hello again chosters,
it's that time of year where it's cold as shit outside, the sun sets at 4pm, and i'm more isolated and less communicative with the outside world than normal. i'm still working on that trance mix, but i'm getting a little fatigued with it at the moment. an itch i'm more interested in scratching right now is my desire to write. that's what i started this cohost account to do more of after all. but oh how things will get in the way of your greater ambitions when you live in abject poverty and have to spend most of your free time recovering from being overworked. such is living under capitalism i suppose.
regardless, it's been a mission of mine for a few years now to write some youtube video essays about topics i care deeply about. to start actually putting digital pen to paper and drafting out scripts discussing these things and their larger context along with my own personal connection to them. most of the topic ideas i have are ones that nobody over there has really covered, or if they have, not in as great of depth as i would like.
i have a long sordid history with the platform, and using it as a resource for Watching People Talk About Shit. ever since 2007 when i was watching "rant videos" by the likes of Bigal2k6, DarknessTheCurse and RandomDCE in addition to the bigger names like the AVGN. hell i owe a lot of the inroads made with my own personal internet friendships to small communities based around video content creators. this is all to say that i've seen the content evolve and reshape on the platform many times over the years. and right now we're living in sort of a renaissance of video essay creation.
youtube's black box machine learning algorithm changes have favored longer form content in the last couple years. and while that has certainly led to bad faith actors looking to exploit the system for capital gains to make overly-bloated, poorly researched, and highly hateful reactionary dreck with ungodly runtimes. it has also led to some of the most well-researched, informative, polished, thoroughly comprehensive, thought provoking, exhaustive and emotionally moving and just plain entertaining work i've seen on the platform. some of the video essays coming out in the last 5 years, to me, are undoubtedly scholarly works. the level of quality many creators are doing this on is tremendous these days. it's truly a fascinating time to be Watching Videos.
but dam, what about making the videos huh?? i have that skillset. i have a film degree. i've been making videos of my own for most of my life. i watch video essays every day of my life and have been for close to two decades of it (god). and i'm a weird little autistic freak with unique experiences and relationships to esoteric content that a larger video viewing audience is probably not privy to. i don't know man... i don't see why not? i know it's hard work but like... i don't see why not if i want to do it, right?? right???
ok so like, the big project looming over my head. the one that has been cooking in my brain for many many years. is one that i think i have to have experience making a couple video essays first before i really try to start working on. but, ok lemme just tell you what that is:
i want to be the guy who makes The Definitive 2+ Hour Long Deep Dive About Homestar Runner on YouTube. i really honestly think i'm the correct person to do this. i have so much attachment, history and relationship to that website and its creations. and everyone on youtube who has tried to do something like this already has come nowhere close to the level of comprehension i think the topic actually deserves. it's such an important piece of internet history, acts as a lens with which to view the flash player enabled web 2.0 of the past, and it NEEDS the proper time and dedication devoted to it by someone who Was There and Knows Too Much to really do it justice. i contributed to the homestar runner wiki when i was in high school man, i don't know i just think that it has to be me. i have to do this. this is my mission from god.
but before that, here's a list of other essay sounding titles i've come up with in the past two or so years about topics i want to explore. the scale of each of these will vary depending on the complexity and what i really want to discuss about them. but they are all strong ideas in my mind that i think will lead to interesting creations.
- American Movie (1999) & The American Dream
- Rock of Love and the VH1 Celebreality Extended Universe Retrospective
- Clubbing Cinema: Exploring Rave Culture Depicted in Feature Film
- Frownland (2007) & The Painful Introverted Suffering of Mental Illness
- Wendy and Lucy and Life Under Capitalism Post-Recession
- It's Such A Beautiful Day: Don Hertzfeldt's Traditional Animation Swansong Masterpiece
- How I Spent 2020 Quarantine Watching Hundreds of Movies and Going Insane
- Investigation: Did Someone In The UK Actually Legally Change Their Name To "Playstation 2" and Attempt To Marry A PS2 ?
- i don't have a title for this one yet but: working on a video where i discuss the bizarre politics of my parent's small hometown in northern wisconsin where alt-right figures orbiting a gas and oil magnate's sphere of influence bought their way into ousting a 17-year-standing mayor and also started an airbnb out of a decommissioned world war II plane. the town also boasts a successful independent shipping company that has trucks with obscene and nonsensical conservative graphics plastered all over the trailers. (i really need to tell this fucking story it's so wild)
