I usually balk at two-hour-long movies. An hour and thirty minutes are pretty much my limit unless it comes to something like I’m Thinking of Ending Things or Arrival, which is to say, sometimes the media is thrilling enough to keep my attention. That, or my younger sister, agrees to watch it with me. I’m not good about committing to long runtimes alone…, which is what I would say if I were a liar.
Two-hour-long YouTube videos are, to me, perfectly respectable. The longest YouTube video I’ve ever watched was someone’s entire playthrough (no commentary) of “Detroit: Become Human,” an eight-hour-long journey that took me and my sister multiple days to get through, but it was worth it seeing the most satisfying conclusion of the game come to fruition. Most YouTubers I subscribe to are in the habit of only making very long videos, which is the curse of enjoying commentary and video essay spaces. Of course, then I can say that I’ve absorbed nearly five hours’ worth of information on some of Kick’s worst content creators to people who have no idea that Kick even is, or I can recommend a very in-depth think piece about how the myth of vaccines causing autism came into being.
Ultimately, I’ve managed to amass a cache of pretty much useless information if the person I’m talking to isn’t aware of or at least a little bit interested in either Internet goings-on or socio-political conflicts. Which, naturally, demands to be shared.
So, here’s a list of just six YouTube videos out of the many hundred I’ve seen this year alone. Some are personal favorites, and some are new finds, but all will teach you something, or at the very least, keep you company.
The Reindeer Herders by Radio Free Europe
To start, my younger sister wants credit for introducing this documentary gem to me. So, here. Credit.
Moving on!
“The Reindeer Herders” is a very sweet slice-of-life documentary following two brothers, seven-year-old Zakhar, and nine-year-old Prokopy, as they learn how to carry on the traditional Dolgan duties of reindeer herding and, much to their chagrin, mathematics. It’s not explained much in the video itself, but the documentary was filmed to show how the Krasnoyarsk region government has been adapting the schooling system for nomadic families, changing it from boarding schools to “mobile schools,” where teachers go and live in their student’s homes while they teach. But honestly, the best part of the whole thing was when Prokopy climbed up into a tree and refused to come down. Or maybe when Zakhar struggles for two minutes trying to get a frozen reindeer corpse onto a sled before falling over onto the ground in exhaustion. All in all, it is very cute and very wholesome, maybe skip the one slaughtering scene if you’re squeamish, though.
Atrocity Inc: How Israel Sells Its Destruction of Gaza by The Grayzone
It feels important to note that a Grayzone journalist, Jeremy Loffredo, was illegally taken into Israeli custody on October 8th and is being detained in Israel until at least October 20th while the courts investigate him for “aiding the enemy in a time of war” after he reported on Iranian airstrikes hitting Israeli military installations. Loffredo is a Jewish American citizen, though neither identity seems to matter much to the State Department, which is not demanding his immediate release.
As for the documentary itself, it’s an essential watch for all people who have ever seen even the tiniest bit of cable news coverage concerning Palestine and/or Israel. Understanding how the propaganda machine works is analogous to being a responsible citizen at this point, and forty-four minutes is a pretty succinct bit of reporting. Max Blumenthal’s narration coupled with the astronomical amount of evidence he manages to cover in such a short time leaves you with a much better understanding of just how important it is to check your sources before shooting off at the mouth on national television. As someone who has consumed an abundance of media on Palestine, I can fully say that this is a perfect introduction to the world of misinformation as it pertains to the plight of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel.
Why Does the Internet Suck Now? By Ro Ramdin
Interested in a magnificently produced and wittily scripted video? Choose any Ro Ramdin video. Like any of them, all of them are amazing. I chose this one because the Internet does feel like stumbling through a real-life Hieronymus Bosch painting right now, and I think she has cool makeup on. Sue me.
If I could describe this video to you, I wouldn’t. I can’t anyway, but if I could I’d still deny you the summary. You just need to be there, listening to what can only be described as the little voice in everyone’s head getting up on its soapbox when confronted with the horrific disaster that is Google Gemini. Or the rage I know I feel when I realize that every single app is doing the short-form-content thing. Not really sure why Etsy had to hop on the thirty-second video trend. Oh, and Snapchat’s here, too, along with everyone’s favorite everything app, Twitter (someone said somewhere that they’d continue to deadname Twitter as long as Elon continues deadnaming his daughter, and that’s a principle I can wholeheartedly stand by).
Anyway, the whole point is, that this video is cathartic. Ro manages to say everything that needs to be said and more with her characteristic punchy jokes and tasteful cinematics. I am physically unable to do anything else when I put one of Ro’s videos on, partially because I need all of my focus to keep up with the subtle references and partly because her lighting is a gift. And here I am passing the gift on to you.
The Environmental Disaster No One Knows About by Boy Boy
If you thought you were angry at oil corporations before, you’re about to be enraged beyond belief learning about what Chevron and Texaco have done to the indigenous peoples of Ecuador in the Ecuadorian Amazon. What starts with Aleksa Vulovíc (Boy Boy) and Alex Apollonov (I Did a Thing) slathering themselves in cooking oil before handing their resumes over to Chevron employees, soon devolves into one of the most horrific manhunts sponsored by Big Oil.
The documentary-esque exposé is complete with animations (shoutout to Zahra, their illustrator), interviews (they speak with the human rights lawyer, Steven Donziger, who represented the Amazonian people), and a description box full of links to sources so you can further your understanding. There’s also a campaign you can donate to help Donziger secure a pardon since Chevron essentially ruined his life by taking away his passport and getting him disbarred. The Boy Boy channel also features a bunch of other similar videos, like Aleksa and Alex trying to sneak into an Australian military base or showing how easy it is to get away with money laundering because of how lax casino laws are down under. Basically, it’s just a good place to go to get your entertainment and education all at once.
how liberal feminism turns into fasc*sm by Alice Cappelle
Author and video essayist, Alice Cappelle, explores how the liberal framework of feminism has been coopted for fascist purposes, not limited to racism and imperialism. Her explanations are thorough and, when accompanied by her very lovely French accent, wonderfully easy to follow. Cappelle also makes a point to feature the works of other feminist scholars as she explores how we have failed to fully advance feminism.
All in all, the video paints a clear connection between liberal feminism and fascism when Cappelle speaks about a series of riots that took place in France in 2023. A French teenager of Moroccan and Algerian descent, Nahel Merzouk, was shot at point-blank range by a police officer during a traffic check in late summer. In response, eight days of rioting ensued as people protested the structural racism, classism, and xenophobia that had resulted in Merzouk’s murder. But others weren’t seeing it that way, and in fact, prominent feminist essayist Lucile Peytavin framed the riots as “the violence of men” in a post on social media. But these riots were not the result of a lust for patriarchal dominance on the side of the rioters; rather, they were the culmination of frustrations that arose from a group of people who have been treated as less-than for a very long time. Peytavin’s statement brushed off the very real problems that people were protesting, weaponizing feminism and the ignorance of the public to do so. Honestly, Cappelle’s ability to explain all of this is much more enjoyable to watch and listen to rather than read, and she has plenty more to speak on when it comes to gender, sexuality, politics, and capitalism, so if any of those themes seem interesting, voilà! A new channel for you.
He Had A Dream About A New Genre (hit em) by Bishu
Watching this video has spawned a newfound interest in redownloading GarageBand and self-producing EDM so that I can upload it to SoundCloud and become some kind of underground musical icon. You don’t need to know anything about music production to watch any of Bishu’s work, if anything, it’s probably even more impressive if you know nothing at all. He mostly posts clips from his livestreams off Twitch, where he hosts “Bishu Battles,” basically a chance for him and other producers to test their skills by making a song within a set amount of time. This challenge was something like 45 minutes, and he goes from a blank Abelton interface to a song in a genre that doesn’t exist. The second-best thing about Bishu Battles is certainly the entries from subscribers, though. Seeing the way different people interpret the same prompt summons up a warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest, and Bishu has managed to make a sweet little community out of these challenges. Watching reoccurring competitors pop into the cue, you just know that the last ten minutes of the video are going to be filled with hidden gem after hidden gem. So, if you want to be hypnotized by a barrage of beats and synths, you can’t go wrong with a Bishu video.
