[yessirwhatever]

I came into the comments just to say exactly that. What’s worse is that OP is aware and admits it’s stupid, yet continues to engage in this shady, annoying, and extremely stupid tactic.

I don’t click on crap videos and content like that on principle. Interesting or not.

[loudmax]

I don't know what Jeff Geerling's income is, but I'm pretty sure he's a full time Youtuber at this point. He doesn't like the stupid thumbnails either, but generating Youtube views is pretty much his job. Maybe there's some kind of long term strategy where refraining from stupid thumbnails curates a more intelligent audience, but if your livelihood depends on audience size, that's a big risk to take. In fact I hope it works out that way, but until that's a proven strategy I can't fault geerlingguy for the stupid thumbnails.

[intpx]

That's an awfully short hill to die on.

Youtube is gamified. Jeff doesn't play the game, he doesn't get the views. If he doesn't get the views, he doesn't get the sponsorships. If he doesn't get the sponsorships, he goes back to being a just another devops engineer who doesn't make the thing no one else will ever make.

I get it, the face is the worst. But until youtube fixes its algorithm (i dunno, to de-prioritize videos with 'the face') the Jeff's have to do the face to get the views to get the algorithmic advantage to get the views to get the sponsors to make the making worth the making.

[yessirwhatever]

I understand where you're coming from, but you're talking as if this "Jeff" is a machine and not a person. He's a real human who can think and make decisions regardless of what this "algorithm" could potentially dictate. This prioritization of the "face" is all speculation at the end of the day, and until the "Jeff"s of Youtube stop acting like machines and start acting like thinking-individuals who don't think that the end justify the means, the stupid face will take over, and this is what I and others are criticizing.