Well. 2021. That sure was a year, huh? Hey, at least being stuck inside all the time gave us some of the best video essays around, right?
Wait, you’re telling me a lot of channels stopped producing things because of issues around depression and anxiety being exacerbated by the pandemic? That can’t be right. Let me just check some of my favorite YouTubers’ channels and see how often they uploaded new video essays….
Oh. Oh no.
While a lot of great creators slowing their output down, this year still produced some incredible video essays. Let’s celebrate that! So, that in mind, here are ten of the best pop culture video essays of 2021!
“Action Button Reviews Tokimeki Memorial“
by Action Button/Tim Rogers
You might say: Five hours on a dating sim video game I’ve never heard of? That’s too much. You’d be right… and wrong. Tim Rogers is one of the sharpest, funniest, most interesting video game critics working today. His analysis of Tokimeki Memorial is personal and wide-ranging. It simultaneously works as an introduction to a little-known Japanese game, an in-depth examination of the game’s themes and ideas, and a thorough examination of the game’s place in a wider cultural context.
It is also relentlessly entertaining.
“Bo Burnham’s Inside and ‘White Liberal Performative Art'”
by F.D. Signifier
Bo Burnham’s Netflix special Inside was one of 2021’s most pleasant surprises. F.D. Signifier, who has a running series of videos making cultural critique from a racial standpoint, uses it to launch into a discussion of guilt and the white liberal. Here, he looks at Burnham’s past work, and discusses the complex and emotionally fraught ways Burnham’s songs in Inside wrestle with his desire to do good and his knowledge that he’s profiting off an exploitative system.
“A Brief History of Homestuck“
by Sarah Zedig
I was just a little too old to get wrapped up in Homestuck. And by the time I was aware of Homestuck, it was… a lot. Too much, I thought, to get into. Thankfully, Sarah Z is here with a gargantuan breakdown. What is Homestuck? What was its fandom like? Where did it go? These are the kinds of questions Sarah Z tackles with wit and characteristic thoroughness in this shockingly comprehensive video.
Bonus points: If you want more, you can check out the follow-up video about the legal threats sent by Homestuck‘s owners after the video went semi-viral. It’s a lot.
“My Best Friend’s Wedding and Reframing Romance”
by Yhara zayd
I’m calling it right now: Yhara zayd is the most interesting film critic on YouTube. In all of her videos, zayd manages to hone in on some essential element of the work under discussion, dissect it quickly, and spin it out into a broader point. My introduction to her channel came with this, her vid on PJ Hogan’s My Best Friend’s Wedding. In it, zayd breaks down the controversies and critiques around the film, and manages to cut through them incisively and make the case for the film as a misunderstood critique in its own right. Zayd is an essential follow, and this video is a good intro to her work.
“A Needlessly Thorough Roast of Dear Evan Hansen (2021)”
by Jenny Nicholson
Jenny Nicholson tends to focus on more comedic riffs on pop culture. And there was no more fruitful target for mockery in 2021 than the deeply misguided Dear Evan Hansen. Nicholson’s long, hilarious video delves deep on the problems plaguing both the film and the stage show. You’ve probably seen a hundred “Ben Platt looks old” jokes by now. Despite that, Nicholson’s video essay breaking the film down will give you plenty to laugh about.
“The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall“
by Folding Ideas/Dan Olson
Look, I don’t know why Nostalgia Critic was ever popular either. I feel like we’ve all just kind of agreed to pretend like that time on the internet simply didn’t exist. Thankfully, Folding Ideas hasn’t. Looking at Nostalgia Critic’s take on The Wall, the 1980s high concept musical film of Pink Floyd’s album, Dan Olson holds a lens up to the fundamental flaws of most online criticism. Meanwhile, he also models a healthier, more interesting way to look at complex art.
“Rac(ism) & Horror”
by Khadija Mbowe
Khadija Mbowe’s channel alternates between casual chats on issues that interest them and more scripted video essays. But even for their video essays, “Rac(ism) & Horror” took the production to a whole new level. Here, Mbowe looks at the racialized history of horror on film. They make the case for Birth of a Nation as one of the first major horror films, and discuss the different ways marginalized groups may view horror from the mainstream culture. It’s a concise and informative video essay that also happens to look great.
“The Style of Bayonetta“
by eurothug3000
Bayonetta is one of the best action video games ever made. The combat is fluid, smooth, evocative. The world is weird and interesting. The style is… well, the style is a lot. Eurothug4000’s Maddie breaks down the camp origins and European fashion roots of Bayonetta as a character, and of Bayonetta as a world. If you’ve ever wondered what the hell was happening with the weird, long-limbed lady in Smash Bros Ultimate, this video is a great primer of who she is and why she looks like that.
“Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia”
by Lindsay Ellis
Lindsay Ellis has been pumping out excellent, entertaining video essays for more than a decade at this point. She’s YouTube old guard, which is frankly a bit strange to say. Still, in a year with a lot of great video essays — “Reevaluating The Little Mermaid” and “Loki, the MCU, and Narcissism” are also standouts — this was her biggest and most interesting to me. In it, Ellis uses JK Rowling’s increasingly extreme transphobia as a background to look back at transphobia’s pop culture roots. It’s heavier than most of her videos, but there’s a lot of great stuff here regardless.
“What the Internet Did to Garfield”
by Super Eyepatch Wolf
I don’t say this lightly, but: This is the weirdest video on this list. Like, the weirdest by a lot. Super Eyepatch Wolf’s channel is known for delving into online fandoms. He explores what they’re like, the things they make, that kind of thing. And it turns out the fandom of Garfield, the long-running newspaper comic, is… deeply cursed. This is essential viewing for anyone who enjoys learning about the weird, dark corners of the internet.
Looking ahead to 2022
As I prepare to publish this, Lindsay Ellis just announced her immediate retirement. It’s a heartbreaking development, but not a surprising one. The internet isn’t a kind place, and it is particularly unkind to folks with marginalized identities. This follows Yhara zayd’s similar, though less dramatic, announcement of an extended hiatus. Yhara zayd discusses what pushed her to do this in her newest (and excellent) video, ‘The Social Cinema‘. Both are voices that will be missed.
The internet makes people mean. It didn’t have to. It doesn’t have to. But it does. In Crash Override, Zoe Quinn, a woman at the heart of one of the most vicious and prolonged harassment campaigns in history, discusses the way anonymity on the internet works. It’s not the way you think. Sure, there are plenty of people who use anonymity as a mask to say the worst things they can imagine. But there are also a lot of people for whom it goes the other way.
The victims of their abuse aren’t real.
There is not a person at the other end of your comment; there’s only an idea. And it’s an idea you don’t like. So who cares what happens? Aren’t you just, as folks on Twitter often say, screaming into the void anyway? It makes logical sense, right? What’s one anonymous poster typing something mean and snarky going to do? How could it matter? Why would ‘they’, whatever nebulous villain they’ve imagined on the other side of their message, even see it? Or, if they did, would they care? Villains don’t typically get their feelings hurt.
Be better, reader. Be a kinder person in 2022.