just so you kiwis know, I wrote this rant as kind of a little essay/paragraph so if you read this, it not casual or the way that I type or talk usually to seem pretentious lmao, I just can’t find another way to put it. So here is the rant:
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I consider myself Christian, and I know i am biased, but when as an atheist YouTuber, if you genuinely want to persuade christians to hear your side of the story, don’t pose in a thumbnail staring directly in the eye of the camera, a potential viewer, with a look that polarizes them from clicking. Such as these looks I coined based on a pattern-
1. The Smirk of Contempt: Genetically modified atheist is the biggest abuser of this. When you stare into the thumbnail with side-smirk on a video talking about Christianity, to me, it gives off a sense of belittling the subject (a Christian) for their intelligence and makes them feel ignorant. It also gives off that they have secret dislike for you, and no one wants to watch someone that has contempt for you.
2. The Forced Laugh- this is someone in the thumbnail that is mid laugh that hams it up for the camera. Think of those videos where the TikTok extreme liberals forcibly laugh hysterically at the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It is not a genuine laugh it’s fake and no one likes fakeness.
3. The Dead-Pan Stare- Dan Mickellin, the ex-Mormon bible scholar does this, and I’m turned off from watching his videos because him staring like that at me through the screen triggers my fight or flight response.
4. The Intellectual Scrunch- Alex O’Connor and philosophy channels are guilty of this. This usually occurs when they investigate a niche part of a religious practice, and it comes off as them trying too hard. It’s annoying.
And lastly
5. The “You did this to me” look. Women are the most guilty of doing this. It’s when they look into the camera, at you, with a sad, hurt, and slightly angry expression. When you want to criticize someone’s beliefs, staring like that at a camera makes it appear like an anonymous person with those beliefs, me, a Christian, hurt you personally. Like I am the sole cause of your ailment and misery. It makes the audience feel guilty and puts them off from engaging with the problems with their world view since you appear to already deem them the ‘bad guy’.
In conclusion, staring straight into the camera is like a portal to staring at your audience. Making certain faces at the audience with an opposing viewpoint determines if they want to engage with that YouTuber or not. This is a pattern I see with atheist YouTubers AND THIS MAY be a pattern some atheist viewers may see in some Christian YouTubers. A potential audience doesn’t want to be belittled so YouTubers, if you want to change a person’s viewpoint, first impressions ALWAYS matter.
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And this is for if atheists really want to target a video to Christian’s, me and a lot of people know that if there is a video that is just gonna snark on Christians, it is a no brainer that it’s not “made for me” . I’m not gonna throw a fit and bust down their door for that. Every commentary youtuber snarks on a specific community. But if it’s targeted to want Christian’s to engage, these atheist YouTubers posing like this are either creating rage bait, or are genuinely unaware of how they come across to their target audience as a first impression.
Also, the photos I chose seemed like ones most targeted at a general audience/christian audience. And for the Mormon one, I posted solely for the expression which is a representative of what I see other women do in their thumbnails when they want to persuade, I’m not trying to target her specifically for her personal story at all.
