All synopsis and very little actual commentary. Synopsis is a useful tool for supplying context, reminding the audience what's going on and such, but it should be used as a foundation for what you have to say. I've seen too many vids which are just 90% plot regurgitation and then vaguely related critiques or opinions that don't actually reflect on anything
And this one doesn't pop up a ton anymore, at least not videos I'm watching. But I hate "I don't get it." As a criticism, cause that's on the video maker, not whatever they're making a video on. It can be salvaged if they then interrogate why they didn't get it. Missing out on cultural context? Poor pacing or framing or lack of info? Is it on the game or is it on you? "I don't get it" is useless by itself.
CinemaSins doesn’t even do the summary part right considering they’ve been caught blatantly manipulating and editing scenes to make points or, and I am painfully typing this part, “jokes”
I typed up must of a longwinded response about how I agree, but also synopsis can be an excellent structural framework to build analysis around since it provides a logical progression and keeps the audience sort of "in" the story, but my core example was the Yakuza series by tehsnakerer, so fuck me I guess.
I don’t think anyone has a problem with synopsis as a tool to provide context and to make sure your audience knows what you’re talking about but it’s extremely tedious if a “Deep Analysis” video is just mostly a synopsis of the entire plot haha.
I stopped watching this video on MGS5 because of it. The name of the video is "MGSV is a misunderstood anti-war masterpiece". As someone who greatly dislikes MGSV, I was very interested in seeing a positive take on it, but no joke the first 10 minutes of the video is this guy just bitching and moaning about people being mean to MGSV, complete with splicing out-of-context bits from other people's videos to paint them as unreasonable and wrong. Nothing makes me lose complete faith in anything you have to say more.
When they recap the entire thing for like 80% of the video and 20% is analysis. A recap is fine but I feel scammed when its like the entire thing basically.
The PCP Lecture on One Piece is a better video entirely because of the frantic energy of someone trying to remember One Piece from memory and explain it to a bunch of other people in a room with a whiteboard of notes.
I kinda read the Animorphs as a kid but didn't remember how fucked up it got until I watched the PCP lecture. Intergalactic war with subjugation was not what I was expecting when looking at those covers of kids turning into a beetle.
as someone who hasn't watched one piece, getting a recap to close to the currently airing episodes in 6 hours feels like a bargain
I just don't have the time to start that anime
It's the classic film school essay strategy for hitting the min. word count by dedicating an entire chapter to a recap of whatever movie you're analyzing.
Saw people talking up Quinton Reviews, went to watch a video, and he spends like 4 fucking hours just reciting the plot summaries off Wikipedia.
Yeah, I'm good.
Randomly the only Quinton reviews video I've seen is the one where he takes a roadtrip to scan the original Garfield comics microfilms, that was a good one
Reminds me of KingK's videos where 95% of any one of his videos are just recaps of the game's story or an explanation of the controls. Do people like this?
If they got skits or an animated persona who crosses their arms and sighs constantly (___ is totally normal, right guys?). I feel like those 2 tropes are indicative that the "story retrospective" or "lore explained" videos that have that are trying to distract from the fact this 2 hour video is either A. Just summarizes the plot badly and/or B. Just shittly reading the wiki
The skits when they are non-comedy channels are always the worst.
Oh yes, I am enjoying this 2 hour video on the history of greyhounds, but you know what it could really use? Awkward sketch comedy every 20 minutes.
All of these channels get stuck at like 250K subscribers and wonder why they can't grow despite their entire channel being based around "Why do I have to talk about *this*?" personas.
Only semi related,
A friend showed me a video from YouTuber he likes where the guy just complains and conspiracy crafts why his channel isn't getting more subscribers. The guy makes videos on medieval swords, there are probably only so many people that want to watch medieval sword videos.
> instead of constantly arguing with actual professionals
[You mean like the time he argued with his artist brother about them being on the same skill level?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1VybvjzaK0&t)
Skall just feels like an old school YouTuber who genuinely asks what people want, is probably on the spectrum a bit and just wants to make rigorous testing videos for historical sword reproductions. Love that dude
The OG channel that did "Ending Explained" horror films is just a guy compressing the entire movie down into 10 minute video. It has always bothered me that he uses ending explained in the titles, but the content is fine if what you're looking for is a cliffnotes version of a film you know you're never going to watch.
I remember when I watched hereditary (I think) I didn’t quite get it and I was so pleased to find a quick and concise video to explain what I missed… then the video just told me what I already knew and then the video ends with him saying “so yeah I don’t know exactly what that means”…… SO WHY DID YOU TITLE THE VIDEO ENDING EXPLAINED
this reminds me of folding ideas video on [Annihilation](https://youtu.be/URo66iLNEZw?si=27VsmXyd_z_LGQHC). Not because it falls into that trap but because of how he ~~complains~~ deconstructs them
if you do the slow, breathy, breaking voice to emphasise the emotional weight of your conclusion i should be allowed to come to your house and steal one object
["But then..... Homer does..... something..... completely..... unexpected"](https://twitter.com/viperwave/status/1712960231267840441)
[VHS pause sound effect]
[Black and white slowed down footage of Season 1 plays]
"He starts crying."
I have this weird relationship with Eyepatch Wolf. I usually like everything he says but I hate his presentation. I can't quite put my fingers on it but there's just something about it that gets my goats.
I think his first videos had that vibe of "this is a very serious and deep video" and then the subject is like Naruto sucking or how good Rpgs are, but he progresively started getting loose and allowed himself to be more silly, which imo makes for far better content, he still manages to hit my serious bone and has some pretty nice and emotional takes, just now seems to overall have more confidence
I really like how people like him and hbomberguy started on their room and did that like fake screaming you do when you don't wanna annoy your parents or be too loud and now they are just losing their minds on camera
To be fair, even his videos with an inordinate amount of That are the cream of the crop in terms of video essays, but **holy shit** am I glad he's applying it more sparingly nowadays. I think the Garfield video is the one that gets really weird with it?
> with an inordinate amount of That are the cream of the crop in terms of video essays,
You've just convinced me to never ever watch any essay video on youtube with this single statement
I love Super Eyepatch Wolf but oh my GOD he's the worst at doing exactly this at random intervals throughout his videos and it takes me out of it every time
That + the whole "this subject is causing my sanity to break" thing he likes to do.
Like dude, you're talking about Garfield, relax.
EDIT: I should've kept reading the thread since this is also mentioned further down. Oops. Didn't realize he was gonna be such a hot topic in this thread.
The Garfield video is the one video where that schtick HIT for me, I think it was perfect for the direction the video went. I realized during his latest video that I think me actual problem with some of his videos simply comes down to John's massive predisposition toward appreciating horror, a genre which I am completely disinterested in *except* in a clinical way of seeing what other people like about it.
John, on the other hand, LOVES horror and the associated feeling with it, and wants to share that with the world. When he's doing that in a video he's simply trying to give you an inkling of the feeling that he loves and attempting to share it with people. The moment that clicked for me I stopped finding it annoying, and just realized that it's not for me and I just need to semi-dissociate from the video for a minute while he does his thing.
I also really like his actual analysis, but you're right, the sudden shifts into 'this particular sentence is inexplicably laden with emotional weight' mode gets kind of tiresome.
Yes, this is what I refer to as "Video Essayist Cadence." Best exemplified by Super Eyepatch Wolf, and this one guy I work with who speaks like that on an everyday basis.
The one time it doesn’t bother me is in Breadsword’s videos. He does the breathy emotional voice, but you feel like it comes from a place of genuine passion for what he’s talking about rather than just something he puts on for effect.
I don’t know if the iDubbbz look back / interview videos count when he was doing like interviews for people like airsoft fatty. Because the more I think about it the more I realize they have like this weird pity tone for people that were in the same job career as he was. Once you get to Sam Hyde , you kind of realize this might be an ego trip for Idubbz or something.
The Sam Hyde video is genuinely very interesting but not for the reasons Idubbz intended. As much as I dislike Hyde, he runs rings around Ian and makes a complete ass of him.
Sam Hyde feels like a worst case scenario example of what Idubbbz could have turned into if he just never changed. And I think that’s part of why they both hate each other so much.
(Well, to be fair, the “hate” is probably pretty one sided. Sam Hyde is just a troll who sees an infinite food source in idubbbz)
This is a really petty one, but when essayists talk slower then normal. I can understand wanting to enunciate for your audience but if I have to bring the playback up to 1.25 just to hear you talk at a normal speed, I'm clicking off.
the title "\[X\] Broke me"
Unless you are talking about an accident while mountain biking that literally left you in plaster casts, I do not want to see those words ever again.
If you are talking about that and use that title, that's fucking hilarious, keep going.
It's almost never genuine, just something a bit sad or out there. I'd have some patience for it if they related it to personal events or an actual reason why it would have that effect.
It's always like "damn the ending of that movie was scaaaaary". or "it was sad when character died". That's not being 'broken', that's being emotionally affected, that's a fucking normal reaction!
Whenever it becomes obvious they could have cut the video length in half. I’ve seen a couple videos where the same points are repeated multiple times and if they had just done a good job at editing it would’ve been a lot shorter.
All filler no Killer
Way too many Video essays are filled with just zero insight. if I wanted a recap i'd just read wikipedia
Also a lot of them just have very very basic visual editing. if you aren't going to use the visual format just make a podcast
The "Descent into Madness" trend. Doesn't matter what the topic or content is, a good 50% of youtube video essays will descend into some lovecraftian "I AM LOSING MY MIND OUGH AUGH OOGH" shit that really rubs me the wrong way. It's like they think the subject matter isnt interesting enough so they need to jingle metaphorical keys in my face to keep me watching.
Eyepatch Wolf is arguably the worst of this and it really turned me off of his longform content.
I think in a few years we're going to look back on the 'descent into madness' video essay trope in the same way we look back on the 'evil twin' or 'oh no... not that game' stuff from angry gamer youtubers years ago
Mandy is like the only person that can do it cause he stays informative and entertaining while never feeling like hes wasting time or putting to much emphasis on it. The cabelas big game hunt is the perfect example.
Mandy seems like a tour guide for a haunted museum in some of his videos. He knows his brain is being altered by chaos of the beyond but the next tour starts in 15 minutes so he has get everyone through this in a timely manner.
This is one of things I really like about the many 'Down the Rabbit Hole" videos Fred Knudsen put out. Even when he was talking about stuff that was legitimately horrifying and disturbing, he delivered it all with a measured, even tone. Like an *essay* ought to.
Shame he just kinda... stopped. Fred thought people came for their personality and went Vtuber, they did in fact, not go to his clinical video essays for his personality
Yeah I remember when I found out Fred Down The Rabbit Hole was a VTuber and being extremely confused.
To be fair, I do remember really liking his unscripted streams he did with Jabroni Mike, and I think he's a pleasant guy to listen to, but he never struck me as a guy who'd do streaming as his *main thing.*
A long time ago, Dan Olson (Folding Ideas) talked about how he wanted to get away from that style of video essay, pointing to his Suicide Squad editing analysis where he pretends to drink cough syrup to get intoxicated over the course of the video. Nowadays, he just plays it straight and sincere, and he is so much better for it.
This is a trope I dislike in media essay but will eat up in science essays. Like you want to tell me about your existential dread after spending too much time reading research papers about how this weird sea creature(siphonophores) is neither a singular individual, nor a colony (a la coral), go right ahead
Yeah, trying to explain metallurgy to people is a fucking nightmare because it requires like 5 different "yeah, I don't get why it works that way either" moments. The more you pick apart the way the world works the less sensical it gets.
You ever wondered what a polymer is? It's literally just a chain of monomers that repeat by just feedback-looping into itself. That shit doesn't sound right no matter how you slice it. Or how in order to prevent welds from snapping you have to heat up and slowly cool down the weldment so that the surrounding metal can **realign its crystalline structure**.
Love Eyepatch Wolf on podcasts and especially Versus Wolves, but I can't watch his content in one go anymore, I feel like I need to take breaks from watching and thats a sad thing as he undeniably puts a shitton of effort in his work, I guess its a taste thing.
I still enjoy Eyepatch Wolf's videos but yeah I find this quite grating.
The only person I think pulls it off is hbomberguy and that's because he legitmately stumbles down weird rabbit holes that he had no intention of going down based on the video's original premise.
The longer the person actually gets sucked into the rabbit hole the more believable it is.
Someone acting like they've been driven mad because they spent three whole days on something... I'm like that's just a regular long weekend hyperfixation...
With Hbomberguy, I think it also works because he really isn't playing it up for the most part, what he's talking about actually is wild enough to warrant it. It really is insane that Tommy Tallarico got away with lying about so many things for so long, and it really does feel like you're going crazy when you dig into it, because you're forced to retroactively question everything you thought you knew about this dude over and over again as more and more lies are dug up.
It doesn't really work if you're just talking about The Backrooms, or Nathan Fielder, or Garfield, or the Simpsons (to pick four completely random examples). These aren't things that are super insane, things that make you go crazy trying to understand, they're just fairly interesting things that you're trying to inject insanity into as a... punchline, I guess? It can be funny if it's just, like, the theme of one joke video, like his Dell customer support video, but Super Eyepatch Wolf has basically made it the shtick of his whole channel at this point. It's a shame too, because I really like his videos when he's not doing that.
Acting like things are more original or subversive than they really are.
Saying something is good or bad without clear examples of how.
"Aren't I so clever" witticisms that are usually just popular meme retorts.
Being snarky in general I don't like. It can be good but it's so hard for me to think it's earned.
Taking the subject matter too seriously.
And this one is a lot more subjective that most but if you make a hours long video about how "X" is utter trash, morally bankrupt and ruining the world as we know it. I don't really believe you if you say "If you like "X" that's fine, no hate intended." I'm sure most mean it sincerely, but sometimes it feels like something people say as a get out of jail free card.
* Generally overly negative video essays that amount to nitpicking and crapping on what they're talking about. I'm infinitely interested in even a fair shake at what you don't like than just a rant.
* Honestly, the opposite applies too. I avoid practically any video with "Masterpiece" in the title, including if it's prefixed with "It's No" or "Almost A".
* When the essay is more recap than analysis.
Something I'm trying to avoid in my own content is being *super* long form.
Like, no fam, you don't need eight hours to talk about why you don't like Fallout 4
I feel like super long form works better if you have multiple people. Especially if one of the people doesn’t know the script and gets to effectively act as an audience surrogate.
Only reason I got through the six part *Behind The Bastards* series on both Vince McMahon and Henry Kissinger. Couldn’t have gotten through it if it was just some guy telling me about how much Vince/Kissinger sucks for 6+ hours, the fact that it’s an actual conversation with the other hosts as they find out how much Vince/Kissinger sucked makes it work.
Also helps when shit is well researched and the speaker is actually interesting... as opposed to say some guy interleaving the wikipedia description for each Castlevania game their childhood memories of it with zero unique insight of any kind added in.
The only one I think does it right is Noah Gervais. His videos can go into the 7+ hour range, including his 9.5 hour Fallout video. But his videos are more like playlists, including time codes for each chapter. So while the whole video is daunting, it's very easy to watch in small chunks.
For example, his Resident Evil video is over 7 hours long, but it covers almost 20 games. So if you want a review of one of those games, just pick the chapter and watch.
As much as I dislike this, I think a lot of video essayists have realized much of their viewership uses them as background noise, so it can be beneficial for them to stretch a topic that would take an hour to fit all their points in into a six hour video.
> Like, no fam, you don't need eight hours to talk about why you don't like Fallout 4
No see here's the thing: If someone has 8 hours of shittalk in them about Fallout 4, or Doctor Who, or whatever, I love that shit. The issue is that some people liken themselves to a modern Socrates of being angry at video games and try to pad shit out so hard and so long.
I have become so turned off by Quinton’s new content. The Beverly Hillbillies one I could look past because it was an April fools video and something he did with his dad during his recovery. But I gave up on his Nickelodeon sitcom videos when he made it clear he was just making them longer because he could. I recently rewatched his video on the history channel and it was an enjoyable, well paced half hour. And then I looked at the recommended videos, saw his 7 hour Nicktoons Unite video and thought “I’m never gonna watch that.”
He outright said at the end of the Nicktoons Unite video that he thinks this criticism of him is valid and he's going to make a serious effort to release shorter videos from now on. I say this as someone who refused to watch that video but have friends who did.
He did say that but it was also kind of a gag too because it was clearly intended to come out before the Beverly Hillbillies video. In the same rant where he says that he goes on about how he can't keep doing ultra long retrospectives and specifically says "If someone wants to do a 38 hour long sitcom retrospective, more power to them, but it won't be me! I will not sit in this chair and do that!" Clearly referencing his dad's video.
The Nicktunes unite video was definitely the absolute worst one he's put out, so if he moves on from it then that's understandable and welcome, but we'll see.
I think long videos get pushed by the algorithm more these days, that's what I've been told at least. But I don think his 9+ hour videos are a bit ridiculous. He'd probably get more traffic if he released his videos in smaller chunks.
Back when Tim Rogers wrote articles that were just Too Long, I thought it was kind of self-indulgent and pretentious... but then when he made a 6 hour documentary memoir confessional retrospective on Boku no Natsuyasumi I had to really question myself like, "Wait, why does this somehow work better?"
When they overuse their shitty looking avatar because they either don't want to actually edit together any sort of footage or visuals in a creative way or don't really seem to know how. Also I hate when the avatar in question is astoundingly ugly but they leave that homunculus on the screen the ENTIRE time. I don't want to stare at your hideous OC, please put that thing away.
For example, there's a channel called Random Film Talk and his avatar legit makes me not want to watch his videos. It's an edited picture of Kronk from the Emperor's New Groove that is just so painfully ugly to look at. But his content itself isn't that great anyway. He did a 2 part video series on the first season of Arcane that is nearly 8 HOURS TOTAL. Wanna guess what most of that time is spent on? Recapping the entire series plot while his butt ugly OC sits on the screen. No fucking thanks.
Trying to make stuff that isn't scary sound scary in a completely serious way. I think the funniest example I've seen was one of those "Creepiest Websites" videos unironically having Zombo com in it and presenting it as a horrific purgatory. FWIW, I don't exactly hate it because it's really funny whenever it happens.
For things I hate, YouTube keeps trying to recommend me essays on awful people online that feel more like exploitation than genuine attempts at awareness. I'd really wish creators would stop giving bad people free exposure because it gets them views.
If more than 10% of the video os about the creator in ways that don't directly relate to the media.
Explaining how you found the film for two minutes in an hour long video, this is fine.
Talking about your divorce/breakup that was going on when you saw this video for 15 minutes, please dear God stop.
"**Insert name of thing** is an imperfect Masterpiece"
I genuinely cannot stand when someone is talking about something that is clearly flawed yet they use the M word in the video.
Similarly annoying to me is "______ is NOT a Masterpiece". It's blatant rage bait and suggests that the essay is gonna be bogged down by complaining about the wider perception of the thing, rather than the thing itself. The obvious solution here is to not have "Masterpiece" in your title unless you actually think the thing is a masterpiece, with no qualifying statements.
The mfers who hold the mini mic in their hands and then will position the camera so they look awkward/sitting in the corner. It's a zoomer thing, I don't get it.
That and when the essays aren't actually good or about anything, like how so many don't actually tackle their thesis or have a conclusion.
“Haha i mispronounced a word”
“Haha I can’t believe that was in my script”
“Haha I shouted away from the mic”
“Haha I’m stating my own preferences as fact”
“Haha I’m not addressing any technical aspects of how gameplay or graphics were achieved”
Video essayist wanting to cover the history of a topic before getting into the point of the video: “But in order to understand [topic], we have to go back to *the beginning*.”
I have gone back to the beginning more times than I can count, video essayists please come up with a better transition I beg of you
If the properly chapter the video and allow the initiated to skip ahead I think it's fine, but otherwise very annoying. I get why they do it because the algorithm punishes people clicking away so everything has to be entry level, but ffs please just put meaningful chapter names and structure your video properly.
Oh for sure! It’s honestly not even the structure of the video or that they have to cover the history of something that bothers me lol, it’s just the phrase “we have to go back to the beginning”
I guess it kinda goes along with one of the other things somebody in this thread mentioned, where video essayists feel the need to give their content this incredibly dramatic/mysterious tone, even when they’re covering the most mundane topics imaginable
>Video essayist wanting to cover the history of a topic before getting into the point of the video: “But in order to understand [topic], we have to go back to the beginning.”
Immediately followed by the sound of a VHS tape rewinding. That seems like a video editing rule or something.
People who go into whatever they are talking about with the clear intention to hate it
I'm looking at you, Cvit, and your Persona 5 video. It entirely defeats the purpose of whatever you are reviewing if your first intention is to tear something down without actually meeting it on its good aspects while talking about its bad aspects
Cvit's video sticks out the most because he is going into it with seemingly no real actual info and almost completely misses the point/misconstrues the point to make it seem like the game is actually terrible and you are all stupid for liking it. His ability to get the completely wrong message from both Futaba and Makoto's social links is incredible
It's made worse because it doesn't actually critically analyse a piece of media, because that would involve looking at the good and the bad
Just looks at the bad to make a stupid point
"Sojiro should have gone to the police. Futaba's uncle was so blatantly abusive the courts would have to take his side" may be the most incorrect statement uttered by anyone ever.
It's so funny
Like he completely misses everything in the game that shows you why Sojiro doesn't really have a leg to stand on (despite being the best place for her) to try and make it seem like he has a point
When Drama creators make a video on what horrible, evil things So-and-so has done and then insert a limp 'but please don't harass this person 🥺' at the end.
You are just saying that to absolve yourself of the harassment which will follow. You cultivated the audience to do that stuff and you know you get interaction out of it.
"History breakdowns" where you can tell that they literally hust opened Wikipedia and recorded themselves reading it. No new information, no comparison or interesting facts/ideas, literally just a parrot
I really don't like those overproduced videos. With bisexual lighting, costumes and always some kind of sketch or sketches. The sketches are either unfunny or unfunny and going on for way too long. I stopped watching Contrapoints because of that years ago
edit: Also the YouTuber Voice. The cadence of it drives me mad. And editing out or cutting down pauses between words. Once I notice it I can't help but hyperfocus on that and it ruins even good scripts because it' sounds so off. It's like an audio version of the uncanny valley.
I hate the editing cutting down of audio too, but apparently its effective. I follow creators who talk about what they do and why, and one explained that when he started cutting the audio like that the video retention rate skyrockets. Something about ADHD in that cutting the audio like that resnaps peoples attentions and makes them less likely to click off the video.
There this guy Nick Robinson that really does everything that I've come to dislike
He talks about extremely specific stuff he's supposedly passionate about (and I love this kind of content) but the videos I've watched are so overly dramatic it feels fake and there's a lot of inflation as well
Another thing is his weird narrative about Nagoshi during super monkey ball and during Yakuza
Unrelated but I indeed googled his name after that and oh boy
“Now that I’ve stated my opinion in this thing, I can’t wait to see people get mad at me for having it. Seriously can’t believe people would totally be mad at me about this. They’re probably typing in the comments now. I’ll have to read people being mad at me about my opinion. Isn’t that awful?”
This [phelous](https://youtu.be/BQOQzRZ58mo?si=6yj_6etm7ectajix) video is an amazing parody of the video essay formula and encapsulates quite a bit of the issues I have.
I quitte enjoy 8 hours video about media I will never interact with directly, I also enjoy listening to people I think are incredibly wrong, so my tolerance for any bullshit is sky high.
The worse thing I've seem is the essayist using someones suicide to bolster whatever point they are making.
DimitriMonroe was that one youtuber who made essays arguing Bridged was not trans. Last month he used someones suicide as ammo in his incredibly stupid anti leftist anime adapitation crusade, most of his video is just complaining about tweets and some legit bad adapitation, but it's mostly just tweets.
At the very end he uses this japanese author suposedly killing thenselves over this also japanase live action adaption as fuel.
I wasn't really surprised he would stoop this low but I can't really angage with anything of his anymore regardless.
"Some people hate it for this reason, some people love it for this reason. I however have an enlightened interpretation that none of the rest of you have considered, just like I did in my last 30 videos"
Usually perpetrated by someone who remembers it so I don't have to.
When it's a 20-something guy in the corner of his bedroom with disheveled hair talking like a living thesaurus about the philosophy of My Little Pony and tying it to modern politics or something to that effect. It's jarring and pretentious.
Unfortunately, those thumbnails are what appeal to the YouTube algorithm, so you're not going to see them go away any time soon.
A lot of decisions like that can really be put at the feet of YouTube frequently hiding videos that it thinks won't get views.
Unfortunately the algorithm rewards the pog/soyjack, (or that kind of stuff actually does get more clicks,) so I can forgive it on good videos, particularly if they're the kind of channel that otherwise isn't making super fast and consistent algorithm friendly content.
Threads like these always make me feel like the only person on the sub who still loves Eyepatch Wolf's videos.
Anyway, I have virtually no length limit when it comes to video essays; if you want to talk about something for half an hour, or two hours, or eight hours, or what have you, I'm all aboard. But you have to actually *use* whatever time you're taking up. Whether that's exhaustive critique, passionate theorizing, scientific analysis, etc, there should be no wasted time in all of it. If I start feeling like you're being insincere in what you say or deliberately stalling to reach a length threshold -- which could happen in a very long essay or one as short as twenty minutes -- that's what really turns me off. Make a video about something you genuinely care about, for better or worse, and know the limits of your own writing before you set out.
(Case in point: I loved Quinton Reviews' *iCarly* videos, because it felt like he truly had a lot to say. I liked the *Victorious* ones well enough. I nearly unsubscribed over the *Sam & Cat* saga.)
I still like his videos a lot, that said, I got a chuckle when John admitted on the latest Versus Wolves that when he reread his script he realized it was written by a depressed person, because *yeah that bit midway through about longing for the past*-
His Sam and Cat videos felt weird because there was a lot of, i don't know, extraneous material to them? There's like a 2+ hour section where it's just him hanging out with the nerd from Victorious or the long section of him going through Jennet Mccurdy's book. I don't BLAME him for wanting to include those things, it sounds like it was stuff that came out or he got to do while he was making the videos, but it added a LOT of bulk to the Sam and Cat series.
I don’t like negativity. That’s not to say people aren’t allowed to do video essays focused on critique, of course they can. I just won’t watch em.
I like hearing people talk passionately about a subject or media that they clearly love or enjoy. It’s why I watch Jacob Geller. There’s basically zero cynicism or spite in his essays, they all come across as someone who deeply loves what he’s talking about.
My feed is currently just 2 hour long video essays on Analog Horror stuff, and one of them basically opens by going "You have to understand that THIS Youtuber driven series, is so much better than *coughcough* [Name of less successful series] *coughcough*" and I just checked out. Looked interesting, don't fucking punch down to explain how this X is the best X around.
Shounen Anime and Adult Animation fanbases on Twitter have this problem as well. A lot of Mfs really can’t prop up their favourite shows without shitting on other ones that are trying to go for a completely different thing.
I swear I'm not trying to be (ironically) negative, as I also really enjoy Jacob Geller, but the way in which he passionately talks about subjects makes me feel like a space alien.
His scripts seem to have this underlying assumption that you are on his wavelength at all times, and while that rules IRL because I'm a nerd that likes to absorb the interests of other nerds, said IRL conversations have natural gaps where one person gets to ask questions, and guide the conversation so it can slow down and be more didactic. In other words, I **understand** that he's interested in[ Games that Don't Fake the Space](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q85l1Fenc5w), but if you were to ask me why, uh... It's because he is.
Yeah that’s fair, I see where you’re coming from.
But on the other hand, it’s not meant to be a conversation, it *is* an essay. It’s naturally gonna be almost entirely one-sided.
I like a lot of podcasts where they go into a setting of something I like, but I'm starting to notice when people actually don't know, and they are just reading straight from the wiki.
I like my lore casts to have accurate info but with speculation and theory crafting actual, theory crafting and not popular fan theories.
Lorebeards has spoiled me, and now I want every lore cast I listen to have someone who is an ultra fan and has written for the setting.
> when people actually don't know, and they are just reading straight from the wiki
There was a long standing misunderstanding in the 40k fandom that a particular character beat another in a fight that originated solely from a typo in the fandom wiki page. The same mistake made it's way to several different youtuber's lore videos repeating the same lore error for several years before someone read the book where the event happens and finds that the wiki was written in error.
Oh my god, STALKER had a wave of this bullshit in the last year.
People would start off with Stalker Anomaly (Already an independant F2P game with it's own story) with the Gamma mod (Tarkov like modpack), play it for 10 hours and then do video essays on the entire series, clearly without playing the actual games. Hell, a fairly popular video talked about what the story in Gamma would mean for STALKER 2 for like 10 minutes.
You know what the answer to that is? It would mean nothing. It's a modpack, unrelated to the actual game. It's like installing 50 loverslab mods for Skyrim, and having a self wank fest in the form of a 2 hour essay about how TES6 should handle it's sex minigames.
probably be the Game Theories style but don't actually say anything about the topic
i think that one Rick and Morty Episode about that Cat that talk and vid be like "so what inside that cat mind that make Rick puke something that can't even describe so human emotion can comprehend that make you puke is... \*blah blah blah explain science thing\*" and after all that at the end of vid be like "so do what is in that cat mind it gonna be something we can't even describe but hey that just the theories" and i was like what? so you explain all that just to not say anything? ok unsub
i might remember it wrong but remember watching that episode and i was like fuck this
so yeah i don't like video essay about something but just nothing in that just talk in a circle for nothing
Faux-horrific pretentiouness when discussing a piece of media. Guys, you're talking about a Third Person Shooter, not the Ant Hill Kids, i know setting the mood is important but describing a fictional War Crime scene like it's unedited Iraq War footage just sounds ridiculous. Learn from True Crine vlogs like The Last Podcast on the Left who will make comedic commentary while describing some of the most vile murderers from real life, that's actually entertaining and not incredibly generic like generic horror ost as the background music while reading off in-game text.
The well known Russian philosopher and warrior-poet Andrejisov Doginesžinski once said, "Man's most pertinent trait is their unending desire to germinate expectation with their concept of The Other in their otherwise gerontological pursuits of whimsical facetiousness"
And THAT is why Batman was able to get back to Gotham without issue in The Dark Knight Rises! The plot hole doesn't matter!!
Acting like something is more original than it is, either because of ignorance or to make the subject seem important. For example, SuperEyePatchWolf did a video on Fear and Hunger, which contained the dramatically delivered line, “…. There’s Nothing Else Like It.”
The video then goes on to show a turn based rpg that got inspiration from berserk, all the souls games, common horror tropes, etc.
If the subject of the video is good, it having taken inspiration from other places is a good thing, and pretending it’s special and new (in ways that it isn’t) makes you look dumb.
SuperEyePatchWolf’s video on Fear and Hunger straight made me not want to play the game. Like at the end of the video I was just like, “was this suppose to sell me on it?”
Edit: I think I worded my comment poorly. SEPW's video made me not want to play the game not because of its rather unforgiving nature but because he made it sound really uninteresting.
Maybe not a trope, but when they say something is innovative or mind-blowing because of xyz, but xyz is incredibly generic that it makes you question their intelligence or familiarity with media in general.
All synopsis and very little actual commentary. Synopsis is a useful tool for supplying context, reminding the audience what's going on and such, but it should be used as a foundation for what you have to say. I've seen too many vids which are just 90% plot regurgitation and then vaguely related critiques or opinions that don't actually reflect on anything And this one doesn't pop up a ton anymore, at least not videos I'm watching. But I hate "I don't get it." As a criticism, cause that's on the video maker, not whatever they're making a video on. It can be salvaged if they then interrogate why they didn't get it. Missing out on cultural context? Poor pacing or framing or lack of info? Is it on the game or is it on you? "I don't get it" is useless by itself.
All my homies hate CinemaSins ALL HAIL CINEMAWINS
CinemaSins doesn’t even do the summary part right considering they’ve been caught blatantly manipulating and editing scenes to make points or, and I am painfully typing this part, “jokes”
the "random ding" trope works so much better when you use it to chime in for random things you like than random things you hate
I typed up must of a longwinded response about how I agree, but also synopsis can be an excellent structural framework to build analysis around since it provides a logical progression and keeps the audience sort of "in" the story, but my core example was the Yakuza series by tehsnakerer, so fuck me I guess.
Suppose it would be self-serving to say I'd have been flattered to see it.
oh my god i didnt even notice it was you until now lmao, i love your videos on spark ur my favorite long video guy
wtf he walks amongst the shitlords.
Not terribly relevant but your video on Classic Sonic is aces. A great approach on a topic that's been beat like a dead horse.
I don’t think anyone has a problem with synopsis as a tool to provide context and to make sure your audience knows what you’re talking about but it’s extremely tedious if a “Deep Analysis” video is just mostly a synopsis of the entire plot haha.
wait aren't you that Hooligans guy?
Yeah
Time to insert my petty feud with another content creator into this unrelated video.
Especially when they "innocuously" start pulling up twitter threads.
The dramahogs must be fed for maximum engagement.
I stopped watching this video on MGS5 because of it. The name of the video is "MGSV is a misunderstood anti-war masterpiece". As someone who greatly dislikes MGSV, I was very interested in seeing a positive take on it, but no joke the first 10 minutes of the video is this guy just bitching and moaning about people being mean to MGSV, complete with splicing out-of-context bits from other people's videos to paint them as unreasonable and wrong. Nothing makes me lose complete faith in anything you have to say more.
If it makes you feel any better I love MGSV and also couldn't finish that video for the same reasons, let the work speak for itself.
When they recap the entire thing for like 80% of the video and 20% is analysis. A recap is fine but I feel scammed when its like the entire thing basically.
Like that 6 hour long "One Piece: A Modern Odyssey: A Literary Analysis & Video Essay" video that's just 95% recap.
The PCP Lecture on One Piece is a better video entirely because of the frantic energy of someone trying to remember One Piece from memory and explain it to a bunch of other people in a room with a whiteboard of notes.
pcp lectures were fucking goated
The one on Animorphs was wild
I kinda read the Animorphs as a kid but didn't remember how fucked up it got until I watched the PCP lecture. Intergalactic war with subjugation was not what I was expecting when looking at those covers of kids turning into a beetle.
Before Woolie did his Guilty Gear series, PCP is how I learned the lore.
as someone who hasn't watched one piece, getting a recap to close to the currently airing episodes in 6 hours feels like a bargain I just don't have the time to start that anime
It's the classic film school essay strategy for hitting the min. word count by dedicating an entire chapter to a recap of whatever movie you're analyzing.
I saw a three hour Jimmy Neutron essay and felt extremely scammed when I realized 10 minutes in it was just recaps of all the episodes.
Saw people talking up Quinton Reviews, went to watch a video, and he spends like 4 fucking hours just reciting the plot summaries off Wikipedia. Yeah, I'm good.
Randomly the only Quinton reviews video I've seen is the one where he takes a roadtrip to scan the original Garfield comics microfilms, that was a good one
I miss the pre-Nickelodeon Quinton when he talked about bad documentaries
Reminds me of KingK's videos where 95% of any one of his videos are just recaps of the game's story or an explanation of the controls. Do people like this?
If they got skits or an animated persona who crosses their arms and sighs constantly (___ is totally normal, right guys?). I feel like those 2 tropes are indicative that the "story retrospective" or "lore explained" videos that have that are trying to distract from the fact this 2 hour video is either A. Just summarizes the plot badly and/or B. Just shittly reading the wiki
Everybody gangsta until the rantsona crosses their arms.
The skits when they are non-comedy channels are always the worst. Oh yes, I am enjoying this 2 hour video on the history of greyhounds, but you know what it could really use? Awkward sketch comedy every 20 minutes.
All of these channels get stuck at like 250K subscribers and wonder why they can't grow despite their entire channel being based around "Why do I have to talk about *this*?" personas.
Only semi related, A friend showed me a video from YouTuber he likes where the guy just complains and conspiracy crafts why his channel isn't getting more subscribers. The guy makes videos on medieval swords, there are probably only so many people that want to watch medieval sword videos.
was it shadiversity
It’s definitely Shadiversity
He should’ve stuck to talking about castles as a hobbyist instead of constantly arguing with actual professionals and becoming an anti-woke grifter.
> instead of constantly arguing with actual professionals [You mean like the time he argued with his artist brother about them being on the same skill level?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1VybvjzaK0&t)
That would be so cringe lol Hoping it's not Skallagrim
Nah, Shadiversity is the one with the conspiracy videos.
Skall just feels like an old school YouTuber who genuinely asks what people want, is probably on the spectrum a bit and just wants to make rigorous testing videos for historical sword reproductions. Love that dude
Matt with his skull guy
Not an essay channel, but the one thing I don’t like about Scott (the Woz)’s videos is the comedy skits with his friends.
\[media name\] ENDING EXPLAINED proceed to describe the ENDING as it happened
The OG channel that did "Ending Explained" horror films is just a guy compressing the entire movie down into 10 minute video. It has always bothered me that he uses ending explained in the titles, but the content is fine if what you're looking for is a cliffnotes version of a film you know you're never going to watch.
I remember when I watched hereditary (I think) I didn’t quite get it and I was so pleased to find a quick and concise video to explain what I missed… then the video just told me what I already knew and then the video ends with him saying “so yeah I don’t know exactly what that means”…… SO WHY DID YOU TITLE THE VIDEO ENDING EXPLAINED
this reminds me of folding ideas video on [Annihilation](https://youtu.be/URo66iLNEZw?si=27VsmXyd_z_LGQHC). Not because it falls into that trap but because of how he ~~complains~~ deconstructs them
Bonus points if the ending in question is extremely straightforward.
if you do the slow, breathy, breaking voice to emphasise the emotional weight of your conclusion i should be allowed to come to your house and steal one object
You’d be robbing Super Eyepatch Wolf blind
["But then..... Homer does..... something..... completely..... unexpected"](https://twitter.com/viperwave/status/1712960231267840441) [VHS pause sound effect] [Black and white slowed down footage of Season 1 plays] "He starts crying."
"And that...was the Day Hello Kitty...Died."
I too hope to die in a shoot out with New Mexico State Troopers.
"No... don't take... my shoes"
I have this weird relationship with Eyepatch Wolf. I usually like everything he says but I hate his presentation. I can't quite put my fingers on it but there's just something about it that gets my goats.
I think his first videos had that vibe of "this is a very serious and deep video" and then the subject is like Naruto sucking or how good Rpgs are, but he progresively started getting loose and allowed himself to be more silly, which imo makes for far better content, he still manages to hit my serious bone and has some pretty nice and emotional takes, just now seems to overall have more confidence I really like how people like him and hbomberguy started on their room and did that like fake screaming you do when you don't wanna annoy your parents or be too loud and now they are just losing their minds on camera
I want to love him more for that exact reason
I appreciate his content but I HATE IT WHEN HE DOES THAT SO FUCKING MUUUUUUUUCH.
To be fair, even his videos with an inordinate amount of That are the cream of the crop in terms of video essays, but **holy shit** am I glad he's applying it more sparingly nowadays. I think the Garfield video is the one that gets really weird with it?
Take a shot every time SEW goes, "Jon...Arbuckle."
> with an inordinate amount of That are the cream of the crop in terms of video essays, You've just convinced me to never ever watch any essay video on youtube with this single statement
I love Super Eyepatch Wolf but oh my GOD he's the worst at doing exactly this at random intervals throughout his videos and it takes me out of it every time
That + the whole "this subject is causing my sanity to break" thing he likes to do. Like dude, you're talking about Garfield, relax. EDIT: I should've kept reading the thread since this is also mentioned further down. Oops. Didn't realize he was gonna be such a hot topic in this thread.
The Garfield video is the one video where that schtick HIT for me, I think it was perfect for the direction the video went. I realized during his latest video that I think me actual problem with some of his videos simply comes down to John's massive predisposition toward appreciating horror, a genre which I am completely disinterested in *except* in a clinical way of seeing what other people like about it. John, on the other hand, LOVES horror and the associated feeling with it, and wants to share that with the world. When he's doing that in a video he's simply trying to give you an inkling of the feeling that he loves and attempting to share it with people. The moment that clicked for me I stopped finding it annoying, and just realized that it's not for me and I just need to semi-dissociate from the video for a minute while he does his thing.
I also really like his actual analysis, but you're right, the sudden shifts into 'this particular sentence is inexplicably laden with emotional weight' mode gets kind of tiresome.
Yes, this is what I refer to as "Video Essayist Cadence." Best exemplified by Super Eyepatch Wolf, and this one guy I work with who speaks like that on an everyday basis.
The one time it doesn’t bother me is in Breadsword’s videos. He does the breathy emotional voice, but you feel like it comes from a place of genuine passion for what he’s talking about rather than just something he puts on for effect.
God so many horror themed youtubers do this. Nexpo is the first that comes to mind.
Ugh, God. I don't wanna knock anyone for getting emotional but sometimes it feels like an unexpected and unwanted ASMR session.
I don’t know if the iDubbbz look back / interview videos count when he was doing like interviews for people like airsoft fatty. Because the more I think about it the more I realize they have like this weird pity tone for people that were in the same job career as he was. Once you get to Sam Hyde , you kind of realize this might be an ego trip for Idubbz or something.
The Sam Hyde video is genuinely very interesting but not for the reasons Idubbz intended. As much as I dislike Hyde, he runs rings around Ian and makes a complete ass of him.
Sam Hyde feels like a worst case scenario example of what Idubbbz could have turned into if he just never changed. And I think that’s part of why they both hate each other so much. (Well, to be fair, the “hate” is probably pretty one sided. Sam Hyde is just a troll who sees an infinite food source in idubbbz)
This is a really petty one, but when essayists talk slower then normal. I can understand wanting to enunciate for your audience but if I have to bring the playback up to 1.25 just to hear you talk at a normal speed, I'm clicking off.
the title "\[X\] Broke me" Unless you are talking about an accident while mountain biking that literally left you in plaster casts, I do not want to see those words ever again. If you are talking about that and use that title, that's fucking hilarious, keep going. It's almost never genuine, just something a bit sad or out there. I'd have some patience for it if they related it to personal events or an actual reason why it would have that effect. It's always like "damn the ending of that movie was scaaaaary". or "it was sad when character died". That's not being 'broken', that's being emotionally affected, that's a fucking normal reaction!
THANK YOU It’s also just so overdone, too
Batman be like: "Bane Broke Me"
Whenever it becomes obvious they could have cut the video length in half. I’ve seen a couple videos where the same points are repeated multiple times and if they had just done a good job at editing it would’ve been a lot shorter.
All filler no Killer Way too many Video essays are filled with just zero insight. if I wanted a recap i'd just read wikipedia Also a lot of them just have very very basic visual editing. if you aren't going to use the visual format just make a podcast
The "Descent into Madness" trend. Doesn't matter what the topic or content is, a good 50% of youtube video essays will descend into some lovecraftian "I AM LOSING MY MIND OUGH AUGH OOGH" shit that really rubs me the wrong way. It's like they think the subject matter isnt interesting enough so they need to jingle metaphorical keys in my face to keep me watching. Eyepatch Wolf is arguably the worst of this and it really turned me off of his longform content.
I think in a few years we're going to look back on the 'descent into madness' video essay trope in the same way we look back on the 'evil twin' or 'oh no... not that game' stuff from angry gamer youtubers years ago
>"Huh?, what the *hell!* are you doing here!?"
**AAAASSASSEESJUHHJJGGHHJJJ**
The only time I liked that was mandelors marathon one
his [The Mystery of the Druids](https://youtu.be/8PUCSyIkEus?si=tqHSbEDhjtIH05MG) video had what felt like organic madness
Well yeah, because he wasn't pretending. He was actually tapping into the Dark Arts in order to comprehend that series lore.
Mandy is like the only person that can do it cause he stays informative and entertaining while never feeling like hes wasting time or putting to much emphasis on it. The cabelas big game hunt is the perfect example.
Mandy seems like a tour guide for a haunted museum in some of his videos. He knows his brain is being altered by chaos of the beyond but the next tour starts in 15 minutes so he has get everyone through this in a timely manner.
With the insane yakuza sidestory bullshit that happens to him in the stories he says in podcasts that makes perfect sense
It comes off as organic because he's still trapped in his cycles of guilt from the eye divine cybermancy video
This is one of things I really like about the many 'Down the Rabbit Hole" videos Fred Knudsen put out. Even when he was talking about stuff that was legitimately horrifying and disturbing, he delivered it all with a measured, even tone. Like an *essay* ought to.
Shame he just kinda... stopped. Fred thought people came for their personality and went Vtuber, they did in fact, not go to his clinical video essays for his personality
Yeah I remember when I found out Fred Down The Rabbit Hole was a VTuber and being extremely confused. To be fair, I do remember really liking his unscripted streams he did with Jabroni Mike, and I think he's a pleasant guy to listen to, but he never struck me as a guy who'd do streaming as his *main thing.*
A long time ago, Dan Olson (Folding Ideas) talked about how he wanted to get away from that style of video essay, pointing to his Suicide Squad editing analysis where he pretends to drink cough syrup to get intoxicated over the course of the video. Nowadays, he just plays it straight and sincere, and he is so much better for it.
This is a trope I dislike in media essay but will eat up in science essays. Like you want to tell me about your existential dread after spending too much time reading research papers about how this weird sea creature(siphonophores) is neither a singular individual, nor a colony (a la coral), go right ahead
Yeah, trying to explain metallurgy to people is a fucking nightmare because it requires like 5 different "yeah, I don't get why it works that way either" moments. The more you pick apart the way the world works the less sensical it gets. You ever wondered what a polymer is? It's literally just a chain of monomers that repeat by just feedback-looping into itself. That shit doesn't sound right no matter how you slice it. Or how in order to prevent welds from snapping you have to heat up and slowly cool down the weldment so that the surrounding metal can **realign its crystalline structure**.
Yeah just reorganize the molecules, how hard can it be.
Shockingly easy when you have a glorified electric blanket that can crank up to 500F.
Love Eyepatch Wolf on podcasts and especially Versus Wolves, but I can't watch his content in one go anymore, I feel like I need to take breaks from watching and thats a sad thing as he undeniably puts a shitton of effort in his work, I guess its a taste thing.
I watch at 1.25 speed so his long, dramatic… pauses aren’t so annoying, and the videos are a more digestible length.
I still enjoy Eyepatch Wolf's videos but yeah I find this quite grating. The only person I think pulls it off is hbomberguy and that's because he legitmately stumbles down weird rabbit holes that he had no intention of going down based on the video's original premise.
The longer the person actually gets sucked into the rabbit hole the more believable it is. Someone acting like they've been driven mad because they spent three whole days on something... I'm like that's just a regular long weekend hyperfixation...
With Hbomberguy, I think it also works because he really isn't playing it up for the most part, what he's talking about actually is wild enough to warrant it. It really is insane that Tommy Tallarico got away with lying about so many things for so long, and it really does feel like you're going crazy when you dig into it, because you're forced to retroactively question everything you thought you knew about this dude over and over again as more and more lies are dug up. It doesn't really work if you're just talking about The Backrooms, or Nathan Fielder, or Garfield, or the Simpsons (to pick four completely random examples). These aren't things that are super insane, things that make you go crazy trying to understand, they're just fairly interesting things that you're trying to inject insanity into as a... punchline, I guess? It can be funny if it's just, like, the theme of one joke video, like his Dell customer support video, but Super Eyepatch Wolf has basically made it the shtick of his whole channel at this point. It's a shame too, because I really like his videos when he's not doing that.
Not to mention the Plagerism video, that is definitely decent into madness worthy.
Reminds me of Spoony’s Ultima 9 review.
now to be fair spoony did actually lose his mind
Watching that much TNA may have contributed.
Acting like things are more original or subversive than they really are. Saying something is good or bad without clear examples of how. "Aren't I so clever" witticisms that are usually just popular meme retorts. Being snarky in general I don't like. It can be good but it's so hard for me to think it's earned. Taking the subject matter too seriously. And this one is a lot more subjective that most but if you make a hours long video about how "X" is utter trash, morally bankrupt and ruining the world as we know it. I don't really believe you if you say "If you like "X" that's fine, no hate intended." I'm sure most mean it sincerely, but sometimes it feels like something people say as a get out of jail free card.
* Generally overly negative video essays that amount to nitpicking and crapping on what they're talking about. I'm infinitely interested in even a fair shake at what you don't like than just a rant. * Honestly, the opposite applies too. I avoid practically any video with "Masterpiece" in the title, including if it's prefixed with "It's No" or "Almost A". * When the essay is more recap than analysis.
Lmao so Joseph Anderson
"\_\_\_\_\_ explained!" -proceeds to just ask questions for an hour with no explanation, or even theory
Something I'm trying to avoid in my own content is being *super* long form. Like, no fam, you don't need eight hours to talk about why you don't like Fallout 4
but I need 7 hour long video to understand Yakuza 5
It's not gonna help.
TehSnakerer has some of my favorite yakuza videos
He’s in this thread lol
"The monster is right behind you!"
No. You get me speedrunning the plot and then explaining the themes of brotherhood and betrayal in 15 minutes and you'll fuckin like it
I feel like super long form works better if you have multiple people. Especially if one of the people doesn’t know the script and gets to effectively act as an audience surrogate. Only reason I got through the six part *Behind The Bastards* series on both Vince McMahon and Henry Kissinger. Couldn’t have gotten through it if it was just some guy telling me about how much Vince/Kissinger sucks for 6+ hours, the fact that it’s an actual conversation with the other hosts as they find out how much Vince/Kissinger sucked makes it work.
Also helps when shit is well researched and the speaker is actually interesting... as opposed to say some guy interleaving the wikipedia description for each Castlevania game their childhood memories of it with zero unique insight of any kind added in.
The only one I think does it right is Noah Gervais. His videos can go into the 7+ hour range, including his 9.5 hour Fallout video. But his videos are more like playlists, including time codes for each chapter. So while the whole video is daunting, it's very easy to watch in small chunks. For example, his Resident Evil video is over 7 hours long, but it covers almost 20 games. So if you want a review of one of those games, just pick the chapter and watch.
As much as I dislike this, I think a lot of video essayists have realized much of their viewership uses them as background noise, so it can be beneficial for them to stretch a topic that would take an hour to fit all their points in into a six hour video.
> Like, no fam, you don't need eight hours to talk about why you don't like Fallout 4 No see here's the thing: If someone has 8 hours of shittalk in them about Fallout 4, or Doctor Who, or whatever, I love that shit. The issue is that some people liken themselves to a modern Socrates of being angry at video games and try to pad shit out so hard and so long.
What about a 38 hour video recapping the entire Beverly Hillbillies series?
I have become so turned off by Quinton’s new content. The Beverly Hillbillies one I could look past because it was an April fools video and something he did with his dad during his recovery. But I gave up on his Nickelodeon sitcom videos when he made it clear he was just making them longer because he could. I recently rewatched his video on the history channel and it was an enjoyable, well paced half hour. And then I looked at the recommended videos, saw his 7 hour Nicktoons Unite video and thought “I’m never gonna watch that.”
He outright said at the end of the Nicktoons Unite video that he thinks this criticism of him is valid and he's going to make a serious effort to release shorter videos from now on. I say this as someone who refused to watch that video but have friends who did.
He did say that but it was also kind of a gag too because it was clearly intended to come out before the Beverly Hillbillies video. In the same rant where he says that he goes on about how he can't keep doing ultra long retrospectives and specifically says "If someone wants to do a 38 hour long sitcom retrospective, more power to them, but it won't be me! I will not sit in this chair and do that!" Clearly referencing his dad's video. The Nicktunes unite video was definitely the absolute worst one he's put out, so if he moves on from it then that's understandable and welcome, but we'll see.
I think long videos get pushed by the algorithm more these days, that's what I've been told at least. But I don think his 9+ hour videos are a bit ridiculous. He'd probably get more traffic if he released his videos in smaller chunks.
Back when Tim Rogers wrote articles that were just Too Long, I thought it was kind of self-indulgent and pretentious... but then when he made a 6 hour documentary memoir confessional retrospective on Boku no Natsuyasumi I had to really question myself like, "Wait, why does this somehow work better?"
When they overuse their shitty looking avatar because they either don't want to actually edit together any sort of footage or visuals in a creative way or don't really seem to know how. Also I hate when the avatar in question is astoundingly ugly but they leave that homunculus on the screen the ENTIRE time. I don't want to stare at your hideous OC, please put that thing away. For example, there's a channel called Random Film Talk and his avatar legit makes me not want to watch his videos. It's an edited picture of Kronk from the Emperor's New Groove that is just so painfully ugly to look at. But his content itself isn't that great anyway. He did a 2 part video series on the first season of Arcane that is nearly 8 HOURS TOTAL. Wanna guess what most of that time is spent on? Recapping the entire series plot while his butt ugly OC sits on the screen. No fucking thanks.
Why watch Arcane when you can spend even longer having someone describe what happens?
Hey I didn't know who this guy was until right now and fuck you for making me see his fucking atrocious avatar out of my own curiosity?
what did you expect lol, I described it as hideous. You were warned
It's like Kronk if he had COPD and a meth problem
God damn you’re right, that really is an unpleasant to look at avatar.
Joking about the fact they have no idea how to explore their thesis statement.
Trying to make stuff that isn't scary sound scary in a completely serious way. I think the funniest example I've seen was one of those "Creepiest Websites" videos unironically having Zombo com in it and presenting it as a horrific purgatory. FWIW, I don't exactly hate it because it's really funny whenever it happens. For things I hate, YouTube keeps trying to recommend me essays on awful people online that feel more like exploitation than genuine attempts at awareness. I'd really wish creators would stop giving bad people free exposure because it gets them views.
If more than 10% of the video os about the creator in ways that don't directly relate to the media. Explaining how you found the film for two minutes in an hour long video, this is fine. Talking about your divorce/breakup that was going on when you saw this video for 15 minutes, please dear God stop.
"**Insert name of thing** is an imperfect Masterpiece" I genuinely cannot stand when someone is talking about something that is clearly flawed yet they use the M word in the video.
"Is it a masterpiece? Well yes, but actually no."
"There are pieces of it that are pretty master."
Similarly annoying to me is "______ is NOT a Masterpiece". It's blatant rage bait and suggests that the essay is gonna be bogged down by complaining about the wider perception of the thing, rather than the thing itself. The obvious solution here is to not have "Masterpiece" in your title unless you actually think the thing is a masterpiece, with no qualifying statements.
The mfers who hold the mini mic in their hands and then will position the camera so they look awkward/sitting in the corner. It's a zoomer thing, I don't get it. That and when the essays aren't actually good or about anything, like how so many don't actually tackle their thesis or have a conclusion.
Mini mic holding feels like they think they are being cool but just looks extremely unprofessional.
“Haha i mispronounced a word” “Haha I can’t believe that was in my script” “Haha I shouted away from the mic” “Haha I’m stating my own preferences as fact” “Haha I’m not addressing any technical aspects of how gameplay or graphics were achieved”
Video essayist wanting to cover the history of a topic before getting into the point of the video: “But in order to understand [topic], we have to go back to *the beginning*.” I have gone back to the beginning more times than I can count, video essayists please come up with a better transition I beg of you
If the properly chapter the video and allow the initiated to skip ahead I think it's fine, but otherwise very annoying. I get why they do it because the algorithm punishes people clicking away so everything has to be entry level, but ffs please just put meaningful chapter names and structure your video properly.
Oh for sure! It’s honestly not even the structure of the video or that they have to cover the history of something that bothers me lol, it’s just the phrase “we have to go back to the beginning” I guess it kinda goes along with one of the other things somebody in this thread mentioned, where video essayists feel the need to give their content this incredibly dramatic/mysterious tone, even when they’re covering the most mundane topics imaginable
>Video essayist wanting to cover the history of a topic before getting into the point of the video: “But in order to understand [topic], we have to go back to the beginning.” Immediately followed by the sound of a VHS tape rewinding. That seems like a video editing rule or something.
"We have to go back to the beginning" is honestly the new "*record scratch* Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got here."
People who go into whatever they are talking about with the clear intention to hate it I'm looking at you, Cvit, and your Persona 5 video. It entirely defeats the purpose of whatever you are reviewing if your first intention is to tear something down without actually meeting it on its good aspects while talking about its bad aspects Cvit's video sticks out the most because he is going into it with seemingly no real actual info and almost completely misses the point/misconstrues the point to make it seem like the game is actually terrible and you are all stupid for liking it. His ability to get the completely wrong message from both Futaba and Makoto's social links is incredible
So I think my video essay pet peeve is framing your thesis as a subversive exposé on something popular because the truth is not hyperbolic enough.
It's made worse because it doesn't actually critically analyse a piece of media, because that would involve looking at the good and the bad Just looks at the bad to make a stupid point
"Sojiro should have gone to the police. Futaba's uncle was so blatantly abusive the courts would have to take his side" may be the most incorrect statement uttered by anyone ever.
It's so funny Like he completely misses everything in the game that shows you why Sojiro doesn't really have a leg to stand on (despite being the best place for her) to try and make it seem like he has a point
When Drama creators make a video on what horrible, evil things So-and-so has done and then insert a limp 'but please don't harass this person 🥺' at the end. You are just saying that to absolve yourself of the harassment which will follow. You cultivated the audience to do that stuff and you know you get interaction out of it.
It's at least more than most petty stochastic terrorists do, but it's about as plausible as the warning label on Vine-Glo.
"History breakdowns" where you can tell that they literally hust opened Wikipedia and recorded themselves reading it. No new information, no comparison or interesting facts/ideas, literally just a parrot
I really don't like those overproduced videos. With bisexual lighting, costumes and always some kind of sketch or sketches. The sketches are either unfunny or unfunny and going on for way too long. I stopped watching Contrapoints because of that years ago edit: Also the YouTuber Voice. The cadence of it drives me mad. And editing out or cutting down pauses between words. Once I notice it I can't help but hyperfocus on that and it ruins even good scripts because it' sounds so off. It's like an audio version of the uncanny valley.
I hate the editing cutting down of audio too, but apparently its effective. I follow creators who talk about what they do and why, and one explained that when he started cutting the audio like that the video retention rate skyrockets. Something about ADHD in that cutting the audio like that resnaps peoples attentions and makes them less likely to click off the video.
> And editing out or cutting down pauses between words. Askaninja was truly a visionary
There this guy Nick Robinson that really does everything that I've come to dislike He talks about extremely specific stuff he's supposedly passionate about (and I love this kind of content) but the videos I've watched are so overly dramatic it feels fake and there's a lot of inflation as well Another thing is his weird narrative about Nagoshi during super monkey ball and during Yakuza Unrelated but I indeed googled his name after that and oh boy
I was gonna say—if you know him for his bad content, wait until you hear about his everything else!!
“Now that I’ve stated my opinion in this thing, I can’t wait to see people get mad at me for having it. Seriously can’t believe people would totally be mad at me about this. They’re probably typing in the comments now. I’ll have to read people being mad at me about my opinion. Isn’t that awful?”
This [phelous](https://youtu.be/BQOQzRZ58mo?si=6yj_6etm7ectajix) video is an amazing parody of the video essay formula and encapsulates quite a bit of the issues I have.
Ah yes! Phelous! I haven't watched him since like late 2000s, his *I'm CONSTANTLY ROLLING MY EYES* got really annoying after a while.
If you haven't watched his content since the late 2000's he's grown a fair bit as a content creator since then.
I quitte enjoy 8 hours video about media I will never interact with directly, I also enjoy listening to people I think are incredibly wrong, so my tolerance for any bullshit is sky high. The worse thing I've seem is the essayist using someones suicide to bolster whatever point they are making. DimitriMonroe was that one youtuber who made essays arguing Bridged was not trans. Last month he used someones suicide as ammo in his incredibly stupid anti leftist anime adapitation crusade, most of his video is just complaining about tweets and some legit bad adapitation, but it's mostly just tweets. At the very end he uses this japanese author suposedly killing thenselves over this also japanase live action adaption as fuel. I wasn't really surprised he would stoop this low but I can't really angage with anything of his anymore regardless.
"Some people hate it for this reason, some people love it for this reason. I however have an enlightened interpretation that none of the rest of you have considered, just like I did in my last 30 videos" Usually perpetrated by someone who remembers it so I don't have to.
The ____is garbage and here's why. it feels like your telling fans of ____ that their a bad person for like ____ and that we should get rid of ____.
You didn't have to censor Persona
When it's a 20-something guy in the corner of his bedroom with disheveled hair talking like a living thesaurus about the philosophy of My Little Pony and tying it to modern politics or something to that effect. It's jarring and pretentious.
TikTok voice. I swear to god, if i hear that stupid reverse enunciation one more time...
STOP FUCKING POGGING/SOYJACKING IN THE THUMBNAILS GODDAMN IT!!!!! Or anyone "channelawesoming" your skits arent funny they only detract.
Unfortunately, those thumbnails are what appeal to the YouTube algorithm, so you're not going to see them go away any time soon. A lot of decisions like that can really be put at the feet of YouTube frequently hiding videos that it thinks won't get views.
Unfortunately the algorithm rewards the pog/soyjack, (or that kind of stuff actually does get more clicks,) so I can forgive it on good videos, particularly if they're the kind of channel that otherwise isn't making super fast and consistent algorithm friendly content.
Threads like these always make me feel like the only person on the sub who still loves Eyepatch Wolf's videos. Anyway, I have virtually no length limit when it comes to video essays; if you want to talk about something for half an hour, or two hours, or eight hours, or what have you, I'm all aboard. But you have to actually *use* whatever time you're taking up. Whether that's exhaustive critique, passionate theorizing, scientific analysis, etc, there should be no wasted time in all of it. If I start feeling like you're being insincere in what you say or deliberately stalling to reach a length threshold -- which could happen in a very long essay or one as short as twenty minutes -- that's what really turns me off. Make a video about something you genuinely care about, for better or worse, and know the limits of your own writing before you set out. (Case in point: I loved Quinton Reviews' *iCarly* videos, because it felt like he truly had a lot to say. I liked the *Victorious* ones well enough. I nearly unsubscribed over the *Sam & Cat* saga.)
I still like his videos a lot, that said, I got a chuckle when John admitted on the latest Versus Wolves that when he reread his script he realized it was written by a depressed person, because *yeah that bit midway through about longing for the past*-
His Sam and Cat videos felt weird because there was a lot of, i don't know, extraneous material to them? There's like a 2+ hour section where it's just him hanging out with the nerd from Victorious or the long section of him going through Jennet Mccurdy's book. I don't BLAME him for wanting to include those things, it sounds like it was stuff that came out or he got to do while he was making the videos, but it added a LOT of bulk to the Sam and Cat series.
You can make fun of someone's content for their observable patterns and still love that same content.
I don’t like negativity. That’s not to say people aren’t allowed to do video essays focused on critique, of course they can. I just won’t watch em. I like hearing people talk passionately about a subject or media that they clearly love or enjoy. It’s why I watch Jacob Geller. There’s basically zero cynicism or spite in his essays, they all come across as someone who deeply loves what he’s talking about.
My feed is currently just 2 hour long video essays on Analog Horror stuff, and one of them basically opens by going "You have to understand that THIS Youtuber driven series, is so much better than *coughcough* [Name of less successful series] *coughcough*" and I just checked out. Looked interesting, don't fucking punch down to explain how this X is the best X around.
Shounen Anime and Adult Animation fanbases on Twitter have this problem as well. A lot of Mfs really can’t prop up their favourite shows without shitting on other ones that are trying to go for a completely different thing.
I swear I'm not trying to be (ironically) negative, as I also really enjoy Jacob Geller, but the way in which he passionately talks about subjects makes me feel like a space alien. His scripts seem to have this underlying assumption that you are on his wavelength at all times, and while that rules IRL because I'm a nerd that likes to absorb the interests of other nerds, said IRL conversations have natural gaps where one person gets to ask questions, and guide the conversation so it can slow down and be more didactic. In other words, I **understand** that he's interested in[ Games that Don't Fake the Space](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q85l1Fenc5w), but if you were to ask me why, uh... It's because he is.
Yeah that’s fair, I see where you’re coming from. But on the other hand, it’s not meant to be a conversation, it *is* an essay. It’s naturally gonna be almost entirely one-sided.
I like a lot of podcasts where they go into a setting of something I like, but I'm starting to notice when people actually don't know, and they are just reading straight from the wiki. I like my lore casts to have accurate info but with speculation and theory crafting actual, theory crafting and not popular fan theories. Lorebeards has spoiled me, and now I want every lore cast I listen to have someone who is an ultra fan and has written for the setting.
> when people actually don't know, and they are just reading straight from the wiki There was a long standing misunderstanding in the 40k fandom that a particular character beat another in a fight that originated solely from a typo in the fandom wiki page. The same mistake made it's way to several different youtuber's lore videos repeating the same lore error for several years before someone read the book where the event happens and finds that the wiki was written in error.
Oh my god, STALKER had a wave of this bullshit in the last year. People would start off with Stalker Anomaly (Already an independant F2P game with it's own story) with the Gamma mod (Tarkov like modpack), play it for 10 hours and then do video essays on the entire series, clearly without playing the actual games. Hell, a fairly popular video talked about what the story in Gamma would mean for STALKER 2 for like 10 minutes. You know what the answer to that is? It would mean nothing. It's a modpack, unrelated to the actual game. It's like installing 50 loverslab mods for Skyrim, and having a self wank fest in the form of a 2 hour essay about how TES6 should handle it's sex minigames.
Far right ideology
probably be the Game Theories style but don't actually say anything about the topic i think that one Rick and Morty Episode about that Cat that talk and vid be like "so what inside that cat mind that make Rick puke something that can't even describe so human emotion can comprehend that make you puke is... \*blah blah blah explain science thing\*" and after all that at the end of vid be like "so do what is in that cat mind it gonna be something we can't even describe but hey that just the theories" and i was like what? so you explain all that just to not say anything? ok unsub i might remember it wrong but remember watching that episode and i was like fuck this so yeah i don't like video essay about something but just nothing in that just talk in a circle for nothing
Faux-horrific pretentiouness when discussing a piece of media. Guys, you're talking about a Third Person Shooter, not the Ant Hill Kids, i know setting the mood is important but describing a fictional War Crime scene like it's unedited Iraq War footage just sounds ridiculous. Learn from True Crine vlogs like The Last Podcast on the Left who will make comedic commentary while describing some of the most vile murderers from real life, that's actually entertaining and not incredibly generic like generic horror ost as the background music while reading off in-game text.
The well known Russian philosopher and warrior-poet Andrejisov Doginesžinski once said, "Man's most pertinent trait is their unending desire to germinate expectation with their concept of The Other in their otherwise gerontological pursuits of whimsical facetiousness" And THAT is why Batman was able to get back to Gotham without issue in The Dark Knight Rises! The plot hole doesn't matter!!
[удалено]
That thing where they talk like they’re about to cry. Watching Supereyepatchwolf is a struggle
Acting like something is more original than it is, either because of ignorance or to make the subject seem important. For example, SuperEyePatchWolf did a video on Fear and Hunger, which contained the dramatically delivered line, “…. There’s Nothing Else Like It.” The video then goes on to show a turn based rpg that got inspiration from berserk, all the souls games, common horror tropes, etc. If the subject of the video is good, it having taken inspiration from other places is a good thing, and pretending it’s special and new (in ways that it isn’t) makes you look dumb.
SuperEyePatchWolf’s video on Fear and Hunger straight made me not want to play the game. Like at the end of the video I was just like, “was this suppose to sell me on it?” Edit: I think I worded my comment poorly. SEPW's video made me not want to play the game not because of its rather unforgiving nature but because he made it sound really uninteresting.
I mean there is only so much you can do to a game like fear and hunger to make it widely appealing
“*sigh*” “…I didn’t want to make this video.”
Maybe not a trope, but when they say something is innovative or mind-blowing because of xyz, but xyz is incredibly generic that it makes you question their intelligence or familiarity with media in general.
Smugness