It's very hard to gain followers on any social platform, but for YouTube your best bet is to:
- Aim the videos at a specific group of people.
- Don't make it with the purpose of going viral. Just make videos.
If you really look at it, the videos that go viral are stupid ones. So if you want to record yourself eating a bag of nails, that would go viral. If you make a video where you aim it at musicians, the views will be much lower.
As long as your videos are good and consistent, you will get a solid following.