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)
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