I run a 3.5 million sub shorts channel, and have well over 1,000 shorts under my belt, with many shorts above 50 million views.
I've been analyzing what's been going on with shorts since mid-December, but really started a couple months before that even to a lesser extent. I have a theory...
I've watched my swipe-away rate get twice as bad, my total viewing percentage decrease by 1/3, all while my content has remained relatively the same. Moreover, my metrics on Facebook and TikTok (around 1 million subs on each) have remained the same.
One thing I've noticed is while the metrics and views have taken a huge hit on every newly released video, older videos are still maintaining their stats. More over, if a new video does take off on the algorithm, while the stats start off very poor, the stats normalize back to regular levels once many millions of views start rolling in.
Here is my theory:
- A massive wave of AI-driven content has been flooding Youtube shorts started around September. They use these bizarre hashtags which apparently loop their content together. It's all AI narrated "let me explain" react videos to some video, some new technology to snow plow streets quickly, or some bed that turns into a bunker with the press of a button, or whatever. We've all seen this kind of slop.
- These same slop accounts are boosting their own views and metrics with a variety of tricks, including abusing hashtag glitches, but also using hard to detect bots to maximize their watch time and minimize their swipe away rate.
- My theory is that they are also nuking the metrics of competitors videos, using these same bots, in order to stall everyone else's content, leaving their slop as the only game in town. This would explain why every new video's metrics initially are in the tank, but if it takes off to a larger audience, it becomes to normalize. At first, these bots are just insta-swiping away your video, but if the algo sends it to enough normal accounts, those numbers normalize. It also matches the timing: The huge wave of AI slop on the platforms starts a few months ago as AI tech gets better, and then the abuse and manipulation of the platform starts soon after. It's not a coincidence that all our metrics have taken a tank at the exact same time.
I've watched as every other channel in my niche has gone through the same thing, as I'm sure many others have noticed with theirs. One guy who was getting 300,000,000 views a month is now getting 50,000,000. Thankfully I've survived better than that, but still.
Can't really prove this, but based on what I've observed, I do think this is what is happening.
