Does commercial success or reach measure how good or valuable a work is?
Since 2015 Hank has said success is badly measured and view counts are no guide, and in 2026 he regrets that creators reduce their impact to one compressed number. John agrees that what is easy to measure is not always what is important, and since 2021 he has said they should care about the community's health more than views.
Axis: yes, success reflects worth ... no, reach and worth are different
Positions by date: 20 records in 20 videos. The position did not change in these records.
John
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-07-03 | first on record | Over time even good shows become less broadly relevant and serve a smaller but deeply engaged audience; John feels that happened to Vlogbrothers and it has been really good news. | How Does This End? 00:02:33 |
| 2018-10-31 | restate | John says the point of writing is not to sell a million copies or last a hundred years, but to write something that matters to those who find it. | The Looking for Alaska Thing 00:00:43 |
| 2020-02-25 | restate | Second, John says they don't want the most possible viewers (he doesn't want to live in trending comment sections) but to reach people who find something useful or helpful connections. | A weird YouTube thing? 00:01:56 |
| 2020-10-07 (said on 2020-10-06, implied) | restate | John says seeing subscribers, views and other metrics rise is exciting, but as the internet shows again and again, what is easy to measure is not always what is important. | The Golden Age of Vlogbrothers 00:00:58 |
| 2021-02-09 | restate | Not to sound like a hipster, John says most YouTube channels he watches don't regularly hit the trending page. | Lesser Known YouTube Channels I Love 00:00:00 |
| 2021-05-04 | restate | Impact is almost impossible to quantify; after 15 years of analytics John concludes they shouldn't worry much about views but always about the community's health and productivity. | What the Most-Viewed Vlogbrothers Videos Say about YouTube (and about us) 00:01:56 |
| 2021-07-13 | restate | That was when John belatedly understood that maximizing views was not the point of this YouTube channel. | The Vlogbrothers Videos I Didn't Make 00:03:33 |
| 2024-01-02 | restate | John says he is not overly concerned about subscriber counts or view growth as long as Nerdfighteria stays strong. | Being Old on YouTube 00:03:38 |
| 2025-07-01 | restate | John says that if you only read New York Times bestsellers, you miss much of the breadth and quality of today's books. | What #1 New York Times Bestseller Actually Means 00:03:53 |
| 2025-09-16 | restate | John argues that had the channel kept growing by a million subscribers a year as in 2013 and 2014, Nerdfighteria would paradoxically have been less interesting and less powerful. | After seven long years… 00:02:55 |
| 2025-10-07 | restate | John does not think The Fault in Our Stars was the best book of 2012, citing Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings and Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers; it won a lottery of timing and chance. | Luck vs. Work vs. Skill vs. Privilege 00:03:45 |
| 2026-10-06 | restate | Though we think artists must reach millions to succeed, John says Mikey T was a hugely successful broadcaster because he connected people more deeply to the game, the club and each other. | Make Your Art. 00:02:11 |
Hank
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-07-31 | first on record | Hank argues Paper Towns' smaller success fits its story (things need not be exceptional to be good) and suggests how we measure success isn't great. | Why Paper Towns is Awesome 00:02:22 |
| 2016-05-06 | restate | Hank says the view counts are not a signal for the channel's direction: more views are not a path to happiness or really to success, and they don't need views. | I Hate Only Making One Video a Week 00:00:37 |
| 2017-07-07 | restate | John's Civil Twilight, with a faceless thumbnail and a non-clickbait title, got far fewer views than the average Vlogbrothers video, but counting views misses viewers' very different experience. → refers to Civil Twilight | My Earthquake Story - (And Thoughts About Numbers) 00:02:36 |
| 2018-06-15 | restate | Hank admits an impulse to dismiss anything broadly popular as 'lowest common denominator', but in math the lowest denominator is the ideal one. | Sports are Dumb video description |
| 2020-01-03 (said on 2020-01-02, implied) | restate | Hank says SciShow and Crash Course long ago eclipsed Vlogbrothers in subscribers and views, but Vlogbrothers, without which they wouldn't exist, has had more impact despite a smaller audience. | Re-Thinking our YouTube Channel 00:02:00 |
| 2022-02-04 | restate | Hank says the term comes from a Vlogbrothers week of top 10 lists: the videos did about 10 times better than average but did not grow the community or teach anything. | How John and I Talk About Ideas 00:02:18 |
| 2026-03-06 | restate | Hank says others follow success formulas and define success in achievable, objective ways, as he does by defining good as view counts, so he need not worry whether his work might be bad. | How Do You Create When You Don't Feel Safe 00:03:36 |
| 2026-09-18 | restate | Hank says it sucks that creators get stuck imagining their impact as one very compressed, basically useless number. | John was Wrong about YouTube Views 00:08:15 |
Background
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-06-23 | background | In the description Hank says the title undersells how enjoyable this was, and that not every video needs clicks: some are just for the viewer. (playful) | Reviewing Musicals from their Wikipedia Pages video description |
Dates are upload dates, which set the order. Where the speaker gives a different recording date in the video, it is added as "said on YYYY-MM-DD, implied" (derived from the date said in the video).