• Frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    2 days ago

    It’s interesting seeing how Mr Beast runs his thumbnails. Not “interesting” in a good way.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s41rjEtwOE

    He has staff who runs through hundreds of thumbnails per video. They ruthlessly apply A/B testing of variations. Some of those variations are tiny, like his hair laying slightly different. The thumbnail that comes out the other end (perhaps days or hours after the video is posted) is a carefully manufactured marketing ploy.

    Which also implies that his soulless smile is itself manufactured to maximize view count. They ran variations of everything else, why not that? This is apparently what the algorithm wants.