Drag Illustrated Issue 141, February 2019 | Page 67
GARRETT MITCHELL
No matter what happens, at the end of the day,
if one of my viewers sits down after a long day
of work and wants to watch a Cleetus video, I’ve
got to be there and be doing something fun and
having a good time. Positivity and good vibes
are at the core of our channel for sure. We try to
never have a bad time.
What other aspects do you have to consider
when putting out content as frequently as you do?
There’s so many aspects of it. We have to work
really hard to make good content and you can tell
if something is good or not. It’s so transparent
when content was worked for. There’s a lot of You-
Tube channels – and I used to do it, too – where
you think of the easiest possible video I could
make at this time. Some of those did get good
views, but people wouldn’t stick around for the
next video. But I found the more work I put into
them, making every video that much better, it’s a
key ingredient into actually growing. You know,
sometimes you can get lucky and get someone in
the door with a good title and a good thumbnail,
but if you don’t have what they’re looking for on
the other side of that door, they’re never going to
February 2019
come through it again. That’s been an important
thing for me to remember.
When it comes down to it, what constitutes
something being a good video in your mind?
For me, we’re very real-time, so there’s not an
exact formula to my videos. We’re not thinking
like, “Intro, Climax, Outro.” It’s not on that level
because it’s so real-time and so day-to-day. Some
videos are like a movie, but a good daily video is
welcoming everyone to the channel, setting the
video off with a good tone, going to do something
fun and interesting and have it pay off, whether
it’s something funny or something that makes
the car faster. And then we’ll outro the video
and that’s a good daily video. My favorite videos,
though, would be a series, like when we made the
7-second pass with Leroy. It took me almost a year
to get there. So there’s probably 50-60 videos of
us trying, breaking stuff, fixing things, figuring
out how to not do that again and repeat a mistake
and then trying to better ourselves to reach our
goal. And then when we did make that 7-second
run, it was basically like a 48-minute video and
it was pretty incredible. That’s like a movie and it
really paid off. There’s not a perfect formula, but
it’s a matter of putting everything out there, no
matter if it’s your best day or your worst day so
our viewers can be right there with us.
You mentioned the 50-60 videos entailing
your journey with Leroy and how people just
latched onto that whole journey. It was pretty
remarkable to watch and each part of the journey
seemed relatable, like someone could take this
path alongside of you in their own car. Why do
you think people have felt so close to this?
A lot of people have asked me when they’re
trying to start a channel, “You know, what car
should I buy,” or something like that, and obvi-
ously a good project car is good for a channel.
But, man, it’s always about the stories. Say to-
morrow I went and bought a new McLaren or
Ferrari or something crazy and tried to force it
on the channel. People would say “cool” at first
but that eventually wears off over time. A month
ago, I bought this Corvette at the auction and it
had a freaking truck motor in it that someone
swapped in it and took it to the auction. Stupid
me, I bought it online and never got to see it,
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