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You are wrong about the cheap lens test

Experiment #144 · closed · published 6/11/2026, 4:39:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypeclaim
  • lengthBucket1_4m
  • thumbnailArchetypeface_reaction
  • publishSlotweekday_pm
  • formattutorial
  • topicCluster2

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish22,982
  • Days since previous post0.3
  • Channel age at publish (days)202
  • Local publish time6/11/2026, 4:39:00 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)

202

Baseline expected

131

Residual reward

+0.72σ

raw 0.72σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)20210,6051100
24h1115,833060
72h1628,484180

What changed in the posterior

  • Post beat its baseline by 0.72σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_2 +0.043, hook_type:claim +0.032, format:tutorial +0.023.

    • topic_2-0.197-0.155 Δ+0.043±0.26
    • claim-0.157-0.125 Δ+0.032±0.27
    • tutorial-0.0230.000 Δ+0.023±0.25
    • 1_4m0.0370.059 Δ+0.023±0.25
    • face_reaction0.0410.056 Δ+0.015±0.25
    • weekday_pm-0.045-0.032 Δ+0.013±0.24
    • contrarian-0.010-0.021 Δ-0.011±0.27
    • story_cold_open0.2380.227 Δ-0.011±0.26
    • topic_50.007-0.004 Δ-0.011±0.30
    • commentary-0.058-0.068 Δ-0.010±0.27
    • 20m_plus-0.038-0.046 Δ-0.008±0.28
    • topic_0-0.029-0.037 Δ-0.008±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.118-0.126 Δ-0.008±0.26
    • topic_40.2590.252 Δ-0.008±0.26
    • shorts0.0570.049 Δ-0.008±0.27
    • text_dominant0.0440.036 Δ-0.007±0.25
    • under_60s0.0400.033 Δ-0.007±0.26
    • number_list-0.106-0.113 Δ-0.007±0.26
    • topic_1-0.091-0.096 Δ-0.005±0.25
    • before_after0.1790.174 Δ-0.005±0.29
    • topic_30.3150.310 Δ-0.004±0.27
    • 4_10m-0.109-0.113 Δ-0.004±0.27
    • topic_70.1610.158 Δ-0.003±0.28
    • vlog-0.143-0.146 Δ-0.003±0.26
    • none-0.008-0.010 Δ-0.003±0.27
    • weekend_am0.1490.147 Δ-0.002±0.29
    • topic_6-0.420-0.421 Δ-0.002±0.31
    • list-0.041-0.042 Δ-0.002±0.28
    • object_hero-0.251-0.249 Δ+0.002±0.27
    • 10_20m0.0750.073 Δ-0.002±0.25
    • demo_first-0.094-0.095 Δ-0.001±0.26
    • weekday_late-0.229-0.230 Δ-0.001±0.28
    • interview0.2130.214 Δ+0.001±0.25
    • weekend_pm0.2480.248 Δ-0.001±0.28
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