I really don't like the blatant use of it.
Shane Dawson is a classic example of blatantly using clickbait. He's basically gamed the system right from the start. He's been doing it for years.
Classic example:
Title: "Miley Cyrus on my bed"
Thumb: Photo of Miley Cyrus next to him on his bed.
The actual vid content? - Shane talking nonsense to a
PUPPET called
MILLY (oh and the video got millions of views)
Screenshot of the actual content of the video:
Of course if the video had been correctly titled "My puppet, MILLY on my bed" with a photo of the puppet, he wouldn't have got anywhere near that amount of views.
one example of hundreds.....
Ranter Archfiend called him out on it 5 years ago in an excellent video:
(audio NSFW - lots of cussing)
Shane replied to that rant 5 years ago with a vague "I don't care" reply...
His defence that "his regular viewers should know this and that..." is just a cop out because he uses his misleading titles and thumbs to bring in
NEW unsuspecting viewers from YT search.
Oh, wow nothing worse than total desperation for views.
/end rant.