The Twelve Most Critical Turning Points in American History!!
etc etc etc…
It’s good clickbait (for snagging my attention, at any rate) and I expect to be at least momentarily entertained.
But I keep finding myself listening to bad narration, lots! of! emphasized! excitement! about godawful boring little nothings with awful background music and cheesy graphics, wtf? It’s gotten to the point that if the video title refers to a list of examples of whatever the topic is, I assume it’s going to be badly done and I skip it.
I also notice that many of the same people (or channels) do a whole bunch of those lists. (You’d think if they did them that often they’d be better at it, no?)
Is there a built-in reason that makes it somehow to their advantage to do them badly? I kind of get that they are indeed clickbait, but given that it takes effort to make them at all, why not do a decent job on the content?
I agree with the OP completely. And going further, since the medium is video, I get extra frustrated at the ones that show a series of still images and discuss each one. If I click on a video titled “top 10 animal attacks on humans”, I expect to see 10 video clips of animals attacking humans. I do not want to see a picture of a tiger and someone narrating the story of a woman attacked by a tiger in 2007. :rolleyes: I don’t know if clicking the thumbs down actually does anything but I do it if your first item is not a video and move on.
That’s all it is and that’s all that matters, you click on it and they get a nickel. Well, less probably, but they just need you to click on it and get a certain amount of seconds/minutes into it. In a perfect world, they would put out good content so you’d subscribe to the channel.
IME, a lot of those videos are better if you just start watching compilations from random content creators instead of a 15 minute long ‘top 10’.
The worst ones are the ones that instead of being narrated by a human, sound like they’re narrated by a synthesized voice à la the late Stephen Hawking.
I like Simon Whistler’s TopTenz. He may be a little bit sanctimonious and you may not agree with some of his subjective lists but he does seem to do research. Plus sometimes his accent gets the better of him.
I’d be embarrassed if I were the one that put many of these out. And if three of the ten “top plot holes in Star Wars!” aren’t even plot holes, or if 7 of the ten “top tractors stuck in mud” contain no tractors nor mud, WTF are you even doing?
Since I block ads, youtube is losing money if they are paying these “content providers” to display this shit. Money going down the crapper.
I think the simplest solution is the correct one: the people creating these simply aren’t very talented.
I don’t click on these often, but the most egregious I’ve seen have been related to “top 10 funniest moments in <some pop culture>”. A half minute of lame, uncharismatic explaining of a joke followed by the actually witty moment in question really highlights why they got a TV show and you’re stuck narrating BS lists in your parent’s basement.
And the thumbnail image for the video depicts something that isn’t in the video at all.
And the animated title sequence seems to go on forever, with words spinning or zooming out or whatever. “Top Ten Titans … PRESENTS … TOP … TEN … MOST … EMBARRASSING …” Okay, by that time I’ve given up and clicked on something else.
I use the thumbs down on these things, in the hopes that the Youtube algorithm will stop suggesting them to me. It must be working since I see very few of them. Conversely I use the thumbs up on videos I want to see more of.
When it comes to subjects I know enough about to have an educated opinion, I generally find watchmojo’s choices to be pretty good - even if I don’t agree with the specific order (greatest rock drummers, I’m looking at you!!). They also include interesting information about each selection and some honorable mentions to round things out.
Most other top-# series are pretty worthless, though.
They’re not all bad, but it is a formula that gets clicks, and it’s easy to make one with little to no effort. If you’ve been on for a while, it’s generally pretty easy to see which ones are either people who don’t know what they’re doing or just big corporate entities that just throw shit together. (I block the latter.)
Oh, and there is no requirement for a thumbnail to actually be in the video. Even legit producers usually include a thumbnail that has text and combined pictures that would never be in a single frame.
I’ve also noticed it on just people with basically no views, so it’s not some special privilege. A girl will have a provocative pic of herself in the thumbnail, but then just be a talking head in the video. And only maybe 1000 subscribers, max.
:eek::D:D:D