The Tyranny of the Algorithm
It's 2025 and I'm scrolling through YouTube, looking for Blender videos.
Every other thumbnail features the creator's face with some over-the-top expression: shock, horror, surprise.
Why? Have they suffered an electric shock while using the Shader Editor?
No. It's all because of Mr Beast.
Mr Beast is the biggest YouTuber in the world, and he always features his face on the thumbnails of his videos. Mr Beast has done extensive A/B testing, and putting his face on the thumbnail means more people will click on the video.
So in order to juice the algorithm, every YouTuber on earth is pulling stupid faces in the thumbnails of their videos. Even if those videos are Blender tutorials.
Welcome to the tyranny of the algorithm.
The more clicks a thumbnail generates, the more likely the video will get boosted by YouTube's algorithm. It sounds fair and democratic, until we are all drowning in a sea of silly faces.
The trouble is, a thumbnail is just that: a thumbnail. It's not the book, it's the cover.
The thumbnail tells you nothing about the video's content. In fact, it tells you less than nothing, because I can guarantee that the creator won't be pulling those faces as he explains how to wire shading nodes together.
It's clickbait.
It's the "One Weird Trick" headline in visual form. And it serves exactly the same purpose as the clickbait headline: it wants you to click.
And so creators, desperate for those clicks, are rushing in a race to the bottom. Putting time and energy into the thumbnails, into the headlines, and into the superficial attention-grabbers. Time and energy that they could be using to create better content.
You can't blame them really. Without those clicks they don't get paid. Making a living on YouTube is brutal. The algorithm is merciless, and Google only cares about keeping our eyes glued to the ads, whatever it takes.
But slowly, our entire culture is being dictated by algorithms.
YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are the most important cultural institutions of the modern age.
Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials grew up watching TV shows and listening to music.
Gen Z and Gen Y are growing up with the internet. Where once there was South Park, now there is Skibidi Toilet. Where once there was MTV, now there is Mr Beast.
Culture changes, that's normal.
But behind the scenes, there is an invisible hand silently directing our attention.
Everything in our feeds is algorithmically curated with one goal in mind: to maximise our attention in order to feed us more ads. The algorithm doesn't care about quality, it only cares about attention. So the most eye-catching thumbnail wins.
The result is that our culture is being homogenised to comply with our algorithmically driven preferences. And now every other video on YouTube has a stupid face pasted on the thumbnail.
Personally, I think it would be an insult to my viewers to stick my face on a thumbnail. There's nothing wrong with my face, it's perfectly average, but my physical appearance has nothing to do with the content of my videos.
I think my audience is sophisticated enough to resist the clickbait tactics that the algorithms encourage, and I want my content to be authentic, even if it results in fewer clicks.
So if you ever see me pulling a stupid face on a clickbait thumbnail, feel free to call me out on it. I should know better.