Transcription
I've generated over three billion views for the most boring brands you could think of. Brands that sell instant ramen, software tools, and cell phone plans. And after doing this for years across dozens of clients, I've come to realize that making viral content has nothing to do with the content itself. It has everything to do with how human brains work. Every scroll, every share, every follow is driven by psychological triggers happening in people's brains within the first half-second of seeing your content. And once you understand those triggers, you can make almost anything go viral, even if it's something as simple as instant noodles.
So, in this video, I'm going to walk you through the six psychological principles I have used to generate three billion views. And it all starts with why familiarity beats originality every single time.
First, number one, your brain decides before you do. You see, people do not choose what to watch. Their brains choose it for them. And it happens in under a second. When you're scrolling, your brain is running a rapid filter. It's asking three questions before you're even conscious of it. First, have I seen something like this before and enjoyed it? Second, is there something unexpected happening right now? And third, does this have anything to do with me or my life? If the answer to all three is no, you scroll. Because your brain doesn't register the content as something you might be interested in.
This is why original content fails so often. When your brain encounters a format that it has never seen before, it does not get excited. It gets confused. And confusion is the fastest path to a scroll. But when you use a format that your brain already recognizes, like a reaction video, a challenge, or a walk-up-to-a-stranger setup, the brain goes, "I know what this is. I've liked this before. Let me watch it." There's actually a name for this. It's called the mere-exposure effect. The more you see something, the more your brain starts to like it. This is the backbone of what I call the format steal. You never invent content. You find a format that's already pulling millions of views and you put your brand inside that structure.
When I started working with Buldak, the Korean instant ramen brand, they had about 300,000 followers, but they were stuck. The content wasn't going viral anymore. The follower count just came to a complete halt. So what we did was simply pivot the content style from manufacturing an ingredient to things that were actually going viral. We found formats in the food space like spicy challenges and reaction videos, and we plugged Buldak right into them. The account grew to 1.8 million followers on TikTok and over 900 million views in 12 months. Nothing about the product changed. The format that we stole did all the heavy lifting.
But creating familiar content is just one piece of the puzzle. What is even more important is laying the curiosity trap, because that is truly what hooks the viewer.
Second, the curiosity trap. I've analyzed hundreds of brands, and the one thing they do wrong is that they always lead with the product in their hook. Every single time they do that, your brain immediately categorizes it as an ad, and you scroll away before a single thought even forms. But there's a loophole called the curiosity trap. When your brain senses a gap between what it currently knows and what it wants to know. That gap creates discomfort, almost like a mental itch. Your brain will not let you scroll away until that gap gets filled. That is why the best hooks are never about the product. They are triggering curiosity, disbelief, or identity recognition.
When I made my first video for Stan, an all-in-one creator platform, I did not open with the software. I found a format that was already blowing up. The same video everyone already sees: "How much do you pay for rent?" We did an office tour. We used the CEO's stories as a location. That first video got a million views on TikTok and over 5 million views on LinkedIn. Over the next few months, we generated 20 million views for his personal brand. Using the same approach, the hook was about something the viewer was already curious about. The product showed up naturally once they were already watching. Open the curiosity gap in your first two seconds, and the viewer is neurologically committed to finishing. Close that gap too early, and they leave. That is the balance, and maintaining this balance is the key to virality, because our brains are not motivated by product. They're motivated by identity, state, and emotional outcome. In other words, a good story.
But what's even more important than the curiosity gap is to never start your content with what you sell. I know this sounds weird, but just hear me out.
Third, people don't buy the product, they buy identities. There's a concept called means-end chain theory, and it changed how I think about content. Every product has three layers. First, the product attributes, which is what it is. Second, functional consequences, which is what it does. Third, and the psychological values, which is what it means to the person's identity and emotional life. Most brands only talk about the first layer, but your brain does not care about the first layer. It cares about the third one.
Take a supplement brand, for example, AG1. If you're making content about the supplement itself, you're stuck in layer one. But if you keep asking, "Why does someone actually care about this?" That's when you land on something real. Supplement leads to a healthier body, which leads to better energy and mood, which leads to "I feel in control of my body and my life." And suddenly you find yourself making content about sleep, stress, discipline, wellness. That is what the viewer actually cares about. And it bypasses the part where the brain flags the content as an ad. When your content speaks to identity and not features, the viewer does not feel sold to. They feel understood.
But here's the thing. You only have two seconds to make the viewer feel that way. And that is why the credential in your hooks changes everything.
The shortcut your brain cannot resist. I want to be straight up with you. Social media is shallow. And I don't mean that as an insult. I mean this as a biological fact. Your brain does not have time to evaluate every single piece of content deeply. So it takes shortcuts. And the biggest shortcut it takes is authority. When you see a credential in the first two seconds of a video, something like "Thai chef," or "Harvard student," or "a 25-year-old software engineer who sold his company," your brain does not think critically about whether this person is credible. It just accepts the credential as a cognitive shortcut. The brain goes, "This person is successful, or they have status. So this is worth watching." We are hardwired to pay attention to people we look up to and aspire to be like. A credential in your hook activates that reflex before the viewer even realizes it. That is not manipulation. That is how the media has always worked. You are just being intentional about it.
I saw this firsthand in one of the first accounts I ever grew, which is a red Japanese restaurant. I was making beautiful, cinematic videos for them. Gorgeous shots, nice music, Food Network quality, and they were getting maybe like 200, 300 views. Then I found a format that was already going viral, which is people walking up to a chef with something and asking them, "Hey chef, can you make me something gourmet?" The chef being in a chef's outfit in a professional kitchen became the credential. The first video we made got like 1.8 million views. The second video, 2 million views. They gained 300,000 followers in 3 months. Same food, same restaurant. The only thing that changed is that we gave the viewer a reason to trust us within the first two seconds.
But honestly, that's just half the battle. Getting the viewer to share the content is an entirely different game. People don't share what they like, they share what makes them look good. One of the biggest lessons I learned after generating 3 billion views is the fact that the content that gets the most shared is really the content that people personally enjoy the most. People share what makes them look smart, funny, or knowledgeable to their friends. So, when you're designing a piece of content, the question is not, "Will they like this?" The question is, "Will sharing this make them look good?" You're not trying to impress the viewer. You're trying to impress the viewer's friends. Basically, think of yourself as a wingman. Your job is to make the person who shares your videos look like they have great taste, or like they discovered something cool before everyone else. That means your hook needs to be explainable in one sentence. If someone cannot describe your video quickly to their friend, they will not share it. And the emotions that drive sharing are specific. Humor, surprise, and they all trigger the urge to pass something along. Sadness and anger can get views, but they do not spread the same way. Every time I'm creating a piece of content now, I ask myself, "What does the person who shares this get to say about themselves by sharing it?"
And this brings me to the last principle, which ties everything I've shared with you together.
Number six, hijack the viewer's brain with stories. When people are inside a story, they stop arguing with what they're hearing. Their critical thinking slows down, and their emotional process takes over. This is the most powerful state your viewer can be in when your brand appears. Every video I produce follows the same skeleton: hook, then the problem, then the story, then the payoff. That structure works because it mirrors how the brain naturally processes information. It creates full-brain engagement rather than the analytical processing that makes people skeptical.
And this extends to editing too. If a frame is not delivering new information, it gets cut. Every millisecond matters because the brain is hardwired to tune out anything that stops giving it something new. And every cut resets that clock. And the captions are not optional. When you process both visual and audio information simultaneously, it activates multiple neural pathways at once. That dual processing keeps the brain locked in and boosts retention. I pulled up the timeline of the Buldak video that got 2.2 million views. Every clip was barely a few seconds. Every video delivered new information with zero dead space. That is what it takes.
So, these are the six things I learned over the past few years. Whenever you're creating content, the product is almost irrelevant. What matters is whether you understand the person that's watching. Buldak did not hit 900 million views because instant ramen is exciting, and that Japanese restaurant did not gain 300,000 followers because of the food got better. And we did not hit 20 million views for Stan because the software changed. Every one of those results happened because we understood how people think, what catches their attention, and what makes them share. The product just happened to be there.
The brands that stop treating social media as a billboard and just shove product into people's faces, and actually create content that delivers value to people, putting people first, are the brands that win. Because they care, because they understand people. And if you understand people, you can make anything go viral.
I hope this video helped. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.