Something about knowing that people out there find this kind of content compelling is so depressing it feels me with utter dread. Like to add insult to injury of course the person reacting to the video essay is gonna be constantly pausing throughout it so it should take at LEAST twice as long to finish the video.

So… if someone is reacting to THAT reaction it’s gonna take like 8 hours to get to the end of the video like jesus christ WHAT on earth are you people doing.

  • AbbysMuscles [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    • There is nothing inherently wrong with longer videos. It all comes down to personal taste, and the Hexbear contingent who makes a point of yelling about them are simple contrarians.

    • Reaction videos on the other hand are generally garbage and a waste of bandwidth.

      • macabrett
        ·
        2 years ago

        I don't feel superior, I just think editors can bring a lot of value to something. Sometimes people need to be told they're rambling and to cut out the excess so that the purpose of a thing is clear. I don't have to watch a weird rambling mess of a video when there's near infinite forms of video I can watch.

        Note: I am not describing any specific video. I have never watched Contrapoints. This is my opinion on making pretty much anything. If an artist/creator does not want an editor, I do not think they are lesser. I just think it can make something more valuable than it might have been otherwise.

        • W_Hexa_W
          ·
          1 year ago

          deleted by creator

          • macabrett
            ·
            2 years ago

            And some of those are very good. Like I think HBomb and Defunctland have made some very good, pointed videos. They're long, but not rambling. You can feel that things were cut out because they didn't serve the purpose.

            • W_Hexa_W
              ·
              1 year ago

              deleted by creator

      • Zoift [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I will NEVER read a book over 40 pages. 😤

      • Aryuproudomenowdaddy [comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I never said I feel superior, just physically attacked when someone wants me to watch a video that's longer than 5 minutes.

      • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I don't often watch long videos but it's based on the fact that I've found most of them are annoying and/or rubbish and I just don't have/don't want to devote the time to them.

        If I've got time to kill and have thought other content by them is good, I don't have a problem with length. I'd probably try more content creators if they varied the length or medium of their output, but if they only put out 1hr+ YouTube I'm a lot less likely to.

      • dolphin
        ·
        1 year ago

        deleted by creator

    • notceps [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Conceptually sure there's nothing wrong with longer videos and leftist content does have to be longer than liberal videos because it often also has to fight against public perception.

      BUT anything over 1 hour is just made worse by its length, I could right now find some lecture on Marx by some german professor that clocks in at 1 hour and maybe 10minutes and it only goes over the hour mark because he's taking questions from a crowd. To me there's no reason a youtuber can waffle on about a subject for longer than some old philosophy professor.

    • mittens [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      There is nothing inherently wrong with longer videos.

      Nothing inherently wrong with long videos, but it's something encouraged by the engagement algorithm and you can tell a bunch of video essays pad stuff to reach these 1+ hour lenghts, either by nitpicking or by providing needless context. HOWEVER if they fill these padding segments with jokes I won't mind that much.

    • space_comrade [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Counterpoint: It's extremely fucking unlikely that the same point couldn't have been made in a video that's way shorter. A lot of these "video essayists" seem like they really love hearing themselves talk a lot.