“This person sucks wow would you look at all this nonsense!” Is a time honoured fandom tradition, but for sure that’s not a video essay Used to call em “wank reports” which sounds so wrong and yet kinda accurate
Yea the word "essay" has lost a lot of meaning. People confuse it for "long winded piece about something" and then after 45-90 minutes you realize you just watched someone's drama, special interest podcast, or people turning one case into a generalization. Ironically I think the videos that include the phrase"...a video essay" are the ones I'm least likely to click on and/or seem to miss the idea of what one even is. Either way, I'm happy this is being discussed
I’ve unfollowed a lot of video essayists who I loved because of the pivot into being more drama focused. My rule of thumb is: did I learn more about theory in this video, did I learn more ideas, or did I learn more useless facts about a celebrity or internet figure? If the latter, I leave. I feel a little tricked after clicking on videos which promise to discuss queer or black or feminist theory and I come away knowing the time line of Taylor Swift’s relationships or some random quarrel between celebrities or internet figures I’d never heard about.
Too many people don’t know what a video essay is. I’ve seen people who just turn on the camera and talk call themselves video essayists. A video essay implies an essay was written so the video should be scripted imo. I think “drama channels” can also make video essays but most don’t. Most just turn on the camera and talk. A lotta video essayists are also commentary channels which are VERY similar to drama channels in a lotta ways. My favorite video essays are about movies and tv shows so no drama usually.
I would also add that video essays need research, just as written ones need Obviously it's even better when the sources are easily accessible, but they definitely have to be cited
It's still a video essay, it's just not a very good one. Someone can turn in a well researched written essay thats 50 pages and goes in depth and is very informative and someone else can turn in a double spaced 3 page essay that says less than the wikipedia page and doesn't really teach anyone anything. They are both essays, one is just low effort shit. A drama video is ultimately still a video essay, its just a term of derision for a low effort one that is poorly researched and is just some rando youtuber who wants to pump out a video about the current internet person of the day that is not very famous and most of their followers probably haven't even heard of.
at this point I don't even bother to click on videos that title themselves as "Video Essay" because there have been too many times those videos are just a long video of someone talking to a camera, not an actual researched essay with any sort of analysis. And to be fair I'll still sometimes watch that format of long video too, it just bothers me when they're TITLED as an essay when it's simply not.
The weirdest part of that 3 video essayists answering question video that inspired ur video is that I fully considered D'Angelo a drama channel not as hate but genuinely.
His takes have been devolving into mere drama and very weird centrist takes for a while. But then again that's his drama channel, he entirely dropped his main one in favour of the quickly churned slop
I don't think it's fair to say he dropped his main channel. It's only been 4 months since he posted there, and he's been taking breaks- he posted the side videos daily for a month as a test of whether he could do more relaxed videos in order to keep himself going, and it feels unfair to call it "slop" when it's just not supposed to be essays. @@AlvarM
What I like about Vera’s content: she puts better into words when I have iffy feelings about something. Like not full on yucky feelings, just that feeling of “this bothers me but i am sounding unintelligent when i speak on it so i will shut my mouth.” Great video!
I agree. When there's things that bother me but I can't put into words I'll keep a look out for some of my favourite creators to help me frame it. This applies whether I agree with them or not, sometimes you just need a nudge to help work out the ick
I think another important distinction about video essay is the focus on the essay itself. Many TH-camrs who I’ve seen called video essayists I would actually consider vloggers. These have less structured thoughts on a particular topic, which do not have a conclusion but may have an overarching argument and are still informational (like a blog). For me, a video essay needs to have the structure and format that you may see in a written essay.
I agree, the clue is in the word essay as that's what it should be, whatever format it is presented in to the public. A video essay should be an essay first and foremost, essentially with an introduction/proposal, followed by the main body/evidence and ending with some form of conclusion. Ideally they should be as objective as possible but that can depend on the topic. With drama channels, they may be scripted to a degree but can stray into train of thoughts and can be more subjective than objective. They can also lack the structure of a video essay.
This comment is not directed at you or what you have said above but what you have said here has put me in mind of something Tom Scott said when discussing another topic. He said "everyone draws the line, just below where they are standing". I think this is interesting to consider if someone is making an argument of an arbitrary line that they say they are on the 'right' side of. And FYI, I acknowledge you've not said drama videos are bad, and you've also said sometimes you've been below the line between video essay and drama video and made one.
This reminds me of conversations about screen usage. Everybody who uses smartphones less than I do is a luddite, everybody who uses smartphones more than I do is an addict, only I use smartphones just the right amount.
I think the finer line is between journalism and drama. I watch videos that call out or discuss a person's behavior mostly because they involve and effect a fandom or space I care about and it's the only way I get informed about the evolving issues at play. Because of the niche nature of it, the mainstream news outlets don't cover this stuff well. Like, after the James Somerton story broke, I saw maybe a sentence or two by the mainstream media. But that was very important to me, (and to the health of TH-cam in general, frankly). And I rely on your channel to tell me what's going on. For instance, I didn't hear about the Neil Gaiman allegations until you broke it, and your measured approach to the information available helped me make sense of it. Journalism, exploring the facts and nuance of breaking stories, helps everyone.
The Right Opinion, is one of the channels that immediately come to mind when thinking of a drama channel that does video essay. By all accounts all videos of TRO are drama related, but the 2 or 3 hours videos that they do, going in dept on the drama, analyzing the situation, making a timeline of events, everything relates to a video essay, even when the content is drama related.
TRO came to mind when I saw this video, although tbh he’s lost me. His appeal is supposed to be that he’s a voice of reason with the high quality production but I’ve found despite that his recent videos feel extremely repetitive. He’ll be saying the same sentiments about the same events at the 10 and 45 minute marks but act as if it’s a totally separate subject or angle just by having a different quote or visuals.
I've also noticed that recently TRO tends to do drama videos... about old drama everyone forgot about. A recent vid he did about a TH-camr who intentionally crashed a plane for clicks was actually fascinating because it turned out to be a story that had so much more to it about a man with so much potential squandering it on a stupid stunt. I actually think that drama videos that are done after the fact when the dust settles have value.
I WAS THINKING OF TRO THIS WHOLE DAMN TIME!!!! maybe they do drama history video essays? Like it's informative by putting relevant drama into context, without casting blame or exaggerating.
I guess my "line" between drama, commentary, and video essayist is: how long would I have to look for a nearly identical video? Drama youtube likes to share the same information or "misdeeds" repeatedly, and it's something Vera brings up. Part of what I really look for in Video Essays or Reviews is new opinions or information - like with the Neil Gaiman stuff, there weren't many videos that actually gave good information until Vera made hers. The same cannot be said of the "Commentary" or "essays" on Logan Paul and the like. Same with reviews. "Movie Bad" is not interesting after the first video.
I think it’s very telling that a lot of video essayists will go out of their way to say things like “instead of telling you all about this, I’m going to link you to someone who does it better, and i’ll continue on with my original and different discussion”. It shows that not only are they engaging with the community and other works, but that they recognize when someone has already said something and don’t see the reason in making the same argument. Drama videos rarely ever reference each other unless they’re arguing, and when they do they very rarely say “They already talked about this so go watch them instead, and I’ll talk about something else”. My hypothesis is that drama videos depend a lot on the personality of the creator themselves. It doesn’t matter if one drama youtuber already covered it, because this creator is a different person from that creator, and that alone is enough. When I watch drama youtube, sometimes I’ll watch the same event being covered by multiple creators because each one has a different opinion, or provides different information, or has different jokes, etc. It matters less what they’re saying and more how they’re saying it, which is very different from video essays where what they’re saying is more important than the funny skits or jokes (although both are entertaining)
Thank you for putting in that aside about Hideaki Anno, because I'm not going to lie my first thought was "oh god what did he do" because at this point... yeah.
I would be very unsurprised if Anno turns out to have caused… problems, but I’m happy that so far that doesn’t seem to have been the case (at least not to an extreme)
Between this and the shanspeare video theres a lot of icebergs floating by me that im glad i didnt have to witness firsthand. Im glad people are doing videos on this topic bc i took kinda go with the flow of internet outrage sometimes without thinking and its important to have the reminder to think on things more critically.
It seems a lot of the discomfort people have on this topic is based around semantics and value association. Video essays are usually considered "good" content and drama videos are usually considered "bad" content. If a video essayist does a drama-adjacent or even outright drama video, then some people might have think that creator is now "bad." And anyone who watches their content is "bad." I appreciate Vera bringing some much needed nuance to this conversation and highlighting that we don't live in a world of rigid absolutes.
For me, what makes a video essay good is the research that clearly went into them. My absolute favorite video essayist is Jennifer Nicholson, whose videos are made with such painstaking care i can’t help but delight in them. They’re structured by an organized list, starting with wide backstory before slowly building up to the actual point. I’ve watched almost every video of hers, and I moved on to hbomberguy to fuel my video essay obsession. Hbombguy’s video on Sherlock introduced me to doctor who, which I then became obsessed with, leading me to this channel.
My assumption was that this person was absolutely doing it to springboard their own channel off of established Lily dislike, which seems to have been successful
Thing is if you have really bad takes you're fair game. I wish there was database of online reviewers so you could get an idea of what they're about so you can block the dishonest ones. The Dragon Age Veilguard reviews are a minefield.
i'm with a lot of people in that i hate how "video essay" has been diluted, the worse version of this is when people call their long-form drama or commentary videos "documentaries" (coughswoopcough)
I find this interesting, because a documentary is just a production about a nonfiction topic. If the topic is a person (Illuminaughtii, for example), then wouldn't that be a documentary? I'm not saying you have to like the content. I just found the terminology overlap interesting.
fwiw, I think I found your channel due to the Somerton video, and subbed immediately because it was so good to see someone saying, "Okay but now what - what does it mean for us as a community?" And the Doctor Who analysis, of course. Came for the measured, intelligent discourse, stayed for the Doctor Who takes! Thanks for this vid and so many others.
Swoop is a great example of a neatly produced , well edited, garbage. She does drama cause it sells and she is willing to side and defend abusers if she happens to like the accused
Yup, and unfortunately the polished editing and long runtimes give a certain air of credibility that means unfortunately many viewers take her word as the Truth on a situation.
thank god i'm not the only one who feels this way, i used to watch her years ago and it's sad and annoying to see how... questionable(?) her content has become
I remember realizing when people make videos about properties "this is bad and here's why" they just want rage fuel and will only talk about bad stuff. Which gets views, but that shows the sad reality of how negativity sells.
Totally agreed about clickbait thumbnails. My favorite BookTuber regularly uses clickbait and has talked about it, because if a video seems too positive it does poorly in the algorithm, so videos with critical reviews will have very obviously critical thumbnails, while ones that speak more positively will have more ambiguous thumbnails that seem negative. I wonder if Harry felt like he made a drama video at least in part because he covered subjects who were also favorites of drama channels. Blair in particular was an extremely hot topic at the time; people are still making videos about her a year later. Even though he’s obviously been working at this video for a very long time, since long before Blair blew up her own reputation, he obviously finished up her section and released the video afterwards. I don’t know Harry personally or what’s in his heart, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that made him feel a little scummy, even if imo it shouldn’t. I dunno though, a lot of thoughts and feelings must go through a person’s mind during the time they spend on such a lengthy and in-depth project.
An odd observation, is it possible the idea of 'any drama bad' or all drama content creators are lesser than video essayers is touching on misogoney and classism? Hear me out, the idea of gossip/drama is very gendered as female and therefore 'lesser' while men might be reporting/networking, dealing with buisness etc... and classism declares whose dating who etc news above a certain social strata. I'm not saying theres not absolute slop out there but the designations might be loaded. Not sure if I expressed the idea tickling the back of my brain here, but maybe you all get it?
No you're onto something because this attitude is prevalent with how specifically Leafy clone or Leafy clone adjacent commentary youtubers talk about their content. They can talk about the same subject with similar talking points but when they do it, it's 'journalism' but when drama channels do it, it's 'gossip'. When both ends are very much just visual tabloid articles regardless of presentation. There is definitely a misogyny angle tied to it.
21:48 this is how it feel about the ant v lily orchard situation. I love ants work but his recent videos about lily and channel awesome are getting annoying. I just wish he would go back to the other stuff like how halloween movies are always queer or whatever.
This is totally about ant vs lily orchard. The specifics discussed here: 4 videos over 4 months with the first one being 18 minutes and no videos on it for the last month perfectly describes ant's videos on lily. And yes, I think a lot of people can see he needs to just let it go. And hopefully he has
Hey! I just wanted to jump in here to say that I haven't really made a video about Lily Orchard since....August. and that was her writing tips vid that I saw more as an opportunity to discuss media topics. i made a video responding to attacks on my credibility, but I don't count any of those as my core body of work. Just responses to attacks on my channel or credibility. I really think I only made two real videos about her months ago. And honestly, I vastly prefer not talking about her, because i find her profoundly exhausting to talk about. EDIT: The Lily Orchard Writing vid was made in September, not August. My error there.
Yeah there's just sth about Lily and videos made about her and her takes that just makes me wonder what actual point is being made by a bunch of people who didn't read the 'Don't feed the trolls' sign. 'Lily Orchard makes uninformed take on popular animated project!' because she's practically a ragebait channel atp. It gets unproductive fast
@agramuglia hi. I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to start a thread. And I didn't mean to start drama. I just wanted to express how I was feeling about it. The thoughts in the video above felt familiar to what I was thinking the last time I saw an L.O. or a channel awesome video posted on your channel. I still watch your content. The video about shadow was really good, and the video about Star Wars explained v star wars theory was really good, and felt like, even though you had covered them before, that there was new things going on to talk about. You do awesome work and I can't wait to see what you make in the future.
In my estimation, video essay is a video of a person reading an essay, essentially, a script, and some level of preformance. As soon as video essay became slightly pretigious, the form gets watered down to "video long" or "video about serious topic" by copycats hopping on a trend. It's a tale as old as time.
I think like with any genre in writing, the lines will always be blurred. I believe that it's okay for a video essayists to sometimes make drama videos. And I don't mind well-written drama videos. As someone who only started being on TH-cam in 2020 those videos educated me on the lore that other more complicated videos referenced. People need to understand that some people have no clue who Logan Paul and Mr Beast are and need to be educated on that, because the essays won't tell them the entire history of that guy, they just expect you to know. It's context.
I feel like I knew who this was about even avoiding naming the name, but of course, 1000 different people clicked on this and thought of 1000 different people you were definitely making this about, because TH-cam is TH-cam.
I would add that drama videos can be as useful, well-researched, and nuanced as video essays depending on the topic and person. Each format has its reputation, and I would say that some videos fall into both categories. Like you say, categorization tends to resist simplicity
I've always respected how you stick to the topics you're truly passionate about, rather than taking the easier route of embracing clickbait. You're awesome.
Yes, I think I know the creator that was falling in this rabbit hole and I was thinking the same thing. I almost unsubscribed because it was the same arguments over and over, the person targeted being bad it was obvious in three videos or less, then milking the situation felt much more like a necessity to make money than having something new to say.
I think that I, too, know who Vera is probably talking about. The four videos in four months ranging from 18 minutes to 4.5 hours pretty much clinched who the most likely subject of this video is.
I also think I know who this is and I did eventually unsub because I’ve got strong feelings on any form of internet drama and I really don’t like engaging with it repeatedly because that escalates it.
The person that popped into my head has starting shifting from media analysis to just complaining about people with bad takes. And I agree they're bad takes, but that's not what I subscribed to them for.
@@kat8559 my guess is Anthony Gramuglia, this guy who's done a lot of insightful media criticism and also a lottt of videos drawing out drama about Lily Orchard. Lily has had a reputation for being toxic online for years so idk why ppl think continually engaging w her month after month is helping anything
I’ve got strong feelings on internet drama, and something I’ve known since the first internet drama I witnessed it’s that engaging with the drama continually perpetuates it. There’s a creator I used to follow who I’m thinking might be the one you were referring to who I unsubscribed from for a few reasons, one of the biggest reasons being them constantly engaging with a feud with another creator and saying it isn’t drama because it’s analysis. But the creator was failing to realize that engaging at all with drama especially after it has passed perpetuates that and that has consequences. I’ve made a few of what I’d consider responding to drama videos, but only because I considered saying what I said important, but I made sure they were one offs despite them doing well for me. One in particular I wanted to make for a while that I was afraid to do so previously because I didn’t know if I could explain myself well enough, then something came along and I felt I had to do what I could. The responses I’ve gotten to these videos seems mostly positive and making one of them actually helped me unpack some very intense feelings I’d been holding in for years so I’m glad I made it, but I’m never making another video like that again, aside from maybe a supplemental video. In regards to Hbomb’s video I understand why he has mixed feelings on it, but still felt he had to make it. Sometimes one needs to make a stand because it’s the right thing even if you feel dirty about benefiting from it.
when it comes to genres that are sooo vastly diverse in talking points, it feels a little too subjective when you only pick mostly 3 (or few) similar creators. it doesn't really feel "well researched" nor well structured. which brings back to the core thesis of at what point is this an essay and what point subjective drama discourse.
Hey! So watching this video and I feel like it's fair that I just say I think I'm the person you're referring to 21 minutes in. I do not enjoy talking about Lily Orchard. I really don't want to talk about Lily Orchard. I would be so glad to never mention her in the entirety of my life, if possible. Half of the content you're referring to is in regards to talking about my channel being copyright struck, being sent death threats, or accused of plagiarism. I think I only have two true video essays on that topic. One of those videos is essentially a cease and desist to ask them to stop talking about me. I respect the ideas of this video and really do think this discussion is important, but I think I take a little issue with the idea that all of the videos I made are video essays or even drama videos. It's more...actually discussing attacks on my credibility or personhood. Which I feel is sort of a third category in and of itself that doesn't fit squarely into drama or video essay. More vlog discussions behind the curtains. Rest assured: I really do not want to talk about Lily Orchard. I don't care that the videos do well. Talking about her content is so thoroughly soul draining I genuinely do not want to wallow there. And, thankfully, have several projects that I am passionate about coming in the upcoming weeks that I hope are good. But I took a little issue with it being implied that me saying accusations of plagiarism are unfounded as being on the same level as overt transphobia. I know you didn't say that and I don't want it to be implied that you did say that, but it did feel that way to me a little and that bothers me. But I also realize that you're clearly speaking in good faith and I don't want to misconstrue your arguments at all. Just wanted to say that. EDIT: And please don't take this as an attack. I genuinely have a lot of respect for you and your work and don't want you to feel at all like I'm trying to argue with you on that point. But I just don't think that me essentially making a cease and desist letter via video truly fits this discussion. 2nd EDIT: Sorry if any of this comment comes across at all as aggressive at all. It's not my intention. But I have received a number of messages treating this video as something that "exposes me" or "is about me" and that's...obviously not the concrete intent of the video, but it definitely made me feel like I needed to respond in some fashion.
I chimed in about this under another comment here, then saw this post and was writing a small essay myself, but decided against it in favour of this. For your own sanity as well as ours, just ignore and move on. Don't feed the troll. Keep on making awesome videos.
One thing I think we are running up against is something missing in our systems of accountability and trust The levels of trust in a creator to bring us a) something that is true or the youtuber at least believes to be true and b) they have "good" intentions with what they posts, are sort of eroded by the systems of youtube af a way of making money. Economic incentive is not inherently bad, but we see again and again that The Grind pushes creators to make increasing click-bait and grabbing the low hanging fruit of content. It makes sense, but it does impede on the trust viewers can have in creators And when that trust is broken? When we have plagiarism cases or bad faith posts what can we actually do about it? There is no newspaper editor to tell the youtuber "hey this one is missing some sources" or "hey theres bias here, do it over". The only oversight is either from viewers themselves or other youtubers (leading to drama or call-out videos). Idk i dont have a solution, I just see a hole that is difficult to fix without causing one form of harm
The thing about clickbait like that is that it only works for people who know the target of the clickbait. I remember your video about how to block transphobic advertisers, but I never watched the One Topic video, because I've never heard of One Topic so I don't care what anyone has to say about them. If HBomberrGuy had called his video "James Somerton is a plagiarist" I never would have clicked on it. I guess it's a double-edged sword. Sometimes naming a specific person works, like your One Topic example, but for me that video title ensured I wouldn't watch it. OTOH HBomberGuy successfully clickbaited me into watching a video about James Somerton by embedding it within a larger essay about plagiarism in general.
I will say I do think the recent video that Super Eyepatch Wolf did about Jake Paul and his "boxing" matches is a fairly good mix of analysis and actually like using the subject of Paul as a bridge to discuss wider subject matter related to like combat sports and aging athletes and giving you a fairly solid foundation for analyzing the record of fighters in stuff like MMA and boxing beyond surface level wins and loss numbers that a lot of the marketing around Paul's matches tend to get flattened into. Even Coffezilla frequently blurs the line despite a lot of what he does actually qualifying as mostly reporting on like crypto scams and stuff that may also have like celebs attached. he recently made a video covering like the really bad launch of a crypto project that the Hawk Tuah lady was attached to and for the most part the video's not really about her beyond just acknowledging her connection to the project and including some footage of her speaking while he was questioning the guys working on the project while she was in the room with them essentially. I mean there was even a recent instance of in the cartoon analysis community recently with Bloom making two videos about Ceric Artman where they basically prove that the channels are effectively just like a cynical content mill paying ghost-writers and editors basically peanuts to make low effort slop about South Park as well as running at least one additional channel using more or less the same format and methods about the Simpsons. I would argue in that case it's less like you're going after a particular individual and just providing some transparency when there's an active effort to obfuscate the true nature of the channel. For me the general litmus test I generally thinks works (for me at least) is just like asking myself if the videos are at least trying to make a wider point about the material being discussed or at least seem to have put in a good faith effort to actually bring substantial facts to the table and aren't part of a pattern of low effort slop being put out for clicks.
I remember watching what I thought was a Video Essay and they were front-loading a lot of info about stuff a retired TV actress posted on TH-cam. And as I was waiting for them to get around to the thesis, I eventually realized that all of this was the point of the video and stopped it. And then I was ashamed it took me that long to realize it.
I really like your analysis on this topic. I like your takes on drama against or drama topics probably because I know you try to avoid it, and trying to give a nuanced take, a missed angle... And wow, I didn't know youtubers could influence the adds shown, I would love to miss all the daily wire add for example.
I personally think there is a very specific subsect of channels do do in-depth research, draw those connections, even interview people involved, then end with a broader point, but still fall under "drama" by this definition. I guess my distinction is "what is the ultimate goal?" A drama channel makes videos for money. That is their end goal. Any positive effects are bonuses. A video essayist makes videos to present an argument. The money is a bonus, sometimes a necessary one, but the end goal is spreading ideas. I'm not sure what you could call the channels I am thinking of, but their end goal is either to inform or to call to action. Channels that do full breakdowns of scientific developments or legal cases or similar, want to inform the general public of those topics. Channels that focus on one specific societal issue want to get people to notice the issue and work against it in their own lives. Channels that focus on interviews want to platform people whose stories otherwise wouldn't be told. All of these channels still probably want money, but their end goal isn't money. And I think grouping them in with drama channels does a disservice to the very valuable work they do.
@@kat8559 yes, that specifically rubs me the wrong way. And she presents herself as THE authority on whatever she's talking about, I just don't know about that
@@AlvarMI used to watch Swoop, my impressionable ass fooled by her fancy editing and humor, but her Amber Heard videos and other people calling her out for her dishonesty made me reflect and I stop watching her
Regarding the "Am I a public figure?" question: That's very definition dependent. Are you legally a public figure as defined by American law vis a vis defamation lawsuits? I'd say almost certainly not, from what I'm reading. Though if it actually comes up, I am not a lawyer, and even if I was, I'm Canadian so I'd have studied a different set of laws. Would I, personally, consider you a public figure, vis a vis it being acceptable to do something about you and your content without it being "just drama"...to me that depends on the content creator as well. A content creator who's in the same specific niche would probably have at least a shot of doing a genuine critique of their work without it devolving into drama. I would generally suggest it works best when it's a discussion of ongoing themes in their work, like if someone doing philosophy content were to criticize another person for relying too much on Jungian archetypes, and spending most of the runtime focused on the many problems of Jung's work in order to present a thesis of "maybe this content creator who takes everything from Jung as 100% valid and objectively correct should reconsider their stance on that subject" So...maybe someone else in the Doctor Who space who has a very different take on what Doctor Who should be as a character or as a show more broadly, if they were to do a video essay presenting your ideas and then properly deconstructing them, analyzing them on their own merits and so forth, that could be done in a valid way. It could also be done in a dramatic "this person is dumb and bad because all their content (see these 3 cherry picked out-of-context examples) is stuff I don't like" sort of way, but...yeah, everything *can* be done that way. Honestly I'd say this should be the case even for public figures more broadly. Like...I could, in theory, learn to video edit and create a video essay discussing Gene Roddenberry's failings as a person and their impact on Star Trek as a franchise both before his passing and the legacy that resulted therefrom. No matter how well thought out this was, I would say it was almost certainly going to wind up being mostly drama, because I'm not part of the Star Trek discussion sphere, or the Treatment of Women in the Workplace sphere, or any other realm that connects to this. Not because Roddenberry doesn't count as a public figure (he does, or at least did, if "public figure" implies "is still alive and active as such"), but but because I am in no way a commentator on such things. I'd feel similarly if someone with a following but in a very different sphere were to do the same thing because...again, that's not their field.
I think I know what TH-camr you were talking about at the 22-ish minute mark and you basically voiced my exact opinion on the whole thing, so I feel a little less crazy right now. I love their videos too, but it was really getting to the point where I was feeling a little icky about their channel because of the hyperfixation.
I don't know who is talked about, but yeah, I have seen multiple channels getting fixated on certain people. Besides feeling icky at some point it starts getting boring.
Yeah I definitely agree with most of the points made here. It's mostly about intent. Whistleblowing, educating and broad discussions are usually not drama. Like the examples you used, the purpose of the plagiarism video was to inform the audience in plagiarism detection, to make them aware of queer authors and to bring to light that plagiarism can even be rampant in queer communities. Same with the D'angelo video, like I think he veers into drama/commentary reasonably often, especially recently, but that video's intent was to educate the viewer of the anti-trans narratives that even trans voices can perpetuate. The Folding Ideas video has been actually helpful in my life as I have been confronted with a family member perpetuating the same scam mentioned in the video (and also as the point was almost more to highlight the horrors of a gig economy and to educate the audience in scam detection). Whistleblowing is also a valid video essay, if the whistleblowing is well-sourced. The Neil Gaiman video is whistleblowing as the drama hadn't yet reached the mainstream, at least not in my circles. As for post-incidence in-depth recaps, I'm not sure. I love watching analyses of drama after it's blown over, but I don't know if that is also drama or a video essay. I feel like that's up for debate.
Honestly I'll take a drama video essay, they're not inherently bad. As long as it's well-presented and not just listing someone's faults as gossip fodder I'm fine with it. It's all about the quality of the entertainment so to say. ETA To add, I kinda see your Gaiman videos as drama essays, in a way that they're video essays that were made with full awarness that they pertrain to and will cause drama for a specific person. With that in mind I also see multiple hbomb's vids as "drama essays" - Andrew Wakefield, Tommy Tallarico and recently James Somerton were all the antiheroes of his reporting and are mocked by anyone who's seen the videos. The drama surrounding these people is at the core of his essays, regardless of his thesis and conclusions. I still very much enjoyed them. Same with many of Shaun's, José's, Folding Ideas' and other's videos.
Thank you for the video, Vera! Personally, I do believe that any video criticizing someone with considerable number of followers will always cause some drama anyway. In situations where it involves a content creator which I do follow, what I try to do is ask myself: "Is the criticism in good faith?" "By checking their past works, is the person doing the criticism just for views or harassment?" "Is the person being criticized acting in bad faith?" "Is the drama justified (especially if the creator in question is involved in something very serious and harmful, and they do not want to address the problem or prefer to dismiss it)?". And, yes! Regardless the situation, you should never harass people demanding for answers or apologies! If the problem is really that serious to not ignore it, just stop of following the creator in question!
My favorite thing about the "Video Essay VS Drama" debate that creators always have (well mostly Video Essay TH-camrs; most Drama TH-camrs (or at least the ones I follow) are generally like "I don't know man, we're just both making videos") is that... I follow both of them? Like for example, one of the people HBomber guy called out for making "lazy content" was CB2, a college student who at the time had less that 2k subscribers. CB2 specialized in making short, quick-fire videos that rarely lasted more than 3 minutes that were just giving out live updates to situations as they came out. Was his channel mostly him saying "Alright guys" before reading out some tweets and ending it with "That's crazy, what do you guys think?" Yes, 100%, but I liked his content regardless because his videos were fun, he was super active in his comments, and I don't use Twitter so his channel was how I was getting most of my Twitter drama updates. I'm as much of a fan of quickfire update videos of a situation I'm already invested in as I am of 4 hour long deep dive into a person/show I've never heard of before. So the infighting is just ridiculous to me. I'm watching all of you at the same time, whether you like it or not.
For the line between essay and drama ive always like the right opinion, sure he only covers drama but he covers it like 6 months to a year after all the actual drama channels were talking bout it so it seems like hes actually thought about it a bit more.
19:20 I commented on a Lily Orchard drama video about that exact thing and got piled on in the comments saying the TH-camr did that for all their thumbnails and I was being too sensitive/overreacting. I made that comment because the ten most recent comments and several of the top ones were all misgendering her, some of which were actively telling the essayist 'why are you calling [her] a woman.' It was a while ago, but it still pisses me off every time -- no, this is different, you know it's different than using an unflattering image of a cis person when you're actively emphasising a trans person's 'non-passing' features.
I don't watch drama channels regularly but every now and again I see some sort of kerfuffle going on at the edges of my online interests and then I end up seeing if it has some sort of drama round up video so I can get an idea if I need to look into it more or if its just people making drama for fun or some people having a spat that is turning into drama.
i used to be the journalist at polygon who wrote the Best Of video essay lists each year, and i wound up writing my personal taxonomy for how i defined video essays. it essentially came down to: is there a thesis here that pertains to something larger than the subject of discussion itself? i rules out oral histories (e.g. jenny nicholson) and GREAT commentary videos that didn't necessarily have much to say outside of the subject itself (e.g. D'Angelo Wallace)
I think maybe there are a few different categories and questions being conflated here. CoG is saying a video essay is primarily categorized by format and a drama video is primarily categorized by content. If this is true, there is no reason to think they can't be overlapping categories. Personally, I'm comfortable stopping there and saying some video essays are drama videos and some aren't. I think the tension here comes from the sense that video essays are like, if not high brow, at least more sophisticated and smartypants videos and drama videos are slop for the hogs. I think we need to accept that some video essays are slop and some drama videos are very thoughtful. Like, I think you could argue that Illuminaughti's or James Somerton's videos were 1) unethically produced slop and 2) not drama videos. On the other hand, YT has been recommending the work of (for example) Ophie Dokie a lot lately, and she doesn't shy away from the drama label and also clearly takes her work seriously and is being very thoughtful and intentional about it. I think more could be discussed over what exactly a video essay even is, because I think a lot of the highly acclaimed ones don't really follow the format of an academkc essay. What do we do with Contrapoints's old Socratic Dialogue videos that I think had a huge impact on the video essay space and also very intentionally don't always draw a neat conclusion. The Leftist Cooks have these wildly artsy, sometimes kind of confusing and often inconclusive videos. Are they essays? Are they the same kind of video of someone setting up a camera and reading off the script of a much more clear cut essay? The reason I say this is that I think the murkiness about what a video essay is makes distinguishing them from some other thing, ie drama videos, more difficult because I don't think there *is* broad agreement on how to define what they are. I think there's a separate question too of the ethics of a drama video. Hypothetically, imo, a video could follow the conventions of a video essay, have the content of a drama video, and also engage in the drama in a way we think is unethical and I would still call it a video essay. A video essay punching down, a video essay doing an unfair character assassination, but still a video essay.
When it comes to drama video, that is videos about people, I tend to prefer videos that are less focused on one aspect, but who provide an overview about what happened. Like, I prefer watching max two videos from Swoop about a person, instead of half a dozen vids that analyze one aspect of the person or keep on hammering on about a person. I don't consider Dungeon & Discourse a drama channel as, while she keeps her video titles maximum clickbaity, she doesn't go that much after a person and usually puts her titles into perspective. While generally only doing D&D and WotC stuff. On a smaller note, I never heard drama channels (well I watched max 2) dishing on video essayist. The first time I noticed a conflict was when Hbomberguy tried to distant himself a lot from being a drama channel.
I don't understand why there needs to be a clear distinction between the two. As far as casual usage, I think the intention is generally the most important part of whether something qualifies as a drama video. Is the intent to stoke outrage at someone, or is it to spread information or analyze an event or a person's history? A biography certainly isn't a "drama video" just because it's about a person, even if it paints them in a negative light.
The only difference is "video essayists" spend an 1-3 hours saying shit a drama channel could say in a few minutes and essayists are pretentious and fragile
I've said this other places I think but my own brain often skips positive videos unless the title makes me thing there's information I want to know about it. This isn't because I like the negative videos more; it's actually because when I see a positive title there's a sense of relief involved where as with a negative one it's more like "what now?" and I feel like I need to stay informed about it.
23:10 I had the same feeling about the creator Jacksfilm and his recent avalanche of videos about Mr Beast. His most recent is basically a reaction video.
Click Bait the online equivalent of the book cover artwork and text. Have picked up many books with artwork that does not match any part of the story and story outline text given on the cover has little relation to what is inside the covers. Must not forget the big "click bait" of movie trailers.
Ive never heard of the three people you gave as big examples of video essay-ists. The person who got me into the format was contrapoints. I love a good video essay!
Sarah Z's video about this Toby guy whos tangentially connected to my immortal via sock puppet bible fanfic accounts felt way to invasive for video essay standards. She tells you that she knows hes from new zealand and his legal name (not shown thankfully). Like hes literally a nobody and it felt like she just wanted to turn this guy into a 'lol cow'. An odd experience from start to finish.
This (and your last video) were a nice way to spend part of my Winter Solstice night--so, thanks for that, and (as always!) for all your excellent work! :)
On the clickbait thing, one of my criteria is: If someone not familiar with the subject matter sees the title and thumbnail but does not watch the video, could they take away misinformation? Doesn't have to be outright false for that. Heavily implying something or leaning into some conspiracy believe or rumor and lending it credibility that way is also enough.
Not me coming off a 7 hour breakdown about all the ins, outs, wheres, and whyfors of the film "The VVitch" and into a video about how video essayists are often dangerously close to drama channels ... I feel like I must be doing something right XD Tbh, the closest thing I watch to 'drama' channels are athiesm channels that mostly just pick at, and dress down, horrendously right wing 'christian' channels... or Leftist channels mostly dedicated to picking at, and dressing down, LGBTQ+phobic right wing channels.. But I would hardly call either of those 'essayist' channels (with the obvious exception of Hbomb and very few others)
Drama is good actually! Or it can be. I find the opinion that drama is always bad elitistic and snobbish. Drama is a tool and if used correctly can be led to catharsis hbomberguy is a good example of both drama and video essays
This video isn’t for me. I definitely consider you and a lot of creators you mention in this to make drama content from time to time. You spend the first chunk of this video creating a false dichotomy between video essays and drama when these are absolutely not mutually exclusive. Drama is just a subject and one that doesn’t have a clear definition.
Re: People's faces in the thumbnail, seeing certain people's faces in a thumbnail is pretty good indicator that you're about to watch pure clickbait and/or petty beef dressed up as a video essay. Even essayists I normally enjoy or respect (or used to) have fallen prey to this, and have ended up producing the pettiest, whiniest, most incoherent drama slop as a result. Mind you, I think it can be important and useful to warn people if someone has done something legitimately heinous or seriously uncool, and also useful to call out or call in misinformed or misguided hot takes, but there's a fine line between that and just pure dramamongering or, especially, straight-up bullying. Bullying, harassment, and petty fight-picking is especially distasteful when coming from people who've presented themselves as paragons of pure Leftist virtue! A red flag is if someone starts churning out video after video about a situation that isn't actually meaningfully evolving to the point where such updates would be warranted, because then it just comes across like someone *trying* to pick a fight, or when the 24-hour news channel pathetically grasps at straws because there's nothing more to be said about a "developing story." Public figures are totally fair game, though, as are people who've committed genuine, serious misdeeds and literal crimes. As far as I'm concerned, we can't warn people *enough* about certain incredibly-influential and incredibly-dangerous people and groups!
Council of geeks i know you don't want in your video to mention them by name but can you type the name for me because i got a rule that you tube creators i watch are ones that are followed by you tube creators that i like
I’m not trying to guess the channel you’re avoiding naming, but I’ve been recommended videos from a certain creator talking about another creator. I’ve never watched videos from this channel but given the titles/thumbnail I think TH-cam is recommending it to me because I would watch a hbomberguy, d’angelo, etc style video. I didn’t click on the recommended videos for awhile due to the thumbnail looking a bit drama related. But with the frequency of the recommend and the “issues” intimated at - curiosity got me. Anyway, I watch 15 mins of one of the topical videos and clicked off because it was building off of the beef and I had no opinions about anyone in it. I’m sure there’s an opinion to be had but I just had no basis in the people. Anyway, I say all this because I just decided to “block” the channel because I didn’t want to be recommended the videos anymore. This is a bit of a shame because if this is the channel you’re speaking of I will have missed the content you like (that I would also probably like) due to the algorithm recommending the “beef” videos. I hope they put this topic down too.
For me, I think the line between drama and video essayists is less important than defining the content mills on either side of this line. I have to admit, I find some of the better produced drama channels to be educational to some extent. When I hear that some youtuber has accusations or did something terrible, a good video outlining the events with maybe some commentary is appreciated sometimes. On the other side, I appreciate a good video essay that outlines and reflects on situations or ideas and gives me different perspectives on them. The problem is the content mill slop that infects both genres. For drama channels it's obvious. Are you watching J Aubrey outline the entire history of a public figure and talking in detail about their alleged actions or are you watching a guy in a chair talking about whichever TH-camr is in the news atm for the fifth time this week. I think the latter does have some value whereas the former is usually trash that leads to bad takes and misinformation. Or worse, digging through every damn thing a person did to find a new thing the hungry drama audience hasn't seen yet - regardless if it's even relevant. Meanwhile, I have become increasingly aware of how much slop is infecting the video essayist space. This goes beyond the video essayists who are falling into the drama well, it feels like every day I'm recommended some youtuber I've never heard of reacting to whatever right wing rage bait of the moment. We didn't need multiple cis men talking about why Lady Ballers was bad or just an infinite supply of videos about Mr Birchum or that stupid Norm thing. Content creators who are just regurgitating what people like exist on all sides of this and I think drama youtube it's more obvious than it is on the video essay side. There's also the bad reputation drama channels have that is leading to people who want to make drama videos trying to present themselves as video essayists in the most infuriating way - just using academic language for no good reason. I saw a video the other day that was about... 20-30 mins long that was about Ellen's recent stand up and wanted to just talk about her like... five minutes of griping. Except that to do that they had to yammer on about 'parasociality' or 'individualism' for a bit, recap Ellen's cancellation for longer than she did in the stand up and then just riff on the rest of her set and play up how bad it is (it was just... Ellen stand up, not my taste but not like... a sign she's off the rails), address the actual issue with what Ellen said about her controversy and then ramble on about the rest of the whatever-not my taste stand up. I felt like an idiot who was tricked into watching one of the trashy drama videos because the way it was presented at the start was to use that academic language to give it a vaneer of being more than "Ellen bad, she bad at stand up cause it's not my taste". The line is very thin and I also follow someone (probably same person) who I am just extremely fed up with how much they've devoted to a youtuber when that's not why I subscribed. There's video essayists I respect who - probably to make extra cash between their bigger videos - start posting content that's reaction content that's falling into the drama again. I think both things have their value - and people do love their gossip - but the merging comes from a desire to have your cake and eat it for some people. "Oh I'm not a drama channel, I'm a video essayist, so lemme tell you about how parasocial the fans are about this total hot mess."
I like drama videos and video essays. I agree that sometimes the line gets a bit blurry. Whats funny is i arrived here because the algorithm pushed the neil gaiman video to me. I was terrified to click because i didnt know whose opinion i was clicking into. And then i stayed. Because i was interested in the analysis you made of the nature of the podcast and in the videos that followed. Maybe its a good thing that from time to time, some videos veer into more clickable content. I'm grateful youtube pushed that video on me. And it was definitely pushed. I actively ignored it for like a week before giving in
Two things First, for me clickbait is something that promises something it doesn't delivers on. Example this 2 tips make you loose weight fast. and the content is move more eat less. The actual content would fit in the headline. I hope that makes it clear what I mean. Second a Drama video to me is not something that points out actual illegal stuff, really shady things or whatever some fascist is doing but actually irrelevant BS like "XY slept with VZ and did they cheat on AB?" Who gives a fuck? Not me obviously. Your Neil Gaiman videos were the closest you got to a Drama video in my book but still stayed far enough away to not be mistaken for one.
I had to watch the original rather than from some other TH-camr with their own narrative, then read the fine-line. It just defete the purpose if I listen to this content from someone else who would rather speak the most extreme concept.
Ultimately all drama videos are video essays, its just a term of derision for something thats low effort and just attacks a person who usually isn't very famous in overall society, plus the videos usually don't add anything new to the overall converstion. They see someone made a bad and every other drama youtuber is making one, so why don't they cash in on it? I like to say this about video games that take inspiration from others, if the game is good and adds something new or different, people will say it took inspiration from X other game, but if its not a very good game or just a complete copy, they will call it a low effort clone of X game. I think the real difference is in whether or not someone finds said video essay worthwhile to spend time watching or if its just a low effort attack on someone.
I wouldn't call discourse minitures/dungeons & discourse a drama channel, they are covering things happening in the wargaming/ttrpg (mostly hasbro/warc) news and anti-consumer practices, rather than individual people.
Sorry but they absolutely are, they focus only on negative news, they don't add anything to the reporting besides the most basic commentary, and she is known to blow things out of proportion or make them up entirely to add more drama. I used to watch the channel but had to unsubscribe, and I'm the first person to dunk on Hasbro, but she's not doing JUST that
Yeah, I only follow Dungeons&Discourse because I only play DND, but I won't call them a dramma channel, but neither a video essay channel if you get me? Her videos are more like news updates and commentary, I think they are amazing (and super funny) and super useful because it's honestly difficult to keep updated on whatever bulshit is going on with Hasbro
Sometimes dungeons and discourse makes things seem really negative and dramatic with the thumbnail only for it to not be. Things like candela obscura will kill call of Cthulhu because it has a similar vibe, but not really because coc is the top horror tabletop game.
I think I know who you were refering to at the beginning of the video and if I’m right, it’s unfortunate bc that person had great content but all they’ve known for now is taking the piss out off an admittedly horrible person.
so many video essays make me go “What’s the thesis here? Is this even an essay??”
Though obviously “this guy fucking sucks!” is a beloved flourish of the academic essay. Even if it’s usually said more subtly.
“This person sucks wow would you look at all this nonsense!” Is a time honoured fandom tradition, but for sure that’s not a video essay
Used to call em “wank reports” which sounds so wrong and yet kinda accurate
Yea the word "essay" has lost a lot of meaning. People confuse it for "long winded piece about something" and then after 45-90 minutes you realize you just watched someone's drama, special interest podcast, or people turning one case into a generalization. Ironically I think the videos that include the phrase"...a video essay" are the ones I'm least likely to click on and/or seem to miss the idea of what one even is.
Either way, I'm happy this is being discussed
@@TheProblem2025It’s also “the local gossip.” And you’d always have those who specialize in finding out and spreading the gossip.
@@calebmarmon1310 yes! And the hidden “this person just makes stuff up” trap 🪤
This video itself being a demonstration of how to make a video essay critiquing people without it being drama is so meta
I’ve unfollowed a lot of video essayists who I loved because of the pivot into being more drama focused. My rule of thumb is: did I learn more about theory in this video, did I learn more ideas, or did I learn more useless facts about a celebrity or internet figure? If the latter, I leave. I feel a little tricked after clicking on videos which promise to discuss queer or black or feminist theory and I come away knowing the time line of Taylor Swift’s relationships or some random quarrel between celebrities or internet figures I’d never heard about.
Oh so D’Angelo Wallace
Too many people don’t know what a video essay is. I’ve seen people who just turn on the camera and talk call themselves video essayists. A video essay implies an essay was written so the video should be scripted imo. I think “drama channels” can also make video essays but most don’t. Most just turn on the camera and talk. A lotta video essayists are also commentary channels which are VERY similar to drama channels in a lotta ways. My favorite video essays are about movies and tv shows so no drama usually.
I would also add that video essays need research, just as written ones need
Obviously it's even better when the sources are easily accessible, but they definitely have to be cited
It's still a video essay, it's just not a very good one. Someone can turn in a well researched written essay thats 50 pages and goes in depth and is very informative and someone else can turn in a double spaced 3 page essay that says less than the wikipedia page and doesn't really teach anyone anything. They are both essays, one is just low effort shit.
A drama video is ultimately still a video essay, its just a term of derision for a low effort one that is poorly researched and is just some rando youtuber who wants to pump out a video about the current internet person of the day that is not very famous and most of their followers probably haven't even heard of.
@@ZectifinEssays have an inherent structure and elements like a thesis, many drama videos do not have the same.
at this point I don't even bother to click on videos that title themselves as "Video Essay" because there have been too many times those videos are just a long video of someone talking to a camera, not an actual researched essay with any sort of analysis.
And to be fair I'll still sometimes watch that format of long video too, it just bothers me when they're TITLED as an essay when it's simply not.
The weirdest part of that 3 video essayists answering question video that inspired ur video is that I fully considered D'Angelo a drama channel not as hate but genuinely.
His takes have been devolving into mere drama and very weird centrist takes for a while. But then again that's his drama channel, he entirely dropped his main one in favour of the quickly churned slop
I don't think it's fair to say he dropped his main channel. It's only been 4 months since he posted there, and he's been taking breaks- he posted the side videos daily for a month as a test of whether he could do more relaxed videos in order to keep himself going, and it feels unfair to call it "slop" when it's just not supposed to be essays. @@AlvarM
Yeah! They're not bad videos, I do really enjoy them, but come on. They're drama videos! And that's fine!
@@AlvarM what weird centrist takes?
@@AlvarMyes true his video on Chappell was especially sooo bad.
What I like about Vera’s content: she puts better into words when I have iffy feelings about something. Like not full on yucky feelings, just that feeling of “this bothers me but i am sounding unintelligent when i speak on it so i will shut my mouth.”
Great video!
I agree. When there's things that bother me but I can't put into words I'll keep a look out for some of my favourite creators to help me frame it. This applies whether I agree with them or not, sometimes you just need a nudge to help work out the ick
YES
She always has unique, well expressed thoughts.
Big same - her perspective had brought me so much clarity on a lot of sticky stuff
I think another important distinction about video essay is the focus on the essay itself. Many TH-camrs who I’ve seen called video essayists I would actually consider vloggers. These have less structured thoughts on a particular topic, which do not have a conclusion but may have an overarching argument and are still informational (like a blog). For me, a video essay needs to have the structure and format that you may see in a written essay.
I agree, the clue is in the word essay as that's what it should be, whatever format it is presented in to the public. A video essay should be an essay first and foremost, essentially with an introduction/proposal, followed by the main body/evidence and ending with some form of conclusion. Ideally they should be as objective as possible but that can depend on the topic.
With drama channels, they may be scripted to a degree but can stray into train of thoughts and can be more subjective than objective. They can also lack the structure of a video essay.
And as with any essay they need to have citations and a bibliography.
@@adorabell4253 That too.
This comment is not directed at you or what you have said above but what you have said here has put me in mind of something Tom Scott said when discussing another topic. He said "everyone draws the line, just below where they are standing". I think this is interesting to consider if someone is making an argument of an arbitrary line that they say they are on the 'right' side of.
And FYI, I acknowledge you've not said drama videos are bad, and you've also said sometimes you've been below the line between video essay and drama video and made one.
This reminds me of conversations about screen usage. Everybody who uses smartphones less than I do is a luddite, everybody who uses smartphones more than I do is an addict, only I use smartphones just the right amount.
I think the finer line is between journalism and drama. I watch videos that call out or discuss a person's behavior mostly because they involve and effect a fandom or space I care about and it's the only way I get informed about the evolving issues at play. Because of the niche nature of it, the mainstream news outlets don't cover this stuff well. Like, after the James Somerton story broke, I saw maybe a sentence or two by the mainstream media. But that was very important to me, (and to the health of TH-cam in general, frankly). And I rely on your channel to tell me what's going on. For instance, I didn't hear about the Neil Gaiman allegations until you broke it, and your measured approach to the information available helped me make sense of it. Journalism, exploring the facts and nuance of breaking stories, helps everyone.
The Right Opinion, is one of the channels that immediately come to mind when thinking of a drama channel that does video essay. By all accounts all videos of TRO are drama related, but the 2 or 3 hours videos that they do, going in dept on the drama, analyzing the situation, making a timeline of events, everything relates to a video essay, even when the content is drama related.
TRO came to mind when I saw this video, although tbh he’s lost me. His appeal is supposed to be that he’s a voice of reason with the high quality production but I’ve found despite that his recent videos feel extremely repetitive. He’ll be saying the same sentiments about the same events at the 10 and 45 minute marks but act as if it’s a totally separate subject or angle just by having a different quote or visuals.
I've also noticed that recently TRO tends to do drama videos... about old drama everyone forgot about. A recent vid he did about a TH-camr who intentionally crashed a plane for clicks was actually fascinating because it turned out to be a story that had so much more to it about a man with so much potential squandering it on a stupid stunt. I actually think that drama videos that are done after the fact when the dust settles have value.
I WAS THINKING OF TRO THIS WHOLE DAMN TIME!!!! maybe they do drama history video essays? Like it's informative by putting relevant drama into context, without casting blame or exaggerating.
I guess my "line" between drama, commentary, and video essayist is: how long would I have to look for a nearly identical video?
Drama youtube likes to share the same information or "misdeeds" repeatedly, and it's something Vera brings up.
Part of what I really look for in Video Essays or Reviews is new opinions or information - like with the Neil Gaiman stuff, there weren't many videos that actually gave good information until Vera made hers. The same cannot be said of the "Commentary" or "essays" on Logan Paul and the like. Same with reviews. "Movie Bad" is not interesting after the first video.
I think it’s very telling that a lot of video essayists will go out of their way to say things like “instead of telling you all about this, I’m going to link you to someone who does it better, and i’ll continue on with my original and different discussion”. It shows that not only are they engaging with the community and other works, but that they recognize when someone has already said something and don’t see the reason in making the same argument. Drama videos rarely ever reference each other unless they’re arguing, and when they do they very rarely say “They already talked about this so go watch them instead, and I’ll talk about something else”. My hypothesis is that drama videos depend a lot on the personality of the creator themselves. It doesn’t matter if one drama youtuber already covered it, because this creator is a different person from that creator, and that alone is enough. When I watch drama youtube, sometimes I’ll watch the same event being covered by multiple creators because each one has a different opinion, or provides different information, or has different jokes, etc. It matters less what they’re saying and more how they’re saying it, which is very different from video essays where what they’re saying is more important than the funny skits or jokes (although both are entertaining)
So if you agree with it its a video essay but if you dont agree with it its drama?
Thank you for putting in that aside about Hideaki Anno, because I'm not going to lie my first thought was "oh god what did he do" because at this point... yeah.
I would be very unsurprised if Anno turns out to have caused… problems, but I’m happy that so far that doesn’t seem to have been the case (at least not to an extreme)
Between this and the shanspeare video theres a lot of icebergs floating by me that im glad i didnt have to witness firsthand. Im glad people are doing videos on this topic bc i took kinda go with the flow of internet outrage sometimes without thinking and its important to have the reminder to think on things more critically.
It seems a lot of the discomfort people have on this topic is based around semantics and value association. Video essays are usually considered "good" content and drama videos are usually considered "bad" content. If a video essayist does a drama-adjacent or even outright drama video, then some people might have think that creator is now "bad." And anyone who watches their content is "bad."
I appreciate Vera bringing some much needed nuance to this conversation and highlighting that we don't live in a world of rigid absolutes.
I laughed when you said people accused you of being negative, because the first thing that springs to mind with your videos is your Penguin reviews
For me, what makes a video essay good is the research that clearly went into them. My absolute favorite video essayist is Jennifer Nicholson, whose videos are made with such painstaking care i can’t help but delight in them. They’re structured by an organized list, starting with wide backstory before slowly building up to the actual point. I’ve watched almost every video of hers, and I moved on to hbomberguy to fuel my video essay obsession. Hbombguy’s video on Sherlock introduced me to doctor who, which I then became obsessed with, leading me to this channel.
There is a certain creator talking a lot about Lily Orchard I've been thinking this about, even though they're right.
That was my first thought as well. They WERE talking about Lily a LOT, but seem to have drifted away from them the last month or so
My assumption was that this person was absolutely doing it to springboard their own channel off of established Lily dislike, which seems to have been successful
Is it sad there could be like two different creators you could be talking about?
as mentioned by a fellow commenter, that doesn't fully narrow it down; does that person take a similar attitude toward rachel oates?
Thing is if you have really bad takes you're fair game. I wish there was database of online reviewers so you could get an idea of what they're about so you can block the dishonest ones. The Dragon Age Veilguard reviews are a minefield.
HBomberguy taking down Davis Aureli was hilarious though.
i'm with a lot of people in that i hate how "video essay" has been diluted, the worse version of this is when people call their long-form drama or commentary videos "documentaries" (coughswoopcough)
Yesssss
I find this interesting, because a documentary is just a production about a nonfiction topic. If the topic is a person (Illuminaughtii, for example), then wouldn't that be a documentary?
I'm not saying you have to like the content. I just found the terminology overlap interesting.
fwiw, I think I found your channel due to the Somerton video, and subbed immediately because it was so good to see someone saying, "Okay but now what - what does it mean for us as a community?" And the Doctor Who analysis, of course. Came for the measured, intelligent discourse, stayed for the Doctor Who takes! Thanks for this vid and so many others.
Swoop is a great example of a neatly produced , well edited, garbage. She does drama cause it sells and she is willing to side and defend abusers if she happens to like the accused
Yup, and unfortunately the polished editing and long runtimes give a certain air of credibility that means unfortunately many viewers take her word as the Truth on a situation.
thank god i'm not the only one who feels this way, i used to watch her years ago and it's sad and annoying to see how... questionable(?) her content has become
I watched her for a while until I figured out that her channel was ethically questionable and only high quality on the surface
when has she ever defended an abuser
I remember realizing when people make videos about properties "this is bad and here's why" they just want rage fuel and will only talk about bad stuff. Which gets views, but that shows the sad reality of how negativity sells.
Totally agreed about clickbait thumbnails. My favorite BookTuber regularly uses clickbait and has talked about it, because if a video seems too positive it does poorly in the algorithm, so videos with critical reviews will have very obviously critical thumbnails, while ones that speak more positively will have more ambiguous thumbnails that seem negative.
I wonder if Harry felt like he made a drama video at least in part because he covered subjects who were also favorites of drama channels. Blair in particular was an extremely hot topic at the time; people are still making videos about her a year later. Even though he’s obviously been working at this video for a very long time, since long before Blair blew up her own reputation, he obviously finished up her section and released the video afterwards. I don’t know Harry personally or what’s in his heart, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that made him feel a little scummy, even if imo it shouldn’t. I dunno though, a lot of thoughts and feelings must go through a person’s mind during the time they spend on such a lengthy and in-depth project.
An odd observation, is it possible the idea of 'any drama bad' or all drama content creators are lesser than video essayers is touching on misogoney and classism? Hear me out, the idea of gossip/drama is very gendered as female and therefore 'lesser' while men might be reporting/networking, dealing with buisness etc... and classism declares whose dating who etc news above a certain social strata. I'm not saying theres not absolute slop out there but the designations might be loaded. Not sure if I expressed the idea tickling the back of my brain here, but maybe you all get it?
No you're onto something because this attitude is prevalent with how specifically Leafy clone or Leafy clone adjacent commentary youtubers talk about their content. They can talk about the same subject with similar talking points but when they do it, it's 'journalism' but when drama channels do it, it's 'gossip'. When both ends are very much just visual tabloid articles regardless of presentation. There is definitely a misogyny angle tied to it.
That's a good point to think about
21:48 this is how it feel about the ant v lily orchard situation. I love ants work but his recent videos about lily and channel awesome are getting annoying. I just wish he would go back to the other stuff like how halloween movies are always queer or whatever.
it really feels like lily orchard is so insanely vitriolic it rubs off on most ppl who make videos around her..
This is totally about ant vs lily orchard.
The specifics discussed here: 4 videos over 4 months with the first one being 18 minutes and no videos on it for the last month perfectly describes ant's videos on lily.
And yes, I think a lot of people can see he needs to just let it go.
And hopefully he has
Hey! I just wanted to jump in here to say that I haven't really made a video about Lily Orchard since....August. and that was her writing tips vid that I saw more as an opportunity to discuss media topics. i made a video responding to attacks on my credibility, but I don't count any of those as my core body of work. Just responses to attacks on my channel or credibility.
I really think I only made two real videos about her months ago. And honestly, I vastly prefer not talking about her, because i find her profoundly exhausting to talk about.
EDIT: The Lily Orchard Writing vid was made in September, not August. My error there.
Yeah there's just sth about Lily and videos made about her and her takes that just makes me wonder what actual point is being made by a bunch of people who didn't read the 'Don't feed the trolls' sign. 'Lily Orchard makes uninformed take on popular animated project!' because she's practically a ragebait channel atp. It gets unproductive fast
@agramuglia hi. I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to start a thread. And I didn't mean to start drama. I just wanted to express how I was feeling about it. The thoughts in the video above felt familiar to what I was thinking the last time I saw an L.O. or a channel awesome video posted on your channel.
I still watch your content. The video about shadow was really good, and the video about Star Wars explained v star wars theory was really good, and felt like, even though you had covered them before, that there was new things going on to talk about. You do awesome work and I can't wait to see what you make in the future.
In my estimation, video essay is a video of a person reading an essay, essentially, a script, and some level of preformance. As soon as video essay became slightly pretigious, the form gets watered down to "video long" or "video about serious topic" by copycats hopping on a trend. It's a tale as old as time.
I think like with any genre in writing, the lines will always be blurred. I believe that it's okay for a video essayists to sometimes make drama videos. And I don't mind well-written drama videos. As someone who only started being on TH-cam in 2020 those videos educated me on the lore that other more complicated videos referenced. People need to understand that some people have no clue who Logan Paul and Mr Beast are and need to be educated on that, because the essays won't tell them the entire history of that guy, they just expect you to know. It's context.
20:50 - Thank GOD for Stephanie Sterling.
So say we all.
I feel like I knew who this was about even avoiding naming the name, but of course, 1000 different people clicked on this and thought of 1000 different people you were definitely making this about, because TH-cam is TH-cam.
I would add that drama videos can be as useful, well-researched, and nuanced as video essays depending on the topic and person. Each format has its reputation, and I would say that some videos fall into both categories. Like you say, categorization tends to resist simplicity
Yo, we talk about this so often every year. I'm excited to watch this!
I've always respected how you stick to the topics you're truly passionate about, rather than taking the easier route of embracing clickbait. You're awesome.
Yes, I think I know the creator that was falling in this rabbit hole and I was thinking the same thing. I almost unsubscribed because it was the same arguments over and over, the person targeted being bad it was obvious in three videos or less, then milking the situation felt much more like a necessity to make money than having something new to say.
I think that I, too, know who Vera is probably talking about. The four videos in four months ranging from 18 minutes to 4.5 hours pretty much clinched who the most likely subject of this video is.
I also think I know who this is and I did eventually unsub because I’ve got strong feelings on any form of internet drama and I really don’t like engaging with it repeatedly because that escalates it.
The person that popped into my head has starting shifting from media analysis to just complaining about people with bad takes. And I agree they're bad takes, but that's not what I subscribed to them for.
call yall just tell is who it is
@@kat8559 my guess is Anthony Gramuglia, this guy who's done a lot of insightful media criticism and also a lottt of videos drawing out drama about Lily Orchard. Lily has had a reputation for being toxic online for years so idk why ppl think continually engaging w her month after month is helping anything
that was very intersting! and your makeup is really nice to look at as always 💖 and i love your channel! it's really needed
I’ve got strong feelings on internet drama, and something I’ve known since the first internet drama I witnessed it’s that engaging with the drama continually perpetuates it. There’s a creator I used to follow who I’m thinking might be the one you were referring to who I unsubscribed from for a few reasons, one of the biggest reasons being them constantly engaging with a feud with another creator and saying it isn’t drama because it’s analysis. But the creator was failing to realize that engaging at all with drama especially after it has passed perpetuates that and that has consequences.
I’ve made a few of what I’d consider responding to drama videos, but only because I considered saying what I said important, but I made sure they were one offs despite them doing well for me. One in particular I wanted to make for a while that I was afraid to do so previously because I didn’t know if I could explain myself well enough, then something came along and I felt I had to do what I could. The responses I’ve gotten to these videos seems mostly positive and making one of them actually helped me unpack some very intense feelings I’d been holding in for years so I’m glad I made it, but I’m never making another video like that again, aside from maybe a supplemental video.
In regards to Hbomb’s video I understand why he has mixed feelings on it, but still felt he had to make it. Sometimes one needs to make a stand because it’s the right thing even if you feel dirty about benefiting from it.
when it comes to genres that are sooo vastly diverse in talking points, it feels a little too subjective when you only pick mostly 3 (or few) similar creators. it doesn't really feel "well researched" nor well structured. which brings back to the core thesis of at what point is this an essay and what point subjective drama discourse.
I think its important to understand that lily is not quiet. She is more than happy to threaten or demean. Like
Ant SEES lily threaten him
Hey! So watching this video and I feel like it's fair that I just say I think I'm the person you're referring to 21 minutes in. I do not enjoy talking about Lily Orchard. I really don't want to talk about Lily Orchard. I would be so glad to never mention her in the entirety of my life, if possible. Half of the content you're referring to is in regards to talking about my channel being copyright struck, being sent death threats, or accused of plagiarism. I think I only have two true video essays on that topic. One of those videos is essentially a cease and desist to ask them to stop talking about me.
I respect the ideas of this video and really do think this discussion is important, but I think I take a little issue with the idea that all of the videos I made are video essays or even drama videos. It's more...actually discussing attacks on my credibility or personhood. Which I feel is sort of a third category in and of itself that doesn't fit squarely into drama or video essay. More vlog discussions behind the curtains.
Rest assured: I really do not want to talk about Lily Orchard. I don't care that the videos do well. Talking about her content is so thoroughly soul draining I genuinely do not want to wallow there. And, thankfully, have several projects that I am passionate about coming in the upcoming weeks that I hope are good. But I took a little issue with it being implied that me saying accusations of plagiarism are unfounded as being on the same level as overt transphobia. I know you didn't say that and I don't want it to be implied that you did say that, but it did feel that way to me a little and that bothers me. But I also realize that you're clearly speaking in good faith and I don't want to misconstrue your arguments at all. Just wanted to say that.
EDIT: And please don't take this as an attack. I genuinely have a lot of respect for you and your work and don't want you to feel at all like I'm trying to argue with you on that point. But I just don't think that me essentially making a cease and desist letter via video truly fits this discussion.
2nd EDIT: Sorry if any of this comment comes across at all as aggressive at all. It's not my intention. But I have received a number of messages treating this video as something that "exposes me" or "is about me" and that's...obviously not the concrete intent of the video, but it definitely made me feel like I needed to respond in some fashion.
I chimed in about this under another comment here, then saw this post and was writing a small essay myself, but decided against it in favour of this.
For your own sanity as well as ours, just ignore and move on. Don't feed the troll. Keep on making awesome videos.
One thing I think we are running up against is something missing in our systems of accountability and trust
The levels of trust in a creator to bring us a) something that is true or the youtuber at least believes to be true and b) they have "good" intentions with what they posts, are sort of eroded by the systems of youtube af a way of making money. Economic incentive is not inherently bad, but we see again and again that The Grind pushes creators to make increasing click-bait and grabbing the low hanging fruit of content. It makes sense, but it does impede on the trust viewers can have in creators
And when that trust is broken? When we have plagiarism cases or bad faith posts what can we actually do about it?
There is no newspaper editor to tell the youtuber "hey this one is missing some sources" or "hey theres bias here, do it over". The only oversight is either from viewers themselves or other youtubers (leading to drama or call-out videos).
Idk i dont have a solution, I just see a hole that is difficult to fix without causing one form of harm
Maybe the real video essay was the friends we made along the way
The thing about clickbait like that is that it only works for people who know the target of the clickbait. I remember your video about how to block transphobic advertisers, but I never watched the One Topic video, because I've never heard of One Topic so I don't care what anyone has to say about them. If HBomberrGuy had called his video "James Somerton is a plagiarist" I never would have clicked on it.
I guess it's a double-edged sword. Sometimes naming a specific person works, like your One Topic example, but for me that video title ensured I wouldn't watch it. OTOH HBomberGuy successfully clickbaited me into watching a video about James Somerton by embedding it within a larger essay about plagiarism in general.
First, your lip colour is gorgeous. What is it?
Second, what are your go to how-to-make-a-video essay? Or maybe the differences between the two?
I will say I do think the recent video that Super Eyepatch Wolf did about Jake Paul and his "boxing" matches is a fairly good mix of analysis and actually like using the subject of Paul as a bridge to discuss wider subject matter related to like combat sports and aging athletes and giving you a fairly solid foundation for analyzing the record of fighters in stuff like MMA and boxing beyond surface level wins and loss numbers that a lot of the marketing around Paul's matches tend to get flattened into.
Even Coffezilla frequently blurs the line despite a lot of what he does actually qualifying as mostly reporting on like crypto scams and stuff that may also have like celebs attached. he recently made a video covering like the really bad launch of a crypto project that the Hawk Tuah lady was attached to and for the most part the video's not really about her beyond just acknowledging her connection to the project and including some footage of her speaking while he was questioning the guys working on the project while she was in the room with them essentially.
I mean there was even a recent instance of in the cartoon analysis community recently with Bloom making two videos about Ceric Artman where they basically prove that the channels are effectively just like a cynical content mill paying ghost-writers and editors basically peanuts to make low effort slop about South Park as well as running at least one additional channel using more or less the same format and methods about the Simpsons. I would argue in that case it's less like you're going after a particular individual and just providing some transparency when there's an active effort to obfuscate the true nature of the channel.
For me the general litmus test I generally thinks works (for me at least) is just like asking myself if the videos are at least trying to make a wider point about the material being discussed or at least seem to have put in a good faith effort to actually bring substantial facts to the table and aren't part of a pattern of low effort slop being put out for clicks.
I remember watching what I thought was a Video Essay and they were front-loading a lot of info about stuff a retired TV actress posted on TH-cam. And as I was waiting for them to get around to the thesis, I eventually realized that all of this was the point of the video and stopped it. And then I was ashamed it took me that long to realize it.
I really like your analysis on this topic.
I like your takes on drama against or drama topics probably because I know you try to avoid it, and trying to give a nuanced take, a missed angle...
And wow, I didn't know youtubers could influence the adds shown, I would love to miss all the daily wire add for example.
I personally think there is a very specific subsect of channels do do in-depth research, draw those connections, even interview people involved, then end with a broader point, but still fall under "drama" by this definition.
I guess my distinction is "what is the ultimate goal?"
A drama channel makes videos for money. That is their end goal. Any positive effects are bonuses.
A video essayist makes videos to present an argument. The money is a bonus, sometimes a necessary one, but the end goal is spreading ideas.
I'm not sure what you could call the channels I am thinking of, but their end goal is either to inform or to call to action. Channels that do full breakdowns of scientific developments or legal cases or similar, want to inform the general public of those topics. Channels that focus on one specific societal issue want to get people to notice the issue and work against it in their own lives. Channels that focus on interviews want to platform people whose stories otherwise wouldn't be told. All of these channels still probably want money, but their end goal isn't money.
And I think grouping them in with drama channels does a disservice to the very valuable work they do.
And then there's Swoop, the Drama Video-Essayist 😅
@@petrapedia I'd agree with that appellation.
She just makes better produced drama, but drama nonetheless
and she calls her incredibly biased videos that question established facts of history "documentaries" 🤢🤮
@@kat8559 yes, that specifically rubs me the wrong way. And she presents herself as THE authority on whatever she's talking about, I just don't know about that
@@AlvarMI used to watch Swoop, my impressionable ass fooled by her fancy editing and humor, but her Amber Heard videos and other people calling her out for her dishonesty made me reflect and I stop watching her
Regarding the "Am I a public figure?" question:
That's very definition dependent.
Are you legally a public figure as defined by American law vis a vis defamation lawsuits? I'd say almost certainly not, from what I'm reading. Though if it actually comes up, I am not a lawyer, and even if I was, I'm Canadian so I'd have studied a different set of laws.
Would I, personally, consider you a public figure, vis a vis it being acceptable to do something about you and your content without it being "just drama"...to me that depends on the content creator as well. A content creator who's in the same specific niche would probably have at least a shot of doing a genuine critique of their work without it devolving into drama. I would generally suggest it works best when it's a discussion of ongoing themes in their work, like if someone doing philosophy content were to criticize another person for relying too much on Jungian archetypes, and spending most of the runtime focused on the many problems of Jung's work in order to present a thesis of "maybe this content creator who takes everything from Jung as 100% valid and objectively correct should reconsider their stance on that subject" So...maybe someone else in the Doctor Who space who has a very different take on what Doctor Who should be as a character or as a show more broadly, if they were to do a video essay presenting your ideas and then properly deconstructing them, analyzing them on their own merits and so forth, that could be done in a valid way. It could also be done in a dramatic "this person is dumb and bad because all their content (see these 3 cherry picked out-of-context examples) is stuff I don't like" sort of way, but...yeah, everything *can* be done that way.
Honestly I'd say this should be the case even for public figures more broadly. Like...I could, in theory, learn to video edit and create a video essay discussing Gene Roddenberry's failings as a person and their impact on Star Trek as a franchise both before his passing and the legacy that resulted therefrom. No matter how well thought out this was, I would say it was almost certainly going to wind up being mostly drama, because I'm not part of the Star Trek discussion sphere, or the Treatment of Women in the Workplace sphere, or any other realm that connects to this. Not because Roddenberry doesn't count as a public figure (he does, or at least did, if "public figure" implies "is still alive and active as such"), but but because I am in no way a commentator on such things. I'd feel similarly if someone with a following but in a very different sphere were to do the same thing because...again, that's not their field.
I think I know what TH-camr you were talking about at the 22-ish minute mark and you basically voiced my exact opinion on the whole thing, so I feel a little less crazy right now. I love their videos too, but it was really getting to the point where I was feeling a little icky about their channel because of the hyperfixation.
I don't know who is talked about, but yeah, I have seen multiple channels getting fixated on certain people. Besides feeling icky at some point it starts getting boring.
Yeah I definitely agree with most of the points made here. It's mostly about intent. Whistleblowing, educating and broad discussions are usually not drama. Like the examples you used, the purpose of the plagiarism video was to inform the audience in plagiarism detection, to make them aware of queer authors and to bring to light that plagiarism can even be rampant in queer communities. Same with the D'angelo video, like I think he veers into drama/commentary reasonably often, especially recently, but that video's intent was to educate the viewer of the anti-trans narratives that even trans voices can perpetuate. The Folding Ideas video has been actually helpful in my life as I have been confronted with a family member perpetuating the same scam mentioned in the video (and also as the point was almost more to highlight the horrors of a gig economy and to educate the audience in scam detection). Whistleblowing is also a valid video essay, if the whistleblowing is well-sourced. The Neil Gaiman video is whistleblowing as the drama hadn't yet reached the mainstream, at least not in my circles. As for post-incidence in-depth recaps, I'm not sure. I love watching analyses of drama after it's blown over, but I don't know if that is also drama or a video essay. I feel like that's up for debate.
Honestly I'll take a drama video essay, they're not inherently bad. As long as it's well-presented and not just listing someone's faults as gossip fodder I'm fine with it. It's all about the quality of the entertainment so to say.
ETA To add, I kinda see your Gaiman videos as drama essays, in a way that they're video essays that were made with full awarness that they pertrain to and will cause drama for a specific person. With that in mind I also see multiple hbomb's vids as "drama essays" - Andrew Wakefield, Tommy Tallarico and recently James Somerton were all the antiheroes of his reporting and are mocked by anyone who's seen the videos. The drama surrounding these people is at the core of his essays, regardless of his thesis and conclusions. I still very much enjoyed them. Same with many of Shaun's, José's, Folding Ideas' and other's videos.
Thank you for the video, Vera!
Personally, I do believe that any video criticizing someone with considerable number of followers will always cause some drama anyway. In situations where it involves a content creator which I do follow, what I try to do is ask myself: "Is the criticism in good faith?" "By checking their past works, is the person doing the criticism just for views or harassment?" "Is the person being criticized acting in bad faith?" "Is the drama justified (especially if the creator in question is involved in something very serious and harmful, and they do not want to address the problem or prefer to dismiss it)?". And, yes! Regardless the situation, you should never harass people demanding for answers or apologies! If the problem is really that serious to not ignore it, just stop of following the creator in question!
My favorite thing about the "Video Essay VS Drama" debate that creators always have (well mostly Video Essay TH-camrs; most Drama TH-camrs (or at least the ones I follow) are generally like "I don't know man, we're just both making videos") is that... I follow both of them? Like for example, one of the people HBomber guy called out for making "lazy content" was CB2, a college student who at the time had less that 2k subscribers. CB2 specialized in making short, quick-fire videos that rarely lasted more than 3 minutes that were just giving out live updates to situations as they came out. Was his channel mostly him saying "Alright guys" before reading out some tweets and ending it with "That's crazy, what do you guys think?" Yes, 100%, but I liked his content regardless because his videos were fun, he was super active in his comments, and I don't use Twitter so his channel was how I was getting most of my Twitter drama updates.
I'm as much of a fan of quickfire update videos of a situation I'm already invested in as I am of 4 hour long deep dive into a person/show I've never heard of before. So the infighting is just ridiculous to me. I'm watching all of you at the same time, whether you like it or not.
For the line between essay and drama ive always like the right opinion, sure he only covers drama but he covers it like 6 months to a year after all the actual drama channels were talking bout it so it seems like hes actually thought about it a bit more.
I loved this video, you gave me SO much to think about!
19:20 I commented on a Lily Orchard drama video about that exact thing and got piled on in the comments saying the TH-camr did that for all their thumbnails and I was being too sensitive/overreacting. I made that comment because the ten most recent comments and several of the top ones were all misgendering her, some of which were actively telling the essayist 'why are you calling [her] a woman.' It was a while ago, but it still pisses me off every time -- no, this is different, you know it's different than using an unflattering image of a cis person when you're actively emphasising a trans person's 'non-passing' features.
Criminally underrated channel
(completely unrelated, but now I wonder how long that Kamen Rider W figure has been behind Hup before I finally noticed it.)
I don't watch drama channels regularly but every now and again I see some sort of kerfuffle going on at the edges of my online interests and then I end up seeing if it has some sort of drama round up video so I can get an idea if I need to look into it more or if its just people making drama for fun or some people having a spat that is turning into drama.
Essays mentions the systematic effects of capitalism, while Drama channels ignore, that's the main difference to me
i used to be the journalist at polygon who wrote the Best Of video essay lists each year, and i wound up writing my personal taxonomy for how i defined video essays. it essentially came down to: is there a thesis here that pertains to something larger than the subject of discussion itself? i rules out oral histories (e.g. jenny nicholson) and GREAT commentary videos that didn't necessarily have much to say outside of the subject itself (e.g. D'Angelo Wallace)
I think maybe there are a few different categories and questions being conflated here. CoG is saying a video essay is primarily categorized by format and a drama video is primarily categorized by content. If this is true, there is no reason to think they can't be overlapping categories. Personally, I'm comfortable stopping there and saying some video essays are drama videos and some aren't. I think the tension here comes from the sense that video essays are like, if not high brow, at least more sophisticated and smartypants videos and drama videos are slop for the hogs. I think we need to accept that some video essays are slop and some drama videos are very thoughtful. Like, I think you could argue that Illuminaughti's or James Somerton's videos were 1) unethically produced slop and 2) not drama videos. On the other hand, YT has been recommending the work of (for example) Ophie Dokie a lot lately, and she doesn't shy away from the drama label and also clearly takes her work seriously and is being very thoughtful and intentional about it.
I think more could be discussed over what exactly a video essay even is, because I think a lot of the highly acclaimed ones don't really follow the format of an academkc essay. What do we do with Contrapoints's old Socratic Dialogue videos that I think had a huge impact on the video essay space and also very intentionally don't always draw a neat conclusion. The Leftist Cooks have these wildly artsy, sometimes kind of confusing and often inconclusive videos. Are they essays? Are they the same kind of video of someone setting up a camera and reading off the script of a much more clear cut essay? The reason I say this is that I think the murkiness about what a video essay is makes distinguishing them from some other thing, ie drama videos, more difficult because I don't think there *is* broad agreement on how to define what they are.
I think there's a separate question too of the ethics of a drama video. Hypothetically, imo, a video could follow the conventions of a video essay, have the content of a drama video, and also engage in the drama in a way we think is unethical and I would still call it a video essay. A video essay punching down, a video essay doing an unfair character assassination, but still a video essay.
I hope you're not talking about miniminuteman's (justifiable) beef with Graham Hancock?? 🤣🤣
Omg those videos are goldd
Milo’s not an essayist so he should be safe.
No, timeline wouldn't make any sense for that.
Nahhhh... Probably Ant with Lily
When it comes to drama video, that is videos about people, I tend to prefer videos that are less focused on one aspect, but who provide an overview about what happened. Like, I prefer watching max two videos from Swoop about a person, instead of half a dozen vids that analyze one aspect of the person or keep on hammering on about a person.
I don't consider Dungeon & Discourse a drama channel as, while she keeps her video titles maximum clickbaity, she doesn't go that much after a person and usually puts her titles into perspective. While generally only doing D&D and WotC stuff.
On a smaller note, I never heard drama channels (well I watched max 2) dishing on video essayist. The first time I noticed a conflict was when Hbomberguy tried to distant himself a lot from being a drama channel.
I don't understand why there needs to be a clear distinction between the two. As far as casual usage, I think the intention is generally the most important part of whether something qualifies as a drama video. Is the intent to stoke outrage at someone, or is it to spread information or analyze an event or a person's history? A biography certainly isn't a "drama video" just because it's about a person, even if it paints them in a negative light.
The only difference is "video essayists" spend an 1-3 hours saying shit a drama channel could say in a few minutes and essayists are pretentious and fragile
I've said this other places I think but my own brain often skips positive videos unless the title makes me thing there's information I want to know about it. This isn't because I like the negative videos more; it's actually because when I see a positive title there's a sense of relief involved where as with a negative one it's more like "what now?" and I feel like I need to stay informed about it.
23:10 I had the same feeling about the creator Jacksfilm and his recent avalanche of videos about Mr Beast. His most recent is basically a reaction video.
Click Bait the online equivalent of the book cover artwork and text. Have picked up many books with artwork that does not match any part of the story and story outline text given on the cover has little relation to what is inside the covers. Must not forget the big "click bait" of movie trailers.
Ive never heard of the three people you gave as big examples of video essay-ists. The person who got me into the format was contrapoints. I love a good video essay!
Sarah Z's video about this Toby guy whos tangentially connected to my immortal via sock puppet bible fanfic accounts felt way to invasive for video essay standards. She tells you that she knows hes from new zealand and his legal name (not shown thankfully). Like hes literally a nobody and it felt like she just wanted to turn this guy into a 'lol cow'. An odd experience from start to finish.
This (and your last video) were a nice way to spend part of my Winter Solstice night--so, thanks for that, and (as always!) for all your excellent work! :)
On the clickbait thing, one of my criteria is: If someone not familiar with the subject matter sees the title and thumbnail but does not watch the video, could they take away misinformation? Doesn't have to be outright false for that. Heavily implying something or leaning into some conspiracy believe or rumor and lending it credibility that way is also enough.
Not me coming off a 7 hour breakdown about all the ins, outs, wheres, and whyfors of the film "The VVitch" and into a video about how video essayists are often dangerously close to drama channels ... I feel like I must be doing something right XD
Tbh, the closest thing I watch to 'drama' channels are athiesm channels that mostly just pick at, and dress down, horrendously right wing 'christian' channels... or Leftist channels mostly dedicated to picking at, and dressing down, LGBTQ+phobic right wing channels.. But I would hardly call either of those 'essayist' channels (with the obvious exception of Hbomb and very few others)
Drama is good actually!
Or it can be.
I find the opinion that drama is always bad elitistic and snobbish.
Drama is a tool and if used correctly can be led to catharsis
hbomberguy is a good example of both drama and video essays
Be wary, though, of people accusing their critics of clickbait and drama in an effort to deflect from their bad words or deeds
This video isn’t for me. I definitely consider you and a lot of creators you mention in this to make drama content from time to time. You spend the first chunk of this video creating a false dichotomy between video essays and drama when these are absolutely not mutually exclusive. Drama is just a subject and one that doesn’t have a clear definition.
I know you meant the opposite but I'm very amused by the idea of an drama channel being dangerously close to tipping into video essay territory.
Engagement for the engagement god!
cope
Is it bad that I felt good because, when you named three video essayists, I’d watched all three?
Re: People's faces in the thumbnail, seeing certain people's faces in a thumbnail is pretty good indicator that you're about to watch pure clickbait and/or petty beef dressed up as a video essay. Even essayists I normally enjoy or respect (or used to) have fallen prey to this, and have ended up producing the pettiest, whiniest, most incoherent drama slop as a result.
Mind you, I think it can be important and useful to warn people if someone has done something legitimately heinous or seriously uncool, and also useful to call out or call in misinformed or misguided hot takes, but there's a fine line between that and just pure dramamongering or, especially, straight-up bullying. Bullying, harassment, and petty fight-picking is especially distasteful when coming from people who've presented themselves as paragons of pure Leftist virtue!
A red flag is if someone starts churning out video after video about a situation that isn't actually meaningfully evolving to the point where such updates would be warranted, because then it just comes across like someone *trying* to pick a fight, or when the 24-hour news channel pathetically grasps at straws because there's nothing more to be said about a "developing story."
Public figures are totally fair game, though, as are people who've committed genuine, serious misdeeds and literal crimes. As far as I'm concerned, we can't warn people *enough* about certain incredibly-influential and incredibly-dangerous people and groups!
Council of geeks i know you don't want in your video to mention them by name but can you type the name for me because i got a rule that you tube creators i watch are ones that are followed by you tube creators that i like
I think it valid and not about drama if a person of interest has caused harm and you reporting about it/discussing it.
I’m not trying to guess the channel you’re avoiding naming, but I’ve been recommended videos from a certain creator talking about another creator. I’ve never watched videos from this channel but given the titles/thumbnail I think TH-cam is recommending it to me because I would watch a hbomberguy, d’angelo, etc style video. I didn’t click on the recommended videos for awhile due to the thumbnail looking a bit drama related. But with the frequency of the recommend and the “issues” intimated at - curiosity got me. Anyway, I watch 15 mins of one of the topical videos and clicked off because it was building off of the beef and I had no opinions about anyone in it. I’m sure there’s an opinion to be had but I just had no basis in the people. Anyway, I say all this because I just decided to “block” the channel because I didn’t want to be recommended the videos anymore. This is a bit of a shame because if this is the channel you’re speaking of I will have missed the content you like (that I would also probably like) due to the algorithm recommending the “beef” videos. I hope they put this topic down too.
Who were you watching because i might have a look at their content
For me, I think the line between drama and video essayists is less important than defining the content mills on either side of this line. I have to admit, I find some of the better produced drama channels to be educational to some extent. When I hear that some youtuber has accusations or did something terrible, a good video outlining the events with maybe some commentary is appreciated sometimes. On the other side, I appreciate a good video essay that outlines and reflects on situations or ideas and gives me different perspectives on them.
The problem is the content mill slop that infects both genres. For drama channels it's obvious. Are you watching J Aubrey outline the entire history of a public figure and talking in detail about their alleged actions or are you watching a guy in a chair talking about whichever TH-camr is in the news atm for the fifth time this week. I think the latter does have some value whereas the former is usually trash that leads to bad takes and misinformation. Or worse, digging through every damn thing a person did to find a new thing the hungry drama audience hasn't seen yet - regardless if it's even relevant.
Meanwhile, I have become increasingly aware of how much slop is infecting the video essayist space. This goes beyond the video essayists who are falling into the drama well, it feels like every day I'm recommended some youtuber I've never heard of reacting to whatever right wing rage bait of the moment. We didn't need multiple cis men talking about why Lady Ballers was bad or just an infinite supply of videos about Mr Birchum or that stupid Norm thing.
Content creators who are just regurgitating what people like exist on all sides of this and I think drama youtube it's more obvious than it is on the video essay side. There's also the bad reputation drama channels have that is leading to people who want to make drama videos trying to present themselves as video essayists in the most infuriating way - just using academic language for no good reason.
I saw a video the other day that was about... 20-30 mins long that was about Ellen's recent stand up and wanted to just talk about her like... five minutes of griping. Except that to do that they had to yammer on about 'parasociality' or 'individualism' for a bit, recap Ellen's cancellation for longer than she did in the stand up and then just riff on the rest of her set and play up how bad it is (it was just... Ellen stand up, not my taste but not like... a sign she's off the rails), address the actual issue with what Ellen said about her controversy and then ramble on about the rest of the whatever-not my taste stand up. I felt like an idiot who was tricked into watching one of the trashy drama videos because the way it was presented at the start was to use that academic language to give it a vaneer of being more than "Ellen bad, she bad at stand up cause it's not my taste".
The line is very thin and I also follow someone (probably same person) who I am just extremely fed up with how much they've devoted to a youtuber when that's not why I subscribed. There's video essayists I respect who - probably to make extra cash between their bigger videos - start posting content that's reaction content that's falling into the drama again. I think both things have their value - and people do love their gossip - but the merging comes from a desire to have your cake and eat it for some people. "Oh I'm not a drama channel, I'm a video essayist, so lemme tell you about how parasocial the fans are about this total hot mess."
I like drama videos and video essays. I agree that sometimes the line gets a bit blurry. Whats funny is i arrived here because the algorithm pushed the neil gaiman video to me. I was terrified to click because i didnt know whose opinion i was clicking into. And then i stayed. Because i was interested in the analysis you made of the nature of the podcast and in the videos that followed. Maybe its a good thing that from time to time, some videos veer into more clickable content. I'm grateful youtube pushed that video on me. And it was definitely pushed. I actively ignored it for like a week before giving in
Yes, you count.
0:06 aww, sad, you should have 😂
Two things
First, for me clickbait is something that promises something it doesn't delivers on. Example this 2 tips make you loose weight fast. and the content is move more eat less. The actual content would fit in the headline. I hope that makes it clear what I mean.
Second a Drama video to me is not something that points out actual illegal stuff, really shady things or whatever some fascist is doing but actually irrelevant BS like "XY slept with VZ and did they cheat on AB?"
Who gives a fuck?
Not me obviously.
Your Neil Gaiman videos were the closest you got to a Drama video in my book but still stayed far enough away to not be mistaken for one.
I think I know who you’re talking about and I agree.
i wish you would have talked to ant before talking about him
I love Rosanna Pansino, but... 😂
I had to watch the original rather than from some other TH-camr with their own narrative, then read the fine-line. It just defete the purpose if I listen to this content from someone else who would rather speak the most extreme concept.
Ultimately all drama videos are video essays, its just a term of derision for something thats low effort and just attacks a person who usually isn't very famous in overall society, plus the videos usually don't add anything new to the overall converstion. They see someone made a bad and every other drama youtuber is making one, so why don't they cash in on it?
I like to say this about video games that take inspiration from others, if the game is good and adds something new or different, people will say it took inspiration from X other game, but if its not a very good game or just a complete copy, they will call it a low effort clone of X game.
I think the real difference is in whether or not someone finds said video essay worthwhile to spend time watching or if its just a low effort attack on someone.
Good video!
Off topic, but your glasses + lipstick + nails = chef's kiss 😊 Beautiful colors on you.
I was also quite distracted by the eyeshadow throughout, in a good way
I wouldn't call discourse minitures/dungeons & discourse a drama channel, they are covering things happening in the wargaming/ttrpg (mostly hasbro/warc) news and anti-consumer practices, rather than individual people.
Sorry but they absolutely are, they focus only on negative news, they don't add anything to the reporting besides the most basic commentary, and she is known to blow things out of proportion or make them up entirely to add more drama. I used to watch the channel but had to unsubscribe, and I'm the first person to dunk on Hasbro, but she's not doing JUST that
@AlvarM she "focuses" on the negative because a lot of what hasbro/woct is doing is negative.
Yeah, I only follow Dungeons&Discourse because I only play DND, but I won't call them a dramma channel, but neither a video essay channel if you get me? Her videos are more like news updates and commentary, I think they are amazing (and super funny) and super useful because it's honestly difficult to keep updated on whatever bulshit is going on with Hasbro
@jodrako4341 yup. Same
Sometimes dungeons and discourse makes things seem really negative and dramatic with the thumbnail only for it to not be. Things like candela obscura will kill call of Cthulhu because it has a similar vibe, but not really because coc is the top horror tabletop game.
I think I know who you were refering to at the beginning of the video and if I’m right, it’s unfortunate bc that person had great content but all they’ve known for now is taking the piss out off an admittedly horrible person.