Here for the Boos 2: Postmortem 💀 (Patreon)

It’s November, so let’s talk turkey!

(The think pieces all say gifs are passe! Do I care? Nah. Lookit that turkey dance!)

By which I mean, let’s do a deep dive postmortem on Here for the Boos 2. Get your scalpels ready! The stats are interesting. Let’s get into it.

First a stat comparison:

It doesn’t look good! By every measurement, this year’s event was a bust compared to last year’s. Everything but length and number of audios published declined across the board. That’s definitely not what you want to see as a content creator, folks. I can’t put lipstick on this particular pig, these stats ain’t great.

However: I don’t think the event was a failure by any means (while views were down for the new audios, they were WAY up across the channel) and I’m actually pretty glad things shook out the way they did so that I have more data points to consider in the future.

So the big question is: what contributed to the severe decline in stats between one year and the next? Well, I have a few theories. Let’s unpack ‘em!

Youtube Policy Changes Affecting ASMR/Audio Channels

Youtube recently made changes to its content policies with an eye specifically toward policing ASMR/audio content more strictly. You can read a bit about the changes here, if you're curious, and peep the most relevant of the full guidelines here if you want. To be clear, those policies were being developed for months before they were actually announced and likely tested behind the scenes a bit.

This is anecdotal, but a couple of months before we were warned of those changes, I noticed some dips across the platform with other lower and mid-tier ASMRtists (in the 20k-50k sub range) gaining fewer views than usual. It could easily be coincidence but I wouldn’t be surprised if the algo started to favor us a tiny bit less, just as a result of policy tweaks. 

While the ways of the youtube gods are mysterious to us mere mortals, and I’m not quite ready for a tin foil hat and shouting “They’re shadowbanning us!!!” from the rooftops, I do think it’s a reasonable to believe there was some effect.

The Competition: Content Glut, Content Fatigue and Niche Crowding

This year, it seems more channels got in on the spooky fun all month long, creating a huge surplus of Halloween-themed content. This included monster girls, goth girls, horror audio and slice-of-life audios that used the holiday as a plot element. I actually crunched the numbers (very informally) to see if this theory holds water and the result was pretty stark.

Controlling for outliers who reuploaded content and such, of the dozens of ASMR/VA channels I’m subbed to for market research (that is: channels that make content similar to mine) 31 uploaded new content in October. Just those 31 channels produced 212 themed audios, and only 64 general ones. Visual representation for those of us who are Math Impaired (TM) like myself:

More than three quarters of ASMR content across almost three dozen large and mid-tier channels was themed this month. That’s nuts! I can’t imagine how much more there was among channels I don’t even follow.

Using only the channels I follow, you could have listened to 7 themed audios every single day in October and still not run out of content. Most audios are 10-30 minutes in length, which means at least an average of 1-3+ hours of Halloween-y audios per day.

That, my friends, is a recipe for content fatigue!

Another interesting tidbit, the most common fantastical archetypes I’ve seen this year among those channels—vampires, wolves/werewolves, lamias, witches—did not perform as well as less common ones did. Even for larger channels that consistently do big numbers.

In short: almost everyone brought Mac & Cheese to the potluck this year. Makes sense, it’s a crowd pleaser. But: no one is going to try ten varieties in a row. They’re going to get sick of Mac & Cheese and/or stick to their favorite person’s recipe, then sample as many different dishes as possible. 

It’s also important to consider that, as a result of those aforementioned content policy changes, many channels that used to make racier audios have been scaling that back to make more wholesome roleplays. My content has always been on the less risque end, so the space I occupy is rapidly becoming more crowded as it's relatively safe from youtube's wrath. 

As content crackdowns begin in earnest, I anticipate that problem getting worse, so it's something to keep in mind for the future. Surviving a crowded niche will be difficult but I have some ideas to stay afloat.

Changes to My Content

I focused on making some alterations in programming this year. I increased the number of audios I produced with actual ASMR content and introduced a larger number of darker storylines to the roster. Those stats:

• 2021: 5 ASMR audios, 3 horror audios
• 2022: 9 ASMR audios, 6 horror audios

If you think one kneecapped the other, brother are you (probably) right! I took a gamble and lost! Ultimately I’m okay with that, because I made the stuff I wanted to make, but…

Compared to the funnier, sweeter things I made this year, the horror audios have done quite poorly. Horror is an acquired taste. Being a ghoul myself, I know this. So in a way I was prepared. Bummed! But prepared! And that takes the sting out a bit.

By necessity I also scaled back FF4A collabs, which are always a hit, and I think that hurt me as well. Last year there were three; this year only one. 

Finally: as I said in my planning posts, there weren't any scripts this year that I felt would be clear winners. Last year there were some I knew would do well and a few pleasant surprises;, this year's offerings were good and solid, but there were no obvious absolute bangers that I thought would hit it big.

Less Time for Interaction

Last year, my channel was an itty bitty baby! At the beginning of October 2021 it had about 10k subs. My channel is almost four times that size now, and frankly I haven’t had as much time or energy to devote to community activities and answering comments. 

The dip in my comment stats during the event is a testament to that: last year there were 2,500 comments on event audios--and I'd estimate at least a third of those were replies from me. This year there were only 1,600, but the trade off is that far fewer were from me. It's hard to say if comment engagement from listeners was truly down, since the numbers reflect my inability to engage as much.

Part of that is, unfortunately, the nature of the beast. One you reach a certain channel size, it's impossible to engage with everyone in a meaningful fashion. I’ve also committed to Patreon and that means pouring a considerable amount of effort into maintaining it, getting early access ready, etc.; that energy has to come from somewhere.

The other part is that...I’ve been having some not-great interactions with some listeners over the past few months. Nothing scary or dangerous or even particularly upsetting, and none of the people in question are Patrons ftr, but there are a few who have begun to act...entitled? To my time? Pushy, in a particularly grating way. Interacting with them is becoming exhausting.

I mean, it’s tiring to play the gracious hostess even when the party is going great—the best kind of tiring, I assure you!—but if a guest starts knocking over the potted plants to get your attention, your smile tends to feel a bit brittle. 

At the same time, I’m unwilling to block them simply for being energy vampires. Exhausting my social reserves is not a block-worthy crime, as far as I'm concerned. 

I know this is part and parcel for being a content creator; some folks will push your boundaries, either intentionally or accidentally. Learning to handle that gracefully is necessary. That's one major contributing factor for why I feel the need to officially unplug from answering comments for awhile; I feel myself getting grumpy when I don't want to be and that's no way to run a railroad.

The negative side of this: the algorithm boosts videos with more comment activity. So, I've shot myself in the foot a bit there. Ah well!

And Now: The Silver Lining

Here's where we get philosophical, sorta. I had specific goals when starting my channel, but two are particularly relevant here.

Never chase trends/stats and follow my bliss: I succeeded at that quite handily this year! I liked everything I made, which is a wonderful alternative to cranking out content you hate just because it’ll make more money. While the stats weren’t great, and it’s impossible not to feel some disappointment since I'm human and not a robot beep boop, I’m making a point to choose gratitude. I know, ugh; live, laugh, love much?

But it's true! I consider myself extremely fortunate to be creating art I enjoy and making a little money at it, rather than driving myself into the ground making things I don't care about and chasing gobs of cash.

Keep a clear idea of what “success” actually looks like for me: I’m weird, I’m drawn to and create weird stuff, and I like it that way; if I were a movie, I'd be an underground cult sleeper hit. I think it’s part of what makes me nifty! 

But I’ve always known that the upper echelon of content creation, where I’d be pulling in zillions of dollars, is likely out of reach simply because my appeal is narrow and I'm too lazy to compromise my weirdness. ASMR is a relatively small space with a finite number of consumers, audio RP is even smaller. I will hit a ceiling eventually and that’s fine. Hopefully that ceiling will represent making a comfortable living rather than just having a bit of extra scratch on hand, but if not, I'm content with that!

What success looks like to me is not necessarily the same as what it would look like to someone else. I have almost 40k subs, and my audios pretty consistently hit the 10k-20k range with a few viral hits to keep things interesting. That’s amazing. Getting just 1-5% percent engagement with your content from your followers is considered doing great by social media experts; I’m regularly getting 25%-50%. That kicks ass!

So, for now, I’m satisfied. 

All right! I think that concludes the autopsy. I could have really got into the blood and guts, but I think this was thorough enough. Time to put this event to rest and start working on the next one!

Tune in next time, same Velvet time, same Velvet station!

xoxo,

Vel