Trying on the yr’s notable video essays, many grapple with points on the coronary heart of modern media itself. There are dissections of video-playing instruments, exposés of how companies limit entry, contrasts between tropes and actuality, and thorough investigations of tendencies in plagiarism and/or fabrication. Because the essay panorama refines, it appears to see inward as a lot as out.
On the making of this listing: I attempt to keep updated on video essays for some time, and have contributed lists and/or voting in polls concerning the best movies made every year since 2018. Over this time, doing these sorts of roundups has gotten exponentially tougher. As YouTube has grown to change into a mega-business internet hosting highly effective creators (half of the overall pattern of social media video websites turning into the brand new main discussion board for cultural affect), I’ve seen essayists I as soon as thought of as area of interest accrue follower counts within the thousands and thousands. It’s been surreal. For this yr’s listing, I attempted to shake issues up by conserving the essayists who’ve appeared in earlier editions to a minimal, together with the standard issues about incorporating a variety of creator backgrounds and video model. As soon as once more, the movies are offered merely so as of publishing date.
[Also, I’m going to preface this with a mega mea culpa: It was absolute malpractice of me to not include Platformer Toolkit by Game Maker’s Toolkit in the best video essays of 2022 list. I don’t have a good excuse, either; I just straight up missed the essay at the time it came out, and then overlooked it during my catch-up phase at the end of the year. But an essay about game design that instructs you on its ideas by letting you actively engage with them through interactivity feels like a breakthrough in the form.]
Practices of Viewing by Johannes Binotto
Johannes Binotto is a Swiss researcher and lecturer who has been including to his “Practices of Viewing” collection for a number of years now, and each installment previous 2023’s movies, “Ending” and “Description,” is properly value trying out. With every essay, Binotto examines a particular ingredient of the media viewing interface, and the way they have an effect on an viewers’s engagement with it. Some topics, like fast-forwarding, pausing, or muting, could look like apparent touchstones, whereas others, like sleep, are extra out-there approaches to the dialog.
A Historical past of the World In keeping with Getty Pictures by Richard Misek
This technically debuted final yr, making the rounds at movie festivals, however it was made out there on-line this previous spring, so I’m together with it right here. A Historical past of the World In keeping with Getty Pictures is a superb instance of a piece embedding its personal ethos into its building. Misek, one other tutorial, is scrutinizing how for-profit corporations (particularly Getty Pictures) mediate info that’s imagined to be out there for all. In apply, an ideal deal of visible materials that’s technically within the public area can solely be accessed in respectable high quality by paying an archive like Getty. Misek circumvents this by paying the price to make use of choose footage on this essay after which making this essay itself out there for anybody to quote and clip from, placing that footage out into the world for actual.
The Faces of Black Conservatism by F.D Signifier
I really feel that video essays that consist primarily of the creator speaking instantly right into a digital camera stretch the definition of the time period – to me, the best cinematic and argumentative potential of the shape lies within the energy of modifying. F.D Signifier’s distinction between fictional depictions of Black conservatives and the fact of how they seem throughout media exemplifies is what units him aside on this style: not simply the depth of his thought (although it’s appreciable), but additionally the playful methods during which he presents the objects of his dialogue. The working gag right here during which he movies himself holding hairstyling instruments over the heads of numerous individuals on his display had me laughing more durable with every look.
Video games That Don’t Faux the House by Jacob Geller/Why We Can’t Cease Mapping Elden Ring by Ren or Raven
I don’t really suppose that is the best essay Jacob Geller launched this yr (that might be both “Games that Aren’t Games” or “How Can We Bear to Throw Anything Away?”), however it pairs so extremely properly with Renata Value’s essay (a powerful video debut constructing on her expertise as a video games critic) that it felt extra acceptable to current them as a double characteristic. Each movies are sharp examinations of the ways in which video video games conjure bodily area. Geller illuminates the shortcuts and methods video games typically make use of via examples of ones that, because the title suggests, don’t use such units, whereas Value analyzes the impulses beneath what one might name the “cartographic instinct” in open-world video games.
Why Do Manufacturers Hold Doing These Loopy Influencer Journeys?? by Mina Le
It’s been encouraging in recent times to see Le develop extra assured in her mixing of media in her movies on style and movie/tv. You would possibly keep in mind the controversy round Shein granting influencers a limited hangout in a clothing factory this previous summer season. Le contextualizes this story by delving into the broader, supremely odd world of sponsored excursions. For those who watch this in your cellphone, the transitions between Le talking to the digital camera and the clips of TikToks and different movies and pictures move collectively in a way not in contrast to how one would scroll a social media feed, creating queasy resonance between message and medium.
Feeling Cynical About Barbie by Broey Deschanel / The Plastic Feminism of Barbie by Verilybitchie
I current these two movies not as a contrarian assault on Barbie (a movie I loved), however to focus on the essential function of thought-about crucial voices that dissent towards prevailing opinions. Each Maia Wyman and Verity Ritchie unpack the problems with a closely company product trying to capitalize on feminist sentiment. Ritchie emphasizes the historical past of Barbie the model and the way the film suits into it, whereas Wyman reads extra into the specifics of the movie’s plot. Collectively these movies do a very good job of elaborating on legendary critic Amy Taubin’s Barbie reaction: “It’s about a fucking doll!’”
TikTok Gave Me Autism: The Politics of Self Prognosis by Alexander Avila
There’s so much of social media discourse over who can and might’t — and may or shouldn’t — declare the label of “autistic.” As somebody who’s struggled with each the logistics and appropriateness of sussing out whether or not I’m on the spectrum, this video hit me exhausting. There are elements that really feel like they veer up to now into philosophical question that they threaten to obfuscate somewhat than elucidate the topic, however the essay as an entire is undeniably compelling. Avila’s personal confessed stake within the query of self-diagnosis is itself affecting. That is probably the most searingly private video on this listing, uniting self-inquiry with rigorous analysis.
Chaste/Unchaste by Maryam Tafakory
This years shortest entry is a deceptively easy interrogation of the idea of “chastity” as outlined by Iranian censorship requirements. Takafory is a veteran of the educational essay scene, and I’m delighted by the chance to current her work to a wider viewers. The video’s textual content is minimal, and its visuals are merely a montage of clips from Iranian movies, however the implicit query of propriety grips the viewer with every reduce.
Journey to Epcot Heart: A Symphonic Historical past by Defunctland
That is probably the most boundary-pushing essay on this yr’s listing. Fully missing commentary, it as an alternative emphasizes visuals and reenactment in telling the story of how Disney’s Epcot park went from idea to realization over the a long time. Kevin Perjurer additionally gives an in depth set of notes that should be learn together with watching the video, additional demanding one’s full consideration. This can be a direct acknowledgement of how we use the web, the windowed expertise of searching and watching movies. I don’t suppose every little thing works; many of the reenactments, whereas impressively skilled, really feel considerably redundant. However I’d favor a creator take massive swings that end in a couple of flaws somewhat than play it secure, and I hope each Perjurer and others proceed in such an experimental vein.
Plagiarism and You(Tube) by Hbomberguy
Harry Brewis is widespread sufficient that he doesn’t want any increase, however even within the very temporary interval since this video’s launch as of the time of writing, Plagiarism and You(Tube) has made seismic affect on the YouTuber scene. Does it must be virtually 4 hours lengthy? Possibly not. But the sheer quantity of proof it pulls collectively to help numerous accusations of plagiarism does appear very important. The major focus of the piece, James Somerton, went into lockdown over the pretty complete proof offered towards him (and has since attempted to apologize). I’m seeing conversations flourish across the endemic downside of plagiarism on the web and what’s to be accomplished about it, and a surge of creators recognizing and calling out others who’ve taken their work with out credit score. There’s a deeper situation at play right here, which is that the expansion of YouTube leisure has include a very daunting mountain of crap content material that nonetheless attracts views (and thus {dollars}).
On the topic of low high quality requirements on YouTube, past plagiarism, Todd within the Shadows’ current exhaustive effort to fact-check various false claims Somerton has made in his work is a helpful complement to this video.
