[npinsker]

My favorite advice I've ever heard on creating engaging content is from Ludwig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i9gkprYekI

Some aspects are obviously reflective of his style specifically but I resonated with his pushing of "stakes", i.e. consciously instigating a good payoff for the viewer with the title and thumbnail, and then delivering the payoff and more. I realized after watching this that I almost never watch videos without stakes. Just speaking personally, this might be the most impactful thing missing from the videos on your channel.

Your titles and premises are quite similar to Ryan Trahan's (https://www.youtube.com/@ryan/videos), but Ryan's consistently have stakes ("I tried every Airbnb Category" -- ooh, are there interesting categories I don't know about? "I Tried Every Drive-thru's Most Expensive Item" -- ooh, how expensive do they get?). In contrast, the titles here just strike me as more uninteresting ("I Let AI Control My Vacation" -- ok but I can do random things already without AI? "I Hiked a Mountain Blindfolded" -- ok but you're not actually in serious danger?) I'm not too surprised the GeoGuessr one performed well, since the stakes practically write themselves -- "ooh, can he figure out where he is? what if he gets dropped in the middle of nowhere?! how long will he have to walk?!".

Props to OP for their good-natured attitude and engagement. YT seems like such a tough business nowadays where it'll take years and a very thick skin to succeed. In contrast to some other commenters, I think some of the pieces that make a great channel are already there. Hope you accomplish your goals and I wish you well :)

[ChaseRensberger]

Thanks for your feedback! Yeah, I think those 2 videos you mentioned are probably my least favorite that we've made. Frankly, we don't make the kind of content that I would generally consume myself so I certainly don't always give the best feedback when it comes time to give a video a title and thumbnail. Comments like this are always really helpful for that reason. Thanks a ton for checking out the article. I wish you well also :)