[scsh]

> Veritasium has some of the worst horseshit "clickbait"

This really isn't a defense of Veritasium, but this has become the case with most videos where the creator makes a living off their channel. Everything is poorly named like this just so they can at least continue getting the same amount of views, because most views come from Youtube recommendations. It's only anecdata I have, but I've heard a lot of creators say that these days recommendations is the only way they get views, even channels with tons of subscribers. I personally rarely get recommended content from channels I actually subscribe to. It's really a lamentable state.

[mrguyorama]

Indeed, I've made these exact arguments about how Youtube systemically pushes creators to do this. I blame Youtube.

Veritasium irks me more than others somehow, because it often seems like their clickbait titles are complete fabrications and don't even match the video content, but also because their eventual non-clickbait titles are pretty good themselves, and often catch my curiosity. I know I don't respond the same as the general audience though.

I'm much more sensitive to clickbait on science related content, because when GameGrumps make a clickbait title, it's not an issue. Nobody cares if they lie about what happens in a gameplay video.

It's too bad, because the videos are often about fascinating science history that isn't given an enjoyable narrative in other places, but the original title that pushes me away will be something insane like "THIS EXPERIMENT NEARLY ENDED THE WORLD" and it sucks. As I said, when the titles are changed to the more sane versions, I usually end up watching because it is interesting.

Like right now, their newest video: "There IS something faster than light". It's actually not as bad as they've done in the past. But eventually that title will change to reflect the actual video content and it will be much more obvious what it is about and I will likely want to watch it.