Image Credit: YouTube

YouTube’s Culture & Trends team find “Hey guys!” as the most common greeting for vloggers over the past decade.

YouTube take a deep dive into how creators around the world have opened their vlogs over the last ten years. While “Hey guys!” has unsurprisingly held the top spot since 2010, other top phrases have seen quite some movement over the years. The data deep dive has been compiled into this interactive site, visualising YouTube’s findings.

When first starting out on the video streaming platform, your intro may be the least important aspect that comes to mind, however as the creator grows in popularity, the more likely the opening will become a signature sign-on. Popular creators such as Miranda Sings and Liza Koshy often start their videos with “Hey guys”, while some opt for less common introductions that have since become synonymous with their channel, such as Philip DeFranco’s “‘Sup you beautiful bastards”, Marques Brownlee’s “Yo, what’s up guys, MKBHD here”, South Korean creator Risabae’s “Hello my little ladies and gentlemen”, or Moroccan YouTuber Soukaina’s “Hello queens!”

The following graph represents all videos YouTube could classify as vlogs, uploaded from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom or United States, with a minimum threshold of at least 20,000 views, from a channel with at least 20,000 subscribers. This resulted in over one million videos. The Culture & Trends team parsed their captions, both auto captions and those uploaded by the creators, to “identifying their openers, and categorizing them to understand the different types of greetings, their usage on the platform over the past decade, how they show up around the world, and which creators use them.”

Image Credit: YouTube

YouTube give the top five things to know about how creators start their videos.

  1. “Hey guys” was the #1 vlog greeting in 2020, which accounted for 36% of the top five greetings.
  2. While “Hey guys” has been the preferred greeting for the last decade, the rest of the top 10 has seen a fair amount of movement. For example, “Good morning” has progressively become more en vogue (possibly reflecting the rise of “get ready with me” videos), while “Hi everyone” seems well on its way to oblivion.
  3. The dominance of “Hey guys” isn’t absolute. When you break things down and look at distinct categories, other greetings assert themselves. Fitness channels, for example, favor “What’s up,” while travel channels opt for “Good morning” (signaling the sunrise-like possibilities that lie waiting beyond the horizon).
  4. In Brazil, the top greeting on YouTube is “Oi gente,” which translates to — you guessed it — “Hey guys” in Portuguese. Likewise, Mexican creators use “Hola amigos,” while, in France, they prefer a cheerful “Bonjour à tous” or “Hello to all.”
  5. Top creators have created signature openings that have become iconic as their popularity has grown, suggesting that there’s value in establishing your unique personality in your first impression.
Image Credit: YouTube