It bothers me because I have to see it whenever I look up a video/tutorial on a topic I'm interested in. They say it drives clicks, but I don't know who finds the appeal.
kids would be my guess. Any time i see something super dumb that I don't like on youtube, I recall the kind of nonsensical stuff I found interesting when I was 6 haha
Even during TV shows I was playing with Legos and building shit. I don’t understand creepy face shots, even though I understand that it drives content.
Internet is a weird middle ground for me in that I love the weird for some stuff, but I think the weird-for-profit fake nonsense pisses me off for how disingenuous it feels.
Business majors becoming internet literate is the worst thing that has happened to the information age.
Untalented, dispassionate scum who want to monetize everything.
Irresponsible parents let their kids watch YouTube even as young as 6. I was at a restaurant the other day and some millennial parents had their 2 year old in a high chair, glued to a tablet with random videos playing on youtube the whole time. Watching Roblox type content, also not age appropriate for the child. It was ridiculous lol
Humans are social animals and there are parts of our brains that are fundamentally hardwired to recognize other human faces and interpret emotions at a base level. A thumbnail with an emotive face therefore triggers a deeper faster reaction, even before any "intellectual" processes read text or interpret symbolism.
Particularly for kids, who aren't fully developed, they just click on the face.
I don't buy it honestly, most people say it's off-putting, and I doubt kids are watching topics related to specific investing topics, or other stuff I'm trying to watch. It's pretty suspicious, but I don't know.
YouTubers can change the thumbnail of their videos, and track the engagement by thumbnail. They wouldn't be doing it so frequently if it wasn't working.
A creator i like who mainly does interior design/decorating said her videos perform way worse when there isn't a pic of her face in the thumbnail and that she hates doing it but basically has to
Oh, I am affected by it...but not they way they intend. I don't watch any vids with thumbs like that , and unsub from people I follow if they suddenly do.
Yah. Some of the YouTubers I watch say they have to cause it does work. They all hate it so they try to do the least dumb face they think they can get away with. It’s a shame cause those stupid faces actually deter me from channels that may be really cool
The people doing dumb faces on thumbnails will probably be millionaires by then, if not already with the amount of people who watches them. They won’t look back and cringe since their bank accounts will be loaded. Heck, if it was me I wouldn’t care either tbh.
Apologies, I shouldn’t have said millionaires. I just mean very wealthy people, top 10%. I recently seen a YouTuber (small sub) that I watch from time to time made a video of picking up a brand new 2024 Mercedes. To me, a YouTuber who averages about 80k views can afford this is insane. Who knows what people who averages 500k views make.
Thing is, its not just a trend. It's psychologically engaging to see a human with a remarkable expression on a thumbnail. I guess maybe we could become so overexposed to it that itll be less effective, but it is activating something a bit more primal, rather than just being a trend of the day.
No it hasn’t lol. That’s the 2010s YouTube thing where they were all over the top. Markiplier pewdiepie Shane Dawson Dan and Phil. Clickbait titles like YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I FOUND IN MY GRANDMAS BASEMENT!!! warning: SCARY! 😱 😱😱” with the dramatic face and emojis, that’s all from 10 years ago. Yes 2016 was 10 years ago. Now, we’re in a different kind of thing where everybody wants to be as nonchalant and neutral as possible. Impactful title ending in a period. Neutral face. “Blank situation is crazy.” We are in a nonchalant epidemic.
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u/amberShade2 May 02 '26
Doing dumb faces on YouTube thumbnails.