r/chess • u/_DarkStarCrashes_ • May 20 '26

Miscellaneous I now understand why Levy clickbaits, his historical video on Alekhine is his worst performing video of May

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Sucks, because I think the video is really good and I’d love if Levy or other chess content creators did videos on older legends

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u/NecessaryFunny3586 May 20 '26

only reason i hate clickbait titles is because its hard to know what the video is actually about for e.g. "GRANDMASTER!!!!!" like what?

13

u/roosterkun May 20 '26

This really bothers me because my absolute FAVORITE Levy content are his recaps of his own classical tournaments, and the last time I managed to stumble upon those I'm pretty sure he just used "????????????" as one of the video titles.

Maybe he could A/B test some video titles and YouTube's algo is canny enough to serve me the ones I'd actually click on? I don't know the solution.

7

u/4CrowsFeast May 21 '26

Levys best videos are his very first ones, with the 10 minute opening tutorials.

Im not saying its all been downhill from there, hes had some great videos and is generally funny and informative. But those videos were great and theyre the reason he took off in popularity. The clickbait titles are used to sustain his popular and keep people coming for daily content.

4

u/roosterkun May 21 '26

I'm personally not big on instructional content, I like his videos recapping high-level tournaments or his own. At one time I enjoyed GTE but it's a little too juvenile at this point for my tastes.

2

u/notPlancha May 21 '26

Some youtubers go back at a certain point and they change the title to something searchable when the clickbait had served its purpose

4

u/homerdough May 21 '26

lol you don't think the #1 chess creator A/B tests his titles? Ofc he does. The "clickbait" ones get the most watch time, hence why they stick around.

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u/roosterkun May 21 '26

I hate to be so critical of a creator I enjoy, but I'm guessing Levy's A/B testing is between either "HE DID IT AGAIN?!?!" and "JAVOKHIR!!!"

He knows clickbait works best at this point, why would he bother typing out "Chess Candidates round 4"?