What's up with these shitty thumbnails? - Honest Answers Ep. 5

[Aakburns]

I watch LTT videos daily.  They're great.  Thanks more making them.  I wish there was more than one a day.

[NumLock21]

I'm having a difficult time trying to understand, what's with the compliants on these thumbnails. 

They complain because the content of the video, does not show what's in the thumbnail or 

They complain because the thumbnail has nothing to do with the content of the video.

E.g. Luke spitting out cpus and Linus holding up that Dell XPS 15, like Simba where it splits the ocean and both of these never happened in the video.

 

 

[Shakaza]

On 4/20/2017 at 7:09 AM, AUniqueName said:

 

Or seeing as though you seem to have already done that, you could, ya know, not watch them 

I didn't realize I had to be a subscriber or viewer to criticize them or express my opinion!

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Shakaza said:

I didn't realize I had to be a subscriber or viewer to criticize them or express my opinion!

u wot m8 

 

I'm saying if he in particular has an issue with the channel, unsubscribe. Rather than crying about it and trying to encourage others to dislike videos in order to make them change back. 

 

The thread which my posts responds to was merged with this one. Why they merged them I have no fucking idea because now the context is lost.

 

Post(thread) I was responding to: 

 

[Shakaza]

1 minute ago, AUniqueName said:

u wot m8 

 

I'm saying if he in particular has an issue with the channel, unsubscribe. Rather than crying about it and trying to encourage others to dislike videos in order to make them change back. 

 

The thread which my posts responds to was merged with this one. Why they merged them I have no fucking idea because now the context is lost.

 

Post(thread) I was responding to: 

 

But why unsubscribe? Why not express disdain and criticize them for what, in his opinion, is a bad decision? And I see no problem with people expressing their own opinions in order to convince others of their validity and possibly force LinusTechTips into a change. They are YouTubers, and they are beholden to their viewers, after all. Personally, I don't see the thumbnails as a huge problem, but I personally don't care for them, and I understand why people have such a problem with it. They feel the thumbnails are generally unrepresentative of what a tech channel with this kind of clout should be, and perhaps it's somewhat unprofessional. I often disagree when people talk about something or someone being unprofessional, because professionalism doesn't mean being serious 100% of the time. However, I think that professionalism and being childish are mutually exclusive, and the thumbnails do satisfy the requirement of childism, and whether or not the new style is beneficial to them, I don't like it and I don't like being associated with childish things because it leaves a bad impression from others. There are other problems as well with that last bit, but whatever.

[TacoSenpai]

Honestly I'm not bothered by the thumbnails so much even the Ryzen ones were ok.  To me it was more of the titling which can be misleading or in some ways deceptive.  I hate to bring up the infamous Ryzen 5 video title but from the beginning it should have just said what it was "Ryzen 5 Performance Simulated" (I'm glad Linus did recognize this in the video granted hindsight is always 20/20) Instead of Ryzen 5 Performance Tested which implied they actually had Ryzen 5 and the test results.  I might be just speaking for myself here but if I saw Ryzen 5 Performance Simulated I still would have clicked the video and viewed it because I'm just interested in tech content period as I suspect is the case with most of Linus Tech Tips subscriber base. 

 

Not to get too off topic but I suspect a bigger problem for larger youtube channels will be growth because for me personally I don't feel the need to sub to large channels since I can just look them up and know where to find them easily in the sea of youtube content.  Whereas, smaller channels I sub to so I don't lose track of them and can quickly get to their pages to view their videos...then again I could be just weird like that.

[DaiGurenMK42]

LMG, I have been watching since the garage days. I have always enjoyed your content. It always had something funny and tech related. I haven't considered you a sell-out or anything of the sort. I enjoy what you are doing and I believe you are one of the few top tech YouTubers going about things the correct way. The others haven't changed since they made YouTube their job. And even though they are growing I believe they will become stagnant really quickly due their lack of content that appeals to different communities. You have used your employees knowledge and created the camera videos. LTT have made tons of improvement in quality. LTT have put out daily content that I am 90% sure I will watch everyday.

 

The one thing I cannot stand is your titles. I can't search through them properly to find what I want and in the coming years that will be a huge pain if I want to recommend something. I don't care about the thumbnails. All I care is proper titles so I can find something. Can you figure something out, because it's hard to find something when you don't put the product you are reviewing in the title. Like your many monitor videos that have blended together. So many "BIGGEST" titles that I don't know if you mean your first Ultrawide size big or the recent whatever company it was 34inch one.

[kenblu24]

I don't believe linus (or even any community manager i.e. luke or nick) reads through every comment on YT and the forums. There's no way... But if you're at LTT and you're reading this, tell Linus that he's crazy. That's some dedication.

 

I don't think any thumbnails that they've made are really "clickbait." But I do think that a clean, nice-looking thumbnail can work wonders. I'm a helluva lot more likely to click on an MKBHD video than an LTT video on the same topic. Why do you think he keeps his thumbnails clean cut?

 

How about: Whenever Brandon does a lot of the B-roll for a video, let him make the thumbnail. Get a pretty, clean, standout thumbnail for glamour thumbnails, and have fun with the thumbnails on everything else.

[demonix00]

19 hours ago, Walms said:

Wow sounds like that guy basically doesn't like popular things. I find LTT entertaining, I like that they're upping the production quality. If someone wants "grity" great go watch that.  

Did you listen to the whole thing?

 

If you did, then you would know what his reasons are for not liking certain tech channels that just rattle off the product specs like it's an Amazon listing.

[untamed]

Well, this video makes me want to share my opinion, so here it is.

I used to watch almost every Linus Tech Tips video, but the "more flashy" thumbnails were such a turnoff that I maybe watch 6 videos a month at this point. The few videos I do watch I find cringe worthy whenever a team member acts like they are using the product or trying to act out an emotion. I'm disappointed that you are getting more views due to the clown show your thumbnails and videos have become, since I would love to see the old style return. I do not want to unsubscribe since I'm still interested in knowing what videos you produce.

I used to be a forum contributor but found the constant WAN show delays so frustrating that I ended up canceling that and have now completely stopped watching it.

I do understand the need to grow and wish you the best for the future, but am disappointed in general that this behavior gives you more views.

[Walms]

9 hours ago, demonix00 said:

Did you listen to the whole thing?

 

If you did, then you would know what his reasons are for not liking certain tech channels that just rattle off the product specs like it's an Amazon listing.

Yep I listened to the entire thing.
I don't really watch LTT because I want info on the products. I have a casual interest in tech, but I'm really entertained by Linus, Luke and the rest of the team. I got into this when they did the moving blogs. I love that Linus explains the business of being a Youtuber. I love that it's super polished. I love the humor. I think these guys are so much more than an amazon listing.

I found all his criticisms to be things that are simply personal preference and disagree on a lot of points. But I don't wanna bag on him. Because he is entitled to his opinions and they entertain some people, so great they can watch that I'll watch and enjoy LTT.

[Ryujin2003]

16 hours ago, DaiGurenMK42 said:

LMG, I have been watching since the garage days. I have always enjoyed your content. It always had something funny and tech related. I haven't considered you a sell-out or anything of the sort. I enjoy what you are doing and I believe you are one of the few top tech YouTubers going about things the correct way. The others haven't changed since they made YouTube their job. And even though they are growing I believe they will become stagnant really quickly due their lack of content that appeals to different communities. You have used your employees knowledge and created the camera videos. LTT have made tons of improvement in quality. LTT have put out daily content that I am 90% sure I will watch everyday.

 

The one thing I cannot stand is your titles. I can't search through them properly to find what I want and in the coming years that will be a huge pain if I want to recommend something. I don't care about the thumbnails. All I care is proper titles so I can find something. Can you figure something out, because it's hard to find something when you don't put the product you are reviewing in the title. Like your many monitor videos that have blended together. So many "BIGGEST" titles that I don't know if you mean your first Ultrawide size big or the recent whatever company it was 34inch one.

I can agree with this. Better titles can help if you're looking for something on topic. I've had this issue. Either that, or YouTube needs a better  tagging system.

[XHAD]

On 4/21/2017 at 1:41 AM, WindirBear said:

 

honestly he wouldn't make that the thumbnails that way since they want people to click on the video and if someone is sad and it is not exgarrated then people are less likely to click

But yeah this does raise the point why can't thumbnails actually be from the video I mean come on having a linus kappa face as a thumbnail does not give your point away but having a face cam of twitch is since the content is about that. 

So what I think creators should start doing is take a clip from the video and edit it instead of having to create thumbnails from scratch just to get people to click and more of an representation of how good the content is.

[ONEGREATFIRE]

On 4/19/2017 at 3:01 PM, LinusTech said:

Alright... it's time we addressed the thumbnails issue. No punches pulled in this episode of Honest Answers!

 

Buy "I love my job" mug on Amazon: http://geni.us/x4eh9Bw

 

 

 

 

 

Don't pander to the idiots, you guys are doing a wonderful job. Found you on YouTube 6 months ago and I am grateful to have found a channel that presents tech in a fun, entertaining and relevant fashion. Keep up the great work, I share your channel with everyone I can because I support what you folks do. LET is the best.

[TheGleaner]

This is  my opinion. I was one of the first ones to comment on this subject. This may seem like a rant, but oh well its my opinion.

 

I think one of the reasons why the minority is upset about this is: Branding. You had the the "boring, quick, ugly, white letters" thumbnail as your brand. People would and could differentiate you between actual clickbate, semi-clickbate and the non clickbate. You stood out in the youtube community. Now you lost that. You don't stand out. Think of the people who just: search, scroll through, and pick. Instead of standing out among the clickbatey thumbnails you look just like everyone else. To me, one who has watched you since, well the beginning, you have changed. You went from working hard, trying to make it to I've made it, now how far can I go? To you loosing a small amount of views/viewers isn't anything. To you the subscriber to views probably isn't important. Well what if we, the minority, is the beginning of the next new thing? What if we actually don't want clickbate like thumbnails but are just putting up with it? What if the next thing is professional thumbnails? 

 

Back to the part about the brand. If Ford/GMC/Chrysler changed their brand to a middle finger or a picture of their founder making a funny face, how do you think people would react? What if they removed all signs of brands from their vehicles and you didn't know what you were buying until you signed for the car. What would the reaction be? You built a brand up just to blend in with everyone else. If (insert your religious book here) changed its look to a "clickbate" cover with random people making faces, and then in the center having (your religious object) how would you react?

 

If, say you are at work or out in public, and someone seen you click/watch something with a "clickbatey" thumbnail, and they said something like "why are you watching clickbate?" How would you feel? What would they think of you? You use to look professional. You usedto stand out. Anyone who I've asked who has started a business has said to succeed you have to stand out, be different. 

 

To me the "good old days" of ltt actually seemed better. Your videos seemed to be more informative. It seemed like more work and thought was put into them. Now you talk about how much time you(your company) takes. The ten years of video card benchmarks? You have what 10-20 people? That doesn't seem like it would take very long. If you can call up a company, in this case zotack I believe, and get 10 980ti's for a video, I have a hard time believing that it would be hard to get multiple pieces of hardware to: gather information, benchmark, etc. When this first started, it also seemed like we lost you. Your videos seemed forced and scripted and unnatural. Yes I know they are scripted, but they still seemed like it was you who wrote the, like you were talking directly to a single person. Now it seems like you are a news anchor, or something.

 

It just wasn't the thumbnails. It was the change that went with it. You keep gaining money and people, but your videos seem to be going down hill. They become the internet fad if the month. I used to think "gee they broadcast their location and security setup around the world, I would hate to see them robbed" now I think "what would it matter, he could call up the companies and have the same things back before a month was past". You sound like you want to be this massive multi-million dollar company. In this video you sound like you are a spokesman for a company and doing damage control/making excuses. Search red camera, and whats one of the first things that come up? A 45000 usd camera. I could justify this purchase if you were making big screen movies, or promos for car companies. But you are not. You are a youtube dependant company. 

 

 It just seems to me that you have went from a small business that was known for its semi professionalism and its trying to support itself to trying to be a giant. 

 

I guess this turned into a rant. Oh well. As I have stated before, I am just here for the honesty and help from the forum, and will be until it goes downhill in quality or in popularity or until a toms hardware situation happens to me( mod stalking me on the forums and making fun/treating me like an idiot)

 

This is my two cents. This was wrote at one in the morning. There will be errors and I probably will fix them.

 

Good day.

 

[BillyCool]

A company's first priority should be satisfying their customers, then everything else follows. Not doing so, leads to an inevitable fall.

 

 

[MysticLTT]

Life tip: creatively responding to criticism by playing around with the community, such as a doctor Brown impersonation and the 'simulated Ryzen being right' wink, is good. 

 

Releasing an apology video with an almost crying face is not. It shows your vulnerable side, apparently the CEO of the biggest channel cares about the pesky views being tanked on a single video. You should present yourself as rock sold, unsinkable, always on top of things.

 

You get more hate by making this video, than without it.

[AstroCosmical]

this video was amazing! this is why this channel is where i get majority of my tech news, next to NCIX. Thank you for helping me through my tech needs and indirectly pushing me to finish school in computer engineering!

[enigmakahn]

WeI really love how bent out of shape everyone is getting about this problem, it was actually kind of shocking to me that they even had to make a video about this, I mean Linus is correct, either you change and stay in the game or you stay stagnant and die in obscurity. 

 

Perfect case and point Rooster Teeth. Another company that has grown and changed from their original "cool Indy constant" to being a mega player in the online content creation world. They "sold out" when they were bought by full screen entertainment, but had they not done that they likely wouldn't have had the clout or resources to make things like laser team and camp camp, or the new immersion series, these are all big budget projects that needed RT to have a certain level of respects and noteriety in the industry to achieve. LMG is doing the same thing now by trying to bring their selves and Thier image in line with the rest of the industry. 

 

You can make the argument that oh but the fans will support them, they just need to stay true to themselves, bullshit. if that was the case they wouldn't have changed in the first place. Success on the internet is from making a niche group of consumers happy (unless your selling luxury goods) it's by building a large community of people from a diverse varaity of backgrounds.

 

Finally the money argument, "oh well they are just turning into a greedy company that is just in it for the money" and my response to that is, no fuckin shit, they are a company and that's what they do, they get money, hire people so that the loss of a single person is not detrimental to the entirety of the rest of the company. Keep in mind people's livelyhood relies on having a stable company behind them, and so instead of pandering to the special snowflakes that bitch about thumbnails they try to make content that appeals to a large audience. Deal with it.

[AstroCosmical]

26 minutes ago, enigmakahn said:

WeI really love how bent out of shape everyone is getting about this problem, it was actually kind of shocking to me that they even had to make a video about this, I mean Linus is correct, either you change and stay in the game or you stay stagnant and die in obscurity. 

 

Perfect case and point Rooster Teeth. Another company that has grown and changed from their original "cool Indy constant" to being a mega player in the online content creation world. They "sold out" when they were bought by full screen entertainment, but had they not done that they likely wouldn't have had the clout or resources to make things like laser team and camp camp, or the new immersion series, these are all big budget projects that needed RT to have a certain level of respects and noteriety in the industry to achieve. LMG is doing the same thing now by trying to bring their selves and Thier image in line with the rest of the industry. 

 

You can make the argument that oh but the fans will support them, they just need to stay true to themselves, bullshit. if that was the case they wouldn't have changed in the first place. Success on the internet is from making a niche group of consumers happy (unless your selling luxury goods) it's by building a large community of people from a diverse varaity of backgrounds.

 

Finally the money argument, "oh well they are just turning into a greedy company that is just in it for the money" and my response to that is, no fuckin shit, they are a company and that's what they do, they get money, hire people so that the loss of a single person is not detrimental to the entirety of the rest of the company. Keep in mind people's livelyhood relies on having a stable company behind them, and so instead of pandering to the special snowflakes that bitch about thumbnails they try to make content that appeals to a large audience. Deal with it.

Exactly lol and if you are a true fan, you would watch their content even if it changes. but from the past few years watching their content, they have changed a lot and for the better

[TheGleaner]

In reality it is just a matter of opinion.

 

[vanished]

4:41 You claim that using the new style of thumbnails helps your videos stand out from the pack.

 

To be blunt, I think this is untrue.  With "everyone else" doing it (including both good channels, and channels that many here would never watch) I think it makes your videos blend in.  LTT thumbnails have always had a distinctive style that was easily recognizable among a sea of clickbait garbage, which might I say, also is very recognizable, and is something many have subconsciously learned to tune out when skimming a page.  By making them look just like the rest of this, I think it will make it hard for people to notice your videos at a glance.

 

But that's just my theory, and time will tell who is right

[Majestic]

Has he made one of these where he looks at technical feedback? Like taking responsibility when he fucks up on a technical level? 

Like doing 4K CPU benchmarks, and delidding a 6700K with 5 w/mk thermalpaste and a stock cooler?

 

My issue isn't the thumbnails, it's the actual content. I rarely watch his video's because of it. 

[peanutsrevenge]

On 21/04/2017 at 2:56 AM, Jonaroo said:

I would say that the key difference is that LTT actually cares about their fan base as opposed to companies who honestly don't care about their individual customers. IMO there is nothing wrong with SLIGHTLY (keyword slightly) stylizing titles and thumbnails to generate views, it is their revenue stream after all. There's a major difference between what LTT is doing and real clickbait.

LTT (or more accurately, LMG) is a business and businesses don't care about anything but money because they're not sentient beings. Businesses don't have empathy, compassion or anything, it's up to the directors and employees to bring that. When times are good and there's little competition/pressure then it's possible for people to run a business in a good and positive way, but when that competition starts heating up and pressure on the business's bottom line increases it gets harder and harder to justify doing 'the right thing' when doing 'the wrong thing' helps the bottom line more because eventually, the business will cease to exist when competing with businesses more focused on profits. It's the blatant flaw of Capitalism and why there are no 'really good' businesses near the top of highly competitive industries.

 

As there's still a butt load of room to expand in this industry, it's pretty easy to collaborate with "rivals" and treat their products (we're the product, advertisers are the customers) well, but as the market nears its saturation point, more focus will be placed on making money at the expense of being a friendly, caring business, or they'll go bust/cease to be relevant.

 

Roll on the evolution of humanity when we move away from a competition based economy and towards a collaborative economy which better suits the modern world.

[Sober2ndThought]

I don't think the actual issue the click bait and the thumbnails, I think the real issue is the content has gone down hill and the click bait and thumbnails is a symptom of it. 

 

What I am hearing from Linus is the George Lucas argument. But we have better video quality, therefore our videos are better. But honestly a lot of the new videos are bad. No mater how good the video quality is it is not going to make up for bad content.  Its the bad content which is alienating your audience. Like the Pizza Oven Computer. A poorly thought out video that should never have been released.

 

There are still some good videos, like the Samsung S8 review, the Amazon PC. But with these thumbnails I still cannot distinguish the good from the bad.  If I click one of them, I am always worried it will start with Linus screaming "WOAH!!!" or something else stupid. 

 

But even with the decent content there are so many stupid gimmicks in it. Like the Amazon PC video, did it really need fire in the background? Or this: 

An otherwise good video with stupid shit which is increasingly making your viewers cringe. 

 

Linus always did stupid stuff like leaving the Dell laptop in the rain intentionally, but that was entertaining because it wasn't over the top, it was more stubble and it had something to do with the actual product. The video actually gave me a good impression of the Dell laptop and I seriously did consider buying it. Especially when I saw how repairable it was. It was a small part of it, just gave it a little flair but it wasn't the whole video. 

I get that you have some metric saying its making you more money, and yes you have salaries to pay so therefore have to make more money. But here is the issue, I think you guys grew to fast for your existing audience and you need to now quickly expand your business. So now you are just desperate for views to keep your business afloat. So you release one video a day, which might not be good, use click-bait to get people to the video and they watch it you make a few bucks and you keep going another day. The problem is whatever views you are getting now are incidental, and it won't last. Having a strong loyal core audience is sustainable and it is what actually works in the long run.

 

Look at the Green Brothers, they grew slowly, and are actually bigger than you, improved their quality but have never lost the traditional style of their videos. They don't need to resort to click bait or producing crazy content just to get new views. They have their loyal audience which is growing. Also CGP Grey whose growing very slowly, but his video quality has never changed. it is as good as ever and he's slowly expanding.