OK, I’ll Admit It… KSI’s Strategy Was Kinda Genius

KSI's song 'Thick of It' faced harsh criticism but went viral through a risky strategy of embracing hate and controversy.

Key Takeaways

Embracing and baiting negative attention can be an effective marketing strategy.
Public feuds and controversy can drive engagement and increase visibility.
Negative reviews do not necessarily prevent commercial success or virality.
Social media platforms like TikTok play a crucial role in music promotion today.
Artists can leverage criticism to boost streaming numbers and chart performance.

What the video covers

KSI's song 'Thick of It' received extremely negative professional reviews and audience backlash.
Despite the hate, KSI used a controversial marketing strategy by provoking critics and engaging with negative comments.
KSI released 'Thick of It' shortly after launching a product called Lunch Le with MrBeast and Logan Paul, which also faced criticism.
DanTDM publicly criticized KSI's product, leading to a public feud that fueled more attention on KSI's music.
The song snippet went viral on TikTok, gaining millions of views mostly from people mocking it.
KSI actively engaged with haters on social media, baiting more reactions to increase the song's visibility.
The song's music video was poorly received, and live performances were met with hostility.
Despite the negativity, 'Thick of It' charted on Spotify Viral 100 and Billboard Hot 100, increasing KSI's monthly listeners.
The controversy helped the song gain a large audience, making it one of KSI's most viewed and streamed tracks.
KSI later expressed frustration with the hate but acknowledged the strategy's success in marketing the song.

Chapters

Why did KSI's song 'Thick of It' receive so much negative feedback?

The song was widely criticized for its quality, with professional reviewers giving it very low scores and many listeners expressing dislike, which was amplified by social media reactions.

How did KSI use the negative feedback to his advantage?

KSI engaged with critics and haters on social media, baiting them to comment and share the song, which increased its visibility and streaming numbers despite the negative sentiment.

What impact did the controversy have on the song's commercial success?

'Thick of It' went viral on platforms like TikTok, charted on Spotify's Viral 100 and Billboard Hot 100, and significantly boosted KSI's monthly listeners, showing that controversy helped its commercial performance.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Thick of It received professional reviews of zero out of 100, whilst his audience called it probably the worst piece of music I've ever heard. Yet KSI still made 100 million people watch it by employing a unique but extremely risky strategy.

Speaker A

About a month prior to the song's official release, KSI performed Thick of It for the very first time. It was during a live appearance at the Misfits boxing match, and is suggested by a comment reading, "I love how nobody hated this song when it was on Misfits. People initially really liked it."

Speaker A

Barely anybody disliked the video, whilst many comments encouraged, "Thick of It sounds awesome, dude. The Thick of It is one of his best songs in a while. New song is so fire. I'm so excited for the official release."

Speaker A

Yet KSI was busy with a different official release. "We came together to create a Lunchable competitor. We'd like to introduce you to Luny." Just 16 days after the Thick of It live performance, KSI launched Lunch Le with MrBeast and Logan Paul.

Speaker A

Although with both of them being embroiled in drama, people found any excuse to hate on the product. General nutrition was the primary concern. Yet it was DanTDM's tweet that involved KSI. "What happened to YouTubers, man? I can't not say anything anymore. This is selling stuff for the sake of making money, simple. How does this benefit their fans? This is selling crap to kids who don't know better than to trust the people who are selling it to them. Do better."

Speaker A

Well, KSI responded stating that Dan had sold crappy products to his fans too. "Looks like crap to me. How does this benefit your fans, Dan?" He doubled down by adding that Dan also promoted and made a whole video on Munch Pack to his Minecraft audience full of kids.

Speaker A

Yet absolutely no one was taking KSI's side. "Bro, I'll be honest, your [expletive] just sucks, and people like DDM more than you. Take the L, man. You ain't winning this, tubs."

Speaker A

KSI was quick to respond with a video reinforcing his own position when it comes to Twitter. "Twitter is just a cesspool of the most depressed people on this Earth. It's like 4chan but with lower IQ." Before proceeding to insult his entire subreddit, "The IQ of this Reddit has just gone down the [expletive] pad."

Speaker A

So when only six days later he'd release another Thick of It snippet, the audience responded with their own hostile energy. "Whoever found this gem, please put it back. This song could probably clear a room faster than a fire alarm. I'm going to play this at my funeral and then everyone will be jealous that I'm the dead one."

Speaker A

A different person shared the snippet to TikTok, warning, "KSI is threatening to release whatever this is," which received over 6 million views. "This is one of the worst songs I've ever [expletive] heard in my life. All my ops getting it. You're not ready, bro."

Speaker A

"Who exactly are your [expletive] ops?" DanTDM's poor image had completely doomed Thick of It. People just hate us, and they hate me. And if he couldn't become any more hated, he might as well lean into it.

Speaker A

This old DanTDM and Lunch Le beef really shows that I'm in the Thick of It, out October 4th. Pre-save link down below. In a different tweet, he stated, "A lot has happened these past few days online, so here I am addressing everything below," attaching a link that redirected his viewers to pre-save the song.

Speaker A

KSI again called out DanTDM before doing so yet another time, attracting so many people who wanted to hate KSI they'd click on the song just to leave nasty comments.

Speaker A

This worked perfectly. Upon Thick of Its release, it instantly went viral, boosted by people who were simply there to hate. "Bro took a 1.5-year long break from music and came back with this. Take two years next time. Pretty confident he got ChatGPT to write him a cool rap song. This song is the best argument I've ever seen against free speech." On a list of worst songs to ever exist, Thick of It took all 10 positions.

Speaker A

While even Jake Paul tweeted, "Thank you KSI, you hero. My 83-year-old grandpa hasn't been able to walk in years, but when you released this song, he finally stood up and turned the [expletive] off." KSI responded stating, "Looks like you've got your next opponent lined up then," introducing the risky but effective part of JJ's strategy, pretending to be annoyed by the hate the song was getting.

Speaker A

"Today we are reacting to Thick of It TikToks. You guys are just on a hating rampage. Cool, let's do it." He retweeted videos mocking the song, demanding that people stop taking the piss, before again kicking the hornet's nest by tweeting, "These stupid fans leave trash comments on my new song. Think they're getting to me? You're not. It's not funny. It's boring. You're wasting your time."

Speaker A

Again baiting the audience to give him more engagement. "Thinking they're getting to me," proceeds to make 30 tweets about it.

Speaker A

The fact that you keep talking about it though makes me think it is getting to you. AJ plotted his revenge by putting Thick of It on six different adars to blast the song through the streets of London.

Speaker A

"KSI is forcing people to listen to his new song Thick of It. This has to be some form of punishment. WTF is this caption?"

Speaker A

"It's called marketing. I can't even promote without people taking the piss." Now it seems the only person who liked the song was KSI himself. "I think the song is an absolute banger, on my mama," hyping up the music video because nobody else would.

Speaker A

The music video to Thick of It is finally here. "Let's do this." When he tried to perform the song in India, the crowd pelted KSI with prime professional reviewers gave it straight up 0%, or alternatively five out of five stars by people who wrote paragraphs just to take the piss out of it.

Speaker A

Getting zero support from anyone, KSI chose to give up completely. "He's right, generational haters everywhere. I'm so tired of it at this point. Just leave me alone," seeming genuinely sick of the hate he was getting.

Speaker A

"Listening to the new KSI song until I cringe. Ready? So obvious. It's so obvious what you're going to do. Let me, yes, one second in. Ah, cringe."

Speaker A

This carried over to an Aiden Ross live stream. "I don't want to be here, but I, I, I'm happy."

Speaker A

"Why don't you want to be here?"

Speaker A

"Well, because you're just here to roast me like the whole internet. I'm being nice."

Speaker A

"Your audience is the worst. Imagine putting your heart and soul into a project and then releasing it into the world and everyone's going, 'Ha, I want it to stop. I want people to stop making fun of my song.'"

Speaker A

Singing the song too fast definitely wasn't helping his cause. So many streamers had roasted the song. JJ spent 35 minutes reacting to just some of them.

Speaker A

However, as a result, KSI's strategy was starting to bear fruit. "Look at the bright side, at least you're getting plays. It's growing on people."

Speaker A

"It's growing. How do you forget a song that you dislike but is stuck in your head? I heard about someone named KSI who made a song that everyone keeps making fun of. Out of curiosity, I looked it up and now it won't leave my head. I really don't like the song at all and wish it would stop. Does anyone else have this stupid KSI song stuck in their head because of TikTok?"

Speaker A

"But why is it actually catchy though? I want to hate on it with the rest of the internet, but I just found myself singing it like a hypocrite."

Speaker A

The song might have been terrible, but people couldn't stop listening whether they liked it or not.

Speaker A

This video that got released two weeks ago is almost on 14 million views. Like, this is going to be one of my most viewed videos of all time. People on Reddit noticed Thick of It is the most popular song on Genius right now, whilst Post Malone reported Thick of It is projected to chart in the Billboard Hot 100.

Speaker A

The song debuted at number 81, top Spotify's Viral 100 chart, and brought KSI's monthly listeners to 10 million plus. Ladies and gentlemen, Thick of It is now my ninth top 10 single.

Speaker A

A few days later, JJ went on Logan's podcast, and after the song came up in conversation, KSI admitted he was never really angry.

Speaker A

"This is a good time for me to tell everyone that I'm actually not pissed. Like, I'm not mad." He clarified there was some anger in the beginning. "The two tweets that I did at Dan, the first two, I think those, those were g—"

Speaker A

[ __ ] come on my business D D D D D but for the most part he was simply baiting attention because I had a single coming out I was like I can just use this as a way to Market my song and it

Speaker A

was just getting a ton of hate people clowning on it so I was like all right cool let me just lean into this and be pissed off angry tell people guys stop stop making memes knowing that they're going to make more memes stop making fun

Speaker A

of me knowing that they're going to make fun of me more stop making videos on me you know saying that my downfall is imminent the siden however weren't convinced it was all an act I thought JJ orchestrated at all he he is claiming

Speaker A

that now he claiming he claims that to us him we know him we know that at one point he was burning burn referring to this podcast here well I wasn't trying to make a funny song I was L trying to

Speaker A

make a song about my life but is the song funny outside of the context it's not funny no no fny it's my life funny bro said he was faking the anger whether or not the anger was real the song did

Speaker A

exactly what KSI wanted with over 80 million streams at $3,000 per million the song has estimated Spotify earnings of almost $250,000 throwing another 250,000 from its 100 million YouTube views and thick of it has likely made JJ about half a million

Speaker A

dollar just from streaming alone he's convinced now that the dust is settled people are starting to realize that thick of it is actually a good song L wait till I perform it to see how hard it goes and to be fair at a recent

Speaker A

concert the entire crowd was singing along the song will likely never be respected but it's still legendary in its own funny way

Topics:KSIThick of Itmusic marketingviral marketingcontroversyDanTDMTikToksocial media strategymusic criticismYouTube music

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