Smarter Every Day did a video on using clickbait titles and thumbnails. The data is clear: everyone complains about it, but it performs far better than anything else on YT. And if the goal is to most efficiently spread educational videos to the largest number of people, then unfortunately, it’s really the only option.
TBH, the tone isn’t that different from Bill Nye. Wacky colors, loud obnoxious personality, gotta get kids excited about science somehow.
SED also uses the clickbait tactics, so I wouldn’t exactly consider them an ubiased source. They’re also all profiting from these tactics. Let’s not pretend it’s just some virtuous sacrifice to “teach the kids”.
Correct. But at least we all can agree that the OG pillars of sciTube (and adjacent content) who keep it fresh with their unique forever updating style are the less guilty of those tactics: 3blue1brown, Vsauce, CGP Grey, Steve Mould, Matt Parker, Numberphile & 3 or 4 more that escape the tip of my tongue. They all do this for a living, but only one created a loot box and all profits go to research.
Veritasium has gotten really bad on that front. It used to be really educational, but now it’s a lot of bullshit stuff that doesn’t matter that he’s doing for the clicks. I’ve mostly stopped watching that channel now.
Thankfully, he does seem to be interested in education as well as earning money recording himself doing ridiculous things.
While it is not my cup of tea, my youngest loves it and has brought up engineering and physics concepts from it in appropriate situations, so I am not complaining.
Yah. I, too, have had reservations, as it looks like every other Mr. beast type youtuber. But, I think we have to come to grips with the fact that it is driven by capitalism and YouTube’s algorithm.
I think it was Linus Tech Tips that had a video explicitly explaining the A-B methods that are used to serve a thumbnail and how the annoying youtuber face ones tended to get more traffic and more new viewers.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Smarter Every Day did a video on using clickbait titles and thumbnails. The data is clear: everyone complains about it, but it performs far better than anything else on YT. And if the goal is to most efficiently spread educational videos to the largest number of people, then unfortunately, it’s really the only option.
TBH, the tone isn’t that different from Bill Nye. Wacky colors, loud obnoxious personality, gotta get kids excited about science somehow.
SED also uses the clickbait tactics, so I wouldn’t exactly consider them an ubiased source. They’re also all profiting from these tactics. Let’s not pretend it’s just some virtuous sacrifice to “teach the kids”.
Correct. But at least we all can agree that the OG pillars of sciTube (and adjacent content) who keep it fresh with their unique forever updating style are the less guilty of those tactics: 3blue1brown, Vsauce, CGP Grey, Steve Mould, Matt Parker, Numberphile & 3 or 4 more that escape the tip of my tongue. They all do this for a living, but only one created a loot box and all profits go to research.
Veritasium has gotten really bad on that front. It used to be really educational, but now it’s a lot of bullshit stuff that doesn’t matter that he’s doing for the clicks. I’ve mostly stopped watching that channel now.
I still watch him, but for this reason I did not include him on the list.
Thankfully, he does seem to be interested in education as well as earning money recording himself doing ridiculous things.
While it is not my cup of tea, my youngest loves it and has brought up engineering and physics concepts from it in appropriate situations, so I am not complaining.
That’s great. I’m glad to hear it is having at least some positive impact despite my reservations.
Yah. I, too, have had reservations, as it looks like every other Mr. beast type youtuber. But, I think we have to come to grips with the fact that it is driven by capitalism and YouTube’s algorithm.
I think it was Linus Tech Tips that had a video explicitly explaining the A-B methods that are used to serve a thumbnail and how the annoying youtuber face ones tended to get more traffic and more new viewers.
DeArrow replaces clickbait thumbnails and title with croudsourced title and frame of the video
Yeah, unfortunately I never use yt from a browser, and grayjay doesn’t have dearrow support afaik.