#video essay
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#samantha hoopes#solitudine#ekaterina shiryaeva#revenge of the sith#kiki's delivery service#darkness#eurovision#kenken#moebius#hand embroidery#nina dobrev#video essay#thc
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I feel like those of us who are longtime Video Essay Enjoyers™ have been aware something was suss about James Summerton (I remember when Lawrence called out Somerton for stealing their Hannibal essay years ago) for a while. But I think it's cynical to reduce Hbomberguy's vid to just a "dunk" when it's more of an odyssey railing against how influencer and content culture devalues the work of culture critics, academics, and activists. As Harris said, it's not a problem exclusive to Somerton, but a corrosive attitude baked into late capitalist "content" culture. The video is a clear exploration of the consequences of all media and art being flattened into "content" creates a system where the labor of marginalised creatives and storytellers are exploited and stolen by people with more privileges and resources. As someone who has witnessed rich tiktokers quote articles and posts I've written verbatim without credit to make money from their 1000s of followers, this video hit super hard for me. From James Somerton claiming the works of dead gay activists, to Charli D'Amelio building a career from stealing dances created by Black tiktokers - plagiarism is often inseparable from discrimination and exploitation of labor rights. Harris' video is about how the nature of influencer content culture has further exacerbated the exploitative systems that already existed, wrapped up as YouTuber drama analysis. But I hope people don't miss the forest for the trees and remember you should always be citing your sources, fact checking, and be very wary of people who don't. And for the love of God, please stop getting your information exclusively from video essays, tiktoks and podcasts.
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The good news about Hbomberguy's plagiarism video for everyone who used to like James Somerton (I recently discovered him and hadn't got to any of the misogynistic shit yet), is that the queer analysis we liked is still out there - just not written by the thieving little shite. Great place to start is the playlist Harry created of plagarised or otherwise hardworking (but underrated) creators:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRGz5EMig3r2ZDgeGzwUlSz-PzF-L1Xu1&si=KqFfYA1NntIA3JG_
Also, as he's gonna send the profits to the writers James yoinked (without the twist) from, if you wanna help financially, you could always just... Put the video on in the background on repeat...
Tangentially, I met Harry a few years back at WorldCon in Dublin, and thanked him for his videos. He gave me a hug. The guy is just as sweet and lovely, and delightfully wild-eyed*, in real life.
*Seriously, the magnificent bastard has beautiful eyes.
#james somerton#hbomberguy#plagarism#youtube#video essay#queer#queer community#lgbtq+#lgbtqia#gay#film analysis
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This man is a gift who should be cherished
What is wrong with him? (affectionate)
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ONLY YOU CAN CORRECTLY CITE YOUR SOURCES!
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the most insaine lie that James Somerton told wasn't anything about plagiarism it was the idea that women/fujoshis don't want to see 2 dudes having crazy weird sex
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youtube
I've been working on this since.... September? And I have been trying to piece it together like legos for two months now, and I've finally just decided to give up and leave it as is.
If you've ever wanted to read The Locked Tomb but were scared off by the worldbuilding and the terminology, this is for you.
#video#the locked tomb#video essay#youtube video#chekhov makes a video#i apologize for the weird audio jump halfway through#maybe someday I'll fix it#Youtube
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God I love animation. I love it for the way it can bring anything to life beyond the constraints of boring ol' reality, but also the ways that it's inextricably linked to, and draws on the conventions of live-action film-making.
So fuck it, let's look at how Hayao Miyazaki straight up copies some camera framing techniques from his predecessor and the other most influential Japanese filmmaker of all time, Akira Kurosawa! (Kurosawa really was the master of framing scenes around his characters, so he's a great source of inspiration)
(btw, this is a screenshot from this TV special where the two met for the first time just after the release of Kurosawa's final film. It's pretty interesting, and also very cute how nervous Miyazaki seems to be to meet one of his idols.)
Specifically, how the two each choose to break the 180 degree rule (well, not technically 'break' in the case of Kurosawa) to show their protagonists' changing destiny in "Throne of Blood" and "Princess Mononoke".
For anyone who doesn't know, the 180 degree rule is a basic film-making rule of thumb which states that in any scene where two characters interact, you should draw an imaginary line between them and the camera should always stay on one side of that line.
("In the Mood for Love" - Wong Kar-wai)
This way, one character is always looking to the right of the camera, the other is always looking to the left, and the audience doesn't get confused by the geography of the scene. Crossing this line can be disorienting, but when done intentionally, it can convey a paradigm shift of some kind in the scene.
In this scene from "Throne of Blood," (a feudal Japanese retelling of Macbeth) Washizu's wife Asaji discusses tactics with him and tries to convince him to aspire to the throne and to assassinate his lord Tsuzuki while he sleeps.
As two servants appear to notify them that Washizu's sleeping quarters are prepared, the camera dollies left and around the characters' backs. This camera movement is motivated by the motion of the servants' torches outside the room, but it also signifies a change in Washizu's outlook.
Washizu is completely silent for most of this scene, contemplating his wife's advice. But as the camera slides behind his back and across the line of action, the scene is now re-framed, illustrating his change in perspective.
He's been convinced and the trajectory of his life is about to change - and now, facing away from the camera, is the time for action.
Because the camera slides smoothly across the line, Kurosawa isn't technically breaking the 180 degree rule. Miyazaki on the other hand, takes it a little further.
The complimentary scene in Princess Mononoke comes near the start when the wise woman of the village reads Prince Ashitaka's fortune after he's cursed by the wild boar spirit. She tells him that it is his fate to leave the village and travel to the west, where he may be able to lift the curse on his arm. The trajectory of Ashitaka's life changes in this moment too. As he accepts his fate, the change is symbolized by him cutting off his hair, but also by the camera jumping the line.
Throughout this dialogue scene and even as he cuts his hair, the simulated camera sits just slightly to the side of Ashitaka's left shoulder.
But once it's done, for the final shot, the scene is reframed and we jump to the other side, where Ashitaka is now looking to the right of the camera instead of the left.
Making the camera dolly across a scene like Kurosawa's version in 2D animation is no simple task, so this transition with a simple cut is in a way subtler, in another way a bit more jarring, but it conveys the same meaning.
This is the moment when our protagonists make the choice to embark on a new destiny and re-frame their lives.
This has been an excerpt from a short video essay I made a while back, which not many people watched. I think this is at least in part due to my failure to package it well, and it seems you tumblheads like this animation/cinematography analysis stuff, so this is an experiment to see if, with the help of y'all, and a new title and thumbnail, it's at all possible to give this video a second wind in the eyes of the Youtube Gods!
So if you found this interesting, I'd appreciate if you checked it out! Thanks for reading!
youtube
#Also i spent a lot of time on the little animated bit at the start so please watch it lol#animation analysis#mini essay#video#video essay#princess mononoke#throne of blood#hayao miyazaki#akira kurosawa#Youtube#gif warning
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youtube
hey this is a really really really amazing video and it goes over like all the talking points of societal fatphobia and why it's all bullshit and rooted in racism and ableism and a bunch of other stuff. It covers SO many different topics relating to fatness/fatphobia and Mickey Atkins put a ton of work into it (plus they're a licensed clinician and a fat person who knows what she's talking about). If you have a few hours and you wanna put somethin on in the background, please do so with this video!!
#I'm only like 30 minutes into the video but it's VERY good so far and I've been watchin Mickey's channel for years#so I trust that it's gonna be good all the way through#this is just like the exact video essay that I've been waiting for for sooo long#and I desperately want more people to watch it pleaseeeee#video#fatphobia#fat liberation#fat positive#fat positivity#fat acceptance#fatness#diet culture#video essay#Youtube
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Best of YouTube 2023
Yes, I did spend the first week and change of January on this. I wish I could have had it done for New Years, but too many people came out with incredible work in December, so waiting turned out for the best.
What these creators do are a huge influence on my life, I would honestly have difficulty doing what I do without them. That isn't to say that my favorites of the year are *only* on this image--It was almost impossible to narrow down my favorites. Many creators I wanted to include couldn't fit on a single page, and too many of them made more than one video I wished I could draw too!
But, to all of you, thank you for what you do. You're an inspiration.
For those who don't know, further is an explanation.
At the bottom center is an artistic masterpiece by Defunctland: "Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History." Over the last several years, Defunctland has risen from delightfully-entertaining commentary on decommissioned theme park attractions to occasionally dropping profound statements on the creation of art itself. "Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History" is worth treating like the cinematic experience it is: No second screen, you sit your ass down in front of a TV, set down the phone, and then you *watch it.* Any Disney, theme park, or independent film fan needs to pay attention to this one.
Bottom left is Caelan Conrad with their piece "Drop the T - The Deadly Consequences of Gay Respectability Politics." While I do think they've done more visually or artistically-daring pieces before, "Drop the T" is one of the most important videos released on YouTube in today's current climate of hate. We as queer folk (and our allies) need to understand how integral every identity of the queer experience has been since the start of the Civil Rights movement (and before!). While we are not identical, we *are* inseparable, and we deserve having our real history easily accessible.
TERFs and other conservative mouthpieces need not reply. Your opinions are trash. 😘
I cannot stop watching and rewatching this video by @patricia-taxxon, "On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People." It's not just a defense of furry fandom and its eccentricities, it's a thoughtful and passionate analysis of what the artform achieves that purely human representation can't. Patricia goes outside of her usual essay format to directly speak to the viewer about the elements that define furry media (the most succinct definition I've ever heard) and just how *human* an act loving animal cartoons really is.
As an artist who can draw furry characters, but never really got into erotic furry art, this video is a treasure. Why did I choose to have her drawn as a Ghibli character, hanging out with one of the tanukis from "Pom Poko?" Guess you'll have to watch, bruh.
Philosophy Tube continuously puts out videos that I would put on this list--I'm not even sure that "A Man Plagiarised my Work: Women, Money, and the Nation" is the best work she released in 2023. However, this video got many conversations going between myself and my partner, and the twist on the tail end of the video shocked us both to such a degree that I had no choice.
At the very tail end of the year, Big Joel released "Fear of Death." On his Little Joel channel, he described it as the singularly best video he's ever done, and I'm inclined to agree. However, for this illustration, I ended up repeatedly going back to a mini-series he did earlier in the year: "Three Stories at the End of the World." All three videos are deeply moving and haunting, and I was brought to tears by "We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot." While it may be relatively-common knowledge that the original Gojira (Godzilla) film is horror grappling with the devastation America's rush to atomic dominance inflicted on Japan, Big Joel still manages to bring new words to the discussion. Please watch all three of the videos, but if, for some reason, you must have only one, let it be "We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot."
Y'all. Let me confess something. I hate football. I hate watching it, I associate seeing it from the stadiums with some of my worst childhood experiences, I despise collegiate and professional football (as institutions that destroy bodies and offer up children at the feet of its alter as a pillar of American culture)--
I. L o a t h e. Football.
But.
F.D. Signifier could get me to watch an entire hour-plus essay on why I should at least give a passing care. AND HE DID IT. I might think "F*ck the Police," the two-parter on Black conservatism, or his essay on Black men's connection to anime might be "better" videos, but this writer did the impossible and held my limited attention span towards football long enough to make a sincere case for NFL players--and reminds us that millionaires can *in fact* be workers. That alone is testament to his skill.
Sit down and watch "The REAL Reason NFL Running Backs Aren't Getting Paid." Any good anti-capitalist owes it to themselves.
CJ the X continuously puts out stunning, emotional videos, and can do it with the most seemingly-inconsequential starting points. A 30 second song? An incestuous commercial? Five minutes of Tangled? Sure, why not. Go destroy yourself emotionally by watching them. I'm serious. Do it.
Their video Stranger Things and the Meaning of Life manages to to remind us all why the way we react to media does, in fact, matter. Yes, even nostalgia-driven, mass-media schlock. Yes, how we interact with media matters, what it says about us matters, and we all deserve to seek out the whys.
Folding Ideas has spent the last few years articulating exactly why so much of our modern world feels broken, and because of that his voice continuously lives rent-free in my brain. While the tricks that scam artists and grifters use to try to swindle us are never new, the advancement of technology changes the aesthetics of their performances. Portions of Folding Ideas' explanations might seem dry when going into detail of how stocks work in This is Financial Advice, but every bit of it is necessary to peel back the layers of techno-babble and jargon and make sense of the results of "Meme Stocks."
Jessie Gender puts out nothing but bangers, her absolute unit of a video about Star Wars might be my new favorite thing ever, but none of her work hit so profoundly in 2023 than the two-parter "The Myth of 'Male Socialization'" and "The Trauma of Masculinity." There's so much about modern life that isolates and traumatizes us, and so much of it is just shrugged off as "normal." We owe it to ourselves to see the world in more vivid a color palette than we're initially given.
Panels drawn after Kate Beaton and "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands."
"This is Not a Video Essay" is one of the most intense and beautiful pieces of art I've ever put into my eyeballs. Why do we create? What drives us to connect?
I don't even know what else to say about the Leftist Cooks' work, it repeatedly transcends the medium and platform. Watch every single one of their videos, but especially this one.
The likelihood you are terminally online and yet haven't heard of Hbomberguy's yearly forrays into destroying the careers of awful people is pretty slim. Just because it has millions of views doesn't mean that Hbomberguy's "Plagiarism and You(Tube)" isn't worth the hype. Too long? Shut up, it has chapters and YouTube holds your place, anyway. You think a deep dive into a handful of creators is only meaningless drama? Well, you're wrong, you wrong-opinion-haver. Plagiarism is an *everyone* problem because of the actual harm it creates--the history it erases, the labor it devalues, the art it marginalizes--which you would know if you watched "Plagiarism and You(Tube)".
Watch. The damn. Video.
In fact, watch all of them!
Thanks for reading this if you did.
#fanart#digital art#caricature#kate beaton#ducks#stranger things#apes#youtube#2023#best of 2023#video essay#hbomberguy#leftist cooks#cj the x#big joel#jessie gender#folding ideas#dan olson#jessie earl#neil and sarah#fd signifier#f.d. signifier#little joel#gojira#godzilla#philosophy tube#abigail thorn#caelan conrad#patricia taxxon#defunctland
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In light of hbomberguys new video here’s some video essayists with way too little followers that you should go support:
CopsHateMoe
Alexander Avila
Jessie Gender
Aranock
Mia Mulder
The leftist cooks
Elle literacy
Lilly Simpson
Thinkpiece Tribe
Overthinking it
Verilybitchie
Philosynoir
Geekouter
Orowen
Rowan Ellis
Dr Fatima
Lu Vagara
Ponderful
Artie Carden
Tirrrb
Brigitte Empire
JohntheDuncan
Caelan Conrad
Kaz Rowe
Hoots
AnRel
I know a lot of these are mentioned at the end of the video but their some of my faves so :)
There are probably so many more that I forgot, please let me know any recommendations people have
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youtube
made a three hour Psych retrospective
IT'S FULL OF DELICIOUS FLAVOUR 🍍
#psych#shawn spencer#burton guster#carlton lassiter#juliet o'hara#henry spencer#karen vick#pierre despereaux#james roday rodriguez#steve franks#dule hill#timothy omundson#maggie lawson#video essay#tv show#retrospective#psych retrospective#my videos#Youtube
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For a future video essay (reblog for sample size, thanks):
Feel free to be as specific as possible in the tags or reblog or replies
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james somerton aka plagiarism georg
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youtube
The Greatest Movie You'll Never See! - Goncharov (1973)
I believe that I have made the most comprehesive video essay on the 1973 film Goncharov that has been released to date, including restored footage, interviews, and rare behind-the-scenes insight into this forgotten film.
More info below the cut
Special Thanks to
Molly Noise (She/Her) for composing the original music
Matt Crowley (He/Him) for his quotes
Marisa BeBeau (She/Her) for graciously letting me interview her.
You can support her work at @sabertoothwalrus
You can also buy a copy of the 'Nico the Catboy' zine here!
Bibliography
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Penguin Books, 1935, pp. 1–26.
Connanro. “Goncharov Master Document.” Google Docs, 20 Nov. 2022, docs.google.com/document/d/1Fbcn96MKyc1Bky6c0Ffex4APtar9iNht8ytfZHPpSss/edit#heading=h.bpd1oee4nr3q. Accessed 16 Mar. 2023.
Jacobsen, Emily. “Ratatouille the Musical (Full Show).” YouTube, 9 Dec. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdTi-R-Apw. Accessed 15 Mar. 2023.
Juli. “Goncharov Score Masterpost.” Tumblr, 21 Nov. 2022, www.tumblr.com/thisisnotjuli/701573313313587200/goncharov-score-masterpost?source=share. Accessed 16 Mar. 2023.
Lauren Shippen. “Ice Pick Joe Quote.” Tumblr, 1 Nov. 2022, thelaurenshippen.tumblr.com/post/701652426816733184/i-know-that-ice-pick-joe-operates-mostly-as-a. Accessed 15 Mar. 2023.
Marisa BeBeau. “Nico the Catboy Archive.” Sabertoothwalrus, Tumblr, 25 Oct. 2020, sabertoothwalrus.tumblr.com/tagged/nico%20the%20catboy/chrono. Accessed 15 Mar. 2023.
#goncharov#gonchposting#goncharov 1973#matteo jwhj 0715#nico the catboy#ratatousical#martin scorsese#goncharov analysis#video essay#goncharov video essay#unreality#Youtube
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