Redemptive Work (vs Exploitative Work)
Make content that restores the viewer, not content that mines them — and accept that it costs you no reach.
Trahan's named 2022 motto. Every piece of content is either exploitative (mining retention, CTR, and viewer tendencies to extract views and profit) or redemptive (creating restoration, energizing the viewer, adding to their life). The non-obvious claim is that the two paths can produce the SAME view outcome — his ~20M-view metaverse video carried an embedded message (a plant dying in the background to signal real-life decay) and still performed. Purpose is not a reach penalty; it is the thing that lets him stay fired up for the next video.
- Classify the work: is this energizing the viewer or exploiting a tendency to stay?
- Embed the message in the craft (the dying plant), not the title — let it be felt, not spelled out.
- Treat "same outcome, opposite intent" as the test: if redemptive and exploitative both perform, choose redemptive.
- Optimize for what keeps YOU fired up for the next project, not what the leaderboard rewards.
Articulated as "our motto for this year is redemptive work" in the Colin & Samir penny launch interview (2022), reflecting on why the lower-budget, more-personal penny series outperformed his higher-production work.