This channel has been everywhere
Is YouTube flooding your homepage with women who live vans?
Over 1.3 million subscribers
Weird information going on about this youtuber that just blew up overnight called Janelle
What is the magic formula that actually got her there.
I don't even think PewDiePie is gaining 300,000 a day
If the algorithm is not backing her, I don't know what it is
They never did that for anyone, not that I know of
They're saying she's a YouTube plant
made by investors so you know they can promote stuff on the channel
1 million subscribers
For a lot of people viewers and creators alike
reaching the 1 million subscriber milestone means you've made it
it takes work ethic, perserverance, and largely time
years and if you're one of the lucky ones, months.
Before It started vlogging. I had a YouTube channel for five years
And in those five years I had a whole bunch of huge viral hits
Movies that got 15, 16 million views
But my subscriber growth was anemic.
The channel growth is anemic, flat like that
5 years 500,000 subscribers
Then I started uploading daily
and in five months. I had 500,000 more subscribers
That's 1 million subscribers
5 years for the first 500,000
5 months for the second 500,000
It takes a long time
It's a big reason why this creator Jenelle Eliana sparking is some controversy
this channel with only two videos has hit 1 million subscribers within a matter of weeks
Is this growth legitimate or is there something more dishonest going on?
Welcome to psych IRL. My name is Donna
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Oh man, Jenelle Eliana
I've got so many requests from you guys wanting me to do a video about her
So that's what we're going to do right now
but she hit 1 million subscribers with only 2 videos
That's crazy. That's unheard of.
and with that fast of a growth comes the conspiracy theories. Who is this channel?
And how did she grow so fast?
Hello, I'm Janelle and I live in a van with my pet snake, Alfredo
Her Channel pretty typical of a van life channel
Although she has the added element of that quirky teen editing
almost always associated with Emma Chamberlin
And with only two videos she's managed to hit 1 million subscribers
because this growth is such an anomaly, many have speculated that it's artificial
that Janelle has purchased these views and subscribers or that she's an industry plant
In regards to the first point: purchasing views or view botting, it's very unlikely
if you've been subscribed long enough, you'll know I've done experiments on view botting on a different channel
the short answer to whether or not it works is, no it doesn't work
in terms of metrics, the views register making it look like a large number of people have seen your video
but the watch time only lasts for a few seconds
So it's enough to register as a view
but it's not a large enough watch time to share with new viewers
as a result you have 0 interaction because these views come from bots
and your video will not be shared because of the short watch time
In addition if botting views does prove to be a successful endeavor,
The most subscribed people would be the ones with the most money
This is not the case. Many who seem to be growing fast on YouTube are just regular people
Almost any time a channel grows a substantial amount
There's always a theory of there must be botting views or they must be purchasing views
It happened with PewDiePie. It happened with T-Series. and now it's happening with Jenelle Eliana
And honestly, I lean to the side where it's hard to bot views today
You have the YouTube purge where YouTube purges subscribers that are inactive
or subscribers that don't watch your videos and that helps get rid of bots
and most of all this is testable
Testable for you
Now, I don't advise it because botting views is against YouTube's terms of services,
but if you're curious...
Don't follow this advice if you love your YouTube channel
But you can buy views and if you do go viral contact me
because I guarantee you it is hard to become a popular youtube purchasing views
I don't think it's possible
but now comes the biggest conspiracy theory of Janelle's channel
It's that she's an industry plant
Now, how does it YouTube benefit from someone being an industry plant?
Conditioning is a very real thing with in commercials
Beer commercials for instance often have attractive women, sometimes they're located on a beach
and it's to subconsciously tell the viewer, if you drink this type of beer you can have this lifestyle too
now conditioning can be a little bit stronger when the brand introduces a character
because now that character is associated with those things
But you can place that character everywhere
and there's two types of characters brands use one that's completely fake. The mascot
The Burger King guy. The Geico gecko
Brands can shape this character however they want
The other character is actual people. These people have some sort of life story that happened to them
That makes the brand associate that story with their brand
for example sports athletes partnering up with shoes
And here's the thing, it's so much easier to deal with this fake character
because you don't have to deal with the problematic thing that advertisers are afraid of
Well, with YouTube the viewers want real people
So is Jenelle Eliana real?
Or is she an industry plant?
You'll often see the faces YouTube wants to be represented by something called YouTube Rewind
It's this end of the year video YouTube puts out that features the biggest events and creators
Well as long as your advertiser friendly
one of the biggest conspiracy theories of Jenelle Eliana
is that she's one of these faces that are advertiser friendly
But she's an industry plant
an actor placed here by YouTube just so they can attract more advertisers
What has led to such a theory is past brand ambassadors.
There seems to be a pattern of characters: teen male heartthrobs, LGBTQ+ representatives,
and in this case it seems to be the females superstar
each year the same characters represent youtube
and once they get too old and the audience is uninterested someone new repaces them
in the comments of Janelle's video some have speculated that she's to replace Liza Koshy
now that she's more concentrated on television
I did a video a few months back about Joana Ceddia
who blew up to 1 million subscribers within three months
There was the same kind of whispering that she might be an industry plant
Also other than gossip and whispers there really isn't any solid evidence that she is
So how plausible do I think that Jenelle Eliana is an industry plant? 1%. Maybe 5%
According to her Instagram she's been living in her van since 2017.
her first post though was on July 2018 meaning she's had a digital footprint for over a year
And she didn't really appear out of nowhere. 1 year is also a really long time to train an industry plant
It'd be more effective for YouTube to find established channels that have been uploading for some time
and align with their advertising policies
they would then theoretically contact these channels and ask them to be a representative of their brand
a creator who's only uploaded two videos may not have that much dedication to the platform
because of this short time span that they have been here
Furthermore, blowing up a supposed industry plant channel this much in a short amount of time
isn't the smartest
So it's very unlikely for Janelle to be an industry plant. Now though, how did her channel blow up?
To be honest, watching the rapid growth of my channel was a little overwhelming
I needed to take up step back from social media
for my mental and physical health because I was not prepared for this
On her one-year on Instagram, she accumulated over 100,000 followers
Now with YouTube, there are a few factors that could lead to a viral video
click-through rate and watch time
The click-through rate is the rate at which someone will click on the video upon them seeing it on their feed
the more people click the video when they see it to appear,
the more YouTube will promote it
the more people see it and skip it, the more it won't be promoted
This is a big reason people use clickbait titles. Before you go crazy with a clickbait title though
There's another factor in virality: Watch Time
Or how long one watches the video
the more an individual stays to watch it, the more it'll be promoted
We can assume Jenelle checks off both these boxes clicks and watch time
Her established audience from Instagram would be enough to gain her clicks and watchtime
since she created content for that niche.
However, I wouldn't warrant her Instagram audience
as the sole purpose she gained a large audience in a short amount of time
her sudden popularity can additionally be attributed to the popularity of the topic shes creating content about
According to Google Trends, the search term van life is at its highest popularity right now
Sure, of course, there's some luck involved
but there's also strategy to help inch your way in that direction of that luck
You can actually use that to grow your own social media presence and your own channel
And you don't have to be this influencer that you know takes photos by the beach and stuff like that
You can use it to grow a sustainable business
This is a plausible career that people are going after now
One of the best audiobooks that helped motivate me is "Crushing It" by Gary Vee
He talks about how the Internet is such an amazing tool to build your business,
but people around you just don't get it. They think you're crazy and it's this thing that isn't gonna work out
So yeah, it's very motivational if you're into growing your social media presence.
you want to do that to build a business
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So the reason I said 5% is that I don't think she's an industry plant, but she may have had help. may have
but not on her behalf. Like she didn't go ask any corporations
Hey, I need help. Please grow my youtube channel
but she has appeared on several articles
and that may have led to some traffic onto her channel
and it's a combination of these things that helped boost her channel
I've noticed the same thing with another creator Matt D'avella.
He's the director of the Netflix documentary: Minimalism
His podcast series did okay
But when he started uploading videos about minimalism his channel just took off
so for him, it was a combination of his Netflix documentary
and this trending topic of minimalism
Now, he didn't exactly get to 1 million subscribers within 3 weeks or 2 videos
but how did Jenelle do it then?
Now, I think a lot of people miss this part and they underestimate this part
but it's her demographic her age. She's a teen
Teens just do so much better on YouTube
On the surface. It may look like Janelle is only here to replace someone like Liza Koshy
But that may only be a half-truth.
Despite us seeing these similar characters on YouTube over and over again.
If you didn't already notice, I happen to be an identical twin
Yes Grayson and I are in fact twins. We are twins.
We're the Merrel twins
They've existed long before the internet
Yes, a corporation does put them together
But that's because they sell and their biggest buying demographic is teens
Teens relate to these characters because it helps them develop their own sense of identity
Finding out what you like in a significant other
Or finding out who you are in someone you can relate to
So it isn't exactly that people are replacing female superstars every year in terms of YouTube of course
it's more likely that every year, there's a new batch of teenagers looking for someone they can identify with
it's hard to do that with someone who's 30 years old
that demand is now being reflected by Jenelle and on YouTube by teens and who they make popular
the difference is one is being chosen by a corporation while the other is being chosen by the viewer
The argument then becomes if YouTube knows teens sell why wouldn't they choose their own stars?
That one's pretty easy
The algorithm is better and faster at choosing the next teen stars
Gathering millions of teens data on who they would click on and who would they watch the longest
seems pretty efficient to me
This is further exemplified when we see artificial growth or growth outside the means of the algorithm
legendary youtuber Johnny D
His voice make my heart melt into a million pieces and then he repairs it again
A few creators who received shoutouts from larger ones don't nearly have the numbers their sub count reflect
it just goes to show you you can't cheat growth on a platform based on what viewers want to see
you can get all the shoutouts in the world
but if viewers don't like your video, you're not going to grow here
I think a lot of marketers say that old YouTube is dead and that you can't do variety content anymore
but I think that it's harder to do. But if you're a teen, Go for it!
A lot of you send me these teen vloggers who all of a sudden blow up and they're not doing niche content
They're just being themselves. They're talking to the camera. They're doing that Emma Chamberlain editing
they're getting numbers like fifty thousand really fast
and a lot of you guys are showing me these people and I'm like
Oh my gosh, how are they beating me? They're just they're just talking to the cameras are doing
Will I get a lot of subscribers if I do this ?
Or this?
I think a lot of that is because people forget what YouTube actually is. It's not TV like YouTube was and is
for that matter is this thing where you talk into a camera and you connect with other people, it's it's this
internet community
that's what it is. And that's what it kind of always will be
and I don't think that's going away anytime soon
That's the end of the video. I will see you guys next time. Stay Psyched!