Hate-watching

Hate-watchers behave like fans on the surface. They click, they stay, they comment at length, and they come back for the next one. A video collecting them can look like a hit in Studio while the comment section is a pile-on, and drama and rage bait attract them in volume.

The cost lands later. An audience assembled out of irritation does not buy anything and does not come back for the ordinary videos, and it skews what you learn from your own numbers, so you end up chasing the format that produced the mess. Check whether high engagement on a video is people enjoying it or people arguing with it.