It’s Friday morning. You are lying down on your bed scrolling through your YouTube feed looking for something to make your leisure worthwhile after a long and tiring week.
All of a sudden, you see a YouTube video titled, ‘See what happened to Virat Kohli against Pakistan.’
The thumbnail shows Virat Kohli lying down on the field with a very badly photoshopped image of blood flowing out of his body with an equally hilarious photoshopped image of a Pakistani Cricketer wielding an axe near him.
You would feel so bemused with the thing that you won't even feel like reacting. But sure you will feel an urge to watch the YouTube video. If not you, at least many other people step into such thumbnail traps.
YouTube thumbnails being extremely cringed-worthy is something we have been seeing quite a lot in the recent past.
This phenomenon is especially dominant in quite a few types of YouTube content, namely, Sports, Politics and Entertainment. They sometimes are so shocking like the one mentioned above that you don't know how to react to them.
Although most people know that these images are fake, a lot of them take a look at those videos just because of the thumbnails, hence, the thumbnails despite being extremely dumb and stupid, are playing a very important role in enticing people to watch YouTube content.
A common comment that can be found in the comment section of these types of videos is, "I just came here for the thumbnail."
These thumbnails, although often being completely harmless and funny, sometimes are used to propagate false information which might make people believe them at first glance.
For example, fake death news of a famous actor with photoshopped images of other actors and actresses attending his funeral, conversion of a famous footballer into a particular religion are some of the most common types of thumbnails.
Although, after going to the video, one can understand simply that it is fake. At first glance, these types of videos might deceive anyone.
YouTube voluntarily does not take any actions against these thumbnails and it appears that, unless there are some explicit contents in those thumbnails and there is a direct chance of violence due to these thumbnails, no thumbnail is taken down by the YouTube authority.
This has created an increasing rise of fake and cringe-worthy content flooding someone's YouTube feed.
YouTube thumbnails, although in most of the cases being something to be laughed at, are at times serving as a great danger due to the fact that they are often fake, misleading and can create division among people.
So, it’s expected that the YouTube authority would be more careful in examining the thumbnails that are being used with the YouTube videos. And those who surf on the video-sharing platform regularly have to be more careful.
