Do anti-thumbnails work on YouTube?

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

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1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome to this episode of Creator Support. Today, we're going to be talking about the anti-thumbnail theory. Also today on the show, what's up with all these creators making so much money on Snap? Like, should you be starting a Snapchat show? We also discussed the Hollywood writer's strike and if YouTube creators are responsible for killing unions. Not fully responsible, but like partly responsible.

1:43Alright, if you make it to the deep end, let us know. Last week was a really big week for us. I mean, Doja Cat. Is that what you were talking about? Yeah, I mean, so, okay. For reference, if you don't know what we're talking about, Colin and I were part of Brandcast, which is YouTube's Upfront. It's essentially where YouTube does a big presentation in front of all the big advertisers, 1 ,500 people in the Lincoln Center in New York, and presents kind of what's going to happen in the next chapter. One of the biggest things was the NFL, the NFL's partnership with YouTube and Sunday Ticket, which is super cool.

2:18Destroying was there with the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell. Eric was on stage. Eric was there, Michelle Correa. Yep. Jacob Collier, who's a great musician. Beautiful voice. And then Doja Cat closed the show, and Colin and I introduced Doja Cat, which was really fun. And we did a big segment on the future of advertising on YouTube. YouTube keeps bringing us these interesting opportunities. Last year, we introduced Diddy. P. Diddy. No, Diddy. Diddy. You're right. Diddy. P. Diddy? Yes. Diddy. Yeah, you're right. We introduced Diddy. There's always a great musical guest at these YouTube events.

2:46And we've been fortunate to introduce them. But the production was just such a big scale. And it was, I mentioned this last week, of just kind of the emotion of seeing our face on this big poster in New York. And I think even more so this week being on stage and having like this, this massive production and having it say Colin and Samir and then being able to speak on behalf of YouTube. It's been this really cool thing of being able to like shape this platform that we've dedicated so much time to in our life. You know, that's, that's been a really cool thing. So that was Wednesday night. And the next day we launched the discord, which was like a whole nother emotional rollercoaster.

3:27And just like an incredibly exciting day. When we pressed go. I felt like I was hooked up to an IV. Yeah. Of just like internet power and like social media content and engagement. It was just nonstop. I was so sucked into the Discord. Yeah. Right when the Discord launched, it was just like, I mean, it's a very unique opportunity to see the physical manifestation of our community. Yeah. Like actually see people come into the space and the type of people who come in, right? And it's the first time you really face your audience. And we've spent years sort of aggregating and collecting a group of like-minded people.

4:05So to then all of a sudden just be in this digital space with them where you can all interact and there's all these different channels. And every channel is a place that I kind of want to spend some time and hang out. Yeah, totally. You just can get lost in it. And you and I both got lost in it. Oh, of course. How could we not? Again, it's like all this work of building a community. People talk about community a lot. You know, a lot of people in the creator economy talk about community. But what does that actually look like? And we got to face it and be like, oh, this is what it looks like. This is our community.

4:35It was really cool, too, to see who was joining. Not only creators from all over the world. Shout out to everyone from Australia because there were a lot of Aussies. Hold on. We got to read this. This is from the Discord. This is from Pete THT. He said, honestly, if there isn't a shout out to all the Aussies in the discord on the next potty, I'll be spewing. Whoa, that's a lot of Aussie lingo. Yeah, yeah. But Pete, there's your shout out. So please don't be spewing. So not only do we have creators from all over the world, but we also had people who work for creators, which has been really interesting.

5:03Yeah. So right after Dude Perfect released this like crazy, you know, highest trick shot. Yeah. Which was an awesome video. World record. World record. Basketball shot. Crazy video. But Matthew, who works for Dude Perfect, head of social, like immediately when that video was posted, posted four thumbnail options for the video that they were considering and posted it into the thumbnail feedback part of Discord and asked for, you know, what everyone thought. And then posted analytics in the analytics channel, right? Yeah. Super cool. So we have people who are working for creators, creators themselves.

5:37And the introductions channel has been a really cool place because we asked people to make video introductions. So I actually wanted to play one of them. Okay. This was one of my favorite introductions over the weekend. Hi, Discord. I'm Joel. And I'm a relatively small YouTuber. I'm also an overthinker and a perfectionist. Which is why I almost scrapped this video a million times. But it's also why I make fun videos where I try to inspire others to try new things by focusing on progress instead of perfection. I love talking storytelling, cinematography, thumbnails, mental health, and pretty much anything YouTube related.

6:14So I'm really looking forward to this new tribe we're building here. So right now, I got to go back to recording that voiceover, but I'll see you guys on Discord. That was awesome. I think the thing that stuck out to me and what has stuck out to me, you know, in the week that the Discord has been live has been the concept of having a safe space to share content. Because actually, you know, YouTube, TikTok, some of these other places don't, don't feel safe. Um, because either a, you, you put something out has low viewership and then you feel kind of weird. Yeah. It's got 50 views. That feels weird.

6:47Or you put something out and it goes really viral to a group that you didn't intend it to go to. And then you feel kind of like judged or like people you're opening yourself up to, you know, a group that's uncomfortable. And that I think stops a lot of creators from growing and incubating. Yeah. And so I think that one of the coolest things about the, um, the server has been that people can share creative work like that. And there's a group to receive it. And that group has a shared interest and is like, oh yeah, I'm down to receive a video like that. Yeah. So invalidation is so important for creators, especially early on.

7:20And validation doesn't have to come through views. It can come through human interaction, right? Like even a few people commenting on a video is way more impactful than sometimes a million views, but having no understanding of like what people really think about it. Yeah. Right. Totally. Yeah. So, you know, this partnership with discord has been really interesting because it's like an opportunity for us to actually like find out who our community is and what's so cool is they are creators. So they're making stuff for us to watch. Yeah. And then again, it's like the conversation we want to be a part of.

7:53So I did quickly just want to thank discord and thank them specifically for sponsoring this episode. And I wanted to bring up two features that we used over the past week that I think are really unique community building features. The first is voice channels. So the server asked us to open up voice channels. And so we did it. You talking about the cozy corner or the editor's den? We have editor's den. We have this cozy corner. We have the lounge. And we popped into one. And there was a group of creators with one of them editing, sharing their screen, and everyone else commenting on like, hey, yeah, hold the music a little bit longer there or like make that cut shorter.

8:28and that was so interesting to see like a space to collaborate and hang out and chat and meet with people and at any given time of the day you can check and there's like the voice channels are going and people are hanging out and talking about things and then the second feature which was so exhilarating was the live stage. We hosted our first AMA where we ended up going live into the Discord on stage bringing other people up on stage to ask us questions. It was like hosting a live radio show. Yeah. And the production setups of everyone we brought on stage Yeah, that was cool. were for the most part incredibly high.

8:58Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was really cool to see that because everyone is pretty much a creator. Totally. Like if they're going to be a part of a live AMA and come up on stage, it's going to look damn good. Yes. Yeah. I think what was really interesting about it was this like, there was like inside jokes that came out of that. There was, you know, chat was a whole nother thing. It almost felt like we were becoming streamers in this environment. Yeah. But getting to do it in this way that was like so collaborative with the community. and I see this future of that type of space and those stages being an opportunity for us to bring experts on to actually help guide some of the conversation, answer questions.

9:35And also it's very liberating because there's no post-production attached to it. It's like, we're there, we're live, we're here to bring value, we're here to connect with our community and then it's off and it's done. And then what we saw was right after the AMA, people were talking about it in other channels. Yeah, I would say anyone who's listening or watching right now and who's a part of the Discord or wants to be, if you're interested in being a part of an AMA, like if you consider yourself an expert, you have something to give and you would want to be featured, let us know either in the comments or in the Discord.

10:07Yeah. So launching the Discord was something I was nervous about. Same. You know, I was really nervous about how it was going to go. And now, you know, a week into it, I'm so happy with it. And I think a lot of that has to do with our community, our mods, and then again, our partners at Discord. Thank you guys so much. If you guys want to join the Discord, the link is in the description. A lot happened in the world of YouTube as well. We should talk about some of that. Linus stepped down as CEO and just kind of like the Linus company. Yeah. And I thought that was a really interesting thing to bring up.

10:38So, you know, he's stepping down as the CEO of his company and moving into more of like a visionary role, right? I think he's calling himself - Remaining the creator. Yeah. Chief visionary officer. necessarily the operator of the business. I think that's an important thing to discuss of like, does a creator need to be the CEO of their business? Or what does that even mean to be like the CEO of your own business as you're growing? I think ultimately, if you bring in a CEO, they're not fully your boss because you are still the creator and you're still in charge of whether they're there or not, if you like them.

11:13But in this instance, it does help greatly if you find the right person who can act kind of like your boss, right? And you get to stay in your lane and be creative and they get to look high level at the operations of the business and what's going on and be kind of like your quarterback, your central sort of hub for what you're doing. I think if you, the creator are the CEO of the business, you're not going to be the best creator. You're just not. There's too much other stuff to do as a CEO for you to be the best creator. And I think we see that a lot where creators who end up becoming the CEO of their own business, the content ends up struggling because if they're not the creator, not the creator.

11:56I would say including ourselves, we are definitely not immune to that at all. Not at all. I think through experience, I'm saying that. I think one of the best versions of it I've saw was with Rhett and Link. Like Rhett and Link are not the CEOs of Mythical. You know, they have an executive team there. And I think that is definitely the direction. It's all moving. But I liked that video a lot from Linus, and I liked the, like, openness of that discussion and just what that discussion brings forward for creators. Yeah, I think it's important to see those types of roadmaps, you know, and for a creator to talk about it on their channel.

12:29That's what I love. That doesn't have to be a public-facing video. Yeah. But making it public, I think, is super impactful and shows us that it's a really important decision. I love how meta YouTube is. Right? Like what other shows, let's call them shows, would make an episode of a show all about who's the new CEO of the show? Or like, yeah, I'm no longer directing the show. Yeah. You know, something like that. That's super interesting. That's even how I felt about iDubbbz video. So iDubbbz with his content cop series, which is incredibly critical, many times super hateful, but also entertaining.

13:06he kind of had a moment where he no longer agrees with the version of himself that was on the internet yeah and in a way the audience that he had built a part of the audience that he built and just made a video addressing that and being like hey i am no longer that person and i am sorry for that and i apologize for that and i think it's so important to show other people that you can change. That like there's precedent for this. That you don't have to be stuck in a certain type of format if you don't feel like it's fully you. You know, that's like some creators, right? It's not going to go that far where they're actually making like bigoted, hateful content at times.

13:47There may be some creators who are just stuck in a certain type of format. Like Lizzie Capri, we've been talking about. Like she was in a type of format, kids content that no longer felt true to herself and was able to make a change. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Pretty significant change. you'd change yeah aged up the content and launched an only fan is launching an only fan yeah i mean that's a pretty big pivot but i it does feel like we're in this era of youtube where people are evolving and changing a lot yeah like i it feels tangibly different right now right yeah i think we're like you said we're seeing people like age up yeah and we have enough people who've been on the platform or who've been creators long enough that they can't help but change because it's super hard to not be yourself.

14:28Right. And we're seeing some interesting decisions being made, like iDubbbz unlisting a bunch of his content. Anthpo graduating from college and being like, hey, I'm done with this experience. I'm no longer uploading videos. I think we're also seeing that, you know, even in the Discord community, what you're recognizing is like, there's people who are part of our community, but most of those people are creators themselves. And that's, that might be somewhat unique to our community. But I would assume that in a lot of communities, a lot of the audience they're also making and that's new where it's not just like hey we are the creators you are the audience it's like we are all making stuff yeah and we make different stuff from you and you watch our stuff and maybe we watch your stuff and that is a that is a whole new landscape where on youtube now there's potential that everyone is a creator i think that's uh you know after a certain amount of time like every creator even if they're not talking about the business of creators is aspirational to a subset of their audience who wants to do what they're doing or something like what they're doing.

15:29Yeah. Right. And I think over time that compounds. Yeah. Where you have a lot of different people in different industries, niches, everything who've been looking at their favorite creator saying, well, I don't want to talk about what they're talking about, but I'm pretty interested. Let me try this, you know? And now we're sitting with a ton of people who are creators. Yeah. You lower the barrier to entry too with like TikTok and reels and shorts. And the on-ramp is easier. Yeah. To at least try. So it's super interesting. Okay, this is our first question we're pulling from the Discord, which is from Burr.

16:05What's up, Burr? What's up, Burr? So something I've been thinking about a lot lately is longer form casual content that have thumbnails that are aesthetically displeasing. Like how Moist Critical stretches his thumbnails horizontally. It looks bad, but it's still visually distinct, and I know it's his content. Is going against the grain of pristine thumbnails viable for someone just starting out? Or would that be driving viewers away by thinking the video itself is poorly produced? I think all that matters is if it storytells. Because what we're talking about with Moist Critical, with like the stretched thumbnails.

16:40Yeah, we should explain that. Or even like Mogul Mail Ludwig, right? Like he'll put a tweet, and then like stretch the tweet to fit in the thumbnail. and it doesn't look like anything you've ever seen before, which is good, but it also looks like intentionally kind of shitty. Yeah, I want to pull up one of these because it's so compelling though. But it tells a story. Every time he puts a tweet in one of his thumbnails, the copy is something that is sort of dramatic or makes you want to click. Like it adds intrigue. So I don't think it matters if you have like a pristine image or a blurry photo of a potato chip.

17:12Yeah. You know, as long as that tells a story. Yeah, I agree with that. It's so interesting though. Like Moist Critical, he does reaction content. So he'll like, you know, pull a screen grab or something from, you know, something that's reactionary. He's also though a relationship-based creator. Like Moist Critical is creating content and you are clicking because you like Moist Critical. And yes, some of these concepts will drive more viewership than others, but largely the viewership, like there's a video I'm looking at right now. It's called, This Took Me 17 Years. And it is a YouTube selected thumbnail of his face.

17:48Yeah. And it has 1.3 million views. Yeah. His eyes are closed. His mouth is kind of open. It's an intentionally kind of whatever. Because it's like - There's drama intention in that. This took me 17 years. And you're looking at like a crappy photo of him. You're like, well, that doesn't pair up. But that can't be a new creator. True. That can only, that only works at 1.3 million views because it's Moist critical. Yeah. So that's the question that he's asking is, can you do this as an up-and-coming creator? We're also looking at another one, Disney's latest failure. It's kind of like a ridiculous screenshot where you can barely read the headline.

18:22But Disney's latest failure, it's something that we were talking about in the thumbnail feedback section of the Discord about like unclosed loops of saying Disney's latest failure suggests there's a failure that Disney just went through. And I don't know that. Like me right now in this moment, I have no idea what he's talking about. And then the thumbnail shows a headline. It's like, oh, there's a headline and I can kind of see it says Star Wars. So now I'm like, my interest is peaked enough that even after we're recording this, I'll probably just check this out because I can't not know what this is about.

18:57That might work for a new creator. That might work for a new creator. But this took me 17 years, might not. I agree. I think the like, the concept of aesthetically displeasing for the, like, just to be against the grain, it's not going to work if you're just thinking that this is, like, creatively what works. It is, like, storytelling. It is also being really topical. Like, Moist Critical and Ludwig with Mogul Mail are incredibly topical. If there's, like, a tweet that goes viral, that's what they put out. You know, it's whatever that moment is, they are commenting on the moment. I think like with editing, with graphic design, with all of this, like I am more attracted right now to the more lo-fi styles.

19:44I think because I'm almost over, I've been edited at so much, you know, as a viewer. Yeah. I think you can predict what's behind the thumbnail and that's probably, or at least you think you can. So you are less inclined to watch. Right. With something that is like lo-fi, it's perhaps more singular is your thought that like, this is a unique video. Yeah. And I would say, you know, just to answer the question too, it's like for a brand new creator, what I would really think about is how does the thumbnail, how did the thumbnail and title play off each other? How do they compliment each other? Just try and make sure they're not saying the same thing.

20:19And if you're new, like you are going to have to cast a wider net to reach audience. But I think when you get to a point where you have a dedicated community, you can kind of play around a bit with these loose thumbnail formats. And again, if you're a streamer or if you're like someone who has a lot of clips like Ludwig or Moist Critical, it's a bit of a different thing. So, yeah. But I think we'll probably see more of this. We'll see more of like toned down thumbnails. Like I think we talked about Colt Kerwin's video before, but I think that was a version of a thumbnail that was like pretty chill.

20:48And it's not like we haven't seen those before. No, we've seen it before. It's just a little bit cyclical. Yeah. All right. Next question from the Discord from Yikes. A few weeks ago, I got an email from a publishing company offering me my own Snapchat show. I didn't think much of it until I watched Tejas' new video. Would it be worth it? I hear Snapchat pays a crazy amount, but I'm not sure if I'd be able to commit to doing it while also doing YouTube. And I don't want another platform to take priority. Not to mention still being in high school and barely being able to manage the workload I have without adding another platform.

21:22so in Tejas' video which we can link in the description of this episode he dives deep into why David Dobrik has abandoned YouTube for Snapchat yeah and conducts some pretty interesting interviews in there and gets to the bottom of kind of how Snapchat works right now with stories yeah and what he found was that you know people are posting 70 to 100 stories a day smaller creators can make like you know a thousand to 3 ,000 a day which is like really, really, really. I mean, that's crazy. Significant. That's crazy. And so then you think about what someone like David Dobrik is making at a million views per day posting 300 snaps a day.

22:02Like, it's absurd. I'm not a mathematician. No, you've never been. Never been. But$3 ,000 a day for 30 days. Yeah. Again, I said I'm not a mathematician. Yeah, we'll leave that there. That's neither for us. That's not for us to do. Someone else can calculate. Someone can put that in the comments, how much that is. But for a young creator like that, it's very hard to say no to. And this is low lift. This is like posting photos of whatever, 70 to 100, and the ads that play in between these stories, you get a cut from Snapchat. But I think these amounts are probably inflated right now. For sure. Because I don't know if I believe— The moment is right now.

22:45I don't know if I believe that the style of content warrants high advertising dollars over the long term. Yeah. Right. So it seems like a play of let's get creators talking about it. Let's pay top creators a lot and see if that trickles down and people start picking up stories and then ads come. It's like, can it be a self-fulfilling prophecy? Which maybe it can of like, Hey, snaps the place to make money, inflate the amounts. People start coming to snap. Then advertisers come to, it could happen. It could happen. But right now it feels like a moment. Yeah, it is a moment. And I think, um, there's a couple of different versions of snap.

23:20Like, I think, yikes, what you're talking about is a Snapchat show. Mr. Yikes. Mr. Yikes, yeah, which is different from stories, which is different from Spotlight. And I'm not super familiar with Snap, so I'm interested to hear in the comments people talk about Snap. But I think that the zoom out, it says, would it be worth it? And then goes on to talk about, you know, I'm barely able to manage my workload being a high school student and a creator. And I think the question becomes like what is the desired outcome for you as a creator? Is it that you make the most money? Is it that you make the most interesting content?