While retention is a metric, creators should focus on making storylines that genuinely energize viewers and invite them to think about their perspectives.

“retention you can exploit that you can exploit people's tendencies to stay if you do this and that or you can make the the storyline something that is literally actively energizing them and making them think about what their perspectives are and adding to their lives”

D'angelo emphasizes that audience retention is his primary priority and that he structures his long-form videos to maintain viewer engagement throughout.

“before I think about click-through rate or anything like that the most important thing to me is like if I'm going to be putting this much work into a video how am I going to make sure that people are actually watching the video”