Comment by transcriptase
4 days ago
If you watch him on Joe Rogan’s podcast he gives a full overview of how every single tiny detail down to colors, length of scene cuts, facial expressions, language, total length of videos, time of day for release, thumbnails, sound effects, music is extensively A/B tested to not only optimize for the algorithm but for hijacking people’s attention as well. That weird creepy face with the outline and uncanny smoothing aren’t by accident. Everything is intentional because he obsessively tests anything that might give him even the slightest edge in a sea of videos. The content itself barely matters.
This seems like innately hostile behaviour. Not to other video creators, but to his audience. Stripping as much as he can using data and mathematics is the kind of thing engineers do to pull more out of a machine, not something you do when you're creating informal communications to other humans.
Attention engineering is how the charts are topped. Media producers knew this decades before the social media, and perfected it by the late 90's. Avoiding extremely popular stuff is just common sense if you want any real authenticity.
Oh, but then you’re the much-maligned hipster.
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> when you're creating informal communications to other humans.
What he’s creating is fame and money for himself, the fact that it’s by doing videos is incidental. That’s why he also got into ghost kitchens, a game show full of corner cutting, and a theme park in Saudi Arabia open for under two months.
in other words his business model is fuck you pay me
at least 50 cent, who got into rap strictly for the money, made something fairly entertaining
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It’s basically drug dealing. Which is fine if you’re doing it for fun, but doing it to make money develops the most antisocial parts of a person
With enough humans, it starts to look like a machine
>That weird creepy face with the outline and uncanny smoothing aren’t by accident.
I take your point, but I am still baffled why people find this appealing.
Appealing isn’t the goal. Catching someone’s attention is the goal. (Nobody thinks the balloons on the cars at the car dealership look good but statistics prove that balloons sell cars.) Then, triggering someone’s curiosity, which is more where the copy comes in. (You can increase your click count with this one weird trick!)
You’re subject to it every bit as much as me or anybody else, but for whatever reason, we have different triggers than the Mr. Beast crowd. People that think they’re immune to it after having it pointed out to them are likely just less aware than most how their emotions are being manipulated by things they don’t even consciously perceive. Sales guys love people like that.
If you're aware of it and think you're susceptible then you can make it impossible to be influenced by it. Ie, You can disable all 'related videos'/feeds/home page on Youtube with Unhook, and sponsored segments with SponsorBlock. I'll probably never see a Youtube thumbnail for the rest of my life, throw in Adblock and your exposure is extremely limited.
> Sales guys love people like that.
You can also easily never speak to them. I know they exist, but as a consumer I can't think of anytime I've had a sales interaction with a salesperson. I understand that some people do, and might even actively seek a salesperson - but if I go to a physical store I already know what I want to buy before I get there and the only interaction I might have is to ask how to find the thing I want.
I know it's a common argument/appeal to authority that advertising must work, because companies are still doing it - but there are economists who think that it might not[0].
[0]: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...
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It doesn't have to be appealing, it has to make you click.
Car crashes are not appealing, and yet it is something most people are tempted to look at. Many people think of dopamine as the pleasure hormone, not really, it is the motivation hormone, pleasure is one way to achieve that, but so is horror.
It makes evolutionary sense, if something horrible happens, you better pay attention, to get prepared so that it doesn't happen to you.
I don't know the details of the psychological response to Mr Beast thumbnails, and I think neither does My Beast himself, the analytics say it works and that the only thing that matters to him.
Novelty goes a long way, old enough YouTube video are optimized for their time period and end up looking stylized in their own ways.
Fashion swaps styles fast enough most people can’t afford full wardrobes before it changes, which by default keeps each style looking fresh.
Maybe not appealing but interesting. Distinct enough from the rest of the thumbnails on the page to trigger an impulsive tap or click.
It seems we're living a Max Headroom episode.
Guests smoking weed A/B tested too? :)
How do you A/B test on YouTube?
Youtube lets you A/B test thumbnails as a creator and see response rates, for instance.
https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/393332200/you-can-...
posted 12/8/2025, 11:24:26 AM
So like a month ago. How did Beast A/B test before then?
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A small number of creators have had testing tools provided by YouTube for years.
He also changes the thumbnails and titles of videos once published, sometimes up to dozen times in the first day.
He also has dozens of channels for different languages, so can test thumbnails and other tweaks with those.