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I can't be the only person who notices this insane boom of video essay content on Youtube right? I feel like every fucking day Youtube recommends me a video with a contrarian title like 'Popular game you like actually sucks balls' or 'bad thing actually good???' and its just some douche canoe talking over Lowfi hip hop either saying nothing unique or trying his hardest to extract meaning from nothing.

With someone like Every frame a painting he was an expert in the subjects he was talking about and talked about things no one else did at the time. I felt like I got actual value out of hearing him talk.

Super eye patch wolf is really really passionate about anime and can break down the theams of the show into easily digestible bites

I feel like I get absolutely nothing from these other boring cookie cutter channels who just shit out videos weekly to satisfy Youtubes algorithm

Like watch this video and tell me what value you extracted out of it?

The entire point of the video can be summarized with " Da Boss baby is a bad movie, because. Don't watch bad movies" …K

Am I the only person who feels like every time one of these videos gets me with a flashy thumbnail I feel like ive been tricked into watching white noise? You're not brave or initiative for saying the Boss baby was a bad movie, and you're not smart of clever for making a video 'one day Fortnite won't be popular as it is right now'

I want my opinions to be challenged in a real way or have a new outlook on my interests, not this horse shit.

Well, it has been a bit of thing somewhat, the most noticeable I found have been political youtube channels that produce an hour-long essay that will likely send ya to sleep.

It also does remind me of earlier youtube when copycats of AVGN and Nostalgia Critic appeared, even the difference between Doug Walker and James Rolfe.

Like when you watch James Rolfe about horror genres you can tell that he has far more understanding of those movies and their history than Doug if the latter was to try and do that.

Although I think entertainment essays compared to before have gotten better now since people have moved away from the angry online reviewer trend and gone off to do their own separate stuff.

Sure you get bland stuff that doesn't really do much for the brain fun or engaging, but you do sometimes get stuff like Breadswords

Although that requires going through a lot of meh to god awful stuff like when angry reviewers were a thing and were so hard to tell em apart at first.

I mean, it's youtube. People are going to see popular things and think "hey maybe I can do that."

There's also the chance for any critic to sound pretentious. It just comes with the job it seems.

I know what you mean, but they sorted have been around for a while now. I personally haven't watched much of them, but I thought kaptainkristian popularized the video essay format on Youtube at first.

I also noticed that the "VHS/VCR" aesthetic is commonly used among video essay content creators. Admittedly I think it's pretty cool, but it can lose appeal over time if people keep using it over and over again.

In the end, it's a trend, so as a trend it will inevitably lose steam and people will move on to the next one.

EDIT: Oblligatory: