Ember Green

Oh my goodness, the response to my previous community post has been incredible! Thank you to everyone who left a comment 🙏 I can’t wait to read through them and start working on the video!

1 day ago | [YT] | 265

Ember Green

I NEED YOUR HELP! For an upcoming video: are you a late diagnosed autistic person? If so, I'm interested in hearing why you think you were not diagnosed in childhood. Respond below with your stories & they may feature (anonymised) in the video. I might not respond to comments, but I absolutely will read them all. Thank you in advance for your time!

4 days ago | [YT] | 356

Ember Green

OUT NOW! An exploration of evo psych-style aspie supremacy & the false "emotions vs logic" dichotomy. Were autistic people the philosophers, sages & storytellers? Was neurodivergence the glue which held ancient communities together? And are we *more logical*? How can we be sure we're making rational decisions, & is that even a goal worth pursuing? After all, maybe we only have facts because we have feelings..

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 110

Ember Green

Members can now watch my new video, all about facts, feelings, autism & evolutionary psychology. We have family coming to visit next week, so there will be a premiere TOMORROW, that's right, a mere day away!

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 306

Ember Green

Aye up besties :) I was gonna film this, in fact, I did film a version of this, but honestly I found it too cringe to post. You were supposed to have had a video by now too. It was supposed to come out before I went away to Fusion Festival, but when I sat down to add the finishing touches, I realised a whole section got messed up in a render somewhere, and because I was rushing to get it out, the workflow on that one was all over the shot and so, long story short, the sequence is gone & I will have to spend a day or two redoing that part.

I’m more or less recovered from the festival now tho, so I will edit over the weekend & hopefully get it out to you next week (remembering to pick a premiere time which doesn’t conflict with the world cup).

So, to the thing what I wanted to say in the video I filmed but was too embarrassed to post:

Things at the channel. The views, etc. It’s not disastrous, but it’s not going great. I know we all love it when YouTubers complain about a lack of views, so…sorry. I have a plan, tho.

My last three videos are not being pushed to new people. Now, the Sheldon one, that was my fault, I had to take it down & reupload it due to an epilepsy trigger I completely missed. And I guess I can just shake my fist at the algorithm for the other two.

But I must say, I have found motivation to be a struggle for a year or so now. Not that I haven’t seen success, but I did have a goal when I first started this youtubing thing. I’ve been going for over 6 years, and I did hope to have 100k subs by now, or at least be on a clear trajectory towards it. But I’ve been hovering at 50 something for a while now, and with my last 3 videos now drawing in new subscribers, I find myself in a weird position.

See, I did a poll, & most of the respondents said they’re subscribed to me for disability advocacy content, but the only videos which get pushed to new people are my media analyses & responses. So this means that most new subs that come in are here from Harry Potter, The Good Doctor & Evil Kids & won’t necessarily click on my advocacy stuff.

This happened before, people who subscribed to me after watching my videos on climate change & terfs, absolutely never clicked on disability related videos, which led to my channel stagnating for almost two years. This is why you’ll have noticed me refining the topics I cover to only being related to disability & neurodiversity. It helped a bunch, but not enough.

Thing is, the algorithms always change & so constantly trying to tweak the content I make to suit them will only lead to me not liking the content I make anymore. We don’t want that. But there are some things that I can do differently with the content I do make. So I have a plan. I will engage with this plan for a year or so, then reevaluate if needed.

No more back-to-back media analysis. I will focus on advocacy, with media analysis as an occasional treat. I will also take YouTube Shorts more seriously: they use a different algorithm which pushes Shorts out to non-subscribers, and YouTube *promises* us that viewers who engage with a Short are more likely to see the corresponding video appear on their Home Page (don’t worry, I’ll keep notifications off for these). I will work on one or two long, big projects at a time, while also putting out shorter, more digestible videos. I know that larger creators can do their One Big Video a Year thing, but I need to focus on getting more subs in throughout the year, people who want disability content. But this means that you’ll be waiting longer for the Big Ones, if I’m also making shorter stuff in between.

Now. The bad news. Currently, the way YouTube decides whether or not to push a video is by testing it with a test audience. A section of your subscribers who, it thinks, will be likely to want to watch that video. It then measures how quickly that test audience interacts with it, and then measures other forms of engagement. But it seems that right now, the speed with which you click is the most valued metric: take my last video, all engagement metrics were normal if not good. Likes, watch time, click through rate, comments - all good. But when I looked into it, it seemed that the test audience in the first 24 hours didn’t click as fast as they usually do with my videos.

This is, in my opinion, silly. Oh! And another thing! When polled, a third of respondents who said they have notifications turned on, did not receive one for my last video, and apparently this is a feature, not a bug. YouTube allegedly measures how likely you are to click on the notification, and if it decides you won’t, it doesn’t send it. Another silly, if you ask me.

I do not want to make my success as a creator your responsibility. I do not want you to feel pressured into clicking straight away when you see my video. All I want is for bloody YouTube to inform my subscribers that I posted & let them easily find my content. For the recommendations algorithm to…recommend.

Nobody is going to click on all the videos they see on the Home Page every time they open the app. We use YouTube for all sorts of things, if I’m opening it to find a tutorial, ignoring everything on the Home Page, I don’t want to think I’m possibly harming the reach of my fave creators, but that’s what YouTube has done.

And lots of people use notifications as reminders & never click to watch the video as soon as it comes through. Normal human behavior that YouTube has deemed bad for engagement. So this isn’t me saying “you gotta click asap”, I want you to click when you actually want to watch. But I am somewhat holding myself back, which leads to the bad news.

I’m gonna have to stop offering early access to Patrons. If you’re the kind of person willing to pay me money, then that means you’re probably part of my “core audience”, the kind of person who will watch most if not all of my videos. By offering early access to my core audience, I am effectively removing myself of a couple hundred views during that crucial first 24 hours.

What I can do instead, (something many creators do) is upload an “ad free” version a week or so after uploading. If you need to cancel your subscription because of this, I completely understand, however it has always seemed to me that none of you are really in this for the perks.

For YouTube Members, I can probably still do the “Members First” thing as those views count & YouTube seems to love it when we offer things for money. But to avoid losing hype, (and making things too unfair between Patreon & Members) I will maybe only offer this a day before I set the Premiere trailer thing.

My next video (next week hopefully) will be my first time trying this, so Patrons, I will just be dropping the link to the Premiere when it’s set up.

For non-paying viewers, you can help with the situation by clicking “Save to Watch Later” if you see one of my videos pop up on the Home Page, but you’re not ready to watch it yet.

Oh, and I almost forgot another silly! YouTube is now using toasters, I mean, “AI” to analyse comments. Not only to filter out hate & abuse, but to assess the video’s reception. Such great news for creators (/s). Coupled with YouTube’s announcement to prioritise viewer comments & engagement within the recommendation algorithms, this means that comments are super important. Unfortunately, I think they might be on to the old “comment for the algo” trick. Gone are the days where all engagement is good engagement.

The toasters want to see natural, genuine engagement which says nice things about the content. Nice things that can help it recommend to the right people. (fuck this feels so SO silly).

This means tho, that “I can’t watch this because the topic is too triggering” might be understood as “this content is not suitable for general audiences”. Just as, according to the AI summary of comments on my Sheldon video, “I watched & loved the original upload but here’s a comment” turned into “this is not original content”. Really, a great time to be a creator (/S).

So that’s my plan. Got some juicy topics lined up. I’ve been working on this one about ABA, but the online ABA training course I’m taking as prep glitched & won’t let me proceed so I’ll have to actually contact them via email which I hate, but it’s happening.

I hope those in the north are surviving the heat (I don’t think I am). I hope this 3 page long whinge finds you well? And I hope YouTube decides to show you my next video when it does come out. Ok I love you bye bye.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 353

Ember Green

If you have notifications turned on, did you get notified of my latest video? I’m trying to work out why my last three videos don’t seem to be getting impressions.

2 months ago | [YT] | 100

Ember Green

Why are you subscribed to me?

2 months ago | [YT] | 172

Ember Green

YouTube Members & Patrons can now watch my expose of RFK Jr's autism committee (IACC) I didn't mean to make this, but when I started to look into who is on this committee, I had to drop everything & write about it. Premiere SUNDAY!

2 months ago | [YT] | 317

Ember Green

My latest is about AuDHD, disability, collecting hobbies and never “finishing” anything. About how, in a world we can’t control, it’s important to control the stories we tell to ourselves, about ourselves. Some people are saying it’s the most relatable video they ever watched, but short videos have to fight harder on the algorithm, so shares would be super appreciated 💚🙏

3 months ago | [YT] | 138