Photo Credit: Kevin Mazur (YouTube)
YouTube is borrowing a page from Twitch’s promotional catalog with its new hype feature. While Twitch hype works only while the creator is live (encouraging active donations), YouTube Hype allows fans to boost the video to virality for small-time content creators.
The new feature was one of several debuted during the Made on YouTube conference, where upcoming product updates are showcased. The feature is intended to help emerging YouTube channels reach more people thanks to the efforts of their dedicated fans. If a video has been out for less than seven days and the channel has fewer than 500,000 subscribers—videos can be hyped.
YouTube Hype goes beyond liking and sharing a video. The higher hype level a video receives, the higher it climbs on the new Hype Leaderboard displaying the top 100 hyped videos of the week. YouTube accounts can only hype up to three times per week the channels that meet these requirements—so it’s not a system that can be gamed from a single account. YouTube says in the future, they will allow fans to purchase additional hypes—unlocking a new revenue stream for creators in the process.
Hyped videos won’t influence YouTube recommendations and search results. Creators see benefit through a ‘small creator bonus’ built-in, which YouTube says helps ensure everyone gets a chance at the spotlight. Top hyped videos will earn a special badge, showcasing that it’s a fan-favorite video to viewers.
“In the first four weeks of our beta tests in Turkey, Taiwan, and Brazil, users hyped over five million times across more than 50,000 unique channels,” YouTube reports. “The largest age group hyping videos in the beta is the 18-24 age range, making up over 30% of all beta testers.”
That’s important, since ‘hyping’ videos is a normal part of Twitch culture called the ‘hype train.’ Hype trains kick off in a live chat when there’s a spike in supporter events like subscribing to the channel, buying a hype chat, or buying and using bits in a single five-minute period. After the threshold is crossed, a countdown begins encouraging viewers to keep the hype train going. YouTube appears to be borrowing the concept for small-time creators to take the stage next to mega YouTube channels like MrBeast or Pewdiepie.
