[quote] youtube video essays about people
Watched this video by David Achu today and really liked this part and wanted to keep it for future reference:
"In general, I don't like making videos where I'm bashing an individual. [...] I don't think it's very nice or necessary to make entire critiques of one person based on one thing they did. Now, do I on occasion look at videos of dumb people doing dumb things on the internet and laugh to myself? Sure, who doesn't? That's very normal.
Now, do I then go out of my way to make a full on assessment of that person based on a 30 second video that I will then share to an audience of possibly millions of people? No,[...] why would I do that? There's a non-zero chance that one day, somebody will meet me in person or they'll hear something about me and then they'll try and make an expose or whatever and they'll try and turn people against me, or something like that. [...] I just mean, if I'm being reasonable, there are scenarios in life from even years ago or maybe even just a few weeks ago where I can look back and be like "Yeah, I was kind of a jerk there." Was it insanely bad? No. But if that person told that story one-sidedly to an audience of millions of people, would I look bad? Yeah, probably. But does that mean that at my core I am a bad person and I no longer deserve to be able to make an income on the internet? I would like to think that it doesn't.
And that is exactly what I try and keep in mind when considering whether or not to make a video topic based on an individual. I don't know them. And it's one thing to watch a video about them privately and go "haha what a dumb dumb", it's another thing to make a 20 minute expose on that person. [...]
I'm not saying no one should be criticized online and that yeah, we all make mistakes, "So what if he's not allowed within 200ft of an elementary school?", no, that is not the moral of the story! I just feel like that in the commentary and video essay community, it is very easy to tear down a person from limb to limb for doing something that isn't illegal or dangerous, it's just maybe a little socially taboo, but we can move on, but we won't, but we could. It's a mostly normal person having a bad day or just didn't think things 100% through, and from that 22 seconds clip it will be immortalized forever. [...]The creator sets the standard for the audience that they cultivate. If your whole thing is making videos talking about how everyone is dumb and the internet is stupid and anytime somebody makes a mistake we should key their cars and make them suffer some sort of identity fraud, then when YOU inevitably do something dumb [...], what's going to happen to you? Because you have spent months and years developing a personality of "I just tell it how it is" and judging people all the time with no sort of mercy or some sort of benefit of the doubt. If that's who you were, the people you drew, your audience, they are the exact same way. So when it happens to YOU, they will never let you live it down. You will be destroyed by the very thing you created. [...] And that is exactly why I am hesitant to treat individuals like that. Because I don't want that to be me."
I think that's very applicable to other forms of creation as well.
(I really love video essays and watch a lot of them, but he is also right about the rest of the video)
Reply via email
Published 23 Apr, 2025