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Comment by vunderba | Hacker News Reader

Though I haven't seen stats to back it up - I've heard from multiple sources that thumbnails which include a gigantic bobblehead of the author with a particularly exaggerated stupid looking expression on their face induce more people to click through.

Even if it's for the sake of feeding the algorithm, I do my best to skip them.

I also internally prioritize videos which:

- avoid usage of superlatives "TOP X", "BEST OF Y"

- have more than 5k views and less than 250k views.

After a while, my YT recommendations have become mostly solid.

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It's called YouTube Face[1] and the fact that it works makes me weep for humanity.

1: https://allscience.substack.com/p/on-the-grim-reality-of-you...

> It's called YouTube Face[1] and the fact that it works makes me

( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ)

(fixed it for you)

From looking at the link you posted, the immediate consideration, is it looks like they're all optimizing for a pornography face. Would not be very surprising based on the reputation of the internet.

It doesn't exactly help with your goal, but tangentially, I use a browser addon called DeArrow, from the creator of SponsorBlock, which replaces thumbnails and clickbait titles with a video still / user-submitted ones. I often forget it's installed until I use another browser, but it's a really nice experience!

https://dearrow.ajay.app/

> that thumbnails which … induce more people to click through

Entirely conjecture on my part, but I imagine this _was_ true, has now been done to death, and no longer has any juice left in it. It’s how all the marketing stuff goes: discovered, early adopters get great results, everyone starts doing it and it loses any value.

> discovered, early adopters get great results, everyone starts doing it and it loses any value.

You might still lose out, if you don't do it?

Just like virtually every car these days has great safety features, so it's not a good selling point; but just try selling a car with 1980s levels of safety.

Possibly! I guess it's probably best to be guided by if the real pros are still using them. I think people are less likely to click on obvious clickbait these days, precisely because they recognize it, than on more authentic headlines. Supporting your PoV though is that MrBeast's noggin' is still prominently in his thumbnails.

I mostly skip videos with arrows in the thumbnails.

PBS Space Time started doing it. Along with some clickbait/pull titles. I stopped watching.

Check out the DeArrow extension. Crowd sourced thumbnails and titles. It's great.

This is like removing the warning signs from toxic material containers.

It's not though. Even generally good YouTubers are forced to play the thumbnail game. Garbage content is typically revealed in the community title.

Nobody is forced to use them. If they really want an audience swayed by arrows, I don't want to be part of their audience.

I don't want to hide the arrow. I WANT to know what channels to avoid just by looking at the thumbnail. It's a feature, not a bug.

You can configure it to not be enabled by default, but you click a little blue circle next to the title and it will show you the community version.

Plenty of good content is forced to play the clickbait thumbnail/title game and it would be a shame to miss some of it because of YouTube's incentive problems.

That's actually pretty damned good.

For channels I already subbed to, I forgive that if the quality remains consistent. PBS Space Time's videos have remained stellar, as always.

Even worse are headlines that say

TOP 10 BEST

When you have "top" and a word ending with "est" in the same headline, you've done it wrong.

gigantic bobblehead of the author with a particularly exaggerated stupid looking expression on their face induce more people to click through

I never avoided these. They naturally make me puke and disgust and want to smash their degenerate faces if I ever see one on the street. No need for doing my best. The realization that so many people happily click through that was sickening at the time. It’s “open doors” party in asylum and people rushing in in excitement.

Btw, many channels seem to moved on from that, in self-moderation after a short period of experiments. Those who stuck to it showed the most increase in mental deficiency and turning to stupid comedy/meme show rather than original material. One example of that were these new LTT formats, afair.

> want to smash their degenerate faces

You're supposed to smash the like button and remember to comment and subscribe.

Yeah, to give it a high five and steal its cheaps while it enjoys my company. And subscribe, cause only 13% of me are subscribed, please (god please).

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