YouTube Shorts creators struggle to hit 20 million views
14 posts across 3 communities in the last 30 days; 57% from r/NewTubers.
“It's saturated as hell. The more AI creators there are, the better you have to be. It takes a lot of work making really decent AI, and people will still call it slop (understandably). Also, with the whole "human extinction" thing caused by AI, isn't cool. I think people will…”
“Running an AI voice as a secondary audio track won't solve the issue because YouTube defaults to the viewer's interface language not an accent filter viewers don't actively check track settings for alternate narrations unless they're listening in an entirely different language…”
“Own. You will build a branded channel which will lead to more trust and better engagement. If you hate your accent, nothing is stopping you from making it better.”
New and small YouTube creators are finding it extremely difficult to reach the 20 million views threshold required for monetization, despite meeting the 8,000 watch hours requirement. The disparity between the two metrics is causing frustration and uncertainty about growth strategies.
SOURCES (42)
“So just to make it clear, Im not talking about the slop tubers who go all in and use ai for the script, the voice over thumbnail and all. Im talking about the normal commentary youtubers that make it seem like their videos are genuine…”
“Hey everyone, I've been on YouTube since around 2013, but I took a long break from creating content. Recently, I've decided to give it another shot, and I'm experimenting with AI tools to create cinematic lo-fi and ambient music videos. I'm still pretty new to AI video generation, and there's definitely a learning curve. My goal isn't to become famous or be the biggest channel in the niche. I'd honestly just like to build something that people enjoy watching and liste”
“I'm with you. As soon as I hear AI voice, I'm gone. I also tell YT not to recommend the channel any more. I've also been doing that when I see AI thumbnails as well. Anything low effort isn't worth my time. [re: Is using an ai voice better than a real but bad voice?]”
“people connect with the content not the voice, the AI vid probably just had a stronger hook or pacing”
“Lots of them for their thumbnail photos now. For actual video production, possibly for background music on the regular to avoid copyright strikes, but depending on what genre you're into, I haven't run into much beyond what I've detailed here.”
“it can, but ai overuses it to the point where you can tell it sounds unnatural. i've seen instances where it does it 20 times in one video”
“As I said, loud minority. You can believe what you want, but most don't care. Many people use them with great success. So as I said, you can use one if you like.”
“Incorrect. It could be the most interesting script in the world but as soon as a soulless AI narrator begins, I click off. If a video sucks to listen to, it doesn't matter how interesting it is.”
“I think it's ok for shorts, but what about normal videos? Will it get monetization anyway? Lately AI voices become more realistic (I tried one a few days ago and it sounded very human), so I think that it should be ok for me to use it in my videos. U don't have a good microphone, and I can stutter a LOT. So I either use an AI voice (which is good quality), or just put text to explain things. Edit: I mean for voicing my text Edit1: some evil ass people in this post's comment section.”
“It depends what it is. Some people will post a short with no title, talking or description. YouTube has no way of knowing who to show it to. If you're using AI and not flagging it as AI, then that tends to kill the video.”
Got it, sometimes i have same feeling with other views, but i thought it maybe in my case its not the same as animation is done by me without AI. Thanks
“Monetize and faceless AI. Pick one. This is such a bad idea on sooooo many levels.”
“People can get some work with using AI but that’s just a pretty lazy Work there is a dude who Larry made a channel 3 days ago and he’s almost at 300,000 subscribers and his videos get between 800 to 1.5 million and his shorts get over 3 million but pure AI brain rot slop not real work no dedication no heart just a solace channel. This person has so don’t ever use AI.”
“Best approach: Use Multi-Audio feature in Youtube studio. You can either dub your Hindi voice to English using AI tools like Elevenlabs or manually dub it using softwares like Audacity/Audition. Youtube will push your videos to the right audience based on languages.”
“Yeah sure it is easier but if i manage to somehow carve out a market in english. It will certainly have more perks than my comfortable language. It will just require way more dedication to achieve these extra perks. What do you think?”
“So I have been wondering about this thought for a while now, probably 1-2 months now. So I can speak english very well if i had to, you can check my yt channel Silli slayer . But it does not feels natural to me while I record and am unable to enjoy the moment when I record my gameplay. I am a gamer who wants plays game and try to enjoy it and I also have an intrest in producing videos. Back to the topic, so when i record my gsmeplay and try to commentrate it just doesn't feel very nstursl. W”
“Recently, I’ve noticed that clicking on all the channels in my Youtube Shorts, like most of them come from AI channels. On the surface, the actual video itself seems normal and potentially human-made (because it’s a clip from a TV show or something or a ’ranking top 5 songs’ video) but once you actually go onto the channel, you notice that everything about it is an AI doing its best to seem like a human. for example, I saw one where all the videos were on like ‘top 10 songs from the 1980s’, then”
“I keep wondering how creators can knock out so many of the sci fi and fantasy AI youtubes that are about 20 minutes each and each seeming to appear within days of my last login. What I do notice is a lot of cliches starting to repeat: Glowing eyes indicating powers Pointed ears of various lengths on elves and random aliens. The artwork looks like-- not realism-- but "mens adventure" illustrations from the drugstore rack in the '50s. There art books of these preserved from illustrat”
“It's easy to churn out AI slop. Another reason could be that the video is uploaded in a foreign language and it's playing the autodub audio track in your language (presumably English)”
“It's saturated as hell. The more AI creators there are, the better you have to be. It takes a lot of work making really decent AI, and people will still call it slop (understandably). Also, with the whole "human extinction" thing caused by AI, isn't cool. I think people will start to hate AI even more because of that. HOWEVER, if you are a goblin and really hate being on camera, than there ya go.”
“Doesn't matter how good the AI quality VO is, it still sounds AI to those who know what to listen for. It's an immediate do no recommend. Same goes for visual content. AI is trained to be average. Why would you settle for average?”
“I’m curious about this from the perspective of people who actually make videos. AI voiceovers have gotten pretty good. With a good voice, proper pauses, pacing, and good audio, I’ve seen some where I genuinely couldn’t tell it was AI. But I’ve also seen videos where the voice is so bad that I can’t stand watching for more than 10 seconds. It completely kills the experience. So I’m wondering: is a high-quality AI voiceover still a negative for you just because you know it’s AI, or is it totally f”
“That makes sense. The useful version to me is basically: “is there actually something worth my time behind this title, or is most of the video filler?” That feels pretty different from using AI to replace the actual learning or note-taking.”
Some is "AI slop", but not all. The term gets grossly over-used.
“Zero on the part of the creator is 100% realistic… I don’t think anyone is talking about YouTube itself using AI to caption videos”
“Running an AI voice as a secondary audio track won't solve the issue because YouTube defaults to the viewer's interface language not an accent filter viewers don't actively check track settings for alternate narrations unless they're listening in an entirely different language keep your human voice as the primary audio accent fatigue drops quickly if the audio mixing is crisp and you provide closed captions through YouTube's subtitle tool rather than aggressive burned in text”
“So, I made a few videos using text-to-speech, but because of AI stigma, I'd prefer to transition to using my own voice. The only issue is I have a thick accent, which many people say is difficult to understand. So, I could use subtitles, but that itself is an alienating factor. Since YouTube now supports multiple audio tracks, I can include AI audio as a backup. But does that even make sense? submitted by /u/Chlodio [link] [comments]”
“Do you use ai for your thumbnails or in any of your content? Most people are turned off by it since it's pretty obvious”
“Hard disagree. My first 10 channel concepts with no AI all failed one after the other and I spent 8 years on them. My latest is mostly AI and has 25k subs in 3 months. Youtube and my audience loves it.”
“I think part of the mistake is thinking Youtube is a purely artistic endeavor. Yes, some people are in it primarily for that. Some people don't see it as artistic neccesarily, but want to share their interest or hobby. Some people are in it mainly for the money. Plenty of people are in the middle with some mix of the 3. I don't personally view any and all use of A I as neccesarily troublesome. For things like proofreading scripts, helping with structuring/pacing of a video, analyzing met”
“If you can, use your own voice tbh, accent usually matters way less than people think, and it feels more human. If you wanna stay private/faceless, I used Vois desktop app its simple and can automate using any ai agent. it does local AI voiceovers on your own computer so you can generate/edit narration without sending your stuff to the cloud, which is nice, but I’d still avoid the super obvious robotic voices. BTW, I automate my 10 Youtube channels using it,”
“I’ve been making cinematic history Shorts using AI, but I’m honestly not sure if I’m heading in the right direction. I like making these videos, but I’m trying to figure out whether there’s actually potential here or if I should change the format/topic before putting more time into it. Would appreciate some honest feedback on the videos, especially the visuals, storytelling, and overall concept. submitted by /u/Fickle-Passenger-392 [link] [comments]”
“Thank you! Btw I see large channels using AI voice over especially tech related. Do you think the AI voice over is still a big turn off also for big channels? like I don't mind it but it's hard to build trust if all videos are made with an AI voice over then i get it”
“actually very easy to achieve on long form, you only need one video worth of momentum”
“Own. You will build a branded channel which will lead to more trust and better engagement. If you hate your accent, nothing is stopping you from making it better.”
“I've started this YouTube channel a few months ago and it's been slowly growing. I used AI tools to create better edits etc I'm concerned that I see a lot of similiar videos with AI voiceovers and it could impact the trust people will have in my channel Do you recommend in using your own voice for your channel or using the AI voice over is fine? I have an accent so that could be annoying? Also I have a concern about privacy like I've been creating content behind the scenes and wo”