you know, I suspect also that youtube sticks vids up on as suggestions willy nilly, or maybe ones that have a lot of views in a short period or something, so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy sort of thing-building and then more because its building up....who knows. That is kinda funny getting questions from Joe Blow in Panama or something.
Connects with the whole "echo chamber" aspect of facebook etc, but thats a whole other very relevant and serious topic.
It's kinda funny, I found info that YouTube started a TikTok competitive option, it's called Shorts. Shorts must be cell phone format (like the video in the OP); under 60 seconds; and some other stuff. YouTube is test launching Shorts in India, we don't have Shorts in the US, but our videos can be added to the Shorts library. I've tried to make a couple more videos in this format, just for s&g, but nothing else has gone nuts like this stupid basic video.