Why I (Used to) Hate Video Essays

Here are the videos mentioned:

0:00-4:10 - Why I Hate 'Em (A Summary)
4:10-6:41 - Video Essayists Are Bad at Writing Conclusions
6:41-9:32 - It's Like Sitting Through A Bad Powerpoint Presentation
9:32-10:20 - Two Beautiful Examples
10:20-12:56 - Audiences Trust Essayists Too Much
12:56-17:10 - Is This a Vibes-Based Problem?
17:10-19:17 - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Slop
19:17-23:16 - Do You Want to Be Distracted Right Now?

[krombopulos_michael]

1.5x speed is only for the really good essays that you have to slow down and enjoy

[Nononchalance]

Having both standards and empathy? In this economy? Beautiful. Excellent vid as always

[lordburgendy]

This reminds me of what Michael from Vsauce said one time.

Why do you think we have wheels in mice cages? Because the mice are bored and need something to do, right? Well, what do you think would happen if we put wheels out in the forest? Do you think mice would find them and start running on them? Well, wild mice ALSO run on them. They have the WHOLE WORLD to run around in, and yet they can't get enough of those wheels.

Maybe it's human nature for us to watch long video essays. Maybe it's not a problem with society. Maybe we just like running on wheels.

[calebthand]

Holy shit that little reflection about the "30-year old equivalent" of watching the raindrops collect on the car window has shaken me to the core

[ratfromsewer]

this is something i think about a lot. i'm a person with a LOT of free time and most of it is spent doing exactly this, distracting myself with video essays on one screen, a video game on the other-- i'm literally distracting myself from my distractions which are distracting me from getting the things i need to get done, done. i'm a single person with no kids so the only thing i'm really missing out on is doing the things i need to do to take care of myself (i need to do some dishes right now and i'm yet again postponing it in favour of typing out a youtube comment), but when i go for the rare walk i manage to convince myself to take, i get an inkling of the things i miss out on distracting myself from the 20-to-30-something adult boredom you mention in the video; for example, i heard some crackling from the plants i was walking past yesterday and it got me to stop and consider that i've never heard a pinecone before. i guess they pop and crack as they open for the changing of the seasons. in my 25 years of life, i'd never noticed it before, and i wouldn't have noticed it had my airpods not broken not too long ago, as i typically listen to music on my walks. maybe that's an inconsequential thing to notice in the long run, but i remember it more vividly than any particular moment i had in the last 3 days grinding and questing in duskwood with a video essay or livestream on in the background save for one particularly negative interaction i had with another person in the game. between that and this, it's gotten me thinking about how many of my waking moments are lost to the miasma of distraction which i will likely never be able to retrieve. anyways, this has gotten long winded enough, i need to do my dishes, a memory which will probably also never fully form and be lost to the miasma, but thank you for making this video. while i will probably never stop consuming purpose-built "distraction content" entirely, in just 23 minutes, it's worked better to highlight the value of my time and active participation in the world around me than any mindfulness and meditation seminar ever has. have a good one dude!

[chanest]

I absolutely HATE the Channel 5 comment section because it’s so incredibly difficult to find people actually reacting to the content in a meaningful way. Love that you touched upon that here.

[TJ]

i make video essays for a living and I think about this kind of stuff a lot. even tho i make them I dont watch a lot lot of them for many of the reasons you laid out. i absolutely hate all the fluff and extra information that people throw in video essays that has nothing to do with the main thesis and i try to avoid that personally, maybe to my detriment. These days, I cut out so much stuff from every video i make because it seems superfluous. but of course there's an audience for that kind of thing. I've also switched away from making video about important political or philosophical topics mostly because the internet is a terrible avenue for those conversations but also because I became super uncomfortable being seen as a thought-leader/authority on anything that actually matters.

[elseifgames]

Been mulling this video over for a few days, and I think there's another stylistic trend that this video doesn't cover, but feels part of the conversation. Not a universal trend, but something I see often in analytical type video essays, in the vein of Hbomberguy.

Topical Synechdohe. Or for something catchier, "the prestige."

Start the video about subject X, lay all the groundwork for doing a deep dive into subject X, only to partway through go "Psych! We aren't talking about subject X, we're talking about subject Y! Subject X is just an example/subset of Y or vice versa!"

Take the "Why Youtubers Hold Microphones Now" video. going through the entirety of the video, it's clear that microphones are not its actual focus. Its focus is on identity as a youtuber/online performer, and how that intersects with the performance of class. Holding microphones was the entry point into the "real" topic. That's why the conclusion felt "weak, " because its answering a different question than the one posed by the intro.

This is a technique that not only allows for a certain inefficiency of information, but practically demands it. Without some degree of red herring and misdirection, the turn isn't a turn at all.

Hbomb's plagarism video was a particularly ruthless example of this. This was not the first time Sommerton's behavior was noted, but every time people tried to deal with it in private, or at a small scale, it ended with either silence, weasel words, or at worst, Sommerton siccing his then sizable fanbase on the person. Hbomb spending 2 hours before getting into the "real topic", and tackling much larger examples first, was a counter to this. Not only did he have time to surgically remove every exit Sommerton could take, but the delay meant that Sommerton couldn't make any defensive moves before the information went critical mass. He couldn't warn his fans against watching it, because by the time it was widely known it was about him, his fans were already halfway through.

Whether or not things have gone "too far" in the aftermath, in the exact moment of creation, he was not wrong for doing this.

Now, as for whether this technique is worth it in general, is a more complex topic. On the most cynical read possible, this is an advanced form of clickbaiting. You know a video about Y wouldn't do well, so you dress it up as X instead. But when it's done well, there's an undeniable artistry to it. It's completely different ballparks, but Infinite Jest wouldn't be Infinite Jest if it committed solely to being about Tennis. There's also a lot of people who understandably can't stand Infinite Jest.

It's like that old Carl Sagan quote, "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, first you must invent the universe." If he actually went through that process step by step, the people who are here for the cosmological interconnectedness of all things would be enthralled...and the people who came to learn about apple pie would be pissed off.

[crunkcore]

It honestly feels like a radical act these days to choose to not participate in constant self-distraction. I feel like after years of being relentlessly bottle-fed entertainment I don’t know what it’s like to mentally stand up on my own. It’s terrifying to imagine how different my life might be if I weren’t consumed by a crippling content addiction. I imagine a lot of people feel the same…

[eggy]

I am someone who is 100% addicted to Con Tent (which I can onnly attribute to having both ADHD and a very long daily commute) but I am also extremely picky about what I watch. To me, listening to subpar content is almost as bad as listening to nothing at all. It's not just about being distracted, it''s about being adequately distracted, which I find some Content(TM) can't always even do.

Personally, I think part of the reason that a lot of video essays as of late feel so thin and sludgy to me is due to a lack of expertise. A lot of the channels I initially fell in love with (and still love to this day) are run by people who have actual, real world experience with the things they're discussing, either through education or through other lived experiences (working in the field, etc). Even those who didn't would often have some other highly developed skill that would make their videos worth sitting through, like music or editing. I feel like a lot of newer essay channels are lacking in this category, either because the people running them are young and lack life experience in general, or because they're trying to churn out content at a more algorithm-friendly speed.

On top of that, I feel like another thing that has contributed to the sludginess is how Online a lot of video essayists seem to be. If someone's content seems to be largely centered around twitter discourse without connecting it to any other greater disscussion, then what you have is pretty much just a glorified drama channel. As such, I've been finding myself more and more drawn to creators who seem to actually touch grass, and actively turned off by people who seem so terminally online that they don't know how to discuss anything else.

[ryanmraz]

This was great to watch at 1.5x speed on my cell phone during my lunch break.

[sobalover]

Watching long form content is my preferred choice of escapism.

[bingus]

For me a lot of the issue comes from the breadth of videos getting called essays. There are ones that are shallowly researched and rambling, but there are still multi-hour ones that I feel the need to sit down and pay attention both because the arguments and information require that level attention and because of the jokes and nuance provided by visuals. Those get lumped in with "essays" consisting of someone talking about why they like or don't like a particular piece of media for an hour.

[scpWyatt]

Brevity is the soul of wit and I feel like you hit the nail on the head with meandering videos with lackluster endings and this invention of the content slop mill. The author Lynda Barry has a quote about this that I absolutely love, “The phone gives us a lot but it takes away three key elements of discovery: loneliness, uncertainty and boredom. Those have always been where creative ideas come from.”

[anthonybeard]

I appreciate you pointing out the lack of a coherent conclusion in most video essays. I find myself wanting to be distracted with long video essays, but I also want to have some key takeaway from the video. But I also find that I can’t think of one for most videos I listen to.

I almost always chalk that up to my ADHD, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe there just wasn’t one there to begin with…

[cerberusthethird]

19:17 I had a moment the other day while browsing netflix and hovered over the food network show Chopped, and I turned to my partner and said, "you know, I would love this show when it just came on in the background on the living room TV while I was doing other stuff, but I'd never intentionally put it on now." Something about the transition from "whatever's on TV right now" to a web app where you can select whatever you want made it so I couldn't enjoy TV programming as anything less than deserving of my full attention. I'm realizing now that youtube, twitch streams, etc has kinda just become my Background TV, but the intimacy of a voice directly in your ears and the content being much more tailored to your specific interests means it ends up capturing way more of my attention (and occupying way more of my time) than old-era game-show Slop Content ever did. I admit you kinda got me on this one. I know your ending thesis is much more accepting of the concept of simply "wanting to be distracted" but honestly it's a nice smack in the face that I should be a bit more discerning with my attention span.

[sweetestpotato]

Chapters feature has encouraged structured video essays, which is preferable when you only care about the info of the topic rather than the exposition.

[kady]

Good video! Your conclusion is correct in the sense that a lot of people watch this type of content as background distraction, but as a counterpoint I'd like to say that some of my favorite videos on youtube are long essays that I watched like movies, 1x speed, full attention. So my perspective on this is that most video essays are just bad and not well written, and not something inherit to the format or length.

[aldenkahl]

The dig at Folding Ideas fortnight video is interesting because in the effort to ask if something contributes to the discussion it actually misses why the discussion about how fortnight works is there.

The discussion about the understanding of Fortnight isnt there to substaintiate points but rather to preempt bad faith criticism about over thinking the game, not understandinf the game, or not reallt knowing what its about.

[bionodroid]

you said everything i think about when i ponder what i've lost by distracting myself with video essays in the background. i notice that when i play video games or clean my room or paint or do other chores, and i'm not watching an essay, i tend to easily find a good stopping point where i feel satisfied and like my time was spent wisely. but when a video essay or a podcast is on, i just keep going, and i find that i wasn't really thinking or letting things soak in while i was doing whatever activity i just was. i've been thinking about always taking notes or reflecting on content i watch afterwards to force myself to watch less and think about it more, but your point about content being made just for content these days makes me wonder if i even want to wake up an look at a screen anytime i don't have to do so for work. but what else would i do? everything i ever wanted to? probably