thanks! the thumbnail trend has gotten really, really bad. any insight into why creators are hopping on the bandwagon? is there data they have access to which suggests switching to this type of thumbnail will increase engagement?
But I’m like you, I’m pretty sad about it because sometimes this pushes me back very hard and I avoided some otherwise very great quality channels for months or years because of that.
My most remarkable example of this is KURZGESAGT : YouTube algorithm was always suggesting it and my brain was always thinking that this looked like cheap animated videos with colors everywhere to catch my eyes, probably with synthetic narration. I ignored it for months until I watched one by accident. And boy did I discovered it was in fact a brilliant channel with probably one of the most impressive animation and music on YouTube, an incredible narrator, one of the rare YouTube channels which provides links to studies for anything sentence they say and all of this full of poetry. Also a very non intrusive business model with pertinents sponsorships at the end of the videos and their own merchandise marketplace with actually nice items and artwork to buy.
The even sadder thing is that their thumbnails are in fact pretty good but they mostly suffered from the fact that my brain is now programmed to avoid anything catchy.
There is one good way to solve climate issues: consume less. Instead, kurzg says "we could consume, but someone will solve our issues with new great tech, like carbon capture".
Still, people like it, because it "sounds good".
No, kurzgesagt says that given that people won't be willing to consume less to the required degree novel tech will also have to play a role. It's disingenuous to run around and say that 'consume less' is the solution knowing that people won't do it. At least not if they aren't forced to. Do you want to argue for forcing people? Then say it. Don't hide behind "oh, just consume less, it's the only thing that works".
That's why I wrote that if you want to force people you should argue for it and not that you do want to. Please, don't accuse me of things I didn't write.
Personally, I don't think carbon capture will work very well either, but I don't see why my position should be more valid than kurzgesagts. Or why mine isn't propaganda, but theirs is.
Sadly... Ok ok, so it is basically science video channel with sponsored content where they don't say it is sponsored content. Better description?
There was only one of their video I felt awkward was their video about the fact we will tackle climate change, I felt like they were I little too techno optimistic. But given that they have a good history in this subject, I just felt their goal was to provide optimism.
Also, I’m sorry if I’m overly paranoid but I feel strange that you created an account just to make this comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjHMoNGqQTI
The optimism you mention in your comment is key. Conditioning the public to perceive and blindly accept the ideas and procedures commonly discussed in many of their videos as something net-positive seems to be the primary goal.
The art-style I think plays a very well-defined role in that: yes it's bland, but it's the most unlikely one to offend any one average viewer, irrespective of nationality or culture. It's just cute 2D flat birds after all.
I never bother watching LTT anyway. It represents everything that's wrong with YouTube.
When it comes to creators I actually respect I'd think of Dave Jones (EEVBlog), Naomi Wu, Louis Rossman...
Each time I stumbled upon a video of LTT, it ranged from "great" to "really ok".
There are way better channels but LTT is far from being the worst.
I suspect techlinked troll HN for news content, but I watch that for the humour rather than news.
They put out a "crazy engineering" video maybe once every 6 months while putting out 5+ videos every single week. The majority of the videos being uploaded are them faking enthusiasm for version i+1 of whatever product giant tech company put out this week or them trashing some silly or sometimes misunderstood idea.
It probably works.