What We Can Learn From the Best Storyteller on YouTube, Stephanie Soo

I listened, I observed, and I noted

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-two-women-laughing-4349855/

I’m not very good at storytelling. When I do it, I tend to leave out a lot of details or add too much, use filler words like “like”, forget the timeline, so I go back and forth, or worse, lose my train of thoughts altogether — probably because I’m even boring myself.

I’m not sure who’s the culprit here; anxiety, introversion, or mercury that might be in retrograde. I just know that I’m not a good storyteller and I want to become better at it. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

So let me introduce you to who I think is the best storyteller on YouTube — Stephanie Soo, a 26-year-old true crime YouTuber.

Now, I listen to many storytelling podcasts like The Moth, Snap Judgement (my absolute favorite), or the classic, This American Life. While the storytellers on there are obviously 10x better than me, the stories sound a little bit too scripted at times.

Stephanie Soo is different.

So different that hundreds of people would compliment her storytelling skills on her videos that range from 20–90 minutes. She seems to be able to hold her audience's attention until the very end without an issue. In the age of TikTok and considering that her audience is on the younger side, this is very impressive.

There are literally hundreds of this type of comment on every video

So after intentionally listening to her stories, this is what I think she does we can apply ourselves.

She asks her audience questions in the beginning

If she’s telling a story about someone who got killed because of an affair, she’d be asking questions like,

“Have you ever caught someone cheating?”

Immediately, not only does this invoke curiosity, this invites us to be a part of the experience.

She paints a vivid picture of the main characters before jumping into the story.