DeArrow extension for YouTube that makes thumbnails bearable

host0@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 2862 points –
i.imgur.com
370

You are viewing a single comment

If you look at the DeArrow website and browser extension pages, I made sure to only use high quality channels as examples (Tom Scott, CGP Grey) to demonstrate how far reaching the sensationalism problem is.

CGP Grey is personally painful to me. He used to be a no-nonsense education youtube legend, but in the last few years he's just maximised clickability - even going thorugh his whole back catalogue and changing titles and thumbnails.

For example, he made a great video about generative adversarial networks ~5 years ago but now its titled "How machines like ChatGPT learn" - despite coming out before GPT.

Pretty much every successful YouTube channel edits titles. It's just part of the algorithm game now. You will often see videos cycle through several different titles shortly after release.

You have to blame YouTube and the people who click those garbage thumbnails

yep.... that one is just rediculus

Tom Scott's thumbnails aren't that bad IMO, they're pretty minimal in comparison to some other channels.

But they are so much worse than they were 6 months ago. He's gone and ruined all of the old ones too with arrows and more deceptive titles.