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The truth about shooting in one take

Experiment #131 · closed · published 5/22/2026, 6:12:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypeclaim
  • lengthBucket4_10m
  • thumbnailArchetypeface_reaction
  • publishSlotweekday_pm
  • formatinterview
  • topicCluster0

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish21,555
  • Days since previous post1.5
  • Channel age at publish (days)182
  • Local publish time5/22/2026, 6:12:00 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)

107

Baseline expected

154

Residual reward

-0.60σ

raw -0.60σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)10715,729050
24h598,651030
72h8612,583040

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 0.60σ. Moved: hook_type:claim -0.018, format:interview -0.016, length_bucket:4_10m -0.015.

    • claim-0.045-0.062 Δ-0.018±0.27
    • interview0.1500.134 Δ-0.016±0.26
    • 4_10m-0.213-0.228 Δ-0.015±0.27
    • topic_0-0.051-0.066 Δ-0.015±0.27
    • demo_first-0.040-0.033 Δ+0.007±0.26
    • shorts0.1620.168 Δ+0.006±0.27
    • topic_1-0.040-0.034 Δ+0.006±0.26
    • weekday_pm-0.067-0.073 Δ-0.006±0.25
    • 20m_plus0.0040.010 Δ+0.006±0.28
    • weekend_pm0.3470.351 Δ+0.005±0.28
    • face_reaction0.0690.064 Δ-0.005±0.26
    • under_60s0.1410.145 Δ+0.004±0.27
    • question0.0910.095 Δ+0.004±0.28
    • topic_30.2840.287 Δ+0.004±0.27
    • topic_40.1700.173 Δ+0.004±0.27
    • commentary-0.181-0.178 Δ+0.004±0.28
    • none0.0290.033 Δ+0.003±0.28
    • story_cold_open0.1280.132 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • topic_50.1000.103 Δ+0.003±0.30
    • 10_20m0.0620.064 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • list-0.036-0.033 Δ+0.002±0.28
    • tutorial0.0260.028 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • number_list-0.090-0.088 Δ+0.002±0.26
    • topic_6-0.516-0.518 Δ-0.002±0.32
    • 1_4m0.0010.003 Δ+0.002±0.26
    • object_hero-0.323-0.324 Δ-0.002±0.27
    • text_dominant0.0530.055 Δ+0.002±0.26
    • vlog-0.126-0.125 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • weekend_am0.1180.119 Δ+0.001±0.30
    • topic_70.2020.201 Δ-0.001±0.29
    • weekday_am-0.134-0.135 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • topic_2-0.152-0.152 Δ+0.000±0.27
    • weekday_late-0.267-0.268 Δ-0.000±0.29
    • contrarian-0.050-0.049 Δ+0.000±0.28
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