[RoddaWallPro]

Like the sibling commenter here, reactions to this (as I've observed) are indeed very bimodal. If I see any video on YouTube with a face with a strong expression, I will not click it, no matter how interesting the title, because I hate how contrived the thumbnail is.

I think it might be more honest of you to phrase it not as: I have to do this because otherwise I don't get 20% more views. That feels a little bit disingenuous to me. You don't have to do anything. You could probably get a lot more views by colluding with another YouTuber to create drama or apparent "fights", like so many seem to. Aka, go full Kardashian. But you don't. You choose very explicitly what you do. Which does include goofy face thumbnails, but does not include staging YouTube drama.

A more honest phrasing to me might be something like: "Goofy faces get more views, and without them, my YouTube channel has much less income. I'm trying to support myself with YouTube, and so I am doing goofy faces even though I hate it and think it's completely asinine." You get really close to something like this phrasing, & the underlying message can be gathered by your other comments, but you don't outright own it. If you are going to do something asinine for exposure, you might as well own it imo.

So, with that out of the way: This project is really cool and thanks for doing a write-up & video on it :)