Analytics from 7 Years on YouTube...

Key Takeaways

few years ago you didn't make them so clickbaity when do you feel like like when did I start making them clickbaity and then we can compare this question triggered me a little bit so I'm sorry I first want to figure out like the point where you feel like it got clickbaity and then we can look at the statistics that's why I'm like scrolling through this as well it depends a little bit look so for example let's go a bit further back these are my original buffer overflow videos binary exploitation playlists like six years ago seven years ago you know first exploit exclamation mark buffer overflow is Shell Code first deck buffer overflow then we have some CTF videos like arbitrary right with House of force leaking Heap and Lipsy address reversing then you're building a poor man's logic analyzer the HTTP protocol format string exploits okay so that's like the like really the old times let's go a bit up then here um my like I think my first like cve video explaining dirty cow local root exploit cve the brow browser is very confused the Heap Once Upon a three what is CTF question mark yeah and the the the the thumbnail is definitely very technical like always a screenshot like from the video maybe a red arrow or something uh yeah then for the ctfs I basically made like a CTF kind of video wrote the name there and so forth I agree like this is definitely less clickbaity uh bash injection without letters PHP include you know very descriptive titles what do Nintendo switch and iOS have in common so this is like five years ago maybe a bit um clickbaity attacking an electronic combination lockers maybe with clickbaity so you can see here now with the hardware stuff I got I was able to experiment a bit more with my thumbnails you know showing actual photographs of of the stuff that I'm making uh so you know that that was really cool and I really enjoyed using those kind of uh thumbnails of course yeah then I guess pop under videos then this is again CTF stuff ffmpec I guess this is all still kind of like what you would consider I guess the old stuff here CTF video write-ups again like using just the like a logo from the CTF the name of the CTF a screenshot from it the secret step by step to guide to learn hacking so this is I consider like my first real clickbait video but I but I did it on purpose because it has like this purpose I wanted I was so annoyed because I got questions and they were so stupid tutorials and articles about how to get started with hacking and I and I want it with with all my I just wanted to grab people and shake them and tell them you're stupid the way how you think how to start learn hacking and so I wanted to make it as clickbaity as possible uh for people to watch and it worked three million views so I think like here it worked but I kind of got lucky because nowadays if you would ask me this thumbnail and this title would this be a good video I would say terrible but again like what you think is clickbaity a good title and a good thumbnail that's not like it's random like I feel like I can tell and I would definitely say this would never be a viral video and yet it still is one of my most watched videos so then Pony Island you know also still kind of very descriptive titles but also cool thumbnails like this I enjoyed the series a lot for the thumbnails because finally I could like show something visual you know it's so annoying to not be able to show something so I guess here like the the quality like of the thumbnails kind of improved in that sense because now they are like you know they are like real gaming like thumbnails also like with the fire and so forth I thought that's really cool and then this is my other big like video like this is the most watched video right is that a clickbait title and thumbnail it's it's a I think a bit more old school in the sense that there's code shown a bit of text it's not different from like the earlier like kind of like Hardware security stuff and then I guess the title is a bit clickbait student finds hidden device in the college library are they nefarious but I believe that was literally the title of the Reddit post from the person that found this device so you know I didn't think of it necessarily as like a clickbait thing going to Chinese hacking competition that is for example also like a title that I thought Chinese hacking competition that would like be more like clickbait and so forth and the thumbnail is of course just like something that happened on the thing then again the hardware wallet research again was a hardware project and I really enjoyed being able to take photos of stuff and having it be more visual there were three years ago but I guess would you still consider this kind of old school because like they are still like a lot of thumbnails with like Ida output like death tools Ida Ida code ethereum smart contract backdoor APD use communication between the analysts of Firefox malware like forensics fuzzing browsers with weird xss I guess I don't know like would you still consider this to be old for me exaggerated facial expression and thumb is a bit off-putting yeah I get that so let's maybe go I think I think maybe when I start to introduce my face I guess this is like a good thing I you started to see me experimenting here a bit more with thumbnails where I'm visible I mean all of these videos I'm not visible and I think these were one of the First videos where I showed my face I might have been like yeah the crypto Hardware wallet I showed my face as well but it's still like very rare for the videos like here I started to experiment with it if I'm more comfortable with it and then here like these are like the real like first like videos with like face and then these videos all of them I appear with face because this was like an advanced calendar in December three years ago where every day I uploaded a video and I recorded them more casually in front of the computer so you see a lot of my face there so this is really when I guess like the the channel switched over a little bit to my showing like my face a lot more even here standing in the room and so forth I guess these were again not with face but then here I started to have like the current style which was two years ago okay so I guess like three years ago I started to experiment two years ago this is when I have when when I started to have see this is like when I start to sit like the current videos and this is also when my face like started to like appear a lot more two years ago sorry for the long drawn out thing okay I made I made a lot of videos so now let's look at the statistics [Music] these are my monthly views now guess when I started to show my face and when I started to make cringy thumbnails around this time I can show you which videos that were was like a combination of multiple videos it was the stop wasting your time and learn more hacking which is a clickbait video shitty thumbnail I think but clickbait title I intended this to be a clickbait title because this was aimed at casual people to draw them in intrigue them with click bait and then keep them and capture them with like the more Tech with the actual technical videos I made this video I made the mmopg bot video this also like the bot reversing like these three together and then the secret step-by-step guide to like this all happened like within like two months or so but but these three videos they this is this Spike here still not showing my face or anything like that but but definitely clickbait here all of the time before uh is you know all the CTF write-ups the binary exploitation playlist and all that stuff look how many videos I made until like I got my first success thanks to those videos and then this time here this time frame where I kept losing like where the views went down again I mean a lot of the views are carried still by obviously the popular video so this line here where it slowly goes down again those are all you know the the pawn Adventure Series where you would think oh that's also kind of clickbait like the gaming stuff and good thumbnails but no it's not really watched uh so that went down again until this video came out the student finds hidden device that was the spike and all that stuff you see afterwards is carried by that video after this video everything changed because this video the find the hidden device video is actually carrying the views of my channel like the monthly views like because this kept adding up like you know here uh I got in one month you know one point uh 2.5 million views or something I don't know but now it has six million views so over time every week it would get tens of thousands of views and because my videos only got like 10 20 000 views it was like you know a quarter like this is like this this difference here basically is only that video so you can kind of like ignore like if you draw a line here like this then you can and and like shift the whole graph down that is like the then you ignore the find the hidden device video so now you are looking at these crazy spikes here that are left this Spike for example is this video going viral again for no apparently reason and I believe a lot of these other spikes are maybe sometimes this video or maybe you know there was maybe a video that that got viewed a bit more uh or so but I believe not necessarily there's anything like super viral like more viral in that time I believe these big spies are actually that video just getting picked up by the algorithm again oh yeah hacking that my Instagram account is probably also one of those spikes then but yeah all of these like pretty consistent views I mean 17 000 views 130 000 views like within that range but obviously gathered over two years right it's not like boom upload 150 000 views then this video was also pretty good like that also got good videos and then here like we we enter like this drought area what was the September 2021 so this is about a year ago so this is roughly like around here I released the T-shirt series with the where I was basically just telling my life but yeah two years ago here this video guessing it can I see the exactly this was October 2020 so if you look at this graph May September 21 so maybe around here maybe it's when I started to show my face and maybe have more clickbait stuff so I don't know but if you compare this to the time before I don't feel like there's a big difference that here like the face made a made a difference or anything like that and then afterwards I kept using my face and you can see Flatline dead beep bring in the emergency team okay like Flatline it didn't have any effect and then we come to Minecraft maybe around here or something I mean I thought the views are going down I think this is ruining it a bit but like the Minecraft videos are also not doing well so as you can see I don't think the thumbnail like I thought maybe me showing more personality in videos I would maybe have a little bit of a better effect but I think looking at the statistics had no effect long story short I wanted to show this because so you understand that I'm not lying when I tell you the real reason why I changed stuff or one of the main motivation okay one motivation was obviously hoping to get more views right like definitely I'm not lying when I say that I definitely was hoping it would lead to more views but one of the main reasons is I'm just getting bored myself when I watch other YouTubers I like to watch YouTubers where I see their face I just like it more so I figured if I like it more maybe others like it more too so I thought maybe I should become comfortable to be filmed in front of the camera and I slowly started to experiment do it more and more and eventually developed like the current style of how I make my videos because that's the way how I like how I would like to watch them um and that's the main reason and then with the thumbnails and the title it's almost like a little bit of fun and playing like what is the most intriguing way to figure out the title and thumbnail I think it looks nicer like I don't know if I look just like look over these these videos I think this looks nicer I think this looks way more interesting compared to the stuff that is happening down here like I don't know these look like [ __ ] and just think like objectively they just look uh nicer and more fitting and more coherent and stuff like you know I don't know so of course I I was hoping that I would get more views but it did not as you can see and I do it and I do this I'm not earning a lot of money with this channel if clickbait would have helped me to earn a lot of money I would have been very happy didn't work out but also you know like I'm not doing stuff that I'm not comfortable with so um I I also like pick motivations for how I do my videos it's just like how I want to see them what I like in other YouTube videos um I consume a lot of YouTube so I you know I develop and change my the stuff of videos I like over time as well and that feeds into like how I want to work on my videos stuff gets dull like over time it gets boring to make these videos okay like give me one reason for people to spend like seven years on on on on on making videos uh like this and not having a little bit of stuff changing up same with the Minecraft series if you look at the at the graph the the Minecraft series has like no positive effect I lose subscribers when I upload the Minecraft videos people tell me or say and write stuff like oh he's doing that uh because he just wants to get more views and Minecraft more popular and all that kind of stuff would be nice like if that is a side effect of it of course like getting a bit of different audience to hacking that is always like a motivation to tell people look how amazing hacking is and if you do Minecraft mod development look you can find an amazing career maybe in this field and stuff like that makes me happy if I can draw in new audience of course like that is always a goal uh but not really for the views or something it the audience changes right like these Minecraft videos are not watched by regulars I guess or by the old CTF people but get watched by different people and if I can't bring them in and teach them something about hacking yourself then then that made me happy okay so yeah I just wanted to have a long look at this and look at the statistics and look at this in the videos just so you can see like My Views are kind of consistent if you ignore the spikes even if you imagine it maybe even going a little bit down John Hammond is depending on how you define like a successful Channel like with the amount of views and subscribers gaining and stuff like John Hammond is past my views and subscriber again for a long time already like you know um I there's a big subscriber number but I don't get that many views like not even like look over a year long I've not gotten like a million views on per month the channel makes you a couple of thousand a month that's good money though sorry I get so triggered I'm sorry I'm sorry I know we are here for something else question okay imagine imagine a job where you earn nine hundred dollars to a thousand dollars per day working from home anytime you could also travel and work from a hotel wherever the [ __ ] you want you need to work like hardcore work like putting our stay in like work days four days a week sometimes you can also take time off obviously you don't earn money then and this work is not even shitty work this work is the dream dream job of many being a hacker being paid for finding vulnerabilities looking at source code doing basically all that stuff you see on the live overflow Channel and do that you know compare this to 1 500 dollars that's a percentage sign that's not dollar dollar per month from YouTube and then I ask you does that matter it does not matter at all if you work a consulting job you know uh like even if you work in a company where you are employed ask what is the daily rate the customer pays to you and if you would be a freelancer with a little bit of overhead around and stuff like this you know like this is the stuff you can earn it doesn't mean you have constantly projects and stuff like you know there are also down times but that is then free time if you don't have work you don't earn stuff but you also have free time right but you can like work basically two days if you have two days of projects a month it blows making YouTube videos out of the water and now imagine there's so much work that you could work if you wanted to full time and now imagine you don't work full time so you can make shitty videos for seven years it's dumb it's absolutely idiotic and I'm over 30 now I have to think about retirements you know if I had worked my past seven years in this job and sure I might have been frustrated with the kind of job always the same thing of course YouTube is inter you know there are upsides to YouTube as well I mean otherwise I wouldn't be doing it right but it is really dumb and I ask myself for years this question why the [ __ ] am I still making YouTube videos okay like why of course taxes right like I have to pay taxes on it so I'm not getting actually a thousand Euros or dollars on my account I obviously um I have to pay taxes on that I have expenses uh you know I need to buy computers um you know when you are a salaried employee they give you a computer I need to buy meals every day because I'm at home I'm not working at a company where you get lunch for free and drinks for free you know obviously there's more cost to that higher electricity you know now electricity bill doubled uh I have always computers you know there's a bit more cost assigned to it as well of course so I'm not getting that money so to live comfortably of course I have to work then more than just two days a month so uh you know and then pay higher rent in Berlin um you know all that other kind of stuff right but on this I also have to pay taxes and for this good it's my fault for this I have a gmbh which is a big like a big company you know how much this stuff costs to like the just to keep running like monthly accountant cost yearly uh balancing bookkeeping being and that kind of like shenanigans that have to be submitted to to the hunters register and if whatever like all that kind of stuff Tax pre submissions a lot of responsibility I'm moving I'm moving soon to a new place and I have to move my company as well you know that just costs me probably a thousand Euros just to move just because I need to change the address so I make videos a whole month deduct taxes from this income from YouTube um and this will not even pay to move the company and then I haven't even paid like the accountant for that month roughly right I'm in the minus for this year with YouTube Just because of all these I guess I might be over the dramatic I might not be in the minus like plus minus it's difficult to count like right like my balance sheets shows I'm in the minus but it's also due because I had to pay some uh I paid some invoices this year that were from like uh like I yeah I had to pay for stuff that where I got money for the the year before like things like that like it's not quite but I'm roughly on zero for Life overflow for this year because if you look at the graph it wasn't like a good year like it was just like a flat year kind of thing right like I didn't earn that much of course patreon puts a bit on top of that as well but but that already like patreon together with this year plus like a bit of twitch and all that like the small stuff together sponsored videos Google pays very well you know like these three sponsored videos I made or something like all of that together minus all the cost for just running a business almost zero maybe maybe I have like one two thousand Euros left at the end of the year or something like this like for what you're absolutely right I do I I still do it because it's fun to me I'm taking away time from here to work on here for nothing and and that is bothering me it was like I don't wanna sorry don't don't misunderstand me I don't want to complain like if I would stop today I would have no bitterness about this whole thing like I think I'm very very proud of this YouTube channel of the videos I made I made a video about uh you know I made all the videos I ever wanted to make this was a video I made a while ago like I'm I'm very happy with what I achieved uh and and what I made like I'm very very proud of this and I truly believe and I feel like I helped a lot of people like that makes me satisfied and if I stop tomorrow like I would be contempt I would have no ill feelings about having spent this much effort into it but I'm 30. I need to like I was 31 I am actually like I need to think about my retirement 30 years in the future I I'm not employed I don't get a retirement like the employed people right because of this job over here so I need to do this more to be able to save up more money for my retirement what if I get sick what if I want to have kids and spend time with my kids what if I want to build a house or buy an apartment I don't have the funds for it and should like to be honest with you like I'm satisfied with YouTube why should I keep making videos at least in this with this iteration like right I could occasionally make a video like every half a year make a video if I have a topic that motivates you me make a video like I don't care about it right like that then that would be a hobby but right now trying to keep a schedule uh and all that stuff it's not sustainable like it doesn't make sense I agree it's fun to me but then I would have to make YouTube that's fun to me which means uh maybe every couple of months a video and then maybe there's a year no video and then maybe I make three videos a month or something like this then we could talk it's a hobby because then I make it for fun but for the past few years I kept really stressing about schedule and I don't I don't want to talk about it just yet publicly but you know there's a one last ditch effort that I will probably talk about hopefully soon at some point that hopefully all this investment turns like my time investment turns around into something that actually like secures my my future and that would be like my dream like if if whatever like what I'm building towards like works out that would mean I earn a lot of money and then I can like take like even go full time like maybe I can really lower this down to a minimum and then like focus more on uh you know the stuff that that I enjoy doing like oh yeah you know so that would be like the dream and that's why I'm still putting this much time into it and if that fails then I will be happy that I've done it like I'm proud of what I did uh and but then like it will be like the end of life overflow as it is right now I I made all the videos I ever wanted to make like that video is not like a clickbait title that's truly it like I struggle hard with finding new topics Minecraft was like a a happy accident that I stumbled over that motivated me for more videos but if that hadn't happened it would have been a hard time making videos the past few months um so I hope that somehow made sense I don't know sorry for the rent the the schedule will destroy your passion I believe exactly like it kind of already destroyed it like there are many months where I'm not I'm not passionate about this like I don't know and then suddenly Minecraft comes across my screen and suddenly I'm addicted playing Minecraft and suddenly I get this super huge motivation to figure out how Minecraft hacking works and suddenly I have like this new passion thing and then um yeah yeah Pearson uh thank you for the 10 gifted Subs uh thank you yeah and then you know and then people like say I just do this for the viewers or something like this a while like the only reason why I do Minecraft is because like that gave me some passion again you know okay distraction over distraction over let's go back to yearn [Music]