Navigating YouTube's ever-shifting environment

Hey there,

As far as social media ecosystems are concerned, I find that YouTube is the least opaque of the bunch. Data is readily available and I feel as if I'm not jumping through nearly as many hoops to connect with my audience compared to somewhere like Instagram. All that being said, YouTube being the least opaque of the bunch doesn't necessarily make it great and, since late last year, I have felt that in particular.

It is very easy to feel conspiratorial about changes to social media platforms, particularly when views are down, which mine are. I try to avoid falling into those traps at all cost and focus on what I can control. I can say that what I've noticed since December 2025 is a pretty dramatic downturn in my video views, engagement, and overall channel growth. I have set my goal for 2026 to hit 50,000 subscribers by the end of 2026 and, while I remain devoted to my goal, I am far from where I'd like to be at the end of the first quarter.

At times, it can be really discouraging and really frustrating. Those feelings are particularly true whenever I feel like I've made a great video and it feels as if nobody's watching it. I'm choosing to write about those feelings and share them with you for a couple of reasons. First, whenever I write about YouTube, those newsletters have the highest open rate which tells me that y'all are interested in this. Second, I find that writing about YouTube helps me regain perspective and plot a path forward.

I have taken comfort in noticing that some of the biggest music YouTubers experience the same problem. I've seen Andrew Huang and Hainbach both change up video thumbnails after a few days. I've also noticed that despite having over 2 million subscribers, Andrew Huang's videos right now seem to be averaging about 60,000 views. Plus, a simple online search will show you that a lot of YouTubers are experiencing this downturn. I am not alone in my observations here.

Lots of people point to the fact that the YouTube home page now shows three videos instead of five as the main reason why we are experiencing this collective downturn. It's compelling if only for the fact that it's visible. I can tell you that I don't really know. I often feel like the thumbnail and title are the main bottleneck for me.

I have had people come into my comments and say before that my videos really should just have plain titles about what topic I'm covering but I can tell you from experience that nobody clicks on those. My best watched videos are ones in which I make some sort of big promise in the title or thumbnail. I always deliver when I do that because I never want to lie to my audience but that format is hard to replicate every week.

The main trap that I find myself running into is overthinking the title and thumbnail and tweaking them excessively. I have caught myself overly focusing on what YouTube "wants" and not what I want to share. This is the thing I have to take action on.

In this downturn, I feel like the one step I need to take is to think long term. How do I want my videos to look, feel, and appear in five to 10 years? I'm not sure how to navigate this present moment but I do know how I want my videos to feel a decade from now.

My latest video is one of my strongest but it's doing below average numbers. My instinct is to over-tweak the title and the thumbnail but I like the title and thumbnail aesthetically and I like the vision of the video and I just have to be happy with that. YouTube comes in waves and right now, it's just choppy waters to be weathered.

Til next time.