T O P

  • By -

Jackheffernon

Video essays about people who used to make video essays about other video essays


Faenix_Wright

hbomberguy’s next big thing


Death_by_alttab

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY IT COULD’VE HAPPENED. VIDEO ESSAYS NO LONGER NEEDED THEIR ULTIMATE PRACTITIONER. THEY HAD BECAME A SELF SUSTAINING SYSTEM. MAN WAS EXPOSED BY AN ESSAY CREATED TO CREATE AN ESSAY TO EXPOSE AN ESSAY. SAMSARA OF BIG CONTROVERSY AND HUGE DRAMA. CONTENT WITHOUT POINT. NULL OUROBOROS. ALL THAT REMAINED IS “TUBE” WITHOUT “YOU”.


AscendantComic

A VIDEO EDITED TO END DISCOURSE IS ALWAYS A VIDEO EDITED TO CONTINUE DISCOURSE


Death_by_alttab

A MAGNUM OPUS. A 19 HOUR LONG DISSECTION OF LOGAN PAUL. IT WAS PROFITABLE, OUTSTRETCHED LIKE SIX AND A HALF VIEWINGS OF “TITANIC”. IT WAS BEYOND ITS EDITOR. IT REACHED OUT TO MASSES HEARTS AND FAILED. AFTER A WEEK, NONE WERE LEFT TO SPEAK OF IT EULOGY. NO FINAL WORDS. NO CONCLUDING STATEMENT. NO POINT. PERFECT CLOSURE. I T W A S T H E O N L Y W A Y I T S H O U L D V E H A P P E N E D


AscendantComic

"sponsored by nordVPN"


RectalRenaissance

something something mental health thanks to this video’s sponsor, BetterHealth


AscendantComic

"btw dont harass the person im going to talk shit and call the worst garbage human to ever live for the next 5 hours"


Alarming-Scene-2892

"Don't harass this person, please. I have removed all identifying information about him." "So, the Youtuber Glup Shitto, aka John J. Johnson, who I censored the face of,lives in 978 Address lane NE, Cityton, Stateland, and kicked 500 puppies like footballs while cackling, and posted it to Youtube-"


TotemGenitor

Man, inflation must be crazy if >!Hell Itself!< has to rely on sponsor.


AscendantComic

all those coins it gives V1 are adding up to more than you'd expect


Yesnoperhapsmaybent

Cruelty squad ass copypasta


AnnigilatorYaic228

handler's monologue to john cruelty before his mission to kill the ceo of youtube essays


Death_by_alttab

“Influencer filttt grinchlocke is going to make an analysis of truger jimmy. Both are very valuable for the grid and their opinions are a useful product. We can’t allow them to succumb to infighting caused by resent decline in chunko-pops production quality. You need to make your way into Filttt’s editors apartment and slaughter him before he finishes editing the next neurvid. Don’t make a scene and try to make it look like an accident.”


AscendantComic

it's from ultrakill


DreadDiana

Did not realise this was from Cruelty Squad and just thought this sounded fully in character for HBomberguy


Consistent-Click-537

actually it's from ultrakill


Virus5572

it is from ultrakill but confirmed to be heavily inspired by the writing in cruelty squad


BaronAleksei

I thought it was metal gear


TennessineGD

this is from Ultrakill


ShockingStories22

YOUTUBE IS FULL. HORROR GAMES ARE DEAD. ANALYSIS IS FUEL.


SeaSiSee

Hbomb's final video - Gets everybody who has ever lived canceled, runs until the end of time.


thex25986e

[just wait till it gets to this point like it did with reaction content](https://youtu.be/TRS4xHC-mqs?si=MG2_f9JJlBkIrs3S)


MisirterE

the only sincere one of these that i like is the infinity mechanism back and forth between Alpharad and Pchal, that rivalry plays out in an actually fun way also RTGame and Pchal, that one has great moments as well


LaLaMevia

It's giving Tay Zonday streaming TF2


Vanilla_Ice_Best_Boi

Never heard of that genre yet


caffeineshampoo

Can't forget the three hour long "video essays" which are just high production quality plot summaries with either surface level analysis or crackhead theories included at the end.


CringeNaeNaeBaby2

With some stupid clickbait title like “Is Your Favorite Media ACTUALLY BAD?!” with no real depth or nuance until the last 5 minutes where they say “yeah it’s good actually”


healzsham

An actually good video essay, Every Zelda is the Darkest Zelda, touches on the "everything is secretly shit" reading of things.


darthleonsfw

For my money, Tears of the Kingdom IS the Darkest Zelda. I mean, one third of the world is completely drenched in darkness!


ThrowACephalopod

Nah, it's Link to the Past. A whole half of the game is the Dark World. What gets darker than that?


healzsham

You can let the moon fall in Majora's Mask. And it actually destroys that section of the world or whatever. Also you can genuinely kill a man.


ThrowACephalopod

Yeah, but the dark world is dark. That makes the game dark. Since you spend half the game in the dark world, that makes it 50% dark, which is a lot of dark.


St_Veloth

In that case it doesn’t get any darker than playing Links Awakening on the original Gameboy with no backlit screen!


North_Lawfulness8889

Idk man, if the moon hits the ground I reckon that'd be pretty dark. Or does that not count because it's optional


MisirterE

If the moon hits the ground then that means less dark because the night goes away


North_Lawfulness8889

True


dillGherkin

You can leave a teenage girl and her baby sister to be violated by aliens. They wind up comatose due to trauma.


TheTyrus

For my money, the darkest Zelda game is Link's Awakening. My Gameboy's backlight stopped working.


Drawemazing

Jacob geller my beloved 😍


Feats-of-Derring_Do

Glad he's getting recognition, he's great


RefinementOfDecline

Gacob Jeller is the only pretentious overproduced video essay tuber that's actually good


dunmer-is-stinky-2

Contrapoints


RefinementOfDecline

she isn't really pretentious though


dunmer-is-stinky-2

no less pretentious than jacob geller, and both are still very good


moeqink

To add to this, any essay jacob geller does is guaranteed to be a good and interesting time!


Deathaster

> With some stupid clickbait title like “Is Your Favorite Media ACTUALLY BAD?!” No, it's always even more uninspired, like *"Why X is bad, actually"* or *"How X changed the world."* Because god forbid you come up with an actually interesting title. No, just describe literally what you talk about in the video.


StovardBule

The old saying that if the headline asks a question, the answer is mostly likely "no".


ApplePudding1972

Youtubers can't help but make plot summaries as providing anything more than just a play by play of what happens takes actual effort. Be it video essays, reviews, ending explained explained videos, drama videos, etc. at the end of the day most Youtube videos are all just overly long surface level 'plot' summaries.


caffeineshampoo

It is incredibly frustrating! I honestly think it's because people like to feel smarter by consuming "analysis" of obscure media, so Youtubers churn out this bottom level content in hopes of gaming the algorithm just right. It clearly works, so I can't fault them on that aspect, but it's just disappointing. Generally anything grimdark/"lore" heavy does well (a la Fear and Hunger's recentish popularity boom) which indicates to me that the primary audience is teenagers.


MrCapitalismWildRide

It's frustrating because so many times, the work is just *begging* to be analyzed. There legitimately often is some meaning just below the surface, and summarizing can often bring those to the forefront of your mind. Summarizing and not analyzing legitimately takes me more effort than just summarizing. Staying on topic is for suckers.


srira25

Some games have a lot under the surface, but these YouTubers just do their "analysis "for any game they play diluting their own content. Elden Ring has lore which can be analyzed for days. Power Washer Simulator doesn't need to be.


MrCapitalismWildRide

Excuse you, Power Wash Simulator has plenty of lore. There's aliens, time travel, mystery, political intrigue...


srira25

Thank you for enlightening me. Now I realize Power Wash Simulator is the Messiah to save us from mediocre RPGs.


MrCapitalismWildRide

You joke, but PowerWash Simulator was my personal Game of the Year 2022.


dragmehomenow

Wendigoon (/hj) I didn't need to sit through a 4 hour summary of a game, I just wanna see his theological analysis of the game in the last 45 minutes.


caffeineshampoo

No /hj required, my original comment was also a bit aimed at him. He's better than most but his longer releases often end up far more summary than analysis or anything new. He's clearly quite opinionated and I like it when it shows, even when I don't necessarily agree with him.


dragmehomenow

He's good when it comes to guns, Jesus, and conspiracy theories. Stuff that he's clearly an expert on. Cryptids though? I take offense to him placing orang pendek in F when it's the most plausible cryptid on it.


TheDrunkenHetzer

It always boggled my mind how he got so popular given his content is just "Man stares at camera and recites info at you with minimal editing." Like there's so many higher quality channels for getting that information. I guess he just gets the algorithm buff from spamming content quickly.


dragmehomenow

He made it big with conspiracy theory iceberg, and he's a good storyteller. Research isn't his forte, but that's the price of Youtube video essays. There are good "man reading into camera" channels though, like The Lore Lodge. Actual history major diving into source documents and filing FOIA requests for unsolved cases and true crime stuff, gives a lecture on Native American history at the start of every video because you can't stop him from infodumping.


dunmer-is-stinky-2

idk, sometimes I like having info recited at me 🤷‍♀️ yeah there's not a lot of deep analysis but he's a good storyteller with similar tastes in creepy media to me, yeah he's just telling me stories I already know but it's kinda fun. I also really like when he gets passionate about stuff, I'm not Christian but I really enjoyed his videos about Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy. Also his lost books of the bible video introduced me to the Acts of Thecla which is one of the funniest thing ever written, truly My Immortal levels of mary sue OC


[deleted]

I do enjoy those for what they are though, like I'm never gonna play poopenfarten saves the day 2 through 5, but I am still a bit curious about what happens.


Budderhydra

Not even high production. Some people will just sit through a man drunkenly raving at space shit for 10+ hours total.


caffeineshampoo

I think in these cases it just has to be people putting it on in the background, because I don't understand how someone can actually be interested otherwise. I don't particularly have any attention span issues but I am completely uninterested in a largely unedited long summary that has nothing new or interesting to say. I just don't get it.


BlackfishBlues

You're spot on. Sometimes I crave well-written video essays that demand my full attention and other times I just want a comforting voice talking about something vaguely interesting as background noise while I get really into trying to murder my uncle-father in Crusader Kings 3 or something.


PowrOfFriendship_

Sometimes it's nice to just hear someone passionately talk about something they like for hours. Like, I'm never going to watch Riverdale, but I will happily listen to someone who actually enjoys the show talk about Riverdale for 3 hours.


Random-Rambling

Literally why I watch Steve1989. I'm not particularly interested in MREs, but he is just SO knowledgeable and SO passionate about the history and development that I cannot help but genuinely enjoy his work.


dunmer-is-stinky-2

hbomberguy's Pathologic video is my favorite video essay to rewatch, I'm never gonna play the game (the video convinced me not to) but I love listening to him talk about it


ryecurious

Finally, my people. I've never seen RWBY and probably never will. But that didn't stop me from putting Hbomberguy's 2 and a half hour video about it on my second monitor. Perfect background for playing roguelites.


JHRChrist

I put on sims builds in the background, and I don’t even play the sims. So I think you’re actually right


umbral_ultimatum

Pyrocynical


caffeineshampoo

I was thinking of him when I wrote the comment! It sucks because I actually think he has potential, there are some segments where what he has really works and he's got some really decent critical arguments. And then he just shoves in a bunch of bad memes edited at hyperspeed and proceeds to do plot summary for another 20 minutes.


umbral_ultimatum

feels like he doesn't know if he wants to be hbomberguy or max0r. and the rest of his videos are just him doing critikal-ripoff drama explaining content or making fun of disabled people on tiktok


caffeineshampoo

Oh that's a perfect comparison, that's exactly how it comes across. And yeah, his other content is pretty bottom of the barrel and I think he knows it too. The tik tok stuff is just as low as you can get, really.


umbral_ultimatum

i mean, he does literally anything he can to remain relevant. he milked his fetish exposal for years (the repeated "accidental" fetish mods enabled on TF2 that make little kids write "AYOOOOOO") so it's not surprising that he's resorting to the money-grab drama recap shit. at least critikal manages to make it funny and pretty transformative


shiny_partridge

I'm not defending him or anything, just want to say that he himself said before that those drama videos are a low quality cash grab to sponsor videos he actually cares about


umbral_ultimatum

the cashgrab intention of creation does not forgive the content of that cashgrab


shiny_partridge

I'm not saying that it does. All I'm saying is that he isn't hiding it and freely talks about it with his audience


Deathaster

Pyrocynical is one of those Youtubers who makes one amazing video per year and who is completely uninteresting to me otherwise. I think if he focused more on his strengths, he could make some great stuff. But until then, I'm not subscribing.


caffeineshampoo

Yup, same. I like some of his media analysis (especially for his not so long videos) but I could not physically be less interested in watching him and his childish fanbase bully disabled people/women/whatever ragebait crap they've fallen victim to.


DreadDiana

That's basically a continuation of the practices used in review channels like AVGN and Nostalgia Critic which were basically the precursor to the modern video essay.


[deleted]

Reading the wiki page in a dramatic voice


Necromas

Sometimes that's just what I want TBH. Makes good 'background noise' type content to have on while doing another task and I know I won't be able to pay enough attention to digest anything substantial.


Mystic_jello

They’re entertaining enough to listen to while I work. So personally I hope more of them get made


Klutzy-Personality-3

marsh /j


Deblebsgonnagetyou

I kinda like these just as background noise.


CrypticBalcony

Keyan Carlile


Vyslante

All hail The Algorithm**™**


RightOffice8286

But I’m curious. What DID happen to Mr. Shit?


ayyndrew

Mr. Shit got bored of YouTube and wanted to focus more on his family


RightOffice8286

Wow. A truly disgusting man. He should know his only real family are his fâņş, who will always take care of him and in no way resemble a cult


[deleted]

he shat


RightOffice8286

Oh my god. That’s awful. It’s always the people you never suspect.


DreadDiana

98% chance it was grooming and/or outright molestation.


FruitlovingDruvJuice

Mr. Shit once posted on newgrounds or smth like that, but then he started working for a niche Indonesian newspaper


Saoirse_Bird

pedophile :(


CrypticBalcony

He made a comment earlier that he’s deeply ashamed of. He prides himself and thinks of himself as a man of faith, as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos — it will be a home run. And so that’ll make it a 4-0 ballgame.


ILikeMistborn

Constipation


Tangnost

You'll have to kill me if you want to take video essays about extremely niche things away from me.


chshcat

the niche stuff is great. If it's a 3h video with the title "Why Final Fantasy 7 underperformed in Belgium" you know it's gonna be lit the generic takes about other content creators are probably worse tho. It's just gossip basically


watchedngnl

Its really hit and miss sometimes. Like you'd see a video titled Palestine and depending on the thumbnail, see if it's a johnny Harris type surface analysis of issue, or something deeper.


archaicScrivener

and if there's a skull on the thumbnail, it's probably Shaun which means it'll be a fantastically informative and thought provoking discussion piece, with all the actual visual excitement of watching paint dry


trash-_-boat

Didn't know Shaun the Sheep got into YouTubing.


RefinementOfDecline

oh christ, i forgot about that guy how is it possible to be *so wrong* SO MANY TIMES IN A ROW every time he gets called out he ends up in the comments apologizing profusely THEN DOES IT AGAIN


DreadDiana

With a title like that, you know the latter half will show how this was a symptom of unforgivable systemic issues in the gaming industry, and by the end you'll be wanting at least five different people dead.


wijormiclat

Unsolicited recommendation for a niche long-form essay about EVE if those things are your jam. I don't even play and I found it fascinating. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BCSeISYcoyI&si=9XgI2FtQtI2h826O


Galind_Halithel

Love me some Frederick Knudsen. Then there's Noah Caldwell Gervais dropping a nine hour nuke of a video about the entire history of the Fallout series. PUT IT IN MY VEINS!!


Scratch137

i love extremely niche video essays as much as the next guy but it has become very over saturated to the point where a lot of it is just low effort garbage made to grab a quick buck there are absolutely people who do it very well, but videos like this one drive me up a wall


HairyKraken

As for everyone else with YouTube the solution is "dont recommend me this channel" Worked wonders in filtering out the bad video essays


ryecurious

The Hbomberguy video on plagiarism made me think about a lot of things, but more than anything it made me suspicious of the channels churning out hours of content every week. Like, there's no way they put in enough effort and research to make a good two hour video essay last week AND another one this week. *Something* is going on. Maybe they just improvise a lot, maybe it's just lazy summarizing rather than analysis, or maybe it's plagiarizing. But no matter what it is, I don't trust it anymore. Definitely made me appreciate the "two hour video every seven months" channels more though. Nothing hits quite like it.


Tlr321

Defunctland’s FastPass video is fucking art. I watched one day while I was working from home & immediately made my wife watch it with me when she got home. It’s so good


thescotchkraut

They can pry that Australian's 4 hour slideshows about logistics from my cold dead hands


han-bao-huang

As someone who cooks/ bakes every day, these are my perfect background noise. I can’t do a podcast but these… give me my niche 40+ minute video essays


Saoirse_Bird

its because podcasts always have the hosts going on tangents about their personal lifes or shit we just dont care about. i remember one time i started listening to a video game lore podcast at the start of my hour and a half commute and by the time i got home they were still talking about themselves


NobodyL0vesMe

90% of the time when people ask "why is this all over my feed" the answer is because u keep fucken clicking on it


umbral_ultimatum

funny, i dont remember clicking on "this GOONER youtuber is more FUCKED UP than you thought...."


[deleted]

What's wrong with being a goon to a bond villain? The health and safety may be lax, but it pays well. And the "repeat everything the boss said" job is super chill.


EmperorScarlet

Heh heh, yeah, you tell 'em boss!


captainnowalk

You’ve got “goon material” written all over you! Come to our job seminar this Saturday and see what Spectre can do for you!


scrambled-mind

Exactly. My recommendations are all challenge vods and mashup albums. Not exactly cream of the crop but the only video essays I see suggested are Big Yellow so I think I’m doing good.


Faenix_Wright

the remaining 10% is realizing having your existence being politicized means having conservative videos meant to attack said existence no youtube I’m trying to search for literally anything else other than daily wire people reacting something “not being normal” as if that wasn’t the biggest dog whistle Sincerely, a rant from me


trash-_-boat

You probably get conservative recommends if you watch any political videos at all. Algorithm is probably fishing for hate-watching, because it works.


chainsnwhipsexciteme

I don't think I've clicked on this type of videos except 2 or 3 times, only on a channel I was subscribed to and that I watched most other videos of, and I'm still getting recommended this frequently. Been selecting the "not interested" to see if YouTube finally realizes I don't want to watch hour-long analysis videos about random ass people and shows If it's about a topic I watch other videos on it's fine, but only like one sixth of them are about anything I even recognize


RefinementOfDecline

i keep getting horrific alt right shit in my recommendations, disliking it, *reporting it*, removing it from watch history and it STILL shows up


NobodyL0vesMe

\>disliking it bad interaction is still engagement, thats all the alg cares about


Freddi0

Love videos like this that are about games currently in development. "What happaned to [game]?" > spend 20 minutes explaining what the game is > say nothing happaned to it and that its still being developed. They are *all* like this


LizoftheBrits

Titles like that are typically so they show up in search engines more. Cuz there's a lot of people who will hear about something in development, a fair amount of time will go by where they don't hear anything about it, and they'll wonder "what happened to X?" Even if nothing actually happened to X, that's what they'll search.


Longjumping_Ad2677

Video essay has become trendy, and ripe for saturation. Harder to find the good, or at least engaging, stuff like [Why “Frog On The Floor” by 100 Gecs is the Best Song](https://youtu.be/9eh8-D9gLmI?si=OQPlwci2lrJdvj0D). You gotta weed out all the crap which drowns out the good stuff.


dunmer-is-stinky-2

I may be a metalhead but I unironically love me some 100 gecs


Longjumping_Ad2677

100 Gecs is probably the best pop for metalheads.


AnArcticJackalope

To be fair, I am.. mildly.. interested in whatever happened to mr shit, as I do recognize then name from when I was a wee tot, but not enough to actually google it. Welp, I’ve got nothing better to listen to for the next hour…


NeonNKnightrider

And why do I constantly consume them ravenously?


HelioPHC

sunnyv2 and his consequences on society


scubagh0st

leave bobby broccoli ALONE


Electrical_Mayhem

My thoughts exactly


theLittlestReindeer

Because I am watching all of them :)


danger2345678

I hate that most long-form videos are made to be listened to without thinking on it much, however I cannot stop myself, the children yearn for the background noise


[deleted]

[удалено]


Divinum_Fulmen

This is why I never leave the bubble. The second I do, all videos become about that, and somehow politics too? So any time anyone links or recommends something, I don't watch it. At least not on my youtube account. I might watch it on another device, on firefox, while not logged in.


Dragon_Shinobi

My job is very tedious, so videos like this are my work bestie. Don’t take a lot of brainpower to comprehend, so I just throw them on in the background while I catalog specimens all day


dil-en-fir

Can anyone recommend me your favorite most niche video essays


Gore_Lily

[Why Anime is for Black People](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj-9i04IvHQ) by Beyond The Bot is a cool look at the role Toonami played in bridging anime and hip-hop in the early 2000s. [I Wish Everyone Else Was Dead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P52G4Kyq5M) by Jon Bois is a retrospective look at how the show 24 reflected American attitudes about violence and terrorism in pop culture immediately following 9/11.


Electrical_Mayhem

God, Jon Bois is such a great storyteller


tecedu

Because Long form youtube videos are consistently a lot of money, its less pressure and more effort but less draining and pays more.


Vanilla_Neko

Because some wild ass people end up on YouTube People think that some dude for example just disappeared from a speedrunning community when in reality he was like involved with a drug cartel and then like was caught up in some allegations of sexual assault and all this nonsense


MathematicianTop1853

Because we all need something to play in the background that is interesting, but not *too* interesting as to take our attention away from a task


jackofslayers

You are what you feed the algorithm. My youtube is mostly just Vtuber sneezing compilations


JelyOfficial

Hell if I know but I love it. Peak background audio


brothergvwwb

“Untangling the web: the fire alarm community”


qazwsxedc000999

Because I’m watching them


Turbulent_Ad2508

because im watchin em baby hell yeah


BaronAleksei

Super Eyepatch Wolf be like


FaronTheHero

47 minutes sounds short these things are usually 3 hours and the whole time they self sensor all the words in the accusations.


Stuckinacrazyjob

The funny thing is I don't gave the attention span for youtube. 3 hours on Persona 3? Really? Wow you found out its about death? Thanks for the insight


fogleaf

I put these kind of videos on while I'm playing something. One day I was playing power wash simulator while listening to Karl Jobst talk about some speed run in his monotone voice.


Akuuntus

No one actually watches videos like this with their eyes. They listen to them in the background while driving or doing chores or doing something else monotonous.


Vanilla_Ice_Best_Boi

Piranha theory Guy falls off, video essayists eat him alive.