Like, Comment and Subscribe

"Like, Comment and Subscribe" is a phrase often used by YouTubers to exhort their audience to do the three things mentioned. Although it is sometimes phrased differently, or put as more of a suggestion than a command, it is usually put in just those terms, and put rather insistently and regularly.

The YouTube Algorithm is strange and unknowable, but one obvious thing about it, is that it favors user interaction. The more that users add a like to a video, and the more they leave comments, the more the video will be shown to other people. Subscribing is pretty self-explanatory, as subscribing to a YouTube channel means that YouTube will regularly show you that channel's videos. A certain number of subscribers (currently 1000) is necessary to be monetized by YouTube. Presumably, the number of subscribers to a channel might also determine how much that channel's videos are suggested to other users. No one knows exactly how the algorithm works, but "Like, Comment and Subscribe" seems to be a good way to express how to expand it.

There can also be a snowball effect where a single comment on a video will draw in more viewers, who will comment more, adding more viewers, and so on. The difference between a video languishing in obscurity and becoming "viral" might be as minor as a viewer leading a single comment.

So while it might seem like an irritating and annoying shill, "Like, Comment and Subscribe" exists for a reason, and if you want to support a creator, doing those three things is a good way to do it.

I will add that «Like, Comment and Subscribe» is the YouTube iteration of what marketing people name «call to action», which I read as an ugly pastiche of the «Call to Adventure» as described in Campbell’s Monomyth.

The marketing people would probably say that a «call to action» is necessary for the marketer to indicate to its recipient what the next action should be, whether that is visiting a page, completing a purchase or generally moving the customer further down the chain.

In YouTube, these three qualify as the next actionable steps that a viewer can make in order to help the video gain more visibility, whether that means sending notifications or recommendation to other potential viewers. For anyone who makes—or wishes to make—any sort of reliable income from YouTube, this is a crucial step: more views and engagement mean more money (or so I’d like to believe).

Now, my experience with marketing is not through study nor through professional experience or interest. My experience with marketing has been because of necessity, because I’ve worked with them. I know just a bit about marketing in the same sense that some people know about engineering because they’ve worked with me. I find marketing boring at best and symptomatic of larger problems at worst.

I mention it because what follows is mostly opinion.

I strongly dislike the world and career of marketing as it exists today: a sorry byproduct of capitalism that justifies its own existence by vice of being «necessary in all industries» as if it were a staple of humankind. It’s not.

«Like, comment and subscribe» has become commonplace—a catchphrase—because it serves a marketing-first goal. It shows that many, many YouTube channels and creators need to treat their creations as yet another commodity to be advertised in the marketplace. Thus they ask the public not for money, but for that which they can give to earn the creator more attention and, consequently, money.

I see the phrase «Like, comment and subscribe» as an ugly need, not necessarily the fault of video creators except perhaps their actual utterance of the words and taking part on the culture. There is a whole group of people who see YouTube—and social media in general—as merely a way of making a living off of someone else’s money; a new generation that sees audiences as nothing more than numbers instead of people.¹ The internet is merely the newest way for people to dehumanize for money.

And it doesn’t have to be like this. Anyone who watches YouTube on the regular knows that interactions are needed if a channel is to be even moderately self-sustaining. I’m not calling for the Mighty Algorithm in the Sky to change its ways, or even to make them transparent; It is not the problem, but a consequence of YouTube’s monetization model.

What I am calling for is to try and dissociate ourselves and our creations as much as possible from the money-first goal. I am calling not for artists to give away their creations for free, but to opt for the human-first goal. I am calling to work around the system, and not complicit with it. I am calling for artists to use their creations for communication and connection—two-way streets—so as to leave your mark on this planet.

There’s nothing wrong with being paid for your work and indeed I encourage you to never work for free. But avoiding the «Like, comment and subscribe» phrasing has led me to encounter people whose mentality lies in leading people’s minds and hearts to questioning, to wondering, to marveling at this universe. In other words, people that I believe are entitled to earning their livelihood through these means.

(Nota bene: I watch a ton of YouTube, and I pay to do so. I won’t pretend to be in any kind of moral high ground. It can be argued that my consumption is part of the problem and I cannot really say otherwise. But I will prefer the creator that puts their creation first and the «liking, commenting and subscribing» as a consequence of the quality of their work. I believe there is a difference between those who create thinking of true discussion and community-building first; and those who see «engagement» as a number—part of the manufacturing process—and not as a goal in and of itself. This, of course, is a spectrum and the extremes might not exist in their pure forms.)

1. I hesitate to mention that this group correlates with younger age ranges, but is not synonymous with them. The problem of people regarding media consumers as sheep to be milked is not new, and is not exclusive to any one age group, culture or language.↩︎