The YT algorithm vastly out-recommending thumbnails with a wacky face and clickbaity titles is a well documented fact by this point. Plenty of youtube video's about it too. You CAN break through this though, I hardly get any clickbaity titles with stupid thumbnails because (by-and-large) I ignore them at all times.
As to the gun thing, it seems that YouTube tried something silly like screening off anything gun related into a separate bubble, but the end effect of that is that once you (or the algorithm) accidentally stumble over the (very low) garden fence and into the moat around the pit, you're suddenly trapped in there.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
