Stop Asking Me to Subscribe!

Every YouTuber seems to say the same thing: “Like and subscribe!” But does saying it actually make anyone subscribe or can it sometimes do the opposite? Today, Yifeng asks a simple question: if your content is actually good, shouldn’t people follow you without being told?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to my broadcast. I want to first talk about one thing and I have one question for you. Have you ever ever noticed that every single YouTuber, every single one, always say one particular sentence? Maybe it's not the same, but they will say one thing. Always they talk about this one thing. Always. They never don't. What is that? Please like and subscribe. Well, maybe that's not true for all of them. They still say, well, please everyone follow me or say something like that. Like, please look, you see the percentage of unfollowing, you know? It's still basically trying to get followers. Isn't that what everyone tries to do? But should you really talk about that in broadcast videos or YouTube videos? What does it actually do? An argument that I myself came up with was that well if they really like your stuff, they'll follow and subscribe. So there's no really like there's no point of just pointing out clearly that you should like and subscribe. Or that's how I subscribe to people when they say please like and subscribe, or well, would you rather a count or a thousand trillion dollars? If you like and subscribe, you get a trillion. I just scroll away or stop watching him. I don't really subscribe. However, there are a few YouTubers where I did subscribe because generally they just have good work. And when you watch a lot of their videos with please subscribing. I think I just subscribe since they did do a good job. One example was in a nutshell. I actually really liked their videos about science and I subscribed. Sure, they asked me to like 50,000 times, but it's alright. But should you ask? First of all, the argument that someone made that I did not make made that make me feel like a bum, but someone other than me, that's argument that they made. The argument is well, if we do say it, it reminds viewers and they will probably do it. Well, the problem was that is that doesn't always work. For a really bad example, ISO Speed at once asked the one of like the most popular YouTubers how to get there. And this is what they told him. You should say please subscribe. When he did say that, his following count and subscribing count went the opposite direction. Sure, he probably he gained fift like 50 million, but in the opposite. People all around just started unsubbing him. All in all of his platforms. Not actually 50 million, that's figurative, but people just are unsubbing and his entire account went down so badly. So does that really matter? Well, that's not a great example, I see that, but still, it's just an example that you don't really actually have to say it. In my opinion, I shouldn't should I say, please everyone, follow me. I I'm homeless and I work really hard. First of all, I'm not homeless yet, but you see, does that really help you? Like, no, that doesn't mean you'll subscribe or I mean you can't really subscribe, I guess, but it won't make you follow me, for example. Like, if you like what someone's saying or what I'm doing, they'll follow me or someone else. They won't have to listen to me saying, please everyone follow me. I'm generally homeless. I have uh I don't know, I forgot. Yeah, exactly. They won't just follow you just because you say that. So this is why I conclude that you should not say it. I mean, it's not like it's bad. Everyone, please follow, okay? It's not that bad. But the meaning is I do want to talk because I think that it doesn't actually really matter, and I think that there's no point actually saying it since if they do like what you're doing and you're doing a good job, sure, maybe you have like 10 followers, but still, eventually you'll get there or get more followers. So this is why I would say that there's no point of exactly saying, Well, we need to like and subscribe, or telling someone to do it. This is why I conclude that in a video, podcast, or whatever, there's no actual point of saying like and subscribe, and if you're doing a good job and people really like what I'm saying, they'll like and subscribe and follow you no matter what.