mbt whining about """""video essays""""" for 20 minutes

[@MBTYuGiOh]

man the train part of the stream gets more unhinged daily

[@cashclam1126]

Bro you GOTTA put a train playlist on the channel. Shit actually helps me sleep

[@PiePie453]

Hey you could write a video essay about this 🤔

[@Crazybean2012]

Slowly but surely we move towards a train-only stream

[@pelzebub6664]

Not mentioning Dan Olson/Folding Ideas just proves that you'r a HACK and a FRAUD and not a true video essay connoisseur. You will never be a terminally online trans women that watches Hbomb videos on a loop to keep the voices at bay.

[@Thegameshadow1]

Isn't your video about "killing your darlings" (great video btw) a video essay though?

[@roronoa1243]

>Look up video essay about a game >Ask if it's critique or a plot summary >They laugh and say "It's a good essay, ma'am." >Look inside >Plot summary

[@NinaNinaM24]

I had this experience with a video analysis of Psych (the TV show). I don't want to call them out specifically but I went in expecting some interesting takes but it was just them summarizing the plot, I was very disappointed and stopped like 15 minutes in. It's not the deepest show in the world or anything but you could easily make some interesting points about the roles of each character and how they evolved over the seasons.

[@willsoe]

It's all plot summaries? Always has been. Seriously though, if the video essay opens with a retelling of the first things that happen in the game, I just close it. It's a plot summary.

[@cbbblue8348]

Just now was about to watch a Pokémon related video essay and dead ass rambling about Trans 20 minutes in. Idk what video essay are doing rn

[@MBTYuGiOh]

GOD this is so true

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

It is wild to me how I can come across multi-million view videos that are plot summaries. And then some 1k sub channel with five amazing videos making an incredibly convincing argument that the 2005 Hotwheels Accelaracers series has incredibly complex themes that it lays out and expands upon thoroughly putting it in the category of masterpiece that we normally reserve for shows like Arcane and Invincible.

[@Sachi000]

I can't believe Tommy Tallarico said this

[@blackinferno3]

His mother is so proud.

[@Poppipower]

I thought it was Joey

[@leul1551]

As someone who loves video essays, I think the disconnect is that people actually love a casual rant that lasts for hours, but KZbin titles do best with phrases that have the aesthetic of a well researched and structured essay

[@rapalborde5211]

THIS

[@willsoe]

The other issue is KZbin favours long videos vs quality. Meaning when you upload an 11 hour review of oblivion that functionally boils down to nothing more than a summary of everything IN the game, without critcism, comparison, or critical thought, it'll still get pushed to people because it's THE FUNNY 11 HOUR OBLIVION VIDEO

[@F3XT]

@@willsoe your comment made me realize I probably turn off my brain way more when I watch a video with more than 3 hours, but I guess most of them are actual critiques

[@willsoe]

@@F3XT yeah I had that realisation too and it just made me mad at myself for being swindled into listening for hours without realising very little of value is being said. I'm very very picky about video essayists now.

[@simpking2500]

This is a video essay about: trains -> Rhystic studies needs to branch out -> video essays suck now -> Incest -> 9-11 -> A-Z energy load. This is true art.

[@raze667]

It's kinda a shame that his conclusion is "Man, it's a shame Rhystic Studies only writes about magic." When it's the subject they care to write about.

[@RoosterCogburnPhD]

>"Analysis" of recent adult entertainment trends >Look inside >Review of *Clueless*

[@garysue1589]

because i had gotten this video recommended to me too, my brother. the lab-manufactured bait guy was so off the point. he mentioned how WESTERN culture is the perverted one and how adult entertainment trends in the east are much more normal, bringing up JAPAN as an example of a 'normal, healthy' country. bro really made baby's first video essay within 5 minutes of seeing something and a few google searches 😭

[@Generalizedfeelings]

I feel like this MBT guy could really make a cool KZbin career talking about Yu-Gi-Oh.

[@bej4987]

Too much of a niche market

[@leftreadjed5627]

What’s Yu-Gi-Oh

[@Ragnarok540]

I heard that game is dying.

[@kongk4]

What makes the Austin McConnell video extra funnier was when, in an interview, he said the point of the video was not about Shudderwock (nor about card games in general) but about patch preservation... Ya know that random bit at end that's barely a minute long? When he basically asks "do we own our games when companies can patch them without our consent?" That part is what he claims to be the ENTIRE point of the video. It's like if the teacher went on a rant about his EX wife which leads to crashing his car, taking it to a mechanic, then asking the class to use calculus to figure out if he's getting scammed on the repair bill.

[@Ramannoodleduler]

Becoming a video essayists is the same as becoming a podcaster except you do not have friends to start a podcast with

[@Oof316]

I think Dan Green said in an interview that 9/11 happened right before they started recording for the Yugioh dub. He said it was the reason he put so much effort and heart into the role of the Pharaoh, so that kids could be inspired and filled with hope. Something like that.

[@kyubimage9526]

I can absolutely believe this video went from real criticsm, to the hardest self report known to man, to funny towers jokes. Joseph is just like this.

[@tpspeed]

I remember when the Shudderwock video came out and I was still really heavily playing hearthstone. I just remember seeing it and being like "... Shaman isn't even the best thing to play this format, why pick out this one card in particular?"

[@cowabungaitis9319]

Because Shudderwock is a recognizable meme i guess, its like that news site that got tricked into writing about a classic wow character that didnt exist and was just a reddit meme

[@tpspeed]

​@cowabungaitis9319 god remember "what is this 4chan"? What a time that was

[@ZZI44418]

Wasn't it the one where they just wrongly assume that a duplicated shudderwock from one of the battlecries it copies casts its own set of battlecries? I couldn't sit through the whole of it Edit: I have alzheimer's

[@colossaldonut5190]

Yeah. I was just sitting there enjoying all the meme Shudderwock combo videos going "man if only this was actually good"

[@cbbblue8348]

Is this what Nirvana High Paladin of Hearthstone

[@BoBnfishy]

Jenny Nicholson doesn't just make video essays, she makes NUMBERED LISTS.

[@raishijtenobles3103]

That freestyle from 14:26 on, was diabolical and is one of the reasons why MBT's goated with the sauce

[@NickMirambeau]

"this is a good essay, but why is it a video?" consider: i DON'T wanna read an essay, but i DO wanna watch or listen to a video

[@achehex]

My biggest problem is that video essay became this very popular label to ascribe to things, so nowadays any kind of long form video that is even slightly scripted either calls itself or gets called by audience a video essay.

[@monseigneurmyriel5803]

it's very funny to see MBT say "if (youtuber) put effort into expanding beyond (specific card game) content they could be so huge" when that's what I've been saying about MBT for years

[@galaxyvulture6649]

Mbt definitely would be a million view channel if he played more popular games. His scripts, humor, editing, and skits are always so well done. It just sucks yugioh is kinda niche.

[@mrbubbles6468]

@@galaxyvulture6649Yu-Gi-Oh is huge. Fact is MBT still doesn’t produce the kind of videos that get those numbers. He doesn’t even make the kind of conteny he says Yugioh needs or that he wants to make.

[@galaxyvulture6649]

@@mrbubbles6468 The only videos I've seen that get a lot of views are the boomer nostalgia or those meta slaves vs some obscure deck (like beating tear 0 with elemental hero clayman) duels. They wont get that much attention in general unless it's from a person who doesn't regularly upload yugioh videos like rhymestyles or penguinz0. I still love the game, but that's just how it is. I know I rarely upload, but I swapped over to anime and memes instead (mainly stopped since I have no idea how to download anime videos to speak over).

[@urd3adnow]

@@mrbubbles6468 the biggest pokemon channel, wolfey, has just over a million subs. pokemon is like...the most ubiquitous nerd IP in the world. now i know that there are other nerd IPs that have million sub channels so this isn't a 1:1 *proof* that yugioh channels can't balloon into multimillion sub channels...but it is evidence that, at the very least, it's super fucking hard to do. i think fair to claim it probably can't happen with any amount of effort.

[@philbuttler3427]

​​@@urd3adnowwolfey is not the biggest Pokemon channel, there's shiny hunting channels with multiple times his viewership. No Pokemon fan gives a shit he won the world championship or whatever

[@prosamis]

Did he just improv all that? Holy shit

[@mihaimorar2043]

On the topic of Video Essays, I reccomend the channel Bobby Broccoli. He does really engaging, detailed essays on various scandals, largely focussed on the sciences, like physics and chemistry. The way he does visuals is especially great and often helps keep track of all the pieces.

[@glitchedoom]

An essay needs a thesis. I think that's what most of these people making 3 hour long videos don't understand.

[@lancerguy3667]

I’d argue the reason they make video essays when they don’t have anything intended for the video aspect is simply that you’ll attract WAY more engagement with a video essay than a traditional one. If YGO has taught me anything, it’s that most people will stubbornly refuse to read, no matter how interesting the subject.

[@tinfoilslacks3750]

Feels like people are just getting needlessly hung up on the label of "video essay" because they can't call it "a one person podcast where you just listen to someone you like talk about things you're interested in".

[@gabrielfeldinger6533]

thats what i was thinking most of the time watching this

[@rafresendenrafresenden.1644]

You dont need to like the person

[@DoctorFalchion]

Most video essays are just a tightened up, semi-scripted version of the first hour of an MBT stream. Which can be entertaining! However, putting them in the same bucket does not do the truly great video essays of the world justice. (Shoutouts to Jacob Geller and BobbyBroccoli, probably the two best video essayists IMO not already talked about by Joseph. Also a big fan of Raycevick and The Geek Critique when it comes to video games specifically, though it's worth noting they take far less advantage of the video medium and are instead just... good essayists)

[@shablam0]

The problem is that algorithmically they are being put in the same bucket, so the same audience that likes video essays are getting these videos where people like to talk about things they're interested in. That's the main reason people don't like this trend.

[@armorelarmadura7807]

This is sometimes called the Big Yellow video

[@MonochromaticPrism]

He even gets the premise wrong in the setup. The huge spike in incest porn could be attributed, at least in part, to a huge range of potential factors. After a brief google: it has been suggested that incest is the only porn to consistently feature any narrative element and the spikes in consumption and demand were due to increases in women consuming porn. Others have attributed the spikes in growth from 2011 and 2014 to be in part due to the popularity of Game of Thrones. Maybe it goes back further. It could be that youth media from the 1990s to 2010s primarily depicted characters in same sex friendships, with opposite gender friendships being more common between siblings and so making for a setup that seems more approachable. Also noteworthy data point: blood related incest remains relatively low popularity, with the majority of incest porn being step-sibling or similarly separated. So here's a neat idea: The 1980s featured the highest rate of divorce the US has ever seen, at nearly 50%. 2011 is about 20 years later, so another possibility is that a huge number of step-siblings actually did want to bang (or at least thought about it) but didn't, and were just reaching their mid to late 30s in 2011 (and thus starting to have meaningful economic influence as a block) and the market provided. Additionally, maybe so many children from that period knew divorced and remarried families that it was actually a common fantasy lingering in the societal background, furthering the economic block theory. Finally, it could be that "putting yourself out there" has acquired more passive stressors over time, so the relative safety of the incest premise, where individuals are operating in what is implied to be a personally comfortable environment and around someone who isn't a complete stranger, is more attractive as a viewing option. There's actually a surprising amount of literature out there, this is barely scratching the surface. This is a genuinely interesting question, and the guy just abandons it in favor of boringly generic movie analysis.

[@TheWrathAbove]

Another huge factor I've seen is that it's the least offensive "taboo" we currently have. People like their taboos in porn, but as society has become more liberal both socially and sexually, many things that were once seen as taboo are now accepted as normal. And while there are a lot of taboo fetishes that cross many lines, there's nothing technically wrong step-relations it just has bad vibes.

[@MonochromaticPrism]

@@TheWrathAbove good point.

[@Hotshot3334]

Strange but appreciated write-up. It was my impression that step "relationships" are more popular than blood simply because 'step' isn't actually illegal most places so studios and creators are much more likely to add it to the title to avoid controversy or censorship even if it doesn't substantively alter the work. I also assumed that 'step' gets an extra boost algorithmically because it can be used as a modifier on any familial scenario, not just sibling, so it's representation as a search term is increased significantly more than other niche tastes. This could further create a feedback loop wherein a studio produces, for example, 4 'step' videos with different family members in each title and which cater to different audiences but all fall within the 'step' umbrella. Then every other studio sees the success of 'step', makes their own 4 videos and now it's become all the content being produced at scale and audiences adapted accordingly. But that's just the nature of content creation in general.

[@lobbynotlob]

maybe it's just the ipad baby brainworms, but a big problem with video essays is that they hate getting to the point. they LOVE doing cheeky lil bits for like the first two minutes of a video as they explain the most basic ideas that everyone that clicks already knows.

[@specter2443]

Counter point: Super Eye patch Wolf.

[@cbbblue8348]

Sometimes fun topic like fake video game and other time seeing him losing his shit on Simpson is funny

[@dogsachu]

the Garfield video is amazing and his videos are well researched.

[@specter2443]

@@dogsachu TRUE

[@OlgaZuccati]

that incest epidemic video is one of the worst videos i have watched in a while "Please, I'm getting somewhere with this!" -> proceeds to get nowhere for 30 minutes

[@trexdrew]

Lmao I absolutely didn’t expect him to go on an unhinged diatribe about 9/11 as the “hook” for the worst fucking Union support card they’ve shown. 😂

[@Spyko-]

oh yeah "when card games break" have been bothering me forever, he state at some point that the devs overlooked the fact that shudder could replay it's own battlecry and go infinite that way, which is completely incorrect and that just break the whole video like even if it wasn't supposed to be a more general videos and just specifically a video about shudder in HS (which it is, dunno why he didn't gave it a better title) it just doesn't work because he is incorrect on what are the issues with shudderwock

[@tabbune]

"When card games break" was so bad it gave me a mini existential crisis about video essays. Like, how many utterly dogshit video essays have I just watched and accepted? The only reason I caught the errors in "When card games break" was because I actually understand the subject matter

[@ahmadazem4167]

​@tabbune most of them , lol

[@robbieharris8758]

If the Irish psychosis of Super Eyepatch Wolf doesnt return your hope in KZbin essayists. Nothing will. Man genuinely instilled a comic horror in me when I think of Garfield

[@Lyn_Lapislauli]

As a Fire Emblem fan, seeing how the internet has been reacting to incesm recently is very funny since for FE fans it's like "haha, funny EphraimXEirika" and "haha, you can manufecture RoyXLilina as incesm by making EliwoodXFarina and HectorXFlorina or Farina".

[@mudkipofdespair1684]

And then there’s FE4, which is just “Incest: The Game”

[@ccjl9160]

​@@mudkipofdespair1684that's a false reputation. The game makes the case that incest produces the Antichrist of the FE universe - it's heavy on "incest bad" if anything. The non-canon manga is the only thing that glorifies incest

[@Sauron17011]

Quality of the games aside still find it very funny how they made extra sure for all the S-supports for the royalty in fates to go „Oh no we aren‘t actually related by blood, this isn‘t incest :)“ But they kinda forgot that there is still a character directly related to the main character, and she is marriageable in all 3 routes.

[@Landmassorussia]

Rhystic studies is actually what got me into looking into a lot of mtg artists. I've always loved the art on magic cards, but they got me to start recognize that "oh wait, this is an artist and they have a really cool style that I love", and honestly makes me start to miss the fact that other hobbies I adore don't credit artists, namely Pathfinder and Warhammer (though paizo is much better at it, I'd just love to see a breakdown of who drew what in each book)

[@sunphoenix26]

Summoning Salt and Bismuth have gotta be up there as fantastic essayists.

[@cbbblue8348]

Tbh if there's parodies of the Essayists, that's a huge plus because they are so recognised among sea of "cassettes tape coffee mug" Essayists.

[@tobagabonany]

So weird watching this while on a train that's going the opposite direction

[@FwapoMcGee]

He doesn’t post very often, but I adore Ahoy’s videos. Every one is just dripping with passion and polish.

[@MrGshinobi]

lost all respect for austin when he made a promo video for his upcoming novel that was all animated by AI with AI voices and then he rightfully got shit for it and then went full damage control and made a video defending himself just to end up looking worse.

[@AJ-hh6sq]

The fact that the ABC 911 bit was completely improvised is actually incredible

[@Bootitan]

I feel vindicated to learn there are others who disliked the Shudderwock essay, because I remember complaining about it after release to people who had no idea what Hearthstone was because I had no other outlet at the time haha

[@ubermenschen01]

Holy shit, that ending bit where he delivers a fake bad video essay script about Yugioh and 9/11 off the dome is incredible. He has too much power.

[@NoGreatImport]

Tim Rogers/Action Button. The king of the 3+ hour video game essay retrospective.

[@Zzz-j2f]

HELLO. I was looking for this comment. He’s one of only three people I’ve decided to support on patreon.

[@TheWrathAbove]

Bro, his Tokimeki Memorial video is bonkers good, and super important since it's imo the best way to learn about a very important game that will likely never get an english TL

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

@@TheWrathAbove It has one, you just install a patch for the Super Nintendo version and run it on an emulator. The video itself is just "fine" in my opinion. It was at its best when he was going over his gameplay and likening the dating sim mechanics to dark souls. It has helped me explain to people why I find social sim games so engaging and stuff like action roguelikes so dull. It was at its worst when he was leading into the discussion and trying to tie the game to themes of cyberpunk.

[@balrogdahomie]

I feel like anyone watching video essays should keep in mind that, like most human creations, they of course follow Sturgeons Law. 90% of them suck. I also want to push back a little on the Austin McConnell derision. The card game video was absolutely a massive blunder, I don’t dispute that, but he’s made some interesting videos in the past. I enjoyed his video about Tag and Bink, and of course the “how to survive when your parachute fails” video is great comedy. He just went way out of his wheelhouse with the TCG video for some reason. Although, I do admit, a little bit of my compulsion to defend him probably comes from the fact he’s still recovering from a major stroke, last I checked. Which, in a purely logical world, would be completely unrelated to how I feel about his content, but unfortunately we don’t. Rhystic Studies is the absolute GOAT though

[@MiyaoMeow588]

HBomber is the pioneer of this exact type of content but even he's put out a few stinkers Video essays requires a solid balance of "an appropriate amount of research" but also "an appropriate amount of investment". You need to not only know what you're talking about but convince me that you've taken the time to genuinely engage with what you're talking about

[@rafresendenrafresenden.1644]

Oh! So like marketing

[@fatcat2015]

I think the man himself is the stinker based on his tweets.

[@najawin8348]

HB's media essays are some of the worst video essays anyone has ever put out. Dude _cannot_ understand what creatives are going for, and is unable to see things outside of his own, incredibly limited, reading of their work.

[@Monroah]

Yeah I love Hbomb as much as the next neurodivergent white boy, but I'll be the first to admit that his DS2 and Bloodborne vids aren't great and ramble too long (something he ironically got better with, even with the superlong vids)

[@pelzebub6664]

@@najawin8348 oooh someone's butthurt because the youtube funny man said thing they like is bad

[@gligarguy4010]

I've never seen Joseph be so correct, yet so wrong, at the same time. Like exactly every other point he makes is correct.

[@najawin8348]

ikr? The F35 works.

[@QueerChesed]

CJ the X has a great video essay about Folger's coffee, for those interested

[@jasonlu9562]

just about to comment CJ the X. The very normal takes he have in his very normal video is indeed very enjoyable in a family friendly kind of way.

[@happycamperds9917]

His videos are less videos essays and moreso just a genius ranting about random stuff.

[@JPitt1070]

People just label too many videos as “video essays” now. A long video doesn’t not equal video essay. A video with one person talking about one topic does not equal video essay. Sometimes a video can just be a video and we don’t have to call everything a video essay Jesus Christ

[@fatcat2015]

A long video about a particular topic is functionally an essay, considering the script itself is almost literally an essay.

[@liquidorion9250]

​@@fatcat2015That's not true. Essays can be long or short. OP is right, there's no one clear and exhaustive definition of what constitutes an essay, written or otherwise. People have different opinions on what an essay should be, so they take issue with those that don't fit their criteria.

[@erisia_gaming]

can we get a half hour video essay about aluber the boober of doober

[@Distain_Gaming]

Jacob Geller is the best video essayist.

[@canadianfencer]

I love his stuff because he seems to genuinely be really interested in what he's talking about and I really like his delivery. I could see people not super vibing with him but his essays are always fun for me and even when I don't necessarily love them I do enjoy going "Oh yeah, that sounds like a good obscure book he mentioned, I want to look it up!"

[@gma5607]

Geller is a good presenter but often writes a very long essay that just comes to the most obvious conclusion imaginable. Yeah Jacob I guess I would be fucked up to die in a snowstorm.

[@Zzz-j2f]

Meh

[@willsoe]

You miss spelled matthewmatosis

[@ProtoKrok]

​@@willsoeno, that one said the n-word because a game wasn't depicting enough racism

[@__AlexTheGr8__]

I think the absolute worst part of that Austin McConnell video is that Shudderwock combo wasn't even a good deck at the time!! It had a sub-50% winrate on ladder!! It was just really annoying because Shudderwock's effect took a long-ass time to resolve, so it added a minute or more to your turn every time you used it

[@Crawver]

Pretty much. The moment they fixed the animation lock, so your opponent didn't rope out instantly, it was kind of underwhelming. Ddos shaman was pure evil as it did literally break the functioning of the game. Shuderwock shaman was just whatever.

[@diggysdungeon]

Timbah On Toast delisted his videos but the video essay he made about how dubstep became brostep is my favourite YT video of all-time. Thankfully someone reuploaded it so we can all still enjoy it

[@MapOfTheLost]

i think at the end of the day the reason why there are so many video essays taht don't need a video component is that it's the only way your work can get seen and monetized. way more people watch videos than read essays, which is unfortunate.

[@Lich_V.]

Okay, just because more people do this style of video doesn't mean it is destroyed. It just means if more people do it, there is a lot more of it out there and since not everyone is as talented as hbomb, jacob geller or folding ideas and some people just want money of course there are going to be really bad creators/"""""essays""""" (calling SunnyV2 an essayist is really stretching the definition). But it's not like there were no bad essayists before the """rise""" of the genre, you just didn't know of them because they were so small. And people (this is just my assumption) who watch quality essays do not watch the garbage ones. I don't think sunny and hbomb share an audience. So, how are the quality ones being hurt? And how do the not perfect essays hurt the genre (regarding the comments towards jenny nicholsen)? Are people not allowed to try? Has everyone to start perfect or be perfect? That's just a really weird take that isn't thought through at all and sounds largely like pointless whining for the sake of whining.

[@rapalborde5211]

I guess the marginally larger number of trash essays compared to the few good ones end up burying the good ones in terms of reach and appeal. The lazy ones about popular topics get recommended more than the good ones and if you get a good one recommended theres a chance you don’t watch it because the credibility of video essayists has been hurt. This is only from my experience, other people’s feed will be different i think.

[@Lich_V.]

@@rapalborde5211 this whole concept of a unified genre of video-essays shatters if you look at it more than one second. the content and style of those creators are not even comparable. so you basically create the problem yourself by implying all of those people are part of this "genre". and yes they are all competing for views. but that has nothing to do with this "genre" (that doesn't exist). that is just how yt works. the conflict at heart here is basically between quality content and lazy content to make money an has nothing to do with the elusive genre of video-essayists.

[@rapalborde5211]

@@Lich_V. yeah essays are just a format not a genre thats true. I would appreciate if youtube or creators classified videos by rants,tops,analysis, documentaries, reviews,essays, and such because a lot of creators market their videos as things they are not but i guess is impossible to stop clickbait.

[@trashydaze3761]

The Strokes, Arcade Fire, Cage the Elephant vinyl in the back, shit, they engineered this guy in a lab to make *me* mad!

[@trashydaze3761]

How tf you gonna buy vinyl from bands out of the CD era

[@trashydaze3761]

like exclusively out of the CD era

[@Nyxowl]

Will not tolerate Jenny Nicholson slander especially since she does the editing herself.

[@pokecole37]

Not slander if it's true

[@TeamSprocket]

She's better than some but not great. It's just true.

[@GentleIceZ]

Jacob Geller is a good video essayist. Man talks about things that are weird, simple, strangely relatable and *FEAR.* Like seriously, "Fear of Cold" may be my favorite youtube essay ever Edit: I wrote this before looking at the rest of the comments. Glad to see we are all of one mind on this. But no one else mentioned Super Eyepatch Wolf, so I suppose I should mention him, too

[@TheWrathAbove]

I find Super Eyepatch Wolf is pretty divisive all his video essays down to even the one about struggling with Dell support have the exact same style and either you love it or you hate it.

[@GentleIceZ]

@@TheWrathAbove Understandable, but I find to be literally all video essayist. These people bring a lot of themselves into their work and we bring a lot of our baggage to them

[@TheWrathAbove]

@@GentleIceZ No that's super valid, I personally love Super Eyepatch Wolf's stuff I just felt I should bring it up since that's overwhleming impression I hear others have of him more so then other video essayists

[@electricspirit3600]

i can’t believe mbt would attack one of my top 7 favorite monsters of all time, a-z dragon buster cannon. now his points are invalid.

[@LazyLee]

The last bit is the most insane thjng ever and yet so mbt

[@PhantomThiefXI]

kasane teto on homepage

[@EpicVideoMaster11]

Shaun has some good ones, Bobby Brocc, Rhystic Studies, some old Contra Points, SB Nation specifically the king Jon Bois, Foolish Baseball, and some of FD Signifier's videos.

[@mudkipofdespair1684]

Jon Bois is the video essay goat

[@balrogdahomie]

A lot of people are hyping up Jacob Geller in the comments, mostly rightly so, I think. Not everything works perfectly for me, but I really appreciate that all of his videos have a coherent point and thesis. So many video essays nowadays are just meandering around an uninteresting point, and just… don’t build up to anything, I find

[@Mylexsi]

a four and a half minute rant parodying youtube 'essays', by segueing from post-9/11 america into how a particular trap card is bad. and you ad-libbed it. what the actual fuck.

[@Monroah]

It's the theater kid in him taking over. Improv acting translates very well into riffing for untold amounts of time

[@Seydaschu]

When an entire video has nothing to do with the title, it may as well end with the guy snapping his fingers and going "The Aristocrats"!

[@postcaesar4564]

Ever since mbt said JJK is for kids I thought “Wow he has a very defined scope for fun”, and hearing him rant about video essays and what goes into what is essentially his culling process reminded me of that

[@joseph011296]

Sometimes it feels like he dismisses a lot of things out of hand almost as a way to cope with being extremely busy and having very little free time.

[@postcaesar4564]

@@joseph011296That’s possible. It’s a shame he closes himself off from what others enjoy. There was a stream not too long ago where Farfa asked mbt if he wanted to start One Piece with him in earnest and Joseph reacted how you thought he would.

[@mysticalquilava]

What does this mean? What is Jjk?

[@PneumaAsh]

@@mysticalquilava Jujutsu Kaisen, a popular anime that I believe is currently airing or otherwise not finished

[@galaxyvulture6649]

​@@postcaesar4564To be fair one piece is over 1000 episodes. I watch one piece, but it's a big commitment. I do recommend watching it since it's going to probably end in a couple years so Twitter will break.

[@TheGodofweak]

Y'all should check out Jacob Geller, great essay content usually about video games or art, but never limited to those topics, they're not film-length and they actually have clever insight and often times a greater point. They almost come off as a thesis more than a video essay sometimes but share a format.

[@liammcphelin4775]

AtoZ energy load is somehow legimately worse in every way to union scramble a normal trap that is now searchable for the deck and also came out 8 YEARS AGO.

[@canadianfencer]

The point about some essays being good content that doesn't necessarily benefit from the visual factor is pretty fair and interesting. I love Jacob Geller's essays, for example, but I think the visual aspect isn't always necessarily *why.* And considering how he's now written a book that collects his best essays, it's probably fair to say they *can* function in a written medium. I suppose the 'counterargument' would be that just because something doesn't necessarily benefit from a visual medium it could just be the preferred way some people want to enjoy that type of content - like how some people prefer audiobooks to ebooks/physical books, for example...but I misuse quotation marks because I think it would be dishonest of me to argue that, since I don't think that's the main point MBT is ranting about in the video anyway. Like I can defend the "essays that don't need to be visual but are fun anyway" take, I just think I'd be fighting windmills at that point. Essay mills that seem designed to be half-listened to with poorly cited research *suck.* Worst of all, there are a lot of channels that don't really seem too interested in what they're even writing about anyway which contributes to that.

[@Yuseigo]

when he did the analysis my brain got fuzzy in the bad way

[@prohobbyist5872]

Joseph anderson has terrible video essays but i still find them enjoyable

[@GerryCasts]

Adam Neely is an excellent music theory video essayist. Highly recommend

[@top10k.]

Lemmino is one of my favorite video essay youtubers. Makes the some of the music and visuals for his own videos but uploads are very far and few in between.

[@Sauron17011]

Ehhh, channels like Lemmino or Defunctland more do documentaries than essays.

[@colossaldonut5190]

When is the incest epidemic video about Arc-V.

[@SaberToothPortilla]

I think the issue is less that video essays are getting worse and more that several things that are superficially similar grew at the same time. Synopsis and/or Documentary style videos started growing at around the same time, so of course you might expect one but get the other. There's a fair bit of crossover of course, but a lot of the above types of videos don't really focus on developing and supporting a point of view, like you'd generally expect with an essay, becauae that wasn't the point to begin with. It was just to inform people on something in the primary sense (More "Who, What, When, Where" less "Why, How" and other forms of analysis or critique) Also, it's of course the case that all of these tend to suffer from limited or poor research in the majority of cases, because the majority of people just aren't interested in doing it. That isn't necessarily a problem if people aren't presenting themselves as being an authority or anything, but it does tend to make the videos seem more expendible because it's just the same regularly referenced sources being used over and over. There's still a lot of great stuff being made in every category, it's just that there are so many people who don't seem particularly interested in making something really quality who see the dollars and do it (repeatedly) anyway.

[@numimio]

mbt takes more time talking about video essays than talking in his own videos

[@munchrai6396]

I think that general analysis focused on a specific medium probably works the best when it comes to video essays. There's a lot of really good literature content from channels like Hello Future Me that I'd still definitely categorize as video essays and even some really good videos on analyzing different aspects of video games from channels like Daryl Talks Games or Design Doc. Not to say more broad analysis can't work, both Super Eyepatch Wolf and Jacob Geller do a really good job of weaving together videos that cover uncomfortable and interesting topics in a very engaging way, but I do think the video and essay parts of these videos generally jell best when a topic's relationships are dissected between similar mediums so as not to dilute its focus, but you should probably avoid covering a single series if you're looking for anything more than a standard review

[@cruzgonzalez3919]

shoutout jacob geller, my favorite video essayist who actually makes video essays

[@dashiellbenson6221]

Andrew morris looks like tighten from megamind when he has no powers

[@CRIPPLINGSODIUMADDICT]

Bobby broccoli is the best video essay channel ive ever seen

[@GeneralNickles]

If someone really wanted to make a video essay about what happens when TCG devs dont pay any attention to the interactions between the cards they make, then the entire video needs to be about 2016 Pepe. Because starting with the release of Duelist Alliance in august of 2014, literally every set released contained some number of cards that had little to nothing to do with each other, until they did. And they did on precisely January 15th, 2016 with the release of Breakers of Shadow. The set that brought all these nearly totally unrelated cards together to form one of the most powerful decks the game has ever seen that _wasn't_ some cheesy FTK. And it all happened completely by accident. Konami just didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to what they were doing when they making all these pendulum cards, and accidentally made all of them work together just a little too well. That's a video essay worth making, and worth watching.

[@munchrai6396]

The Link era in general has a ton of examples of cards with unintended and potentially apocalyptic synergies. Probably because they made a lot of powerful Link monsters too strong for their own good. Heck, a card like Magicians' Souls is a prime example of this and that came out right near the end of MR4

[@MLB9610]

Joseph Anderson is so so good

[@frogzx]

Does Emplemon count as a video essayist? If so he's GOATed

[@Z3tona]

I'd describe him as closer to a documentarian, along with creators of a similar style like Jon Bois. I'd also argue that Emp is a lot weaker when he strays from the straight storytelling and attempts deeper media or societal analysis more in line with the ideal of a video essay. I don't think he's especially insightful or profound when he does so.

[@flackenstien]

Gokanaru and Miniminuteman are good from what I've seen from them. They aren't just copy pasting and saying what's already there. They put some work and effort into digging into and presenting the topic. I don't know if Technology Connections counts, but he's one of my favorite long form KZbinrs. He turns mundane topics into very interesting and useful videos, and has amazing comedic timing with his dessicated humor.

[@cbbblue8348]

Some video essay straight up do the opposite effect. I remembered stumbled upon the infamous Lily orchard during my Steven Universe hating phase. Immediately gave up when they start talking about Star Wars in the middle of Steven Universe video for like 20 minutes. And i reflected upon this person and decided to gave SU a chance again.

[@alephnull3535]

redemption arc

[@balistikscaarz1959]

I love The Closer Look, personally. Essay in nature in critiquing pieces of media while talking about how others do things better, but also just helps you become a better writer. Learned a lot.

[@ArchangelJuicy]

Now I kinda want to see an ygo essay from you an a few other yugitubers about all the cards to date and show the stack of these are the bad ones and these are the good ones. The bad cards would not even have remotely a 1 combo used with this card. And it would be about hoe Konami is printing actually good cards more or just bad cards and sticking to "komoney"

[@harryvincent3619]

I think at least we can all come together to agree that Lemmino is the king. He has transcended the genre of video essay

[@zephshoir]

This just reminds me of Joseph Anderson and the insane amount of effort he puts in his longer videos. Thank god he won't try and pull off another witcher trilogy once it is all done

[@jkid1134]

Off the fuckin cuff

[@eleonarcrimson858]

I am sure the 10k sub dude is trying his best. The art of making good KZbin videos is hard to master. If we were just to watch good quality videos, yugitubing wouldnt exist.

[@rafaelaltamirano8860]

Boby brocoli it's a great essayist

[@YanuYanu]

Its prob because they can shit out content using chatgpt and lemme tell you it shows

[@liviousgameplay1755]

Professional yapper yaps professionally at the end, I couldn't stop laughing

[@RenegadeRacoon]

He doing a real essay being sober is a plus in my books

[@samdavis6722]

F.D Signifier is a fantastic video essayist if you need to be reminded what a good one looks like

[@najawin8348]

....No? Perhaps the worst of them all.

[@pokecole37]

Everyone kept saying this and I couldn't remember who this was and I just looked it up and LMFAO bro this guy is a moron. Peep his anime vids if you wanna see someone who knows nothing about anything talk.

[@GingerThoroughBread]

Nakey Jakey's video essays are peak

[@lolface_9363]

My genuine favorite video essay is how to fix eggman by ALtheBoi I genuinely rewatch it every once in a while

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

Implicitly Pretentious hasn't put out a single bad video essay as far as I can tell and I have watched every upload of his for at least a year now.

[@sharlockshacolmes9381]

Rysthic study made me want to play a lantern deck even though it’s not viable anymore

[@Element_Doom]

I think i remember watching a video about the Wock, but not sure if it was that particular one.

[@jonathanbarker831]

The youtube channel horses is pretty spectacular if you're in to that sort of thing

[@Petsinwinter2]

Yeah, that's probably the only way to make the new trap interesting. It's just so irrelevant to anything

[@Wiipodicus]

i didnt think about profitability ruining essays i just assumed i grew up or something but that makes more sense