See Through Together combines ‘free’ social media infrastructure and pro bono content to measurably reduce carbon.
In their relentless pursuit of profit, social media facilitates climate disinformation using data centres that generate more greenhouse emissions. See Through Together seeks to harness YouTube’s ‘free’ infrastructure to lead casual viewers on a path to measurable carbon drawdown.
See Through Together
YouTube channel See Through Together launched on Aug 1st 2024.
See Through Together joins See Through News and See Through Carbon as the latest addition to the See Through Group, a global network of experts collaborating to measurably reduce carbon, working pro bono to avoid the distraction of money, by combining:
- free social media infrastructure
- sophisticated storytelling
- hard science
See Through Together’s team of filmmakers, musicians, performers, SEO experts, YouTube geeks, digital marketing and branding specialists have assembled a diverse portfolio of appealing video content.
The challenge: can appealing video content be married with the work of See Through’s CO2-busting experts to measurably reduce carbon?
Original Content
All See Through Together content is original, exclusive and engaging. Each Playlist is targeted to appeal to specific audiences.
Like the channel’s range of topics, See Through Together’s content comes from a variety of sources:
- Recycled: some videos are repurposed for See Through’s CO2-reducing purpose, having proved their appeal on other YouTube channels, e.g. the award-winning Arctic Outdoor Preschool documentary, or the How I Deal With People At Parties Who Assume I Have Children podcast.
- Revived: some videos are edited from unpublished material originally created for other purposes, like Ben Law’s Woodland Year.
- Refreshing: Some videos are entirely new, created specifically by and for See Through Together, like These Chords Are Illegal!
Before launching, See Through Together assembled a long pipeline of edited content, and has many other videos in various stages of development. They will be strategically released to optimise its appeal to human audiences looking for good content, and to the YouTube robot algorithm that seeks to reward what it perceives as ‘good content’.
‘Good’, in this context, means ‘sticky’ videos that viewers keep watching, watch again, or recommend to others to watch.
See Through Together schedules and creates new content in response to the data received from existing videos, Playlist by Playlist. It’s partly interested in the usual metrics of views, subscribers etc., but – critical to its carbon-reducing mission – also in how successful those videos are in inducing casual viewers along a path of measurable carbon drawdown.
Before examining this process, here’s more detail on the type of video content, how explicitly they address the ultimate environmental goal, and how they’re categorised and presented to a casual YouTube viewer who wants to be entertained, not lectured.
Playlists vs Channels
See Through Together’s initial list of Playlists reflects See Through’s ambitious catch-all strategy of offering something for everyone (short of the online staples of violence and porn). Playlists include:
- Ben Law’s Woodland Year: ‘Exclusive, unique, fly-on-the-bark exclusive access to a year in the life of Britain’s greatest living woodsman, via his two apprentices’.
- The 3 Rs: wreading and riting: ‘Education – what children can teach us’.
- Concert in the Key of C: ‘Original music by odd artists on C-Through themes.’
- Thinking Outside The Bogs: ‘Off-piste humour to leave you off-balance’.
- 25 Words That Rhyme With Orange: ‘Short verses that get to the point. A marathon dangerous silver-purple pint-wolf opus’.
- The Truth Lies in Bedtime Stories: ‘Extraordinary stories that are entirely true, largely.’
- The See Through Prod-cast: ‘Extraordinary stories that are entirely true, full stop.’
These, and other Playlists in the pipeline, are deliberately diverse, designed to appeal to different types of audience interest. All are subtly imbued with See Through’s playful approach to delivering its serious Goal of Speeding Up Carbon Drawdown by Helping the Inactive Become Active.
The broad range of topics, tones and tangents represented in See Through Together’s Playlists presents an intriguing challenge to the YouTube algorithm – how to brand diverse content.
Branding eclecticism
The channel’s strapline, ‘Never The Same Story Once’, highlights this challenge.
YouTube channels with narrow interests, appealing to gamers, hobbyists, band fans etc., have clear labels that make it easy to categorise for both humans and robots. It’s clear what such channels are ‘about’.
It’s possible for well-established uber-brands, like the BBC, to bunch very different topics (News, Entertainment, Sports etc.) under the same umbrella brand, whose name doesn’t directly flag the core values or purpose underpinning all its content.
It remains to be seen if such branding is viable for a start-up like See Through Together, with zero promotional budget and negligible public profile.
Just as ‘BBC values’ like impartiality, credibility, authority, quality etc. are implicit, but not overtly stated in the letters ‘BBC’, See Through Together’s name, following See Through’s storytelling methodology, doesn’t directly express the See Through goal of measurable carbon reduction.
Results will determine if See Through’s ‘Transparent Trojan Horse’ strategy is a strength that avoids deterring Unwilling Inactivists, or a weakness that makes what the channel is ‘about’ hard to understand.
If See Through’s branding strategy proves too convoluted for the YouTube algorithm, Playlists could be spun off as individual channels. This would come at the price of splitting the overall reach, but may be more effective if branding eclecticism proves too challenging.
Here are three case studies of the strategy behind three sample Playlists.
STT Case Study 1: Ben Law’s Woodland Year
BLWY Content
Ben Law’s Woodland Year is a fly-on-the-bark observational documentary following a year with ‘Britain’s Greatest Living Woodsman’ Ben Law in Prickly Nut Wood, his Sussex home and workplace.
The year starts with Ben selecting his two apprentices for the next year. The series reveals their experiences through the annual woodland cycle through their eyes.
As the seasons unfold, we’re with them in the woods as Ben teaches his apprentices to sned, fell, sort, scribe, split, cleave and roundwood-timber-frame their way to becoming 21st century coppicing woodsmen.
This YouTube Playlists includes three types of content
- Main Episodes
- Shorts
- Extras
BLWY Main Episodes
The main episodes vary in length, reflecting the changing intensity of the coppicer’s work as the seasons change. See Through Together releases them ‘in real time’ over the course of a year, in synch with the seasons when they were filmed.
The series starts with an introduction to Ben, his current apprentices, and the five candidates he’s invited to Prickly Nut Wood for his annual Apprentice Selection Week.
Releasing the main episodes over the course of a year reflects the seasonal rhythms of a coppicing woodsman, but also presents the possibility of building an audience by exploiting the narrative tension of waiting for the next episode to drop.
To avert the risk of fickle viewers losing interest during the weeks between episodes, See Through Together will ‘fill the gap’ with staggered release of bonus content derived from the current Episode.
These additional videos are designed to build up and deepen interest between the Episode releases for all kinds of viewers.
There’ll be something for everyone, from the casual TV addict who remembers Ben from the British architectural series Grand Designs, to viewers with specialist interest in the various scopes of Ben’s work, from woodland management to natural building.
One type goes short, the other goes long.
Going Short: BLWY Shorts
YouTube created its Shorts format to emulate the sub-60”, vertical format that TikTok made so addictive, especially for younger demographics.
For the Ben Law’s Woodland Year Playlist, See Through Together re-edits sub-60″ clips from the main episode for the portrait format, by:
- Re-framing landscape images for portrait mode
- Adding bespoke subtitles (many short-form viewers watch videos with the sound off, or in noisy environments)
- Adding other visual augmentations that older demographics might find distractingly fussy, but are appreciated by younger users
Here’s the first example:
Going Long: BLWY Extras
To build and deepen interest for viewers who already have a specialist interest in, or knowledge of woodland crafts, the Playlist’s other supplementary content goes long.
Like DVD extras or Extended Play versions of records, the Extra videos feature unedited interviews, related material, behind-the scenes or making-of content, or longer versions of sequences featured in the main episodes. Some examples:
- The original crowdfunding video, including a link to an article about the project’s genesis
- Uncut candidate interviews, like Mikee Uncut
- Longer edits of scenes like Ben’s apprentice candidates visiting the two caravans that would be their homes for the year, which only lasts a few seconds in the Meet Ben episode.
Any viewer curious enough to read the text descriptions beneath any content will find prominent links to longer text articles on everything from the See Through News and See Through Carbon websites, to specific articles like this See Through News article relating the remarkable story of how BLWY project took more than a decade to reach the public.
These links are critical to See Through’s greater purpose, as explained below. First, a couple more examples of diverse See Through Together Playlists designed to appeal to different audiences.
STT Case Study 2: Concert in the Key of C
This music-based Playlist applies similar strategies to a significant YouTube tribe, those searching for music-related content.
CitKoC Main Episodes
This See Through News article describes the ‘Concert In The Key of C’ concept in detail, but briefly a ‘CitKoC’ is:
- Unusual: the concert features something unconventional (instrumentation, venue, genre-bending etc.)
- Mutually beneficial: as well as serving See Through’s overall goal of measurable carbon reduction, each artist who introduces their fanbase to their ‘CitKoC’ augments both brands’ social media reach
- Flexible: C is the chemical symbol for ‘Carbon’, but can appear in any plausible guise. CitKoCs so far are’ Copyright’, ‘COP26’, ‘China’ and ‘Crossroads’.
CitKoCs can be anything from a full one-off themed concert to one song inserted into a set, or a selfie video recorded on a bus, so long as it’s original material and provided pro bono for STT to use at its discretion.
The CitKoC featured for See Through Together’s YouTube channel launch is a specially-commissioned, co-developed between STT and the performer, ukulele legend, Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain founder and See Through Brains Trustee George Hinchliffe.
- CitKoC C: ©opyright: An inventive musical rebuttal to the notion that chord sequences can be copyrighted.
This 16-minute segment of George’s headline act at the 2024 Winchester Ukulele Festival was developed in collaboration with STT, and recorded and edited by a volunteer STT production team.
Three further CitKoCs are edited from recycled/reclaimed material.
- CitKoC Crossroads: Lutes, mandolins, theorbos and ukuleles combine to play the music of two Robert Johnsons, born three centuries and a continent apart.
- CitKoC China: China’s first contact with the global ukulele boom.
- CitKoC COP26: Guerrilla gig featuring bagpipes, melodica and ukulele, performed to an audience of zero by an ark on a hillside overlooking the sea during COP26 at Glasgow
These all happen to feature ukuleles. Ukephobes will be pleased to learn that CitKoCs in development feature other unlikely and unusual instruments, genres and interpretations.
As more performers add their own CitKoCs, STT will reinforce the brand by titling the videos ‘X’s Concert in the Key of C’.
In the meantime, STT is using more SEO-friendly titles, i.e.:
CitKoC Shorts
The CitKoC Playlist also features Shorts versions of individual songs clipped from the 16-minute full episode ‘tentpole’ content.
As with the Ben Law’s Woodland Year Shorts, these are edited to form appetising taster nibbles, designed to tempt doom-scrolling, side-swiping short format viewers to click on the longer versions.
In turn, this is a further step along the path See Through has designed to end up with actions that measurably reduce CO2 (see below).
CitKoC Extras
The main CitKoC C: ©opyright episode features simple chord symbols, synchronised with the music, to illustrate the copyright point for a general audience.
To provide added value for a specialist ukulele-playing audience, STT has also produced a second ‘Fancy Chord’ version.
This one features synchronised ukulele window graphics, showing not only the names of the augmented/diminished versions of the basic that enable a ukulele player to play along.
STT Case Study 3: 25 Words That Rhyme With Orange
Humour and jokes are another popular YouTube staple, addressed by the Shorts-only Thinking Outside the Bogs Playlist, featuring Cringeworthy Dad Joke.
The 25 Words That Rhyme With Orange Playlist is another Shorts-only Playlist, but more overtly related to CO2 reduction. It shares the same playful, creative tone as the Thinking Outside the Bogs videos, but addresses carbon-reducing themes directly.
25 Words Shorts
25 Words videos use the same Shorts format deployed in Ben Law’s Woodland Year and Concert in the Key of C, and feature performers and voices familiar from Thinking Outside The Bogs.
Their subject matter, however, takes a significant step closer to See Through’s carbon-reducing Goal.
Each 25 Words Short is designed to work as an intriguing standalone video, but also signposted as forming part of a longer series.
By mixing these overtly climate-related videos in with cringeworthy Dad jokes, See Through Together aims to make the channel greater than the sum of its parts. The silly stuff lends its popularity to the serious stuff, while the latter’s gravitas augments the former’s appeal.
See Through’s challenge is to achieve this without deterring too many casual viewers who arrived to be entertained, and are resistant to being ‘lectured’ or ‘tricked’ into taking any effective climate action.
25 Words Series
The 25 Words Playlist contains mini-series, some with quite overt carbon-reducing messages, but all with the unifying theme of being narrated in rhyme and augmented by music. Along with familiar graphics, voices and subtitles, this feature is designed to make these ‘greener’ videos more palatable to the casual viewer.
These Shorts are edited to work as stand-alones, but once combined in omnibus form, their direction of travel, and climate-related themes become more evident.
Video descriptions include links to text articles that make the CO2-reducing calls to action more explicit.
Paths to CO2 Reduction
So what does all of this eyeball-chasing smoke and mirrors have to do with measurably reducing CO2?
See Through’s YouTube channel See Through Together seeks to emulate the broad appeal that sibling-programme See Through News has achieved on Facebook with its network of related Facebook groups, all integrated to serve See Through’s ultimate goal of measurable carbon reduction.
See Through leverages the free infrastructure of the world’s biggest social media platforms to gather as large, broad and deep a pool of its target audience of Unwilling Inactivists.
Unwilling Inactivists are people who accept the science and reality of human-induced climate change, but who feel powerless to do anything about it, i.e. most of us.
As Unwilling Inactivists consume See Through Together video content, they develop brand trust and loyalty. See Through’s end goal, however, goes beyond the usual ‘Like, Comment and Subscribe’ metrics. On their own, these have no environmental benefit beyond the nebulous ‘raising awareness’, ‘educating’ and ‘informing’. These fuzzy goals are necessary, but not sufficient steps, for carbon drawdown.
See Through seeks to use this broad base of ordinary people to convert as many casual viewers as possible into effective climate activists.
For this to work, See Through Together must persuade a significant proportion of its viewers to click away from the YT environment and onto a See Through platform from which it’s possible to track a path that leads to measurable carbon reduction.
It’s a 3-stage numbers game:
First Number: eyeballs
This is the reach See Through accumulates, via the conventional social media metrics of members, subscribers, likes, comments etc.
There’s a lot of noise out there. Attracting eyeballs isn’t easy, but See Through’s network of pro bono experts includes experienced, proven masters of the storytelling and SEO dark arts.
On its own, however, creating appealing content that attracts large numbers of eyeballs is just dancing to the tune of Facebook and YouTube.
In isolation, this number merely further enriches our Silicon Valley Overlords, and produces more carbon via their CO2-belching data centres.
Second Number: clicks away
This is the number of casual viewers See Through Together can, over time and probably after multiple exposures to the opportunity, persuade to leave YouTube’s warm embrace.
Unlike TikTok or Instagram, who jealously guard their viewers, denying content providers any hyperlinks lest they might divert ‘their’ viewers’ monetizable attention away from their captive platform environment, YouTube permits a limited number of hyperlinks to be embedded in various parts of their platform.
Any viewer curious enough to click on one of the hyperlinks at the top of all STT video descriptions lands on a See Through-controlled destination outside the YouTube environment.
From then on, See Through has the chance to induce these bold few further along the path to reducing CO2.
Third Number: calls to action
The third, critical number, is how many of the casual viewers that See Through has intrigued sufficiently to tempt them beyond their familiar social media comfort zones it can then induce to venture further down a path that ends in taking an action that results in measurable CO2 reduction.
See Through currently has three such mechanisms in development:
As each mechanism comes online, See Through will offer each bold viewer a different option to suit their disposition and interest.
Each option is fun, engaging and educational in itself. Each tempts climate-activism-wary viewers further along the path that culminates in a specific call to action with the potential to measurably reduce CO2.
As the viewers progress along See Through’s trail of online cookie crumbs, See Through’s carbon-reducing goal becomes more explicit.
By paving this path with engaging, fun, appealing, interactive content, See Through can trace the efficacy of each starting point, be it an episode of Ben Law’s Woodland Year, a Concert in the Key of C, or a Short about 3-Headed Beasts.
Elaborate? Convoluted? Ambitious? Over-complicated?
Yes. Yes. Yes. And watch this space.
For regular updates on this and other See Through projects, and how they combine to measurably reduce carbon, subscribe to See Through News Newsletter, free to your inbox every Sunday.