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Against my audio chain

Experiment #186 · closed · published 8/8/2026, 2:29:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypecontrarian
  • lengthBucketunder_60s
  • thumbnailArchetypebefore_after
  • publishSlotweekend_pm
  • formatshorts
  • topicCluster6

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish27,684
  • Days since previous post0.9
  • Channel age at publish (days)260
  • Local publish time8/8/2026, 2:29:00 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)

141

Baseline expected

203

Residual reward

-0.61σ

raw -0.61σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)1411,974170
24h781,086040
72h1131,579060

What changed in the posterior

  • Post missed its baseline by 0.61σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_6 -0.026, format:shorts -0.022, hook_type:contrarian -0.020.

    • topic_6-0.275-0.301 Δ-0.026±0.26
    • shorts-0.016-0.038 Δ-0.022±0.25
    • contrarian-0.003-0.024 Δ-0.020±0.25
    • before_after0.0690.051 Δ-0.018±0.26
    • weekend_pm0.2170.201 Δ-0.015±0.26
    • under_60s0.1070.093 Δ-0.014±0.25
    • topic_70.1750.183 Δ+0.008±0.26
    • topic_50.0570.064 Δ+0.008±0.26
    • question0.2460.252 Δ+0.006±0.25
    • commentary0.0310.036 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • story_cold_open0.1620.167 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • object_hero-0.290-0.285 Δ+0.005±0.25
    • weekday_pm-0.050-0.046 Δ+0.005±0.24
    • none0.0810.086 Δ+0.004±0.26
    • claim-0.248-0.244 Δ+0.004±0.24
    • 4_10m-0.090-0.086 Δ+0.004±0.25
    • list-0.028-0.024 Δ+0.004±0.27
    • demo_first-0.047-0.050 Δ-0.003±0.25
    • interview0.0870.090 Δ+0.003±0.24
    • 10_20m0.0340.036 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • topic_30.1800.183 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • number_list-0.100-0.097 Δ+0.003±0.25
    • tutorial0.0040.006 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • text_dominant0.0560.058 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • weekend_am0.1530.155 Δ+0.002±0.28
    • vlog-0.068-0.066 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • topic_0-0.083-0.081 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • topic_1-0.035-0.037 Δ-0.002±0.24
    • topic_2-0.168-0.166 Δ+0.002±0.25
    • weekday_am-0.121-0.119 Δ+0.002±0.24
    • weekday_late-0.188-0.187 Δ+0.001±0.27
    • 20m_plus-0.069-0.068 Δ+0.001±0.26
    • face_reaction0.0940.095 Δ+0.001±0.24
    • topic_40.1590.159 Δ-0.001±0.25
    • 1_4m0.0290.029 Δ+0.000±0.25
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