In June of 2018 long-time YouTube creator and controversial web determine Shane Dawson uploaded the primary a part of his first YouTube documentary collection onto his channel titled, “The Reality About Tanacon”. The thumbnail contains a sobbing Mongeau in misery and a perplexed-looking Shane. There have been three YouTube video essays inside the collection, each exceeding 10 million views; by the top of the collection, Dawson had garnered over 62 million views. The collection and Dawson’s transition into longer-form content material established the start of deep-dive content material movies on mainstream YouTube.
What are video essays?
Video essays on YouTube are usually longer-formed content material movies masking a particular matter of popular culture or movie star or influencer. These commentary channels discover success in discussing the long-term results of social media on psychological well being, physique picture points, ultra-feminine beliefs, and so forth.
The chances are countless because the media is consistently evolving and rising round itself with the dying of outdated developments and the start of contemporary ones. As developments and patterns grow to be extra established over time, audiences and shoppers of media grow to be aware of their results. Video essayists are merely pointing them out, giving their viewers one thing to consider as they scroll by way of their feed or watch an A24 film.
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The Roots
Video essays on YouTube, nonetheless, had a way more humble starting than the collection of one of many greatest YouTubers on the platform. Deep-dive content material started with channels like Watch Mojo, The Checklist, The Take, and Nicki Swift. These channels rose to favor within the mid-2010s and located an viewers by way of analytical movies about films and popular culture. Nicki Swift’s channel uploaded an essay titled “Why Hollywood Received’t Forged Taylor Lautner Anymore” in 2016 with over 7.2 million views, breaking down the ebbs and circulate of the actor’s profession because it coincided with the fickle beast of Hollywood.
As influencers and influencer information turned more and more frequent, mixing the strains of conventional celebrities with the brand new age of media, their movies altered and mirrored this evolution as effectively.
Extra lately in 2020, The Take’s “The Cool Woman Trope, Defined” displays on the rise and fall of a very fashionable and fawned-over film trope that was fashionable within the early 2000s. The video has now garnered over 2.6 million views and is one among their hottest movies to this point.
These film clichés and popular culture tropes now translate onto TikTok, mixing into numerous quick type developments and memes satirizing the tropes and archetypes introduced in these YouTube movies.
Video Essays: Now
Now, as longer-form content material has, as of late, been rewarded on YouTube’s platform, and the algorithm is taking part in significantly into these deep-dive movies, video essays have taken a brand new type. Longer movies of real evaluation are now not reserved for personal video-producing firms. Particular person YouTubers cowl the positioning with essays on “the rise of [insert topic here]” or comparable titles in the identical lower-case font.
Viewers grow to be fixated on any such content material for lots of the similar causes over 60 million individuals tuned into Shane Dawson’s video collection in regards to the Tanacon scandal: everybody loves a very good present. Deep dives are merely the newest iteration. This obsession and curiosity promoted a rising curiosity in documentaries and biopics over the previous couple of years, as effectively.
For Gen Z, video essays are good and poignant. They watch their friends draw conclusions about subjects that they see every day on their feeds and tune in as space professionals present obscure and area of interest data.
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Julia Cudney and Teen Rom Coms
Julia Cudney is a 24-year-old YouTuber whose channel and content material are critiques and commentaries on fashionable teen romantic comedies and TV reveals. Her channel began in 2016, however she solely lately started posting constantly.
One among her first movies that turned extraordinarily fashionable obtained over 1.4 million views and talked in regards to the “104 Causes to Ship Bughead”. Three uploads later, Julia Cudeny discovered mainstream success within the video essay area of interest of YouTube along with her video titled, “imply ladies 2 is a rubbish film” which obtained over 3 million views.
Nevertheless, the video she is probably going most well-known for is the video on Anna Todd’s After collection, “what after reveals about immoral romance” the place she dives into the dynamics of an abusive relationship, the risks of its defective characters, and the potential impacts on the viewers. Her viewers responds effectively to her content material as a result of it’s genuine and demonstrates a transparent understanding of the subjects at hand, as Cudney consumes this media herself.
Mina Le: Trend and Movie
“I’m only a lady who likes trend and films,” she says in her YouTube bio. With over one million subscribers, Mina Le and her eyebrows have constructed fairly a popularity for introspective evaluation of the pervasive methods of popular culture.
Her most up-to-date video titled “the messy rise and fall of Victoria’s Secret” goes into the scandals of the lingerie firm and its makes an attempt at salvaging the rest of its popularity. Her hottest video, “tiktok is type of unhealthy for trend” has over 3 million views as she sits with a microphone and discusses the empty high quality of quick trend and the devastation TikTok developments and creators have achieved to the surroundings.
The intersection between movie and trend is undeniably fascinating. Mix that with clever commentary and her viewers can’t get sufficient.
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Tee Noir
A commentary channel on YouTube masking subjects from the fetishization of Black ladies within the media to hypersexuality, Tee Noir offers her two cents on subjects that the mainstream tends to gloss over. Her hottest video with over 1.6 million views, “The “Blaccent”: Nonblack Creators’ Key to Fame” responds to the appropriation of ebonics and Black tradition by non-Black creators.
Her movies communicate totally on the subject of Black womanhood in movies like “Society vs. The “Common” Trying Black Lady” the place she says bluntly, “I don’t need peace, I would like issues at all times,” anticipating the backlash on the video. Tee Noir analyzes the covertly problematic points of popular culture that we encounter day by day on our screens in 20 to 40 minutes on her channel.
D’Angelo Wallace
With 2 channels, each of which have surpassed effectively over one million subscribers, D’Angelo Wallace is probably going probably the most famend commentary channel on YouTube. In 2020, Wallace went “from 600,000 subscribers to 1 million subscribers in a single week,” Insider reporter Kat Tenbarge wrote in an interview with the YouTuber.
Since then, Wallace has launched many video essays diving into the likes of Jake and Logan Paul, Artist Lana Del Rey, and most famously the influencer and Covid-19 scandal.
His movies all obtained over 3 million views every, however the video titled “INFLUENCER-19” at an hour and 9 minutes lengthy garnered over 7.7 million views as Wallace breaks down the risks and irresponsibility of assorted TikTokers and YouTubers throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. The video was extremely effectively obtained and praised by fellow YouTubers. D’Angelo Wallace’s content material holds influencers accountable and establishes confidence in his viewers.
Video essays have been part of YouTube for a while, however solely lately established a real area of interest for themselves on the platform by way of eye-catching thumbnails, cohesive titles, and thought-provoking commentary. The rise of video essays is indicative of a extra considerate viewers and viewers, ones who wish to perceive the world round them and the media they devour. They’re now not being fed concepts, however, as a substitute, they’re desirous to dissect them.
