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Against the sponsor talk

Experiment #95 · closed · published 4/2/2026, 4:15:00 PM

What happened

Creative features

  • hookTypecontrarian
  • lengthBucket20m_plus
  • thumbnailArchetypeface_reaction
  • publishSlotweekday_pm
  • formatvlog
  • topicCluster7

Confounds the baseline knew

  • Followers at publish18,350
  • Days since previous post1.4
  • Channel age at publish (days)132
  • Local publish time4/2/2026, 4:15:00 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)

280

Baseline expected

106

Residual reward

+1.62σ

raw 1.62σ · residual sd 0.599 log-views

Checkpoints

CheckpointViewsWatch time (min)CommentsLikesFollower delta
168h (close)280147,0001141
24h15480,850180
72h224117,6001110

What changed in the posterior

  • Post beat its baseline by 1.62σ. Moved: topic_cluster:topic_7 +0.125, format:vlog +0.087, length_bucket:20m_plus +0.074.

    • topic_70.1880.313 Δ+0.125±0.34
    • vlog-0.0630.024 Δ+0.087±0.30
    • 20m_plus-0.0570.017 Δ+0.074±0.31
    • contrarian-0.109-0.043 Δ+0.066±0.30
    • face_reaction0.0620.127 Δ+0.066±0.27
    • commentary-0.175-0.227 Δ-0.052±0.30
    • before_after0.0680.024 Δ-0.045±0.32
    • weekday_pm-0.145-0.102 Δ+0.043±0.27
    • 1_4m0.0610.019 Δ-0.041±0.27
    • topic_0-0.106-0.147 Δ-0.040±0.29
    • topic_5-0.073-0.102 Δ-0.029±0.33
    • weekend_am0.2120.186 Δ-0.026±0.32
    • topic_30.2770.255 Δ-0.023±0.31
    • demo_first-0.091-0.109 Δ-0.018±0.28
    • topic_2-0.095-0.111 Δ-0.016±0.30
    • interview0.2140.198 Δ-0.015±0.29
    • 10_20m0.0560.042 Δ-0.015±0.28
    • list-0.187-0.174 Δ+0.013±0.31
    • claim0.0350.023 Δ-0.012±0.30
    • topic_40.1920.180 Δ-0.012±0.28
    • weekday_am-0.100-0.088 Δ+0.012±0.29
    • topic_1-0.101-0.090 Δ+0.011±0.30
    • shorts0.1080.097 Δ-0.011±0.29
    • weekday_late-0.253-0.264 Δ-0.011±0.29
    • number_list-0.348-0.359 Δ-0.010±0.29
    • story_cold_open0.3540.344 Δ-0.010±0.30
    • text_dominant0.0570.047 Δ-0.010±0.27
    • object_hero-0.244-0.235 Δ+0.010±0.29
    • tutorial0.0850.078 Δ-0.007±0.28
    • none0.0380.033 Δ-0.005±0.29
    • under_60s0.1010.099 Δ-0.003±0.30
    • weekend_pm0.2660.265 Δ-0.002±0.31
    • topic_6-0.302-0.302 Δ-0.001±0.37
    • 4_10m-0.180-0.180 Δ+0.001±0.29
    • question0.1400.141 Δ+0.000±0.29
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