Make Your YouTube Videos Impossible to Stop Watching

It's tension.

Colin and Samir (2 dudes who interview and obsess over what makes great YouTube videos) call it "unclosed loops."

I've been deep-diving into this lately and I think you might find some helpful ideas here.

I want to use physical objects as metaphors while teaching.

But I need my Chat GPT account to understand tension in story telling. Then it can help me brainstorm great metaphor ideas.

Tension keeps your audience watching. When the audience keeps watching your retention goes up, arguably the most important YouTube metric.

Consider what makes a TV show or movie hard to stop watching.

Tension.

Unclosed loops.

The kid was kidnapped and the father is trying to find him. The tension? "Will the dad find and rescue his kid?"

In Star Wars A New Hope, the audience wonders if Luke Skywalker will destroy the death star or be killed first. That's tension. That's an unclosed loop.

This concept of tension can also be used when using a physical object as a metaphor while teaching.

This is what I plan on testing out on YouTube using every day items. I kind of did it at the beginning of this video, If Your Life is Getting No Results, Watch this. (I almost died when I noticed the focus was off. But I was not willing to re-record it).

The object will represent a concept I am teaching.

But it also needs to create tension to make the viewer want to keep watching.

For example, if I am roasting a mushroom while talking, people will watch the mushroom being roasted over a flame. And they will wonder if I'm going to keep roasting it until it's burnt.

Tension.

Another example: I am pouring water into a glass. And I keep pouring until the viewer wonders if it's going to spill over.

Another: I am blowing up a balloon. (Yes, it'd be hard to talk while blowing up a balloon). And I keep blowing it up until the viewer wonders when it will pop.

Dr. Julie Smith is a master at this. She uses objects to highlight her points. And check this out: the ones creating tension get 10x more views.

Of course, a physical object is not needed to create tension. Headline: "Why are people burning Teslas in New York City?" Automatic tension. Now the viewer wants to know what happened and why.

Opening a video with, "The world of AI is about to change," opens a loop. Now you are wondering to yourself: What's going to change? What am I going to miss? Tension. A loop that begs to be closed.

Regardless of whether your hate or love South Park, its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are ninjas as tension.

They do it like this when telling a story.

Instead of telling it like this:

This happened

Then this happened

Then this...

They tell it like this:

This happened, but then this happened

Therefore this happened

But then this happened

Therefore this happened.

Get it?

BUT – Introduces conflict or a twist

THEREFORE – Shows consequences or progression

So instead of: "This happens and then this happens and then this happens..."

They do this: "This happens BUT then this happens, THEREFORE this happens..."

Have you considered this before? What are your thoughts?