Vlogs and the Hyperreal 

So here's one thing about jump cuts, they're more than just an aesthetic convention, they're a necessary tool. If you're going to make a 5 minute video, unless you have a teleprompter and a LOT of skill / talent for reading off of one well, you're going to need cuts. And hanging a lantern on that cut by changing shot size or body position says "Look, I know, there's a cut, I'm not trying to fool you" in a way that is pretty necessary. Of course, how the jump cut functions has changed a lot over the years, mostly by getting tighter (at least in my stuff.) But it's very interesting (as others have mentioned) to see the blend of sketch and vlog that people like David Dobrik are innovating right now. That blend between fiction and reality where you're not actually 100% sure which bits are Dobrik's life and which bits are sketches or even dramatic fiction is very interesting. It's been very hard to figure out how to tell stories in online video, what we did with Lizzie Bennet, bringing the story 100% into the vlog, worked, but it was a baby step. I'm very interested to watch this new style evolve into what will probably become the actual way that fiction and the hyper-real finally meet. My guess is, whatever figures that out is going to be extremely successful and powerful and influential. Liam Stanley expands on some of this in another comment you should read. One last note: The "vlog" is not necessarily a genre anymore, but more of a tool that can be used in many genres, whether that's commentary, education, comedy, or reality. Every genre is going to use it differently because it will work differently and fit better with the format. I would be very surprised if jump cuts go away, I think they're too necessary and too ingrained, but other than that, there's no way I'm going to predict 10 years into the future of RU-vid. - Hank

Pillage away, my dude

"This is all written. And this. And this. And this. Eaeah. This was also written." - Stewart Lee

I sincerely hope that the "What's up guys, it's your boy [name]" intro format dies out. You don't care what's up with me, and you're probably not my son.

One trend I've started seeing in many "vlogs" is the blending of an authentic portrayal of day-to-day life with improv and sketch-style storytelling. David Dobrik, Steven Suptic and to an extent Anthony Padilla create vlogs that are less like young people with a webcam recording their life and more like self-aware reality shows. Unlike "The Real World" in which it tries to pass itself off as authentic, these vlogs' "authenticity" is merely a thin dressing over an apparent creative process. Many of these vlogs start out showing actual events like David Dobrik getting breakfast and then he proceeds to have conversations with his friends many of whom are skilled in improv and intentionally say jokes with the intent of building on top of them as the vlog progresses and finally the vlog crescendos into fiction with David's friends doing cocaine with Spongebob or Carmelita the Prostitute journeying around L.A. It's as if within these vlogs, they're moving down the spectrum from realism to formalism. Their personal lives are still there, but they are merely a foundation for a hyperreality.

I wonder how the focus on livestreaming is going to change this cadence. There are many, many livestreams that have several minutes of literally no action, no sound, nothing until there's a chat stream discussion. In terms of vlogs, I think that creators like Casey Neistat have changed the visual language quite a bit. Vlogging now also includes setting cameras down and walking past them (but not showing going back and picking them back up), smash cuts from one place to another while a piece of dialogue continues, etc. So it's ever-evolving, for sure.

Goddamn I love this man. Please never stop making content.

Something I've personally noticed regarding the culture of affect in online circles, is that originally when I used the internet, I felt superior and like 'one of the few smart ones' when I used proper speech and grammar - whether that was actually true or not, I felt like "I'm better than those chatspeaking idiots who use 'u' and 'r' instead of the real words!", and this slowly transitioned as I got older, into often intentionally speaking to friends in all lowercase, with very little affect, intentionally, to be more 'casual', you see this style of speech on places like Tinder - obviously different depending on the person, city, and primary language, but I've found in the young adult crowd the profiles and chat tend to be dry humor, low effort, short sentences, in an attempt to seem cool and genuine and not spend too much time writing out long messages on a shitty phone keyboard. Because being a tryhard is equated with being too clingy, and that's not attractive. Caring too much is a negative thing because it means you're not emotionally mature. The other day I went to go write something online and I started with proper grammar - then I stopped and erased it - I went to write it in all lowercase - then I stopped and erased it. They both felt 'contrived' - they both felt inauthentic. I had no idea what I was 'supposed' to sound like on the internet anymore, I didn't want to seem like a tryhard by being too 'proper' and I didn't want to speak too casually and come across as fake. It feels like the first 2 waves of internet speech have gone by and I have no idea what the third is. A level of intentional irony so deep it's impossible to even tell if it's ironic or not? The culture of an affectation of irony, of 'don't try at all - don't give the impression you're trying - nothing matters- everything is a joke' is something I think originated a lot on places like 4chan- maybe GameFAQs or Neogaf- but particularly Something Awful's FYAD, because there's no anonymity there, which I feel helps to create a more consistent culture among the users, as well as the mini-subcultures that spawned from those sites and exploded across the internet - the main element is that if you show people that you 'care', you aren't even allowed to stand in the presence of the other users without being socially lampooned without mercy. You have to remove every ounce of 'care' from your affectation before they accept you as one of their own - creating a culture where anything is OK to say as long as you make it clear that you give absolutely no fucks, because that is what is cool. The main goal of that sort of community is to remove anyone who isn't 'hard enough' to deal with the fact that everyone on the site is ironic and also hates them and that's completely acceptable by the rules, rather than most sites which have stringent rules against trolling or harassing other users. "If you aren't cool enough to be ironic, to be intentionally stupid, then get out. Im gay." I think this culture that I can only describe as 'no affect who give a fuck' has shown through on RU-vid in videos like, most recently in my memory, "MEME Theory: How Behind The Meme is Ruining the Memescape as we Know It" - which is a video about meme culture and youtube poops that is simultaneously written from the perspective of "I am an informed person doing an informative video essay on a complicated subject" and "fuck you lol i dont care loud noises distateful jokes weird comedic timing", which is a really unique thing when it comes to the 'texture' you describe - it blends the informative 'video essay' style that's become common with channels like this, with the aesthetic style and delivery of the 'zero affect' subculture that tends to be much more casual,. conversational, cool and ironic. Hope some of these points make some amount of sense or at least provoke some thoughts/discussion! Jesus christ sorry for all those words. I might be totally on the wrong track here but I figured it was worth mentioning.

2017 Dan: "I want to be less cynical." 2023: "Hey Dan, have you heard of NFTs?"

The fate of all authenticity is stylization. The fate of stylization, obsolescence.

I love that you ended with asking the audience to comment about what vlog style will be like. It felt like a vlog-style ending about vlog styles.

I think it's about rhythm/consistency. If you use jump cuts in a way that makes the viewer able to anticipate/make sense of them, they become almost invisible. If/you just randomly/have them all over, they distract from/the message you're/trying to get across.

Doobly-doo, haha. It's really really interesting to watch this, and your jump cut video, after being introduced to you through a long binge of your editing videos. I love how seriously you take the subject at hand and the depth you dive into with the grammar of not only vlogging, but RU-vid as a whole. I also love how you open every time with an attempt to bring us to a shared vocabulary. Thanks for all of the takes and re-takes to get this right!

"so obviously synthetic that it becomes authentic" Steven Soderbergh's THE LIMEY is loaded with temporal and spatial discontinuity, to a similar effect. We are presented with the grammar of memory - a scrapbook of blurry details and a man trying to assemble a coherent sense of where he went wrong, instead of the conventional conception of naturalism. (though Soderbergh says in the commentary that he made this while thinking of French New Wave films, a chunk of film history I'm still not terribly familiar with, so that level of discontinuity may not be as original and refreshing as I felt it to be back in 1999...)

I wish I had something more to contribute to the dialogue, but I don't. So instead I'll simply say I found this incredibly interesting and it's given me a lot of fun things to think about. Thanks :)

I listen to you (and most videos) at 1.5 speed to bring them up to the Vlogbrothers pace I grew up on, and suddenly having John come on - sped up - really highlighted how fast he talks. Jarring!

Interesting stuff, Dan! Digging these meta-analysis videos, I don't seek out videos "about" RU-vid so a lot of this is fresh to me.

I've hosted a couple of radio shows -- neither successfully, I should mention -- and I deliberately avoided the tropes which have come to be regarded as "professional." I spoke slowly and deliberately, I deliberately avoided scripting anything I planned to say, and would take pauses to collect my thoughts. I would sometimes inform listeners of minor problems going on in the booth regarding the nuts and bolts of broadcast, and I always addressed the mic like I was talking to a single person across a table from me over a cup of coffee. I don't think it's a coincidence that I was concerned with maintaining the legitimacy of what I was doing, since I also live a life of voluntary simplicity: everything I own can fit in a single backpack, I haven't worn a watch in 30 years, and I not only don't own a cellphone but I have never even _used_ a cellphone. In fact, what I've noticed is that my lifelong effort to maintain the authenticity of my personal experience has become so contrary to the everyday life of the so-called "ordinary person" that when I mention anything about my personl life -- and I mean _anything_ -- on the Internet, I'm invariably called a liar and an obvious troll. Just the idea that a person would deliberately avoid convenience and comfort in order to keep a visceral connection to the immediacy of one's existence, the be-here-now of which Buddhists speak, is seemingly beyond credibility now. One of the things I've noticed over the course of posting a lot of long, thoughtful commentary to RU-vid (like this comment) is that it's generally completely ignored. The vast majority of people on RU-vid have become so conditioned to quick, simple to digest, uncontroversial views that they become blind to anything outside of that experience. It's like a deliberate inversion of Debord's detournement where only the orthodox and expected is visible and everything else fades into an indistinguishable background. (Incidentally, when they cancelled my radio show, the board compared the sound and tone ot it to "the crash of the Hindenburg." I know they weren't trying to be flattering, but I take perverse pride in scandalizing them with the visceralness and rawness of my program.)

Baudrillard, the hyper real? Holy shit it's the year 2000 and I'm back in university again. Thanks for this video. The jump cut format of many RU-vid videos is something I've thought a lot about and tried (and I think failed) to parody myself, but it's extremely eye-opening to hear someone as accomplished as yourself talk about it with real insight.

Very well articulated. Even if I don’t agree I always appreciate how thorough and thought out your videos and thoughts are. Props man.

Others have stated much more eloquently why I think the vlog and jumpcuts are here to stay. Hank even uses a wrestling analogy that I've used in real life before! What I'm curious about is the future. You mention Marshall McLuhan and his "medium is the message." With AR and VR only starting to bubble into the popular culture there will be different visual languages that will be invented that we simply cannot envision yet. Possibly crafting entire worlds for our personal online audiences. I also believe, much like movies and other entertainment, that online video will eventually see itself having cycles. Like how the 80s aesthetic became vogue for many years. Or like how every TV show from the 90s seems to be getting rebooted. Whatever comes I'm excited! Can't wait to see future videos of yours.

love the positive edge. it makes it more powerful.

You're killing it, dude. Love your content.

God I was thinking about those PBS idea channel videos while this video was going. It's been years since I've watched any of the videos and was surprised when you mentioned it at the end because yeah. This does feel a lot like them.

Just want to say I really enjoy your videos. I don't even realize how much time goes by when watching. About six minutes into this video you make reference to something that happened about 6 minutes ago, and I had to check the time to verify it had been that long, because it seemed like no time had gone by at all. So kudos to you! :)

Things change, language and the delivery of it also changes. I dig the jump cut if it's done well (insert subjectivity here) Perhaps everyone will sing and none of us will talk, my two cents any way. I love how you were able to dig down into such micro-niche topic thats so relatable to everyday life...Kudos to you sir.

Hopefully more long form content will become the norm. Editing speach seems like its here to stay as most viewers dont seem to like pauses however your particular brand of video is something i have grown to enjoy over time. Your video "line goes up" is absolutely outstanding and i hope long form video essays become the norm.

Great video I think the bit that's really interesting for me to think about is the kind of feedback loops the RU-vid style will create with actual authentic real life, like John Green just talking fast as an acquired habit of blogging for so long. I remember reading something by David Foster Wallace once where he talked about how television in the 90s was getting to this weird place where TV was starting to cannibalize itself, that the culture of watching TV was becoming so ingrained that you started to see these disgustingly self-aware shows coming out, all TV shows became about watching TV. My guess is that the RU-vid house style will start to do something similar, assuming it hasn't already.

I'm in the camp of doing outlines when I make vlogs (which are usually shorter, more personal, more relaxed than my scripted videos) I'll have my points set out, maybe a turn of phrase I liked in the writing, but not much else. I'm not sure how that plays into the hyperreality of watching it, but it makes me more comfortable performing it, so it counts for something. I am so with you on studying the craft involved in different genres on youtube. Like how cooking shows manage to riff on an already set template, or how Charlie and Tony's videos straddle the line between video essay, comedy, and narrative. It's all fascinating.

i get so pumped when i see a new vid from you, keep it up

Great video folding, always super interesting

When it comes to the shift in language and cadence of RU-vid, and to a large degree Social Media in general, in recent times, this Orwell quote just becomes more and more ominously relevant. *"It's a beautiful thing, the Destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word, which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well - better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good,’ what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words - in reality, only one word."*

As if every video wasn't ripe with information, we get icing on the cake by having them always end with an adorable critter. Thank you, Dan.

It's almost creepy how accurately you simulated a vlog! Amazing analysis as usual.

I was just discussing this in the editing room of a project I'm working on right now (it'll be released tomorrow... yes, though, on RU-vid). I think the jump cut is here to stay. I don't think it'll become the DEFAULT style forever thankfully. But it'll have a place in the editing vernacular for sure. And it can be very useful. I've been editing for a while, and jump-cutting was a thing that you used to have to bend over backwards to avoid. Unless you were portraying some kind of chaos or panic. But I appreciate it for the very reasons you mention here. It has a hyper-reality to it that can be very effective, especially in calm scenes. Or reflective moments. I've even used it, unceremoniously, in a feature film (albeit, one targeted to young people). ...Now that I think of it, I use it a lot actually... hmmm...

Tl:dr- vlogs move twards fast, funny edits From what I've seen, I think the near future of vlogs will be inspired by supermega. The fast paced talking talking and cuts will be amplified by editing jokes. Editing can be meticulously crafted to make jokes where there were none before. Super deluxe does a great job at this by taking relatively unfunny segments and remixing them to create jokes. Editing can add so much personality and as more people start vlogging. People with more professional editing skills will rise to the top due to more engaging content.

I'd love to hear more of what you have to say on this topic! And personally, it's fascinating to see how the inauthenticity/perceived authenticity of the vlogging style has been used to create full narratives (i.e. most of the youtube's home grown horror genre where a narrative and its horror elements are delivered via vlogs and other youtube-originated video styles, such as tutorials) that the audience only knows is a created story because of the fantastical elements, and otherwise may as well be a "normal" non-fiction style narrative vlog series. I think the existence of these series extra affirms that a vlog is its own style with its own grammar and language because these series would not exist in the form that they do if "vlogging" wasn't a defined kind of video. The amateur feel of vlogging lends these series an air of believably instead of making the whole thing fall flat because of how ridiculous the plots of a lot of them can get.

Halfway through this video I suddenly realised what Dan's diction and delivery style reminded me of The Architect scene from Matrix Reloaded.

Watching this and becoming aware of the techniques that you are using as you talk about them and talk about them as you are using becomes... kind of surreal. I cannot tell how much of the video is meta

7:24 This is an extremely good point. Another way in which vlogs acknowledge that they are fake is in having the person speaking actually hold the camera. One is always very aware in a vlog that the person speaking is speaking into a camera.

I love the idea of a vlog dialect. This was so interesting

I wonder if the compulsive cutting of silences is an illusory pressure RU-vidrs feel, and people would enjoy the videos in a different way without them.

You'd make Hegel proud with how you explain dialectics.

I'll write a longer reply when I have better time, but please, please, please do more of these and explore the other parts you mentioned in this video. I find it highly interesting :)

I guess some of what I'm thinking of with the signature vlog tics--jump cuts, "Real" settings, etc.--boils down to accessibility. I've made a handful of videos (not on this account), and I've inherited a camera and a basic lighting rig from my photographer mother, and shot myself in a corner of my living room with a tripod. I did all the scripting, filming, and editing myself--and egads. While I've learned a lot and grown in my ability to script, plan, and overall raise the production quality on what I make, it is still super amateurish. And I have a reasonable beginner's kit of equipment, AND a big enough living space to set up an okay looking shoot in it. I rely on jump cuts far more than I would like, especially since it is really, really hard for me to set up alternate filming angles when I can't be behind and in front of my camera at once, and don't have any kind of external display for it (and also kinda have only half a clue what I'm doing). People with an iPhone and a dream are going to have to rely on "Real" backgrounds, because they don't have a studio. They may as well keep the "walking around and jumpcutting" format, because it's obvious they're filming something fast on their phone. And I suspect that if this is what The Little RU-vidr has to do when making their videos, because they are just a young pup with an iPhone and a dream, then it will continue to read as an "authentic" format. I *love* Idea Channel, and this channel, and other vlog-ish video essay kind of videos, and I want to see a lot more room on RU-vid for that sort of calmer, more scripted, polished, high-quality videos, in addition to filmed-on-my-phone-in-the-park videos. I don't think the latter is ever going away, but I would like to see people with the means and the knowledge to do so to continue to push for a bigger variety of videos (including higher production value), even within the broad genre of vlogging.

You've just described my thoughts on vlogs in 9 minutes!

Always interesting, thanks.

Thanks. I'm not into vlogs, but at least this answered one question I had, which was: why does everybody on RU-vid videos always talk continuously without pausing (even for breath)? I even see this in live interviews, which are clearly not cut together. So much of it is one giant run-on sentence! It's like listening to a 5 or 6 year old try to tell you a "story"! tavi.

Your eyebrows and video are very interesting, bravo!

that's right, you're my boy. glad we have this understanding. keep it up!

love your stuff

Glad to hear you are taking the channel in a more light hearted direction (if that vlog section was serious), I feel the synacism and a bit of the hitting out could sometimes take away from the top quality content.

When was the last time you were foldable? I kinda miss the puppet.

I feel silly for first now realizing the connection between the old 10 minute video limit and jump-cuts.

I noticed your idea-channel-esque dialect and I approve of you becoming its successor. We need an idea channel of some kind, even if by another name. let us continue to have Foldable Ideas™!

RU-vid is one of the few video players that has a speed-up in the options. Many authors I can't stand unless I put them at 1.25x speed, and a few videos need to be at 1.5x speed. Yours is one of my favorites, where 1.0x speed brings ideas at a decent rate.

2:26, you channeled V-Sauce so hard in that question, I got chills. 😅

Vlogging is now a visual representation of the Hyper-real Simulacrum

Dan, this is such a fascinating video! One question about authenticity though: I've recently started vlogging and I find myself reshooting a lot to get a performance I'm happy with. That being said, I do that a lot in real life, too! A LOT when it comes to work (I'm a musician so I practice hours every day to make things seem like they flow when in fact they normally wouldn't), quite a bit while learning foreign languages (when I was 10-15, I'd lock myself in the bathroom and say things in English just to hear if my pronunciation was convincing), or even while just running through scenarios in my head before important events / meetings. Is there any difference between reshooting / caring about the final product and this? And if there is, what is it?

Yay! Folding Ideas is back!

This video deserves a follow-up, & this is an amazing comment section

I am late to the game here, but appreciate these videos even just as a consumer of the media. So, thank you.

that's super interesting to see how the RU-vid environment shaped the evolution of content.

Other people have mentioned livestreaming putting a new influence on vlogs, but I've been thinking that the growing popularity of livestreaming's leisurely format must be a reaction to the extremely tight focus of the vlog. It's not necessarily an intentional thing, since streams are intrinsically unedited, but a lot of people have been ready for it. Twitch, recently purchased by Amazon, seems to think this is fertile territory and is making a huge effort right now to push "IRL" streams into the mainstream on a platform previously known only for video games. RU-vid is historically not a great streaming platform, but I expect they'll try to up their game soon. Personal livestreaming isn't new (Periscope has been around for years now), but the big players are starting to throw a _lot_ of money into this arena. Streaming will probably exert a stylistic pushback of sorts on the vlog (and is apparently already doing so), but the hyperreality is so intrinsic to the vlogging format now that it won't be able to reclaim this space in the "slice of life" ecosystem. Meanwhile, it'll be very interesting to see what sorts of weird artifices grow onto streaming over the next 10 years. also haha "main stream"

In another decade, RU-vid will sound 'modern day presidential'

kudos to you both

I have learned many things from this, thank you! I have a question though, I am trying to work out why some bushcrafter's videos (basically like a vlog but while camping over night or hiking) are easy to watch for 2 hours and why some are boring after about 10 minutes. Perhaps its because of the types of cuts they use or editing style? I would really like to hear your thoughts on this, maybe you can do a video on it considering its an up and coming style of video making?

I always assumed ZeFrank was the daddy of what ended up being the youtube editing rhythm. Like, "I have one afternoon to cut this and I NEED A NAP." He didn't start on youtube but he sure feels like he's everywhere. And nowhere. I miss you sportsracers.

I found it interesting that Graveyard Girl recently started a new channel (partly) intended for her to upload unedited vlogs. In one of the videos she spoke about how it made her feel comfortable to not have the expectation of "perfection". So, are content makers feeling like they are forced to produce highly edited work to satisfy the audience, when it isn't what they really *want* to make.

I remember in like 2012 when videos had the really weird cadence where they did jump cuts between every single sentence so it produced this very jarring staccato and that's honestly why I didn't get into RU-vid until like....the pandemic. Plus I didn't know video essays or this guy's words were a thing and this has some great words.

When it comes to Vlogs, I notice a strong parallel to sound editing on news radio pieces, such as those produced by NPR. Perhaps this is just me, but I don't always watch the Vlogs as they are being expressed, but rather listen to them in the background of my other activities. This makes them somewhat of an audio medium with a video component only as essential as the producer wishes it to be. I'd therefore hazard that unless active viewing of the Vlog is necessary to fully comprehend the material being expressed, Vlogs will continue their trend towards greater audio editing polish.

Sample comment, do not copy.

Last time I was this early Foldy was still alive...

Speaking of the Vlogbrothers (as an excellent biopsy of vlogging trends over time), I noticed that there was an affected accent that Hank in particular used much more in the 2010-2013 era. I also recall Tobuscus using a similar pattern of speech. I used a similar accent for awhile during that period. I think the prevalence of internet communication initially amplified some regional or culturally affected accents, but then subsumed them into the broader American accent as that accent became more standardized and pervasive.

I think the absence of silence in vlogging is largely due to the fact that the medium is almost entirely treated as an auditory experience, little more than radio with window dressing. The same as you would almost never see a book with blank pages, never see a movie with silence and a blank screen for multiple seconds, never have a radio play without silence, any medium abhors a vacuum of the way in which it communicates. Ways around this would be either vlogging develops to involve more visual components than just the emotions displayed on the speaker's face + body language or potentially silence itself becomes used as a tool. The most obvious example there would be Orson Welles in the legendary War of the Worlds radio broadcast demanding complete silence between for multiple seconds between a scene change, adding a weight of emotion and verisimilitude unknown in the medium at that time.

It be really cool if Dan came back to this video in 2027 and talked about the evolution of vlogs and RU-vid over those 10 years. Cuz it's only been a little 4 years and it feels like a lot has changed already.

i remember seeing someone walk off frame and mask themselves walking on starting the next line, that was kinda funny and alt from jump cut, but maybe not that much. also there was a guy (kai wong) who recently did a thing where he swivelled the tripod head around and transitioned to the next scene/dialogue with a swivel, that was pretty cool too. they're probably more like stylised versions, more fluid, of the jump cut, still kinda the same. maybe disguised more? ooh, now that i write it down, I'm thinking of montage vs silent editing stuff

RU-vid may have fast speech and very brief pauses, but that doesn't stop me from watching almost everything that isn't a comedy video at double speed. Even when the content itself is explicitly rapid-fire (like when Caddicarus would make "Current Quickies," I would watch it in fast time. It's quite comical; I've made myself to be obsessed with efficiency in my RU-vid consumption even though RU-vid is primarily a time waster for me.

Great video, and the channel. It looks like John Green is at CYOW in those clips?

I’m trying to edit down my own gaming streams into gameplay videos and trying to work out my own internal editing language to make them more than just “stream highlights,” but rather to make a similar product that might be a better alternative for someone who isn’t interested in hanging around for a 2-6 hour livestream, and I keep coming back to things discussed in this video. it’s interesting to try and figure out how and when to use jump cuts, how to use zooms effectively, how to manage where the eye is drawn into the frame, stuff like that. (also yes i’m plugging myself pls) nobody’s really talking much on youtube about the editing language of gaming content (at least not that i can find), so i’m trying to see what i can gather from watching other gaming videos i’ve enjoyed and stuff and idk. it’s interesting to see how film grammar is going to evolve with livestreamed content. for me, my model seems to be a combination of vlog editing (or even just commentary youtube editing) and reality TV. i’m trying to figure out, for instance, how to use zooming and panning to emphasize speech and stuff and a lot of “rules” like “maintain the location of the eyes in the frame when zooming in on a jump cut” or shot-reverse-shot simply can’t apply, because i have webcam footage, a chat, gameplay footage, and the disembodied voices of my discord friends. i wonder if you’ve really delved into many gaming videos and what kinda observations you have on their editing? i mainly model my style kind of based on simpleflips’ videos or monster factory. i haven’t really been able to find any videos talking about the film grammar of gaming stream-based content, but i think i’m figuring out a grammar for myself.

I'm wondering if you'd ever do a video about your take and understanding of the Hyperreal, in terms of Eco, Beaudrillard, etc. I've read "Travels in Hyperreality" and "Simulacra and Simulation" but I'm always curious to hear differing perspectives on the subject.

Do you have any good reading about these ideas in a more abstract sense? I'd love to explore some of these for my university work in relation to older styles of performance from the 17th Century. It's a great video.

I wonder if the new speed options on RU-vid has paved over the ability to keep pauses thanks to longer videos.

I could have been at work on time. But then I saw this.

So here's the thing 5 years later its only been more evident and content consumption is at an all time high, our attention have evolve to be so short that vlogs and contents are presented in such a absurd pace just to keep us watching. But this does not applies to all but it certainly does happen especially with the advent of tiktok and short form videos. Maybe a video about how youtube went from short form to long form only to be back again to compete with tiktok with youtube shorts.

Folding Ideas, you touched upon an idea I struggle with this myself: performance of self. Is this a sort of artificial authenticity or the real deal if a person is playing as themselves? Making videos has brought this up, especially as I am unsure of their "genre" so to say. The videos I post are not quite "vlogs" as they take place in a study (mostly), but are barely (if at all) scripted. I make videos about my real life and experiences, but they are closer to memoir or educational than stream of consciousness. Where do I "fit in" in the RU-vid community? Thank you for the video! Marvelous meta writing!

Rip idea channel, I love that channel so its sad to see it go

The content and message of this video has caused me to miss Dan's occasional quips of hyper-awareness of RU-vid Culture, like "In the name of like share subscribe, Amen." I appreciate those more than I bristle at RU-vid tropes and tics.

I actually watch a channel that's run by a guy that makes mods thats largely devoid of editing. It gives a different perspective of him that his audience really appreciates. Its cool to not just feel impersonally personal but to actually be such. Ive taken the approach myself with social media and its done me a lot of favours. Being terrifyingly real attracts a more engaging crowd.

One thing that I've notice from plenty of vlogs is that they really pick up after they get famous, so it's more about the glamorous life of a celebrity more than videos about mundane people. They got in this weird gangsta rap conumdrum where people only explode after talking about how they exploded, with many of the most famous vloggers either being old timers or more famous on other projects, like vines or other youtube channel.

I've noticed this trend of cutting out pauses in my speech when I edit my audio for my videos though I keep trying to leave more of them in (assuming they don't have any annoying sounds that comes from the act of speaking like pops, lip smacking, unintentional heavy breaths or background noise) just so the my videos sound more like myself and natural despite not sounding like a professional public speaker. It also forces me to get better at speaking, enunciating, and think about what words to use in order to better press my thoughts and emotions in a way people won't misunderstand me. I really having thought about how I speak since taking public speaking in college and that was more for a necessary communications credit than interest and I've always had issues with my speech since English is my second language (though primary.) As much as I want to express as clearly as possible, I also want my personality to show through what I say and sometimes my flubs can lead to some hilarity.

I think this is also one of these 'life imitates art imitates life' concepts. I think the faster way dialogue is delivered on RU-vid, and all the dead air is cut out because in real life many of us hate meandering conversations that never get to the point, and long awkward silences. Being able to deliver lots of information in a short amount of time, with no time wasted has been the dream for ages, and with RU-vid that luxury exists. It's not because it's hyper-realistic or unrealistic. It's because RU-vid is a mirror of how we want the world to be, and to some degree, once you create it here, it influences the physical world and those interactions. It's hard to create the world you want until someone gives you an idea of what that would look like. RU-vid content creators speak in the way we want the world to sound, then we take that existence out into the physical world and emulate it.

To me I feel when people cut out dead air or any vocal ticks can be directly compared to a writer cutting and arranging text for a final draft. Given that vlogs and video essays are someone's medium to convey an idea, the same way an author or editor would cut down anything that would distract from the main point. The attention span hasn't shrunk, but more like the rate at which we can take in information has reached a pace that a few frames of silence can seem like a lifetime. For the jump cut it's form follows function. If dead air is gone then so are cuts that don't serve in the efficiency of conveying information. Even when you look at the vlogs that don't follow this format completely like travel vlogs will often jump cut to scenes from the place and music to try and convey an idea of what it's like for them there. The authenticity and reality comes in, for vloggers not dramatic video makers, that their epiphanies are seen in a real a time as possible. In the future I don't really see this trend slowing down. The intonation might change much in the same way old Hollywood did to modern cinema.

Yeah, I think the jump cut is the non-actor's best friend, and likely always will be

I love your brain!

I feel like there's a case to be made that live streams and unedited videos can compliment the already defined fast-paced and/or staged nature of so many daily vloggers' videos (which more often than not feel like shows to me, and maybe that's the whole point). Some youtubers I watch, namely grav3yardgirl, have recently started to post "casual/unedited chatty videos" as a way to feel less pressured to put out vlogs that are what you mention is the popular way of recording and editing vlogs nowadays, while still uploading vlog-like content to their channels and, hopefully, helping create a bond with their viewers that feels more authentic in nature in the meantime. And although these unedited chatty videos are nothing new and could potentially be staged and rehearsed as well, I've found myself liking them quite a bit. Are those a more accurate depiction of the true lives, feelings and personalities of youtubers than, say, the more stylized vlogs? Maybe, maybe not. But they definitely SEEM more realistic in a way.

you should keep the part where you say you're my boy. MY boy

The selfie stick will disappear and be replaced by a drone, set to follow the face of the Vlogger.

I don't expect the jump cut to go away simply because it's so easy to do and requires so little thought or planning. At some point editing software will make more expressive cuts simpler but as it is people new to the platform will likely primarily use jump cuts. Personally, jump cuts don't bother me anymore unless they're made in quite rapid succession. Otherwise I almost don't even notice them.

Haha, links in the "dubli doo"