It's succumbing to these [1] types of thumbnails that it sounds like the GP is trying to avoid having to do.

Andrew Huberman has tame thumbnail images that are professional and informative. Like others have said, there has to be a middle ground to explore.

[1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nZQgszA0_80/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwE...