tldr: name drop people and events in your content
One thing you have to realize is that people live in a world.
And they wanna keep doing that.
A world has many people, many organizations, many events happening around it.
And people, current events, gossips, etc. hook us.
Because they are our hold on to our own world and reality.
These things are interfaces of world onto which we latch.
People orient themselves through shared reality via names, events, gossip, conflict, reference points.
Thus, when you create content, how can it be ever successful if it is just you?
Or just your ideas and thoughts?
If it has no other elements of world?
How can it ever work if it is not ‘world’ like?
People don’t just consume content, they consume worlds.
When you make videos, you have to represent the person who is watching.
You have to represent yourself.
And to amplify the effect of immersion, you have to bring in elements from the world.
You have to name drop people.
You have to name drop current events.
You have to mention things like controversies because they grab us by our neck and make us pay attention.
We will call them world hooks
Whatever makes you pay attention to the world, it should be present in your videos so that they get attention.
Because with content, with story, we are essentially in the business of world making.
We are a characters in stories, and a character needs a world to reside in.
A character without a world?
That’s a story I have no interest in exploring.
To simplify this, what I’m basically saying is talk about other people.
Talk about other events.
Talk about human affairs.
And talk about things that grab people’s attention in real life.
Even in a short reel, you’re supposed to name few people, have discussions or humour about them, maybe also discussions about some event that is grabbing everyone’s attention in real world.
And the effect is even better when you connect two real world things.
And you have to prove it early on at the content’s beginning that, hey, there’s a lot of world waiting to be explored in this content.
Name drop it right in the beginning.
Add text that suggests that this is the topic being discussed.
Use imagery that directly shows that this video is connected to something.
When you name a person, an event, a controversy, you anchor the content into shared reality.
You can think of it like this:
Representation: the viewer should see a version of themselves, or their concerns, in the story.
World elements: recognizable people, events, or situations that act as gravitational points.
Connection: unexpected synthesis between two or more of these points
When you tell someone something, it goes inside their head and it becomes a part of their world.
They build mental models with it.
Its a very precious thing that you are giving to them and they seek people who give them this.
So when they’re watching you, if you give them rich load of world.
They will stick around more.
And this is how you can shape someone’s worldview, because they don’t have access to all the information in the world.
You give them pieces of world
And if you are a big contributor to that, you shape the type of world they see
Because you might discuss XYZ and leave ABC and that can have a huge impact on their perspective.
Your choice of inclusion of certain worldly hooks will determine if your world will be immersive enough and what kind of world it will be.
So have a bit of grip on the type of world you are trying to build for your audience.
Because that will help you to choose what kind of world elements and connections you want to explore in your content.
Got a bit dense at the end, but that’s how deep this whole thing is.
Now you understand why “Thought pieces,” personal vlogs, purely aesthetic montages tend to underperform unless the creator is the world (e.g., a celebrity or cult figure).
They just lack worldly hooks.
It exists in a vacuum.
No characters, no stakes, no anchors to the shared reality people already care about.
It fails in creating social proof (“Oh, this person exists in MY world too, so lets tag along”)
So if you have some opinion to share about, you can say:
Hey you are doing (activity) and it is having this impact on you. And these people might hate this recommendation but I suggest you should be doing (solution/opinion) and this is (social proof). And even this (well known guy) did it.
This leads to a really good setup
If they’re not watching the video because of you, then they might because you’re talking about them.
If not for them, they might watch it because you’re talking about an activity they are interested in.
If not that, they might stay because you are talking about some opposition and controversy that might be there.
If not that opposition, then damn, they might watch because you included some well known guy
One way or another. You have so many damn hooks poking at them that they are going to get hooked.
Each hook is a separate dice roll:
- 20% might stay for the celebrity mention
- 30% might stay because they do that activity
- 15% might stay because “these people hate this” triggers FOMO/curiosity
- 10% might stay for the controversy
- 5% might stay for the weird synthesis
It’s about maximizing surface area for attention to stick to
Every name, controversy, “you do this”, unexpected connection = additional surface area.
Smooth surfaces (pure thought pieces) have nothing to grab onto while Textured surfaces (world-dense content) are hard to slide past.
So if you have some thought or idea, it will be just a smooth ball.
Now if you wrap it around with worldly hooks, it will be something that people will pay attention to.
You have to constantly make efforts to make sure your content is not a sole echo chamber.
tl;dr of tl;dr:
People are here for the world in the content and not the content itself.
If your content doesn’t have:
- Multiple named entities
- Real-world events/controversies
- Unexpected connections between them
then you’re not offering a world. You’re offering a void.
And people don’t want to live in a void.
Think of attention like elixir in Clash Royale.
You don’t waste a 4-elixir fireball on one troop
You wait till there’s a cluster
A few troops packed tight in same spot.
Then it’s worth spending because you get real value.
Your content works the same way.
If it only has one lonely idea, no one spends attention there.
Pack it with world hooks like names, events, tension and suddenly it’s a juicy fireball.
