VIDEO ESSAY ROUNDUP #4 (or: The Grind)
[originally posted january 3rd 2024]
it's 2024! i know nobody's happy about that, but here we are. bit of a weird roundup this time because i'm going to spend most of my time talking about one specific channel, as i think it's a useful example of what "success" looks like on youtube and the internet more broadly. so let's get right to it!
"no one knows who created skull trumpet (until now)" by Jeffiot.
i have a feeling that by the time this roundup goes live, Jeffiot's investigation of who, exactly, made the famous skull trumpet gif will have made the rounds in a big way. the algorithm recommended it to me and, as i often do, i opened it in a new tab to watch later. over the course of that same day, i saw three separate people on three separate websites independently say "hey, you should watch this." like any god-fearing youtuber i will gripe about the algorithm until the cows come home, but even i have to admit that a broken clock is right at least twice a day. this is just a solid, entertaining, unique, and earnestly impassioned video essay dedicated to the simple act of giving credit to someone for creating one of the most timeless and universally beloved images on the internet (a subject that has been very hot lately, thanks in no small part to Hbomb's recent video about plagiarism). all else aside, i have to applaud Jeffiot's visual style and production quality. now i'm gonna go watch some of his other videos :)
[20 minutes later] you need to watch It's: Doors™ right fucking now. finally, a video essayist who understands that horror and comedy are the same genre! the rare, fantastical species of creepypasta-knower who seems to understand that the backrooms aren't creepy just because there's a monster! and it's pretty good filmmaking to boot! this is exactly the kind of thing i'm always imagining when i talk about the artistic potential of video essays-- how the medium allows you to blend fiction and nonfiction, personal subjectivity with factual objectivity. i love finding a channel like this, it's like uncovering a goldmine in my backyard. how did nobody notice before??? i'm off to go watch more, will report back if i have further thoughts.
[11 days later] i must report now, having watched a multitude of videos on Jeffiot's channel, that this guy has the stuff. i didn't need to watch as many vids as i did to confirm that he has the stuff, but then again, when someone does have the stuff, it's not like you can stop at just one or two. as a general rule, when i watch a video from someone i've never seen before, i always click through to their channel and see what else they've got on offer. one of the unstated calculations i make in what i choose to cover in this blog is that i am more likely to recommend a channel that has multiple essays of similar quality. you'll understand why in a moment.
i can see why Jeffiot's channel didn't take off until now, as many of his videos are esoteric in subject and presentation. not in a bad way by any means, but in that way where if i saw one of his thumbnails in a lineup i would probably conclude it wasn't for me. this is the chief hazard of producing videos that are complex and intricate: they're fucking difficult to advertise. good art in any medium often requires a lot more prompting and persuasion before an audience can buy in, especially in an environment so drowned in easy, safe alternatives. this is why i try to watch through videos even if they make a bad first impression, why i try to watch multiple videos on a channel, so that i can get a sense of the voice behind the work. there are amateur creators out there with an identifiable spark that Will burst into something special eventually, if you just give em a little leeway and try to see what they're doing for what it is. luckily this is not a problem with Jeffiot at all. everything i've watched of his is fantastic and appallingly high effort. it's a channel that might be a hard sell at a distance, especially if you're not into horror-focused channels, but if you just give it time you'll see that he's got a lot more on his mind than appearances might suggest. this is someone putting in the work, clearly not satisfied with doing the same thing more than once, with videos ranging in subject from a frenetic examination of the logic of Death in the Final Destination movies, to an astonishingly journalistic investigation of the history of the Gävle Goat, to an odd and heartfelt exploration of the intoxicating and terrifying call of the void. it's rare to find someone who scores so high on style, substance, and verifiable source usage all at once.
and yup, i was right, he went from having just over 5k subs when i first started writing this draft on December 22nd, to exceeding 50k less than two weeks later, with the skull trumpet vid itself sitting pretty at over a quarter of a million views, the most of anything on his channel by several orders of magnitude. i mention all this because i think it typifies The Grind, on youtube but also as one working in any creative economy online (if you utter the phrase "content creator" at me i'm going to erase you from history). getting started as a video essayist, you will pour your heart and soul into videos that almost no one will watch. you will try to chase the algorithm, and it won't work. you will try to make something just for you, and it also won't work. some vids will break through more than others, but the progress will be achingly slow to the point of feeling nonexistent. you will do this for months and months, in some cases years, and you will ask yourself always… is it worth it? am i just dumping my art into an uncaring void for no reason?
i speak here from personal experience. i posted my first proper video essay in December 2013. i didn't have a real Hit until five years later, with a defense of a ContraPoints video in September 2018, which was successful in part because it was amplified by Natalie Wynn herself. but even then, it took until March 2019 before my video about The Politics of the McElroy Brothers took off (this time thanks in part to a lot of visibility gained from guesting on Hbomb's DK64 nightmare stream) and really pushed my subscriber and patreon numbers into "can actually pay some bills with this" territory. prior to both of those moments, i was convinced that i was at an insurmountable dead end. so you see, sometimes "luck" is getting a boost from popular strangers at the right time. while i did not expect the ContraPoints defense to gain any traction at all, the McElroy vid was weird in that everyone i talked to about it in the months before its release was immediately excited by the pitch. a rare case where i had reasonable suspicion that This One Might Be A Hit. but even then, i figured it would fail. when it didn't fail, in both cases, there was a terrible temptation to pivot my entire creative focus to just doing More Of What Worked. unfortunately for my wallet, i'm constitutionally incapable of making good business decisions, and so generally failed to fully take advantage of those opportunities in the ways a Mr. Beast might advise. but i also happen to think that it was the right call to not make those pivots. i would hate to be stuck just making response videos, or pigeonholed as the "politics of [podcaster]" gal. i stand by those videos (i think the McElroy vid still has some of my funniest jokes), but neither of them is particularly the kind of thing i would like to continue making in perpetuity. and anyway, you can't chase what works, because "what works" is always changing. unless you want to make half of your job studying the ebbs and flows of the Greater Video Essay Marketplace, only suffering and ruin lies down the path of trying to reproduce viral success.
the thing about making a living online is that what the job fundamentally is, is laying the groundwork for a future bit of good luck. if your very first video takes off, that's good for your views and sub counts, but it's an open question how much of that audience will come back for seconds. youtube is littered with channels whose first video went big and then nothing made a splash after that. unless you're a Big Established Channel, most of your traffic is going to come from a very small percentage of your videos. the people you want to court are not the mass audience, the hundreds of thousands who turn out when the algorithm and zeitgeist grants you time in the spotlight. the people you want to court are the folks who click through and watch your other stuff, who like what you do, and who will show up for you even if a project isn't something they expect or know they'll like. you want those people because instead of commenting "just play the hits" they'll tell you how surprised they were at how much they liked the wild swerve you took. so you put your heart and soul into releasing stuff even though it feels like screaming into the abyss, because it means that someday, when (if) you get lucky, you've got a broad foundation of existing works that new viewers can then jump to, giving them a sense of your proclivities as a critic and artist, how you've grown and developed over time, and what kind of commitment you rhave to the work you're trying to get paid for. this is important because anyone can make one good video essay. i repeat: anyone can make one good video essay. it really isn't that hard! it's the people who do it multiple times, on multiple subjects, in multiple different forms of expression, over a long stretch of time, that i think are most often worth paying attention to, and most reward material support.
the algorithm really isn't straightforward at all though. my experience for a long time was that when i released a new video, the new thing would drop like a lead balloon, but some random older vid of mine would get a huge bump in viewership. my essay about netflix's tendency to abandon its originals from all the way back in April 2018 still gets randomly promoted every once in a while! which is nice because i'm actually rather proud of that one. it's partially for this reason that i try to futureproof my videos, in the sense that i try to write for someone watching five or so years in the future (applying materialism to my analysis is a big part of this). youtube as a platform is incredibly wasteful in how it encourages disposable information, with no mechanism for mass rebroadcast or whatever, but if i still read media criticism written in the 1970s today, i have to imagine that people in the future will want to watch the media criticism of the 2020s for many of the same reasons. this isn't about legacy or an overblown sense of self-importance or anything, i just think it's good practice from a writerly point of view. you just never know what thing of yours is going to take off or when!
this is by no means a fair, just, or even particularly excusable system --it's defined exclusively by private enterprise with no input from the creators who generate the value that youtube's parent company thrives on-- but that's how it's been for a long time (and not just on youtube, even before the internet). i wanted to draw your attention to the graph at the top of this post precisely because it illustrates the long game of this gig. if you're not a creator, perhaps it can give you a sense of what it feels like waiting around to get lucky. an endless and desperate stream of little to no movement. no hope of change, no indication that anything ever could. nothing makes a dent, and no amount of work relieves you from the obligation to turn around and do it again, in the hopes that maybe this time something will be different. when you're really in the doldrums, it's never different. it can feel like being trapped in a wasteland surrounded by oases. all the youtubers you like are making money doing this, why can't you? you ask yourself if there's something wrong with you as a creator, or as a person, if there's something fundamentally unlikeable or whatever about you that makes succeeding at this gig impossible. you'll give up hope so often, only to get dragged back in for some reason or other.
and then, suddenly, for seemingly no reason, with the application of exactly the right video at exactly the right time (never a predictable combination), everything changes all at once. you watch in dumbfounded, horrified amazement as those numbers, long immovably static, multiply at an incomprehensible pace. the shock of it is so distinct it's like god tapped your shoulder and gave you protagonist privileges for a day. when this happens, you instantly and viscerally understand why so many people go absolutely out of their minds when this happens to them. such a sudden wave of attention is eldritch and, if you're queer or POC or cover any topics more controversial than watching paint dry, it's deeply threatening. but then you see comment after comment of people saying "wow this is so good, why doesn't this have more views?" and you're like, okay, so actually i've never done anything wrong in my life! it's awesome and vindicating and scary and such a relief and SO STRESSFUL all at once. you can just FEEL the 90 degree curve on that graph when it hits.
in many of his videos, Jeffiot talks about difficulties paying rent and making ends meet, begging as all essayists must for some portion of the audience to please give him a few bucks a month. since releasing the skull trumpet vid, his patron count has gone up from 92 in november to 160 at time of writing, and like, as someone who went from "i might have to get a full-time job" to "i can quit my shitty part-time job for at least a year" money over the course of a couple days, i feel such a vicarious thrill of relief on his behalf. what's better than getting a raise??
so we have two numerical changes to look at here with Jeffiot's success. 5,000 subscribers to 50,000, vs 92 patreon backers to 160. the disparity in magnitude there is huge, and crucial to understand if you're an essayist in your early days and you want to stay remotely sane. for all the thousands who subscribed to the channel from one video, only 68 decided to pay him for his labor. of those 68, how many do you think watched only this one video and then immediately went to give him money? or did they see the quality of the work on the rest of his channel from the launchpad that was the skull trumpet vid, and only then decide this is someone worth supporting? in my experience, it's the latter who form the longterm base of support that you come to rely on. they're the ones who stick with you through the slump eras when your pen dries up and you just can't pump em out like you used to. and trust me, you will experience slump eras, no matter how sigma your grindset.
the hits come and go. it's very likely that Jeffiot's next video will hit with a thud and stall out at, like, 20,000 views on the high end. but that's the grind, man. you aren't courting the thousands, you're courting the handful of weirdos who share your particular brand of derangement. infinite growth is impossible and unsustainable. i share all this with you because i think it's helpful to dig into an example of "success" within this system as it happens in the wild. so that maybe you can get a sense of what the business of this gig is for people with more ambition than content farming and response videos, and adjust your behavior towards such creators accordingly.
in any event, i wish Jeffiot all the luck in the world, and i'm very much looking forward to whatever he produces next.
hey, remember how this is supposed to be a roundup post? let's get back to that.
"The rise and fall of New Atheism" by Costanza Polastri.
i previously highlighted another Polastri video in VIDROUND #2 (is that what i'm calling these? that can't be what i'm calling these), and i'm gonna keep on recommending her stuff as long as it's this good. does a great job explaining the appeal of new atheism among millennials while also criticizing its worst elements. this topic so often gets discussed with a lot of exaggerated rhetoric and loud hyperbole, so to have Costanza talk about new atheism with such easygoing humanism and frankness hits different. i also share her feeling that new atheism did a poor job of replacing the social roles religion plays, and her desire to find something religious that isn't the institutional religions we're stuck with, or cults, or the church of the flying spaghetti monster.
"Alan Wake 1 & 2 | A Self-Indulgent Retrospective" by Pim's Crypt.
two entire Swedes in this roundup? and they're both channels focused primarily on horror genre analysis? i don't have a punchline to these questions. this is an enjoyable and digestible retrospective on the Alan Wake games from someone who really cares about them, which is the best kind of retrospective. these days i vastly prefer listening to someone talk about media they love than media they hate, and as someone who has a lot of gripes about Remedy's games it's always useful to get the perspective of someone who likes their stuff. full disclosure, i haven't finished watching this video yet because i haven't finished playing Alan Wake 2, but 58 minutes out of a 73 minute runtime feels like enough to give an honest recommendation.
"The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall of X" by What's So Great About That?
Grace Lee is quietly one of the best video essayists out there. her stuff is always, without exception, insightful, well-researched, and polished to a mirror shine. this video is largely about the semiotics of the letter X (and, eventually, what it means to Elon Musk), and digs into a surprising amount of literature on the subject along the way.
THE "DOESN'T NEED THE HELP" ZONE
"It's time to talk about Plagiarism… again" by Jack Saint.
the post-Hbomb-plagiarism-on-youtube conversation continues. bless Jack Saint here for his insistence that lazily-researched bordering-on-plagiarized videos are popular because they're systemically incentivized. i also can't believe that the new Wonka apparently isn't complete garbage? anyway i think the evolving plagiarism discourse is fascinating to watch, and i like the insight that Jack brings to the table.
"The Obsession with Bad Games" by NeverKnowsBest.
echoes many of my thoughts on the toxicity of so much games discourse, particularly the vitriol directed at "bad" games. traces the influence of AVGN to now & and dares to ask "is the hate really worth it?" so often gamers treat bad games like an assault, and you know, movie reviewers do this too, but in this post-gamergate world such naysayers just so happen to be a significantly influential audience segment capable of amplifying their vitriol all the way up the chain to the likes of Elon Musk. it really doesn't help that tech types have well and truly devolved into spoiled children appealing to the butthurt gamerbros, that corporations like Disney hear their protestations louder than any other voice regardless of how numerable such voices actually are.
and that's it for this roundup! fewer recommendations than normal because of the lengthy Jeffiot analysis, but i think it was worth it. there will probably be another roundup this month as a result!
thank you to everyone who's sent me video recommendations to my askbox! to repeat from the previous roundup, please feel free to send me under-appreciated videos, new or old, made by you or anyone else! no promises that i'll cover anything you send of course, but i WILL see it.
take care of yourselves in this brave new year, folks. it's gonna be a weird one!
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