Anyone currently searching for Fortnite videos on YouTube is likely to stumble upon the name Ali-A. What is behind the YouTuber’s videos? Why is he so successful with them and at the same time so hated in the Fortnite community?
A lot has been written and discussed about Fortnite’s dominance on the streaming platform Twitch. While extremely skilled players like Ninja and TSM_Myth are in the spotlight on Twitch, YouTube is increasingly becoming the go-to place for videos about Fortnite: Battle Royale, as the millions of views impressively demonstrate.
Wherever there is a successful game on YouTube, the tendency for a certain type of video that earns clickbait accusations is not far off. Currently, parts of the English-speaking community are particularly complaining about a specific content creator who dominates the YouTube platform for Fortnite like no other: Ali-A.
With more than 12 million followers, Ali-A is one of the defining faces of the Fortnite hype. Besides the clickbait accusation, Ali-A is also repeatedly confronted with accusations of “stealing” ideas from other players and thematizing them in his videos.
Are the accusations justified? Or are they merely the masquerade of a gigantic sham debate, triggered by one of the most primitive human emotions – envy?
Ali-A – with sensational thumbnails to success?
If anyone knows how to attract the attention of their viewers with thumbnails, it’s Ali-A. The small images designed to make a video appealing are always structured according to the same scheme.
The streamer’s face with excited or shocked expressions, a few weapons, red arrows, and the “Victory Royale” banner – combined with a title in capital letters creates the obviously best recipe for a successful video and is therefore used again and again.
The titles are generally kept as vague as possible. For instance, the title “TILTED TOWERS DESTROYED” (including a gigantic crater) suggests that the town of the same name has been destroyed.
In reality, this is just a fan theory. However, you only find this out after watching the video long enough.
Even a video about a potential first-person mode in Fortnite turns out to later be a video mod of an ingenious player. You see nothing of the mod itself – instead, Ali-A leads a twenty-minute monologue while normal gameplay is played.
There are plenty of other examples of these videos – Ali-A has supposedly discovered a completely new treasure chest or weapons in new quality levels. However, the videos themselves often deal with something completely different.
The site Forbes has found that anyone searching for Fortnite videos on English-speaking YouTube will find 49 videos from Ali-A among 120 hits. What is behind that, as there are obviously videos that at least suggest a certain “clickbait” mentality? The culprit is YouTube’s search algorithm.
Whoever is popular becomes even more popular thanks to YouTube!
It is undeniable that Ali-A has great success with his videos. He appeals to a younger audience that grants him millions of clicks with nearly every video. His high popularity leads YouTube’s search algorithms to increasingly display his videos – thus further promoting his popularity.
The content of the videos seems to be of secondary importance here. Undoubtedly, search queries on Twitch for Fortnite also lead to the big streamers Ninja, DakotaZ, or Myth, but they are given significantly less space.
To find one of the other thousands of content creators on YouTube about Fortnite, you have to scroll down for quite a while. Thus, anyone who criticizes Ali-A for his sensational videos cannot escape a critique of YouTube’s search algorithms.
Other streamers jump on the bandwagon regarding thumbnail design – in almost every video, a grimace jumps out at you that is meant to advertise the video. Some German YouTubers like Red or Steel do this as well, with quite a bit of success.
Ali-A – Achieving success through content theft?
Indeed, there are some examples for this. The suggestion of a Redditor to integrate weapon skins (camos) into Fortnite was directly addressed by Ali-A in one of his videos. The video has over 3.4 million views – in the first 9 minutes, you see only normal gameplay while Ali-A describes the concept.
A source for the concept originally from Reddit is nowhere to be found in the video description.
The discontent towards Ali-A has now reached the point where he is considered persona non grata in the Fortnite: Battle Royale subreddit. Fan creations are marked with unflattering watermarks that directly address Ali-A and are meant to deter him from promoting foreign content in his videos.
Whether it’s the clickbait accusations or simply envy behind it, cannot be clarified. The fact is, Ali-A has benefited the most from the Fortnite hype on YouTube.
What do you think of Ali-A and his videos? Are the accusations justified?
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