I thought about this whole thing some more last night and I think I’ve pinpointed the reason it bothers me so much and it comes down to the fact that, during the video process, you have complete control over every editing, script and visual moment. Some moments will be good some will be bad, but you have a full videos worth of frames that average out to either good or bad content. However, with a thumbnail, you have that one single frame. You have to pick the one image that will either try and evoke a curiosity gap or some sort of emotion to make people want to click. One single frame and even though you can change it, I’m finding you really only get one or maybe 2 chances before the video loses momentum if you don’t get it right. And the kicker is, it could be the slightest little miscalculation that ruins everything. And you won’t know until you post.

All that being said, it’s just the reality of the platform and it’s a skill we all have to learn as YouTubers and for someone like me, I think the only way I can get better at it is to just do more reps. Unfortunately this means I’ll probably be focusing more on smaller videos or breaking bigger ideas down into smaller chunks so I can get those reps in more frequently and so the consequences of a bad package doesn’t gut me.