This week on The Deep Dive: Why witches’ shoes look like that, Life is a Highway by Rascal Flatts is a cover and I want to know what else I’ve been lied to about, you’ll never believe what Tucker Carlson’s dad dedicated his entire career to saving, I guess Ohio is cool now, and if the only map you’ve ever seen is a subway map then everything’s a subway.

FASHION

How the Witch got her Shoes : Shoemaking & History by Nicole Rudolph (25:55)

It wouldn’t be a Deep Dive Halloween if I didn’t force you to think about how witches’ shoes got their shape! In this video, Nicole Rudolph explores the history of the pointy, heeled witch shoe (which may not be as straightforward as you think) while literally constructing a pair right before our very eyes. The caricature of witchy shoes may be vaguely reminiscent of 18th-century shoe fashions, which might make sense if you consider the timing of the Salem Witch Trials. But they didn’t become associated with witches until Halloween became commercialized in the early 1900s – and made witches sexy. However, the modern-day idea of the exaggerated witch shoe is even more recent than that, and it most likely came from an iconic movie that’s currently in your spooky season queue.

MUSIC

ONE HIT WONDERLAND: “Life Is a Highway” by Tom Cochrane by Todd in the Shadows (25:00)

I just want to know if any of you were ever planning on telling me that the single best song from a Pixar movie soundtrack was actually a cover of another song originally sung by some Canadian guy. That guy’s name is Tom Cochrane and according to Todd in the Shadows, he’s a pretty big deal up there. He’s also the poster child of an insular household name – wildly famous in his home country but basically unheard of just one border over. Tom Cochrane has a pretty standard story of a rock artist who rose to fame in the 1980s (with some serious help from content laws Canadian radio stations are required to follow). He came from a modest upbringing, joined a band, had a hit, named that band after himself, went solo, and had another hit before being swallowed up by grunge rock in the early 1990s. Life is a highway and apparently so is Tom Cochrane’s career.

TV

TALES OF THE CITY and the Fight to Save PBS by Matt Baume (35:30)

Of all the hyper-specific video essay topics out there, one I will never not click on is how conservatives have somehow managed to continue to find the time to wage a generations-long war on PBS. On multiple occasions, they actually came pretty close, leading Mister Rogers himself to make two separate testimonies nearly 30 years apart to a panel of politicians who probably had more important issues to concern themselves with. All this to shoot down PBS’s programming that dared to show gay people leading happy and loving lives on TV. In this video, Matt Baume tells the story of every time conservative politicians tried to pull the plug on public television and the massive miscalculation they made in the 1990s – it turns out that even back then, Americans loved Barney and Big Bird way more than they hated (or even thought about) Tales of the City.

CULTURE

Why is ‘America’ Cool Again? by Mina Le (40:24)

You guys know how much I hate doing this, but Mina Le has unfortunately put out another banger of a video within a month. You may have noticed that Americana has gained a renewed cool factor in recent years, but not just any Americana – right now, there’s nowhere hotter than the Midwest. In this video, Mina Le investigates the rise of the “yeehaw agenda” and how what started off looking like just another revival of Wild West aesthetics turned into city boys sporting workwear and Realtree camo. Confused how this could have happened? Let’s take a look back at the events of the past five years. For one, a global pandemic gave way to a rush to suburbia, country music suddenly started taking on a more authentic tone, the entire state of Ohio has apparently turned into a meme, and America recently crowned its very own Midwest Princess.

POLITICS

Politics is a Language War by Zoe Bee (1:09:38)

Like society itself, language is made up and constantly changing. In fact, it’s so made up that we often use comparisons in place of the things we’re actually talking about – we call these metaphors. And some metaphors become so commonplace we don’t realize we’re making them at all. For example, every election year, we talk about US politics as if Democrats and Republicans are at war with each other, with attacks, defenses, battlegrounds, and even campaigns being the default language we use to discuss the election process. In this video, Zoe Bee reminds us that words, even metaphors, do have meanings, and those meanings are framed by what is most important to the speaker. So, how do we engage with people who we disagree with about policy? It can be complicated, but we can learn a thing or two about framing and dominant narratives by looking at maps.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Two different subscribers have recommended this video in the past week, so that alone should be enough reason to watch this biting commentary on American work culture. Because what really is work? Why do careers have to be the culmination of our achievements and life goals? And how did we end up in a system where work is everything and everything is work?

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This week on The Deep Dive: Good UX design is in the eye of the beholder, American kids got hooked on phonics then off and now they’re back on again, the endless character development of Daphne from Scooby-Doo, how to dress when no one will tell you the rules, and 30 years since cold fusion and we still have to go to the gas station.

TECHNOLOGY

Chinese app design: weird, but it works. Here’s why by Phoebe Yu (10:51)

This week’s newsletter features two 11-minute videos and two one-hour-long videos because I apparently have no sense of balance. But this was exactly the rundown I needed on Chinese mobile app design and why it seems to confuse so many Americans like myself, who would seemingly rather spend time trying to decipher the meaning of the minimalist menu item images on the bottom of the dozens of entirely separate apps we use per day. But imagine if everything you ever needed was available on a single app with all the information you need presented right there in front of you, like the packaging on an early-2000s Microsoft product. In this video, Phoebe Yu explains how culture and the aesthetics we’re accustomed to influence how we perceive good design and a positive user experience.

EDUCATION

Why everyone stopped reading. by Jared Henderson (11:03)

Young people today don’t know how to read. I’m not talking about the post-pandemic rhetoric that’s essentially a combination of acknowledging that children missed out on years of important in-classroom instruction thanks to the pandemic, and the age-old “kids these days” trope that adults never seem to realize they’re participating in the same way their parents did. In this video, Jared Henderson is talking about college students, even those attending elite schools, who made it to their thirteenth year of education without ever being required to read an entire book. In an environment where students historically are expected to read about one book per week, this can be a problem. What happened? In short, the death of phonics and the rise of standardized tests created the perfect conditions for abysmal reading stamina. Also phones.

MEDIA

A History of Daphne, Scooby-Doo, & Cultural Movements (Who is Daphne Blake?) by Kartsie (44:28)

Few franchises are as iconic and have been as revisited, reimagined, and reinvented as Scooby-Doo and the gang of meddling kids. And none of its characters were more reintroduced to generations of fans as Daphne Blake – mostly to make up for the misogynistic and borderline disturbing ways she was presented early in the series. In this video, Kartsie explores the many different versions of Daphne to answer a question that’s taken decades to answer: Who is Daphne Blake? In the 1970s, she was prone to danger, ten years later, she began to take on an independent woman identity, in the 2000s, she could do it all, and by the 2010s, her creators stopped trying to fix her and allowed her to be a teenage girl (who was instrumental in solving mysteries).

FASHION

How Jordan Peterson’s Suits Taught Me Fashion by CJ The X (1:00:32)

There was a time when people knew exactly how to dress – there were rules, customs, and a fear of god that prevented people from stepping outside the bounds of conformity. But sometime around the 1960s, certain groundbreaking cultural shifts allowed people to explore subcultures, which had their own rules and norms. Those subcultures continued to fracture until they basically stopped existing and now, there are no rules. We’re all just running around in fashion anarchy, desperately grasping at three-word personal style guidelines and 75 Hard wardrobe challenges to discover who we really are and how we’re supposed to dress. In this video, CJ The X studies fashion according to the teachings of a Twitter account with taste and strong, informed opinions. If fashion is a language, then Jordan Peterson is out here babbling like a baby.

SCIENCE

The Men Who Promised the Impossible: Unlimited Energy by BobbyBroccoli (1:04:53)

Oh, how close we were to freeing ourselves from our dependence on fossil fuels by the turn of the 1990s with cold fusion. Not really, but we can dream, right? Two scientists at the University of Utah certainly felt entitled to dream big…to the point where they let a scientific miscalculation generate so much hype that it reached presidential-assassination levels of news coverage. That was, until the truth inevitably came out. If you know anything about BobbyBroccoli, you already know that this video gets arguably way too far into the weeds about a case of scientific deception that took place in recent history, and this video did not disappoint. There is bad news, though. This is a two-part video and the second part is only on Nebula so until it’s posted to YouTube, you’ll need to watch it there. I’m sorry! I promise this isn’t an ad!

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Listen, life gets hard sometimes. And subscriber Cait from London (shoutout!) somehow knew that a music history lesson and a post-recession pop dance party alone on my couch was precisely what the doctor ordered. The best part is that this video is the first installment of a three-part series about music in the 2010s, starting with the golden era of party-like-it’s-your-last-day-on-earth-and-don’t-pay-your-rent music, 2010 to 2013. And all three parts are already on YouTube!

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This week on The Deep Dive: The classic movie with an opening scene so breathtaking you’ll forget it was filmed in the 1960s, dressing on theme for a press tour…groundbreaking, milk’s bizarre ability to captivate generations, Catfish was worse than you thought but still a lot better than it could have been, and everything you’ve ever wanted (and didn’t know you wanted) to know about One Direction.

FILM

Why The Sound of Music Still Looks Like a Billion Bucks by wolfcrow (8:05)

I watched The Sound of Music a lot as a child. I knew all the lyrics to all the songs and would regularly belt them out loud – including the ones that required me to attempt yodeling (my poor parents). Even at a young age, something about the film felt so grand, and in this video, wolfcrow explains the technical process that made it feel that way. Even though I don’t know a single thing about camera work and film technology, I appreciate that this video doesn’t try to dumb it down, explaining it in a way that forces you to understand what an undertaking it was to film one of the greatest movies of all time. If you need to watch this video a second time to understand it – don’t worry, it’s less than ten minutes long. And if you still don’t get it after the rewatch, at least it’s beautiful to look at.

FASHION

investigating the method dressing phenomenon 🔎🍿👗 by ModernGurlz (23:24)

It’s hard to believe today, in a post-Barbie media landscape, that there was ever a time when method dressing in film industry press tours and red carpets was seen as a mockery of the art form. Just a few decades ago, actors were terrified of dressing according to the theme of the films they starred in so as not to type-cast themselves. But we’ve come a long way, with actors rolling up to premieres dressed as robots, retro cartoon characters, and carnival ringmasters (all of which were executed flawlessly by Zendaya, of course). In this video, ModernGurlz explains how the rise of social media inspired actors to treat film promotions like the upscale Halloween parties you’ll never be invited to but will inevitably see all over Instagram. The film industry may be in shambles, but at least the outfits are cool!

CULTURE

The Evil Symbolism of Milk by Mina Le (36:03)

When I say that I want video essayists to make videos about the weird and persistent thoughts that cross their minds, this is what I’m talking about. Because it’s true, there just is something about milk that makes it so intriguing. In this video, Mina Le tries to get to the bottom of her grossed-out fascination with the beverage (if we can even call it that), and it turns out there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Everything about milk – its mammalian origins, its connection to youth, even its perplexing color – is used to symbolize purity, evil, innocence, and everything in between. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the way it’s been villainized with the rise of alternative milk options. But if our rejection of 2010s tech culture is any indication, we may see a desire to return to cow’s milk in the years to come. Because Mina’s right – movie characters being poisoned with almond milk just doesn’t hit the same.

TV

Catfish the TV Show - A Critical Retrospective by Jordan Theresa (41:47)

Of all the problematic reality TV shows to look back on in sheer horror at what was considered the social norms of their time, Catfish: The TV Show hardly seems like the worst offender. Depending on who you ask, it may even look like one of the rare “good ones” that did its best to inflict as little harm on its subjects as possible. Remember, this is the same category that’s home to The Biggest Loser and I Wanna Marry “Harry.” In this video, Jordan Theresa takes a closer look at MTV’s history of reality TV programming and the humilitainment required to make it hard for audiences to look away – and, despite its kinder tone, Catfish was certainly no exception. There’s also the question of the central role class and education disparities, beauty standards, and vigilante justice play on the show. But at least it didn’t have on-set “therapists” that actually turned out to be undercover producers?

POP CULTURE

One Direction: The Timeline by mila tequila (2:32:19)

Something about this video was exactly what I needed at the precise moment it popped up on my feed. I wasn’t an early fan of One Direction, as I instead hopped on the bandwagon later on down the line during the Midnight Memories era, like a loser. Even all this time later, I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that I missed out in those early years of One Direction stanhood, and in this video, mila tequila shows me exactly what it was that I so willfully, and with so little foresight, rejected all those years ago. I’ll never get that time back, and even this video is yet another reminder that I just had to be there, but I guess this is the closest I’ll ever get – a complete play-by-play of the years 2010 through 2015 told by a Directioner who was there for it all. Study up, because this video may be shown in our children’s history classes one day.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

We already know that if subscriber Lala from North Carolina (shoutout!) didn’t recommend a video by Tara Mooknee, it was only going to be a matter of time before I did. There’s a lot of talk lately about the phrases we come up with to describe patterns in media created by humans who live in a society. Eventually, the usage of some of these terms starts to spiral so out of control that they lose all the meaning they once carried. This video is about the “female gaze,” which is now more about what it isn’t than what it actually is.

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This week on The Deep Dive: Barbie’s makeover movie B-plot, Spiderman’s swings and a happy medium between man and machine, how Forrest Gump accidentally became a conservative icon, a quick reminder that Chappell Roan is a character (but also a person), and the moral panic that quietly took over social media.

FILM

Why We Can’t Fix the Makeover Movie by verilybitchie (18:18)

In the film industry’s spectrum of womanhood, it’s all about running toward the ends before finally meeting in the middle. In this video, verilybitchie makes the convincing case that every popular movie is, in some way, a makeover movie. And no, I’m not just talking about She’s All That or The Devil Wears Prada or Miss Congeniality, but also the ones we may not have realized were makeover movies at all – like Barbie. Behind America Ferrera’s Feminism 101 monologue and the film’s surface-level commentary about how the patriarchy does, in fact, hurt everyone, one character was quietly being girl-ified and robbed of her blossoming activism in the background. And it all traces back to Audrey Hepburn and a little movie called My Fair Lady.

TECHNOLOGY

How Spider-Man's Web Swinging Changed by Alex Boucher (19:02)

I just love it when people love things and then tell me all about them. I’m not one for superhero movies, but after watching this video, I’m officially forever fascinated by the nuances of the evolution of Spiderman’s swings and how innovations in computer animation made them so much better…before making them worse. In this video, Alex Boucher takes us through history marked by Spiderman eras – from inventive and dangerous real-life stunts to Kirsten Dunst swinging with a mannequin to peak CGI and human collaboration in the 2010s. But somewhere along the way, as we got closer to modern day, we started to have a liiiitle too much faith in computer graphics. Once a hallmark of each new film, why did the Spiderman franchise start putting less effort into its iconic swings?

CULTURE

The Strange Conservatism of Forrest Gump by Broey Deschanel (37:37)

It’s 1994, the year Forrest Gump (the movie) and I were born. Conservative politics is having a rebirth after a 40-year-long flop era. Meanwhile, in Liberal Hollywood, a director known for using technology in ways ranging from impressive for the time to uncanny valley takes on a risky project based on a book with a premise he’s afraid will alienate a large portion of his target audience. So he waters it down, markets it for the masses, and accidentally creates a movie that deeply resonates with a rising breed of new-age conservatives. Oops. In this video, Broey Deschanel, who has now created so many of my all-time favorite video essays in a row that I literally don’t know what to do with myself, explains how Forrest Gump (the movie) was flattened so much that it pushed out all the cultural criticism and satire that Forrest Gump (the book) wanted to communicate. A box of chocolates trampled into oblivion if you will. Still a great movie, though!

POP CULTURE

The Chappell Roan Paradox by Friendly Space Ninja (51:21)

They say that you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain, but for Chappell Roan, that cycle all took place over the course of just a few months, immediately on the heels of a stratospheric rise to fame that is unparalleled to anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes. However, in recent weeks, seemingly one after the other, pop music’s newest darling made a series of decisions and social media rants that were not so well received. Some appreciated her nuanced approach to today’s political climate, and others swore that she may as well have admitted to being a Trump supporter. Then came the canceled performances. In this video, Friendly Space Ninja identifies a pattern in Chappell Roan’s poorly timed social media rants, and all the evidence points to one conclusion: Chappell Roan needs a minute…and maybe even a publicist – not to censor her, but to help her say what she actually means.

INTERNET

The Narcissist Scare by Sarah Z (57:43)

Spend any amount of time on the internet and you may notice how much you’ll hear about narcissism. One TikTok will show you how to identify the so-called narcissists in your life based on little to no evaluation from a professional. Another will justify any behavior toward anyone deemed a narcissist based on the hardly rock-solid evidence presented in the previous sentence. And while some social media users try to show a more realistic side, it’s no surprise that scaring people into believing that there’s at least one cartoonishly devious narcissist everywhere they turn gets a lot more eyeballs for the algorithm. In this video, Sarah Z analyzes the moral panic around narcissism that was born and bred in online circles. Worried you might be a narcissist? Don’t worry, the internet has also found a foolproof way to absolve anyone who even considers self-reflection, because everyone knows a true narcissist could never be so empathetic.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

If it weren’t for Lynn, the subscriber who recommended this video, I would’ve never known about the themes of creative expression hiding in plain sight within the pages of the Captain Underpants books. At first glance, the series may seem like little more than silly illustrations, dialogue that encourages misspelling, and inappropriate potty jokes to adults, but for the countless kids who have read Captain Underpants for years, it’s served as an outlet where their imaginations can run wild in a world that may not understand them. The series is also at risk of being banned in schools and libraries nationwide for its anti-establishment themes. I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Captain Underpants.

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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This week on The Deep Dive: Death Cab for Cutie and The OC effect, the quick rise and fall of Las Vegas’s watchful eye, Fortnite could have been a fad but then it learned how not to take itself too seriously, a rare modern-day teen movie that actually respects its audience, and you know that meme with the dog drinking coffee in a burning room? That’s today’s artists.

Also, there won’t be a newsletter next week, so take this time to catch up on your video essay backlog and The Deep Dive will be back on October 9!

MUSIC

How The OC saved indie rock 🎸 by Little White Lies (14:56)

All it took was one showrunner who cared about the music in their show’s scenes to launch careers, single-handedly alter the course of the industry, and solidify that show’s place in indie music history – don’t you just miss the 2000s? Starting in 2003, a little show you may have heard of called The OC introduced young audiences to Death Cab for Cutie, Rooney, and a dramatized version of what lies behind the Orange Curtain. In this video, Little White Lies uncovers the genius of Josh Schwartz and music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas’s partnership to create an iconic show with an equally iconic soundtrack. By the time viewers caught on to the fact that the show was dictating their music tastes, it had already built a new set and in-story location literally designed to platform the artists it was discovering. But is Death Cab thankful for the exposure The OC gave them? Yes, but also no.

BUSINESS

The Death Of The Vegas Sphere by Pinely (18:40)

After a few viral social media posts that showcased both the best (incredible concert visuals) and worst (huge light-up billboard in the middle of Las Vegas) of the Sphere, Sin City’s orb is starting to lose steam just one year after debuting as an eyeball. The reason? As it turns out, a 16K resolution spherical screen is pretty hard to maintain, use, and sometimes even enjoy, depending on where you’re seated. In this video, Pinely looks back at the past year to tell the story of the rise and potential fall of the Las Vegas Sphere and the tens of millions of dollars it’s now lost over the course of a couple of months. Will the Sphere survive? It’s hard to say. But it definitely isn’t going to be expanding anytime soon now that London has pulled the plug on what could’ve been its second eye-themed landmark.

GAMING

The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Fortnite by gabi belle (21:14)

Long ago, in 2017 BCE (before COVID era), a game loved by 12-year-old boys and blue-haired streamers with weird attitudes about playing with female gamers alike exploded onto the scene. Its overnight success seemed only to spell out one possible outcome – Fortnite was destined to disappear from our cultural consciousness as quickly as it became a household name. But then, something weird happened. It didn’t go away. It stayed around, and for a much longer time than anyone could have anticipated. In this video, gabi belle explains why, which has a lot to do with listening to its fans, leaning into gimmicks, and sometimes even permanently incorporating those gimmicks into the game when it seemed like people liked them. In a space where it should be all fun and games, why does Fortnite feel like the only video game that doesn’t take itself too seriously?

FILM

To All the Boys: how to actually make a teen movie by art at midnight (21:18)

We’re in the midst of a teen movie crisis. The coming-of-age film that once spoke to the angst and experiences of young people now talks down to them, doesn’t respect them, can’t even get their clothing trends right, and definitely won’t bother with visuals and colors that tell a story in and of themselves. If you watched Mean Girls the movie the musical the movie, or any other disaster of a teen flick in recent years, you know this is true. But in this video, art at midnight reminds us of a time when we had one glimmering sign of hope, a reason to be optimistic before the film industry got so much worse before it could get better: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Not only does it defy the shy-girl trope by introducing a protagonist with cute style and a backbone, but it also has a color story and set design that transports you to the world it creates – you know, how movies are supposed to make you feel?

ART

Why Art No Longer Reflects Reality by Dasia Sade (55:50)

Remember when mainstream artists took it upon themselves to make political and anti-war statements in their work? I was born in the 90s so I barely do, but it seems like something that used to happen kind of a lot. Today, even the handful of artists and creators who are willing to take a stand are swiftly pushed to the margins of their industries thanks to corporate interests and way too few people in charge of making way too big of decisions that impact way too many people’s real lives. And what happened to The Chicks was only the beginning. In this video, Dasia Sade takes a break from roller skating content to highlight how, despite more individual voices being heard than ever thanks to social media and independent art, algorithms and audience fragmentation have made political statements targeted at mainstream audiences virtually impossible to amplify. So what kind of art are we then left with?

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This week on The Deep Dive: The event that taught us about internet behavior and breaking news, “Eh, just hold it,” says New York City to its 8 million residents, when 2D animation and 3D animation became one, how to fix the film industry’s poster problem, and the disturbing ending of a popular TV show that never should have existed.

INTERNET

How 9/11 Changed the Internet Forever by NationSquid (16:08)

Think about how you react when you first hear about breaking news in the year 2024. First, you might be shocked, even confused or in disbelief. The next thing you’d do is open up Google and start searching away. Maybe you’d skim through Wikipedia pages or news headlines that populated at the top of the page as an algorithmic reaction to the news. And millions of other people would be doing the exact same thing. But how did we first learn about those behaviors? Or maybe the better question is what happened to teach us more about the way we behave on the internet in a time of crisis? In this video, NationSquid explains how tragedy at the turn of the century taught us how to tell the difference between a cyberattack and a ton of people trying to get the same information at the same time. 

URBANISM

What happened to public bathrooms? by Kendra Gaylord (16:59)

How surprised can we really be that local governments have decided to make what little public restrooms were available to residents even more inaccessible, oftentimes by straight-up closing them down? But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s pretty bonkers to give hundreds of thousands if not millions of people no place to go – especially when they have no other options. In this video, Kendra Gaylord explores what happened to public bathrooms and the cities that once seemed so excited about providing them. You may be thinking to yourself, “If only there were self-cleaning restrooms that pay for themselves, say, through advertising revenue and could be placed in convenient locations throughout major cities. That would solve the problem, right?” Wrong. Because those exist and have for a while, but San Francisco is the only place you’ll find them.

ART

Hybrid animation is NOT “The Spider-Verse Style” by camwing (32:41)

If you’ve noticed a rise in animated movies in styles similar to that of 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, you’re right! But you’re also wrong, according to people who know way more about animation than I do. In this video, camwing dives deep into why only some movies that use hybrid animation, or the combination of 2D and 3D animation, are given proper credit for their fusion of two different styles. Into the Spider-Verse wasn’t the first to use hybrid animation by a long shot, proven in part by the fact that the Peanuts franchise even dabbled in it just a few years earlier. Hybrid animation has been used since the 1980s, but the key lies in how well the 2D and 3D graphics are blended together and how intentionally.

FILM

Movie Posters (used to) Rule by Mason idk (33:08)

On this week’s edition of “Some Things Used To Be Better,” it’s hard to argue that movie posters did, actually, used to be better. When was the last time you felt compelled to hang up a recent movie poster on the walls of your room to communicate something about your taste and interests in an aesthetically pleasing way? Between ensemble films that cram as many characters as they can on 27 by 40 inches and movie stars smiling or smirking or frowning into a camera to reflect the tone of a film, the issue of boring movie posters is hard to ignore. In this video, Mason idk makes sure of that by comparing and contrasting movie posters of film’s past, moving through iconic decades in cinema and the final breaths of cool movie posters in the late 2000s, before bringing us to where we ended up today. And that doesn’t even cover the “guy holding weapon” trope in video game covers. Also books.

TV

that time To Catch A Predator kinda killed a guy. by Skip Intro (1:32:25)

Uh…yeah…I don’t know how to make a smooth transition into this video, but this did happen. Regardless of whether you can argue that To Catch a Predator was doing noble work, the incident referenced in the title of this video puts a big, ugly spotlight on the show’s true underlying purpose at the end of the day – to make good TV, no matter who or what it has to exploit. In this video, Skip Intro revisits one of the most problematic shows in TV history and how it’s responsible for exaggerating the risk of “stranger danger” while platforming a vigilante group with unconventional and unethical methods. It also blurred the lines between civilians and law enforcement and projected a positive bias toward police units and the “bad apples” that “occasionally” exist within them.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Shoutout to Jess from South Africa for recommending this video! Hollywood’s obsession with ambition only fuels our culture’s fixation on it. This video is about the media we consume that glorifies working toward a goal that we’re well aware may not even make us happy. Is there anything we can watch to help us see the beauty in the mundane world? Can we find contentment in boredom instead of vilifying it?

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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The week on The Deep Dive: Analyzing the accent I get ripped apart on TikTok for having, revisiting another classic children’s book, Amazon won’t stop until we have floating blimp fulfillment centers, Matt Rife had a Beatles-level audience and then just gave it all away, and trains don’t stop for anyone – not even Ethan Hunt.

EDUCATION

What does a California accent sound like? by Dave Huxtable (10:28)

Everyone loves the experience of having an accent expert pick apart their accent that they never thought was unique – that’s why I clicked on this video. I’ve long been (correctly) accused of speaking with vocal fry on TikTok, and no matter how many user8347852093s want to believe that it’s an affectation, it’s also deeply ingrained in my brain and vocal cords because I’m from ✨California✨. In this video, Dave Huxtable taught me a little bit about why I speak the way I do, even though it sounds normal to me? Aside from that, this video was delightful, mainly because Dave might have the best comedic timing on YouTube – skip to 1:36 and 4:58 if you don’t believe me. Does this count as a video essay? Probably not, oh well.

MEDIA

Revisiting Where the Wild Things Are as an Adult by Roughest Drafts (25:37)

As a child, I was highly sensitive to the animation and illustration styles that I found scary. I vividly remember having nightmares about the cover art of Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, Bluth movies gave me the heebie-jeebies for reasons I still don’t understand to this day, and Where the Wild Things Are scared me so much I memorized where it was located on my first-grade classroom bookshelf so that I wouldn’t accidentally pick it up. While my art style fears may have been irrational, I wasn’t the only kid who was afraid of Where the Wild Things Are. And now that we’re all grown up, it’s time to take another look at the children’s classic. In this video, Roughest Drafts explores the book’s underlying themes, from the overt to the possible, and what it means to learn from our mistakes and to be loved best of all. 

BUSINESS

Amazon's Patents: A Dystopian Nightmare by slow start (34:04)

It isn’t just drone deliveries and Alexa maybe-or-maybe-not listening in on your conversations. Unsurprisingly, Amazon has a history of filing patents designed to control every last movement of its employees and even thought we wouldn’t notice when it had the idea of creating a tiny little robot on wheels that follows us around in our own homes to collect all the information it can about us…until it eventually faces a flight of stairs it doesn’t know how to navigate. In this video, slow start investigates every concerning patent in Amazon’s past, present, and future – including the ones the company probably really hopes everyone forgot about. Just think, all this effort to sell you one more thing that you don’t need and will inevitably show up in a blue-and-white bubble-wrapped package at your front door only for you to look at it and go, “Hm, I don’t know what this is. I don’t even remember ordering anything.”

CULTURE

Matt Rife, The Patriarchy Won't Save You by Shanspeare (45:00)

Alright, I’ll admit it – I was late to this one. But Shanspeare’s videos are just too good, and I can’t just keep recommending them on a bi-monthly basis. There was something about this video, though, and its title hasn’t left my mind since it flashed across my recommended page a month ago. So I did it. I had to watch it. In this video, Shanspeare reads Matt Rife to absolute filth in a way that makes me hope he hasn’t seen it yet because…ouch. Matt Rife isn’t just a comedian for the girls who wanted approval from the boys so badly that he was willing to blow up his promising career, he’s yet another victim of the patriarchy. He eventually got what he wanted, alienating his female audience and leaving them for their boyfriends until he eventually ended up seated across from Jordan Peterson.

FILM

Why Are Movies So Obsessed With Trains? by Patrick (H) Willems (48:52)

For anyone unlucky enough to live in the (mostly) train-less United States of America, get ready to be even more envious of people who can romanticize train life thanks to film. And I’m not just talking about old movies – modern-day films also regularly feature trains. In fact, movies about trains have been a thing for as long as film has been a thing. In this video, Patrick (H) Willems explores the timeless train movie and why film audiences of yesterday, tomorrow, and forever will always love a train scene. It might have something to do with trains being big, filled with shared space, isolated when traveling through rural routes, and unable (or unwilling) to stop for anyone, no matter who you are and how much you love the person getting on the train. 

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

It’s been a long day of watching video essays, and whenever I reach the end of a long day of watching video essays, all I want to do is curl up and put on a video by a former Viner turned YouTuber and have myself a laugh. Luckily, this week’s subscriber recommendation (shoutout to Bella from Kentucky!) is exactly what I needed. And with more than 7 million views, if you’ve already seen it, here’s your chance to watch it again. 

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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This week on The Deep Dive: What asterisks in sports and the boogeyman have in common, the most repeated answer to the most repeated question asked on Love Island, esports could’ve been the next NFL if it weren’t for those meddling VCs, how driverless cars ended up parking themselves in the first place, and the 1970s weird-girl muse with a 2024 it-girl look.

SPORTS

asterisks in sports by hydn (26:58)

Ask any sports fan about asterisks, and you’ll be inundated with a flood of opinions around championship wins and world records, including but not limited to Barry Bonds, The Houston Astros, Wayne Gretzky, and who knows what else. The concept of the asterisk looms over athletes and their legacies, whether they were in control of the circumstances or not, even whether an asterisk ended up being issued or not. In this video, hydn dives deep into the lore of the sports asterisk and the so-called cheaters whose careers are forever marked with them. But where is the line between the asterisks and non-asterisks? And who keeps the records that hold the asterisks?

MEDIA

Tall, Dark and Racially Ambiguous by Princess Weekes (40:04)

We hear it all the time, from characters in our favorite literature to descriptions of contestants’ type on Love Island, but who gets to be “tall, dark, and handsome?” Regardless of what writers initially imagine when using the word “dark” to describe a character’s physical appearance, in a Euro-centric culture that has a history of minimizing the experiences of Black and Brown people, dark can mean anything but dark. In this video, Princess Weekes analyzes the meaning of whiteness, how mainstream media represents characters described as having “dark features,” and why it all matters – from Jon Snow to Jo March to Katniss Everdeen to Ben Affleck, I guess. What was behind the racism toward Rue from The Hunger Games? And would audiences have identified with the story differently if Katniss was less…white?

GAMING

The Crooked Business of Esports by Modern MBA (40:40)

I know there’s a lot going on, but has anyone checked on esports lately? Once a venture capital darling among America’s richest who didn’t want to miss out on investing in the next NFL or NBA, the esports industry today is slowing to a halt. Underwhelming IPOs, the departure of big-name pros, and game publishers pulling their support are just the beginning – and grifters seem to be taking over. In this video, Modern MBA breaks down the rise and fall of esports, and its resemblance to the promises made by 2010s tech companies is hard to ignore. As the 2010s turn into the 2020s, one thing is becoming clear: a football fan can be a fan for life, but a League of Legends fan is only a fan until the next game comes along. And esports relies on the buy-in from too many separate players to keep it all together for long.

TECHNOLOGY

AI is here. What now? by Eddy Burback (46:15)

So, here’s the thing. If you spend as much time on YouTube as I do, you’ll know that there are a lot – and I mean a lot – of recent commentary YouTube videos about the rise of AI, its implications, and its possible consequences. It was getting to the point where, as much as I agreed with them, I was starting to get a little annoyed with hearing the same take over and over again. Like, yes, I get it, AI bad, AI uncreative, and AI make funny mistake because AI not human. But in this video, Eddy Burback got my attention. Sure, it might’ve been because of his focus on human-replacement technology in Los Angeles, the city I happen to live in, but it’s also because of a question he posed that I hadn’t noticed anyone else ask yet in the same way: what’s the long game here?

FILM

Shelley Duvall: The “Unconventional” Muse by Be Kind Rewind (1:05:42)

If you already know who Shelley Duvall is, you’re a cultured film lover – good for you. But if you’re like me and your first introduction to her was in the title and thumbnail of this video, something about her may have struck you as ahead of her time. In 2024, Shelley Duvall would be an “it girl” of the moment akin to Sydney Sweeney or Margaret Qualley. But Shelley Duvall was born about 50 years too early, so she instead was the film muse of Robert Altman, a director of unconventional films and seemingly the only person who understood Duvall’s appeal upon taking one look at her, even if he never did give her full credit for the weight she pulled on his sets. In this video, Be Kind Rewind hooks me yet again with the story of a film personality who I otherwise would’ve never known about.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

This week’s bonus video isn’t a subscriber recommendation – instead, it’s another recommendation from yours truly. Hopefully, you aren’t too mad about it. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll know that two of my many, many favorite video essay creators are Be Kind Rewind (mentioned above) and Broey Deschanel. And wouldn’t you know it, they made complementary videos posted one day apart.

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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This week on The Deep Dive: How to film a conversation between two people, the “ugly” France (some) French people love but Emily in Paris won’t show, why we sometimes need to learn things wrong before we learn them right, grocery prices made fresh produce the newest flex, and content theft killed the parody video.

FILM

The Sustained Two-Shot by Every Frame a Painting (5:57)

How did a seemingly simple shot that focuses on a conversation between two characters go from being the standard to a relic of film’s past? In this quickie video, Every Frame a Painting explains how developments in the medium have made certain methods of shooting a scene obsolete. Once film went digital, there was no longer much use for the classic two-shot. But despite advancements in technology, there’s still a need for the two-shot – and today’s use for it might even be more exciting and artistic than it was initially meant to be.

CULTURE

emily in paris is fake, this is what france really is. by Alice Cappelle (17:55)

It probably comes as no surprise that Emily in Paris or this year’s Olympics didn’t show much outside of the wealthiest and most aesthetically pleasing parts of the City of Love. But what might be surprising is how many relatively privileged French people romanticize what’s known as “Ugly France.” In this video, Alice Cappelle makes the interesting case that, when it comes to France, suburban or peri-urban spaces aren’t good or bad – they just are. For all the love and hate it gets from both ends of the political and socioeconomic spectrum, Ugly France doesn’t have to be ugly or beautiful, or maybe the beauty of peri-urban spaces lies in how honest they are about the purpose they serve.

SOCIAL MEDIA

what can you ACTUALLY learn from video essays? by oliSUNvia (24:27)

I know we’re all here to watch video essays, but what is it that we’re really doing here? Why do we watch so many of these videos, and what are we ultimately trying to gain from them? In this video, oliSUNvia pulls back the curtain to show the thought process behind making a video essay based on philosophical research. By Olivia’s own admission, this video is more of a rant than an actual video essay. Still, it brings up some fascinating points that I hadn’t considered and might even change how I approach video essays moving forward (especially regarding the pressure creators feel to explore “original” topics). However, video essays still offer a unique opportunity to make knowledge that would otherwise be out of reach more approachable for the average person. So which is it? And what's the argument here? Well, that’s another thing. Sometimes, video essays don’t need a hot-take argument to be valuable.

POP CULTURE

food is the new luxury status symbol by Madisyn Brown (39:23)

How did we go from clothing hauls to grocery hauls? In an economy where food is more expensive than it’s been in recent memory, groceries that were once seen as basic needs have now become a form of luxury in and of themselves. In this video, Madisyn Brown breaks down the exact cultural, economic, and social media landscape that made absurdly priced grocery stores the place to see and be seen. And speaking of absurdly priced grocery stores, Erewhon has quite the founding story rooted in a questionable approach to health and wellness and a namesake that likely came from one of the founders misunderstanding an 1800s satirical novel. How did Erewhon make luxury groceries a thing in a post-2020 culture? And what is the deal with those pricey, colorful smoothies?

INTERNET

Content Theft Built the Internet (Video Essay) by fredster2000 (46:16)

If you’ve ever reminisced on the days of the internet when content felt original, creative, and like nothing you’ve ever seen before, it may be hard to remember how short lived that time was compared to the span of internet history. That’s because content theft has been happening for almost as long as internet creativity has existed. In this video, fredster2000 investigates how pervasive this issue is and how long it’s been around – from 9GAG to reaction content to how it inspired the over-the-top, ad-friendly, and arguably unfunny brand of 2010s internet comedy led by the likes of Logan Paul and Lele Pons. In case Facebook’s video feature hadn’t caused enough chaos, it’s also largely to blame for the normalization of stolen content…and the downfall of the beloved 2000s parody video.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Shout out to the subscriber who recommended this video! It’s a bhangra and hip-hop-inspired song that’s become so recognizable in the Western music scene, social media, and nightclubs that even Googling its approximate instrumental sounds is enough to direct you to Mundian To Bach Ke by Panjabi MC. Yes, it’s a fun song – but what does it say about South Asian representation in the West when “that Indian song” is defined by one 20-year-old song that’s come to represent the music of a massive and diverse region?

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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This week on The Deep Dive: When limitations allow creativity to thrive, there aren’t enough movies about food, how to imagine a new art world for today’s art school graduates, cycles of harm and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and Stranger Things has lost the plot that should have ended a long time ago.

ART

When a simple decision changed animation forever by Lancelloti (11:12)

In case you’ve ever wondered how much things can change over just a few decades, there was a time when people genuinely didn’t know if computer animation could make sense outside the context of a movie that takes place in a video game. Not too long after, computer animation was used to tell stories about bugs, toys, spirits, undersea life, and a widowed old man whose character arc can warm even the coldest of hearts. In this video, Lancelloti analyzes what makes Pixar movies feel so personal, a characteristic that stemmed from necessity in an environment where computer animation was given very little budget and faced a lot of skepticism. In other words, Pixar couldn’t shoot for the moon, so they shot for bedroom ceilings instead – and it worked. 

FILM

The Greatest Movie about Food by Alex Boucher (14:29)

About two years ago, I watched a screening of an old movie that made me really, really hungry. After the credits ran across the screen, I only had one thought: I need a bowl of ramen in front of me. Right now. That movie was Tampopo, and in this video, Alex Boucher explores films about food, a surprisingly uncommon cinematic theme considering how big of a role food plays in our everyday lives. One Japanese director, Juzo Itami, built a career out of movies about mundane universal experiences that we all take part in, with an American flair inspired by rom-coms, boxing films, westerns, and pretty much any other type of classic you can imagine. If you think a Rocky-esque training montage centered around creating the perfect broth or running a grocery store couldn’t possibly be exciting to watch, you’re so wrong.

EDUCATION

Why Art Schools Keep Closing by Persistent Bloom (35:04)

When it comes to art school, there’s a lot of criticism out there that may as well be white noise to any high school senior who knows what it’s like to hear unsolicited college and career advice from people who can’t convert to PDF. But what about valid criticism from art school graduates themselves? You know, the people who actually know what they’re talking about. In this video, Persistent Bloom, one of said art school graduates, brings up some more-than-legitimate concerns surrounding art schools today – some of which could be why so many have been shutting down in recent years. How can art schools (or any school, for that matter) charge upwards of $70,000 in tuition? Especially when all that money doesn’t come with basic education around the skills a modern-day artist needs to survive in a post-grad world.

SPORTS

Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Exploitation in the Name of Patriotism by elle literacy (55:22)

Since long before the Dallas Cowboys decided to start dressing talented dancers in teeny-tiny blue and white cowgirl outfits, the American ideal of the cheerleader has sparked intrigue not just within the country, but also around the world. And if the Dallas Cowboys are America’s Team, then their cheerleaders have the privilege of being America’s Sweethearts – a job position defined by smiling through immense pain, enduring subjective rules that make life harder just because, harassment, wildly unreasonable body image expectations, and pay so low it’s hard to believe it’s even legal. And that’s barely scratching the surface. In this video, elle literacy examines Dallas Cowboys Cheerleading as a self-regulating institution with harmful and archaic standards held up by the women who came before. It's a classic case of the “well, I went through it, so you should too” mentality.

TV

The Frustrating Decline of Stranger Things by Friendly Space Ninja (2:31:02)

You don’t need me to tell you that 2016 was a different time. Somewhere between bold brows, pink drinks, and the looming sense that everything was about to hit the fan in a matter of years, an unexpected sleeper hit that Netflix took a chance on absolutely dominated pop culture. Stranger Things’s earliest seasons, a relic of a time when we had faith in this new thing called streaming, were inescapable and for good reason. In this video, Friendly Space Ninja argues that the show should’ve stopped while it was ahead, long before its upcoming fifth season. In an alternate universe, Stranger Things was a miniseries or an anthology that follows a different cast each season. Instead, we have this universe, with kids who have aged nearly a decade in two-and-a-half years and the writers’ fear of booting anybody off despite an ever-growing cast of characters. Which begs the question: is Stranger Things turning into Marvel?

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Shout out to Heather from Connecticut for recommending this video! If there’s one thing I’ll always appreciate, it’s when someone reinvestigates years-old internet drama long after the rest of the world stopped caring. Because I will always care, especially if it means I can watch a nearly hour-long video about Don’t Worry Darling and Spitgate.

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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This week on The Deep Dive: Rich families are turning basketball into soccer, I may or not be crying over what may or may not be One Direction fan fiction, Disney is pretending Mickey Mouse doesn’t exist, how thinking about death can change the way you think about life, and Hamilton is more than just another victim of the ten-year cringe cycle.

SPORTS

Is the NBA becoming a "daddy's money" league? by kipkame11 (19:24)

Once a ticket out of poverty for many NBA players of days past, basketball may now slowly be morphing into a rich kids’ sport – and Bronny James is just the tip of the iceberg. Sure, nepo babies have become something of a recent problem now that we’re a couple of decades into the era of NBA superstars, but then there’s the AAU, the organization young players are increasingly required to be a part of from a shockingly young age to even have a shot at making it to the league. In this video, kipkame11 breaks down what happened to basketball in the US and how it went from being a famously rags-to-riches sport to private schools, one-on-one training, and families uprooting their lives to pursue their kids' hoop dreams becoming the norm. 

FILM

The Idea of You: An Impassioned Defence by Broey Deschanel (32:37)

If Broey Deschanel has one fan, it’s me, and if Broey Deschanel has zero fans, I’m dead. Because tell me why I was nearly brought to tears over a video about a movie I was 100 percent sure was bizarre One Direction fan fiction before this very moment. It also doesn’t help that I happened to watch it on the week of my 30th birthday. In this video, Broey defends the idea of The Idea of You – beach reads, romance novels, Celine Dion, women’s media, and a movie that takes itself so seriously that it forces you to take it seriously, too. In a time when we’re fresh off 2010s irony destroying everything we once loved about rom-coms, audiences will need some time to get readjusted to sentimentality. I still can’t believe I’m saying this, but it sounds like The Idea of You could very well be the film that allows us to learn how to cry behind our sunglasses again.

MEDIA

The Flattening of Disney | A Disney Video Essay by Anthony Gramuglia (55:32)

This has to be one of the more analysis-packed videos about Disney’s marketing strategies I’ve seen on YouTube – and if you’re familiar with the Disney-related video essay category, that’s saying a lot. In this video, Anthony Gramuglia explains how Disney managed to reduce some of its most iconic characters into the most basic, marketable versions of themselves that can be sold over and over again in uninspired, low-quality sequels. This prevented Disney princesses from being allowed to grow and, oftentimes, created parallel-universe versions of them that didn’t stay true to the characters in their original stories. So, what happened? As it turns out, there was a time when low-rent, straight-to-video sequels were actually quite profitable…until people got sick of them. At least Disney learned its lesson, right? 

PHILOSOPHY

How Death Changes Your Perspective (ft. Caitlin Doughty) by Philosophy Tube (1:00:00)

It’s Wednesday morning, so you know what that means – it’s time to think about death! And if that sounds unappealing to you, the reason behind that should be pretty obvious. We humans don’t really like to think about the inevitability of ~the end~ and many of us hate it so much that we think getting rich and successful or working hard at our careers will somehow ward it off. But that’s not how it works, and deep down, we all know that. In this video, Philosophy Tube forces you to think about when your time will come to a close and what it means for the people and world you’ll leave behind. Because when you think about how, one day, you’ll pass away like everyone else, it also opens the door for you to consider the lives and deaths of other humans as well – no matter how hard our systems may try to convince us that some deaths just aren’t worth grieving.

CULTURE

Hamilton and the Death of the Obama Era by Alexander Avila (2:23:37)

Like most cultural phenomenons, Hamilton went from being all the rage to the cringiest of cringe over the course of less than ten short (but eventful) years. But how did it become so popular, and why? In this video, Alexander Avila tells the story of Hamilton in the context of America then and America now. Back in 2016, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton represented the culmination of two terms of an Obama presidency, or America’s Hope Era, before we knew what was coming on the horizon. It was a time when we believed that the worst of a once-in-a-generation economic collapse was behind us, and Americans still held onto faith in the neoliberalist vision that had gained steam the century prior – a century when some Americans simultaneously benefited from social programs and decided to ruin it for themselves and everyone else. And in the years since Hamilton’s rise, a new political sentiment has gained steam, one that is notably rooted in a lack of hope. But does that mean we should give up on America?

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Shout out to the subscriber who recommended this video! Take it from someone whose TikToks have gone viral at least a couple of times at this point – virality isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. And it’s looking like the weight of going viral might even be catching up with some of today’s biggest stars. What happens when ordinary people, whether they were trying to or not, suddenly gain massive fanbases practically overnight?

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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This week on The Deep Dive: It was either Grimace or a player-turned-pop star-turned-player-again that saved the Mets from a losing streak and I’m so confused, the “pick-me” has lost all its meaning because women can’t do anything without being criticized, how your favorite influencers really feel about you, when nightlife is the only way to connect with community, and unfortunately for JD Vance, his history of political flip-flopping has a paper trail. 

Also, I ran out of time this week and wasn’t able to include a bonus video in this newsletter. I still have a queue of so many great videos you recommended and I’m always willing to receive more, so continue to share your faves. The bonus video will be back next time, I promise!

SPORTS

Something Is Wrong With The 2024 MLB Season by Baseball Doesn’t Exist (21:57)

Someone once told me that the MLB is the most chaotic league in professional sports and after watching this video, I might have to agree because what on earth is going on here? “Something is wrong” is putting it lightly because so far in this 2024 MLB season, pitchers all of a sudden can’t seem to stop throwing unhittable pitches, a player was dropped due to a misheard sentence he uttered after a frustrating game, team and player standings are changing so rapidly that it’s giving me motion sickness, and injuries – so, so many injuries. Not to mention a possible savior for New York fans in the form of McDonald’s very own Grimace (as if y’all didn’t already make things weird enough by ruining his birthday last year). Anyway, in this video, Baseball Doesn’t Exist gets into everything that has made the 2024 MLB season so bizarre.

POP CULTURE

The Pick Me Paradox: when misogyny comes full circle by Tara Mooknee (46:52)

What even is a pick-me girl anymore? Because the girlies seem to have veered so far away from its original definition that traditional pick-me girls and anti-pick-me girls alike can all be considered pick-me girls, depending on who you ask. In this video, Tara Mooknee points out a phenomenon that’s starting to inflict online discourse that centers around women and the things they do (or don’t do). And it all culminated with a joke about the “candid girlfriend” a female comedian dared to make in a TikTok interview on a New York City subway while speaking into a MetroCard. The craziest part is that, like internalized misogyny, pick-me girls still exist, so what was it all for? We could have avoided all of this if it weren’t for the tendency to steal terms that originated in AAVE, only to water them down to the point of removing all their meaning and nuance.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Infiltrating An Influencer Convention by Zackary Smigel (47:22)

With all the talk around parasocial relationships these days, we have an idea of how fans and audiences feel about the concept – but what do influencers think of it? In this video, Zackary Smigel crashes VidCon (as an influencer) to better understand how and why creators interact with their followers. With the days of fans swarming Logan Paul in the VidCon lobby far behind us, why is it so different today than it once was? Why do influencers choose to maintain connections with their audience despite the fact that it very well could put their lives at risk? Did Doja Cat have a point? And what does the $1,000 industry pass at VidCon really get you?

CULTURE

Where Do The Quiet Gays Go? Parties, Protests, and the Queer Community by Rowan Ellis (50:46)

Many aspects of queer community, celebration, and self-expression are closely tied with nightlife and so-called “loud” forms of social connection, but where does that leave the introverts? In this video, Rowan Ellis is inspired by a viral tweet to examine how some members of the queer community are increasingly voicing their desire to socialize with one another in “quieter” spaces – places like bookstores, cafes, museums, community centers, and even youth groups for young people who can’t attend alcohol-centered venues. This is especially relevant when opportunities to connect with other members of the community are small and, in many cases, dwindling. While it is true that many of the most heavily documented and historically significant queer venues in history have been bars and clubs, that doesn’t necessarily mean that was always the case. And the good news is that if those quiet spaces don’t already exist, they can be created.

POLITICS

I read JD Vance's book, it's confusing… by Sam Massey (1:01:11)

If you thought JD Vance’s political persona was weird enough, it turns out it’s even more confusing than we could have imagined. And it’s all thanks to Hillbilly Elegy, the book he wrote that was published at basically the exact moment liberals were clawing at any explanation for Donald Trump’s rise to the US presidency. And luckily for the Trump camp, JD Vance is willing to say pretty much anything to get the approval of the people he so desperately wants it from – even if it means flip-flopping his views on politics and using his own family to reinforce harmful stereotypes about marginalized groups. In this video, Sam Massey does what so many have been unwilling to do and actually reads the book, highlighting the inconsistencies within it and ultimately leading to the conclusion that JD Vance isn’t just lying to his constituents; he’s also lying to himself.

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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This week on The Deep Dive: The messy bedroom of every teenager’s dreams, there will never be another Get Out, Shel Silverstein might’ve spoken a little too soon with The Giving Tree, a reality show winner who kicked, screamed, and clung her way to the top, and Drake was so close to being too big to fail.

Let’s help Fadi AbuTaqiya and his family evacuate Gaza. We’re getting so close to the goal! By now, you already know about the offer. If you donate at least $10, reply to this email with your receipt and a video essay category of your choice, and I’ll send you a personalized recommendation from The Deep Dive’s archive!

DESIGN

The Messy Charm Of Sofia Coppola’s Teenage Bedrooms by Little White Lies (7:54)

Another week, another quickie! This week’s newsletter includes a three-plus-hour video, so the balance felt necessary. In this video, Little White Lies talks about the significance of the teenage bedroom in movies made for young audiences – and if you’ve ever envied an on-screen perfectly messy bedroom of a character you either identified with or wanted to be like, you know exactly what I’m talking about. When you only have so much time to build the personality and story arc of a main character, what can’t be said about them in dialogue can be plastered on the walls of their bedroom. And who says a little clutter can’t be aesthetically pleasing? The Tumblr girlies certainly seemed to love it.

FILM

we have get out at home by Yhara zayd (23:40)

While it may not technically be considered the first of its kind if we take a look back at film history, Get Out undeniably stood out and broke ground in a way no other Black horror film had before. And when a piece of media makes cultural waves, you can expect to see at least a handful of copycats on the horizon – some will be good, others will miss the point entirely. But not every film that was sold to audiences as a Get Out copycat actually was one. In this video, Yhara zayd analyzes movies that are often compared to the 2017 horror classic – what makes them similar, what makes them different, and which never set out to make a copycat to begin with, but fell victim to the industry’s habit of flattening genres for the sake of lazy marketing.

MEDIA

The Most Controversial Children’s Book in History by Solar Sands (40:37)

You may remember reading The Giving Tree in your younger years, but when was the last time you revisited it? Like, really read it as an adult? As it turns out, a lot of people have had a lot to say about the apparently notorious children’s book in recent years. Some hate it, others love it, but there aren’t too many people who fall somewhere in between. In this video, Solar Sands takes a closer look at The Giving Tree – its story, its author, its alternative versions created to make its somber ending more comfortable, and its many, many different interpretations. What is it about The Giving Tree that gives people, specifically parents, such a visceral reaction? Why do readers feel so strongly about what the boy should’ve done instead? Who is Shel Silverstein, really? And does he actually hate children?

TV

The Fighter: How Rachel Reilly Won Big Brother 13 by Ethanimale (1:26:09)

It was only a matter of time before I recommended another Big Brother winner analysis – and this path to victory is quite the doozy. In this video, Ethanimale breaks down how one controversial Big Brother winner landed the million-dollar top spot despite being pretty widely hated in the house. What made Rachel Reilly’s win such a convoluted one? A combination of an undeniable competitive spirit, the ability to simultaneously fight everyone in the house while also getting them on her side, and so many strokes of last-minute luck it’s hard to believe at least one of them wasn’t the result of producer manipulation. But whether Big Brother fans love it or hate it, Rachel ended up winning the season, thanks in part to her incredible ability to hang on – both literally and figuratively.

MUSIC

I'm What the Culture Feeling (The full story of Kendrick Vs. Drake) by F.D Signifier (3:23:55)

Listen, I get that it’s hard to commit three and a half hours to a YouTube video. But hear me when I say that by skipping this one, you’re missing out on seeing F.D Signifier in his element as a self-proclaimed hip-hop nerd. This take is heavy on nuance and analysis while providing just about all the context you’ll ever need since the beginning of time (in hip-hop years) to understand exactly what made Kendrick Lamar the biggest hater who only catches direct flights. There was a time when an artist like Drake would have never made it through the genre’s gatekeepers, who, for better or for worse, quickly became irrelevant with the rise of the internet. For all the credit we can give Drake for his talent and hustle, in a way, his position at the top of the industry wouldn’t have been possible without a power vacuum left by Kendrick…until he woke up one morning and decided to take it all away. But Drake was right about one thing – he never had any real friends.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Shoutout to Malachai from Tampa, Florida for recommending this video! Like I’ve said before, my 👏🏼 subscribers 👏🏼 have 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 best 👏🏼 taste. If it weren’t for this video, I’d probably still be the philistine I was up to 35 minutes ago who didn’t understand how anyone could appreciate poetry. Malachai was shocked to see how few subscribers Payton Burdette has, and frankly, so am I. This video put a big dumb smile on my face and inspired me to visit my nearest used bookstore. I hope it does the same for you.

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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This week on The Deep Dive: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was post-produced into the cult classic it is today, tacky vs. quiet luxury is nothing new, Katy Perry doesn’t know what the male gaze is and she’s not the only one, AI is the new big data and the tech industry is suffering from a chronic case of FOMO, and Love Actually has no idea the damage it’s done (but I’ll continue to watch it every holiday season anyway).

Let’s help Fadi AbuTaqiya and his family evacuate Gaza – we’re getting even closer to the goal! By now, you already know about the offer. If you donate at least $10, reply to this email with your receipt and a video essay category of your choice, and I’ll send you a personalized recommendation from The Deep Dive’s archive!

FILM

when the editor has to fix it in post by CinemaStix (9:17)

This may be a newsletter devoted entirely to long-form content, but we still love a little quickie! Speaking of quickies, once upon a time, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was the complete opposite of one with an original runtime of a snooze-inducing two hours and 45 minutes. But some masterpieces are created while others are edited – and if it weren’t for a little post-production magic, the iconic movie and love letter to Chicago may have never made it past the test audience phase. In this video, CinemaStix tells the story of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and explains how everything we love about it is made up of a dash of John Hughes and a huge helping of Star Wars editing. Producers and directors rejoice because it turns out you can just fix it in post!

FASHION

who gets to reclaim tacky? by amandamaryanna (22:20)

Chappell Roan’s signature tackiness has already solidified itself into mainstream consciousness, but at what point does tacky cross over from being bad to being cool? In this video, amandamaryanna examines the history of tackiness, what it means, the ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been accused of it as a negative stereotype, and, as the title question states, who has permission to be tacky? Social media has given a whole new meaning to the concept of old money in contrast with new money and what those two aesthetics look like, but “quiet luxury” as a way to look down upon ostentatiousness has always been a thing. In fact, it was this very distinction from which the word “tacky” was derived more than 100 years ago.

CULTURE

The Misuse of the Male Gaze in Feminist Satire by Cheyenne Lin (29:31)

The concept of the “male gaze” went from being an observation about mainstream media to yet another way to shame women for how much or how little desire they have to attract male attention. Satirical or not, Katy Perry’s latest music video for her song Woman’s World encapsulates pop feminism’s misunderstanding of the male gaze and what it actually means. In this video, Cheyenne Lin outlines the dangers of individualizing and aestheticizing feminism. In other words, feminism doesn’t have a look and feel, it doesn’t dress or act a certain way, it can’t be reduced to a moodboard, and making feminism about individual choice kind of misses the entire point. And if you’re old enough to remember the music video for Pink’s Stupid Girls, that’s a whole other story.

TECHNOLOGY

Why AI is Tech’s Latest Hoax by Modern MBA (38:25)

Remember big data? It was the pre-COVID darling of the tech industry, a time when everyone from Uber to Starbucks to Under Armour just had to collect all the consumer data they could possibly get their hands on in order to supposedly better predict consumer habits and outcomes. Did it work? Not really. Instead, tech found a new basket it could put all its eggs into. In this video, Modern MBA walks through the biggest tech winners and losers of the last decade and breaks down how AI became the new big data. Because the real problem couldn’t possibly be the co-dependent relationship between founders and VCs and their shared innovation FOMO. No, it has to be that there’s just so much data out there, and pesky little human brains can’t be trusted to find true meaning in it. So, let’s just leave it to the machine-learning robots!

MEDIA

Love Actually & the Hell Genre it Spawned by mothcub (1:24:59)

A little more than 20 years ago, a British holiday movie you may have heard of called Love Actually kicked off a whole new genre of movie characterized by multiple storylines loosely tied to one another. Since then, a number of films have adopted the same format, with some doing it better than others. In this video, mothcub gives Love Actually a probably well-deserved bashing before moving on to dissecting the good, the bad, and the cringe plots of the copycat movies that followed in its path. A surprise winner in the category? He’s Just Not That Into You – while far from perfect, it isn’t as bad as it could be. Taylor Swift also put on a spectacular performance in Valentine’s Day, and the original song about Mother’s Day that mothcub introduces at the one-hour-and-four-minute mark just keeps getting better the longer it goes on. There’s also the movie about the GameStop short squeeze...

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Shoutout to Rylee from North Carolina for recommending this video! I’ve said it before, but Be Kind Rewind has consistently made me care about moments in showbiz history that I otherwise would’ve never thought twice about – and this video is no exception. You may know who Miss Piggy is, but do you really know Miss Piggy? Do you understand the talent and vision it took to create her?? Do you even know what she’s been through???

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

Share The Deep Dive 🎁

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This week on The Deep Dive: An uncomfortable conversation YouTube fans need to be having, awnings are cool (literally) and now I want them, the pixie-cut-to-cringe pipeline, Lolita isn’t real and both of its film adaptations shouldn’t exist, and let’s consider the possibility that Yoko Ono isn’t the one to blame for everything bad that ever happened to The Beatles

Let’s help Fadi AbuTaqiya and his family evacuate Gaza. We’re so close to the goal! By now, you already know about the offer. If you donate at least $10, reply to this email with your receipt and a video essay category of your choice, and I’ll send you a personalized recommendation from The Deep Dive’s archive!

INTERNET

An uncomfortable conversation about Cody Ko. by D’Angelo Wallace (14:54)

This isn’t really a video essay, but I’m including it here anyway because it’s something we should be talking about. In this video, D’Angelo Wallace calls upon YouTuber Cody Ko to address the allegations that were recently brought to light by fellow YouTuber Tana Mongeau. The fact that these exact allegations have resurfaced a number of times over the years without so much as a word from Cody is disturbing enough, but he seems to now be taking the route of ignoring the situation entirely and censoring anybody who brings it up. Worse, the commentary YouTube community, which has the ability to hold him accountable, has been notably silent, further reinforcing the idea that commentary YouTube is a “boys club” that uses vaguely feminist sentiments as a branding strategy as opposed to a personally held value. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s the unearthed Gabbie Hanna clip.

DESIGN

Awnings: a simple cooling tech we apparently forgot about by Technology Connections (22:14)

I’ll never not be fascinated by the thousands of years of construction and architectural innovations we completely abandoned thanks to air conditioning. If, like me, you frequently wonder to yourself during the hot summer months how people managed to keep cool before a time when they could just turn the A/C on, the answer is lots of ways – and awnings were only one of them. In this video, Technology Connections explains what’s behind the disappearance of awnings, their benefits and drawbacks, and why we should consider bringing them back. Awnings may not be the perfect solution, but it’s not like cooling and heat-conserving alternatives recent technology has come up with are that much better. Because sometimes, the obvious solution (shade) to a persistent problem (the sun is too hot sometimes) is the best solution.

A Sneak Peek at The Rabbit Hole:

June 23, 2024: A Tale of Two Will Gluck Films

I tend to do a pretty terrible job at downloading content ahead of time before long-haul flights. The way I see it, how am I supposed to know what I’ll be in the mood to listen to or watch hours from now?

This flight was no different, so I relied on Lufthansa’s in-flight entertainment system. While scrolling through the movie options, one caught my eye: Anyone But You, starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell. It’s a movie that was widely regarded as either the savior of the rom-com category or a hate-watch whose hype was driven solely by the undeniable real-life chemistry of its leads. Perfect.

Despite its cringey scenes and sometimes confusing premise, by the time the movie ended and the words “Directed by Will Gluck” flashed across the screen, I found myself liking it. I made the decision that, despite its flaws, I should welcome this rom-com comeback with open arms and the naivety that allowed me to enjoy beloved mid-budget rom-coms of the past.

After feeling like I had sufficiently branched out and tried something new, I decided to revisit something tried-and-true, something predictable that I knew I already loved. I scrolled through my saved movies and selected Easy A.

During the film’s opening scene, a familiar name popped up: “A Will Gluck Film.” A sinking feeling came over me as I realized that the same Will Gluck who directed a movie I had just settled on accepting as my rom-com oasis after more than a decade of wandering in the big-budget desert directed the masterpiece that, ironically, marked the end of the genre in the early 2010s.

POP CULTURE

Why Do We Hate Women After They’ve Cut Their Hair Off? by Jordan Theresa (37:45)

Full transparency: this video was supposed to be in the last newsletter, but I somehow completely forgot to include it. That might have been for the best because, I will say, all of July 3’s videos were absolute bangers. In this video, Jordan Theresa brings up a great point that I hadn’t considered before – why do we hate famous women (whether justified or not) more after they cut their hair, specifically in an ultra-short pixie cut? And if you think there are only one or two examples of this happening, here’s a non-exhaustive list of conventionally attractive celebrity women who were widely hated or deemed “cringe” post-pixie-cut: Jennifer Lawrence, Miley Cyrus, Doja Cat, Halle Berry, Anne Hathaway, Katy Perry, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

MEDIA

Why Lolita is Impossible to Adapt into Film by Final Girl Studios (47:04)

Lolita is no doubt a controversial piece of literary work, but its careful handling by author Vladimir Nabokov begs the question of whether the people who were dead set on adapting it to film understood the point of the story in the first place. In this video, Final Girl Studios analyzes how the 1955 book came to be distorted into what we understand it to be today, thanks to the media’s insistence on creating a physical embodiment of Lolita, first as an illustration, then in a real-life form. If you’re at least somewhat familiar with the source material and its themes, some of the reasons why it’s nearly impossible to ethically make a film based on the book might seem obvious at first glance – except they somehow weren’t to everyone who thought it was okay to cast real-life teenage girls to play the character of Lolita…twice. It’s yet another example of a piece of cultural criticism becoming sensationalized into the very thing it criticizes, of life imitating art.

MUSIC

Yoko and The Beatles by Lindsay Ellis (1:41:10)

I can’t believe the week I decided to take off was the same week that Lindsay Ellis decided to post her first video to YouTube in almost three years. So, if you haven’t already watched this one, you absolutely need to. In this video, Lindsay Ellis breaks down the much-needed reevaluation of Yoko Ono and her relationship with John Lennon and The Beatles by extension. Weird shrieking, questionable creative direction, and annoyed glances mid-performance from the band aside, some of John Lennon’s best work may not have been possible without Yoko Ono, who was captivated by the concept of imagination from a very young age, if you’re catching my drift. What really broke up The Beatles? As it turns out, a lot of things – creative differences, power struggles, and just plain outgrowing each other – much of which were literally captured in documentary footage.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Bella from Kentucky does it again with another great recommendation!

You may remember a video floating around YouTube about a year ago asking the question, “What if forks were made of salt?” Ten million views later, Ben Walker’s back at it with the channel’s second-ever video to see if, this time, the fork can be mass-produced. I don’t know what it is about this series dedicated to saline utensils that seemingly sprung up from nowhere, but I just can’t look away. As one commenter put it, “He came. He made salt fork. He left.” Maybe this was always the plan.

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

Share The Deep Dive 🎁

Got any video essay rabbits in your life who just don’t know it yet? Here’s your chance to start spreading the word to your herd! Just share your unique link below and unlock these rewards!

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Thanks for reading and happy watching! If you like what you’re seeing from The Deep Dive and want to support, consider upgrading to The Rabbit Hole 🐰

This week on The Deep Dive: An explanation of Charli XCX vs. Lorde and why the internet did in fact go crazy, love as attitude vs. love as action, how HGTV dealt with the recession (by ignoring it while flipping countless foreclosed homes), Mythbusters was pure magic on television and nothing like it will ever exist again, and (500) Days of Summer doesn’t have an unreliable narrator, it has an unreliable writer.

Let’s help Fadi AbuTaqiya and his family evacuate Gaza. We’re so close to the goal! The offer still stands – if you donate at least $10, reply to this email with your receipt and a video essay category of your choice, and I’ll send you a personalized recommendation from The Deep Dive’s archive!

Also, there won’t be a newsletter next week – I’ve been on vacation for the past two weeks, and it’s been much harder to keep up while traveling than I anticipated, but The Deep Dive will pick right back up on July 17 with more video essays! In the meantime, take this time to catch up with the searchable, sortable, and filterable playlist with every recommendation from The Deep Dive ever. Don’t forget about the YouTube playlist too!

MUSIC

THE LORE BEHIND GIRL, SO CONFUSING. by ViDEOGiRL (12:53)

As an intrigued millennial who had no idea there were any comparisons floating around the music industry between Charli XCX and Lorde until very recently, this is the exact explanation of the lore that I needed. In this video, ViDEOGiRL injects a whole new level of appreciation into “Girl, so confusing” on Charli XCX’s most recent internet sensation of an album, Brat – specifically the version featuring Lorde. The song is an ode to how difficult it is just being a girl and how we never truly know what’s going on in someone else’s head, no matter how awesome their life may seem. Celebrating our similarities and differences is so much easier outside of the systems that capitalize on animosity, which is why I’m so happy these two worked it out on the remix.

PHILOSOPHY

it's okay to love bad people. by oliSUNvia (24:23)

If every person is worthy of love, does that include bad people, too? And if a good person loves a bad person, does that make them a bad person? In this video, oliSUNvia explores the ideas of love as attitude and love as action in both equal and unequal forms while making it clear no specific definition of “bad” will be provided and that this is in no way advice on any personal dilemmas you may have around bad people in your life (your ex included). If love isn’t necessarily as love does, it might have more to do with love being as love is cultivated. So, is it okay to love bad people? Regardless of the morals and implications attached to that question, it certainly is very human. And as is the case with so many of oliSUNvia’s videos, I’m going to have to watch this one at least twice to really understand it.

This issue of The Deep Dive is sponsored by Matter:

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately – specifically about our tendency to believe that once we achieve that one milestone that’s just up ahead, we can finally be happy. So this video by Max Joseph about the science of happiness couldn’t have crossed my path at a better time.

This video frames the biological basis for human happiness as the six neurotransmitters, or the six cups that we have to fill, which include social interactions like connecting with family and friends.

One of the experts highlighted in the video is the creator of the Matter app, which allows you to collect your favorite memories to help you understand the neurotransmitters behind your experiences and do more of the things that make you feel good.

As part of Matter’s #DoWhatMatters campaign, I’ve been challenging myself to step back from social media and instead collect my favorite memories in the Matter app. This has helped me better understand and reconnect with what makes me truly happy.

Because those of us who live in achievement-focused cultures need a serious paradigm shift in how we see happiness.

Download the Matter app and reconnect with what makes you happy.

DESIGN

HGTV is a gentrification masterclass 👀 | Internet Analysis by tiffanyferg (27:55)

Remember when HGTV consisted solely of shows about redecorating a room for less than $500 and was known for tips like “Switch out your decorative pillows for a seasonal switch-up?” For those of you who watched HGTV change right before your very eyes (and over your parents’ shoulders), you might have noticed a stark change in tune over the past decade or so. And that’s all thanks to The Great Recession of 2008. In this video, tiffanyferg follows HGTV’s evolution from home decor and gardening advice to multiple shows based on the premise of flipping foreclosed-on homes in gentrified neighborhoods – and the network has a very interesting, albeit unsettling, formula for talking around what should be an obvious issue. The problem is that we ate it all up and left no crumbs…and now we have multiple spin-offs of both Property Brothers and Flip or Flop.

TV

The Magic of MYTHBUSTERS by Billiam (37:04)

I would do anything to go back to the late 2000s and spend one more weekend morning watching Mythbusters. Considering the show’s cult following that continues to this day, I know I’m not alone. In this video, Billiam reminds me of why I loved Mythbusters so much and shares new information that makes me love it even more. This was a show where nothing was too big, too impossible, too absurd, too obvious. It was a show whose creative process was the scientific method itself, and despite its imperfections, it always took the time to explain concepts to its viewers, no matter how confusing. Just when it seemed like it couldn’t get any better, it introduced Kari, Tory, and Grant (RIP king). For anyone else whose day was ruined upon hearing that Adam and Jamie didn’t have a good off-camera relationship – I, for once, have good news. Their dynamic was likely nowhere near as bad as we were led to believe it was. It might have even been pretty good.

FILM

(500) Days of Summer is a Revenge Movie by Sloan Stowe (46:37)

Since its release a whole 15 years ago, a lot of people have had a lot to say about (500) Days of Summer – from the Manic Pixie Dream Girl debate to the questioning around why Summer’s perspective is so absent, the discourse has been endless. But in this video, Sloan Stowe points out a hidden meaning that we may have missed. Many stories have an unreliable narrator that we’ve been trained to identify, but what happens when the unreliable narrator is one of the writers of the film? Specifically, the writer whose life the story was based on. Maybe this is a writer who took the advice “write what you know” a little too seriously and wrote his story with himself as the protagonist, as in the guy who's supposed to be the good guy. Or at the very least a good guy – a good guy who sought revenge through a movie but changed his tune when it was clear everyone disagreed with him.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Shoutout to the subscriber who recommended this video! As if timeshare companies didn’t have enough of a shady reputation, this is a wild story about someone who was brave enough to accept a free vacation from probably the scammiest business I’ve ever heard of. Spoiler alert: it was bad. But at least they got some Olive Garden gift cards?

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

Share The Deep Dive 🎁

Got any video essay rabbits in your life who just don’t know it yet? Here’s your chance to start spreading the word to your herd! Just share your unique link below and unlock these rewards!

*US and Canada shipping only

Thanks for reading and happy watching! If you like what you’re seeing from The Deep Dive and want to support, consider upgrading to The Rabbit Hole 🐰

This week on The Deep Dive: Financial influencers have run out of things to say, the Sexual Revolution + Capitalism = Bumble and those weird billboards, Justin Timberlake has so little to say that he released a song about having nothing to say (ft. Chris Stapleton), KONY 2012 was even weirder than you remember, and is the internet really to blame for our loss of community?

Let’s help Fadi AbuTaqiya and his family evacuate Gaza. The offer still stands – if you donate at least $10, reply to this email with your receipt and a video essay category of your choice, and I’ll send you a personalized recommendation from The Deep Dive’s archive!

SOCIAL MEDIA

The Growing Hatred For Finance Influencers by Donna (22:18)

Financial influencers on YouTube have hit a wall. At this point, nearly all of them have exhausted every bit of useful financial advice in their earliest videos, which helped many of them grow to reach the massive followings they have today. But the advice pipeline has run dry, and in an effort to maintain their internet presence, audience’s attention, and lifestyles, even the most reliable financial influencers have started to lose the trust of their loyal followers by engaging in shady practices. In this video, Donna explains the fundamental problem with channels that are based on providing educational content. At first, it’s super helpful, and viewers are granted access to life-changing advice they otherwise may have never received. As more people seek out their guidance, the algorithm does what it does best and repays them in views and subscriber count – until they learn everything they need to know and stop watching.

CULTURE

Bumble and the sexual revolution by Alice Cappelle (24:48)

The dating fatigue is real, and more and more people who would otherwise like to date have, understandably, had it with the apps and now have nowhere else to turn. Recently, Bumble, the so-called “feminist” dating app, has even managed to alienate its core audience further, which is an obvious problem for the industry. Because dating apps are acutely aware that where women go, men will follow – and we all know who society values more in that equation. In this video, Alice Cappelle breaks down the feminist theory that has been convoluted in the years since the sexual revolution to fit awkwardly within the confines of capitalism and patriarchy. In other words, the exact conditions that made Bumble’s existence and reputation for being “for the ladies” possible. What is it about female divestment from the patriarchy that is so scary to Bumble that it put up a bizarre billboard about celibacy that it later had to apologize for?

MUSIC

TRAINWRECKORDS: Justin Timberlake’s “Man of the Woods” by Todd in the Shadows (35:37)

It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time when pop music fans were practically begging on their hands and knees for new music from…Justin Timberlake. He eventually did come back after an eight-year hiatus wearing his suit and tie and it all went downhill from there. In this video, Todd in the Shadows goes into the train wreck(ord) that was Trump-era Justin Timberlake – not that he had anything to say about it – and reminds us of a time when there was no one cooler than JT before his long and hard fall from icon status. Even if OG pop star Justin isn’t the mediocre white man villain the current culture has made him out to be, he still only has himself to blame for Man of the Woods. Because nobody could save Justin Timberlake from himself, not even Chris Stapleton.

SOCIAL ISSUES

The Insanity of KONY 2012 by Ashley Norton (40:04)

This might be hard to believe as someone who is currently reading a weekly video essay newsletter, but not too long ago, it was unheard of for millions of people to support a cause nearly overnight after learning about it from a YouTube video. That said, KONY 2012 was nothing short of insanity in more ways than you can probably even remember. In this video, Ashley Norton tells the story of KONY 2012 – the documentary, the non-profit, the white savior overtones, the celebrity endorsements, the criticisms, and the kinds of things that could truly only happen in a 2012 social movement that was designed to garner support from young people. For everything KONY 2012 was (and wasn’t), and as much as we may not want to admit it, there’s more than a small chance that it taught us our very first lessons in how to spread a message on social media.

INTERNET

Internet Loneliness and Loss of Community by Shanspeare (47:36)

It’s no secret that we’re feeling the effects of a “loneliness epidemic,” and so much of the time, the internet takes the blame for not only our inability to build communities but also our so-called shortening attention spans, slacktivism, and main character syndrome. It’s not that the internet can’t be blamed for those things (at least in some part), but there is more to the story. In this video, Shanspeare breaks down the nuances of the ways the internet separates us from one another but also allows for connections that would never otherwise exist – especially within a capitalist and individualist system that actively encourages isolation and the centering of self. If you’ve noticed a lack of third places in your hometown and, as a result, needed to rely on the internet to maintain human connection, you already know this to be true. So, is the internet making us lonely, or is it simply a reflection of how we operate as a collective?

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

LJ from the Philippines/France does it again with another great recommendation!

Great, now I’m crying on a train. This isn’t just a breathtaking video about places (some real, others imagined) that force you to confront your mortality. It’s also a beautiful commentary on the impermanence of the past, the possibilities of the future, and the acceptance of both. I don’t know if I can handle watching A Ghost Story, but I really want to know how it ends.

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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Got any video essay rabbits in your life who just don’t know it yet? Here’s your chance to start spreading the word to your herd! Just share your unique link below and unlock these rewards!

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