Love the Lens (Black Circle Confidence)
Look at the little black dot, not your own face — that dot is your audience.
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Love the Lens is Okazaki's discipline of looking directly into the camera's lens rather than at the monitor or your own on-screen face. He calls the habit 'black circle confidence' — the little black dot is your audience, and looking at your own face is vanity. He tested this by auditing Alex Hormozi's content: about 80% of the bottom-tier videos had him looking off-camera, while about 80% of the top-tier videos had him looking straight into the lens, a pattern that repeated across other creators. Because eye contact builds connection offline, it does the same online, and the payoff is more engagement with no extra effort.
Origin
Okazaki discovered the pattern while auditing top and bottom performing videos of creators like Alex Hormozi for his agency's social media clients, looking for signals the algorithms can't surface.
Core principles
- 01Eye contact online works exactly like eye contact in real life.
- 02The lens is your audience; your own face on screen is vanity.
- 03Small gaze differences measurably change conversion.
- 04Discipline the habit until looking at the lens is effortless.
How to run it
- 1
Fix your gaze on the lens
Direct your eyes at the physical camera lens rather than the monitor showing the other person or your own face.
Pro tip Even the small difference between looking at the lens and looking at your own face changes conversion.
Watch out Looking just slightly off feels different to the viewer and weakens connection.
- 2
Audit your gaze against performance
Compare your top and bottom performing videos and check where your eyes are pointing in each.
Pro tip The pattern is consistent enough across creators that gaze alone predicts tier.
- 3
Drill it into a habit
Practice lens contact until it's effortless, so engagement comes without conscious effort.
In the wild
Okazaki analyzed Alex Hormozi's Instagram and TikTok videos, comparing the top 10% and bottom 10% performers. Around 80% of the bottom tier had Hormozi looking off-camera, while around 80% of the top tier had him looking straight into the lens.
→ Established gaze direction as a reliable, algorithm-invisible predictor of video performance.
Common mistakes
Watching your own face
Looking at your on-screen image instead of the lens is vanity and it breaks the eye contact that builds viewer connection.
Looking off-camera
Even a slight off-lens gaze reads as disconnection and correlates with bottom-tier video performance.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone speaking to camera who wants viewers to feel personally connected.
Not ideal for
Multi-person or B-roll-heavy productions where direct-to-lens address isn't the format.
From the transcript
“loving the lens is disciplining yourself to look at the little black dot I call it black circle confidence that black circle is your audience”
“when he's looking off camera those are like 80 of the videos that were the bottom 10 tier... and 80 of the videos in the…”
From the episode
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Ken Okazaki