a banger YouTube video starts from a great idea, but superb ideas are inspired by other ideas. so, here’s a mega compilation of high performing YouTube thumbnails that go hard + a series of mini-essays. many 1M+ view examples. not a conventional thread. 🧵/13
1. - easily understandable - nice contrast (opposite sides of color wheel) - single element means clarity - irony in “useless” for something usually useful = brain tickle
2. - do you know how to tell if a cat is depressed? I sure don’t. - here is real cat - with real depression - and so therefore an extremely concrete learning experience is promised - and it looks like this video has a really strong chance at fulfilling that promise
3. - attractive people + tension = good story pending - dating shows in a nutshell
4. - darker departure from kurzesagt’s usual catalogue, while maintaining their style somehow - taps into general populace social media malaise that exists - analogously this is also why dopamine detox videos go viral there’s a certain rising appeal to darker and crazy stuff. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man — two very dark and in ways twisted manga/anime — became two extremely popular series. I think there’s a lot of potential ways that the YouTube meta could go, in terms of era. dark/anti-hero is a one of them: it would be extraordinarily compelling and unprecedented. but anyway, here we see glimpses.
5. - how tf do you build a sun? - photography is beautiful, but more importantly, looks real/impressive/natural - three examples give strong reasons to watch
7. - “what?”
8. - beautiful composition - signals exactly what type of video this is going to be - if you ask many non-YouTube friends what they watch, it often fits in the category of “I watch xyz because it’s relaxing” - YT is an emotion machine - an idea is an emotion promise
9. - almost but not quite closed loop - just want to click to finish off this brewing tension in one’s mind - “what’s the word?” people often talk about a gut feeling they can’t explain for YouTube videos. many YouTubers I know just get a sixth sense for it. but actually, I think that mysterious feeling actually does have an explanation: it’s the specific valence and amplitude of tension. it’s kind of like a knot about to come untwisted, a spring about to be released, a ball about to be dropped. in music theory, it’s the V that is dying to resolve to the I. it’s the “falcooooonnn…” before the “PUNCHHHHH”.
10. - special objects
11. - progression - and contrast between progressive levels - clear story structure you know exactly what you’re in for, but you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. a concept I’ll coin here for the first time is that great thumbnails create “story momentum”.
12. - “something is about to happen but I genuinely do not know what” - “but it sounds funny” +- “and takes <2 minutes”
13. - raw genga is a very uncommon style of thumbnail - but even this promises an interesting specific educational outcome - analogous parallels with “How To Tell If A Cat Is Depressed” video when you think about it…
tysm. all research here is my own, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone talk about these specific thumbnails prior to this tweet. if this was useful, feel free to retweet or like. ❤️ eventually releasing something free and useful for YouTubers at go.dabido.com.au/youtubeNewslet…
