The best thing I did for my youtube viewing experience was download an extension that allows me to block entire channels. Now when I don't like a thumbnail? Blam, obliterate it, never see it again - and youtube is none the wiser. Youtube has no choice but to bring me weird music videos and retro game reviews.
You know, needing to add basic functionality to a platform yourself to fight back against the forces of enshittification is something tumblr trained me well for. You need like 5 third party extensions to make this site remotely usable.