Bad Video Titles

[Thurbo]

Can we talk about this?

 

I'm not sure where to best discuss this. The video titles of the LTT channel have commonly been completely useless for quite some time. This is a channel that I've enjoyed very much for as long as I've known it, but you have to understand that I have limited time, and consequently I can only watch a limited number of videos per day.

Generally, logically, I decide which videos to watch purely based on their topic, whether it interests me or not.That's something that should be given away in the title or at least the thumbnail. Right?

For several months now, if not longer, a vast majority of videos from LTT have had completely useless titles that told me absolutely nothing about what the video was going to be. At all. Not the topic, not the thing that it's reviewing, if it's a review at all or just a quick look or whatever, just nothing at all.

 

The most recent video is a good example:

 

 

 

I've Wanted this for YEARS!

What does this tell me anything about what video this is going to be? It's something that Linus wanted for years. OK, I have no clue what that might be. That's as far as the title goes. The thumbnail shows him holding a thingy. It looks like a computer part to me, maybe even like a huge motherboard, but frankly, I just don't know. And thus, I haven't watched it.

 

I've heard someone say on a different website that LTT is playing the "YouTube game" and coming up with titles based on what attracts more people. That only confuses me; how does a video which you don't know what it's going to be about at all, effectively making it a complete mystery video (other than the fact that Linus and a computery thingy will probably be in it) attract more viewers?

Also, before anyone tells me, this is not the same as clickbait. Clickbait works by lying to and deceiving people in order to get them to click on the video. The LTT tiles don't do that, they're just bad in the sense that they leave the topic of the video a mystery.

 

Again, I really like this channel and I'd love to keep watching more videos of you guys, but your videos that actually have an informative title are super scarce at this point.

[TempestCatto]

Some videos I can understand the "lack of title" but most videos I too question it. When scrolling through a list of vids most people read the title to get an understanding of what the topic(s) will be in that vid. It's like a headline in the news, it's supposed to be short yet informative. Though Linus has stated in the past that they do it to keep up with the YT algorithm, and that it actually generates more clicks than standard titles. It's the people that need to change I guess, not the creators.

[Thurbo]

2 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

Though Linus has stated in the past that they do it to keep up with the YT algorithm, and that it actually generates more clicks than standard titles. It's the people that need to change I guess, not the creators.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I heard someone tell me before.

Still leaves me scratching my head how more people watch "mystery" videos than videos that they know the topic of. That seems completely contrary to what I'd expect to happen, namely that informative titles should generate more views. But so it appears that no one really knows why that is, then. Unfortunate.

[Imbellis]

Here's a similar topic:

For me, It's definitely the "researchability" of videoes.

I've used older videoes to inform people about products such as the S4 Mini review(This title is a bit difficult to find ), the Pono player, all the SG13 Builds, the Phase Change PC and quite a few others; however, with more recent videoes, I'd have much more trouble doing the same.

Examples:

Spoiler

Why would I search "The Best Smelling Laptop" for the HP Spectre Folio?

Although "6000 computer cores for science" narrows it down to science, I still wouldn't be able to find it in the future.

"Razer thought this was a good idea??" at least has the name of the manufacturer, but still lacks the distinct feature that's focused on in the video.

In most of the cases, adding the product's name or the name of the organization at the end of the title would fix it (or adding the name to the thumbnail) Hell, even keeping the click-bait title for a month and then changing it to something more searchable would work.

  

Although I don't think it's a huge problem for most of y'all's videos, if somebody's looking for a video and don't know the semi-unrelated clickbait title, it'll be a much larger pain. I think the following videos don't have anything to lose from being kept clickbait - as they don't feature a product and are descriptive enough as is. 

Spoiler

"The BIGGEST Tech Hoarder"

"Electrical wiring for the Gaming Center - What could go wrong?"

I totally understand the clickbait - and I'm alright with it. I really just want to be able to find a video a couple years in the future without having to scroll past all of the videos y'all have made since.

[bellabichon]

I agree that the titles can be uninformative, or even misleading. However, for the video you choose as your example, the video thumbnail provides much more information when combined with the title. Linus has been talking about wanting a water-cooled server for a while now. That, combined with the title and thumbnail (water droplets on what is obviously a server) gives quite a bit of information about the video's content. 

 

I do believe them when they say that they do it for the algorithm. Linus Media Group is a bit of an outlier in the grand scale of YouTube, because they have fairly high production costs, and many employees. If LMG needs to clickbait a bit to ensure they can keep making money, so be it, in my opinion. 

 

The only way that they will be motivated to stop is if people stop falling for clickbait. I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.

[r2724r16]

40 minutes ago, Thurbo said:

Can we talk about this?

 

Can we not talk about this? I feel that this problem has been addressed way too many times. Just deal with the clickbait titles, LTT ain't gonna change nothing.

[Bananasplit_00]

This is a common complaint and they periodically get better after the forum screams at them enough.

 

Personally i saw a server and was pretty much instantly brought to the thought of Gigabytes overclockable servers actiually but generally the titles dont even make sense to me.

 

LTT is not the chanel to watch for good information, its pure for the entertainment now. Thats what brings them enough money to keep going

[Taja]

My 2cents:

I ALWAYS tought ppl were overreacting about this, but the latest techquickie... Wtf?!?

 

Clickbait using MacBooks when the video has nothing to do with that, and its supposed to be an informational video that ppl (like normal ppl) can find about a subject. Linus loves how his video about i3,i5 and i7 helped ppl with the confusion... Imagine if THIS video was called "The only way to upgrade your MacBook pro"... It would be pathetic.

 

And the video name is still the same, I tought they were going to change it because it is an ERROR, and as such it must be corrected.

[Blademaster91]

15 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

I agree that the titles can be uninformative, or even misleading. However, for the video you choose as your example, the video thumbnail provides much more information when combined with the title. Linus has been talking about wanting a water-cooled server for a while now. That, combined with the title and thumbnail (water droplets on what is obviously a server) gives quite a bit of information about the video's content. 

 

I do believe them when they say that they do it for the algorithm. Linus Media Group is a bit of an outlier in the grand scale of YouTube, because they have fairly high production costs, and many employees. If LMG needs to clickbait a bit to ensure they can keep making money, so be it, in my opinion. 

 

The only way that they will be motivated to stop is if people stop falling for clickbait. I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.

The thumbnail still doesn't really tell much, and there are lots of other tech Youtubers that get tons of views and don't resort to clickbait titles so awful you can't find the video by searching for it.

[TetraSky]

Nothing new, we've had dozens of threads about the same thing. Yet LMG doesn't care. They genuinely believe these terrible titles are better than actually putting which product is being talked about in the video in the title.

[Tsuki]

hey its this post again.

 

to summarize:

yes, we know

no, they dont care

yes, its getting worse

they use clickbait because clickbait works.

[MrFixitBlankFace]

@Thurbo, you clicked the video, right?

 

There you go.  So those titles weren't that bad after all.

[Thurbo]

3 minutes ago, MrFixitBlankFace said:

@Thurbo, you clicked the video, right?

 

There you go.  So those titles weren't that bad after all.

I did not and I explicitly stated that I didn't

This is the whole issue

22 minutes ago, Tsuki said:

they use clickbait because clickbait works.

This is anti-clickbait, which I also explicitly stated

Reading is hard it seems...

[Tsuki]

4 minutes ago, Thurbo said:

Reading is hard it seems...

i didnt read it.  its the 20th topic about it this week.  ive stopped reading them.  

[Thurbo]

2 minutes ago, Tsuki said:

i didnt read it.  its the 20th topic about it this week.  ive stopped reading them.  

Might as well stop replying, then.

You should have realized that I'm not discussing clickbait. This is a different topic. Unless those other topics all misunderstand the term "clickbait" and still refer to the same thing I do.

[BuckGup]

Basically Linus will defend it's what pays the bills. But in the long run they are destroying their viewer base and in the long run will hurt because of it. There are plenty of ways to make money and not be a sellout and make pointless clickbait videos

[harryk]

ditto