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Watch this my thumbnail workflow

Experiment #154 · closed · published 6/24/2026, 12:42:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypedemo_first
  • lengthBucket1_4m
  • thumbnailArchetypeobject_hero
  • publishSlotweekday_pm
  • formatinterview
  • topicCluster5

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish23,950
  • Days since previous post2.1
  • Channel age at publish (days)215
  • Local publish time6/24/2026, 12:42:00 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)

111

Baseline expected

154

Residual reward

-0.55σ

raw -0.55σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)1115,828060
24h613,205030
72h894,662040

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 0.55σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_5 -0.015, format:interview -0.010, thumbnail_archetype:object_hero -0.010.

    • topic_5-0.045-0.060 Δ-0.015±0.28
    • interview0.2120.202 Δ-0.010±0.25
    • object_hero-0.289-0.299 Δ-0.010±0.26
    • demo_first-0.089-0.099 Δ-0.009±0.25
    • 1_4m0.0520.044 Δ-0.008±0.25
    • topic_1-0.103-0.098 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • list-0.026-0.021 Δ+0.005±0.28
    • weekday_pm-0.050-0.055 Δ-0.005±0.24
    • face_reaction0.0770.081 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • shorts-0.076-0.072 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • contrarian-0.054-0.051 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • claim-0.156-0.153 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • topic_0-0.062-0.059 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • number_list-0.097-0.094 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • topic_40.1990.202 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • before_after0.0850.088 Δ+0.003±0.28
    • under_60s0.0660.068 Δ+0.003±0.26
    • 10_20m0.0490.051 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • text_dominant0.0550.057 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.129-0.127 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • topic_6-0.313-0.311 Δ+0.002±0.29
    • topic_30.2580.260 Δ+0.002±0.26
    • vlog-0.063-0.061 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • 20m_plus-0.105-0.104 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • weekend_am0.1180.119 Δ+0.001±0.28
    • weekend_pm0.1810.182 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • story_cold_open0.2700.269 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • 4_10m-0.067-0.066 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • tutorial0.0070.006 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • topic_2-0.153-0.152 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • question0.1210.122 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • none0.0670.068 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • topic_70.2130.213 Δ-0.001±0.28
    • weekday_late-0.125-0.126 Δ-0.000±0.28
    • commentary-0.060-0.060 Δ+0.000±0.26
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