A pedagogical and argumentative style has gained popularity on video platforms in recent years and is part of the broader wave of explanatory content on social media. It has come to the point where the form now represents an extremely broad tent covering an incredibly deep source of works – or, in subgenre parlance, a gigantic iceberg. We now see everything from wordless editing experiments to vlogs with the occasional background image dubbed “video essays.” (It has come to this one of my favorite videos released last year waded into this definition weed, to thought-provoking results.)
This growth makes it more of a challenge to pull together just 10 sample videos each year. My guiding principles in formulating this list were not only depth of insight, originality, and diversity of subject matter and creators, but also trying to find video essays that truly make the best of both parts of that name—those that require visual attention and engagement . The essays are ordered by publication date.
Climate fictions, dystopias and human futures by Julia Leyda and Kathleen Loock
As global warming predictions become more pressing, pop culture has taken notice and “cli-fi” has evolved into a storytelling genre of its own. Leyd and Loock use the most recent ones Don’t look up As a starting point, one should ask what role, if any, films like this can play in influencing actual activism and reform against climate change. How strong is the connection between the moving power of art and concrete action?
Captain Ahab: The Story of Secret Base’s Dave Stieb
Nobody makes documentary content quite like Jon Bois, Alex Rubenstein and the rest of the Dorktown crew. Bois is an artist who paints with data points and historical debris, and stitches all of that material together in a way that feels more forward-thinking than almost anyone making films today—whether for the web, television, or cinemas. An epic four-part series about Dave Stieb, an also-also-ran in baseball history sounds ridiculous. And yet Dorktown makes him one of the most compelling characters of the year.
[Ed. note: Secret Base is part of SB Nation, which along with Polygon is part of Vox Media. This played no part in including the video.]
Deconstruction of the bridge through total denial
This is perhaps the least “essay-like” video on this list. It’s more of a university-level lecture, but in the least academic forum imaginable: a session of battlefield 5 Such unusual ventures are the modus operandi from total rejectiona “pseudo-Marxist media guerrilla” that has set in The corporate division to explain urban planning Red Dead Redemption 2 explain class, and much more. Within the battlefield 5 map is a recreation of the Dutch city of Nijmegen, scene of a crucial battle during World War II. Total Refusal takes viewers on a virtual exploration of the area, immersing not only in history but also in the whole concept of wartime tourism and re-creation, questioning how culture remembers these events.
Why Panzer Dragoon Saga is the Greatest RPG No One Has Played by Michael Saba
If this doesn’t broadcast the 1998 Sega Saturn game Panzer Dragon Saga at the top of your must-play list, I don’t know what to tell you. More than a fascinating look at a game that was incredibly ahead of its time and took years to find its audience, this video is a discourse on a pressing issue in gaming. See if you want to play Panzer Dragon Saga, They will almost certainly have to pirate it, which might raise ethical concerns for some. Saba passionately defends piracy as a form of game archiving and preservation. Even if you disagree with such a conclusion, the issues he highlights within the industry cannot be denied.
Nice White Teachers, Bad Brown Schools: Hollywood’s Urban Education Pedagogy by Yhara Zayd
Yhara Zayd makes our annual video essay list for the third year in a row, and with good reason. Not content to reinvent the territories covered by other pop culture video artists, she finds both novel themes and interesting lenses in them. Here she explores the “inspirational” story trope of well-intentioned white teachers making an impact in urban settings as seen in such Dangerous Thoughts and The Ron Clark Story. Most succinctly, she contrasts the conventions of this genre with the stark realities and lived history of actual outsider interference in non-white education.
Intimate Sleepers by Desiree Garcia
Less than four minutes long, this essay is nonetheless enchanting thanks to Garcia’s continually inventive editing. Instead of a lengthy exploration of the subject of female artistic competition in film, she contrasts two examples through visceral juxtaposition: the 1940s Dance, girl, dance and 2010s Black Swan. With split screens, blurry picture-in-picture, precise editing, and a notable use of captions, the essay makes its ideas intuitively felt rather than explained through lectures.
Instagram hates its users by Jarvis Johnson
The long story, in short, is that Instagram has continually sabotaged any actual pleasure in using its app by attempting to mimic every new trend that has appeared in the cultural pipeline. But the long story as told by Johnson is so much more entertaining. We often forget the direct relationship between interface design and user experience, but this is a great in-depth look at how this process works, pinned to an easy-to-understand timeline of Instagram’s disastrous history.
Fixing My Brain With Automated Therapy by Jacob Geller
Jacob Geller is exceptionally good at assembling a web of disparate sources to discuss ideas you may not have even thought of. Here is the story of “the first chatbot‘, the 2019 visual novel Eliza, and the app-based game 2021 excavateU are used to explore the use of artificial intelligence in modern therapy. But as the title suggests, Geller takes it a step further and tests several different therapy apps that purport to help you improve your mental health without the need for human therapists. His findings and their testimony about the true intent behind these apps and the way therapy is being integrated into today’s society are…well, disturbing.
Parking is everywhere and nowhere. What’s so great about it?
The concept of liminal space is currently popular in online cultural discourse. But Grace Lee rarely approaches a subject from the same perspective as everyone else. With reference points as far-reaching as His field, Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and the work of artist Guillaume Lachapelle, she discusses how parking lots appear in the media and how they and similar urban-industrial spaces appear in our everyday lives. Lee’s essays demand your attention like few others; Look away and you’re probably missing out on a great little visual gag. Because of this, their videos, while rarely exceeding 15-20 minutes, often contain way, way more information than you might expect.
How degrowth through Andrewism can save the world
Andrew Sage describes himself not only as an anarchist, but as “solarpunk” – focused on solutions for a sustainable future of mankind. In this video he explains one of the key features of the destructive capitalist status quo: the idea of unlimited economic and industrial growth. Insisting on degrowth practices can often evoke fears of a vague loss of one’s standard of living. But Sage debunks this and many other arguments against degrowth, while building a more inspiring and hopeful vision for a green, egalitarian existence.
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