I’ve noticed an interesting psychology pattern among many consumer app viral videos
Like this one => 50.2M views, 534K likes, 3K comments and 144K bookmarks
The “too good to be true”/instant reward hack:
“If you have anxiety, listen to this sound and watch what it does to your brain”
You can add a time/effort frame: “If you have anxiety, listen to this for 55 seconds and see…” (careful though, 55 sec in 2025 it’s not so little and could backfire)
Or you can even do what they did here and add a question : “what’s your favorite?” to spark engagement
This video got 1.7M views & 6K comments (vs the previous one which had 5M views but only 1K comments)
All these examples are from Calm App (tt@calm), one of the oldest and largest meditation apps ($60M+ ARR)
They’re doing insanely well organically with this 100% faceless format
But what’s cool is that you can offer “instant reward” for any niche:
Check this example from a language learning app:
“How to be fluent in Korean with ONE word”
=> 1.9M views // 353K likes // 1.7K comments // 53K bookmarks:
It should feel just “impossible” enough that triggers attention
The bigger the promise & the shorter the catch (time, effort, etc) the better => it’s the “too good to be true effect”
And another example:
“How to parallel park your car in 5 steps”
Seems obvious but it works, but only if your app/content targets a real pain point
In all these cases:
Feeling anxious affects daily life of millions
Learning Korean is challenging
Learning how to parallel park is even harder (for some of us, we listen and we don’t judge)
If it sounds too good to be true but still somewhat believable, you’ll have their attention
