The YouTube Thumbnail Conspiracy

Thumbnails. They're super important. Sometimes. But not all the time! Let's talk about it.

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0:00 Let's Talk About Thumbnails
1:54 Orange Guy
5:03 Commentary
10:46 Sponsor
11:55 MrBeast Style
14:31 Default Image
17:51 "Downfall" Videos
18:56 Apology / Breakup
21:22 Celebrity Interviews
22:30 Music Videos
24:05 Some of My Favorites

[itsgabibelle]

I'm pretty solid at yellow arial text with black outline, but i think i'm trying to transition to distressed man in orange jumpsuit on blue background. will keep you posted.
thanks

[ToDreamOfJade]

My humble addition to the list: the True Crime thumbnail, which has several pictures of a victim and/or perpetrator of a crime around the edges, and then in the middle of the thumbail is the youtuber looking sadly off to the side.

[TwiggyHetfield]

"Maybe you saw it on Twitter"
It warms my heart that we, collectively as a society, will never call it "X"

[imgodtrustmebro]

I think thumbnails would be better if they all had Scott in them personally

[LukeMillner]

Scott knows what he's talking about. I've been told he has a degree in advertising.

[stuffingtonjfluffypantsiii]

I wanna see Scott put his family through an "Apology or Breakup" game show now.

[anunaskedforopinion]

"yellow text/Arial font" Scott, you forgot the back shadow

[echo_sprite]

My video wasn’t loading for a solid minute, so it was stuck on the still of his face. I didn’t realize it was frozen and just assumed he was really committed to the bit

[gracejohnson]

The thumbnail would have been perfect if it had mr beast yelling 😭

[EPgamez]

He sounds like someone who is interested in how things like thumbnails attract people, if this whole YouTube thing flops, he should get a degree in advertising and pursue that as a career.

[wizardmaster]

felt the need to say how much I love the projector over something like a green screen

[GooberScotsman]

Thank you for holding a dynamic mic instead of a condenser mic, Scott. Thank you. Thank you.

[SarahMaeBea]

Thumbnails are like book covers. Like you pointed out, they're useful for telling the audience what to expect from the video! Reaction video (like TV or movie watch-along) thumbnails are all essentially the same.

[kiiturii]

watching at 6:40, I look down to the right at the recommended videos, and the first one is literally the *exact* formula, holding a mic not meant to be held, youtuber in the middle with the white outline, flanked by screenshots relating to the topic on each side with yellow text saying "it's getting worse". You got that pretty damn spot on Scott

[sofia-ejzz]

the jojo siwa audio for the mr beast thumbnail change killed me 😭😭😭

[roccomeowearssandals]

Distressed person, sitting in the middle of the room wearing orange is the exact opposite of a tounge twister. It’s like a tounge cool breeze…

[How_Many_Monkeys]

Scott: Do you have any idea how much time I spend making thumbnails?!

Also Scott: -makes 9 separate thumbnails for a video about thumbnails

[vbrapi]

I think another type of thumbnails I've seen a lot are the ones about "I WATCHED ALL MOVIES/SEASONS OF X THING" where the person is usually in the middle with a distressed or tired look (bonus points if they add some exaggerated eye bags on them) and it's surrounded by elements of the thing they're watching (ie merch, dvds, games), sometimes they add text like how much time they spent doing it or just a comment saying "why did I do this?" or "it gets crazy"

[stephtevel]

Commentary YouTube really has me in a death grip.. I’ve seen EVERY single video that was used as an example thumbnail! Hold on I need to go touch grass

[Bluebatstar]

My favourite type of thumbnails are the ones where it’s handdrawn art. It’s so eye catching and at times I’ve watched videos just because I liked the art styles on the thumbnails, and they don’t feel lazy at all.
A channel I’ve seen do this recently is a Pokemon channel called Shiny Catherine, I don’t even watch her content really, to be honest I don’t think I’ve seen a full video, but I love the thumbnails she has a ton.