[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]
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Short-form superstars are still holding off the AI slop channels at the top of our weekly YouTube viewership rankings. Though Australia’s Double Date stayed strong with 1.86 billion weekly views, it was just barely pipped for the top spot thanks to the upward surge of South Korea’s KIMPRO, which collected 1.87 billion weekly views.
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Five channels got at least one billion weekly YouTube views, and 34 more hit at least 500 million weekly views as July turned into August. There are a lot of ways to crack the ranking, so let’s take a look at one common approach.
YouTube Shorts is becoming so unbelievable, it’s coming back around to believability
Now that there are billions of videos in YouTube’s Shorts library, I think it’s safe to say that the average viewer has seen it all. The most astonishing human skills have become commonplace as mass viewership and AI-generated fakery continue to up the ante.
In that landscape, how can a single channel astonish its audience? Many creators, especially in India, are going back to a tried-and-true formatting trick pioneered by bygone blogs like Upworthy, and you won’t believe what happens next.
See what I did there? What I’m about to tell you is actually quite believable, but if YouTube Shorts is going to fill up with the most sensational, over-the-top videos imaginable, why not attach misleading sales pitches to otherwise unassuming content? One channel employing that strategy is Sai Sarkar, and YOU WON’T BELIEVE the results he’s getting. (OK, I’m done now.)
Sarkar has gone from obscurity up to 30th place in our Global Top 50. With 561 million weekly views, he increased his traffic (most of it on Shorts) by 74% week-over-week. You could argue that the Rubik’s Cube-built gift in Sarkar’s most-watched video is as unbelievable as the creator makes it out to be, even if it is a creative and thoughtful present. I wonder how many of the clip’s 99 million views resulted in disappointment about the gap between expected incredulity and reality.
Data via Gospel Stats
So creators are telling us we won’t believe what they’re about to post, even if we will. What ramifications does that have for YouTube culture as a whole?
One thought is that weightlifting could become the next big creator sport. Hear me out: It’s an activity whose competitors train their bodies to pull off athletic feats that are truly unbelievable. That makes it easy to advertise through formats like Shorts, and the inherent one-upsmanship could produce a lot of juicy drama in a theoretical creator weightlifting showdown.
If creator weightlifting ever becomes a thing, Fit Arshia will be the top-ranked competitor. The young Indian phenom is a rising force in the weightlifting world, and she posts some of her most impressive accomplishments for her 3.4 million subscribers to see.
These clips really are unbelievable, and their viewership reflects that description. Fit Arshia ranked 43rd in the Global Top 50 with 483.6 million weekly views, which was good for a 20% week-over-week increase.
As Arshia continues to consolidate her gains, she could see correlating traffic bumps on YouTube Shorts. If you want to produce your own unbelievable videos, which even the most jaded Shorts viewer won’t be able to resist, picking up some dumbbells may be the first step.
Channel Distribution
Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:
- India: 19
- United States: 12
- Hong Kong: 5
- Australia and Spain: 2
- Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Kazakhstan, Peru, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and Vietnam: 1
This week, 44 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.
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