this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I did the opposite. I installed an addon that adds Mr Beast to every thumbnail.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I need a mod for my phone my that just makes every icon a picture of some character with their mouth wide open, yelling.

(refer to this reddit post for what I mean)

Calculator? Someone yelling.

Settings? Someone yelling.

Camera app? Believe it or not, someone yelling.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

There’s also a Scott the Woz version, which I have installed

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

i tried that too, its one of my favourite extensions

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Man this creator keeps on giving, making YouTube better than Google does so

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's pretty telling a platform like YouTube really only gets fully enjoyable with an adblocker, sponsorblock and this. I wish PeerTube had a lot of good creators, but last time I checked (years ago, admittedly) it was mostly conspiracy theorists and cryptobros.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem with PeerTube is that there's no built-in way for creators to get paid. If there are no ads or sponsors, then the only alternative is some kind of value for value system like what Podcasting 2.0 has. Until some kind of well integrated funding system gets built for PeerTube, creators really are not going to be incentivized to publish stuff on the platform.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Best I can think of, would be implementing Librepay into PeerTube and make payments easy af.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

https://tilvids.com has some reasonable ones, although they're often just as well YouTubers, so you get similar clickbait, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Tilvids.com is probably the best place for good creators on PeerTube.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Don’t forget the PocketTube extension, which allows you to sort subscriptions into self-made categories. Which is shockingly not a default feature.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But I don't want to reward people that do this by watching their videos

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I second this. The only reason click bait trash thumbnails work is people accepting it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Really good extension, I've added it to my browser.

While some creators like Linus have said they dislike the clickbaity titles and thumbnails but they have to do it due to engagement that's simply because the younger generations are the ones engaging with that content. As an older person I'd rather just have a to the point description of what I'm going to get.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I might get it for the titles alone. The clickbaity thumbnails don't really bother me, but I'd like to have a good title at least.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah the titles are actually a huge draw for me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Don't forget that creators will release a video that you might want to watch later and then change the information.

You'll see a video you want to check tomorrow but not enough to add it to the "watch later". But when you check your subscriptions the next day it's been 12+ hours and they've changed the title and thumbnail to further game the algorithm.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I don’t think it can be said to conclusively be an age issue. I assure you that many Boomers and older Xers love clickbait titles.

It’s a more granular demographic than just age.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe but I can only go with my own anecdotal experience and It tends to be the younger audience more attracted to them.

Of course, I fully admit I may be completely wrong.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's definitely an intelligent based issue, not necessarily age.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (8 children)

There is a reason clickbait images and titles are used, they work. If they didn't work, no one would use them.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I've used it for exactly three minutes and this is already amazing. I hope it gets integrated into ReVanced and Newpipe.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would love it on Piped, they already have sponsorblock

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Never heard of piped. Filling the same niche as revanced?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

funny. if the creator used the right side for the xenphone I might click on it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also be sure to get the restore YouTube dislike button extension

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

As well as uBlock Origin, Sponsorblock and BlockTube.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I want to know when YT made it possible to have thumbnails be their own image and not taken from the video itself. I can scrub the video through every single frame and never actually find the thumbnails anymore.

Hell, sometimes the text in the thumbnail says something that isn't even discussed in the video at all. Those are the ones I hate the most. And I wouldn't necessarily want to remove the thumbnail, just because there are plenty of channels that make the thumbnail the actual title and the title is just... Bullshit, non-descriptive, a number, etc. Not all of them are bad. Civvie 11 and Internet Comment Etiquette do this. Erik probably does it on purpose both for the fact it works and also because he is a satire channel that regularly shits on these practices by showing how dumb they are. Civvie also satirizes YT's bullshit, but that's not really the prime focus of the channel.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I never thought it could be possible to do that, thank you so much for this and making YouTube a better place.

If someone knows how to get rid of shorts in the search results I'd be most grateful 👌

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Google's algorithm has forced people into using click bait thumbnails and titles. If they don't attract more views and subscribers, then their channels are not pushed.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I kind of like seeing the clickbait, it lets me know which videos/channels arent worth my time. I know most use at least a little clickbait these days, but from the better channels its usually managable and still on topic (like the Real Engineering example shown here, whereas the others are complete clickbait that I would avoid).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This feels like, IMHO, trying to put out a forest fire with a single bucket of water. Instead, we should have a platform that does not encourage making titles and thumbnails completely unrelated to the video's content.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

how would that be possible?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This sounds like a nice addon, sadly most of my YT consumption is done from my Nvidia Shield TV with STN, so I still get those annoying thumbnails I think (I have them in my home screen and that's where I watch them or add them to the list to watch later within the Shield menu).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't wait to have this on YouTube ReVanced and SmartTube.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

It's on revanced now

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Love the idea, but just to be the devil's advocate, I think it will just mask garbage videos. Currently, the clickbait thumbnails and titles are an indicator to blacklist a channel, without having to waste time watching it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unfortunately because of the way Youtube's algorithm works, even high quality channels are buried if they don't play the game.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Yeah, even good ones do it.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The Real Engineering video used as an example here is excellent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you look at the DeArrow website and browser extension pages, I made sure to only use high quality channels as examples (Tom Scott, CGP Grey) to demonstrate how far reaching the sensationalism problem is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

CGP Grey is personally painful to me. He used to be a no-nonsense education youtube legend, but in the last few years he's just maximised clickability - even going thorugh his whole back catalogue and changing titles and thumbnails.

For example, he made a great video about generative adversarial networks ~5 years ago but now its titled "How machines like ChatGPT learn" - despite coming out before GPT.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Pretty much every successful YouTube channel edits titles. It's just part of the algorithm game now. You will often see videos cycle through several different titles shortly after release.

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