What’s a Black Screen Video?
It’s a YouTube video of a long duration with no sound and only a black screen. WTH?
Q: Why?
A: $
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Who says that you need to show your face or even use your voice to make it to the top of the YouTube game?
In this video, we're going to take a look at the mysterious YouTube channel CandRFun that over the years has racked up over hundreds of millions of views by mainly uploading black screens on YouTube.
Oh, and because of my total coincidence, I happen to be the owner of the actual channel. I'll be giving away a shout out in the description of one of my viral live stream videos at the end of this video.
Welcome to the channel, the name's Noah, by the way. I'll be telling you guys the complete story of how I built the most viewed black screen channel on YouTube.
I'll go into the reason behind it, the history, and what you can learn from it. We'll have to start at the beginning, back to the first black screen.
It is the year of 2013, back when there were no signs of the pandemic at all, the year in which everyone was wondering what sound a fox made while Miley Cyrus was out here licking hammers, the year when about every teenager or adolescent became obsessed with Attack on Titan, the year before Minecraft was sold to Microsoft, Gangnam Style was still the most viewed video on YouTube, and Frank's main channel was disaster music. Close your eyes for just three seconds and enjoy this moment of nostalgia with me. [Music]
Alright, come back to reality. 2013 was the year where I decided to upload my first black screen video, an absolute relic, 10 hours and one second of pure black screen. I think back then, it was another guy from Japan who also uploaded a 10-hour black screen video, but I added one extra second to it to make it stand out more, which worked, I guess.
This is what brings us to the first important lesson that we can learn from my journey of becoming the number one black screen YouTube channel.
In life, it's not about who does things first, it's about who does them right. When there's a niche for something and it isn't oversaturated yet, there's definitely opportunity right there.
So, I made the video by going into my editing program, creating a text box, dragging it out of the frame, and stretching it out till 10 hours. LOL. So, you're actually watching a boy that misses to capture a text in the frame of a video, rather than a picture of a black screen.
You might wonder, why would somebody watch or use a 10-hour or even a 48-hour black screen video?
Well, you know, some people might want to play video games till after bedtime, but their parents have set up an unknown password to prevent that from happening. So basically, if you play a video on full screen mode and turn the brightness down, it doesn't go into sleep mode.
So, you're able to trick your parents into thinking it is off, while in fact, it isn't, and you can play Minecraft till 6 am. Wow, that's an oddly specific reason for using a black screen video. You'd almost think you went through that scenario yourself.
Yes, this is exactly the situation I went through, and this is my number one reason for uploading this. Here's some other reasons people potentially use the black screens for.
Check Backlight Bleeding
Use it as a Mirror
To Clean your screen
Use it as a timer
To take a screen shot of a black screen when you need one
Using the video overnight when you are downloading large files
Keep the computer from going into sleep mode
I actually got these from the comments, by the way, because this is my first video on YouTube. Absolutely zero percent of the people that watch this video are subscribed, so subscribe if that is a conscious decision you're willing to make at this very moment in time.
10 hours and one second of black screen became the most viewed black screen video on YouTube after a year or two.
And after about four years and several MLG videos later, I decided to upload different colored screens and more black screens, and more and more and more and more and more and more and more until I eventually uploaded one for every other day for a couple of months or so.
Playing around with different colored screens was obviously a no-brainer since the number one viewed black screen video was already on my channel. So, I mean, my vision was that over time, these videos would start to gain traction and slowly would form some sort of a snowball effect that would get in the algorithm on YouTube and would just never end, which is exactly what happened.
No one had ever done it before, so I thought I might as well try and be the black screen guy, which I became, which now generates me over 4 million views per month.
You can expect to make up to $6 per 1,000 views. This means that your estimated earnings would be $1,200 to $6,000 for every million views on the videos you post. Or in this case $4,800 to $24,000 A MONTH.
And over the years, the whole channel has kind of started living its own life, with these videos ending up on literally thousands of websites, hella people using them for memes, and one even went viral on TikTok. It says a day in the life of Helen Keller, and it's just 24 hours of pitch black.
Some websites or media articles have even credited me for using the color black as if I somehow invented darkness myself, which to me is absolutely hilarious. I never imagined it would come to all this, but here we are, documenting this about a decade after my first black screen video.
The most important lesson that we can learn from this whole black screen journey is one that I think a lot of people are struggling with.
I didn't overthink my black screens. I did not have a perfect plan from the beginning, but I took a first step, and I planned from there. I think the biggest problem that many people have that want to start anything is that they over contemplate taking that first step, which leads them to not take a step at all. If you take any action, you're miles ahead of any idea that has stayed in your head or didn't even make it onto paper at all.
This brings us to the end of the video. I really hope that this video served as a nice way to decorate your time. This is where I'll be giving away a free shout out in the description of one of my viral black screen videos, as promised. To participate, subscribe and leave a comment for a video idea down below. Yes, it can be related to my black screen channel. I'll use the best idea for a video, and I'll reach out to you for what I should put in the description.
I'll upload many more videos on here, talking about my experiences, how I make a living online, and I'm also planning to torture myself in the future by watching my 10-hour black screen video on a live stream. If you want to see more content of me talking to a camera, you can watch this video on my black screen channel, where I'm explaining why I started this channel, so you know the full story. See you next time, stay safe.
Make your own black screen: https://blackscreens.org/
So there we have a brilliant business idea that took no education, engineering, artificial intelligence, coding, specialty technical knowledge. Goofy yes, but awesomely innovative.
Pairs nicely with :
Thanks for reading!
I'm completely in the dark after reading this, Paul....📺
I do, however, love the message....just start. 💚
There was a musician who released a very long, completely empty of sound album. Serene.