 To say we've generated some complaints with our recent change to the style of our video titles and thumbnails would be a gross understatement and I want to get right into a discussion about that after this ad Intro Browse privately and securely with TunnelBear, the simple VPN app. Try TunnelBear for free at the link in the video description. Honestly, it's kind of hard to know where to start with something like this. Trolling you guys by playing up the greedy corporate shill perception that some of you have of me probably wasn't the right approach, but joking about things is usually how I break the ice when I'm about to have an awkward conversation and this is going to be a little awkward. I screwed up the video title of our recent Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 performance preview which was initially called AMD Ryzen 5 and 3 tested and then AMD Ryzen 5 and 3 previewed. We shouldn't have said we tested them because we were actually using a different CPU to simulate their performance and even preview upon further reflection wasn't quite right since what we were previewing was the performance that we expected from the chips rather than the chips themselves. So I could spin that as an experiment to see where the threshold was for audience tolerance for our new thumbnails and titles. There would be some truth to that. We are constantly making small tweaks but this this is honest answers and these videos wouldn't have much value if I didn't shoot straight. So here it is in this case I didn't think it was a big deal to draw viewers in with an admittedly misleading title because I was so confident in our testing methodology and I was so confident that the viewers who I would draw in with such a title would turn out to be amped to see the benchmarks that we worked so hard on. To say that backfired would be putting it pretty mildly and the damage is actually deeper than it appears on the outside. One positive takeaway here is that I did get absolute confirmation of my theory that there's been a major shift in the way that YouTube handles dislikes or more accurately the way that YouTube handles the like to dislike ratio. So my previous understanding was that both of them were weighted about equally and there are examples of viral hugely successful videos in the past that seemed to have backed up this belief. But we got to watch in this case in real time as YouTube buried this video about 10 minutes after it went live and the effect of YouTube doing something like that lasts for days on a channel. So then I guess at this point some of you are expecting that what comes next is an on my knees apology and a solemn promise to never again make a silly face or press the forbidden key again and to go back to the good old days of working out of the garage. Hey guys, can you guys tell me how the audio is? And thumbnails with white text on a screen capture of b-roll from the video. But while there are aspects of that approach that I prefer both as a consumer and a creator of content it's not going to happen and there are a lot of reasons why. Some of it is that nostalgia glasses don't actually work very well. Blades of Steel is fun, but is it really a good game by today's standards? And our old unboxing videos are similarly fun, but they contain very little actual information. Change has been a very good thing for the density of information that we're able to present. I mean is it possible if you don't like it anymore that the tech industry changed or maybe you as an individual have changed in the last eight years just as much as we have? But a much bigger factor is this. Using so-called cancerous thumbnails allows our videos to stand out better in a search result or suggested video pane. Gaining us new viewers which is very beneficial for obvious reasons. The cold hard truth is that if everyone is doing this there's probably a reason it works. And while I've seen every argument under the sun, I read almost all the comments on our videos for why it's bad. The cold hard truth is that none of them really hold any water. Number one, you're big enough. You don't need more views. What? Think about what it would mean if we stop growing. YouTube as a platform is growing. PC gaming in particular is growing. I mean us being happy with stagnant viewership in a growing world would be kind of like your grandpa being happy with the same three dollars an hour he made back in 1950. Unacceptable. Number two, people hate it. You'll drive away your core audience. Well there is no doubt that some people hate it, but most of the empirical evidence we've seen suggests that this is a very vocal minority. To be clear unsubscribes do happen. They're common. We've lost more subscribers on LTT than most YouTube channels will ever have. But this is a natural thing. People's interest change. Maybe they even die. But the massive waves of unsubscribes as a reaction to a particular piece of content are much rarer than the comment section would have you believe. Three, you're pandering to kids by making these faces. Okay, there are two fundamental problems with this one. Number one, who cares? Adult enthusiasts, you know grown-ups, should be able to see a silly face without it ruining their day and should be pleased as punch that someone is out there creating content that gets younger people excited and passionate about technology. And two, it's nonsense. Our demographics skew older today than they ever have. So consider that one debunked. And honestly I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this. Video production is really expensive. When you believe that your staff should be comfortable, happy, and well compensated, then you put that money where your mouth is. So with the significant investment already made into making every piece of content we do, another 20 minutes on a thumbnail that can boost viewership by no kidding up to 20% is a no-brainer. And in response to what I'm sure is coming next, you, yes you, the one writing an essay about how being a YouTuber isn't a real job, we shouldn't have all this overhead, we should just do it out of passion like we used to. One, a job is anything you can get paid to do and we're doing okay. Some of us even wear decent clothes. Two, to jog your memory, I used to work at a computer store. In fact, every single person in this video has been paid to make Linus Tech Tips videos since the moment they started making Linus Tech Tips videos. So that hasn't changed. Leading us to number three, of course we're passionate. Are you kidding? There are a lot of things that I would rather not stress about like commercial property leases, insurance, equipment breakage, taxes, scheduling, dealing with staff vacation times. But I do all of this crap that I don't enjoy because I am passionate about making the best videos we can and about running a real business that has allowed us to make 7 Gamers or Ultimate Desk PC, Scrapyard Wars, projects that wouldn't have been possible if I was still hand-caming unboxings in a parking lot with Luke. You can criticize me for plenty of stuff, but slam me for lacking passion. I mean, you're probably the same people asking why I built my own server room instead of hiring someone to do it properly. Because I love playing with this stuff. Why do you think I do it? If I wasn't personally passionate about making tech videos, there would be no reason for me to make an embarrassing face in a thumbnail to try and grow this company. You think I want to explain to my kids why I'm always looking like this? Honestly, do I really even seem like the kind of person who needs a lot of material things to be happy? Do you think this is about the money? I live in the same house. I drive the same car and I wear the same abominable cheap footwear that I always did. The only fancy stuff in my life is my tech gadgets, just like before I ever set foot in front of a camera. Do you know what a lack of passion would actually look like? Plotting away day after day at the same kinds of videos in the same format with the same presentation. Do you have any idea how easily I can rattle off a power supply unboxing? Do you have any idea how much faster it is to generate our old thumbnails? Which, coming back then to the beginning of our little chat, doesn't mean that we haven't ever taken it too far. So here is my proposal to help us communicate with each other better. Unfortunately, I need to keep going like this and titling our videos in a way that allows us to adapt to how viewers are discovering new content. But I won't mislead you. If I say, you won't believe this bizarre keyboard, you won't believe it. And what I'm asking for in return is this. One, try to understand our position. We can't ignore the changes in the way that viewers are browsing content on YouTube. If the title is representative of the content, world's ugliest keyboard, it isn't, even if it shares some stylistic aspects with clickbait, it isn't by the very definition clickbait. It's awful. And I'd appreciate if you could look past a little bit of edginess and avoid painting us with the same brush as folks putting boobs in their thumbnails of videos about cars. And not cars with boobs, just regular cars. And number two, if you want to communicate with us, do it in a way that's meaningful. Honestly, I couldn't tell if this thumbnail thing was a serious problem or just more background noise from haters. Like, whatever the hell prompted 500 people to dislike this, this really cool piece of content where we took the time to benchmark 10 years of video cards. It was a lot of time. Or the truckload of poorly researched comments informing me that my server room is flammable. Try this. If there's something that you liked about the video, help us then. Help us drown out the peanut gallery with a like and an on-topic comment. We really do read those and these things boost search rankings and suggested video placements. Behavioral conditioning 101, guys. Positive feedback is more powerful than negative, and negative loses its impact if you aren't also remembering to let us know when we've done something right. And now, another ad. Viver is a huge digital marketplace where talented freelancers, startups, and small businesses can connect. You can search through over 150 categories of services and filter your searches based on your terms. Timeline, budget, you name it. These filters help you narrow down your search so you're paired with a talented professional freelancer who can help you reach your goals and produce a high quality product for your brand. We've actually contracted a few individuals to create some clickbait thumbnails for us. So the first 300 viewers who see those thumbnails and go, I would love to have a thumbnail like that, and you use code Linus, will get 20% off their Fiverr services. So join hashtag, endureswetrust, and start getting s*** done today. So thanks for watching, guys. If you disliked this video, as always, hit the dislike button, but please make sure there's a reason for it. If you liked it, hit the like button, though. Get subscribed, maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured, which I guess wasn't really anything, at the link in the video description, and also check out our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one in our community forum, which you should totally join.