Earlier today I went to YouTube's main page. Among the offerings, there's this thumbnail of a kid holding a guitar, and the video is oh-so-creatively titled - "guitar". My brain immediately tells me "nothing to see here, folks", but then my eye catches something. The video has over 93 million views! And it was posted in 2005!
1. Why does YouTube have a 15 year old video on it's main page?
2. How can the video have this many views? I had to give a listen, and yeah the playing is good, especially for a youngster, but there are like 9 billion good guitarists on YouTube. I searched Steve Vai videos. (For those who don't know, some consider him the best guitarist ever.) The most views I could find was 40 million, so "random kid in his bedroom" is more viewed than Vai (accompanied by full orchestra) by more than double.
I glanced at the comments for an answer, but all I saw were a couple hundred people as confused as I am. To add to the weirdness, this video is the only video this person ever posted, until 3 months ago! Posted one video, took a 15 year break, and in the interim somehow got 93 million views.
But he's got 3 live broadcasts upcoming in the next 3 days. An ancient video is suddenly being recommended just as he has new content. I guess my main question is, humans at YouTube must be actively promoting him, right? Or could it be due just to algorithms?
Anyway, here's the link if you're interested: guitar
ETA: It slipped my mind that he could have been posting under a different channel name the last 15 years, but still, why revive this channel? It's still weird.
1. Why does YouTube have a 15 year old video on it's main page?
2. How can the video have this many views? I had to give a listen, and yeah the playing is good, especially for a youngster, but there are like 9 billion good guitarists on YouTube. I searched Steve Vai videos. (For those who don't know, some consider him the best guitarist ever.) The most views I could find was 40 million, so "random kid in his bedroom" is more viewed than Vai (accompanied by full orchestra) by more than double.
I glanced at the comments for an answer, but all I saw were a couple hundred people as confused as I am. To add to the weirdness, this video is the only video this person ever posted, until 3 months ago! Posted one video, took a 15 year break, and in the interim somehow got 93 million views.
But he's got 3 live broadcasts upcoming in the next 3 days. An ancient video is suddenly being recommended just as he has new content. I guess my main question is, humans at YouTube must be actively promoting him, right? Or could it be due just to algorithms?
Anyway, here's the link if you're interested: guitar
ETA: It slipped my mind that he could have been posting under a different channel name the last 15 years, but still, why revive this channel? It's still weird.
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