For me it’s Skallagrim. This is a channel of a guy who specializes in ancient armory and weaponry, he also reviews swords and stuff that’s sold online and tests them. Pretty cool.
But then I started to not like him for some reason and it took me a while to put my finger on it. Until I saw the video where he tried criticizing weapons in video games. Then that was where I found problems with him as a channel.
His personality comes off very pretentious and one of those pseudointellectuals you know, who try sounding smarter than they really are. He even has the voice tone to back that with.
So yeah I really once loved his channel. Though whenever he goes on tirades about things that are meant for fantasy purposes which aren’t supposed to make sense when translated to reality, as well as try to poke at fictitious things that borrow from ancient history, I feel he misses the plot of his entire channel and why people like me once subscribed to it.
We didn’t subscribe to your channel for your stupid takes on - anything. We subscribed because you seem to know your melee weapons and historical backgrounds of said weaponry. Stick to those.
I no longer get excited about a new Veritasium video.
I also don’t get excited when the title and thumbnail change 5 times in a week.
I don’t really like Veritasium (anymore).
Here is an advert by Veritasium for Google’s car’s (Waymo). It’s a terrible video. It uncritically shills. It contains garbage “research.” Here is a longer breakdown.
Kurzgesagt is pretty bad for that.
Youtube has a feature to ABC test different thumbnails to test which one will be the most popular. You might see one or all of them depending on whether you click right away. Eventually the channel will choose the most successful one.
He got bought by a private equity firm, don‘t be surprised
I have a browser extension that blocks thumbnails on YouTube because I got tired of seeing people’s creepy facial expressions.
Why? I still love their stuff. The thumbnail shit is annoying though, he’s said in the past they do it to boost engagement or something.
A lot of the videos aren’t even made by him anymore.
That’s true and a bit of a bummer but I think those videos are still great. I don’t care that much who makes them as long as the quality is good.
New thumbnails mean people are more likely to click thinking it’s a new video
Yea he said they do basically A/B testing and their user base is so large they get to see in real time what works and what doesn’t.
Yesnt. Channels are A/B testing different thumbnails to see which ones work better. It can have massive effects.
It’s not a simple “thumbnail gets changed, get more clicks”
I did this on one of their videos just last week. Annoyed the piss out of me. I think they changed the title too.
Wouldn’t surprise me to know they changed the title. I haven’t seen it personally as the people I follow seem to be honest. But it doesn’t surprise me given that clicks increase revenue.
Even news headlines change if they’re not seeing uptake at what they think they should be for a particular story
I enjoyed their recent video on power law distributions and why they dramatically change how you should operate in those domains.
They also did some good content a short while ago explaining why Monsanto and Dupont are problematic.
That said you are right about the thumbnails since when I looked at the channel to double check that it was veritasium I was thinking of the title and thumbnail are completely different for all of them.
That PFA video was wild. That stuff messed me up good.