9 ms·

Believe me, I had a nice discussion yesterday with my sister (who helped me take pictures for the thumbnail), and we both agreed it's one of the dumbest things

• NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  Its so strange, since the presence of a face immediately makes me not want to watch a video.
  • goohle 5y ago
    Try these videos: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bikini+try+on https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bikini+try+on . They will help to overcome the fear.
• thioordc 5y ago
  That’s a crazy amount more!
• riekus 5y ago
  I can't stand that Linus PC guy with his exaggerated faces on the thumbs.
  • slig 5y ago
    He's a video explaining how well that kind of clickbaity thumbs works.
    • geerlingguy 5y ago
      Said video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzRGBAUz5mA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzRGBAUz5mA
  • MivLives 5y ago
    He's explained it's pretty much for the same reason the OP did it. It's possible to prove it works, especially when you're releasing a video each day. Youtube at this point is about optimizing clicks. People like Mr.Beast generally know their video title and thumbnail before they even start production on the content.
    • jrockway 5y ago
      Unconvinced. LTT has 1 or 2 good videos for every 30 videos they release. Maybe the face helps people click the bad videos, but the good videos stand for themselves and it's likely that he would be successful without playing the game. (His all time most popular video doesn't have a thumbnail of him making a weird face. It's his most popular video of all time because his guest was exceedingly entertaining.) (Also, I don't mean for this to be an anti-Linus post. How he built LMG is a great story and he deserves the success he's achieved.)
      • 0des 5y ago
        Very offtopic but, at first I thought you said L1T and we almost had to take this outside. Level1Techs is awesome. Can't say much for LinusTechTips as it's targeting a different audience, though the young man does seem charismatic.
      • elcomet 5y ago
        Unfortunately they do A/B testing on the same video to confirm this.
  • TomVDB 5y ago
    I can’t stand the dumb faces either. And yet… I catch myself being more likely to click on them when it has a face on it. It’s the weirdest thing.
• nzach 5y ago
  If you ever have the time I would like to read a blog post with this data and some comments about your perception towards this issue. I have no trouble understanding why this happens on "entertainment" videos, but this issue on technical videos seems a bit strange to me.
  • musingsole 5y ago
    > this issue on technical videos This is still entertainment. Technical info dressed up as entertainment, but still entertainment. Clicks reign supreme.
    • blitzar 5y ago
      Clicks == Money
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > I have no trouble understanding why this happens on "entertainment" videos, but this issue on technical videos seems a bit strange to me. All videos are entertainment videos; it is a medium optimized for and driven by emotional response.
• wink 5y ago
  Could you please A/B test if it needs to be your exaggerated face or if stock photos would suffice? ;) Also kudos to building your brand, I only saw the headline and already figured it might be you.. (or Linus, but it didn't say anything about /dropping/ 5k)
  • geerlingguy 5y ago
    That's a good question, actually. I don't know what the inflection point would be, but at some point too, you get some face recognition with existing audience that might increase the CTR versus stock photos. I think it would have a lot to do with whether the presenter is part of the video (I do 'talking head' a lot) versus off-camera (like, for example, ETA Prime, LPL, or AvE).
• foodstances 5y ago
  But why is view count the only metric you care about? How about getting fewer views but more engagement, with viewers that want to see the content but are turned off by the stupid thumbnails?
  • afavour 5y ago
    Because the video includes paid promotion and YouTube does not reward fewer views with more engagement. (and if we're honest if you really do want to see the content then depriving yourself because of the contents of the thumbnail feels very self-defeating)
  • geerlingguy 5y ago
    Getting fewer views (and likely much reduced watch time) means YouTube's algorithm quickly buries your video. You and I might use subscriptions on YouTube (just like I prefer RSS), but 99% of viewers for some reason just go to the home page and click on things YouTube recommends (regardless of whether they subscribe to a channel). If you don't get recommended, you don't get views, and it's even less likely that regular viewers (outside the few who actually check their subscriptions page) will engage with your videos.
    • KronisLV 5y ago
      It's curious and pleasant to see some people taking a stance on this issue, by exploring other venues apart from YouTube. For example, Luke Smith hosts many of his videos over on Odysee nowadays: https://odysee.com/$/invite/@Luke:7 https://odysee.com/$/invite/@Luke:7 Also, Bryan Lunduke also moved over to Locals and has generally expressed that it's a more pleasant community: https://lunduke.locals.com/ https://lunduke.locals.com/ Of course, i don't doubt that it's akin to financial suicide for anyone who relies on YouTube as their main source of income, but if nothing else, it's nice to see people standing up for their principles, instead of selling out and trying to build their platform on another site that can end their presence at will. I guess only time will show whether there ever will be any financially feasible alternatives to YouTube, though.
    • ryandrake 5y ago
• jjk166 5y ago
  I honestly wonder which came first, the viewer preference or the algorithm. Like are there people out there that see a whacky face in the thumbnail and think "Oh that's a video I want to watch!" and the algorithm just got trained on that? Or did whacky faces just resemble something (from the algorithm's perspective) that was briefly popular and then a positive feedback loop of algorithm recommends it -> gets popular -> algorithm updated to recommend it more often.
  • geerlingguy 5y ago
    I've discussed this with my brother a bit (he's a neurologist, though not a specialist in vision), and he seems to think part of it goes back to our brain's instinct to react more to 'face' than other stimuli. Therefore thumbnails with a discernible face will do better. And on top of that, an expression outside of "stock photo smile" will stand out more, and if you combine that, plus a catchy title that piques your interest, and have a video that can back it up, it will do a lot better than just having a video that has good content.
    • ModernMech 5y ago
      > he seems to think part of it goes back to our brain's instinct to react more to 'face' than other stimuli. I've noticed this same thing with advertisements and dancing. Why are people always dancing and singing in advertisements? Seems like people just are wired to pay attention to certain human behaviors.
    • jjk166 5y ago
      This explanation never really made sense to me. It's not like videos are hidden in a background and the thumbnail needs to stand out in our field of vision. Videos are presented front and center, and you're only looking at a few at a time. I presume everyone looks at all the video thumbnails; I just go left to right, top to bottom. Maybe if you were presented with hundreds of options at once and had to click on something quickly, something that draws the eye might get that sort of response, but that's not how Youtube works. Instead you are presented with a small number of options and given unlimited time to choose, and the consequence of choosing a bad video is several minutes of wasted time. I presume most people are asking themselves "do I want to watch this" and deciding "yes, this video looks interesting/entertaining/etc." Maybe if the effect were small, like 1-2% I could believe its just a slight nudge due to psychological hacking, but the reported differences in the tens of percent and the extreme importance that seems to be placed by the algorithm indicates this is a major factor in peoples' decision making process.
• blitzar 5y ago
  Face only, mouth open 4-6cm, "shocked" expression. Amount of $$$$'s in the title. Like, subscribe and turn on notifications. We want to hear what you think, comment below.
  • letitbeirie 5y ago
    Remember to ring that effing bell
• colechristensen 5y ago
  The question not being asked is how your audience changes A vs B in other ways than size. You can easily A/B test yourself into mediocrity by constantly optimizing for a larger, dumber audience. They stop liking your old content (despite your dumb faces, etc) so you make new content they like more, keep that cycle up for a while. And you end up making emotionally charged rage-porn political videos and have become the next Facebook/cable news/etc. This is also why the second or third album for a band is usually the best; they get popular and start letting their audience design their music and become repetitive and mildly awful.
  • ASalazarMX 5y ago
    Creators are optimizing for money, YouTube's algorithm is the one optimizing for audience size.
    • goohle 5y ago
      Half of general audience has IQ below average.
      • marginalia_nu 5y ago
        That's not how averages work.
        • goohle 5y ago
          This is how IQ is defined.
          • marginalia_nu 5y ago
            No, it is not. 68.2% of the population is in the average span of 85-115 IQ. 15.9% is in the below-average span of 0-85.
            • goohle 5y ago
• runnerup 5y ago
  I wonder how it affects which populations are viewing the videos. But revenue is revenue!
• ASalazarMX 5y ago
  > an exaggerated face, a bit more than that Have you tested a difference between a regular expression (intrigued, skeptic, smiling...) and a goofy face? For science?
  • dylan604 5y ago
    s/[intrigued|skeptic|smiling]/goofy/ guessing not the regex you were implying though
  • geerlingguy 5y ago
    Yes. Goofy face always wins :( Though it gets an insane amount of backlash on HN (case in point: this thread).
    • pwnna 5y ago
      Maybe both your observation and HN is right: the distribution is multi-modal in the sense that (presumably) there is a large majority of people where the thumbnail works for and views the content, and then there is a small (and possibly vocal) minority of people who absolutely hate it and treat it as an anti-signal. I know I belong in the latter group and will lose all interest in the video once I see the weird face and the edited icon. I've seen a few of your videos and they're indeed very good. That said, I've noticed that I semi-consciously would avoid your video due to the icon which triggers an immediate reaction from me to stay away. It's a shame, because I know that the videos can be good, but the thumbnail is actively driving me away. In a way, I'm no different than the people who clicks on these videos, as I am also judging a book by its covers. This kind of multi-modal behaviour can be very hard to capture with A/B test. You get a large influx of people that more than offsets the loss in the other audience pool. It's also anyone's guess on which group is better. From a pure business perspective, it's probably okay to lose me, as I use adblock and/or youtube-dl to watch the videos, which means I don't really drive revenue. That said, I've noticed some second order effects: as I'm more technical, I would recommend these type of content to others who will listen to my advice. I've noticed similar effects with others. If the more technical people are in the second group and are driven away, I wonder if this kind of stuff makes a difference with the long term health of a channel/content generator, which could be very difficult to quantify. In any case thanks for your videos and insights.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• II2II 5y ago
  The perspective of one viewer: Having a face in the thumbnail helps me to identify channels that already of interest me. That is the positive. While there is an element of entertainment to the channel, I usually view your channel for information (e.g. interesting project ideas). I expect the thumbnail to show me what the video is about. If an exaggerated facial expression draws my attention away from that, or leads me to believe there is more entertainment than substance to the video (e.g. it is for shock value), then I will simply skip over it. Throwing in a face for a 20-30% increase in views is almost certainly worth it. The question is: are the exaggerated attention grabbing thumbnails worth a bit more than that? Each time I skip a video, the channel's relevance goes down in my mind. Each time the relevance goes down, I am less likely to assess future thumbnails positively.[1] My thoughts are that the "bit more" may be of short term value for gaining viewers, but counterproductive in retaining long term viewers. [1] Yes, it is an unfair assessment since it is based upon unwatched videos. On the other hand, viewers are confronted with a deluge of videos each time they visit YouTube.
  • goohle 5y ago
    > Throwing in a face for a 20-30% increase in views is almost certainly worth it. Tits are better than just a face.
• stocknoob 5y ago
  What do you think the A/B test for showing cleavage in your thumbnails? https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-not-to-advertise-on-the-internet/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-not-to-advertise-on-the-in... Where does it end?
• 908B64B197 5y ago
  Exaggerated face with a PCB is basically your trademark. If you see it while scrolling you know it's you (and that it's going to be high quality content).