The Art of Original Content Creation: A Lesson from YouTube's Top Creators

When it comes to creating engaging and informative content on YouTube, many creators find themselves emulating the styles of their favorite channels. From modeling videos to tutorials, there's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from others. However, there's a fine line between paying homage and copying someone else's work. In this article, we'll explore the importance of originality in content creation, using examples from popular YouTube creators.

One of the biggest pitfalls of imitation is plagiarism. When a creator copies someone else's style, including their titles, thumbnails, and even the way they present their ideas, it can come across as unoriginal and even dishonest. FireShip, for instance, has a signature style that many creators aspire to emulate. However, when a channel copies this style too closely, it can lead to accusations of plagiarism. As one creator noted, "people will start making similar thumbnails or titles, and then all these channels started popping up and making builds...it was something we started in April 2020, and then all these channels started popping up."

This phenomenon is not unique to FireShip or YouTube creators. In fact, it's a common issue in the digital content creation space. When people see what works for someone else, they often try to replicate it without adding their own unique twist. However, this can lead to a homogenization of ideas and styles, making it difficult for individual channels to stand out from the crowd. As one creator put it, "I hate that this apology sounds like it has a butt...it really doesn't...i'm just trying to provide some context." The problem is not with the idea itself, but with the way it's presented.

So, what sets original content apart from imitation? According to our creators, the key is to add your own unique spin to an idea. Instead of copying someone else's style exactly, try to infuse your own personality and perspective into your work. This might mean experimenting with different formats, such as voiceover with animation, or adding your own animations on top of a tutorial. As one creator noted, "our content...we're planning to make a ton of tutorials just like we always have been." By focusing on the substance of their content rather than its style, they were able to create something unique and engaging.

Of course, this doesn't mean that imitation is never okay. In fact, drawing inspiration from others can be a great way to learn and improve as a creator. The problem arises when creators start to copy someone else's work too closely, without adding their own unique spin. As one creator noted, "I think it's not cool when you know somebody's coming up with the whole series and the whole idea and then another creator just kind of...models it to a point where essentially it just looks like copying." By acknowledging the importance of originality in content creation, we can create something truly unique and engaging that sets us apart from others.

In recent months, our channel has experienced some significant changes. From our million-subscriber milestone to personal struggles and triumphs, there's been a lot going on behind the scenes. As one creator noted, "sometimes this YouTube and algorithms and all of this stuff can get to you...and kind of kill your happiness for why you started." However, we're committed to improving every day, whether it's through new content or personal growth. As our creators put it, "we still love you...we're still gonna keep showing up...we'll keep showing out."

Ultimately, the art of original content creation is all about finding your unique voice and style. By drawing inspiration from others while adding your own twist, you can create something truly engaging and informative that sets you apart from the crowd. So, don't be afraid to try new things, experiment with different formats, and push yourself outside of your comfort zone. With practice and dedication, you'll develop your own unique style and become a force to be reckoned with in the world of content creation.

As our creators conclude, "i love your beautiful face...this is qazi...and as always i'll see you in the next video." In closing, we want to thank our community for their support and enthusiasm. We're committed to continuing to create high-quality content that inspires and educates. Stay tuned for upcoming tutorials, builds, and more!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso we recently dropped this video and it was called tailwind css in 100 seconds you know that was exactly modeled to be like fire ships but you know like a lot of people noted and we got a lot a lot of comments from people on youtube that it just was not acceptable what's up guys how's it going quasi here from clever programmer this is a different type of video i don't usually do videos like this but there are a couple of things that i believe need to be addressed so that's what this video is for so we recently dropped this video and it was called tailwind css in 100 seconds a few days later fireship dropped his version which was tailwind css in 100 seconds this whole series is fireship's like way of doing videos he has a whole series called in 100 seconds and so we dropped one you know that was exactly modeled to be like fire ships you know we were inspired by the idea the title the thumbnail and then we made our own original content in that video but the parts that are really up and we really messed up on is we use pretty much the exact type of thumbnail that fireship uses in his videos and then we use the same exact title and you know we said in the description this video is inspired by farship but you know like a lot of people noted and we got a lot a lot of comments from people on youtube that it just was not acceptable you know traversing media commented and he was like this is sad we had other youtubers comment and they were not happy with it and of course fireship commented and said you know uh this was a very clever idea shaking my head most of these people you know especially traversing media and fireship are youtubers that me and my team look up to you know we're inspired by their content i think everybody in the community knows about them you know these are people that i have always you know looked up to in the community you know in the start of my journey they've inspired me to actually start and to you know learn coding and then to teach coding and i often find myself pointing people towards these channels hey go watch content on these platforms they have really good content out there and so you know it's not fun to read comments where they're upset with you you know i'm not gonna lie that that hurts and it's upsetting and you know rightfully so because it's a big mistake on our end our intention wasn't to make anybody upset or to piss anybody off i think even if the content is original i think it's unacceptable to kind of do that with a thumbnail that's really messed up on our part i think it's lazy on our part you know even if we're inspired we can come up with a different type of title we can come up with different type of thumbnail and i think that's 1 000 our fault there's no excuse for it for you know we've been doing youtube for a really long time and if i upset you or you know our team upset you like we really apologize about that and we don't want to lose your trust that's not our goal we don't take that for granted we take your trust very seriously i think that we were just not careful and thoughtful enough of this and so we kind of got what we deserve 100 our fault on that you know moving forward none of the thumbnails will be like that and none of the titles will be like that the other thing that i want to actually say is that i think why that's messed up i read somebody said in our comments and they said hey i thought it was like fire ships video that i was clicking and so the other thing would like modeling the thumbnail to be exactly the same as fire ships why that's so wrong is fire ships audiences uh essentially is getting click-baited into clicking our video because they're thinking it's fire ships video and then they're being hit with our video and so you know it's wrong on many many different levels and so that's why we decided to do is just like change the title on that video change the thumbnail on that video so fireship's audience is not confused with this stuff now i want to move on to the contextual portion of this the overall context of what happened why this happened in the first place and just give you more context around it while we were working on this video i know like nas was working on this video we had a bunch of people on from our team working on this video and they got together and they're like they're actually inspired by fireship you know and they were like um you know i remember noz would be coming up to me and he's like hey fireship has this great type of content i think we should have some content uh this style too where there's either somebody speaking and then there's animation over these videos are a little bit easier to make they don't take as long and they're valuable for people and so then he was like okay i'm gonna start working on this david started learning like animations and how to actually animate and things like that and so then we started adding that in post-production you know farship has live streams and videos like this online where farship is teaching you you know how he has his editing style or how he comes up with his videos so nasa's like this is great because we ourselves like nasa and i have watched a ton of fireship content we love it and so we're like okay this is amazing that he has content on how you can actually do this and how you can actually make videos like this so we're like this is so cool so now i was like okay i'm gonna pick a video i'm gonna pick a title that he hasn't done so we're not copying we're modeling something that hasn't been done so he picked he's like i think i'm gonna do tailwind because like fireship hasn't covered that and i'm gonna do it in a similar style you know then we made that video of course we edited it took a while and then once we were done editing it making sure the voiceover was on point and the animations were on point you know we decided to publish it and i didn't really think much of it to be honest like i just it wasn't a huge thing because we had just gotten done with running a javascript tour where we had 100 people in person in los angeles and then after that we had an event august 26 through 29th where we were doing a react intensive where we had people in person it was a react workshop so my focus was you know a lot of our team's focus was on that so we published the video we didn't take too much time to think about this as we're coming to the event on one of the first days we see all the comments roll in and you know fire ship had dropped his comment and he was upset and traversing media's comment and he was upset and then a few days later this is also completely not known to us that fireship was going to be dropping tailwind a couple of days later i had no idea you know fire ship dropped his tail with css which was a much better version than ours because we modeled from him so his version is like way better we're like holy this is sick and then that's what everybody in his comments is saying too they're like you can't out fire ship fire ship this is amazing content he's the original gangster and all of this is true we're learning from him it was crazy just so many people so many upvotes on these comments and we had no idea that this was gonna kind of get out of proportion and i saw this and i was like taking it back i was like this is a really big deal like we should actually do something about this so we saw this happen caught us by surprise but you know then when i was talking with nas i'm like we you know we were all talking about it and we decided that if we were to ever do this like we should even in the video reference that this idea is you know not just in the description say oh this idea was inspired by friendship but like in the video itself reference it and not use the same thumbnail not use the similar style of thumbnail like fireship and not use the same title can be different titles so i think a lot of those things they you know honestly there they can be really frustrating and upsetting for a creator because i've been creating on youtube for five years now and if that happens or when that happens that does go on to irk people and it really upsets people with that said you know there are a couple of other things i want to say i think that you know based on all this i don't think any differently of traversing media or fireship or any of the other content creators that you know said whatever they did on our platform because i think they're right in saying that and also when everything is online you don't know the other person you don't know the actual intent of the other person so for me i have no hard feelings about any of them just because we don't know each other in real life you know that's very very different when you know people in real life and not just online because when there's miscommunication and things are done online there's a lot of miscommunication that develops and the feelings of animosity are way way way stronger and way more amplified you know for example if in your relationship with your partner or with a friend when you communicate over text oftentimes fights and things get bigger versus when you meet in person it just dissolves you know i just extend my sincerest apologies if it upset anybody you know fire ship not gonna happen again dude i'm sorry this was not our goal you know with that said i do want to like talk about certain things right so when it comes to youtube when it comes to creating content there are a lot of channels that will model other platforms or other styles of videos as long as they don't plagiarize right and make their own original content so in our video we have completely original content that's not taken from anywhere we made the content ourselves and the research is our own research and you'll see this happen very very often right if you for example you've probably come across videos like i paid somebody on fiverr to make this or that you know peter mckinnon is doing it they're all these top youtubers doing it now people in the developer community are doing it so whenever there's a certain type of idea people will model it people will create those types of videos i've created a video before inspired by fire ship and you know everybody loved it we didn't use the same title or thumbnail or anything like that but that video is called my advice to new programmers number one focus on the fundamentals so many developers i see always trying to learn the hottest technology the newest framework the coolest thing that is happening around them stop and it was way easier to make it was way easier to edit i just edited literally on my iphone and it's just how fireship has his type of thing where it's like voiceover with animation you know i added all the animation i added my own voiceover and people really enjoyed it so modeling content is there will be like we'll drop a video like top five programming languages and there are a ton of other creators that will also drop similar videos and i'm not saying we're original in creating top five programming languages when you make a thumbnail or whatever people will start to make similar types of thumbnails even right and this is something that is normal um you'll start seeing videos like if i started coding how would i start all over again somebody will make it they'll do well and then a lot of people will start making that but just sharing it from their own experience from their own perspective i hate that this apology sounds like it has a butt it really doesn't i'm just trying to provide some context i think the thing that's upsetting is that there's a signature style of videos that fireship has there's a signature style of titles and thumbnails and i think those should never ever be copied because i think that's where the real problem comes in and i think that really upsets people but i think in terms of in the future our content we're planning to make a ton of tutorials just like we always have been we started doing the clones on our channel and then tons of people started doing that there's tons of channels out there that literally will have let's build a clone in blah blah blah blah and that was something we started april of 2020 and then all these channels started popping up and making builds you know going back to this our upcoming content is gonna be a lot more tutorial based and then if we drop videos like this we're not gonna title them the same we're not gonna thumbnail them the same way i think that's not okay but i think in terms of content i think that it's okay to make content with voiceover and then adding animations on top of it i just think that it's not cool when you know somebody's coming up with the whole series and the whole idea and then another creator just kind of you know models it to a point where essentially it just looks like copying so again not our intent it's messed up and we will improve we will make it better this won't happen again there you guys have it there's a lot going on on this channel you know on a more positive note there's a lot of amazing things that are happening we're gonna be making a ton of tutorials we just hit a million subscribers so thank you guys so much i'm gonna be dropping a lot more content or i'm gonna be dropping a video addressing that as well so thank you guys so much you know there's a lot that's been going on in my personal life and you know i hope to get you guys caught up on some of that stuff as well but i am doing a lot better now and much happier right now and so that puts me in a much better mental space to come and create more content because sometimes this youtube and algorithms and all of this stuff can get to you and kind of kill your happiness for why you started a lot of these things in the first place that's what i'm looking forward to for all of you that love this channel i love you if you hate this channel or you've been upset by recently i still love you we're still gonna keep showing up we're young we make mistakes we're dumb we keep improving every single day we make a commitment to ourselves and to you guys to improve every single day and we'll keep showing up and we'll keep showing out that's it i love your beautiful face this is qazi and as always i'll see you in the next video youso we recently dropped this video and it was called tailwind css in 100 seconds you know that was exactly modeled to be like fire ships but you know like a lot of people noted and we got a lot a lot of comments from people on youtube that it just was not acceptable what's up guys how's it going quasi here from clever programmer this is a different type of video i don't usually do videos like this but there are a couple of things that i believe need to be addressed so that's what this video is for so we recently dropped this video and it was called tailwind css in 100 seconds a few days later fireship dropped his version which was tailwind css in 100 seconds this whole series is fireship's like way of doing videos he has a whole series called in 100 seconds and so we dropped one you know that was exactly modeled to be like fire ships you know we were inspired by the idea the title the thumbnail and then we made our own original content in that video but the parts that are really up and we really messed up on is we use pretty much the exact type of thumbnail that fireship uses in his videos and then we use the same exact title and you know we said in the description this video is inspired by farship but you know like a lot of people noted and we got a lot a lot of comments from people on youtube that it just was not acceptable you know traversing media commented and he was like this is sad we had other youtubers comment and they were not happy with it and of course fireship commented and said you know uh this was a very clever idea shaking my head most of these people you know especially traversing media and fireship are youtubers that me and my team look up to you know we're inspired by their content i think everybody in the community knows about them you know these are people that i have always you know looked up to in the community you know in the start of my journey they've inspired me to actually start and to you know learn coding and then to teach coding and i often find myself pointing people towards these channels hey go watch content on these platforms they have really good content out there and so you know it's not fun to read comments where they're upset with you you know i'm not gonna lie that that hurts and it's upsetting and you know rightfully so because it's a big mistake on our end our intention wasn't to make anybody upset or to piss anybody off i think even if the content is original i think it's unacceptable to kind of do that with a thumbnail that's really messed up on our part i think it's lazy on our part you know even if we're inspired we can come up with a different type of title we can come up with different type of thumbnail and i think that's 1 000 our fault there's no excuse for it for you know we've been doing youtube for a really long time and if i upset you or you know our team upset you like we really apologize about that and we don't want to lose your trust that's not our goal we don't take that for granted we take your trust very seriously i think that we were just not careful and thoughtful enough of this and so we kind of got what we deserve 100 our fault on that you know moving forward none of the thumbnails will be like that and none of the titles will be like that the other thing that i want to actually say is that i think why that's messed up i read somebody said in our comments and they said hey i thought it was like fire ships video that i was clicking and so the other thing would like modeling the thumbnail to be exactly the same as fire ships why that's so wrong is fire ships audiences uh essentially is getting click-baited into clicking our video because they're thinking it's fire ships video and then they're being hit with our video and so you know it's wrong on many many different levels and so that's why we decided to do is just like change the title on that video change the thumbnail on that video so fireship's audience is not confused with this stuff now i want to move on to the contextual portion of this the overall context of what happened why this happened in the first place and just give you more context around it while we were working on this video i know like nas was working on this video we had a bunch of people on from our team working on this video and they got together and they're like they're actually inspired by fireship you know and they were like um you know i remember noz would be coming up to me and he's like hey fireship has this great type of content i think we should have some content uh this style too where there's either somebody speaking and then there's animation over these videos are a little bit easier to make they don't take as long and they're valuable for people and so then he was like okay i'm gonna start working on this david started learning like animations and how to actually animate and things like that and so then we started adding that in post-production you know farship has live streams and videos like this online where farship is teaching you you know how he has his editing style or how he comes up with his videos so nasa's like this is great because we ourselves like nasa and i have watched a ton of fireship content we love it and so we're like okay this is amazing that he has content on how you can actually do this and how you can actually make videos like this so we're like this is so cool so now i was like okay i'm gonna pick a video i'm gonna pick a title that he hasn't done so we're not copying we're modeling something that hasn't been done so he picked he's like i think i'm gonna do tailwind because like fireship hasn't covered that and i'm gonna do it in a similar style you know then we made that video of course we edited it took a while and then once we were done editing it making sure the voiceover was on point and the animations were on point you know we decided to publish it and i didn't really think much of it to be honest like i just it wasn't a huge thing because we had just gotten done with running a javascript tour where we had 100 people in person in los angeles and then after that we had an event august 26 through 29th where we were doing a react intensive where we had people in person it was a react workshop so my focus was you know a lot of our team's focus was on that so we published the video we didn't take too much time to think about this as we're coming to the event on one of the first days we see all the comments roll in and you know fire ship had dropped his comment and he was upset and traversing media's comment and he was upset and then a few days later this is also completely not known to us that fireship was going to be dropping tailwind a couple of days later i had no idea you know fire ship dropped his tail with css which was a much better version than ours because we modeled from him so his version is like way better we're like holy this is sick and then that's what everybody in his comments is saying too they're like you can't out fire ship fire ship this is amazing content he's the original gangster and all of this is true we're learning from him it was crazy just so many people so many upvotes on these comments and we had no idea that this was gonna kind of get out of proportion and i saw this and i was like taking it back i was like this is a really big deal like we should actually do something about this so we saw this happen caught us by surprise but you know then when i was talking with nas i'm like we you know we were all talking about it and we decided that if we were to ever do this like we should even in the video reference that this idea is you know not just in the description say oh this idea was inspired by friendship but like in the video itself reference it and not use the same thumbnail not use the similar style of thumbnail like fireship and not use the same title can be different titles so i think a lot of those things they you know honestly there they can be really frustrating and upsetting for a creator because i've been creating on youtube for five years now and if that happens or when that happens that does go on to irk people and it really upsets people with that said you know there are a couple of other things i want to say i think that you know based on all this i don't think any differently of traversing media or fireship or any of the other content creators that you know said whatever they did on our platform because i think they're right in saying that and also when everything is online you don't know the other person you don't know the actual intent of the other person so for me i have no hard feelings about any of them just because we don't know each other in real life you know that's very very different when you know people in real life and not just online because when there's miscommunication and things are done online there's a lot of miscommunication that develops and the feelings of animosity are way way way stronger and way more amplified you know for example if in your relationship with your partner or with a friend when you communicate over text oftentimes fights and things get bigger versus when you meet in person it just dissolves you know i just extend my sincerest apologies if it upset anybody you know fire ship not gonna happen again dude i'm sorry this was not our goal you know with that said i do want to like talk about certain things right so when it comes to youtube when it comes to creating content there are a lot of channels that will model other platforms or other styles of videos as long as they don't plagiarize right and make their own original content so in our video we have completely original content that's not taken from anywhere we made the content ourselves and the research is our own research and you'll see this happen very very often right if you for example you've probably come across videos like i paid somebody on fiverr to make this or that you know peter mckinnon is doing it they're all these top youtubers doing it now people in the developer community are doing it so whenever there's a certain type of idea people will model it people will create those types of videos i've created a video before inspired by fire ship and you know everybody loved it we didn't use the same title or thumbnail or anything like that but that video is called my advice to new programmers number one focus on the fundamentals so many developers i see always trying to learn the hottest technology the newest framework the coolest thing that is happening around them stop and it was way easier to make it was way easier to edit i just edited literally on my iphone and it's just how fireship has his type of thing where it's like voiceover with animation you know i added all the animation i added my own voiceover and people really enjoyed it so modeling content is there will be like we'll drop a video like top five programming languages and there are a ton of other creators that will also drop similar videos and i'm not saying we're original in creating top five programming languages when you make a thumbnail or whatever people will start to make similar types of thumbnails even right and this is something that is normal um you'll start seeing videos like if i started coding how would i start all over again somebody will make it they'll do well and then a lot of people will start making that but just sharing it from their own experience from their own perspective i hate that this apology sounds like it has a butt it really doesn't i'm just trying to provide some context i think the thing that's upsetting is that there's a signature style of videos that fireship has there's a signature style of titles and thumbnails and i think those should never ever be copied because i think that's where the real problem comes in and i think that really upsets people but i think in terms of in the future our content we're planning to make a ton of tutorials just like we always have been we started doing the clones on our channel and then tons of people started doing that there's tons of channels out there that literally will have let's build a clone in blah blah blah blah and that was something we started april of 2020 and then all these channels started popping up and making builds you know going back to this our upcoming content is gonna be a lot more tutorial based and then if we drop videos like this we're not gonna title them the same we're not gonna thumbnail them the same way i think that's not okay but i think in terms of content i think that it's okay to make content with voiceover and then adding animations on top of it i just think that it's not cool when you know somebody's coming up with the whole series and the whole idea and then another creator just kind of you know models it to a point where essentially it just looks like copying so again not our intent it's messed up and we will improve we will make it better this won't happen again there you guys have it there's a lot going on on this channel you know on a more positive note there's a lot of amazing things that are happening we're gonna be making a ton of tutorials we just hit a million subscribers so thank you guys so much i'm gonna be dropping a lot more content or i'm gonna be dropping a video addressing that as well so thank you guys so much you know there's a lot that's been going on in my personal life and you know i hope to get you guys caught up on some of that stuff as well but i am doing a lot better now and much happier right now and so that puts me in a much better mental space to come and create more content because sometimes this youtube and algorithms and all of this stuff can get to you and kind of kill your happiness for why you started a lot of these things in the first place that's what i'm looking forward to for all of you that love this channel i love you if you hate this channel or you've been upset by recently i still love you we're still gonna keep showing up we're young we make mistakes we're dumb we keep improving every single day we make a commitment to ourselves and to you guys to improve every single day and we'll keep showing up and we'll keep showing out that's it i love your beautiful face this is qazi and as always i'll see you in the next video you\n"