others want to respond to it, you can do well on YouTube.

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Reader Comments (6)

Cameron Olthuis, May 30, 2007

Not quite sure I understand the logic here.

What exactly defines 'mediocre'? Poor video quality? Boring content? Why do people only respond to mediocre?

Andy Beard, May 31, 2007

For a similar that you might ask "What do you think?" at the end of a blog post, or create a viral game with some way to do better than the blog that launched it, and get on the high scores.

Bragging rights and similar human traits

Morten K. Holst, May 31, 2007

This might work, but I'm not sure of the benefits. A video of Microsoft using child workers would sure get a lot of views if Microsoft released it, but not sure it would benefit Bill and his company much.

In this case: 2 million people just saw how bad you are at playing the piano.. it doesn't make much sense to have millions of people watching your video if only to see that you suck.

Neil Patel, May 31, 2007

Cameron, mediocre as in not the greatest content. Such as the girl in the video did not play Tetris too well on the piano.

Morton, you don't want to release content that could hurt your reputation, such as the Microsoft example you gave. Instead by creating a video with mediocre content it could potentially be popular if others want to show how much you suck. Some of the main reasons it did well was because she has a popular YouTube channel, she is a girl (guys like watching girls), and she could not play the piano well which caused others to respond to the video. The great thing about responding to videos is that you are also driving traffic to the original video you responded to.

ToddW, May 31, 2007

How about how we can get tons of visits from youtube to our site to make bank ;)

Pat, June 26, 2007

I am trying to discover how to get those large traffic numbers 2-4 million visitors viewing a video - they don't just go to mediocre videos .... ????????? Please explain !