This is Ryan Trahan and this is the packaging on one of his most popular videos.

This is Ryan Trahan and this is the packaging on one of his most popular videos. It has 44 million views and I want to dissect all of the different elements that make this such a strong package. Now, first, if you haven't heard the term package, it just means title and thumbnail. First off, Ryan is in the thumbnail. This is very important for many creators because if you are the main character, if you are not necessarily talking about a different subject or showcasing yourself outside of yourself as the main feature, we should try to identify with you. So one, put yourself in the actual thumbnail. Two, this is something that we would call a mid-action thumbnail, which looks like a still in the middle of an action, like someone pressed pause and if we pressed play, we would get to see this play out. The next thing we have here is contradiction. Contradiction so works well in thumbnails, especially for Ryan's series format of testing and trying. So what this contradiction looks like in practice is having a review that says "don't sleep in room 13" and in the actual, you can see room 13, saying "Why?" "Why is Ryan gonna go in there? And what is he gonna find?" These are called curiosity gaps. These are gaps of information that you don't know unless you click on the video. Ryan's thumbnails are in a league of their own when it comes to composition, mid-action, great contrast, color, and detail, and having a sense of realism that really separates them from some of the more AI generated thumbnail looking ones.