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Why YouTube Looks Like '90s-Era MTV Right Now
A pattern has emerged on the YouTube Trending page over the last few months. Videos from Airrack, MrBeast, and the Sidemen take off almost immediately—and they’ve got one thing in common.
They all draw inspiration from popular reality shows that dominated cable TV in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
Airrack has said his “I Trapped 25 Strangers In a Box” and “100 Dates in 24 hours” videos emulate Big Brother and The Bachelor, complete with those franchises’ trademark alliances, confessional interviews, and interpersonal dynamics. MrBeast’s “Last To Leave $800,000 Island Keeps It” plays out like The Challenge, with obstacles and prizes. All his react videos take on the familiar format of Ridiculousness. And Sidemen’s “Tinder In Real Life” echoes the after-school favorite Next, with contestants choosing a date based almost entirely on appearances.
These videos compress a whole season of a TV show, with story lines, eliminations, and plot twists, into one fast-paced YouTube video less than an hour long.
And they all work. Every one of the videos above has more than 9 million views each and spent time on YouTube’s Trending page.
Why? Like the ’90s and 2000s trends that have reemerged in fashion, music, and even relationships (see: Travis Barker’s son Landon dating Charli D’Amelio), these videos take a familiar concept, put it in a new context, and make it feel fresh.
But these reality TV-inspired YouTube videos are more than just trend recycling. They keep true to core storytelling elements that earned their place in the media history book long before Carson Daly ever stepped foot onto the set of TRL, or the invention of TV for that matter.
These videos create new interpretations of classic archetypes. The underdog, the enemies-to-lovers, the villain we love to hate. Storytelling these humanly appealing patterns today looks different than it did three decades ago, but some things remain the same:
Characters who establish connection and give viewers someone to identify with or root for (or against). When fans see characters mirror real life, they’re compelled to keep watching. For instance, people are often contradictory, so contradictory characters are more interesting to watch. Airrack does this with a recurring character in his videos named Jack. In the first dating episode, Jack was sweet. In the box video, he was cut-throat. Jack keeps fans coming back.
Conflict that moves the story forward. Good, engaging storytelling requires some obstacle to overcome, something that threatens the plot. The overarching conflict of Survivor is that there are many contestants but only one can win the $1 million prize. And within each episode are mini conflicts—one contestant needs wood to make a fire but can’t find it. One contestant is on the chopping block for elimination but their alliance betrays them. Those same conflicts occur in today’s YouTube interpretation, albeit in truncated timelines of 60 seconds instead of 60 minutes.
Narrative that holds it all together both for the characters and the story they serve. As YouTube videos cram a season into one episode, they have to simplify. The Sidemen do this by focusing on just a few people throughout the entire video instead of letting everyone participating have time in the spotlight.
It’s often thought that creating for platforms like YouTube and TikTok requires new and ever-evolving ideas. But creators don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. Sometimes, getting inspiration from the past and putting your own spin on it for today’s audience can result in content that resonates.
Our Take
It should go without saying that reinventing tried and true stories doesn’t negate the value of original content. With everyone pulling from the same source material, things can get stale fast—look no further than rote Marvel movies. Original ideas will always have value, and changing up where you get inspiration helps you avoid falling into the pitfalls of overplayed storytelling.
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🤝 CREATOR SUPPORT
Publish Press readers share a problem they're facing and creators Colin & Samir respond with their advice.
Q: I'm a travel creator who started out posting photos from around the world on IG, then I transitioned to YouTube and started making travel content like vlogs and travel guides.
I only hit 2,000 subs, but then I uploaded a video about me building a tiny home and it absolutely took off and is at 3.5M views and gained me 60K subs.
Should I transition my channel to being about tiny homes/unique living? To be fair, I'm equally passionate about this and travel so I'd be happy either way. Maybe I could even combine the two subjects and do tours of unique living spaces/tiny homes from around the world that I find on my travels.
A: That’s so exciting you got a viral video, and 3.5 million views is great. Our biggest piece of advice: make sure that you really like creating that type of content.
MKBHD once told us that one of the worst things that can happen to a creator is a viral video too early. Because if you don’t like the subject and start creating content around it for the sake of virality, you’ve put yourself on a fasttrack to burnout.
That said, it’s important to experiment. If your dream is to become a career creator, then the impulse is likely toward that content that’s notching millions of views. But before you dive in, ask yourself if you would want to make this content if you got no visibility from it at all. If tiny homes aren’t the value that you’d want to provide on a consistent basis, maybe hold off. Whatever you invest your time in, whatever you spend most of your days on and most want to put out into the world, that’s most likely what will create the most opportunity for you in the long run.
In your case, it sounds like there’s a through-line with your travel content and tiny houses. You could continue to post travel content then make a tiny house series to capitalize on the growth, budget depending. It’s also worth exploring what part of your video resonated with others—was it about tiny houses? Or was it about you building something? Maybe explore those avenues for context.
Facing a creator problem you want help with? Share it here→
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