saganhawkes
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Quick Thought About 'Video Essays'
🕑 Added 2023-12-27 19:27:30 +0000 UTCHopping on here to express some quick thoughts about 'video essays.'
Firstly, what even is a video essay? Seriously, I don't really know anymore. It feels like the YouTube community has decided any video 1hr+ is one. To me that doesn't seem fair, because not every hour+ long video has a thesis or an essay-like format; and where it's harmfu, I think, is when people start comparing unrelated videos because they're both 'video essays.' It doesn't make sense to compare a hbomberguy video to an iceberg video, or a jacob geller video to movie review. idk these are just examples off the top of my head. I just see this weird thing play out in comment sections or whenever I am unlucky enough to find myself on twitter, of holding long videos up and comparing them to other 'video essays', sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. Idk I just think the genre term is too broad.
On top of that, I think there's a subset of video essay culture that really revels in both 'discourse' (or 'arguing about things that don't matter on the Internet') and like an ownership of *their* favorite YouTubers, which leads to these weird warring sub-communities... Idk, I left social media cause I was tired of this stuff, so normally I don't see it, but every once in a while it pops up.
I guess all of that is lead up to the question: are my videos 'video essays?' I feel like some of them have been. But I have been wondering, ever since I dropped the 'A Retrospective' title in my videos... What are the things that I'm making? Reviews? Analysis? Essays? I guess some of them could be considered that. "There Will Never Be Another Petscop" probably, maybe even the Mascot Horror one. But is that one more like a history video? Idk. Part of me really likes video essays and I do like writing with those inspirations in mind, but sometimes I don't want to be a 'YouTube video essayist.' Interested what genre you all put my videos in, cause I'm never exactly sure what to call them.
Anyway, I'll be posting a Q&A post soon, so I can have one of those up for the new year. Sorry if this post felt a little rambly, was just thinking and I don't have social media to post to anymore. Talk to you all soon!
Here's Gus:
Comments
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Well, what's an essay in the first place? A review isn't really considered an essay. An editorial (opinion piece) isn't the same as reportage, neither of which are the same as a non-fiction short story, which aren't the same as a critical analysis, nor a political manifesto. All could be called essays, but they all have totally different purposes. It's good to question these things, of course. The internet gets ahold of particular phrases and runs them into the ground until they lose all meaning. But I wouldn't worry too hard about what category it falls into unless you really want to. (Didn't see this until now because my subscription unverified itself lol)
I think some of the videos you cover fall sometimes into something that looks vaguely like an essay - their structure reminds me of the definition I have learned in the nonfiction class. This was in particular Mascot Horror one, which while having documentary element, did have conclusion and major thought not related to the subject behind it. However, most of the work falls under sort of a... analysis and/or overview. I watch it to catch up on the knowledge of particular thing, which is not essay to me (because there needs to be argued point in the essay for me at least) but I am not sure how to call it. Essay in English is, however an extremely large subject (which is why it confuses me - I am not native speaker). Some people use it synonymously with all non-fiction work. In the end, I would not call it the same essay as....essays, but the terms do get kinda blurred in general English usage. So in the end I would't worry about it too much? I wouldn't personally use essay as term to most of your videos.
