The Spiffing Brit's YouTube Algorithm Experiment

Overview

The Spiffing Brit's YouTube Algorithm Experiment refers to a series of posts and videos made by YouTuber The Spiffing Brit to demonstrate how easy it was to exploit YouTube's "Community Posts" feature, which may have lead to the astronomic rise of channels such as Dream and kids channel Cocomelon. He discovered that by pumping community posts with algorithmically friendly terms such as "Minecraft," "Markiplier," "Pokémon," etc., or conducting a poll, one could attract viewers with much more success than they could with any one video. This led to his audience spamming a copypasta which read "Imagine not commenting…" and then a long list of algorithmically friendly search terms.

Background

In mid-January of 2021, YouTuber The Spiffing Brit made a community post^[1] encouraging his followers to "Help Break YouTube!" He pointed out how many users were seeing community posts from channels they'd never interacted with and that this was due to YouTube's algorithm around the feature being "broken" in his estimation. He wrote:

Today we will demonstrate just how broken they are by creating the MOST LIKED COMMUNITY POST!
But how will it get shown to everyone? Simple If I include all of the algorithmically correct trending terms in this message then youtube will show it to everyone! Do your part to support this by liking the post and commenting on it! Perhaps youtube might take this message and rework the community post feature and make it so that random people not subscribed to me do not get BOMBARDED by my cute corgi pictures!

He also included a list of algorithmically trending terms in the post in order to prove his point. Commenters on the post also spammed search terms, resulting in the "Imagine not commenting…" copypasta.

Developments

On January 23rd, he posted a nonsensical poll^[2] with the sole purpose of exploiting the algorithm, demonstrating how using a mix of algorithmically friendly search terms and causing users to vote, like, and comment in the poll could spread the post even further. In the post, he included a paragraph that featured many popular search terms (shown below).

We can include terms like baby shark and pewdiepie to really broaden the audience and then spice it up with some among us and Minecraft crossed with the hit new youtube sensation that is rust on the OTV server featuring twitch funny moments from jackscepticeye. I also have to mention music, asmr and markiplier that are all important terms here on youtube. Let us not forget of course the makeup and fashion community by referencing shane dawson and james charles. Now whilst this is COMPLETE GIBBERISH to most an algorithm is able to pick out the specific key terms in this post and promote it accordingly. So lets support the Kpop stans by mentioning bts and lofi hip hop. We can even talk about some other big channels like mrbeast and dantdm. For some reason in 2020 some of the most searched tags are game of thrones and avengers endgame… Let us of course not forget the most important things of the year like dunke peppa pig and roblox! Time for all the top current searches Among Us – online game, new song 2020, pop smoke and techno gamerz and tubbo smp! Time For todays new aditions in SEO too: Thanos, fifa, joe biden, inauguration, Tommy, sidemen, mod, update, rt game, yogscast, the spiffing brit, game, predator, fortnite update, fortnite predator, boss! Lets glitch the youtube algorithm

On January 25th, 2021, he uploaded a video criticizing the algorithm and posting the results of his experiment, surmising his first community post gained roughly 3.2 million views and possibly more in 24 hours. The poll post did even better, with him estimating the poll post gained over 12.8 million views. His video on the topic gained over 1.2 million views.

At the end of his video, he encouraged viewers to "break" YouTube by exploiting the algorithm. He told content creators to copy and paste his poll and post it on their own community tabs in order to give themselves a huge influx of traffic.

"Imagine Not Commenting…" Copypasta

Due to The Spiffing Brit's experiment, a large number of his fans began to spam the "Imagine Not Commenting…" copypasta throughout YouTube. The copypasta reads:

Imagine not commenting: ""“Minecraft" "ASMR" "pewdiepie" "music" "Fortnite" "markiplier" “YouTube is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits.” "Runescape" "World of Warcraft" "Shadowlands" "Dream" "MrBeast" "Warzone" "FaZe Clan" "100 Thieves" "Call of Duty" "BOOBS" "Pokemon" "Pokemon cards" "card unboxing" "Charizard" "they don't want you to know" "Flat earth" "round earth" "triangle earth" "the earth is not earth" "what even is earth if not earth omg government is lying to you" "Minecraft" "ASMR" "pewdiepie" "music" "Fortnite" "markiplier" “YouTube is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits.” "Runescape" "World of Warcraft" "Shadowlands" "PogChamp" "MrBeast" "Warzone" "FaZe Clan" "100 Thieves" "Call of Duty" "Pokemon" "Halo" "Devil may cry" “YouTube is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits.” “Cocomelon” “t series” “Minecraft" "ASMR" "straponsexisfun" "pewdiepie" "music" "Fortnite" "markiplier" “YouTube is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits.” "Runescape" "World of Warcraft" "Shadowlands" "Dream" "MrBeast" "Warzone" "FaZe Clan" "100 Thieves" "Call of Duty" "Pokemon" "Pokemon cards" "card unboxing" "Charizard" "they don't want you to know" "Flat earth" "round earth" "triangle earth" "the earth is not earth" "what even is earth if not earth omg government is lying to you" "Minecraft" "ASMR" "pewdiepie" "music" "Fortnite" "markiplier" “YouTube is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits.” "Runescape" "World of Warcraft" "Shadowlands" "Dream" "MrBeast" "Warzone" "FaZe Clan" "100 Thieves" "Call of Duty" "Pokemon" "Halo" "Devil may cry" “YouTube is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits.” “Cocomelon” “t series”

This led to three separate posts in /r/OutOfTheLoop^[3][4][5] inquiring about what was going on.

Search Interest

External References