the question everyone asks and nobody likes the answer to
what does the algorithm want
i hear it every week. from clients, from friends, from strangers in my inbox who just posted their best work and watched it die at 200 views while someone lip syncing a three month old trend pulled six figures.
what does the algorithm want
and i get why they ask. the machine feels capricious. one day it loves you, the next day you're invisible. it's easier to imagine a set of rules you haven't learned yet than to face the thing that's actually true.
the algorithm has never been subtle about what it rewards. we just don't like the answer.
the only metric that ever mattered
every platform optimizes for the same thing: time spent. not likes, not shares, not comments ... those are just signals that time spent is happening. the real currency is attention that does not look away.
a viewer who watches your entire 40 second reel and then watches it again is worth more to the machine than a hundred people who scrolled past and double tapped without stopping.
the algorithm doesn't have taste. it doesn't care if your lighting is good or your script is clever. it cares about one question: did the person who saw this stay here, or did they leave
everything else is just math built around that question.
you already know who wins this game
think about the creators you actually watch. not the ones you follow out of obligation or the ones whose thumbnails you recognize ... the ones you stop for. the ones where if their video starts playing, you're not scrolling until it's done.
what do they have in common
it's not niche. it's not production value. it's not even talent in the traditional sense.
it's that they do something to your brain in the first three seconds that makes leaving feel like a loss.
maybe they said something so unexpected you need to know where it's going. maybe they're about to show you a result you can't reverse engineer in your head. maybe they just made you feel something and you want to feel it again.
the algorithm isn't looking for good content. it's looking for sticky content. content that grabs and holds. content that turns a swipe into a stay.
the hostage-taking framework
here's the uncomfortable reframe: your job is not to make content people like. your job is to make content people cannot leave.
this sounds manipulative. it kind of is. but it's also the only honest description of what works.
an opening line that creates an open loop the brain needs to close. a visual that raises a question answerable only by watching. a promise of payoff so specific and intriguing that scrolling past feels like abandoning something you already invested in.
you're not asking for attention. you're taking it, and then you're earning the right to keep it by delivering on what you implied.
the best creators do this so gracefully you don't notice the handcuffs. you just notice you're still watching.
stop asking the wrong question
"what does the algorithm want" is a question that outsources your power. it turns you into an employee of a machine that doesn't know your name. it makes you chase variables you can't control while ignoring the one you can.
the better question: what would make someone who just saw my face for the first time put their phone down and say "wait, what"
and then: did i deliver on that, or did i just trick them into arriving
the algorithm will change. it always does. next month they'll tweak the weighting on shares, the month after that they'll prioritize something else. but the thing that makes a human being stop scrolling and lean in ... that hasn't changed since the first campfire story.
make something that holds. make something that makes leaving feel expensive. the math will take care of itself.