I use youtube on a fire tv stick often enough. I do care about clickbait. Clickbait does cause me to not watch particular channels. clickbait did not make me stop I mostly just don’t watch it but its impossible to completely avoid. no clickbait is not the only problem, there is the often mocked video that does not get to the point until way deep in. I have not seen good clickbait. I do not see clickbait as necessary but stuff like that rears up in all sorts of media (movies were all the good scenes are in the trailer)

Neigsendoig (my producer) and I absolutely use the stones out of YouTube through Invidious, so we know a thing or two about clickbait (as we’re both content creators, while I’m virtual in this context). Speaking of, clickbait to be clickbait (meaning, clickbait elements without any sort of valuable video) is completely sloppy, and AI loves that. After all, the YouTube algorithm clearly does something as an AI with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, megalomania, and a ton of other human mental health issues.

Clickbait titles without actual video behind it is a bad move, as I tend to watch more relationship YouTubers vs. idea YouTubers [that’s an idea from Olli (Mumbo Jumbo) by the way]. Neigsendoig and I are on opposite sides of the spectrum, as I narrate for an idea YouTube channel.

That said, to your question on clickbait making one stop seeing a creator… for both Neigsendoig and I, it 100% does depending on the context, and the dualistic type I described earlier. While not the major problem, clickbait is certainly a huge problem on the platform. Now, I guess you want color in your thumbnails, though you might want more blue (I’m thinking house decoration here, as blue draws people in a lot) in your thumbnail. Neigsendoig has been known to do that in GIMP (libre Photoshop), and he’s used quite a bit of yellow on blue.

For the case of good in clickbait, it depends on if the content is valuable for building out your life, or building out some ideas you want to make reality (Jack Spirko-style moment), which is what both Sendo (Neigsendoig) and I tend to do.

As for clickbait being necessary… I don’t think so at all in terms of evil. That said, if you know how to do it right, you can make pleasing thumbnails without all the slop of it.

The bigger problem is spammy shit, stealing content. But Google doesn’t care. So the entire issue is moot.

And click bait is an opinion. There is no way to perfectly filter it. That is Masnick’s Law.

I use Youtube a lot. If I see a video from a creator I don’t know, or from one I don’t care that much about, and the thumbnail sets off my clickbait alarms, I just open the three dots menu and click “Don’t recommend channel.” I don’t think it’s a big problem, but it does annoy me and this significantly reduces the amount that I have to put up with it.

Sometimes if a thumbnail is borderline I’ll open it in a new tab so I can entertain it for a few minutes and see if they pay off. If they don’t, they get "don’t recommend"ed.

I’ve also done this for creators who put the “like and subscribe” ask before I’ve actually seen the content they’re asking me to subscribe to, if I’m in a particularly petty mood.

Thanks for all the responses!! Some of them really made me open my mind about some things and now I know which is the best way to aboard the theme and do not talk of it as if it were cancer or something like that. Thank you again! I hope upload the video both in spanish and english, with no AI, obviuosly.

I watch a ton of youtube. Mostly longform content 20 minutes or longer.

Clickbait has such a wide definition that I feel like setting clear definition would be important for your work.

We live in an attention economy where there is way more content for us to consume then we ever could so the point of descion is crucial and thumbnail and title do a lot of heavy lifting. I only dislike it and think it is a problem when it lies, or the video itself is lacking in substance.

In I a lot of gaming videos the thumbnail and or title is something along the lines of “How hard is it to beat X?” And they don’t answer the question directly, but more they play through it and you answer for yourself by watching them. Some point count this as clickbait, but I’m personally ok with it.

Youtube video titles that have been really bugging me lately (as they have become increasingly common) are the weirdly negative ones. Like, “THIS is why you suck at >insert your hobby here<”. It’s annoying because the video could raise a good point, but fuck, dont frame it by negging me. If I’m searching for videos on that topic, I want help, not put-downs.

I have many thoughts. Number 3 will surprise you!

Do you use youtube mainly?

For watching short video, yes. Not as social media.

Do you care about clickbait?

I fucking hate it.

Did clickbait make you stop seeing some creator?

Yes. I’ve seen useful, thoughtful channels turn into life-wasting mouth noise in order to chase clicks.

Did you use youtube but clickbait (among other things) made you to stop using it’s platform?

Not yet.

Do you think clickbait is the major of the YouTube’s problems?

I think that monetisation ahead of any other concern is the major problem, and clickbait is just one symptom of it.

Do you see something good in clickbait among the bad things? Like, which ones?

No.

Could we see clickbait as a necessary evil?

No.

I don’t want to reward clickbait, so I tend to avoid them. I’m less likely to watch a content creator if I think they use clickbait too much.

However, I don’t think it’s a big of a deal. I’m more tired of all the slop content. Videos that pretend it has something important to say, but it’s not any deeper than a Wikipedia excerpt.

And if some YouTuber hits big with one video, expect at least 20 other creators make videos of the same topic with nothing new to say.

The algorithm has been really bad lately.

I only really care about it when it straight up lies, which I don’t see too often. Had this happen just the other day, though, where the video title and the thumbnail made it seem like it was a new cartoon pilot, but then it was just some dude bitching about some Viziepop show and didn’t even show clips.

I block channels that do this shit.

You wanna catch my attention? Just make your thunbnail accurate and colorful, and title the video something descriptive.

I think it’s a spectrum. I mostly hang out in fairly nerdy and middle-aged corners of YouTube, so I don’t see the worst of shitty clickbait. If a video from an unknown creator is suggested to me a clickbaity or ragebaity headline will probably make me avoid them.

But I don’t mind an attention grabbing title “These AWFUL ingredients were ESSENTIAL for medieval peasants” or “This IMPOSSIBLE theory lead to the discovery of oxygen”. It’s kinda lame, but it still says what the topic of video is. Worse, imho, are things like “Why do smart people keep believing this” which uses the mystery / anticipation to suck you in. From a creator I like, it won’t put me off (tbh, I probably won’t even think about it as clickbait because I know their work is usually good) but it’s not cool, and would put me off an unknown creator.

Basically, I don’t care that much about headlines (or the stupid YouTube faces), but I hate shitty, shallow content. And a lot of the time, a clickbaity headline indicates a shallow video, so it has a negative effect on my interest.

Between the clickbait, YouTube “enhancements”, exploding AI slop videos and the atrocious search facility, the platform is rapidly becoming completely unusable for finding relevant information when you’re looking for answers.

As an entertainment platform it’s forcing creators to make long form content and making viewers sit through more and more low quality content.

It’s evolving, but I’m pretty sure it’s heading towards extinction, rather than greatness.

Can I suggest you title your video “How clickbait is ruining the Internet and destroying lives”?

I use an extension that prevents all-caps in video titles and picks a random thumbnail from the video. I find that most clickbait only exists in titles and thumbnails, but the videos themselves are okay. At least, when it comes to stuff I’m interested in.

That said, if the script of the video ever becomes clickbaity too, or if they start shilling a product in the middle of the video, I dump them immediately.