When I was about 8, I had a whole closet dedicated to recycled stuff that I would remake into random things — board games and pieces of “abstract” art. Planters and cards for friends were among the things I created.
When 5-Minute Crafts emerged in 2016, it became my dopamine-inducing vice — the famous crafts drew me in and started my short yet enjoyable YouTube-binge era. The name “5 minutes” was misleading — the channel resulted in hours spent on countless complicated crafts.
The channel releases season-specific videos, about twice a day with a never-ending archive of crafts, though oftentimes crafts are repeated.
Nowadays, the channel relies on blatantly unrealistic craft videos on short-form media sites like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels for views. For example, some videos include steps of sticking your face in a moulding solution to create a face-shaped candle and dunking a rope in a suspicious liquid to create a side-table, impossible for an eight year old me to even attempt.
More and more clickbaity and unrealistic videos by 5-Minute Crafts are spreading all over short-form media sites like Instagram and TikTok. The channel consciously posts impossible crafts that they know will provoke viewers, leading to more comments and engagement, which generates positive revenue for them.
The length of their compilation videos is also a part of this marketing strategy. Child addiction to short-media sites occurs because of our short attention spans, and 5-Minute Crafts’ videos constantly change crafts every few seconds, which feeds into the attention span issue without having users click out of the videos.
J&M Brands, which markets 5-Minute Crafts, also controls other famous brands like The Smurfs, Hello Kitty, Beyblade X, Popeye, and Gudetama. The channel now has 13 different sub-channels like 5-Minute C Tech and 5-Minute Crafts Girly, and has 877 billion hours of watch time collectively. The sub-channels are meant for viewers who want to pursue specific interests, but in reality, a lot of the videos that are posted are repeated across multiple channels.
Outside of marketing, 5-Minute Crafts’ videos themselves are created by a company called TheSoul Productions, which also creates videos for channels 123GO! and Bright Side, among others. The company is based in Cyprus, and creates around 500 videos a month, as of 2020.
As a true O.G. fan of the channel, I’m disappointed by 5-Minute Crafts’ new turn to unrealistic crafts for money. Personally, I miss when 5-Minute Crafts wasn’t as power hungry (though one could argue that they always were).
