Commentary, Critique, and Making an Argument
I'm putting my thoughts here because I think I'm annoying IRL people by talking about this so much. Also please note that anything in 'parenthetical' is not a direct quote but a general summation (with my biases) of what is said.
A commentary creator named Doothi came out with a video called, commentary is lowkey bad (REUPLOAD). I watched it, and for about half of the video I was afraid my biases towards one of the creators she mention, marc insco, was clouding my judgement of the actual video and her argument. I thought that it was just a case of 'creator said something I don't like and I'm taking it personally', but then she used Kiki Chanel's This Entitled Bride DISGUSTS me video (not actually referring to her by name or saying video title). The way she framed it was so out of context it was not only hypocritical (given her previous points about diving deeper and doing research) but completely in bad faith.
For context the clip Doothi uses is of Kiki dragging this woman who took off her makeup and re-applied it herself right before her wedding. She frames it as Kiki dragging out the drama (making a 1+ hour video) and 'beating a dead horse, bring the horse back from the dead, and then beat the glue'. (This was the best part of Doothi's video, the imagery is immaculate.) She conveniently didn't mention there's more and Kiki actually goes in depth about the entire drama and fall out; the bride tagged the make-up artist (you know, the person who applied the make up she took off in the video) and said she felt too uncomfortable to speak up about not liking her make-up. Along with some other shady actions, it was clear that the bride was being mean and her actions actively hurt the make-up artist professionally by insinuating she was hostile. By not giving any of this context Doothi wildly misrepresents the clip (probably because if people knew the context they'd actually have a more nuanced position about Kiki's content and Doothi's TikTok commentary is completely braindead and stupid becomes far less reasonable).
I don't really like Kiki. I just find her style repetitive and over the top; personally I'd consider her a 'slop' creator (but that doesn't mean I don't watch her in small doses). I watched this specific video before, because she had the longest video that covered that drama, and it was jarring how Doothi used that clip as an example. I think her misuse of Kiki's video, which was more extreme than what she did with Marc's, should tip people off that her video is suspicious.
The other thing that many, many people pointed out was that she used the biggest names in the community’s likenesses while never directly talking about them or pulling from their videos for examples. Now Marc is certainly not a small creator at this point, but even upon first watch (before I watched the response video) I thought it was weird that she used his video the most.
Just the way she used her 'examples' of slop/surface content was enough to put me off.
But because I can't let sleeping dogs lie I thought about it more, and I realized how contradictory the video is. One discrepancy jumped out in the first watch, her point that commentators use sarcasm and self-deprecation to avoid being held to a higher standard, but she does the same thing in that very video?
Others took more time to process. She talks about the importance of using trending topics as a jump off point for deeper issues, but she skates by insights like the algorithms influence on content creation and user driven consumption? Her criticizing too long videos where the creator repeats themselves...I'll just let you watch her video and come to your own conclusion. It also rubbed me the wrong way how she almost solely laid the responsibility of 'slop' content's creation and perpetuation on the creators.
Yes they are active participants in this cycle because they create content that have relatively shallow insights. This completely ignores the fact that YouTube's algorithm rewards consistent content creation and does not generally consider quality (how would it even be able to quantify that? I'm genuinely curious). This ignores the fact that these algorithms prioritize sustained user engagement, meaning that if this content is consistently showing up on her (or your) feed, then there's a high change she/you are engaging with it enough that the algorithm concludes it retains the viewer's attention. This ignores a lot of nuances.
The most frustrating thing about the video itself is that Doothi does not engage with any of these other factors meaningfully, which is antithetical to what she's advocating for: to go deeper and ask why. I thought her initial point about content being a commodity was her most interesting one, but it assumes many factors that should not be. It presumes that every TikTok reaction channel is the same (that's not really the case, I think if she group certain reaction types together that could lead to some cool insights like: what demographics are attracted to the crazy shock thumbnails; which reaction type has the highest viewer retention; which of these TikTok reaction channels have the most consistent subscriber levels. There's definitely analysis there!). It also assumes that consumers don't have preference (an assumption that drove me crazy while studying economics), something that's definitely not true in this context. The point that there's an attention arms race for content creators is definitely the strongest and most intriguing part. And she could've tied this arms race into why creators act the way they do, choose their topics, and evolve over time. I'm sure there's creators out there that do this but Doothi certainly didn't.
I've also seen reactions that boil down to 'her video wasn't the best at communicating the point, but I agree with the ideas she's presenting; so the backlash is unwarranted'.
I completely disagree!
It might be the academic snob in me coming out, but in this specific instance, the way she presented her argument really, really matters. Her whole point is that commentary is shallow and people need to think deeper and we should hold creators to higher standards. Yet her video was at the same level as the very genre she's criticizing. There weren't any actual sources to back up her arguments (besides video clips taken out of context), no diving deeper into systemic issues (algorithm driven creation, viewer consumption, how AI's presence is driving creators into being more formulaic, I'd even take a retrospective of how commentary has evolved and gotten to this point), not even defining what she considers commentary. She is advocating for standards she's not even holding herself to. She tries to cover herself by saying things like 'not everything has to be a rabbit hole' or the previously mentioned 'sometimes self deprecation is necessary to contextualize what the audience should expect of you', but that just makes the video unfocused, sloppy, and makes the creator seem insecure in their argument and themselves. Which would be fine, IF SHE WASN'T TRYING TO POSITION HERSELF AS BETTER THAN THE CURRENT COMMENTARY GENRE.
Her video certainly lite a small fire in the commentary community (for other reasons but I only interested in her actual agruements) and it kills me that so many are defending her video based on them agreeing with the general point while ignoring that the video and arguments themselves were bad.
I'm sorry, but it was just bad. She didn't defend any of her points well and the misuse of other's videos and the general tone came off as mean spirited. It was ramble-ly at times, no deeper analysis, and I finished it thinking "Why don't you find the content you want to watch? She’s making it sound like this is the only option". The plug at the end to 'be thoughtful about your content consumption' doesn't land at all because she spent the last 25 minutes solely talking about how it's these commentary creators fault that the genre sucks now without providing alternatives or a way to improve the situation (beyond just saying they should ‘go deeper’ into topics). Admittedly, she did flash a bunch of commentary videos she likes, but that was at most 3 seconds of screen time and you would have to pause and zoom in to actually figure out the titles and creators of these videos. I think if she was actually serious about pointing the viewer to more thoughtful content then she should've taken more time and verbally recommend creators she thinks is good commentary.
I wouldn't be so peeved by her defenders if they weren't acting like they're intellectually superior in some way for agreeing with her. Because to me it just makes them look like fools. Like that's who you're centering as the one who's making the best take? The person that contradicted themselves multiple times in their own video and whose video quality is at the same (if not worse) level as the content she's criticizing? It comes off like both Doothi and her supporters want to feel intellectually superior but don't want to put in the work.
I leave with a final thought. Marc Insco in his response wished Doothi luck because she's created 'a very high standard for herself and amassed a pedantic and puritanical community that will turn if she slips up at all'. I honestly think she'll be fine.
I think she's attracted the perfect audience for herself. People who conflate being judgmental with insightfulness. Whether she slips up or not I think will be irrelevant, so long as she tells her audience her intentions they'll accept when she's being hypocritical. Afterall they like the sloppy commentary video about commentary slop.