OK.
You’ve seen the title, you know what I’m talking about and some of you probably have
your cursors hovering over that dislike button.
And I get it.
Either I’m one of yet another people trying to distance themselves from the format or
I’m just going to argue semantics.
So in this video I aim to discuss the semantics surrounding ‘Video Essays’ as a pseudo
genre on YouTube and why such semantics might just be harmful to a form I think has far
greater potential than what has been realised by the videos that typify the form.
So why make this now?
Well, as I just implied I’ve seen a few other creators try to distance themselves
from the format, but for what I’m beginning to think are the wrong reasons.
They are distancing themselves from the form, but not the term.
Although I do have some issues with the form as it stands I want to flip that on its head,
keep the form and abandon the term because video essays are being held back by the very
same label that most creators identify their work with and indeed the very label I identify
this video with, lacking a better term.
So here it is – a video essay Discussing why I hate the term video essay, or at least
how it is used currently.
To discuss my issues with the term I’m going to break this video up into smaller sections.
As with any video broken up along those lines the way in which I divide up points of discussion
is somewhat arbitrary – so bear with me when one section bleeds into the next or when
various points work in multiple categories.
Like I said before, it’s arbitrary, I do so in order to make my discussion easier to
digest and to rebut should you see issues in my argument.
//Part 1 - The Thesis Is (almost) Always The Same//
So, first of all I want to discuss the Essay portion of the term.
I have many issues here, mostly petty, but one I think is fairly important.
An essay is a scripted argument that provides a viewpoint and evidence to support that view.
Unfortunately video essays generally don’t have any argument beyond this is good because
X or this is bad because Y.
I want to be very clear here – I like the work of the channels I’m showing on screen,
and I’ve done the exact same thing in my videos – it’s not the videos that I have
an issue with, it’s that Video Essays aren’t good essays, and a lot of essays aren’t
good videos.
If you want a real video essay that I think seems more appropriate to the term I’d recommend
checking out Shaun’s channel – I treat his videos more or less as podcasts because
he’s got a great essay, but it’s pretty hard to actually communicate his ideas visually,
especially given his videos are actually the length of real essays and frequently stretch
beyond the half hour mark as a result.
My point is that ‘video essay’ is a label that frequently misrepresents the actual content
and the videos that typify the form put far too much emphasis on the video part of the
term.
Almost without exception I think this is to the detriment of what that form could, and
should, be.
//Part 2 - The Video Is Held Above The Essay//
With that we come to my second point of issue – the ‘video’ part of the term.
Here I need to acknowledge what I’ve done in the past and what I continue to do – in
many videos I focus too heavily on the visuals.
Often it’s just spending way too long making an intro, those intros themselves are often
too long as well and sometimes it’s entire videos that are little more than an excuse
for some pretty visuals.
While it’s something I’m trying to work on – it isn’t a huge deal for me when
I see it in other places, I’m not saying it’s a big deal for creators to favour the
visuals and I frequently still enjoy the results.
I do, however, see an unfortunate side effect of such behaviour.
The audience often ignores the text of a video for the visuals.
A while ago I was talking with a friend about various YouTube channels we were fans of and
Nerdwriter came up.
I have issues with Nerdwriter’s content and expressed that I wasn’t a huge fan.
My friend meanwhile was a fan and said that he made great videos, even if they occasionally
didn’t say anything.
I’m not saying there’s any issue with liking such videos, and I’m certainly not
criticising my friend’s taste given she put me on to the positively delightful Contrapoints
in that same conversation, but for me personally I can’t really engage with a video if, as
my friend described, they don’t say anything.
To be very clear any criticism I might have for Nerdwriter’s content can easily be applied
to my own and his work looks far better than mine to boot, so I’m not so much criticising
his video essays as much as the idea that they are essays at all.
Ultimately because channels like Nerdwriter or an old favourite, Every Frame A Painting,
channels that typify what a video essay is, exhibit such a mastery over the editing and
presentation of their content I feel that channels with a different or less visual style
aren’t given as much attention as their writing deserves.
Not only are many creators favouring the video half of video essay, but so are many audiences.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with those videos, Most of my own videos fall into that
same category, but most of them aren’t even close to being actual essays.
For my money Lindsay Ellis continually puts out far better video essays than even the
wonderful Every Frame A Painting, but sees what I believe to be far less attention than
her work deserves and I think part of that comes down to the audience holding the visuals
in higher regard than the writing.
//Part 3 - The Definition Is Awfully Narrow//
I mentioned earlier that I was only recently put on to the incredible work of Contrapoints.
Her work is wonderful, exactly what I want from a video labelled Video Essay and offers
a heady blend of creative visuals, brilliant framing devices and above all else fantastic
writing.
This is what I want from a Video Essay.
So imagine my disappointment when, after sharing one of her videos on r/videoessay, it was
removed for not fitting their definition of Video Essay.
To be clear, the video didn’t fit their definition, or at least not as it was intended
to be read, and I’m not criticising the act of removing it, but on a subreddit that’s
supposedly interested in Video Essays and has a supposedly broad definition of what
a video essay is I think there’s something wrong here.
The definition this particular sub has for video essay is as follows “a written essay
that is read aloud over video accompaniment which seeks to analyze some media text (tv,
film, music, art, speech, etc)”.
Hang on a second though, doesn’t Contrapoints' video actually fit that definition then?
After all it was written and then read aloud.
It had video accompaniment.
It was concerned with discussion of both a particular piece of media text and aspects
of speech.
It fits right?
Well, no, not with the way media text is supposed to be interpreted – what this sub wants
to define as a media text is what fits the definition of a traditional media text.
It is a film, a video game, a novel and so on.
What precludes this video from submission on this subreddit is the idea that commentary
on social media is not on par with commentary on traditional media.
The commentary doesn’t matter, the subject does.
OK, holy cow you just spent ages explaining why a video you liked was removed from a subreddit
on which you think it belongs, what’s your point? -he asks rhetorically- Well this particular
definition of video essay precludes a lot of the very best essays I’ve come across,
the ones that are more academic in nature and far better fit the term ‘video essay’
than a lot of the work that is regularly pushed to the top of R/videoessay.
I’m not trying to legitimise my view point via the value I personally take from this
particular video essay either – have a look at the upvotes it received before being pulled.
14 isn’t much right?
Well, it’s a fair bit more than what most submissions to this sub receive.
It’s not just me that’s thirsty for a different sort of content, but the gatekeepers
of taste, or at least the gatekeepers of this subreddit, aren’t interested in a broader
definition of what a video essay could be, rather offering tacit support for a stale,
tired formula, a narrow definition that’s stopping some of the very best essayists from
reaching mainstream acceptance.
As a huge fan of the form, if not of the term, I really don’t want to see more video essays
discussing Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa or Martin Scorcese and their ilk.
We get it, they’re great directors on a technical level, but are you really bringing
anything new to the table here in discussing them?
Going back to an earlier point, the premise is always the same – X film maker is good
because Y.
That’s what’s limiting what a video essay should be, what I want to see from them.
Ingrained expectations that follow the term video essay are narrow and ultimately limiting.
If you think discussion of objectively better subject material, i.e. the works of Kubrick
and his friends, than objectively worse content from the likes of the Golden One, makes for
a better video essay, then you may be guilty of a sort of confirmation bias.
Only seeking out opinions in places where you already have them yourself.
I know I certainly was guilty of this in the past, I would only click on a video if I had
a vested interested in the subject, if I’d seen the film, played the game, read the book
and so on.
In other words I was privileging the subject over the discussion.
The thing is a discussion of other forms of media, or taking a high brow analytical approach
to discussing low brow art often leads to the very best the video essay form has to
offer.
For example I never would have clicked on Lindsay Ellis’ ‘The Whole Plate’ series
in the past because it was looking at entry level film theory through the lens of the
transformers movies, but that series remains some of the most insightful, clever and enjoyable
content I’ve ever seen on YouTube.
My final point in this discussion then is that because the term Video Essay is now loaded
with particular connotations, connotations of certain visual traits, certain forms of
analysis etc., I might not see the work that I now most value in the form.
When I first started watching videos in this format I was barely watching more than light
analysis.
X media is good because Y and in spite of Z.
That’s fine, but that’s not what an essay is.
I was watching plenty of videos, but I wasn’t watching many essays, at least not many good
ones, and I lay the blame for that on the term video essay, how it is used by creators
working within that format and what expectations it encourages in its audience.
//Part 4 - Solutions And Resolutions//
So what’s the solution?
Well I can’t offer any silver bullet here, but I might suggest a few places to begin.
First I think we should stop describing all analysis content as a video essay.
If you’re making a review, you aren’t making a video essay, you’re just explaining
why you like something.
Don’t call it a video essay unless you’re actually making an essay.
Second; we all know the channels who popularised the formats typically described as a video
essay, but just because channels like Nerdwriter popularised many elements of the form now
synonymous with the term doesn’t mean we should label similar videos with a term that
really doesn’t apply to them, nor should we preclude channels that eschew such styles
from that term if it fits.
I really don’t want to see Video Essays go the way of my favourite genre of music
– Post-Rock became so well defined, so narrow in scope, that the term lost all meaning and
some of the biggest names in the genre released what amounted to the same album over and over,
while others tried to disavow the genre altogether.
If that happened to video essays I’d be really quite upset, and it’s not as far
from happening as I’d like.
Actually it could be argued it’s already happening.
Third we should seek to live up to the label, not bring it down to the level of mere analysis.
If you plan on making a video essay make sure you’ve actually got something more substantial
than lengthy analysis to offer.
You need arguments and evidence, points and counterpoints.
Essay here doesn’t have to mean thesis, body paragraphs conclusion – but it does
mean we need to have an actual argument beyond simply this is good or this is bad if we want
to label our work an essay.
Finally we should stop exclusively seeking out ‘essays’ on topics we’re fans of.
If you find a channel you like don’t subscribe only to pass over any video that doesn’t
discuss a topic you’re already familiar with, unless it has spoilers of course.
This was something I did for a long time and in changing that behaviour I found videos
that were more educational, entertaining and interesting than those that merely discussed
topics I was familiar with.
When there’s no bias to confirm it’s easy to spot a video that’s good on its own merits,
not on the merits of the media it discusses.
There’s a lot of great content out there that I totally passed up on because I didn’t
recognise what was being discussed.
That was a mistake, one I’m glad to have rectified since.
As a little post script here I think it’s important to note why I’ve been saying ‘we’
in most of these points – while video essays are certainly collaborative in nature and
there is often an unacknowledged influence on them from a creator’s audience, I don’t
mean it in such terms, rather I refer to the fact both creator and commenter contribute
to the sort of discussion I want to see in the form.
We as creators and we as audience have, in both capacities, the ability to guide the
direction these sorts of videos take, what sorts of videos are actually described as
video essays and perhaps even create the term that I hope might replace video essay as the
catch all term it is used as.
This is where you come in.
I don’t want to make out that this video is some kind of essayist’s manifesto, I’m
far from the person to write such a manifesto, and I think there are holes in my arguments
you as commenter could either fill in or tear apart – both of which I believe is important
to do.
So I’d love to know what you think; is there a problem with the term or am I just arguing
semantics for no real reason?
If you were to suggest a new term what would you want to use?
Let me know in the comments below.
Cheers, Have a good one.