BabyTuber thumbnails: a playful antidote to YouTube’s clickbait style

A new thumbnail trend dubbed “BabyTuber” is catching on after an artist who goes by Jamie on Bluesky shared one earlier this week titled “Why I’m Switching.” The image shows an infant furrowing its brow while pondering upgrading from toy blocks to a bead maze.

The Kotaku piece frames BabyTuber as an antidote to the current YouTube thumbnail meta, which it says requires extravagant claims and exaggerated facial expressions to farm curiosity gaps—“curiosity gap farming on steroids,” increasingly aided by genAI.

Jamie’s thumbnail includes a thought bubble, a greater-than sign, and a question mark; the article calls it “perfect.” Jamie encouraged others to join in and share their own BabyTuber thumbnails, and several people did.

Jamie told Aftermath, “At the end of the day it’s been fun to see people enjoying it, especially in a time where [every] headline online has been miserable. If this silly thing was able to brighten people’s day at all then I’m happy. I’m glad my mutuals seem to be having a laugh instead of being annoyed, haha.” The article closes by joking that someone should make Baby LinkedIn posts—“Here’s what my 2-year sleep regression taught me about B2B sales.”

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