The Uncaring Valley
A New Way To Think About Making Social Video
In animation and robotics there’s a term bandied around called the Uncanny Valley. It’s a term that’s been around for over 40 years, coined from a translation of Masahiro Mori’s 1978 book Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction, written by Jasia Reichardt.
Here’s what it looks like:
This graph illustrates that we humans are more accepting and empathetic with robots and computer animations up until a point, after which we get creeped out because the humanoid starts looking less like a manufactured object and more like an actual human that isn’t quite right.
An oft-cited example of this is in the 2004 movie, The Polar Express.
Even searching for this gif killed my soul a little
The dead eyes, the lack of facial movement with a somewhat realistic face. That’s the uncanny valley.
Onwards took a less “realistic” approach.
Animators and roboticists have two ways to tackle this problem: reduce the character design to be more abstract and look cuter, more “cartoony,” and less like a real human face. They can also go boldly towards full-on hyper realism. Both can work, but it’s usually easier to dial down the realism and go for the cute approach, because if you miss on the hyper-realism you risk tanking the whole project.
Defining the Uncaring Valleys
There is something similar that helps describe why your videos aren’t getting shared organically. I’m calling it the Uncaring Valley. And instead of it being a single dip like the uncanny valley, there are two low spots.
The upper left corner is where completely unpolished, but compelling news events live. These are things like police misconduct, spontaneous global celebrations, and natural disasters. They aren’t edited, they may not be in the perfect position, but they are interesting and shareable because of the story they are showing and they are breaking news.
These videos can’t be particularly be planned and only have value to news organizations and social platforms.
As we proceed along the curve we enter the first downward slope into the Uncaring Valley, the Disorganized Gulch.
Disorganized Gulch is so named because of the messy execution. Very little thought goes into what you’re trying to accomplish, camerawork is lacking, audio is poor and there is no regimented release strategy. Disorganized Gulch is where most User Generated Content (UGC) lives because it’s not newsworthy, and not particularly shareable unless you know the people in the videos.
As production quality and organization of the video improves, you move away from Disorganized Gulch and into The Shareability Sweet Spot, and this is where you want your videos to live. Going back to the uncanny valley analogy, this is where your cute and cartoonish robots live, think Wall•E, or Buzz Lightyear. The best in class of this sort of video content is timely, efficient, and polished. Think of your favorite online video stars that produce a lot of content, but still have a strong connection to you and just overall kick butt. Their videos land firmly in this high ground.
Let’s look at the Washington Post’s TikTok channel as a large brand that is killing it by using a consistent release cadence and good enough production values. Dave Jorgenson helms the channel, and he is able to follow on trends quickly, post daily, and be irreverent without being blasphemous. It’s sort of amazing.
Videos slide off of this sweet spot when something gets out of balance. The usual suspect is lack of immediacy. When you have too many cooks in the kitchen, or too many layers of approval before a video is released, the immediacy starts to slow down. When there is no urgency, there’s less of a need to release the content now. And without the need to release right away, there’s the temptation to tinker and “fix.”
While I’m not suggesting you release a video riddled with errors, it’s better for you as a brand to treat content release akin to software releases — release content quickly and often. Be accurate and polished, but also respect your release schedule and refine your production pipeline to be faster moving forward.
Lorne Michael, producer of SNL, has famously said:
“The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.”
Nothing is ever really ready, or finished, it’s simply time to go into the world so you can more forward and try again. If you don’t have a self-imposed release schedule, you will not release anything because something else will always be more important or the situation will change and the content won’t be relevant.
Consistently releasing also allows you and your brand to more authentically trend hop because the pipeline to create and approve content quickly is already in your wheelhouse. Trend hopping is always tricky, but there’s nothing worse than jumping onto a trend when it’s already dead.
For those that can’t resist the urge to keep tinkering, they will inevitably slide into the second Uncaring Valley, the Soulless Ravine. This is where budgets escalate, connection with the audience weakens, and ultimately no one cares about what is produced.
Content that lives in the Soulless Ravine is fine. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s also nothing right.
Content that lives in the Soulless Ravine is fine. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s also nothing right. This is where paid media goes into, and may be somewhat effective, but also might be better served making a ton more videos in the sweet spot.
The Soulless Ravine is like a private box at a stadium, there’s a few people there in their fancy streetwear and high-end sneakers, but there isn’t a lot of joy to be seen, and fewer true fans. The Soulless Ravine is where there’s a lot of self-congratulation, and a lot of paid media support.
Where the Disorganized Gulch is lacking in organization and intention, the Soulless Ravine is choked off with both. It’s art by committee and is rarely embraced by a wider community.
The final peak transcends everything and is where most of us aspire to work at, but never fully achieve. It’s the nexus of art and commerce — Avengers Endgame, The Mandalorian, Christopher Nolan (the man and the body of filmmaking), or Game of Thrones. Approaching this nexus are commercials at their very best — i.e., the two Super Bowl commercials each year we all remember, and things like Apple product announcements.
Avengers Endgame cost $500M to make and advertise, it’s universally lauded as an artistic and commercial success and Marvel spent $2.75M per minute to make that movie.
Ms. Nygaard’s most recent video
Our favorite YouTuber is Safiya Nygaard, she shoots thoughtfully executed videos using a $500 camera, has great audio, fun concepts, and spends a lot of time with a small crew making them. On some of her higher-budgeted episodes she rents studios and buys every color of lipstick. So guesstimating that she spends $5k-10k per video in labor and materials, sometimes more and sometimes way less.
Her latest video is 38 minutes long and has 4.4M views in two weeks. If we say that this was closer to $10k in cost, her cost per minute is $263/minute or four orders of magnitude less than Endgame. Meaning for every single minute of Endgame, Saf could shoot over 10,000 minutes of content. She could put out a 38 minute video every day for 9 months for every single minute of Endgame. If she was given the whole Endgame, Ms. Nygaard could produce a single video that lasts 3.5 years.
So is Endgame overpriced? Is Safiya Nygaard underpaid? No and maybe? That’s besides the point.
Navigating the The Uncaring Valleys is a process and not a straight line. So much of creating any sort of content for online audiences is about consistency — releasing enough for the algorithms and the audiences to build with you. But you can’t just release consistently, you also need to learn from each and every release so that you’re improving and growing with your audience.
Spending money to rise from the Disorganized Gulch to the Social Sweet spot is very possible. Training costs money, better gear costs money, hiring helpers costs money. That investment also requires the time to grow and find your voice.
But at some point you hit diminishing returns. Spending $200–500/minute will (probably) pull you out of the Disorganized Gulch, but spending more than $500/minute on production doesn’t guarantee anything, and will probably doom your video to be beautiful, but unshared in the Soulless Ravine.
If you’re dreaming of a 6-figure video for your brand, consider a long term strategy and make 10 videos for that budget (or even 100 videos…) and have some money left over for buying media to boost awareness of your work ($200M+ of Endgame’s budget was for advertising).
Quantity is always superior to quality when it comes to creating for online audiences, and using the Uncaring Valleys model can help you and your organization navigate those tradeoffs.
How do you apply this?
Master the basics of video making
You need solid understanding of writing, audio, and camera operation.
Think in terms of campaigns and series, not single videos
Spending $60,000 on a single video is a much worse idea than making 40 $1,500 videos. Audiences build with consistency.
Optimize for speed and consistency over looks
Set a release schedule and stick to it. Whether that’s daily, weekly, or monthly. Do everything in your power to keep hitting that release schedule and work to be more efficient and responsive to audience feedback.
Use any extra dollars on marketing
Video for business shouldn’t be only organic views. See which videos your audiences organically respond to and then spend money promoting those. And use videos to find new customers and target them.
Kent Nichols is the founder of Agent Bee Agency, an agency dedicated to making social content that people love.
