One Away

Why you just need to make that next video (even if you don't feel like it)

Johnathon Eva
September 01, 2025

Check this guy out

SnapieBlox -

Just a month ago this guy SnapeBlox was making Roblox content to an average audience of <10k. He found one trend - “I built the SAFEST BASE” and it blew up his channel. That 160k views you see in the middle video is AFTER the success of the Safest Base video - now his average audience is in the millions, and he’s blown up from 10k subscribers to 100k

So what?

Well he has a ton of videos on his channel. Imagine if he gave up when he wasn’t getting the views he wanted.

Not only that - he finally figured out the trend that worked for his channel. Sometimes success on YouTube is determined by grit. Other times it’s determined by trends. This is one of those trend examples.

I’m never going to tell you to chase trends, but when a trend comes along in your niche do you know about it? Are you prepared to make content on it?

Let’s keep digging…
I know you want another example - here you go:

creator roFellas

This video only got 10k after the channel started to blow up, it was sitting at a few hundred for a while.

These videos are one after the other only about three-ish days apart.

Thumbnail Review

Let me just say - this thumbnail isn’t that bad at all - just needs some minor tweaks

A.) The blue in the drone kind of blends into the shadow and the deep blue of the background. Remember we want contrast so that it draws the eye

B.) Hunger games here doesn’t make a lot of sense, since Hunger games is in the title. Remember, we want to avoid replication in the title and thumbnail

C.) The title kind of blends genre a little too much - You’d have to know what the 10th means in context, and you’d have to be aware of modding. Remember, simple is better

Thumbnail Review

These thumbnail/titles are by the same creator by the way. See how much difference a Thumbnail/Title can make?

A.) Oh yeah -look at that contrast. The white against blue really pops here.

B.) The text get the viewer to ask a question. What works? Additionally all of the not-contrasted elements are near the bottom of the screen. If there’s things that require certain color combinations that don’t contrast, don’t have them be the main element.

C.) That title works way better - I don’t need to know that there were 2 Squid games before, I get what 3rd could mean. In Minecraft is simple enough that I immediately grasp the concept.

Creator Spotlight

I get it, you want examples of creator’s killing it - right now. Not three years ago, you want visceral proof of concept, well here’s one, meet FreshiMinecraft

12k views - 5.9x outlier

Spin on a classic 3/fold thumbnail concept

64k views - 29x outlier

An even further twist on the concept, but same basic principle

107k views - 49x outlier

4/fold concept WITH an excellent value proposition

Here’s why they work -
A) Taking a classic and twisting it - there a bunch of tried and true thumbnail formats out there. This takes a classic split screen/3fold and puts 4, that middle one especially does a great job at mixing it up

B) The images are clean! - If you think that this YouTuber just slapped some random images into the folds you’d be wrong. Each one of those images has been cleaned up and color corrected to be visually appealing.

C) Value proposition - often found in the title, this is the value that you are offering to your viewer. Who wouldn’t want to see how many Roguelites can be beaten in 24 hours.

Idea Factory -
So how can you place this into your work?
Well - let’s insert some blanks

How many _______ can I beat in a month? (then you’d do a similar thumbnail style
The BEST ________ games from every genre (similarly thumbnail style)
How many _________ can I beat in 24 hours (similar thumbnail style) and a ProTip with this one, if you can actually make the video 24 hours I guarantee it will get you some clicks. Remember that the time stamp IS a part of the packaging.

Final Notes

Pokemon ZA drops on October 16th to the mass public - most topics will already be covered by the main creators so this is your time to try to do something hard - Shiny hunts, shiny only playthroughs, shiny only nuzlockes (shiny just does incredibly well) I walked in a straight line videos etc

“It always seems impossible until it’s done” - Nelson Mandela

Would you do me a favor and tell me what you want to see in this newsletter? What would be the MOST helpful value I could provide - Just send a reply!

See you later Space Cowboy