Realistically, 2017 was not a real jump. It was an inflated sort of anomaly.

They released 22 new videos in July of 2017. The months leading up to it also had some big videos.

July of 2018? Only 9 new videos.

July of 2019 had 11 new videos including the Scott the Woz crossovers and an AVGN episode.

July of 2020 also had 11 new videos including an AVGN episode (and also one released right at the end of June). It's also worth considering that more people are inside a lot more and probably watching more YouTube videos this year thanks to the pandemic.

But a lot goes into the bare numbers when you think about it, and a big one is number of new videos released. Releasing a new video will get them a few hundred thousand or even a million or more views in a short period of time. That's why someone pointing out that they were getting more views than ever as proof that Screenwave was making the channel more popular was met with such skepticism. Because if you consider that for a while they were pumping out more videos per month than they probably ever were with much lower effort content, of course they were getting more views looking at just the bare numbers. Which is why I thought the look back at new videos and new averages was more interesting the first time I did it.