https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/737626132079362048/the-trouble-with-the-rise-of-the-youtube-video
Trascript
The trouble with the rise of the YouTube Video Essayist™ is that everybody wants to be the next Defunctland or Hbomberguy, but all the wannabes know is how to be an influencer, so the resulting video essays are always really about themselves. You’ll get a forty-five-minute video with maybe fifteen minutes of actual, topical information padded out with half an hour of tedious theatrics about how hard it was to do research for the video and how nobody wanted to talk to them, and I’m just sitting here like “yeah, dude, it was hard because you don’t know how to perform research, and nobody wanted to talk to you because your behaviour toward your prospective sources amounted to borderline harassment, and that’s how it looks in your own version of events which has clearly been spun for optics – I can’t even imagine how badly you must have gone about this in reality”.
- some have pointed out that cathy didnt create the original 3D model. that is true, and I would love to know the origins of that! but that isn't what I wanted to figure out with this video; i set out to learn who created the GIF specifically, i.e rotated it, edited it, made it into a .gif and posted it online.
lol
The video starts off with an impressively detailed account of how the dancing baby gif was made, including the people, the companies, and the software involved with the animations as well as the assets. It then goes on to identify precisely 1 of the links in that chain for trumpet skeleton.
Yeah this is the worst video essay I've ever watched in full. Dude was a creep and he made numerous rookie research mistakes. Truly incredible.
The whole "research" was a reverse image search, then checking the internet archive for the earliest date the gif was posted, then he forgot to check the history of the one website that most looked like the original source and spammed reddit for help until someone pointed him to that same page
The rest was complaining how hard researching is
The worst possible way to do it, since a huge number of the images were in fact identical.
For his own sake, I hope he was lying about that for clout.
And probably sex pest Nick Robinson. Most of his videos are this now.
Way too many of the things start out with like 4 minutes of chit-chat before they get to the meat, then once you're in it, there are frequent cutaways for running gags that don't land.
The truth of the matter is that it's hard as hell to have an original thought, hard to edit a video, hard to research. The best essayists are the ones that post infrequently for a reason
the rise of the YouTube Video Essayist™
neoliberal subject type #3095
That 12 hour one about Survivor pisses me off. I posted it here excitedly because I love Survivor. But its just a bland recap with no analysis, commentary, or original thought. I guess that can be fun for someone whos never seen the show?
I just looked and who the hell is that guy? Just watch Idoled Out and Once Upon An Island for actual Suvivor recaps and essays.
Yeah those folks make good content and have original thoughts.
Id honestly love to see a video series of someone whos never seen the show before going through the seasons if they actually expressed opinions though. (I especially would love to see a zoomer's reaction to the early seasons since they're such time capsules, especially the first season. Like is Rudy charming or offensive to a queer zoomer? Ik a common reaction for people looking back is "how in the fuck is Jerri a villian" which i love.)
The best part of the early seasons is looking at the fashion and going "who let you go outside looking like that" knowing full well that I went outside looking like that
My favorite little moment in Borneo is a everyone being fascinated that Gervase has kids out of wedlock. So quaint.
