Hello, and welcome to the 21 (!) new subscribers since last time, when we conducted a deep dive on what’s really driving Nikki Glaser’s TikTok growth.
As always, if you know someone who might enjoy these articles, feel free to forward this over.
To put my money where my mouth is, I figured I’d do a retrospective on a recent video I posted that performed well on my own social media pages – the triumphant Color War battle cry for the White Armada, a 2015 Color War team at Camp Pontiac.
If you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, I encourage you to take two minutes to watch the video below. It’s quickly racked up 1.5+ million views across my Instagram and TikTok in the last month, and is the subject matter of today’s column.
Quick Stats on TikTok (at time of writing):
651.2K Views, 70.6K Likes, 675 Comments, 6,132 Shares, 5,377 Saves
Like PCT: 10.8% | Comment PCT: 0.10% | Share PCT: 0.94% | Save PCT: 0.83%
Video Length: 2 min 39 seconds
Text Hook: THAT TIME I LED 500 JEWISH KIDS IN COLOR WAR SING AND IT HAD ZERO REASON GOING THIS HARD
Hashtags: #camppontiac #summercamp #murrayhill #jewish #nyclife #nyc #sleepawaycamp #jewishtiktok #longislandmom
And here is part one of the Instagram Reel iteration, which stops after 90 seconds:
Quick Stats on Instagram (at time of writing):
804K Views, 41.7K Likes, 228 Comments, 8,816 Shares, 5,200 Saves
Like PCT: 5.2% | Comment PCT: 0.03% | Share PCT: 1.1% | Save PCT: 0.6%
Video Length: 90 seconds
Text Hook: THAT TIME I LED 500 JEWISH KIDS IN COLOR WAR SING AND it1 HAD ZERO REASON GOING THIS HARD
Hashtags: #camppontiac #sleepawaycamp #summercamp #jewish #jewishmemes #murrayhill #jewishhumor #nyc #newyorkcity #newyorkers #nycmemes #peprally
Worth noting this is hardly the first time I’ve posted this song online before.
It’s lived on my personal Facebook and YouTube profiles since 2015.
I’ve also posted it on my own Instagram and TikTok in the past, although admittedly long before I was extremely intentional about every decision in a video’s framing.
For instance, here is a previous time I posted it on TikTok in 2021.
Note the differences:
Quick Stats on 2021 TikTok post (at time of writing):
17.9K Views, 602 Likes, 67 Comments, 136 Shares, 110 Saves
Like PCT: 3.4% | Comment PCT: 0.3% | Share PCT: 0.76% | Save PCT: 0.61%
Video Length: 2 min 59 seconds
Text Hook: this is a song i wrote in 2015 for my summer camp
Hashtags: #camppontiac #summercamp #colorwar #singing #acapella #music
What jumps out? It’s the same video, right?’
For me, it’s a few things.
The crop isn’t optimized for vertical (9:16)
The text hook isn’t nearly as eye-popping or gripping.
“this is a song i wrote in 2015 for my summer camp” vs.
“THAT TIME I LED 500 JEWISH KIDS IN COLOR WAR SING AND it HAD ZERO REASON GOING THIS HARD”
One is a description, the other makes a promise.
Low Like PCT – AKA, it got in front of the wrong people.
NOTHING HAPPENS IN THE FIRST SEVENTEEN SECONDS!!!
In the newer version, the backing track starts playing four seconds in.
Encouragingly, the initial video actually had decent Comment, Save, and Share PCT.
However, these were likely only Comments, Saves, and Shares from people who were in the building that night.
Just like I advise my comedian clients to consider that most people watching your videos don’t know who you are, nor what stand-up comedy is, I needed to do a better job of intriguing people who have never heard of sleepaway camp, nor Color War.
I needed to get sent in dozens of group chats filled with dozens of people I don’t know.
I centered on three key ways to increase total reach – hashtags, location tags, and a compelling hook.
Part of the hook, beyond punching up the copy with a promise, involved cutting to the chase ASAP. I also synced up a second camera angle below the 9:16 aspect ratio, so viewers could still gain a full scope of how many freaking campers there were.
It’s also a total blast to watch the little kids in the front row jumping up and down and super engaged with the song, which would have been lost with only the top video.
For the hashtags, I did some research on recent hits from two Jewish NYC-based creators who have a similar audience to me, Max Cohen and Chloe Hechter.
From these videos – as well as my own recent Murray Hill video that I wrote about in greater detail here – I borrowed the following hashtags:
These covered the location aspect as well (in general, Color War Sing is way more of an East Coast jewish summer camp tradition than it is at similar camps in the Midwest, what with the co-ed of it all).
I also intentionally incorporated the word “JEWISH” into the text hook.
Finally, after the song ends, I added a cheeky, “We lost :)” overlay.
This provoked outrage in the comments, and ends the video on another strongly elicited emotion – injustice.
It also incites you to rewatch it again, which overwhelmingly people did.
In fact, 50% of people who watched the full TikTok watched it again.
It’s funny.
In 2015, 17 year-old me was convinced this video going viral would change my life.
Surely Scooter Braun, or Nick Cannon, or some other career-altering music mogul would see this video and be so bowled over by the conductor’s lyricism, leadership, and energy, that they would offer me a blank check to write the next Tony Awards opening number, or contribute lyrics to the next Adam Sandler special, or something.
Now that it finally has made the rounds, it’s clear this moment was never really about me. It was about something much bigger—the shared experiences of anyone who has ever participated in Color War, or a particularly hype pep rally, or experienced a moment of what some commenters are calling “collective effervescence”.
People weren’t just watching the video, when they were watching this video.
They were sharing their own stories from drinking Shirley Temples in the canteen of Camp Whatever-The-Fuck back in 1980, reliving those memories in the comments.
And ultimately, that’s really the original purpose of social media, right?
It’s not about going viral, or getting your big break.
It’s about creating opportunities for connection.
It’s about the way one video can unlock memories, spark conversations, and bring hundreds of thousands of strangers together.
And if you’re lucky, you’ll get shared in the “Camp Lenox CITs 2012” group chat.
The reason “it” isn’t capitalized is because the robot voice was pronouncing it spelled out as “IT”, as in the IT department.
Don’t need to watch it. I lived it! Amazing.
Love this.