Agreed. Most Youtube thumbnails are cancer. Bug eyes with mouth wide open or pointing at something. Enough already.

De-arrow is a godsend for these thumbnails.

That being said, I set a "Don't recommend channel" on Brodie Robertson because he took part in harassing a developer about some barely nsfw furry art being hidden in some software but refuses to block Nazis from his mastodon profile. It seemed like a double standard that demonstrated tolerance for said Nazis.

yt creators really don't have a choice, if they deviate from the stuff that the algorithm likes it kills the channel

I'm subscribed to his channel for years and in my opinion its the best Linux content on YouTube. And its the first time I see this face as a thumbnail, but to be honest, the had a few strange ones too. If I were not subscribed to his channel and would not know that he makes good content, then I would probably come to the same conclusion to not watch the video based off the thumbnail. I sometimes refuse to click a video based on the title too!

But I don't know what it is, but this content from him is the worst in years (in my opinion)! So the thumbnail fits nicely and you don't need to see it anyway. It's not worth watching it. But I'm serious when I say that you should check out his other videos, if you look for Linux content. He does often amazing job of history stuff too, and content that others don't report on.

I do the same. I don't care if there is an algorithm or not, I don't care if you get 0,00001% more money. The end doesn't justify the means. I am on a personal vendetta, every time I am on YT and I see a thumbnail like that or one with clickbait text or arrows. It's instant don't recommend channel. I don't care if I am subbed to that channel or not. Stop finding excuses, we need a gram of human decency, stop whoring yourself like that

Well TIL, thanks for the graphic!

Nobody watched the video lol, dark themes are an easy fix but not the best solution. But very interesting, thanks for sharing

The point of the video is that current default themes (particularly light themes) are too high contrast and too monochromatic. And in that scenario, a dark theme becomes a necessity because a high contrast dark theme is usually better received than a white one.

btw you can get glasses if you have astigmatism. certainly made my life easier.

I'm certainly not that bad, but I see where you are coming from. I like a very light grey text on a medium to dark background for this reason that white text on black 'shadows'

If you are on Android, repainter can be really nice to find an accessible background/foreground combo using the new Material You theme engine. I get the impression it wasn't designed for that purpose but it does the job if you try to use mostly Material You apps.

I was a light theme user for very long time, until a few years ago I met Vim with the theme gruvbox (dark). Check out gruvbox, it's my favorite theme of all time. Often there are multiple variants from it, with slight difference in contrast and coloring. For long text reading I prefer black on white, but nowadays I use dark themes for operating system and many other stuff. Especially for programming / scripting its much more readable as dark theme, for whatever reason.

I'm still conflicted, because most dark themes suck, but most light themes are acceptable. Have a look here, gruvbox has a light theme and dark theme: https://github.com/morhetz/gruvbox

looks at the KDE settings with window borders and title bars disabled

I think what Brodie showed at the end was already really great. I know a graphics designer and number 1 rule is to never use black and white.

But of course this only works if you have full control over all apps, libadwaita? Dont theme my apps? Damn Electron?

Huh, I should look into that - I have astigmatism and with LCD & OLED monitors its much easier for me to read light text on dark background.

The font effects the clarity for me much more.