Video taking off 6.2x its usual first day

Drew Durnil questions which countries were really never colonized

His fast-starting map Short turns a tidy historical label into a question about buffer states, occupation and empires of their own.

Channel:

Drew Durnil Story of October 14, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 257,251 views a day, 6.2 times a normal first day on this channel (41,515).

Were These Countries REALLY Never Colonized by Europeans?!

The map needs footnotes. Drew Durnil's latest Short highlights countries credited with avoiding European colonization, then starts picking apart what that distinction actually means.

"Were These Countries REALLY Never Colonized by Europeans?!" has drawn roughly 240,000 views in 21 hours, putting it on course for more than six times his usual first-day Shorts audience. The comment section is already more than seven times as busy as a typical full first day, with viewers raising questions about protectorates, occupied territories and the difference between European colonization and colonization by anyone else.

Speaking beneath animated maps, Durnil explains Afghanistan and Thailand through their positions between European empires. Korea gets a different qualification: avoiding European rule did not mean avoiding rule by other Asian powers. Japan supplies his closing contrast, a country that became a colonial power itself.

Some of the labels need more care than the brisk format allows. Durnil celebrates Ethiopia's resistance to Italy, but its victory at Adwa and its later Italian occupation are distinct chapters. Ethiopia defeated an Italian invasion at Adwa; Italy subsequently invaded again and occupied the country. He also challenges Liberia's inclusion, characterizing it as essentially an American colony.

That is the interesting wrinkle in this particular Durnil map: a single color groups together countries whose histories have very little in common. The useful question isn't just which places are highlighted, but what the highlight leaves out.

Published on Trari

Where next?

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The facts

Channel: Drew Durnil
Subscribers: 1,560,000
Channel views, last 7 days: 1,943,416
Channel views, pace per day: 508,572 (on a normal day: 250,573)
Video published: October 13, 2026
Video views so far: 243,378 (less than a day online)
Video views, pace per day: 257,251

The numbers

The Short is heading toward an unusually large first-day audience for Durnil. Its comments have already exceeded his usual full-day total by a wide margin.

the video's first day

usual first day here

41,515

this video

257,251

subscribers

1,560,000

no significant change in the last 7 days

total views

1,164,993,498

views per day

508,572