Trend Surfing

The Do's and Don'ts behind the popular advice of Trend Surfing

Johnathon Eva
September 15, 2025

Trend Surfing

Bad Trend Surfing:

~ 100k views with nearly 42M subs

These views are high but compared to the subscriber count, it is the opposite of an outlier.

30k views with 1M subs

Meaning if you were to try and mimic this ‘fad’ / ‘trend’ - it probably wouldn’t work for your channel. Or it would work the same way, being less views than subscribers.

When we trend surf, we want to look for a translatable, clickable, idea. Not just a popular product, person, or event.

Trend Surfing: The right way

HudsonJ with 12k subscribers - 87k views

This is why we go with outliers. Because the idea is good - meaning:

Vioh with 12k subscribers - 200k views

Your channel can use the same principles and get the same/similar results.

It is always. always. always. The idea that gets the click. A recent trend (~ last 3 months or so) is the following format:
Is __________ Really that bad?
Here are some ideas for you channel -
Is Mr. Mime Really that bad? / Is the DLC for _____ game really that bad?
Is this ____________ gun really that bad? Is ____________ really a bad person?
Get creative with it!

Extra:
If you know that this works - you can probably do the opposite as well - is _______ really that good? And of course you can experiment with something that is pretty bad, but you’re telling people it’s good and vice versa.

Want me to rate/review your thumbnails? Let’s connect - just reply to this email with the title (Thumbnail Review)

Thumbnail Review

There are some things going for this thumbnail, it’s got 3 elements, bold text, and decent contrast but:

A.) Look, if you’re a small YouTuber, (unless you’re crazy attractive/unique looking) no one’s clicking for your face. Wait til about 50-100k subs for that

B.) Time trial symbols work fine in really lengthy things, but this time doesn’t match the length in the timestamp, and so there’s distortion there. Keep that for streams/ very clear speed run challenges

C.) It’s not a bad concept per se’ but you’re asking people to do a thing that may not be “that” difficult or novel. so the click level is low

Thumbnail Review

A.) Roguelike - clear text that I don’t have to guess why it’s there.

B.) A clear character from a really popular franchise

C.) Exellent title, neat, and to the point. I need to click on this to figure out what it’s about

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 GhostExplains - 7k subs and growing.

126k views 1.1x outlier

Simple

538k views 4.2x outlier

Simple

90k views 5x outlier

Simple

Here’s why they work -
A) They’re simple - if that didn’t already sink in.

B) This is an example of correct trend surfing. Here’s where he got the idea

The Paint Explainer

Joe Mama, and JaStriLaw

The Paint Professor

This guy went ahead and copied the channel style too

C) So look outside of the gaming niches and see what you can make work - - - if it workes for something big outside of gaming like ‘philosophy’ or ‘business’ chances are it might be a good idea for Gaming

Big News:

Direct

I’ve harped on it before but you HAVE to stay informed in today’s video climate.

The new Nintendo dropped some Huge News- Read all about it here: https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-direct-september-2025-live-updates-everything-announced

Otherwise some highlights:
New Pokemon / Stardew / Minecraft Life sim game where you play as a ditto announced for 2026
New Yoshi Game
New Pokemon DLC and Megas announced for Legend ZA
New Fire Emblem Title announced
News on The Dragon Quest 1 + 2 Remake
A Reimagining of Dragon Quest 7 (still no 9 but hey, I’m here for it)

You CANNOT afford to be out of the loop if you play Nintendo games

See you later Space Cowboy