itskristin

what makes for a good video essay?

i've been a long-time fan of video essays for a while now, my first watches of the medium date back to my freshman year of high school with videos like Born Sexy Yesterday by Pop Culture Detective and Whiplash vs. Black Swan -- The Anatomy of the Obsessed Artist. I recall posting the links to these on my twitter and tumblr raving about how good and eye-opening they are, recommending them to my friends and mutuals, and soon thereafter reading their thoughts about the essays too. video essays became a sort of internet cultural phenomenon around this time, spurred on by those very videos, the former now holding 11 million views and the former with just a bit under 6 million. but what is so captivating about these videos? what about a video can make millions not only tune in for the first time but be rewatched throughout the years and be referenced in new, original essays years later?

1. a unique topic

what both the whiplash/black swan essay and the born sexy yesterday essay have in common is that they're covering films that are not widely known in the cultural zeitgeist. yes, these are all films that have had many viewers and fans, but that was in their time, not now. the internet's core users pre-pandemic were, overwhelmingly, young people; millennials and Gen Z. being realistic, there's little to no chance that the majority of this group had watched black swan (2010), whiplash (2014), or the fifth element (1997) before these videos were released. perhaps that is a misguided generalization on my part, but I can speak for my Gen Z age group and say that this is the case.

beyond just generally unknown films, some of my favorite video essays to watch that also do quite successfully in the youtube algorithm are essays covering video games, albums, and celebrities. Fat Cry 3 by Pyrocynical is a video that I was engaged with for its full two hours and ten minutes run despite having never heard of the game nor being familiar with Pyrocynical's channel and works. it was engaging because it was not familiar to me and was presented with a clearly evident love and passion for its subject, which leads to my next point.

the following is a lengthy diatribe. feel free to skip to point #2.

this goes both ways, though. there are video essays I have been recommended by friends who know about my strong interest in a subject that is generally unknown in our cultural zeitgeist and said video essay is one I sincerely $%#ing hate. is it my early 2010s "I liked it before it was cool" hipster attitude or human nature to want to selfishly gatekeep media I love? I'd like to say I have enough humility and shame to not feel the need to be esoteric in my interests and insist upon being different from everyone else, but oh my godddddddd that is SO much easier said than done! if I want something unique to myself and unknown to the rest of the world, the last thing I want is to have my relatively normie friends send me a video essay they watched about it, and said video has over a million views despite being released less than 2 months ago! and you know what's even worse? when the essay has the most baseless, rudimentary, and (patronizing on my part) non-enlightened interpretation of my media! I'm sorry, I refuse to let the common consensus of something so close to my heart be led by somebody stuck at stages 3-5 of Kohlberg's levels of moral reasoning! so sorry, nail me to the stake if you want to, but I NEED to gatekeep some things for the sake of my sanity.

that being said, I'm normal. it's never a good idea to define yourself by pieces of media you did not make. I understand that I'm not the only person in the world and nothing is being made with the intention of being just for me and catering to my specific interests and stances. obviously, if somebody is making a TV show or movie, they're not expecting it to solely be watched and enjoyed by me, but instead have enough viewership to make a profit. and if one thing's for sure and two things' for certain, I'm not paying the bills! so yes, people are going to watch my favorite things, enjoy it in their own way, and come out with their own interpretations. but damn, my eye is still gonna twitch at the fact that there are people that now have an opinion on something I care about despite never seeing it themselves.

2. delivery with fervor

this is a quality that is hard to fake successfully. a unique subject is enough to get me to click on a video, but the delivery of its creator is what will cause me to either close the video and never engage with it again, or sit through hours of its thoughtful and captivating analysis. many times I have been recommended a video by youtube's algorithm only to close it immediately or be frustrated with the monotone and uninterested delivery of its author. it's hard for me to decide when this is worse: when its subject is something I know and care about or when the essay covers something I have little knowledge of. it just doesn't make sense to me; are they expecting me to bring the energy here? this is your essay, can you at least act like you $*%#ing care about it???

this factor matters so much to me because it's something I look for in everything: food tastes better when it's made with love; there's a clear difference in flavor between a Chipotle burrito made by an employee whose manager disrespected them as soon as they clocked in and a burrito from a Mexican, family-owned business. an album with a thoughtful arrangement of tracks is always better than an album whose tracklist makes the listening experience feel like someone threw together a bunch of lackluster singles and said, "here damn." (i.e. jungkook's Golden versus beyoncé's Renaissance tracklist arrangement. note the transitions featured in the latter) it's one thing for someone to be physically attractive, but they are infinitely sexier when they have a love and drive for their work or a hobby of theirs, an example of this phenomenon is "beekeeping age" from rick and morty.

like the viewpoint shared in bell hook's All About Love: New Visions, love is an action, not just a noun. even if a creator has that excited "YouTube voice" thing going for them, that doesn't make for a fervent or passionate delivery. this is very common with creators who went from making 1 or 2 passionate and well-researched essays a month, that did well with the algorithm and built their following, to making 5 video essays a month to sustain their income. making your hobby into a job sucks the love and life out of it.

3. a new viewpoint

a video essay I love and whose assertions run through my mind quite often is the essay The Tragic Fall of Kanye West (Pt1). it's not a video that worships kanye's artistry or intelligence, nor does it attempt to enact a smear campaign against him. instead, it comes from a place of love for the kanye that once was, and his contributions to music and black culture in his early career. this is a love I also have for kanye. this essay tugs at my heartstrings and expresses some of my own thoughts and feelings about kanye, and brings to light information I was unaware of and interpretations of major moments in his life and career I had not considered beforehand.

in a certain sense, everybody likes to hear their thoughts echoed back to them from someone else, especially if it's someone they respect or hold in high regard. and there is value in an essay that both echoes your thoughts and elaborates on them. but a video essay that echoes the common consensus of society and offers little to no additional or unique analysis is, honestly, worthless. you'd get a more engaging review from a coworker.

this doesn't mean that the creator has to be an expert or genius in reference to their subject matter. sometimes really good video essays come from someone who leads a completely different walk of life from the intended audience or core fanbase of the work they're discussing. commentary from someone looking from the outside in is a good way of getting out of an echo chamber of whatever your thoughts are and can ground you in having a balanced view of the media you consume. so creators need to be creative, not just repeating twitter's topic of the week.

what does not make for a good video essay

video essays as a medium and a new category of youtube video, shifting youtube's algorithm and monetization structure to prioritize long videos that keep an audience engaged for more than 20 minutes, has given many creators the impression that longer = better. an example of this can be seen in Quinton Reviews' videos covering various late 2000s-early 2010s nickelodeon shows. 7, 8, 9-hour videos span his channel, and while these can be nice to play in the background while you do something else, they are exhausting to try to sit down and attempt to engage critically with. longer videos bring more midroll ads which bring more money for youtube and the creator, but it often worsens the quality of the essay itself.

there are still good examples of longer video essays, like Flawed Peacock's Who's Lila? Story Explained. before watching his video I already knew about the titular game from watching ManlyBadassHero's playthroughs** and Jacob Gellar's video essays** about it, but I was interested in the above 7-hour video because it analyzed the game in a way not covered by the two other creators. but what kept me engaged for all that time was the thought and effort put into the video's production. I had no theories myself about the game, but the way Flawed Peacock leads you to certain conclusions and develops his reasoning is so engaging and refreshing after so many content farm video essays have come and gone through my home feed. I honestly really, really recommend it.

some of my favorite video essayists

okay, if you talk this talk you better walk that walk and give us some "good" video essays according to *your *criteria, girl.

I gotchu, dear reader! these are some video essayists I love. I can't remember all my favorite videos (I've been watching these for 7 years now) so this is what you're getting. I can't remember them all so I might update this later! the asterisks next to their channel names are some specific videos I love.

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