I got algorithm'd into watching a few videos on Youtube about people talking about the current state of analog horror and some series that have come out recently. They were alright, but each time they came close to making an important realization while just barely dodging it.
The videos all agreed that analog horror as a subgenre has gone stale, that it's rendered itself into memes and become predictable. But, they all point to things like the old-video aesthetic, weird faces, and distorted music as the problems. I mean, they can be the problem, but they're making the mistake of seeing surface-level problems and declaring that must be it.
The Problem
The actual root of the problem with analog horror is the obsession with lore and world-building, which you might think is strange because that's the thing people always praise about these projects. It all comes back to the very basics of what makes things scary: the fact that you don't know anything about it.
When you're watching an analog horror series, pay attention to how much they're telling you. They'll tell you every little thing about their monster(s), they'll completely give away the specifics of the setting, they'll bare their whole chest as they say there are greater mysteries than what you see. They might do it right away, they might do it in bits and pieces over multiple videos, but they always say far too much about their pet project.
Then, as new videos come out, it becomes less about making a scary video and more about presenting new information, giving more context. You end up knowing everything there is to know about everything, and can even spot when an analog horror series contradicts itself. In the end, the viewers aren't watching the videos because they're scary, but because they want that new nugget of lore.
The Reason?
Why analog horror has this constant problem, I have a theory for. You'll notice that a lot of analog horror tends towards younger audiences, and that analog horror's inspirations can be traced all the way to Five Nights at Freddy's. I think what's happening is that these younger creators are trying to capture that lightning in the bottle that made them love those games, what drove them to follow the series for so long. They did identify that the weird dated look is part of the appeal, but unfortunately also know that FNAF is infamous for hidden lore. So, analog horror inherited the baggage of lore and world-building from its predecessors.
It's a shame, I think; analog horror is a very neat thing, the next logical step after found-footage horror. The thing is, the problems with analog horror are just hallmarks of amateur horror. Creators are excited to make their monsters and want to share everything about them, but don't have enough experience to understand that this is the one thing they can't do. The worst thing you can do to horror is to completely give away the mystery and pull back the curtain. When you know everything there is to know about a monster, that's when it dies.