Ellsworth

Cognitive dissonance is a primary attention getter.
That's because humans are hard wired to seek understanding.

Here's the official description:

• How Cognitive Dissonance Shapes Marketing Strategies
• The theory of cognitive dissonance: A marketing and management perspective

Here is how I see it:
It is anything that your brain cannot interpret quickly/easily because it defies all your pre-stored, pre-sorted memory bank data.

• It's the upside down ceramic dinner plate glued to the ceiling.
• It's the dog, painted to look like a horse.
• Et cetera.

Cognitive dissonance (tends to) immediately make a person look and wonder how in the heck that happened.

It's a tactic used in marketing, movies, youtube videos, et cetera.
It also works on news stories, the odd ones that make a person go "Huh!?"
It's also used in education because the 'ah-ha' moment is interesting and memorable.

May this knowledge lead you to have an experience with cognitive harmony.
Or at least help you notice the technique when it's used on youtube videos.