this video is sponsored by nordvpn use the link in the description below to get a massive discount off their two-year plan plus four additional months free YouTube Finance thumbnails the epitome of clickbait in the space the shocked faces crashing markets foreboding texts YouTube are so stressed do you think the only thing being in the Benchmark was their blood pressure and of course the fiesta resistance fire and a lot of it according to these thumbnails we've skipped World Wars three through six and jumped right into World War seven Battle of the Flaming dollar bills and Market
flips how over the last few years has it come to this well it's no secret that the YouTube algorithm rewards videos that grab viewers attention and so one could only conclude that this is the result of YouTubers fine-tuning their thumbnail game to this winning strategy but why do these thumbnails work and is there a chance that this stuff isn't just a nuisance but might actually be harmful for the viewer well it actually makes for an interesting discussion so let's talk about it on today's plain bagel thumbnails on YouTube play one of the most important roles
in getting viewers to watch your video on the platform so it's easy to understand why most YouTubers resort to that over-the-top imagery to grab viewers attention it's the same reason that click bait titles like you won't believe what happens are so common likewise the finance YouTube space is no stranger to this type of clickbait but with 2022 being a pretty crappy year for the stock market alarmist thumbnails seem to have become the soup du jour and as ridiculous as it might seem to have a Creator putting out a video on the next big crash reset
or flip every other week there's a reason that they do this scary thumbnails get views even when viewers are well aware that the sky is not falling these videos often pique interest just enough to get that click that YouTube so envies and as much as I'd hate to admit it it's something that I've seen firsthand myself for I am not without sin while I've avoided the Flames today I too have shown the occasional downwards Arrow or falling stock price but this here is probably my most alarmist thumbnail and I made it that way on purpose
because I posted it on the day that China was allegedly going to collapse According to some other YouTubers it was supposed to be sarcastic and yet over the last 12 months it's been my best performing video what is it about this content about the next big crash or the next big thing to worry about that gets people to watch well it's actually a phenomenon that's been well known by journalists for quite some time negativity bias the human brain is much more interested in bad information than good so viewers are more likely to look into a
scary story for example rather than a feel-good one it's why newspapers often opt for a front page with a negative or shocking headline and why murder mystery podcasts are so damn popular despite the average person probably not being all that fond about contemplating their own mortality at the hands of a psychopath in fact in one study participants who were asked to select a news article to read for a different experiment frequently selected a negative story to read despite participants indicating that they actually preferred positive stories and found news Publishers to be too negative so why
do We crave negative information well some speculate that it has to do with the survival instincts of our ancestors who are more likely to survive in the world if they sought out and adapted to potential threats rather than focusing on the positive and it goes beyond simple active preferences humans have actually been found to recognize interpret and physically respond to negative words faster than positive words a quick response to a Potential Threat is a desirable trait in a world where everything is trying to kill and eat you while the danger of becoming Lion Cable has
drastically fallen in the Modern Age these inherent biases remain meaning that videos with words like crash danger or crisis in their thumbnail are actually more likely to catch your attention and stand out when you're scrolling through your YouTube feed it doesn't help either that negative information especially that which threatens us with the cost evokes a much stronger emotional response than positive information something that's known as loss aversion most people would turn down a 50 chance of winning 105 dollars and a 50 chance of losing one hundred dollars because they don't feel as though the upside
would outweigh the pain they would feel should they lose even though the gamble is an objectively attractive one you face more upside than downside in fact according to the Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman humans have a lost version ratio of roughly 2.0 times meaning most people would need to double the upside in a 50 50 gamble to take on that risk as they feel twice as intensely about losing that money than they would gaining it and really these are just a few biases that help explain why humans are generally bad with money and in the
context of YouTube videos why shocked faces and misleading titles like I'll never recover from this are probably doing well for views even if it is the 50th video a creator has put out on their supposed Financial ruin but a lot of people are probably aware as to why this stuff is so popular the real question is is this stuff harmful for viewers well when it comes to fortnite streams and prank videos probably not but some issues do arise when you apply this tactic of clickbaity and alarmist thumbnails in the world of Finance now obviously I
don't want to make a false equivalency here a clickbaity thumbnail isn't on par with say scamming your viewers or spreading bad financial advice while some YouTubers do indeed fear Monger many others do dial back the actual message of their video from what their thumbnail or title might otherwise convey so certainly we should judge a Creator by more than just the faces that they're making in their thumbnail and I get that YouTube is an incredibly competitive platform and many are just looking for some sort of edge still most of us are aware that when trying to
achieve financial success managing your own emotions is hard enough when our feeds aren't flooded with Doom and Gloom thumbnails promising that the end is near and a lot of these videos try to sensationalize otherwise mundane headlines meaning that they're actively contributing to that noise that we're always told we should ignore so it's not a stretch to believe that this trend could have a negative influence over its viewers who might be looking to make financial decisions based on what they see online this is especially true when you consider another important psychological bias that many of us
experience known as regret aversion We Fear the feeling of regret and will often make our decisions based on what's least likely to prompt that feeling in the future it's why despite the age-old adage of Buy Low and sell High a lot of people feel compelled to buy into a market that's already rallying upwards and to sell out after a market has crashed down many of them worry that they'll regret not taking advantage of the trend they're seeing historically so a video from someone that people follow showing this alarmist imagery May surprisingly give them the impression
that the market is Bound for a decline evoking that fear that they'll regret staying in the market should that crash actually occur add in that YouTube will likely bombard them with these types of thumbnails and you can even see the influence of something called herding where investors copy the actions of what they perceive as the crowd to avoid deviating from the norm there's comfort in knowing that you aren't alone in the actions that you take even if you and everyone else ends up losing money as a result so someone who only sees these types of
negative thumbnails and headlines and messaging about the market will likely be swayed to move with the crowd and possibly sell out now I know what you're thinking Richard where's the accountability if a viewer takes advice from YouTube that's on them especially if they use thumbnails and titles to inform their financial decisions rather than bothering to even watch the videos that are in their feet and you know what I agree I'm not advocating that we regulate the space so that people can only use a maximum of one flaming thumbnail a month although that might be nice
but there is a reason why abusing this tactic should be criticized and why those who are looking to ensure that they're on top of their finances treat this content with a bit of caution like Health Care Finance is a sensitive subject that greatly influences the quality of people's lives it's why the industry of advice is so heavily regulated why you always see those disclosures in the bottom of a Creator's video and why misinformation that influences people to make poor decisions is quite harmful and while a clickbaity thumbnail again is not the same as telling your
viewers that they should go all in on Dogecoin for example our decisions are very easily swayed subconsciously by what we see hear and experience so it's not a stretch to think that someone who only sees these types of negative thumbnails in their YouTube feed might believe that the market is more due for decline than reality would otherwise reflect it's an example of what's called availability bias where the perceived likelihood of an event is influenced by how easily the information to mind thumbnails of worried YouTubers in front of flaming dollar bills with massive foreboding texts are
much easier to recall than headlines from say The Economist on how the labor market is currently healthy meaning we may base our views of the market on The Superficial bit of information so as much as we might find it laughable that someone would ever base a financial decision off of a YouTube thumbnail and certainly explicitly that'd be dumb the truth is that our instinct or that gut feeling we have about the market is more likely influenced by the tweets we've skimmed the conversations we've had and the thumbnails that we've seen in our feed then most
of us would probably like to admit so what should we do about it well as much of a wet blanket party pooper as I've been today I don't think it calls for the canceling of anyone who's put out one too many sad faces in their thumbnails even newspapers with journalistic Integrity will likely paint a more Grim picture of the world than reality reflects and obviously there there will be topics at time that weren't a bit of alarm for example the recent collapse of the world's second largest crypto exchange might be deserving of a few shocked
faces and crashing thumbnails still I think it's worthwhile to moderate how much of this content we're exposed to especially for creators that fear Monger or otherwise manufacture crises for the sake of views I know this probably won't make me all that popular in the YouTube Finance space but the truth is that in the same way you shouldn't watch your portfolio on a day-to-day basis lest you become victim to your emotional response you probably shouldn't watch too much content telling you that this guy is falling and given that YouTube is likely to fill your recommended page
with similar videos as to what you're clicking on the only way to really get out of that rabbit hole is by making the conscious effort to watch other types of content and who knows enough people refusing to click on flaming thumbnails may just extinguish that Trend outside of that however you should obviously keep in mind that things are probably never as bad as the media portrays and when making financial decisions we can thankfully override the worst of our biases by putting in just a bit of extra effort and thinking properly through the problem something as
simple as writing out the bullet point justifications for a decision that you're making fleshing out the Alternatives and including an honest list of the sources you've used to come to that decision might be all it takes to avoid avoid that instinct to sell everything after seeing a bunch of scared people on YouTube so our finance thumbnails the biggest threat to your financial security of course not the content of a video is also much more important than its title screen so in judging a video we should obviously put more weight on whether the person is generally
giving Sound Advice but my own view is that the title and thumbnail of a video do make up part of a Creator's content and they should be considered in judging the quality of that Creator if a Creator is constantly putting out misleading fear-mongering videos to try and fabricate crises for the sake of content you'd probably be better served financially anyway watching some click bait prank videos rather than a piece on why you should sell everything now it won't be the most intellectually stimulating stuff but at least you'll be too preoccupied to worry about the Next
Great Depression or the great reset or whatever else we've decided is happening this week this video was sponsored by nordvpn everyone knows that the internet is Rife with scammers on my channel alone I've been leaving thousands of comments every single week that are trying to promote fake cryptocurrency projects or advisors and we've all probably received a targeted phishing email that tries to use our online activity to steal our money obviously the best defense in all these situations is diligence but if you're looking for an extra bit of help Lord VPN has an awesome product nordvpn
is a simple one-click program that helps to mask your online activity by routing your internet connection through an encrypted tunnel to one of 5200 servers across 59 different countries and outside of protecting your information from malicious players this also allows you to bypass country barriers on services that you might use for example you can't watch The Wolf of Wall Street on Netflix here in Canada both nordvpn you can connect to a different server and access a different catalog a workaround you can also use for games stores and a number of other services but in addition
to their core award-winning VPN nordvpn has now added threat protection to their service a new cyber security feature that blocks intrusive ads and web trackers scans downloaded files for malware and even blocks non-malicious sites for the one subscription you can see you get a pretty comprehensive tool and if you'd like to check it out yourself you can visit nordvpn.com the plain bagel for a massive discount off a two-year plan plus four additional months of the service for free thanks again nordvpn for sponsoring this video thanks for watching I hope you found this video helpful if
you did please do make sure to like subscribe all that good stuff it does help the channel tremendously and let me know your thoughts on the topic down below do you think that I'm being a little too crazy here and that people should be left to their own devices or or you have the opposite mindset that we do in fact need regulation to control how much of this stuff is circulated I don't necessarily agree there but that's the reason I'd like to discuss down below thanks for joining me today we'll see in the next one
foreign
