If you’re aspiring to be a good creator this isn’t for you. This is for people who want to become great creators. Whose mission isn’t to simply rack up views and get attention, but to put something genuine into the world that stands the test of time.
There isn’t enough desire to be great in the creator economy. Everyone’s focused on optimizing for short term metrics because it placates a sense of insecurity until their next upload. You could argue that more people create for the dopamine hit than for the love of creating. No one will ever admit that to you, they’ll tell you that they’re why is to “inspire people” but ask them what they want to inspire them to do and that why falls apart… they don’t actually know.
This behavior of chasing views and trends is not conducive to a long term career. Sure, it can lead to hyper growth but your rise will be just as fast as your fall. I’m sure you can think of lots of creators that were poppin’ two years ago that you haven’t heard from in a while.
The problem is, everyone is focused on what their peers are doing and not on what they themselves should be doing. If you want to know what it takes to build a career that lasts, don’t look around you… look back. There’s plenty of examples of artists and creators that have stood the test of time, but there aren’t many better examples of that than Queen.
Staying Power
Queen was a band formed in the early 1970s that went on to become one of the greatest rock bands of all time. If you’ve never gone through their discography, you should. The amount of classic songs they put out is staggering. The word classic here is not used lightly, it isn’t just a synonym for great. Queen also has a lot of great songs across their 15 studio albums but a classic has to stand the test of time.
What’s a metric we can use to quantify a song as a classic? Getting over 500M streams* more than 40 years after its initial release is probably a safe bet. If we can all agree on that as our bar then Queen put out seven consecutive albums with at least one classic song on it (excluding a live album, greatest hits album and the Flash Gordon soundtrack). Here’s a list of all those songs as of December 2022:
Killer Queens - Sheer Heart Attack (1974) - 585M+ Streams
Bohemian Rhapsody - Night at the Opera (1975) - 1.9B+ Streams
Somebody to Love - A Day at the Races (1976) - 706M+ Streams
We Will Rock You - News of the World (1977) - 958M+ Streams
We Are the Champions - News of the World (1977) - 553M+ Streams
Don’t Stop Me Now - Jazz (1978) - 1.4B+ Streams
Another One Bites The Dust - The Game (1980) - 1.4B+ Streams
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - The Game (1980) - 527M+ Streams
Under Pressure - Hot Space (1982) - 1.2B+ Streams
When you look at it on paper like this, it’s actually crazy to think that not only did these all come from the same band, but they came out on back to back albums for almost a decade. To put that into context, at the time of writing this article Drake only has a four album run with at least one song with over 500M streams*, and five albums in his entire career.
*Spotify streams
Spread Your Wings
How has Queen been able to pull this off? The answer comes when you listen to each song back to back. None of them sound the same, they’re all different. So different in fact, that the average person probably wouldn’t even realize they’re all sung by the same band.
Sure, each track has staples of a Queen song: Freddie’s vocals, Brian’s ferocious guitar, and Roger’s high harmonies but that doesn’t mean they’re always used in the same way. These are the bricks they use to build the house but the house is built differently every time.
The point is that Queen was able to produce a masterful discography by consistently innovating their sound. They refused to stick with what had worked and repeatedly pushed themselves to find their next evolution. This wasn’t easy, and was never a guarantee but it’s the reason we’re talking about Queen and not Mott The Hoople. Who’s that? Exactly.
“I thought, ‘My god, we were outrageous and innovative in the days of Bohemian Rhapsody, and that’s why it worked.’ But for us to start pandering to people’s tastes now, saying this is what they want so give it to them, would be such a backlash. So we’re going to do things against the grain, against people’s ideas of whatever they like or expect us to do. We’re not afraid of the fact that we’re doing those things. We don’t jump on bandwagons or do whatever is modern. No, we do it with the Queen stamp on everything”. – Freddie Mercury
We can sit here today and call these songs classics because we have the benefit of hindsight. You can’t tell whether something will stand the test of time when it’s first released. In fact, a lot of classics start out as the opposite. Bohemian Rhapsody, one of the greatest songs of all time is no exception. When Queen went to their record company and told them they wanted to release a six minute operatic rock song as the single to their fourth album they were told the radio would never play it, six minutes was too long and that they needed to cut it down. Despite all of that, Queen trusted their intuition, took the risk, and went ahead with it anyway. The rest, as we say, is history.
“It was a song of extremes and I think its success or failure would have been in extremes too.” – Freddie Mercury on Bohemian Rhapsody
Looking back at all of these hits makes it easy to think that every risk will lead to a success but that’s not always the case. In 1982 Queen attempted a disco record in the form of ‘Hot Space’ but the album was panned upon release. Both fans and critics alike were dissatisfied with the group’s departure from their usual rock style and to this day it has some of the least amount of streams of any Queen album. Not every risk works.
“I like to try everything once and I’m not scared of pitfalls. I love the challenge and I like doing things that are not part of the mainstream. Sometimes if that works, it works in a very big way, or else it can be a very big flop, but I’m willing to take that risk.” – Freddie Mercury
If You Can’t Beat Them
These are all different videos by different creators, ‘Last to Leave the Circle Wins $500,000’, ‘Last to leave circle wins $100,000!’, 'LAST TO LEAVE CIRCLE WINS $10,000!’, ‘Last To Leave Circle Wins $1,000’, and ‘Last To Leave Circle Wins $10,000’. There’s stealing like an artist and then there’s just straight up stealing. When it comes to YouTube, more often than not people are just stealing. As soon as something works for one creator, whether that be a video idea, a thumbnail design, or a title structure - creators from across the platform rush to take that idea and use it for themselves. Whenever creators see a successful video the first thought they have isn’t “why did this do well? How can I learn from it and incorporate it into my next video?”, it’s “I need to re-make this video for myself”.
“I do whatever I like, but I’m aware of what goes on but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to pinch it or say that that’s exactly what I should do.” – Freddie Mercury
To be fair to these creators, the reason they copy these videos is because it works (what that says about our viewing habits is something we can talk about another time). Each of those ‘Last to Leave the Circle’ videos has over 5,000,000 views, there’s a method to the madness but from a creative standpoint it’s uninspiring.
It also sets the wrong example for up and coming creators. This is conditioning them to think the key to success isn’t in originality, it’s in plugging themselves into a formula that leads to cheap views. The problem with this is that aspiring creators aren’t coming up with anything unique, they’re just creating knock off “MrBeast” and “Airrack” style videos. In the movie industry we look at obvious knock offs and laugh at them but on YouTube people think it’s the path to getting a silver play button.
“I’m quite aware of what goes on, but that doesn’t mean I want to interpret that kind of fashion and trend into my songs. I’m aware of what goes on but I still write a song the way I feel it. And if it means a song that I like needs something that’s old fashioned, I will still do it. Because I’ll never let a song down. The song comes first.” – Freddie Mercury
Play The Game
Queen pushed the envelope because they wanted to be great. Most YouTubers don’t care about being great, they care about getting attention. The best way to get attention? Replicate what has worked for others in hopes of getting the views they did.
“If there were a book of rules, everybody would buy it and everyone would be churning out the same old trash.” – Freddie Mercury
There might not be a playbook in the traditional sense but there’s certainly a formula for success on YouTube. If you follow the trends and do them well enough you’re going to get views. This has led us to a place where creators are too afraid to take risks and as a result we’re left to sit and watch regurgitated content every week.
We don’t see what happened with Queen music happening on YouTube. We don’t see creators taking consistent risks, trusting their intuition, and putting it all on the line to be great. We see data driven insights leading to more cracked out, “candy videos” designed to stimulate your brain often enough that you don’t click off the video. Is this really what you want as a creator? To find a way to manufacture content that numbs your audience’s brain just enough that they keep watching so your retention stays high?
Don’t take this to mean it’s easy to get views. Making a well crafted video takes a ton of work, and is really hard to do. There’s a lot of talent in the creator world but not a lot of artistry. While the idea of a pure artist is romantic, in the world of YouTube, you need a level of marketing and distribution to make it work. You can’t just be an artist.
“You can’t go around saying, “What a wonderful musician I am! What a terrific song I wrote last night!” You’ve got to make quite sure you get discovered. Part of talent is making sure your music reaches people. You can’t sit in your room and be a wonderful musician and an outstanding song writer that writes good music, because no-one is going to hear you - there are lots of those about. You’ve got to learn to push yourself, be there at the right time and learn how to deal with the business. These days I think it’s got to be talent plus a very good business” – Freddie Mercury
The problem with YouTube is that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of distribution and away from making great art. The same way you need to be a distributor to find success on YouTube, you need to be an artist if you want your work to stand the test of time. Trends work today. They don’t work tomorrow. Of course, you have to respect the means of distribution but you shouldn’t only create for them. Make the art that you want to make, the art that only you can make and do everything in your power to get it out there.
The reason no one wants to put out something original is because it’s risky. Everyone is terrified of a video underperforming so instead of taking a risk they fall back on what's already worked. But here’s the thing, no one is going to remember the 12th person that makes a ‘Last to Leave the Circle’ video. They’ll remember the person who did it first and the person who did it best. So unless you think you can elevate a trend, you’re doing nothing for yourself by making a cheapened version of a good video.
To go down as one of the greatest creators of your generation, you have to be willing to take those risks. You have to trust your intuition, which means doing something you don’t have enough data on but your gut tells you is a good idea anyways. This will naturally lead to a few flops but it will also lead to a few home runs.
You’re going to have down moments in your career no matter what. The question you need to ask yourself is do you want them to come off the back of you taking risks and trying to move the platform forward or because you weren’t able to keep up with the trends?
I’m not one of those writers that practices trends and says, “Ok, this is trendy today, let’s write a song about that.” I just like to do different things, and not repeat myself. I don’t like to stay in one position for too long, so that comes out in my songs and lyrics.
Modern Times Rock ‘N Roll
It wouldn’t be fair to write this and not acknowledge the elephant in the room… Queen put out a new album every year. YouTubers upload a new video every week. The album to video comparison isn’t an equal one. Instead, it’s better to look at the type of content a creator uploads over a period of time. It’s not comparing album to video, it’s comparing album to “season”.
The point isn’t that all of your videos need to be different from each other. In order to build an audience on YouTube people have to have a sense of what to expect from you. They need to know what bricks you use to build the house. Similar content week to week isn’t a problem, where you run into trouble is when you’re uploading similar content year over year. If you want to be a creator that lasts, one that people remember in a decade you have to continue to innovate.
Whenever people talk about MrBeast’s journey on YouTube it often goes something like this: “he started making Minecraft videos in his bedroom and now he’s doing things like recreating Squid Games!” That story is a lot different if the conversation goes like this, “he started making Minecraft videos and now… he’s making more Minecraft videos.” Part of MrBeast’s staying power is his hyper focus on making the best videos possible and his refusal to stick with the status quo. Now, there’s a pressure that comes with constantly needing to innovate, especially when you’re in Jimmy’s position where a large chunk of creators look to what he creates next to inspire their future content, but if you want to be one of the best that pressure comes with the territory.
“He has staying power, which is a heavy ingredient you have to have. A lot of people burn out because of the pressure you get by being in the public eye.” –Freddie Mercury
This isn’t for MrBeast though, it’s for everyone else. The people who look to creators like MrBeast to be told exactly what they should make next. It’s understandable why so many people do. A video that tanks could tank their whole business and that’s a vulnerable position to be in. That’s something most people would empathize with, and if put in that situation would be just as risk averse.
This is a position you never want to be in as a creator. MrBeast is able to take risks and do things no one else is willing to do because his livelihood is not dependent on his content. He’s publicly stated that he doesn’t take any money from his video because he pours it all back into his channel. He’s able to do this because he has money coming in from other revenue streams like his burger chain, snack company, clothing line, and sponsorships.
“We’ve all become businessmen, even though it’s against our better judgment. It’s something that always happens if you get successful… being a musician is not just cutting discs, unfortunately. I wish it were. We’ve all got companies now; some connected to music, others not – lots of other fingers in other pies.” –Freddie Mercury
There’s a time and place where your one and only focus needs to be on creating your content and nothing else. However, your aim shouldn’t be to make your videos your entire livelihood because when this happens your propensity to take risks goes down dramatically. If you have something else that can cover the bills, this leaves you free to create what you want, to take risks, and make something that lasts.
The Loser in the End
Can you make a career out of ripping off other videos and repeating a formula that you’ve found to work? Sure. But it’s not the path to take if you want to be great. It’s also a path most creators are on. Most people will tell you they want to be great, but most people will also tell you one thing and do another.
A lot of creators are taking the safe route. Only doing what works and optimizing for short term vanity metrics. 99% of those creators won’t stick around because people always get bored of the same old thing and most of them won’t know how to adapt.
“I think longevity is a very important part of this business. After the first few years you have to think about how you’re going to adapt.” — Freddie Mercury
At the end of the day, the creators that take risks and push the medium forward are the ones that last. Great artists give the audience something they didn’t know they wanted. Good artists give the audience what they already want. Great artists stand the test of time. Good ones don’t.