. Last tended to <ahref='https://code.incremental.social/thepaperpilot/pages/commit/9aa6bf46bfd132527bed478007a37223f4f29de6'title='Thu Nov 28 22:01:32 2024 -0600'><timeclass='dt-updated'datetime='Thu Nov 28 22:01:32 2024 -0600'>2024-11-28</time></a>
.</span></p><hr><p>Video essayists are an interesting case study here. I <em>love</em> video essays, they're often entertaining and you can tell the effort and care put into them. A lot of my favorite creators are video essayists, like <ahref="https://www.youtube.com/c/hbomberguy"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">hbomberguy</a>, <ahref="https://www.youtube.com/@FoldingIdeas"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">Folding Ideas</a>, and <ahref="https://www.youtube.com/@PhilosophyTube"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">Philosophy Tube</a> (and probably more - its hard to keep track of my favorites since they upload infrequently). Unfortunately, video essays have now been recognized as successful ways to make videos with high watch time which has led to an explosion of video essays, with varying levels of skill, ethics, and effort put into researching the topics.</p><p>The format of video essays makes them feel credible - being longform, speaking authoritatively, and including relevant footage all contribute to this. However, none of those actually necessitate the creator being a subject matter expert.</p><p>"Video essayists" as a concept is a bit concerning because it positions those creators on a treadmill of constantly having to be (or at least appear to be) an expert of a brand new topic. I'm skeptical of any video essayist that uploads frequently or across a very large variety of topics.</p><p>Sometimes the extra duration of the footage is less to do with it deeply diving into the subject matter, but padding and fluff that's tangential to the point of the video. This is stuff like describing the process of how the creator did online research, or the methods they used to reach out to relevant people. In addition to padding the runtime, this shifts the focus off the subject of the video and onto the creator. I found <ahref="https://youtu.be/ZYcHOEjGzPA"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">this video</a> to exemplify both this issue and many of my qualms with video essays.</p><h2id="media-analysis-video-essays"tabindex="-1">Media Analysis Video Essays <aclass="header-anchor"href="#media-analysis-video-essays"aria-label="Permalink to "Media Analysis Video Essays""></a></h2><p>Some video essays are very easy to make quickly and are doing so for profit. No video essay exemplifies this more than the media analysis video essay. While this doesn't apply to <em>all</em> video essays over media, all too often they'll just be summarizations of popular and nostalgic media that never gets into any meaningful analysis or offering genuine insights. It's just an easy way to make a lot of content, and thus watch time.</p><p>Personally, I think these specific video essays are slop taking advantage of people who like having their intellectual ego stroked. By watching media get lightly criticized, we position ourselves above the people actually out there creating original media. These videos are for the pretentious, who likely watch far more analysis of original media than original media itself. It's reaction content for those who feel they're above reaction content. <ahref="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj694hdG6u8"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">This video essay</a> (heh) goes further into the issues with this type of video essay.</p><h2id="self-reflection"tabindex="-1">Self Reflection <aclass="header-anchor"href="#self-reflection"aria-label="Permalink to "Self Reflection""></a></h2><p>Part of my feelings towards video essays, and indeed such strong feelings as to include it here where its tangential at best, stems from self-confidence issues. Wondering if these articles I write are any better. I criticize video essays for being critical like an ouroboros, relying on this very statement to at least prove I'm aware of the hypocrisy.</p><h2id="further-reading"tabindex="-1">Further Reading <aclass="header-anchor"href="#further-reading"aria-label="Permalink to "Further Reading""></a></h2><p>Hey, did you know there's video essays about how
