I get him recommended all the time but his thumbnails and doomer titles don’t look appealing (they’re all 1/3 his face). In general, if all a Thumbnail/title elicits is some kind of emotionally loaded tired cliche (AI will kill us all, Reading is dead, We were this close to all being hacked by Jia Tan, Overpopulation, Underpopulation, the decay of [Art Form, Daily Pastime, Emotion, Other Noun], We Did Transgressive Investigative Journalism, Epic Scientist Battle of the Equations, you may add to gis list) I don’t watch it. If it promises cool news about topic, or personal story, I do. Also, I still hate Enrico Tartarotti for some insufficiently explained reason. (he made a video basically dissing vim at some point, and I don’t even know how to use vim)
It appeals to a lot of Gen-Z and Gen-A. They don’t understand nuanced topics and can only see things in stark black and/or white. Either a thing is wholly doom, or it’s the best thing they will ever see. There is no middle ground.
I was born in 2005
I’m not talking about the content, I’m referring to the clickbait thumbnails that I thought this post was about.
It’s designed to catch the attention of people that have 5 second attention spans and can’t form an opinion without the help of others.
The blone guy had to insert a dildo in his ass to make this thumbnail. The other clickbait one is where they have to stretch their mouth open to suck a cock then edit it out to make the thumbnail. And they always come with a vauge question title to maximize their audience brainrot
I have some plugin that just puts an image from inside the video as a thumbnail. Very nice not having to see gaping grimacing youtubers when on youtube.
Unfortunately that emotional reaction from clickbaity/doomy stuff can work really well for some. The few times I’ve tried it, it hasn’t worked for me, so my thumbnails aren’t (I think) particularly doomy.
However, I focus on tech though, so a lot of what I talk about definitely has a cautionary tone, like the story this week about Muse’s security vulnerabilities, or the Gamers Nexus investigation of LGTV’s a few weeks ago. I sprinkle in jokes here and there to try and keep these topics lighter and more accessible.
You seem to slightly think that the only purpose of a thumbnail is to get people to watch the video, but you neither like taking this maxim to the extreme by tricking people emotionally, nor does it even work for you. Or do you think that a thumbnail should be emotionally honest (not dry on purpose, just not more sensationalist than he topic deserves), and tell the viewer what the video is about? Or a different thing?
I just do what I like, and eventually, my people find me. :)
Much easier than trying to make something work for the algorithm that isn’t authentic.
cool
or worse yet: you can tell the actual video is at the bottom and at the top there’s some random roach just making o-faces over and over for attempts to get famous as a reaction tuber ? (I don’t know)
I’m not a fan of the “I promise this is interesting” thumbnails I see everywhere on gaming videos. They rarely live up to said promise.
afaik it’s copied from jan Misali, where it was funny the first time
A shitty thumbnail = unsubscribe / do not recommend channel. Take out the trash
Don’t worry. You don’t need to use vim.
Vim is mid-late 1900s software with colors added, essentially propped up by momentum and clique ritual, supported by efficiency tropes tired already in the '90s. Its only value is dopamine from the daily coping with its interface and a feeling of belonging to the elitist therapy group of similar survivors. It’s doomer prepper but in editor form.
Did you comment on the wrong post? Also this trend of saying “1900s” is…weird.
Cool story, bro. Tell it again.
I keep forgetting about thumbnails. One of the first things I do, when installing or reinstalling a browser, is get DeArrow to remove the clickbait and custom thumbnails. I just found them off-putting for too long.
Same. Freetube replaces them with a frame from the video.
I also set it up to replace the sensational titles with sensible ones
I get trying to remove clickbait thumbnails, but getting rid of all custom thumbnails seems harsh. My thumbnails might be pretty basic, but I make them by hand and would hate to be lumped in with clickbait channels
I don’t think it’s a harsh decision. The thumbnail isn’t what provides enough information regarding the video itself, it’s an aesthetic which I find irrelevant to the content. If the title is engaging enough, that’s what will interest me to click it (regardless of whether someone is a big or small creator).
Youtubes content creators are also its victims, just as much as the viewers.
The problem is the spam so largely outweighs the actual hand-crafted, good ones, that just getting rid of it all is the only real solution for the end user.
I read that title and I click away. Miss me with that gloom. I want educational content.
I love watching This Old House videos, highly recommend if you’re looking for DIY education (even if you never do it) on home repair/renovation
I read 38:49 & headed for the comments. Why can’t these things be articles?
Only video of him worth watching is about child actors because he was one. The rest is boring and gloomy imo.
Even then his whole identity is “I was a child actor” which wore thin after a few videos.
