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The night I the cheap lens test

Experiment #126 · closed · published 5/16/2026, 3:14:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypestory_cold_open
  • lengthBucket4_10m
  • thumbnailArchetypeobject_hero
  • publishSlotweekend_pm
  • formattutorial
  • topicCluster1

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish21,135
  • Days since previous post2.3
  • Channel age at publish (days)176
  • Local publish time5/16/2026, 3:14:00 PM

The residual reward

Raw views mostly measure how big the channel already was. The baseline predicts what this channel “should” have earned given the confounds above; the residual is how the post actually landed relative to that prediction — measured in standard deviations.

Observed (168h)

124

Baseline expected

157

Residual reward

-0.40σ

raw -0.40σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)12418,228060
24h6810,025030
72h9914,582050

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 0.40σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_1 -0.016, length_bucket:4_10m -0.014, thumbnail_archetype:object_hero -0.013.

    • topic_1-0.039-0.055 Δ-0.016±0.27
    • 4_10m-0.221-0.235 Δ-0.014±0.27
    • object_hero-0.358-0.371 Δ-0.013±0.27
    • tutorial0.0600.048 Δ-0.013±0.26
    • weekend_pm0.3700.358 Δ-0.012±0.28
    • story_cold_open0.2030.194 Δ-0.010±0.27
    • topic_6-0.512-0.505 Δ+0.007±0.32
    • topic_30.2740.281 Δ+0.007±0.27
    • claim-0.038-0.033 Δ+0.006±0.28
    • 10_20m0.0590.064 Δ+0.005±0.26
    • topic_0-0.082-0.077 Δ+0.005±0.27
    • list0.0340.039 Δ+0.005±0.30
    • under_60s0.0960.100 Δ+0.005±0.27
    • none0.0770.082 Δ+0.005±0.28
    • topic_70.2070.204 Δ-0.003±0.29
    • weekday_am-0.112-0.109 Δ+0.003±0.27
    • number_list-0.138-0.134 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • weekday_late-0.284-0.281 Δ+0.003±0.29
    • weekend_am0.1230.126 Δ+0.003±0.30
    • before_after0.1420.145 Δ+0.003±0.30
    • topic_40.1800.177 Δ-0.003±0.27
    • 1_4m0.0140.016 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • vlog-0.149-0.147 Δ+0.002±0.27
    • text_dominant0.0790.082 Δ+0.002±0.26
    • face_reaction0.0720.073 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • commentary-0.181-0.180 Δ+0.001±0.28
    • interview0.0980.099 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • topic_2-0.113-0.112 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • shorts0.1520.153 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • 20m_plus0.0650.064 Δ-0.001±0.28
    • contrarian-0.070-0.071 Δ-0.001±0.28
    • weekday_pm-0.084-0.084 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • demo_first-0.033-0.033 Δ+0.000±0.26
    • topic_50.0980.097 Δ-0.000±0.30
    • question0.0880.087 Δ-0.000±0.28
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