I'm going to spill all of my secrets here and use this as a public teaching moment on how to make viral videos about bad public infra. One of the most important things is your thumbnail (on X this is the first few frames of your video). This should feel organic, not heavily edited/modified. Just you, the background, and 3-4 words of superimposed text works well in my experience. Three words is the sweet spot. Four is the maximum. Five and you are expecting people to read too much as they doomscroll, which will hurt CTR. I find that bright yellow text helps to make it pop. You could also use bright green, orange, red, or any other eye-catching colour. White text (in my opinion) tends to not pop unless it's encapsulated within a colourful box/container of some kind. Notice how, for the image on the left (your thumbnail), there's nothing to actually convince me to watch the video in the first frame. We see you (handsome, but no virality factor I'm afraid), the background (nothing much to note there, it doesn't embody what the video is actually about), and some text: "Hi, I am right now on Silver Country Road which is an" - this text doesn't really tell me anything. If I don't live on Silver Country Road (which I don't) then this video will not feel instantly relevant to me. In my 12th Main video, @Virendra0698 and I actually shot the intro scene at the end, after finishing the main shoot. My initial thumbnail concept was not strong. I only realised this as I began editing the video on my phone while I was still on 12th Main. We went back to the same spots we had shot earlier and I sat down in the asteroid crater, sat inside of the drain (it did not smell great), and leaned against the pile of rubble. I felt that these would be shocking visuals that quickly captured the essence of what the video was about. I also think the quick cutting between those initial shots captured viewer attention and satisfied people who have a short attention span. Apart from the thumbnail, think about your opening hook. Instead of, "Hi, I am right now on..." you could start with "This might be one of the worst footpaths in Bengaluru" or "Footpaths in Bengaluru are bad, but this one takes the cake" - generalise the topic and make it feel relevant for a large target audience. Get straight to the point too, don't beat around the bush with introductory information or pleasantries. You want people to feel a visceral emotional response in the first 1 second of your video. This could be rage, disgust, shock, sadness, etc. In the image on the right (my AI-generated thumbnail - normally you would not use AI for this ofc), the viewer has all of the info they need to make a decision on whether or not they want to watch this. The text very clearly mentions that this is about Bengaluru's Worst Footpath (the question mark is optional - you could remove it, or leave it if you want to spark some curiosity). We also SEE the footpath itself (visual proof) in the background, covered in trash - this helps us to realise that this is not a talking head video, it's an actual vlog-style exploration of the terrible footpath. And then there's you, the main character, who will be guiding us through the experience. Humans are always attracted to content with other humans, so this is an important ingredient as well. Another trick is to make sure all of the core information is contained within a 1:1 aspect ratio. In your thumbnail (left) the subtitles are actually located outside of that 1:1 square, so if someone quote reposts your video, people may see a cropped preview that DOESN'T contain that critical text. QTs are a huge part of X success, so you should be optimising for that. This 1:1 safe zone is good hygiene across platforms too. Instagram also crops videos and thumbnails depending on how/where the viewer is encountering the content, and UI elements also block visibility on the top, bottom, and right side of the frame. Google Search also does an even more aggressive 16:9 crop, wherein vertical thumbnails become horizontal ones. If your video blows up, Google may be where many people actually discover your video. I'd recommend that you post this video across X, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn to maximise visibility. My 12 Main footpath video has more than 2M views on Instagram, whereas on X it only has 4 lakh views. Given that the goal of this video is to get the thing fixed, the more eyeballs the better. You can also send collab requests to prominent Bengaluru news/updates/drama accounts on Instagram, which can accelerate visibility if they accept your collab (which they will do if it starts to go viral). I generally do not recommend tagging anyone on X, as this has been known to hurt reach (might have changed with X's new algo though). That said, in this case tagging me did work, so I guess this is an exception to that rule. Keep videos under three mins. This allows you to post it as an Instagram reel and YouTube short without restriction. You crushed it with the audio quality. I could hear every word. Adding subtitles is also a must. Great job on those. Just move them up so they're in the 1:1 safe zone. People often struggle with audio quality if they do not own a professional mic. Using a secondary phone as a mic was a smart move. Lastly (and this part is optional but recommended) to really increase your chances of going viral, you should come up with your personal masala. Something that will cause your video to stick in people's brains for days or weeks. You can become the "_ Guy" using this masala. For me, it's my skin colour/nationality. I'm a white guy in India. In one of my early footpath videos, I navigated the footpath like I was doing parkour, and the headline became, "Canada Man Performs Parkour on Bengaluru Footpaths." This was a double dose of masala. For @baadalvirus he dressed up as an astronaut to spotlight the moon crater-like potholes in Bengaluru. Another time he got journalists to dress up as Squid Game characters and navigate a broken footpath like it was a deadly obstacle course. Residents of Cox Town held a "pothole pooja" to raise awareness. People may not remember your name or your face, but they will remember your masala. Overall though, great video jstar. Please keep up the good work, and thank you for raising awareness. You're one of few people who has actually made an earnest attempt to highlight issues with an engaging, thorough video, rather than doing what most people do which is just snapping a pic or shooting a low-effort video without any subtitles and angrily tagging a bunch of politicians.

Crashing with a friend in Baiyappanahalli just beside Karnataka High Court's staff accommodations. The footpath is a pedestrian obstacle course made of: - Illegal construction encroachment - Broken slab death pits - Mountains of trash Why do Bengaluru residents tolerate this?