I logged into my old YouTube account and found my old video had made 24 million views. Now have a partnership with Google. AMA

set your expectations very low

I could not have set them low enough.

I tried to warn you. :) I suppose there are more powerful adjectives that could have been used instead of "very", but I tried.

How the hell does this get 24 million views? Congrats, though. Haha

I have no idea. It is an interesting example of having something get noticed when you least cared/tried for it.

Probably a ton of small kids trying to find Dora the Explorer on YouTube. Thanks dude! The sound of 24 million breaking child hearts

the primary age group according to the stats is male 35-44.

That is quite a disturbing find. Maybe not quite as disturbing as that same age group being the primary audience for most of Miley Cyrus's videos, but still disturbing.

Younger users tend to fake their age... so that stat is not valid in THIS specific case...

I'm glad you brought that up. Along with the possibility that some of the younger generation probably uses their parents' accounts (though, they should probably not be browsing my content...) it makes more sense as to the audience age statistics.

I guarantee this was found by tinychat users and was played for the chat rooms. It is common for the owners and mods of rooms to play clips like that all the time. Other popular choices are things like clips of people saying "STFU", "WTF", etc..

That's odd, but interesting. You mean using it as a sound bite? I suppose it would make sense, though; it does only have 2 seconds of audio after all.

I hope your new stuff is just as successful!

Thank you! But I hope my new stuff is only successful if it deserves it. Sometimes I almost feel sickened that such a thing has higher views than popular music videos and many viral videos that I fell in love with and looked up to when I was young.

So... what's your creative process?

That's hard to say. Boredom and my immaturity certainly led to creating this all those years ago. Right now I am (after many friends encouraging me to create more videos now that I can monetize content) planning on creating original shorts to attempt at gaining a larger following.

Today anyone can request to run ads on their videos channel. So why do you call this a partnernship with Google? This video of my dogs runs ads but I wouldn't consider it AMA worthy or make it seem like anything special.

That is interesting - I admit, I was unaware of that. I think that partnerships used to only be offered to users with videos with a certain amount of views. It was still pretty spectacular to discover the attention it had received after I had all but forgotten about the account.

There are many different partnerships on youtube, lemme gather my knowledge.

Adsense: Make fractions of a penny for every 100 views. Money only redeemable within $100. Anyone can get one, simple sign up process. If you have copyrighted content/strike, you lose the partnership and offers to any other partnership within the future.

Youtube/Google Creator Partnership: You need to apply for this one. They usually only accept people with no copyright strikes, and ~1,000 subscribers. 100k views and at least 20 videos gave you a better chance, iirc.

Yeousch: Gaming partnership. Channels with good amounts of subs, about 300 with gaming content usually get in. Pretty easy, and it pays better than adsense.

Machinima: Another gaming partnership. 1,500+ subs and 75k views is needed to apply. Pretty tough to get, pays pretty well if you're active.

There's many more partnering networks like Fullscreen, but that's basically how partnering works. I think you signed up for adsense after you saw the monetization banner.

Ahh, indeed. Thank you for the info.

How much money can you make off of stuff like that?

It was actually really interesting to see how that stuff works. It's my dads video I put it on reddit and the views sky rocketed. Once we started getting viewers fast we realized it was going viral. A few days later we were contacted by a company called Rightster who said they actually manage your video like a PR person (Their claim to fame is that they are the reason Charlie Bit My Finger blew up). They make licensing agreements with news outlets and license it to other websites for you and you have to spilt the revenue they generate with them 50/50. We were getting emails in our inbox from news shows and had this comapny not told us we should ask for money we would have just said sure play it for free..for the exposure alone. My dad figured that he would have had half as much money without their efforts anyway so he did it and they said they'll send a check every few months. First check we got was for $600.

That's awesome! Does he have plans for more videos?

I'm... I don't know put I'm pretty sure 8 seconds of "I like heroin" won't give you any partnership with google.

It was pretty embarrassing when it got accepted. Even more embarrassing when I had to file a legal document stating that I owned all the rights to it to get a duplicate of it removed recently.

Having invested 7 seconds of my life in watching this, I have just one question:

Do you feel guilty for making money off of this appalling, appalling tripe?

There are certainly many other forms of income that I would feel much more appalled with making money off of. I don't really feel guilty in this case; I like to think (or at least pretend) that there is (apparently) an audience, at least somewhere, that (somehow) appreciates this.

Would I feel less guilty about making money off of it if it was less embarrassing, to the point where I was actually comfortable showing it to friends/family, and something more interesting to me and not as ridiculous? You bet.

What kind of income do you see from the ads placed?

It varies. It is quite low right now, as I have just started and daily views are not quite what they used to be. Reports suggest that, with monetized content, an average of $1000 is made per million views. I can only imagine what I might have made had I agreed to the partnership when this was offered to me at around 2 million views.

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You'd need a very big circle to make it worthwhile.

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Indeed - and watching the videos would do nothing. The ads would have to be clicked on, and Google investigates every click of an ad for legitimacy. It is also fraud.

I though as a partner you weren't allowed to disclose how much you make off it?

That's correct. Some research sites have estimated income for larger partners at about $1000 per million views, but I'm sure that varies as well. I am not allowed to disclose exactly what I make.

I don't get why all of your comments are getting so many downvotes... You're not saying anything ridiculous and you're not acting like a prick...

Ehh, I'm not sure. I hadn't really noticed. Quite new to Reddit, just created my account this morning after some friends suggested it. But doing my best. :p

It's probably because people don't think this is worthy of an AMA (a more valid reason) OR, they're jealous of the fact that that video got so much attention (and to be fair, it puzzles me too, the video is, no offense to the OP's creative instincts, horrendous).

No offense taken. I'm equally critical about how ridiculous it is...hence part of the surprise upon finding it years later with so many hits, out of all my other videos where I (mostly) tried.

Are you annoyed you missed the potential masses of moolah you could have made?

What do you think made this viral?

Penis size?

It is pretty disappointing when I think about it. But it is encouraging nonetheless that it is a possibility now to build my way up easier, and do so by creating content more original and not quite so silly.

I'm not sure what made this so viral. Other spoofs of Nickelodeon shows and other cartoons appeared over the years and became pretty popular, so there may have been a general interest (at the time). Perhaps it was just the silly icon :p

It didn't go viral - viral implies that people have shared it with each other.

24 million people looking for Dora the Explorer clips accidentally clicked on your horrible video.

Fair enough. I can't disagree with that.

Yea, you pretty much missed the boat for earning any major money off of this video. If only you registered for the partnership deal earlier...

I remind myself of that every night, and slowly cry myself to sleep. (Well, not really, but it is rather unfortunate.)

1. MeatSpin or Goatse?
2. Nyan Cat or Keyboard Cat?
3. Bukkake or Cumfarts?

1. MeatSpin
2. Nyan
3. No.

Wait a second.

If the OP prefers meatspin over goatse then that means he thinks two penises are better than just one.

BUT, if he dislikes bukkake then that means he doesn't like a lot of penises. (mostly groups of 10-20).

So that mean that there is a specific number of penises he enjoys more than any other. My bet is on 7.

...My secret has been discovered...

running ads on videos, no matter how popular, is widely available right now

Ads? What ads?

People and companies can pay Google to run their ads on videos, and Google will pay you to place ads on your content. It seems nowadays that anyone can request to have their videos monetized (as long as they are within policy, such as no infringment of copyright).

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I certainly thought that they would, and that is why I didn't bother accepting the offer for the partnership for so long. I thought it would be declined. But they had investigated it and everything was approved.

I guess it qualifies as fair use?

Apparently so. But possibly because it was edited/customized.

Congrats, though you lost a shit ton of money by only monetizing it now, 24 million views worth of $$$ :D I'm more impressed that YouTube allowed it, because they are notorious for denying monetization for many reasons. I've had several completely original videos denied no matter what proof I had sent.

Best wishes making a 'comeback' and creating new shorts :) If nothing else sticks, at least be happy with the one hit wonder.

Thank you for your comment! I am still quite shocked that YouTube allowed it. All 18 (or so) of my other videos were denied - mostly for the music copyrights, and because they were from a video game.

I laughed.

Could you give more details of what/how they offered you a partnership? Is ad-revenue the only way you can make money out of this?

Congrats, and hopefully you'll create new content.

As someone else has stated, it sounds like anyone can ask to have Google run ads on your videos. At the time, (a couple years ago I believe) I think partnerships were only offered via inbox to those who had popular videos that had no copyright infringement. I assume it is available to almost everyone now.

Ad revenue is the only way I know of. There is an option of getting sponsored by a company to display more of their specific ads, but it is nothing I'm familiar with.

I REMEMBER THIS VIDEO

I used to watch it several times in a row. The part where you say "heroin"... it gives me chills.

Haha - there was a recent occasion where I overheard a public conversation from complete strangers and they had mentioned this video. But I was too shy to interrupt and tell them that the creator was standing right behind them (that would be pretty creepy of me, wouldn't it?)

NO! You shoulda told them!! What's wrong with you!?

Lol. It would have been pretty interesting. I suppose I was too hesitant to let them know I was eavesdropping in the first place.

It's sad that you didn't monetize the video before it got 24 million views.... that would have been a lot of money. You can get about $1000 per million views depending on you click through rate. So your mistake only cost you $20k, oh well at least you have youtube bragging rights now, or something like that.

Not so much of a mistake as much as just putting it off :p

I wanna see the analytics.

• What's the audience retention? Is there a drop-off at all? Screenshot?
• What's the largest traffic source?
• What's the top 3 rated playback locations?

There doesn't seem to be much of a drop-off. Audience retention is 100% till the 0:06 mark, where it is 92%. 61% of the traffic source is from Mobile Apps and direct traffic, 29% YouTube Suggested Video, 3% embedded player, 1% Google search, 0.7% external website, etc. Top 3 playback locations are Mobile devices (59%), YouTube watch page (37.5%), and embedded player on other websites (3.1%)

Did you spell "heroin" wrong on purpose?

I don't think so. I think that's how I thought it was spelled when I was 14. Haha

How does the payment scale work with Google? Are you paid a salary or per a certain number of viewers?

No salary, and not exactly for views. It is for clicks on ads, as long as they are legitimate.