Stuck in view Jail

I run a channel with 40k subs where I upload anime-related shorts. It's a niche where good content can get you a lot of views. I myself have earned nearly 3k dollars from my channel just through anime shorts. My shorts used to get 2k views immediately within the first hour of posting, and if the retention was 80+ then they usually went into lakhs. But recently, my videos are not getting pushed at all. They are stuck in the 30k jail, and I’m only getting around 50 views in the first hour, which has never happened to me. Even with worse retention, I always used to get 3k or 4k views in the first hour.

Recently, I uploaded a video that literally got only 4k views despite having 80+ view duration and 80+ swipe-to-view ratio. My other videos with the same metrics have gone into millions. I just don’t understand why I suddenly stopped getting pushed by YouTube.

If you don’t know, when you have a well-performing channel for a long time, even if you upload a short with 70+ retention and 70+ swipe-to-view ratio, you still get 30k views easily. So the real problem here is something that I’m not able to understand.

Now please don’t tell me I need better videos or a better hook. Man, I’m sick of hearing that. That is not the case in 2025. We are not in 2020 anymore. These days, YouTube’s AI is messing things up.