Some people have asked why don’t I make video essays. A few have suggested I make a YouTube channel like so many others and just blabber on for 15+ minutes wasting your time. I think YouTube, and other video streaming sites, work best for content that relies on audio and visual. My website doesn’t even rely on audio. Even if I were to read the posts to you nothing would be gained. I make stuff here designed for a purely textual level. Because of this you can just read it at a pace that is comfortable with you and easily find what you need.
Everything I write is easy to digest at the speed you want. I actually spend a lot of time trying to get paragraph breaks just right. Sometimes I will spend time properly splitting ideas that should be part of the same paragraph. No, this isn’t because I don’t understand structure/formatting. I do this so when you’re reading on a mobile device it is easier to read and find where you left off. If you look at my old blogs you’ll see I follow a more traditional paragraph formatting style. Same ideas and linked ideas all share a paragraph like they’re supposed to. However, this makes it harder to read on mobile devices. Now I will go through and add a bit of meat just so I can space things out without them being fragments on the page. So it is more digestible on mobile devices. Though, you probably never even noticed it.
If I made video essays then you’re bound by my time restrictions. If I say you’re taking 15 minutes to watch this video for the full experience, you are. “Well, I would just listen to it at 1.5 or x 2 speed and cut the video down by half.” Yeah, I’m actually an insanely fast talker. I can put Linus Tech Tips to shame if I speak at my natural speed. There’s also tons more I can do to force you to watch the full video. I can add audio gags that if you listen to them at 1.5 or times 2 speed will make awful noises. I can add visual gags that will flash by on your screen if you’re watching the videos too fast; making you rewind, seek, and pause to get the full experience. Another thing I can do is add a subtle echo to my voice you won’t notice at regular speed but at faster playback speeds will make the audio hard to understand. There’s tons more audio tricks I learned when I was learning audio engineering I can do to ruin your increased playback speed. If I want 15 minutes of your time then by golly I will take those 15 minutes. Afterall, YouTube depends on watch time.
Here, you can read at your own pace and easily find what you need. You can Ctrl+F to find exact words or sentences in seconds if you ever need to quote me, or find something I am referencing. No need to go seeking through a timeline and wait for me to say it. Then no need to worry about others skipping it, or fastforwarding through it. You can just send them a screenshot directly of what I said. See that? I care about your busy day! I can’t even stop you from skimming! If I was to run a Javascript code that stopped you from scrolling too fast, or displayed Goatse for doing so (Yes, I’ve seen the DHTML for this), you could just disable it with a Javascript blocker. The only thing I can do to make you take longer to read my website would be to just make the user experience worse. Larger paragraphs, harder to read font choices, harsher colors, and crap like that. There are very few tricks I can do here without locking it behind a membership, oddly enough. Even if I did the above you could just use your web browser to inject a custom CSS style sheet and “fix” my website.
It’s not like writing on my website is easier to do than uploading to YouTube. When I made YouTube videos it didn’t take long. A little bit of audio ducking, color correction, letting shit process, and then uploading. Sure it added to the time from finalized script and clicking “publish” but it wasn’t harder. It was all very easy. This was with me doing content that relied on video too. For the little bit of time where I had a secret essay channel it took no effort. Record voice, add random images/game clips, make sure things match up, check levels, and boom done! The only difference is I am not adding random eye-catching shit to my articles. However, if I was to close down my website and switch to video essays I would save a lot more money, and make more too.
With that said, posting on my website gives me freedom. I can say what the fuck I want. When the fuck I want. Penis. With YouTube I have to not swear so much, not cover certain topics, and tons more hidden shit that goes on behind the scene. “What do you mean not cover certain topics?” Remember when Covid first happened? YouTube was censoring any video that mentioned Covid by killing that channel’s SEO and the likelihood of appearing on the sidebar. YouTube does this randomly with different topics. This is why you’ll notice certain stories just disappear overnight on YouTube. It’s not that the story is done, or people stopped giving a shit. No, YouTube is done with the story.
Here if I choose to not cover a topic then I made the choice not to do it. Sure, an outside force could be pressuring me but then I decided it’s in my best interest to listen to that outside force. I don’t have to worry about some hidden algorithm killing my content overnight because they decided a word was offensive, or a certain subject is not allowed. I won’t wake up to all of my content being removed, or my channel. If someone DMCA’s me I can tell them to blow me and that I will see them in court. On YouTube some random asshole can file 4 fake DMCA’s and end your channel. Your channel can die because of the Content ID system. There’s so many factors that go into YouTube that can just end everything you’ve worked on because a new rule was implemented while you were sleeping. With my own website I do not have this issue.
Originally I had started writing this post in November. It was supposed to be the final post for December. I wound up getting sick and just stopped writing. Good thing I did because since then YouTube just issued an update that affects every video game channel. If you use content from an M rated game, even if it’s just showing the skybox or NPCs talking in a family friendly way, YouTube will automatically mark it as 18+ and give you the yellow mark of death.
Recently I found a random YouTuber called TomSka who recently had a video marked as 18+ when it was perfectly safe for work. GamersNexus had their Intel Arc review marked as 18+ which drastically hurt their ad revenue and hid the review from search results. Keemstar had a video marked 18+ because YouTube’s auto subtitles thought he said the N word when he said something else. I don’t remember what he said and nor do I care to suffer through his content for this. Everyday I can go on Twitter and see person after person bitching about YouTube destroying their channel for weird reasons without telling them why. YouTube will just silently update the rules and then tell you to go fuck yourself.
This is why I don’t do video essays on YouTube. If my website starts to tank then it is because either I let it rot or my writing has gotten worse. YouTube could just choose to lower my channel’s SEO due to it getting upset at me using certain SEO tricks or because it made a new rule that nukes my channel’s SEO. Here’s a fun SEO tip for YouTube. Everytime YouTube has to give you the yellow mark of death they lower the video’s SEO massively and they lower your channel’s overall SEO too. However, if you mark it as 18+ from the getgo they don’t punish you. The video will have a lower SEO than your channel’s, but not as harsh as YouTube’s punishment SEO. The issue is YouTube will just nuke your channel’s SEO because you showed a clip from a TV show where in a different episode from the clip a person said a naughty word. I’ve been wanting to do a blog post about the YouTube algorithm and weird SEO stuff it does to punish channels but the issue is it’s always changing and every time anything comes out about the algorithm people abuse it and it becomes a race to the bottom to ruin YouTube for a few more extra views. On that note, fuck you SpiffingBrit for exposing shorts as SEO boosts.
What I find funny is that almost everyone who tells me to make video essays complains about Silicon Valley’s/big tech’s control over the internet. Why the fuck do you want me to switch to YouTube then? Oh, because it’s easier for you to be on one website instead of checking a few. Hell, you don’t even have to check my website. I have an RSS feed. You can customize an RSS feed to look how you want so you can read my posts the second they’re published in a style that works best for you! Congratulations! You’re still checking 1 service but now you’re reading from many websites and weakening big tech’s grasp on the internet. All you’re doing is feeding the snake that bites your hand, over and over.
On the subject of my content: I don’t think it’s meant for YouTube. I do not think what I write here is good for YouTube. I have a few YouTube channels. That is content I think works for YouTube. Not this. Everything I write on here doesn’t need any audio or visual flare to get the point across. I am just ranting about weird shit, or discussing shit I find interesting. Sure, I can make it a video and add pictures to spice it up, but what does that really add? If I need to show you an image I could also just link to images while typing, or throw them in the post. Pasting random images and quotes throughout a video isn’t good content. It means I think you’re a fucking idiot who can’t pay attention without a constant rush of pretty images to keep you interested. What do I think is good content for YouTube? Well, I’ll write about that another time.