I love Danny Gonzalez’s videos but this has to be my favourite as it tackles a notable issue in content creation. He traced the various methods that people follow to copy YouTube, Instagram and TikTok videos and make their own. That includes people stealing videos and just putting their own green screen reactions over the top (aka “reaction” videos), copying thumbnail styles, and literally copying the videos word-for-word or idea-for-idea.
But Danny took it one step further and spent a week copying every video that Brent Rivera made to see if he could get more views. It’s a post-post-postmodernist nightmare but it actually worked in some cases. While Danny focused more on the lack of originality between all these thieves, I think the platforms have a lot to answer for. YouTube bet everything on MrBeast and his style of content creation, to the point where people truly believe that if they don’t do the same things, they won’t be seen. And because the algorithms that determine search and discovery are secret, nobody can definitively prove what works and what doesn’t.