Since years now the views on my Youtube channel have been in steady decline, despite my best efforts. Therefore I recently started to look more seriously into what makes Youtube videos popular. In my research I found an excellent interview with the 18 year old Youtube star Jenny Hoyos. She has hundreds of millions of views on her Youtube Shorts.
One of her main points, something that she highlighted and emphasised strongly, is how important simple language is — so that everyone can understand her videos. She made it sound very positive. She wants to be accessible. Therefore she tightly controls her language to be Fifth Grade and below:
Fifth grade is the fifth year of compulsory education. In the United States, the fifth grade is typically the fifth and final year of primary school, though it may be the first year of middle school. Students in fifth grade are usually 10–11 years old.
This is still topped by, for example, Mr. Beast, one of the most popular Youtube channels with billions of views. As a rule Mr. Beast keeps their language so simple that it can be understood by First Graders.
First grade is the first year of compulsory education. It is the first year of elementary school, and the first school year after kindergarten. Children in first grade are usually 6-7 years old.
Jenny Hoyos said she uses a website called Readability Formulas to calculate readability and make sure that her language is below Fifth Grade requirements. So- I went ahead and checked the language I use here in my blog posts:
AUTOMATED READABILITY INDEX
Score: 17.06 [ = grade level ]
Reading Difficulty: Extremely Difficult
Grade Level: College Graduate
Age Range: 23+
Therefore- if you were able to read and finish this blog post apparently you are one of the smartest humans walking this earth, by Youtube standards. Thank you for reading and holding my hand in my emotional efforts to keep having faith in humanity. 🙏
However- I also had the transcript of my latest Youtube video analysed. After all I try to speak in a language that can be easily grasped and understood by everyone, including non-native English speakers from Germany, South-America, India, China, etc.
It turns out the readability of my Youtube video is graded like this:
AUTOMATED READABILITY INDEX
Score: 1 [ = grade level ]
Reading Difficulty: Extremely Easy
Grade Level: First Grade
Age Range: 6-7
Therefore- the language in my Youtube videos actually is First Grade level, who would have thought? Well, at least that’s settled. Now I can move on to research what point I’m missing, actually.
