Clickbait is Unreasonably Effective

What people said

jerf · 2023-09 · Recommendation

The video in question for reference: [VIDEO] Interestingly, when I saw that I figured this channel for a goner because he was going to turn to the darkside, but quite contrary to expectations I feel like his channel has actually blossomed since then. His older videos are fine, but often just explaining concepts that you can find a lot of other explanations on, but some of his recent videos have rocked the boat even among physicists and IMHO he was ultimately proved to be correct for them. I particularly point at his videos about how nobody has measured the one-way speed of light ( [LINK] ), which was well-known among people very very deep in the field of relativity but not very well known outside of that (even amongst physicists in other fields, let alone lay people) and the electricity videos he's done in the last year ( [LINK] , [LINK] ) which attracted a whole whackload of "debunking" videos, which were themselves wrong (the best "bunking" video, if I may call it that, is probably AlphaPheonix's: [LINK] , since he actually set up the experiment, albeit on a smaller scale). They aren't all of that caliber, but the knot theory video was very good too and not something I've seen a hundred times elsewhere, and the airships video that preceded that one clearly had a high degree of research put into it beyond just the hype.

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mierle · 2022-09 · Recommendation

Take a look at Veritasium's perspective on this issue [1]. Veritasium reflects on clickbait thumbnails from the content producer perspective, and balances that against the motivation behind YouTube's algorithms. His final conclusion is that cilckbait isn't all bad, and that it serves an important purpose for both viewers and content creators. His classification of clickbait into different types is also fascinating. [1] [VIDEO]

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LordDragonfang · 2022-04 · Recommendation

Derek of Veritaseum made a video laying out why "clickbait-y" titles like that are necessary, and I feel like it makes a pretty good case. [VIDEO] The tl;dw is that the most effective titles come right up against the edge of what an average target audience member would consider unacceptable on the axes of withheld information (to create a curiosity gap) and misleading sensationalism (to maximise the perceived importance of the topic); and you have to play the game of having effective titles because otherwise no one clicks on your video and it stops being recommended to people who would find it valuable.

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