Political Video Essays

[Friday]

hello, I am Friday, age 9 THOUSAND WHAT OVER NINE THOUSAND?!?!!

So along with every other human being (and whale?) on the planet, my habits changed in the last three years due to Covid. One of those changes was my consumption of long form video essay content on youtube. This is partially due to just being bored and trapped inside for two years, and partially due to the absolute explosion of youtube video essays due to everyone being trapped inside for two years.

Anyway, I don't give a fuck about explaining to you about how and why video youtube essays have become popular, the pitfalls of the format, how some people are using this hot new format to do whatever the fuck that is bad, how they relate to debate bro content, how content mills have integrated with and are seamlessly ruining video essays along with everyone and everything else, what even content mills are, how react videos to youtube essays are bad and lazy, dramatube existing at all, how streamers will just put on a video essay and leave for sometimes hours at a time, giving rise to a whole genre of streaming now laughably known as "streamer chair video essay", etc etc etc.

All of that meta analysis shit is not what this thread is about. I mention it because if I don't, someone, somewhere, will express confusion as to how this new form of media exists and then I will have to actually explain all of that boring ass shit. If you really want to learn the meta shit surrounding video essays and their rise, feel the fuck free. I have faith in you to type shit into youtube's and google's search bar.

What this thread is about is actually engaging with the content instead of examining the content surrounding the content.

But before we can do that, there's one last thing to discuss. And that thing is

THE RUNTIME BARRRRRRRRRRRRRR

99.99997% of human beings will look at a video that is longer than 45 seconds and run, screaming, ploughing through drywall, directly into the street and then explode, showering a fifteen mile radius with entrails. Thus, it is difficult to get people to engage with content that is two hours or five hours in length.

So I'll try my best!

A while back, a white dude making a video essay informed me that I was racist because I only watched white dudes making video essays. And he was right! He then recommended some POC content creators and I watched a few videos. One of my favorite of these was F.D Signifier, a black man and former teacher. I have recommended him before to this community, because his video on Black Panther is excellent and really helped me understand why that movie was so important to black people.

He's got a demeanor and voice that is very chill and easy to listen to. His editing isn't annoying. He's very, very good at explaining shit in a direct way while also being fairly entertaining. He has that rare gift where he can take an issue, talk about it enough so that you don't lose nuance, and also not so much that you get lost in all the minutia, and he keeps a very welcoming and chill vibe throughout.

Anyway, here's a video he released two months ago called Fuck The Police.



I'm only going to post essays to this thread occasionally. I could dump ten more very good videos on you right now, but I want to give people time to engage with the content. I know a two hour runtime bar is intimidating, and I know you have a kid, and I know that you're busy. You can watch the video in chunks, like I do. I don't even have a kid and I watch this kind of shit in chunks.

I know that maybe only like five people will watch this video because I put it here, in an obscure and dying message board. I'm okay with that.

Of course, feel free to link your own shit here, comment on the videos, whatever. We have a thread dedicated to stupid meme videos that's named after me, so I figured I might as well also have a thread doing the opposite of that.

[Upthorn]

This may not have been a great time to post a 2 hour video essay, because we all just finished watching HBomberguy's 4 hour video essay about plagiarism on Youtube (and four specific indefensible offenders).

That said, I went ahead and did watch the FD Signifier video you linked. I'd been avoiding it for a while because I wrongly assumed it would all be stuff I knew already, but it turns out that this mediocre white man is not actually an expert on everything! And all the shit he talks about is really important.

If you're in the market for more video essayists of color, I'd highly recommend Khadija Mbowe:

[Friday]

Oh yeah one last protip for video essays: watch at as fast a speed as you can comprehend. I usually tune between 1.25 and 1.5, depending on the speed and cadence of the person doing the essay. This means I have to pause a lot to read some of the information they put up, but overall I still shave off like 30 minutes to an hour depending on runtime. Or like three hours shaved off if it's a Tim Rogers video.

[Büge]

I like video essays for tedious work. Like when I sorted cards at the game store.

[Mongrel]

Oh yeah one last protip for video essays: watch at as fast a speed as you can comprehend. I usually tune between 1.25 and 1.5, depending on the speed and cadence of the person doing the essay. This means I have to pause a lot to read some of the information they put up, but overall I still shave off like 30 minutes to an hour depending on runtime. Or like three hours shaved off if it's a Tim Rogers video.

Oh yeah, I have to do this even for ten minute videos because most people just speak too slowly for me when recording, period. I suspect that if I could do this IRL I would never have had the problem I did with falling asleep in meetings.