Lindybeige

12/11/2025

I just revisited the video I did on Sophonisba (link in comments). YouTube shows me a graph along the timeline of parts of the video that get rewatched the most. This video is unusual in that the graph is almost perfectly flat throughout, but it is also odd because there is a huge blip in the middle. The blip is a high part of the graph, flanked by slightly lower-than-average parts. I went to the blip out of curiosity and found nothing there that would explain why that part would get rewatched much. I said far more interesting things in other parts of the video. My best hypothesis is that one or two people took a break half-way through the long video, and then went back to that point to watch the second half, and had to go back and forth a bit to find the exact spot, and this caused a slight rise in the graph there, and then later viewers, seeing a slight rise there in an otherwise unusually flat graph, went there out of curiosity, causing the blip to rise higher, and this led to a feedback loop.

In other words, these graphs are not very useful.

That there is no drop in viewing when I start the advert is VERY unusual.

03/11/2025

We have a winner!

As usual, not much in it. It seems that titles don't make much difference on my videos.

Well done James Langham.

01/11/2025

Resurrection - the video is out!

Yes, the thumbnail is dark, and this is probably bad. This is what it looks like AFTER I have brightened it a LOT.

I have used three titles contributed here in competitive testing. Good luck to you all.

One for the RPGers here, but the scene at the start I think works as a drama on its own, so might be entertaining for the general viewer.

My camera gave me VERY 'noisy' footage, with swirling pixels battling it out in the shadows, so I had to do perhaps the heaviest grading I've ever had to do to alleviate this, and the result is a look that is poor but I hope watchable.

Link, as ever, in the comments...

30/10/2025

I freely admit that I am rubbish at thinking up click-baity titles to my videos. Some people seem to have a talent for it. I have seen hour-long interviews which talk about many things, and the title for the video refers to one remark made forty minutes in, but it forms the bait to the hook.

So, perhaps you can help me. With the new YouTube testing mechanism, I can even try three of your suggestions in competition with each other.

The video is about resurrection in fantasy worlds. It starts with a long dramatic scene in which an adventurer who has brought his dead colleague a long way to be resurrected at a temple, is briefed on his options by a worker at the temple. He can pick from three options, each of which has a definite advantage, but in each case the disadvantage is horrendous, so no option seems good. Since the dead man cannot choose for himself, and his family is far away, it is up to the exhausted adventurer to take responsibility for a very difficult choice. I then go on to discuss how giving PCs difficult choices makes for good drama in RPGs.

Any suggestions?

26/10/2025

I have just spent a while going through a nearly three-year backlog of 'super-thanks' which are tips that people have contributed to me through the comments section. YouTube waited until yesterday to tell me about them. I got an e-mail about a particularly generous tip, and it linked me to a page with all the super-thanks on. I would never have managed to navigate through the labyrinth of the YouTube channel menus to find it myself, even had I known to look for it. I think I have to go to 'Community' (not 'Comments' nor 'Revenue' which is where I would think to look) and then do a search with a particular set of filters on, and then say the magic word, or something.

It was quite amazing that so many people had been moved to tip me. One at least five times! Everyone got a reply of some sort, although not all were unique, which I hope is understandable. Thank you to all those who gave 'super-thanks' and my apology for being so rubbish at YouTubery that this entire branch of activity had passed me by. I did find one tip that I had replied to two years ago. I wrote in reply "What's this? A tip? Thank you! I think this might be my first! I have no idea how to collect it, but perhaps that will become apparent in time." It wasn't my first, and so far as I can tell, the automated system did the job.

16/10/2025

Link in the comments for the latest video.

What would you do if you found a massive pile of gold?

Tales From The Writers' Room presents an improvised drama in three acts. This is the set-up episode in which we create the characters and situation. Stand by for the three episodes to be released every Thursday for the next three weeks.

16/10/2025

I have just received an e-mail from YouTube telling me that upon review of my video 'Forgetting the Holocaust', they have decided:

"After taking another look, we can confirm that your content does not violate our Community Guidelines. Thanks for your patience while we reviewed this appeal. Our goal is to make sure that content doesn't violate our Community Guidelines so that YouTube can be a safe place for all – and sometimes we make mistakes trying to get it right. We're sorry for any frustration that our mistake may have caused you and we appreciate you letting us know."

I appealed twice, twelve years ago, but both were denied and the video has been demonetised and unpromoted in feeds. They insisted at the time that an actual human had reviewed it, but I doubted that. I gave up and moved on to other things. Presumably, now an actual human has reviewed it. That, or the AI reviewers have improved a lot. Back then, I think it was based on the presence of certain individual words, but perhaps now AI is good enough to assess actual meaning from full sentences.

I won't be compensated, of course, but at least now I can look forward to untold riches. At least I am no longer officially evil.

10/10/2025

The Importance of Angelina Jolie's Nose

07/10/2025

Lindybeige has sold thirty-two T-shirts in the last three years, for a profit of $257.47.

04/10/2025

Should Medical Research Be Centrally Controlled?

01/10/2025

YouTube has a new 'test' feature enabling me to upload three different titles and thumbnails, each of which gets tested in the competitive arena of YouTube. After a while, I can see the result. So far, the results have all been that the different thumbnails and titles make next to no difference at all. In this last test, I had the greatest diversity in titles, thumbnails and results, but as you can see, they are pretty even, with each title and thumbnail combination getting about a third of the clicks. I thought that titles and thumbnails would be tested separately, but it seems not, so the best title might be combined with the worst thumbnail and the effects of these cancel each other out.

My first thought was to set the winner (by a whopping 1.1%) as the only title/thumbnail. However, perhaps having three titles and thumbnails for ever more is the best way to go, as presumably there are some people who will click on one of my videos regardless of the title, while there are lots of floating voters who will be attracted by different bait, so keeping three adverts running at once might reel in the greatest number and variety of viewers in the long term.

01/10/2025

Drat! One of the many annoying quirks of my new editing software has now twice led to my publishing a video with all the sound in one speaker. Anyway, here is the link to a sound-fixed version of the latest video on war-waggons:

In 280 B.C. the Romans faced elephants in battle for the first time. In 279 B.C. they developed a new device for dealing with them, but what did it look lik...