I GOTTA FEELING THAT IT'S GONNA BE A WONDERFUL DAY

THE BUG IN THE SKY HAS A SMILE ON ITS EGG

AND IT'S WRITING A COPOST ABOUT 'HHHGREGG'

OOOOH BOY IT'S GREAT TO SAY

GOOD MORNING COHOST, E--[shot]

(ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ᵐᵒʳⁿⁱⁿᵍ ᶜᵒʰᵒˢᵗ⸴ ᵉʰ~!)

inbtwn's favorite things of 2021

back in january of '22, i began to write an article for my (more or less now defunct) Gemini blog, which was going to be a list of my favorite pieces of media that I watched/consumed/experienced in 2021. i got the inspiration to make said list from an article i found on Nicky Case's blog called My Most Meaningful Media of 2019. in said post, they raved about the books and videos they watched that year that meant something to them. i also partially got the inspiration from the various "Top 10 Whatevers of the Year" lists i would see on my youtube feed near the end and/or beginning of every year.

i always wanted to make one of those because i love showing off the obscure content i consume, but the lists i would put together don't really feel youtube-worthy -- partially because i don't think i would have enough entries for just one niche (although i'm glad to have been proven wrong, as you'll see in the list itself), but especially since i haven't uploaded to my channel in years.

but hey, after i more-or-less abandoned the idea of posting on several different obscure services, including gemini, along comes cohost -- a nice anti-social social media outlet that encourages longposting. it's like a blog, but with the chance that people will actually read it! so, well, here i am. i am about to gush to you the things i liked in 2021 (and 2020), and why you should like them too.

first off: my favorite videos of 2021.

[podcaster voice] that's coming up... after the break.

---

📺 MY FAVORITE VIDEOS OF 2021

in no particular order! links for each video will be provided after the blurb for each one. let's get into it.

(also man, i wish cohost had youtube embed support... T_T)

💋🔪 Kiss Me, Kill Me, by JerryTerry

Back in the ancient, ancient year of 2017, an Internet musician by the name of JerryTerry released a Halloween video titled 'The Boys Are Back in Town (to kill you)'. It was a horror-themed parody/remix of the old Thin Lizzy song 'The Boys are Back in Town.' That, and the fact that it was combined with an old computer meant that this video was a match made in heaven. I loved it so much that I downloaded an audio-only copy of the video to my PC so I could listen to it every once in a while, lol.

Fast forward to Halloween 2021. A desktop notification pops up on my screen. 'Kiss Me, Kill Me.' I IMMEDIATELY click on it and soak in the video. This was it. A follow-up to the original video I have loved so much. And boy, it does not disappoint. It takes place after the original and depicts our main character (whoever that may be) trying to hack into a local police station's computer. After being assisted by the friendly desktop helper GourdCop, the user stumbles upon an on-site audio recording of... well, I'm just gonna let you watch the video to find out the rest. Either way, it absolutely blew my mind the amount of effort that was put into the visuals and audio here, and the fact that it was made entirely in Sony motherfuckin' Vegas Pro blew my mind even harder.

I think this might be my favorite YouTube video of 2021. No cap. Go watch it if you like horror and parodies of 90s pop songs.

📺 Watch on YouTube (⚠️ CW: implied body horror ⚠️)

🎮😔 I Miss Team Fortress 2, by FUNKe

Same, dude. Fuckin' same.

📺 Watch on YouTube

📽😯 VFXcool: Flight of the Navigator, by Captain Disillusion

Never in my goddamn life have I seen a VFX nerd geek out harder about the effects an obscure 80s sci-fi movie in my entire life. I can't imagine the time this video took to produce.

📺 Watch on YouTube

💉😨 Vaccines: A Measured Response, by hbomberguy

H. Bombermanson here goes into the mind of the man that started the anti-vaccine crisis in the first place. An in-depth look into the UK anti-vax hysteria of the late 90s/early 2000s, and the man that was paid off by a crooked lawyer to peddle said hysteria.

📺 Watch on YouTube (⚠️ cw: mentions of child abuse)

🎵💿 Free Bin: Internet Music and the End of the World, by Codex

I love finding well-crafted video essays that barely have any views, and Free Bin is no exception here. It's a video about the history of obscure music, the rise of online music piracy, and more. As someone that grew up not listening to much other than pop (and the Minecraft OST) and only got into more obscure music in the post-Spotify era, it's a fascinating look into a world that I never really got to experience.

📺 Watch on YouTube

🤡 A "Brief"** History of Homestuck, by Sarah Z.

Okay, fine, fine, you can skip this one if you're any decent person that doesn't give a shit about Homestuck, but if you've been around the block and read the entire comic and then some (like I have), then this will be a trip down memory lane for you, I bet. Or maybe you read the comic but missed out on the fandom's heyday. Or maybe you don't care about old, long, confusing webcomics and just want to hear about fandom drama. Either way, this video is definitely worth watching.

As the title states, this video is a... "brief"** history of Homestuck, its creators, its fandom, and the comic itself. It doesn't state the plot of the comic directly (if I remember correctly), but more so the circumstances surrounding the comic. It's a pretty good watch, if you feed directly off of internet folklore and drama like I do sometimes.

📺 Watch on YouTube

_{**this video is over TWO HOURS LONG}

📎🤖 I gave Clippy AI and he wanted to die., by Sam Chiet

When I was first linked this video in my Discord channel with the caption 'holy shit this was an experience', I knew I had to check this one out. And folks: gotta say. Was not expecting a happy-go-lucky experiment involving AI to become so... dramatic. It's a fucking rollercoaster of emotional whiplash and the effort put into the video is just the cherry on top.

I think my only major complaint about this video is that the music and voiceover isn't mixed very well (as in: the music can easily overpower the VO sometimes), but other than that it's a fantastic look into the current state of generative AI, as well as the characters we inflict it upon.

📺 Watch on YouTube

🏝️🚫 Forbidden Island, by Vagrant Holiday

(okay technically this one's from 2020 but whatever it's my list, dangit!!!) Anyway, this is footage of a man exploring an island that has had their residents evicted from it years ago because they wanted to build a high-security rehab center on it. And they did. And the shit this guy finds on it is incredible. Almost seems too good to be true, but either way it's a fantastic watch.

📺 Watch on YouTube

🐭😲 Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History, by Defunctland

I wasn't going to put this one on here, but then I got to the second half of the video and my jaw was on the floor. Seriously. Watch this one. It's too good.

📺 Watch on YouTube

🧑‍🔬🧑‍🔬 The Bogdanoff Saga, by BobbyBroccoli

If you've somehow stumbled upon the incredibly accursed world of Bitcoin-related memes (I am so sorry if this is the case), then you might have heard of -- or, more specifically, seen pictures of -- the Bogdanoff brothers before. This is a video essay about the brothers in two parts: the first part talks about how a rumor on a physics-based Usenet group leads directly into the history of the two brothers and how they somehow got PhDs, and the second part talks about the Bogdanoffs' detractors, sockpuppets, and association with Bitcoin memes -- and a very surprising twist ending. Absolutely worth the watch, despite the second part discussing some kinda-heavy themes.

📺 Watch Part 1 on YouTube | 📺 Watch Part 2 on YouTube

⛴💥 The Cost of Concordia, by Internet Historian

Alright, I'm gonna probably be burned at the stake for this one, but GODDAMNIT I love this type of video too much. History about a recent naval disaster represented by incredibly-put-together moving JPEGs and memes for OVER 40 MINUTES? Sign me the FUCK UP.

📺 Watch on YouTube

Honorable Mentions

Video essays and explainers:

• 🎨 Smoother animation ≠ Better animation, by Noodle
• 🎵 Unison MIDI Chord Pack - a Laughable Sales Pitch, by Tantacrul
• 🎵The People Who Were Sued for Downloading Music... What Ever Happened?, by Bandsplaining
• 🎵 who wrote Caramelldansen?, by jan Misali
• 🎵 Trackers: The Sound of 16-Bit, by Ahoy
• 📺 The Price Is Right host entrance: a visual history, by Ological
• 💻 Google TV Beta - The Elaborate Hoax that Fooled Thousands, by Michael MJD
• 🙁 The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall, by Folding Ideas
• 🤮 The Failure of Channel Awesome's Demo Reel, by Lady Emily

Not video essays or explainers:

• 🎨 Gildedguy Gets Up, by Gildedguy
• 🎨 Jack Stauber - Spring Cleaning (FAN ANIMATION), by aimkid
• 🎨 100 gecs - stupid horse (FAN ANIMATION), by aimkid
• 🎨 CAPTAIN YAJIMA, by Worthikids
• 💻 Hardcore Windows Epilogue: Sunfish, by Kugee (⚠️ CW: loud noises ⚠️)
• 🤪 Cyriak Animator Pro, by Cyriak
• ❓ come on along, by plasticity

woof! those sure were some videos, huh? i hope you enjoyed my little list of garbage that i liked. if you have any other videos you'd like to recommend for this year, or if you have any questions, feel free to hit that X comments button in the bottom left of this post and leave me a dang ol' comment! reposts not required, but appreciated!

NEXT TIME: my favorite webcomics! stay tuned!!

i honestly think if Linus Tech Tips's clickbait titles weren't so clickbaity i would probably watch them more often. like. look at the above title. it tells you almost NOTHING about the video except that it will apparently 'blow your mind'. will it? i don't know! but i gotta fuckin click on the video to find out! it's a goddamn human-sized mouse trap for gamers and nerds, and it apparently fuckin works because they get MAD views from titling their videos in the most vaguest, annoying way possible. i think linus admitted this on a stream not too long ago, even.

however, despite my annoyance at LTT's titles, i am of the opinion that clickbait can be... not annoyingly vague. there are other youtubers that i sub to that also have clickbait titles and thumbnails, but they are at least enticing to my interests (mechanical keyboards and whatever the hell kinda over-the-top engineering nonsense Mark Rober is doing now).

Tom Scott does clickbait to an extent as well, but at least the titles aren't bombastically vague. they're just vague enough to make me raise my eyebrow and go 'okay, what's up with this weird landmark in Denmark that you've recorded 4k footage of?' as i click onto the video. (it also helps that tom has started adding 'secondary titles' to his video thumbnails in the form of short blurbs that help flesh out what the video is about, such as 'we flew lower than the skyscrapers' or 'this spins terrifyingly fast'.) so it is possible to do clickbait right, as far as i'm concerned. (veritasium i think has a pretty good video on this topic) but so many channels just completely overdo it, and linus's is no exception.

i wish there was an extension similar to sponsorblock but instead of blocking in-video ads, it would put up a short blurb either right next to or outright replacing the video title in subscriptions, recommendations, etc. so something like 'The Steam Deck is UNFINISHED' would be replaced with 'Steam Deck pre-release review: Great, but...' it's shorter, still a bit clickbaity, but way way way less of a lie than that first title was. (although the hard part is making it compatible with FreeTube/Invidious/Piped :V)

also -- on a related note i still think it's kinda funny that sometimes new videos from those youtubers i mentioned change titles and thumbnails over the course of a few days after uploading, in a mad dash to see what titles get the most Engagements. like i'm just imagining the video itself as a sentient, living being going 'Haha! Please click on me I need views and likes or else I will Die' before it slowly settles into its permanent form, having been indirectly chosen by the public and the uploader, (probably) never to be modified again.

not knocking the hustle btw, i just think it's kind of funny when you think of it like that