Bad Media Criticism
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2024
- A completely uncontroversial look into what happens when nitpicks net popularity.
/ sarahz
Correcting/addressing a couple of miscommunications in the second half of the video: www.twitlonger....
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Quinton's video: • Knockoff CZcamsrs | F...
Some really great media criticism channels:
Lindsay Ellis: / chezapoctube
Jenny Nicholson: / jennyenicholson
Big Joel: / @bigjoel
Nerdwriter1: / nerdwriter1
Quinton Reviews: / @quintonreviews
Now You See It: / @nowyouseeit
hbomberguy: / hbomberguy
This should be completely uncontroversial.
Captions will be up shortly!
I think you might enjoy Innuendo Studios for an example or really good media criticism!
I also recommend Readus101
maaaybe glasses reflection if you wanna have a look at some anime stuff- and maybe Cosmonaut Variety Hour.
isn't super analytic, they focus a bit more on comedy, but they're much more opinion-piece than deconstruction!
For the record, Lily has a history of self aggrandizement and actively provokes people and makes call outs for attention outside of attacking show animators. She's also criticized people in the pony community for doing the same things she's guilty of. -To be fair a majority of the pony community have no depth either...just that they're less aggressive about it.-
I'm seriously grateful I discovered the likes of you, Lindsay, and Inneundo, Folding Ideas, and a multitude of others. I've learned to be more aware of the things media say thanks to you all.
Interesting analysis. Here are some of my favorite channels:
-Georg Rockhall-schmidt (One of my favorite video-essayists)
-Company man (Highly recommended channel about why certain companies like Toys R Us or Blockbuster go bankrupt)
-Super eyed patched Wolf (Great video essays about anime)
-Aleczandxr (Interesting videos about anime characters and their motivations)
-The Pedantic Romantic (A great up and coming anime channel)
-Shout out to my favorite "Theme park channels" Defunctland, Offhand Disneyland, Yesterworld and Bright Sun films. All of them are great.
No lofi hip hop how can I trust anything you say
does 24:16 coutn
i'm so sorry i've let the entire video essay community down
Sarah Z lmaooooooo
I'm giving you my entire inheritance for this joke
Taylor J. Williams the worst part about every “video essay,” lmao. Lofi as a whole is such a lazy generic term
Yes yes yes. Thank you so much for making this. The popularity of CZcams nitpickers has so drastically affected our culture as media consumers, and the emphasis on videos deriding media as the "worst thing ever" has destroyed typical online discussion related to media as we know it. This is a very well-constructed analysis delving into that.
However you didn't mention Plinkett so 0/10 unsubbed
I love your videos. Your non-shitpost video are rather analytical and oftentimes focus on the subject's strengths and weaknesses instead of being overly nitpicky or condescending.
Has it though? Granted it's not like professional critics don't do the same thing, but that's neither here nor there.
*M Y M A N !*
I knew Lindsay would be here, but this is a very welcome surprise indeed.
Says the man with clickbait titles.... :P
Didn't you nitpick about Big hero 6 and Wreck-it-Ralph 2
Lily Orchard calling literally anyone a creep is so painful. Girl you are a known creator and distributer of CSEM
did'nt she litterly flash a minor on a live stream
@@justaturky2890 yes
@@justaturky2890WHAT??
@@LJXrot yeah....
Lily Orchard calls everyone a creep, ignoring that she becomes the very thing that she calls out for regarding that Stockholm fanfic.
I know it's been literal years, but that conspiracy theory that Rebecca Sugar stole the Pink Diamond reveal from fans drives me extra nuts because right after that episode, one of the Crewniverse posted a pic of his crew shirt from 2013 and said "I can finally show everyone my favorite part of this shirt". The design was all of the CG's gems, and Steven/Rose's gem was at an angle so you could tell it was a diamond. This was planned from the beginning, theories just mean you picked up on foreshadowing.
👌
It’s literally in the original show bible she pitched. So yeah I guess Rebecca Sugar stole from fan theories before the show even existed
I wanna see the picture, can someone link it?
I thought everyone figured out that pink diamond "twist" from season one.
@@juhlsghouls she used a fascist time machine, duh
missed a chance to title this "Your Media Criticism is Garbage, And Here's Why"
Emily Mahony LoL lily orchard joke?
This comment having no replies is garbage, and here's why
This comment having only 492 likes is garbage and here's why
You just made me feel like garbage and here's why
I am garbage, and here's why
15:02 See also: Schrodinger's Douchebag
"One who makes douchebag statements, particularly sexist, racist or otherwise bigoted ones, then decides whether they were “just joking” or dead serious based on whether other people in the group approve or not."
--Urban Dictionary
Hot-blooded & Half-German I’m happy that has a term
Eh, I think the saying "taking the temperature of the room" still describes it perfectly. The metaphor does a lot more work to makes sense of the situation as well. In the Schrodinger situation the "cat" is assigned a value statement and it is assumed to be true without the thought experiment even having taken place. The "taking the temp" metaphor calls to mind how hot-headed or cool-y indifferent people are on a purposed subject. The attitudes of people are given the value statement instead of the people themselves. Unduly applying judgement on people based on statements rather than attacking ideas is how you make these "Schrodinger's Douchebags".
Apt
@@vizerandevir6422 Um, disagree. I'd never heard of a Schrödinger's douchebag before i read this comment but it totally is a much more specific phrase than just "someone taking the temperature of the room". This should be obvious from the part of the video referenced by the OP (though maybe in the case described by Sarah Z the mistakes are honest overlooks and the douchy aspect is just the pathetic cop-out in lieu of an acknowledgment).
Also, while I don't pretend to understand the Schrödinger thing because quantum physics = magic to me, it is def a pop culture thing now. maybe that's bad for physics literacy or sth, but it is a pretty whimsical image (and intentionally so, since the thought experiment was actually meant as an ad absurdum takedown of the more counterintuitive consequences of quantum theory at the time).
I'm adding this to my vocabulary, thanks.
This is why I love CinemaWins, a knock-off CinemaSins that points out what movies do well rather than what they do "wrong." The guy who runs the channel has the saying "Every movie is someone's favorite" and I think that's something more people should keep in mind. It's so easy to see the flaws in something, it's much more valuable to look at what that thing does right.
Interestingly, when CinemaWins started out, his intention was mainly to focus on the movies largely considered "bad" on the internet, and give his positive thoughts on things he likes about them. However, his positivity and genuine criticisms and discussions were so popular he was consistently requested to look at all kinds of movies to analyze why they are so good. And interestingly, he still admits he's not a fan of certain movies, but its his job to figure out why someone would like this movie.
That's really sweet. I love that channel
@@ajerqureshi6411 i love this so much. sometimes we need some positivity on a fun platform at the end of the day
He is a lot more objective than CinemaSins, but sometimes he himself falls into the pit of winning something just to win it, not because it is actually something good. From what I gathered CS is best when the movie is garbage, while CW when it's really good
@@waffleonquaffle I would honestly say that Lee winning a thing just for its own sake is a lot less egregious than Jeremy sinning stuff just 'cause. Because really, "I found this detail funny/neat" is all the reason you need to give something a point if you are focusing on things to like about a movie, while random running gags about "Scene does not contain a lap dance." hardly seems like much of a reason to dislike it... unless the movie actually promised us a lap dance, anyway.
"rebecca sugar stole rose being pink from fans" literally every single time someone says pink diamond pearl covers her mouth. LITERALLY THE VERY FIRST TIE WE HEAR ABOUT PINK DIAMOND AND HER SHATTERING WE SEE PEARL COVER HER MOUTH AND SHAKE, TURNING AWAY FROM STEVEN. COME ON.
"CinemaSins was a mistake."
-Hayao Miyazaki
Everyone knows Toriyama wanted it to end with Everything Wrong With The Amazing Spider-Man
I wanna say that was MovieBob.
that’s why i watch th3birdman
@@thetribunaloftheimaginatio5247 r/whoosh
45 seconds of logos.
"But what you don’t know is that that Princess Sparkletina's sash is not just sky blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean"
Luigi Lanzoni haha!
..and you’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 700 2e, Queen Dazzlora did a collected of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was General Flashstride - wasn’t it who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different royal seamstresses. And then it, uh, filtered down through the high markets and then trickled down into some tragic village bazaar where you, no doubt, haggled it down to a few coppers. However that blue represents thousands of gold and countless jobs and it’s kind of comical that you think that exempts you from copying royal fashion choices when, in fact you’re wearing a sash that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff
Pixiekiller Ein so good
*Ding*
@@PKEin I read that all in MatPat's voice
One of the things that drives me crazy about some movie reviews is the word “tropey” good god there’s not a story in existence that functions without some “tropes” what do you want people to do? Ignore storytelling conventions for their media wholesale? Never use archetypes? Never take spins on other stories? Archetypes and tropes aren’t bad on their own, just cause you can point at something and say “ohoho a time loop exists, other people have had stories with time loops!” doesn’t itself really qualify as criticism or analysis.
There was someone that said it well: "Complain that a series is tropey is like complaining the forest is made of trees."
Hm.
I do get where you're coming from, and yeah, I don't disagree; conventions are conventions for a reason, there's always more in the execution than the concept in any case, etc.
But at the same time, I also do get it as a criticism when there's nothing but the archetypes, y'know? Like, I don't expect an abstract anti-story or the wheel getting reinvented, but there's some times I watch a movie and there's just nothing to the characters besides their stock narrative role as they go through a paint-by-numbers Hero's Journey in a plot that's differentiated from every other Tolkien derivative setting by the specific word salad names for their generic faux-Middle Ages kingdoms.
wppb50 well, yeah, but tropes aren’t archetypes or cliches per say. There are other criticisms people can use that make more sense. It’s “tired” “badly paced” “dull” “doesn’t stand out” “cliched” “poorly written” “dragging” or “rushed” all tell a bit more about the actual issue with the media than. “Tropey. Too many tropes.”
@@Zanyotaku they seem to confuse a trope with a cliche. An abundance of tropes is normal. An abundance of cliches is usually a sign of a bad movie
@@samt3412 Exactly.
The most annoying thing about that Steven Universe video for me was that CZcams insisted that because I liked the show I should totally watch this video about why it's apparently garbage and I shouldn't enjoy it any more.
Well, I mean, obviously, how dare you have things you enjoy? Stop it, stop it now. Everything is terrible and that is the only acceptable opinion.
@@SirRebrl dude is his opinion, Stop.
@@angelgama-mandoza6374 I feel like you may have some difficulty reading sarcasm on the internet. The person likes Steven Universe, CZcams decided to suggest he should watch a video on why it's bad, and I commented a feigned attitude that was totally over-the-top about it being bad to enjoy things.
I did not knew it was a joke. I am 13 so dont listen to me. I'm a child or more like a teen.
This is how I discovered the glorious "not interested" button lol
This kind of intense nitpicking feels more like a "Ha, gotcha!" Moment rather than actual criticism.
The video she is on about is 2 hours long. Here's the rebuttal video czcams.com/video/ubvzdREIRj0/video.html
Ikr?! It's so annoying. *Cough* CenimaSins
One man's nitpick is another man's hyperspace kamikaze.
Check out Big Joel if you haven't already he might be my favorite media critic. he started with movies and TV shows and then wandered a little bit into politics, and he's so darn cute
@@kozhedub oh I love big Joel! Better yet, he actually watched this video too, I saw a comment of his. Plus his tweets spice up my tl
I enjoyed watching CinemaSins.
Then I realised people actually, let those videos affect their opinions of movies for some reason???
I just found them funny.
I know. Whether you think they're funny or not, you're an idiot to think that they're supposed to be real critics. CinemaSins has even gone so far as to admit they're not real critics. They just point out anything they could find wrong with the movie, even if it's as simple as a cereal box being moved between shots.
Same, tho I stopped watching them years ago, I find it boring now. But never took it serious. You can find flaw in any movie but also you can enjoy a movie with million flaws. It does not matter, if movie is entertaining that is what counts.
same
Same. I don't watch them as much now, but they always gave off the 'we're pretending to be nitpicky a-holes' vibe rather than the 'these little things make a movie horrible' vibe. they even admit to not being real critics. if your opinion on a movie is changed cuz of them, your being dumb
People took CinemaSins seriously???
Oh dear lord I googled and Lily is also the “rules for writing” person who was all “never ever have a trans woman be a sex worker or addict or mentally Iill” and all kinds of horrible blanket prescriptive claims largely based around throwing marginalized trans people under the bus to keep others away from “stigma” and… hoo boy… >___<
EDIT: And OOOOOOHHHH MYYY GOODNESS apparently there's much, much, MUCH worse things about her than I thought and there's this whole serial CSA stuff going on and… dear goodness. O___O
EssenceOfThought has a playlist carefully investigating and documenting all the evidence and everything. It's pretty damning.
While I have no clue who lily orchard is, you can't be serious about trusting anything that vile excuse of a human being "eot" proclaims to be true?
Her biggest reputation is that she is a borderline bully out to cancel everyone that doesn't align with her personal world view.
@@Mat-hr1dg use of the word "cancel" immediately makes me inclined to believe you're full of shit but regardless you're gonna need to prove that
All those big words and your long ass comment, and yet you say nothing at all.
Cinema Sins was fun at first, but now it's like watching a movie with the worst kind of person
They were fun videos when they were about 5 minutes long, but once they expanded out into 15-20 minute slogs, it became far less fun.
@@One.Zero.One101 I agree, I jut think that a lot of the satire has lost the spice that used to make it funny. Now it's just kinda annoying.
That's just my opinion though, I'd like to hear yours! :)
@@One.Zero.One101 I think some people might find it confusing when some sins are more "real" (FPS is off, continuity errors, etc) when others are just sarcasm. It can be an odd mix that can make people confused which parts are or aren't "serious"
It taught me how not to analyze media lol
No it’s still fun you’re just super sensitive now
Sarah watch out monokuma's behind you. Oh my god she's doing a video essay. She can't hear us. Oh my god
Watch out, he might kidnap you for a killing game!
I'm shaking and crying
*_D E S P A I R_*
Bold of you to assume that she's not an ultimate despair
u p u p u
The nitpicking has gone so far that I just can't enjoy Nostalgia Critic or Cinema Sins like I used to. I much prefer Nando v. Movies, who takes one aspect and then improves on it, and CinemaWins, whose channel boils down to "liking things is more fun than not liking things."
It's been a while since I've watched any of their stuff, but I liked RedLetterMedia.
They go out of their way to review bad movies in good faith.
Nando’s channel is 🔥🔥🔥
CinemaWins is wholesome but also so much more well researched than CinemaSins. Love that channel ☺️
Except for he doesn't, actual content produced by studios doesn't in any way change because some guy bragged about it on the internet for half an hour or whatever
@@alexanderneronov2348 who does this pertains to?
"It's satire" has become the "it's just a prank, bruh" to excuse horrible behaviors.
Whenever someone uses the 'it's satire' response, I ask, 'so what are you satirising?'. Usually don't get a response
I still remember the worst one I watched being “I Wanted To Hate Steven Universe” where the guy just decides that fusion=sex, despite the many times the creator has said otherwise, and that the child protagonist regularly fuses, and it being a CHILDREN’S SHOW, and accuses one of the main characters of rape. I stopped the video and just sat with my head in my hands because I couldn’t comprehend how fucking stupid what I just saw was.
The metaphor in Steven Universe is really, really shaky, but you have to take metaphor with a grain of salt. A lot of the times things aren't what they seem to be.
@@CrazyRiverOtter Fusion just seems to me like a general sort of metaphor for intimacy. It's like how a hug can be seen as sexual in some situations but for the most part it's really not.
@@keltzar1 yeah, it seems more like a trust bond. A bond so powerful, it literally turns you and your partner into a new entity, almost like you know each other so well, you can function as one being.
If fusion is not sex, why can’t peridot fuse because she is „asexual“?
Tohfan I don't believe Peridot is incapable of fusing. As she's shown in the show, she just doesn't want to/never needs to. (Unless the creators specifically stated that she can't fuse and I missed it). Asexuality has nothing to do with sex in itself. It's simply the lack of sexual attraction. Not a inherent lack of desire to participate in such activities. Plus as was seen in the show and movie, fushion isn't really an allegory for sex. It's just a representation of a strong relationship. Whether that be good and beneficial, such as Ruby and Sapphire's fusion, or potentially harmful and toxic, such as Jasper and Lapis' fusion.
Self improvement is dropping cinemasins and going to cinemawins.
Harmony Pon I genuinely like them...
But that’s not an improvement.
It’s just as full of fallacies, lies and getting things wrong.
It’s actually satire, since it’s a parody of cinemasins, but in terms of quality of judgement ? Eh... No ?
Nathan Jora Lol what? I’ve only watched their reviews of animated films and they’ve gotten everything right?
Harmony Pon I’ve watched their reviews on Star Wars movies and they got a lot of things wrong -_-
I’m not saying they never have legit points, they do make a lot of good points, but they also spin things to make them good when they actually aren’t.
Dartigan is a much better "X sins" channel.in my opinion.
That or just not taking it seriously
oh god I didn't know that about winter soldier, that might (in part) explain why I always kind of lowkey hated it
Wew.
Until Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther came along to make things more interesting stylistically and in the case of the latter, thematically, winter soldier was the movie that made me give up on seeing Marvel movies in the theater. It's just so very very...meh.
Oh lord, the queen has come!
OMG, Lindsay watches Sarah's video?!!! I'm freaking out for Sarah. The circle is complete.
Lindsay Ellis what part of the “reactive-nit pic” writing motivation the directors had makers had that made you not like it?
I don’t see how it contributes anything negative to the plot, i Find it to be an engaging character driven story with hardly any plot holes. The lack of plots holes can only be seen as an improvement.
And it’s not really a zero sum game because they can still make really good films.
On the subject of "Guy who is probably nice RL plays jerk" satire, Terrible Writing Advice does this really well. You know from the start if you're paying attention this isn't his actual advice when it comes to writing, and he will occasionally post his genuine advice, which is titled "Honest writing advice," which you can see is his actually genuine advice/thoughts.
Terrible Writing Advice is extremely underrated.
Lol when I first stumbled across his channel I thought he was serious and then like 5 seconds into the video I went “Okay, this guy’s not serious. I can relax now.”
YES YES YESSSSS.
It also helps his channel is titled _"Terrible_ Writing Advice" making it clear that its one giant joke.
Actually, you’re wrong and stupid. He sucks because there’s not enough love triangles in his videos
I'm glad that reviewers like Lindsey Ellis, Double Toasted, Schaffrilas Productions, Cosmonaut Variety Hour, Quinton Reviews, Pop Culture Detective, Renegade Cut, and Jenny Nicholson are becoming more popular nowadays
Cellspex too.
Renegade Cut is an asshole though
ppppff why are you comparing quinton reviews to good channels
RLM needs more subs
Amanda the Jedi is good too
Jeez I never fully realized how recent all this video essay stuff was. Like, Lindsay got big in 2016?? That’s kind of shocking for me to think about for some reason.
Edit: also, this is great!
Oh hi big man, how do you (and Sarah too) put hbomb into this spectrum? Shark tales 4ever
I love the trend. I have a boring office job and having super long video essays on my second screen while I work makes the day go by faster (Sara and your vids being a welcome recent adition).
Big Joel Seeing you here is a surprise to be sure but a welcome one
Time is fucky. I still feel like the Tide Pod thing was years ago, and the fidget spinners even longer ago.
I read this in exactly your voice. (It's very interesting how distinct your... speech pacing?? is.)
"Framed as Objective" is the biggest problem with youtube criticism.
The whole objective/subjective dichotomy needs to be banished from art criticism. Neither term accurately describes what art is.
Exactly. A big part of art is to invoke feeling, to resonate with you personally. You can't talk about art without talking about how you literally feel about it. I'd much rather watch something that has clear bias if you've explained that it's personal to you, than listen to someone try to convince me their opinion is 'more objective' and therefore more valid than my own or others'.
Pearly P yeah but that’s the point of objectivity to judge the quality of the art rather than the feeling of the art
Yes I do agree subjectivity has a lot more exploration and is less boring but that doesn’t make objectively judging something invalid Even if it’s boring
I feel like it’s sort of like a building something must have a good base to be able to build all the beautiful things on toplike statues that make the building give one all these emotions and gives it so much depth
But first it must have the a stable base otherwise the building will collapse
Yes the beautiful things are still there and one can choose to ignore the broken structure but that doesn’t mean the building is still good as it has failed at its job
It has fallen down yes the beauty still exists but it is now objectively a bad building even if one chooses to no perceive the faults does not render them invalid
They’re still there whether you choose to see them or not
That’s you choice and that is subjective but ones choice does not factor in to objectivity and when people observe the bundling objectively they see it has failed and they see it is flawed this is why we make it so buildings don’t collapse becuause
Because otherwise they’d objectively fail even if subjectively one likes the beauty of the remnants of the building
Tom Ffrench I mean quality can be judged objectively on whether it’s good or not
For example a computer that doesn’t run is an objectively bad computer it has fallen at what it is designed to do
@@keyan1219 But art (at least, any art that isn't design, cause that functions differently) isn't like building or anything - it doesn't exist in the real world. Are there things that indicate quality? Of course, like consistency or planning or time spent on it etc. but like, even those can be argued about, because fiction is fiction, and there will never be 100% true answers when it comes to it cause it's removed from reality.
The "Sherlock is Garbage" video has been in my recommendations for ages. I assumed that it was one of those uncritical knock-offs and haven't watched it. Now, I think I'll check it out.
Just on the off chance you haven't seen it yet, I want to recommend that you do. I don't always agree with what hbomberguy has to say and there's one small chunk of the video I feel he could have left out, but that doesn't stop the video from being incredibly entertaining. Aside from the humour of it, he genuinely makes some in depth, well researched points that managed to pin-point my exact issues (and overall opinion) of the show. It's a CZcams classic and I'd recommend it to anyone.
Same actually, then I started watching more of hbomberguy's other videos and then I realized it was from him.
An Unmerciful Kiwi can I ask, what part of the video do you think he should have left out? I’ve watched that video so many times
@@neutrallynonsensical3477 I don't have a time stamp for it but from about the part were he starts talking about Jekyll until he finishes talking about doctor who felt a little unnecessary. Like, I felt he'd already made his point and he was wasting time going over it again in that section. I still thought it was enjoyable and it was cool to see the flaws of Sherlock be a reflection of Moffat's other works, I just feel like he went a little bit off track and you could take it or leave it. Although, maybe I just thought it was repetitive cause I too have watched that video about 4 times now.
It's an hbomb video of course it's gonna be good
I really like Steven Universe, but it definitely has problems - one of which is that the sheer amount of thinly veiled metaphor can have weird implications when you take a step back.
This is most prominent in the forgiveness of the Diamonds - White is treated like an abusive/transphobic parent, which is one aspect of her character, but she's also an evil space empress who enforces a caste system and destroys planets. Forgiving her for the "parent" aspect left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, mine included.
On the other hand, it's a kid's show. Presenting a massive villain while having the message of the show be forgiveness? Probably should have seen that coming.
Thank you! It definitely needs to be viewed with the context that it's a kids show about friendship. One that handles a lot of sensitive subjects, sure, but there are still lines that it realistically couldn't cross - mostly with White Diamond.
@Brook Heyes But you see, SU goes out of it's way to make it difficult for it to even adhere to it's own themes. Forgiveness is the message of the show, but instead of focusing on the characters and fleshing them out in order to prepare them for that development, SU spends more time pushing it's villians' sin tally and emphasising just how bad of a person they are. If the message for a children's show is forgiveness, there needs to be an accurate depiction on what can and cannot be forgiven, because some things can't be forgiven and children need to be shown that option is also valid. Some things, like genocide, murder and abuse simply cannot be forgiven and SU doesn't really do a good job at drawing that line, leading to some of the characters being depicted as having unhealthy relationships with themselves and others that don't get addressed/resolved, which clearly isn't a good message for a kid's show to put out.
Bri elle Avatar did a good job of that; Azuls and Ozai were unredeemable because they committed genocide unrepentantly. Zuko, the major season 1 antagonist, gets a very well developed character arc to join the main cast despite his previous wrongdoings.
@@worthythaneofross3925 Exactly. ATLA and it's success is majorly what kickstarted the introduction of mature themes in kids' cartoons but writers need to realise this isn't just a cool/unique storytelling tool-- it's gonna literally shape the lives of the kids watching it to some degree, so unless you can confidently somewhat match the standard that Avatar set (at least the basics of it), it's not worth airing.
Except the part where all the Gems are effectively learning empathy as children, because they’re learning it from biological life and it’s not their “natural” state - which is the big thing the attempts to conflate the Diamonds with human abusers, or fascism, etc, fails to address as central to the narrative.
I've heard "I'm one well-made documentary away from believing anything" a few times; the same could be said about some people and well-made video essays.
OK but Hbomberguy's Sherlock critique is a classic. I always come back to it.
*LIKE A BOOMERANG*
Double A Animations this is the most criminally underrated comment I’ve ever read
@@doubleasworkshop1692 i fucking choked when i read this thank u
I utterly argee.
Nice to see that I'm not the only one. I probably watched it 10 times or more
"This piece of media is not a flawless masterpiece without any flaws THEREFORE it is garbage and sucks and is the bane of my existence and personally offends me!!"
Lilypeet in a nutshell 😂
Schraff in a nutshell 🤣
When it goes to great lengths to portray space nazis sympathetically then maybe people should be offended.👌
@@LOD69 Sorry what? What franchise are you even talking about? Is the piece of media humanizing the ideology of Nazism or the people who get roped up in it? Because those are two very different things. If it's the former then I get the anger, but if it's the latter, that's just realistic.
how did nerdrotic find this video?
“Where did Nagini come from in Harry Potter”
I’m trying to imagine Voldemort going into a muggle pet store for a snake and I can’t stop giggling
I'm picturing him breaking into a zoo getting lost in the wrong section and ending up with a gorilla instead of a Snake
@@Georg3e So, somewhere in the Multiverse there's a version of Harry Potter where Voldemort drank gorilla milk to keep himself alive?
@@SpedeVesku 100% canon
@@SpedeVesku in some universes it's milk... Some...
@@Georg3e Oh God... O_O
Nice video, but it should have been tilted "Cinema Sins is Garbage, And Here's Why"
True :)
Watch Bobvids’ Sustaining Stupidity- Why CinemaSins is Terrible.
Everything Wrong With CinemaSins
Whoa, did not expect to see Hardleg on this side of the youtubes. Glad to see ya, Joe.
Everything Wrong With Painfully Self-Aware Clickbaity Titles (In 12 Words Or Less)
CinemaWins is basically their genuine opinions and it’s actually really nice to watch
Cinemawins is not cinemasins. Entirely different people.
@@JasperJanssen He didn't say they were the same. What's the point of your comment?
David Braasch what’s the point of yours?
Jasper Janssen to question why you said that lol
@@snaiilsalt he said that cause the OP said "their" as in they are the same person I think.
I watched Lily Orchard's response to this before I watched this and just.. I don't understand why she thinks you're lying. I think that she's confused lying and critical thinking. Just because she didn't say something word for word, doesn't mean she didn't obviously mean it.
Because she can't stand being criticised for any reason ever, *especially* when it's warranted.
Lily's response on Sarah Z's video shows that she can't handle criticism very well. Not surprise that her so-called "writing tips" proves that she hasn't improved.
I love watching movie/show reviews as long as opinions of good or bad stay opinions. Saying “I don’t like Frozen because Anna annoys me and here’s why,” is better than “Frozen is trash because Anna is annoying and here’s my proof.” I REALLY admire people who say things like “I hate this movie but if you like it, that’s great! I’m glad that you can see something in this that I just can’t.” Don’t shame people for what they like or dislike.
100%
There needs to be way more of that kind of criticism in reviews/film criticism. I think Dominic Noble does it in a great way when he tries to understand the appeal of Fifty Shades of Grey and compares it to how he experienced Spider-Man while growing up.
I stopped my occasional watching of CinemaSins videos when they did one for Megamind and just straight up destroyed it for NO reason. No thanks.
Adriana Caggese have you checked out CinemaWins? It’s the same style of video, but they are pointing out all of the great things in movies
EdgeofaBlade i have and they're great, I agree! I loved the Spiderverse one
I thought it was funny.
Like... I was kinda like "Megamind? HOW DAREth?!" But idk kinda enjoyed it.
@@adrianacaggese2606 Aren't they from like the same person?
It's just my opinion i thought too but they aren't, apparently
Why does the comment section feel like it belongs to a different video.
ted stapleton I don’t know maybe its the time vortex breaking and somehow we are falling in between two episodes and only very few of us are noticing it. Mind blown
Because Sarah has overlap with edgy internet denizens as well as extremely PC leftists.
Creating a fun mixup in the comments. It’s mostly “normie” tumblr/reddit users. But you got a 4chan group here that enjoys Sarah’s insight into various topic. She’s clearly talented and doesn’t say stupid shit.
Lots of people from all over like Sarah. It’s neat to see. I got dragged back here after like 7 months cause a comment war is still raging. It’s some quality internet right here in this video and comment section.
broderick kurtz
It’s that I’ve looked up a portion of the videos from the CZcamsrs she mentioned and I’m not being sarcastic nor do I intend to seem antagonistic to you when I say that she lied through her teeth about lots of these CZcamsrs.
One that stood out to me was Steven universe. That video was 2 hours long. I went through it thoroughly and after doing a compare and contrast, and it became clear that Sarah lied. I did more research and it became apparent that she made this video just to get our views and likes. It wasn’t really factual, but it was abridged and fake.
@@couragew6260 what did she lie about?
I remember that when Lindsay Ellis did her video celebrating reaching for 100,000 subscribers on her channel in July or early August 2018, somebody ask her a question about the difference between pedantic nitpicking and helpful criticism. And I think what she said is a really good way to understand the difference between the two. She said that there really isn’t a line. And that peoples feelings are simply their feelings. Feelings are not Logical whatsoever, although you can add logic to them by using fax to explain it. But she was trying to get at is that in some ways, your feelings are less important then your ability to clearly articulate why are you feel a certain way. So I would say lots of criticisms are not inherently bad. The bad thing is when you don’t explain them with any sort of depth. The bad thing is when there’s no Real evidence to support your feelings.
I really enjoy Lindsay’s videos when needing a slight laugh or just some fun with her critiques. She’s even working to incorporate more positive movie posts like her recent “Titanic” video
It's like the bad crictizism Is done when people try to acomodate those feeling instead of learn/recognice where those feelings come from and disociate them when analizing a product.
Cause at the end they end up doing the same thing some scientist did when tried to prove things like superior races or that neandertals organize in gendered groups.
@@kiriki4558 Exactly, it's intellectually dishonest to approach a topic of study with your mind already made up.
And the worst thing is trying to push your opinions as absolute truth and everybody who disagrees with you are wrong.
@@SirBlackReeds how so?
I think the whole "_____ is garbage and here's why" title just seems kind of unnecessarily rude? Idk I feel like to criticize something you have to be able to respect it and the people who enjoy it?
Edit: I worded this kinda wierd sorry! In the last sentance I specifically meant media like Steven universe! I think things like nazis and trump can be criticized with out respecting the mentioned parties! I just meant that comment for media that's not really all that deep. Sorry for any confusion :)
but that's not clickbait-y enough
Ikr.
But the funny and great part about that is, you can make a title saying. “Your ‘arguments’ are bad and here’s why”
but the woman who made su is garbage and here’s why does respect sugar. i believe that’s one of the things she explicitly says in her video. i find this blatant tone policing of creators baffling. shock value has always had a place in art and especially in critiques, why is it such an issue now?
@@jaaliyahrios4856 in the video Steven universe is garbage she calls sugar many very rude and blatantly wrong things. And asking people to be nice isnt "tone policing" it's common sense. I'm not gonna click on a video that seems like it dosent have any intelligent points about something I like. While she did present some intelligent points, the title didn't convey that. The title makes it sound like it's just someone yelling about how they dont like something
@@jaaliyahrios4856 Respect?
I think my issue with a lot of these videos is that instead of encouraging people to analyze media themselves, it can often encourage people to accept other people’s analysis (or theory) as absolute fact. They can still be really fun to watch, but these videos are also pieces of media and, I think, should be consumed critically as well.
I agree! Yeah, you shouldn't affect someone elses critique change your opinion, but it's not easy when the whole purpose of the video is to tear that thing down. You kinda became ashamed to accept you liked it when you see the comments too. Passive agressive titles don't help either. For example, I watched a review about Frozen 2 titled "Frozen 2 is not good stop lying to yourself" I hate this type of video titles. All the comments were dedicated to tearing the movie down too. How am I supposed to say I liked the sequal better than the first movie in this place. It is like a cricle jerk, they are only there to agree with each others opinions. There is nothing wrong with that but it creates a sort of enviroment that nobody can oppose with them. Same with the Netflix show "The Circle" too. Everyone is talking about how fake the reality tv shows are and how dumb watching them is but like, that's the point? Nobody takes them at face value anyway. They are just making a bigger fool of themselves by thinking they are pointing out flaws when in reality people who like these things already knows these "flaws" and they are ok with it.
Oof sorry for the long ass comment, I had a lot in my mind lol.
6:05 the contrast between his freeze frame smile and "he discussed his thoughts on various issues like Scientology and the Iraq War" destroyed me
Omg, skip the tutorial? From 2019? On a sarah z video? Crazy
Okay for some reason I read the pinned comment on Lily's response video and it was a mother saying how she didn't watched Lily's video and now doesn't let her 11-year-old daughter watch Steven Universe anymore. Not because of the show, but because of the video essay. And apparently they're going to be having this "discussion" about other cartoons their daughter enjoys as well. Does anyone else find this gone from annoying to extremely sinister?
How about this instead of reading the comments watch the video to prove this one is a huge lie
@@themechanic9974 i watched it, cant find the lie. Sarah's point about unconstrutive criticism was proven, though. The examples Sarah used specifically, even with context were kind of gross points. It felt like lily has a vendetta of some sort against Rebecca Sugar personally. The name calling and the roundabout way she called Rebecca Sugar a fascist was gross.
@@themechanic9974
Oh no its Lily's number one fan
Siriously dude there are other people out there way more deserving of your time and attention.
I have seen a DEPRESSING amount of people online saying they watched a lot of videos being critical of Steven Universe (including Lilly's vid) and felt like terrible people for liking the show. The idea that young people felt like bad people for enjoying a queer children's show is just awful. The idea that such a well meaning show could be twisted into something sinister by people acting in bad faith is terrible. I wonder how many kids who would have benefited from watching SU at a critical point in their lives were scared away from it due to videos made by straight up terrible people.
@@captaincrazycreative did you seriously go around looking for a 2 year old comment on a video that's been debunked? Wow dude you clearly have the best life
I just remember nostalgia critic criticizing a thomas the tank engine movie once and claiming it was terrible because he didn’t like it and that was when i finally understood what the phrase “its just for kids” really meant
@@unicornlover1237 But that's the thing! It was made BY adults. That doesn't mean it was made FOR adults. When I was a kid i liked watching the thomas the tank engine movie! I watched this grown man look at some dude eat a carrot and start saying words loudly to emphasize their phonetics and watched the nostalgia critic's only response was "wtf is wrong with the people who made this movie" because he isn't criticizing it on the quality of the movie for kids to enjoy, its on the quality of the movie for HIM to enjoy.
I didn't mention any other cartoons in my comment but sure lets look at steven universe:
Why are there so many people who are angry that the core message of steven universe is that "anyone is capable of change"? if the cartoon wants to get the point across to KIDS (You know, people with underdeveloped brains and thus people who don't have very strong critical thinking skills yet) then its going to have to stand by that moral lesson EVEN IF THE INDIVIDUAL VIEWER BELIEVES THAT THE CHARACTERS GETTING REDEMPTION "DESERVE" TO DIE.
Also its a kids show? where the main protagonist is meant to be the surrogate audience member. Kids are supposed to see themselves in steven and that's how they absorb the message of the show.
Whenever I see full grown adults getting angry at kid's shows for doing stuff that doesn't resonate with them, I wonder why they, as rational and capable adults, do not then go out to find a different thing that satisfies their needs. Instead you have a ton of adults ganging up on anyone who enjoys that thing and bullying them into hating that thing too. My point with this post isn't to say "teenagers shouldn't watch cartoons" its "people over the age of 21 should be able to recognize when something was made to be consumed by a younger audience and look at it through that lense" because too many times I see fandoms demanding that the ten year old main character kill the big bad villain because "They're irredeemable" or something.
Being a kids show isn't an excuse to do shitty things and have bad themes that kids will watch, sure! But most of the time I'm looking at people criticizing that stuff made to be watched and understood by an 8 year old does not have the same level of complex thought as something like Dante's inferno or whatever. Stop taking away the fun stupid tv just because it isn't fun for you personally and go out and find a different book/movie/tv show because its clear you have grown out of the stories from your childhood *and there's nothing wrong with admitting that*
I hate the “it’s just for kids” excuse for bad movies but if the movie is for LITERAL BABIES then it gets a pass
@@unicornlover1237 I think its a little weird to get upset when a kids show doesn't teach kids lessons. Its not supposed to be school. Tv shows covering topics that are more on the serious side of storytelling isn't supposed to "teach" you anything. What its supposed to be is a primer for opening up these kinds of discussions. A kid might watch an episode of a cartoon that talks about the death of a pet, and then see how the characters respond to it, and it might cause them to think about how they might respond to their own pet dying, which might lead to them finding an adult to talk about it with. Their isn't really a lesson or moral to be learned from that, its just there to help a kid acknowledge an experience that they might not have had yet.
Also with all due respect I really do think you're kinda overestimating kid's abilities to understand some of those dark topics. No offense to kids, it's not meant as an insult! People's brains haven't fully developed until they've hit 25...a 13 year old might not have the mental capacity to...you know...comprehend the struggles of war and the horrifying reality of genocide (at least, not without feeling really overwhelmed). I think a basic "this is something that exists" is really the only thing they can get into without getting overwhelmingly depressing. idk about you but when I was a kid I struggled with depression and if all I had to watch on tv was shows where everyone is depressed and struggling all the time...I definitely wouldn't have watched it because that's the last thing I needed.
@@Purplebowlingball But seriously...why do you hate it so much? What's wrong with kids having bad movies??? Can you honestly tell me that there were movies you liked as a kid, and had fond memories about, that when you looked back on them you realized they probably weren't all that good? If you're old enough to be mad that a silly little animated movie is kind of annoying, you're old enough to acknowledge that the movie isn't made for you, and thus can go and find another movie.
People who complain that a movie for kids is bad are not the heroes and protectors of kids that they think they are? Usually this line of thinking just keeps kids from enjoying things in general. The people who make these movies probably aren't listening to the people who have only negative things to say about movies, because these people are usually only ever going to have negative things to say about movies. They MIGHT listen to the people who enjoy a movie and has good things to say about it who has actual constructive criticism...but by just saying "There's no excuse for bad movies" the people who make those movies has already written you off because there doesn't NEED to be an excuse. They can't exactly go back and CHANGE a movie to fit your standards once the movie has been made.
@@mallk238 I didn't say there was "no excuse for bad movies" and I don't know where you got that from
It's really obvious when Cinemasins actually likes or dislikes the movie they're trashing, especially when they remove sins ( or say they know they *should* and then add one anyway ).
I feel people only watch cinemasins either when they make a video about a movie they don't like or when they're masochists and want to see how a movie they like gets butchered
I sometimes watch cinema sins just to see a summary of a movie I'm never going to watch. I ignore the sins and it's usually a good brief summary of the movie
CinemaSins is a nice thing to watch and they can be pretty funny sometimes but what's really annoying is when people act as if everything they say is legitimate valid criticism.
DoctorPhileasFragg I just think cinema sins is funny and not meant to be taking too seriously.
@@petermills5623 in this vein, I've had a number of movies I've ended up wanting to see after watching a Cinema Sins video about it.
Congrats on giving good faith criticism of bad faith critics. That’s not an easy line to walk.
Council of Geeks ICONS SUPPORTING ICONS
But one of the thumbnail images, the steven universe one, is a critique of the people and there awful business choices, and bas weiting, it isnt pretending to be in good faith or bad faith, the video is out an out a condemnation and nothing else and doesnt pretend otherwise, and i will say, steven universe may be a kids show, but its a kids show like star wars prequels were kids movies, they have ham fisted social commentary, hypocrisy, and shit writing, and they use its a kids show as a defense for dogshit opinions being pushed as fact and telling everyone this is how you should live, to impressionable children no less, if anything needs a 2 hour shit taken on it its steven universe, the creators can not take any criticism, even constructive, they farm out everything to animation mills in asia, and they are beyond lazy and create episodes plots on the spot and have no plan for the overarching story they shoehorned in, steven universe sucks ass, people who think SU is good would have a stroke if they watched og teen titans.
@@CoreStarter most of the steven universe fanbase was around during the mid 2000s to see teen titans. And it wasnt an impeccable puce of work devoid of criticism. While people loved the main characters, people still debated over the story arcs, art style, humor, and commentary. You don't need to gloss over the many flaws of (still good) shows just because youre hanging on lily orchards every word that rebecca sugar is some boogeyman
You watch Sarah, ahhh!
@@Indigospade im not partiularly a fan of lily, im jist saying sarah was dead as fuck wrong about essentially everything she said this video, she did next to 0 research about how steven universe is made and just blindly assumed things about its production then called lily wrong based on this wild (and incorrect) assumptions, i also dont remember the teen titans episode where one character forcibly rapes, i mean fuses with another character.
I never got the impression that CinemaSins was trying to produce genuine, serious media criticism. I thought the whole point was to be ridiculously nitpicky, for fun.
Same here but then people pointed out that there are sometimes real criticisms mixed in with the nitpicks and for some reason that's bad.
I mean if you can't tell the difference between a joke nitpick and a genuine criticism then that's on you
@@TheSleepyRanger Honestly, given the diversity of mindsets roving about on the internet, and the unknowability of some creators' internal thought processes, I think it's somewhat naive to assume that most people are on the same wavelength as you, or that people who aren't are being foolish.
Ik that. But sometimes there satire vids are just blatant slander
TheSleepyRanger the problem is that there’s genuine criticisms mixed in with both jokes, and just wrong statements. If it were all jokes and wrong statements, the satire defence would make more sense, but the presence of real criticism muddies the water, suggesting that the wrong statements, which are worded exactly like the genuine criticism are mean to be interpreted as criticism, and are either mistakes, or just outright lies.
@@TheSleepyRanger Because if you don't make obvious distinctions between silly nitpicks and legit critiques, the whole satire falls apart.
I'm going to take a leap here and recommend Schaffrillas Productions, because they do something I haven't seen anywhere else with their media criticism: they are not tied down to a single running theme for their videos, which allows them to make genuine reviews of various types of media (mostly movies but also musicals, TV, games, and a couple of other things). Everything they put out is also funny and thorough researched :3
Yes! The channel is a gem :) his take on Ratatouille was pretty good and his reviews are very well thought out and presented. Definitely give him a watch guys, it’s so worth it
@@arvindpennathur He also collaborated with Sarah Z
@@mariavillarin5478 Which vid?
@@Moonstar79 It was the weird musical videos
I Suggest you Cellspex as well she is great
I hope more people watch this. I think the main problem is just that people consume information without critically thinking about it or looking into it further. A simple search will actually show that the team of Steven universe designed steven's jewel to be the topical view of a diamond back in like season 1 or 2 of SU, way before they even started heavily dropping hints of pink diamond. As for cinema sins...you can actually kinda tell as the years went on how disingenuous they became in their rants about movies loll.
Thanks
This is my main point too, I think we should point out bad criticism and the people who make it but also point out to the people who consume it without critical thought the problem with that as well. That way we cover the problem from more angles.
I...never expected one of my favorite artists to be in the comment section of videos I watch, but I wholeheartedly agree!
MauLer is a great channel that goes into incredible length and depths into any given subject matter.
o u the drawer chick
What gets me is when content creators criticize a kids' show or kids' movie for not being complex enough. Don't get me wrong, I do think we should criticize children's media since children deserve to have good things, but grown ass adults claiming a cartoon for kids is bad because it doesn't have groundbreaking characters or mind-blowing writing drives me insane.
I think it's cause those cartoons tackle on complex topics that it expects fans to think that this show is complex
And then they compare it to Avatar, The Last Airbender
@@sporeham1674which is funny, because my go to example for this has often been people back in the day ranting about how ATLA totally copped out with energy bending and not having Aang kill Ozai.
Like, people were legit angry that the kids show didn't have the hero kill the villain
@@MagmaRiver"Back in the days..." Oh no, they are STILL ranting about it.
I stumbled over a Nostalgia Critic video once where he had a giant list of things we might remember fondly about Lord of the Rings and explained why they were all actually stupid. I was sceptic, but curious, so I watched like half of it before I gave up.
Most of the criticism boiled down to "it's kinda goofy and dumb when you think about it" (dude, we know, it's high fantasy, you need SOME suspension of disbelief). Stopped when he said Frodo and Sam were too gay.
My problem was that it was all done in such a bad-faithed way. I love, and I mean LOVE, laughing about goofy scenes in LOTR. Legolas surfing on his shield while firing arrows? Gold. But he did it in this "because of this tiny detail, the whole movie sucks" way, and that's ultimately the problem with these channels. They miss the whole for a sum of small details and moments and therefore don't really add anything meaningful.
It's not even fun watching them destroy something I don't like, because it's done in this bad faithed, nitpicky way.
To be fair, IIRC the criticism wasn’t that Frodo and Sam were “too gay” it was more that the movies went out of their way to frame them as a romantic couple, even though the original point of their relationship was to show the strength of their friendship. (It being based on the deep comrade Tolkien experienced in trench warfare during the “Great War.”). And yeah they kind of did do that.
Possibly unintentional, since the relationship is supposed to be very intense. Although the lighting cues and music did seem to romanticise their gestures. Though again, probably unintentional as the soft lighting and music cues were consistent for a lot of the character bonding moments, regardless of relationship.
But let’s just say there was a definite increase of slashfiction regarding the pair after the Peter Jackson trilogy was released. And I can kind of see why.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Frodo and Sam being a couple obviously. Hell, for the longest time as a kid, I actually did think they were a couple. And was slightly confused and a little disappointed when Sam seemingly married a woman at the end.
@@someonerandom8552 I feel like the movie didn't really do that any more than the books did.
Yes, the music makes it more romantic, but they also cut out the scene where Sam looks at Frodo's sleeping, peaceful face and literally says "I love him".
And all the scenes towards the end where they sleep arm in arm and hold hands during the day (for "safety reasons", but still)...
I read the books first, and I shipped them in both versions. And in both versions it's obviously the case that any subtext is unintentional, so I really don't agree with Nostalgia Critic here.
And I mean, increase in slashfic is a good thing! :D Though, to be fair, the movies sparked an increase in all kinds of LOTR fanfic, just by making it more popular in general.
Baguette Gott Fair point. It might have been just the context of the visual language for me. I was just a kid when I first saw the trilogy. So seeing the soft lighting and hearing the sort of melancholy music, I instantly connected it with the romance genre. (Probably couldn’t articulate why at the time though lol)
Yeah that is true. I guess I don’t really take the NC at his word. It’s all hyperbole. I mean I remember him making a big deal about HeMan being gay (for comedic affect.)
Though I guess in hindsight that’s not a great look, as it is rather immature. But hey, I was just as immature when I used to watch him.
I do quite like his takes on the Disney movies. Because there’s a real sense that he legitimately enjoys Disney products, so his mini reviews tend to be be more positive and he seems to try to see the good. His NC reviews of Disney properties notwithstanding. So I guess I ultimately agree with the thesis that reviews that are positive or trying to be are much better than just being nit picky for the sake of finding flaws.
Uhh, maybe it’s because I live in Australia but the lack of geek merch for Lord of the Rings deeply saddens me lol
But you’re right. The PJ trilogy certainly reignited the passion for Lord of the Rings and introduced a whole new generation of fledgling nerds to the Tolkien.
Baguette Gott I SWEAR I SEE YOU UNDER EVERY SINGLE LEFTIST VIDEOS HOLY SHIT
especially recently too, i kept seeing you ahksjhkfshvb
Man, I wish it was obligatory for these critics to have put out at least one book, or show, or movie before they critique something. Because then they would actually gain some perspective into the creative process and realise how fucking hard it is to go over every single aspect of a story and consider how 'dumb' it is. And the sheer amount of time, drafts, do-overs it takes to get to the final product, and depending on time restraints most creators are just going to be grateful they're done and don't want to enter the editing process for the fifth or sixth time.
I feel like if they did write a book or made a movie first, instead of just going off of some media critique classes they took in college or something, they would stop being so nitpicky. I know I stopped being so nitpicky about the media I consume once I started actually writing my novel.
This should be required viewing for anybody wanting to get into making critical content.
Agree. I really want to get into blogging, but I'm a bit of afraid that I would trap myself into the problem.
@Burning Blaze, Entirely my bad. I meant this should be required reading if people want to make critical content of actual substance instead of ragebaiting.
Moral of the video, don't make reviews your way. Be super nice and spam "in my opinion" over and over.
@@bigsmoke3617 Nice way to totally misinterpret what the point of the video was. It's fine to be assertive with your opinion, but Sarah's point was that you shouldn't act as if your opinion is fact.
@@AwesomeSoxz
Acting that your opinion is fact is technically impossible. It seems like you hate people who are confident and assertive with their opinions.
but potato chips are healthy and I have a full bag of them for every meal
I honestly don't get this movie reviewer hate that's going on lately... there are lots of different styles to it, people made funny characters. Everyone can pretty much pick their favorite flavor of criticism. I like watching in depth analysis videos about the shows and movies I like, I also enjoy watching Doug Walker trashing awful movies or even making fun of my favorite movies. But that's wrong because... it's just wrong? Why can't people just create and watch content THEY like?
@@atinity6749 Sarah explains this pretty clearly in the video. You can watch and like these videos, just know what they are. They could be nitpicking a perfectly fine movie because that's their job, but it's not good-faith criticism. They could also be personal opinions and not objective facts, even though they are framed as the latter. To quote Lindsay Ellis, "It's not 'THING BAD.' It's more like, 'THING EXISTS.'" Watch these videos with open eyes, so to speak.
Alice Wang
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm genuinely surprised that most people found the over the top style was a joke and that people were intelligent enough to figure out what was an actual critique inside all the jokes and exaggeration.
But of course, once again I give folks waaay too much credit.
Peter Coffin IT'S THE FAKE GIRLFRIEND GUY LMAOOOOOOOOOOO
@@mhawang8204 yes and there is subtext to that; IT SHOULDN'T EXIST.
Or I dunno. I figure there must be some reason people need to negatively point out that thing exist. And people are too dumb to figure out the thing is not as good as other things. Cuz they're dumb sheeples...
I agreed with a lot of Lily’s criticism’s of Steven Universe I just didn’t like a lot of the assumptions she made with the cast and crew and reasons why the show is the way it is.
@@SirBlackReeds REBECCA SUGAR DID WHAT
@@SirBlackReeds excuse me?
@@SirBlackReeds those pictures that she drew as a teenager had nothing to do with the show and was drawn years before the show was created or started. and she wasn't the only one, that is so common amongst shipping i've read plenty of smut of my favorite otps 🤦🏿♀️🤷🏿♀️🤷🏿♀️
@@SirBlackReeds *she
@@SirBlackReeds The images that aren't related to the show Steven Universe at all? Please. Find another strawman, your shit is wack.
Your lighting is inconsistent, you clearly don't care about the topic (T-poses into the Haven of Godteir criticism where I am praised for my objectively correct opinions)
But you have an AnImE pRoFiLe PiC, so your opinion is no longer vAlId *(t-poses harder in self righteous nature that's actually just me being a prick who doesn't respect others)*
God this was such a necessary video. For too long, bad media criticism has infested CZcams, and we need more essays like this to keep the bad actors in check. As someone who’s made a “Why ______ Is Terrible” video, I know first-hand the kind of weird sense of personal victory it can illicit - but that doesn’t mean it’s a healthy way to discuss media.
Great video, Sarah. Good luck with the fallout!
I am at a point where I consider “Why ____ Is Terrible” videos to be on the same level of clickbait as "TOP 10 ____ you won't belive number 3" videos. I mostly don't watch them anymore
Max Marriner I feel the same way. I want make similar videos but I always stop myself when I'm not having fun. If I'm not enjoying myself I try and see what it is I do enjoy about media analysis. Its hard to pin down what it is I enjoy within the analytical side of entertainment criticism.
Making "why ______ is terrible" is perfectly ok. Same as to making a "Why I love _______" video.
The problem comes when people start using the video to validate their beliefs rather than coming up with their own.
I have a feeling you'll love Folding Ideas video "Annihilation and Decoding Metaphor
". I haven't watched the video yet so I don't know if Sarah mentioned it.
I don't really care if people make a billion "Why X is terrible" and make is as hyperbolic as humanly possible. My issue is how often the X is inaccurate or "bad faith". The reason why "Why X is terrible" videos end up creating that problem is because there is only so many irredeemably bad things you can go through, so they end up needing to invent reasons or harping on small reasons.
this video really deserves an update of some sort. i still can't type in "steven universe review" on youtube without being bombarded with bad-faith rants without much nuance or understanding of its themes and characters... and worse yet, the next videos after those aren't even SU videos. they're just negative rants about other topics. that's what the algorithm assumes you want to see. i know (popular!) positive SU videos exist, but youtube has either buried them, assumed you want to only see negative reviews, or they're just not getting enough views to be considered "relevant". i know this happens in other fandoms as well and "negativity sells" more than being positive on youtube, but it seems like the negative rant industry of youtube has really fixated on SU in particular, and any response or defense are either ignored or buried.
I remember from one where they referred to Ruby as a boy through out. Not because they just plain didn’t know she’s a girl but because “Ruby is a boy because he looks like one. Also girls can’t date girls it’s femanazi propaganda.”
Yea!! I mean, even more than a month after SU has completely ended, I'm still getting new negative rants about it in my reccomended, despite how I continuously click on the not interested button (which, often serves to just remove all SU content from my reccs instead of these sort of specific videos)
i’d love to see a su review made by somebody indifferent to su with a positive attitude towards what the shows trying to represent (so it’s free of any offensive comments like anti lgbt+ and so on) just breaking down the show and it’s pros and cons and how well or bad it did things? i think it’d be really interesting to see the pov of somebody who isn’t super anti the show or obsessed with it.
i’d love to see a su review made by somebody indifferent to su with a positive attitude towards what the shows trying to represent (so it’s free of any offensive comments like anti lgbt+ and so on) just breaking down the show and it’s pros and cons and how well or bad it did things? i think it’d be really interesting to see the pov of somebody who isn’t super anti the show or obsessed with it.
Internet funny guys that cry about “politics” in media hate on it soley for clout, “bad fanbase”, “agenda” and ifunny brownie points
I never understood how people claim shows have ripped off theories from fans. Like, isn't the point of making theories that you are guessing what's going to happen? Like, if someone made a theory based on foreshadowing and then it happens, shouldn't the response be "I was right!" and not "they stole that!"?
Then you have shows that desperately don't want their fans to pick up on the foreshadowing, like when the Westworld showrunners change major plot points mid-production because someone on reddit correctly predicted something.
When creators try their hardest to avoid fan theories we end up with stuff like the Last Jedi, which the fans complain about too. Fan theories are such a lose-lose situation; you either go along with them and get accused of “ripping the fans off” or you avoid them and get accused of “not giving fans what they wanted/what they thought made sense”.
Fan theories are supposed to be a fun "guessing game" and I have no idea how it escalated into "THE SHOW STOLE MY IDEA" lmao
Every film dude on youtube who talks about animated films always hates Pixars Brave with a burning passion, and I literally cannot fathom why?
Although, my film rating system only consists of good and bad, so if I'm entertained by a movie it's a cinematic masterpiece to me!
@Trevak D'hal I think that movies can have objectively good or bad elements of filmmaking, but in the long run what really matters is if the film means anything to the person watching it
Saberspark mainly did historical events in the entertainment industry and asking questions of the animated industry i.e History of Pixar, History of Private Snafu etc. And just now transitioned to critiquing and praising animated content. He's really informative
Right now he primarily does "What the f*** is up with this (weird cartoon)?!" kind of videos. Though entertaining, it does smack of someone leaning into a niche for the sake of views. If those are the videos he genuinely wants to make, fair enough, they are good videos that I enjoy. But I'd hate for him to feel pressured into something he doesn't want by my traffic.
@@samwallaceart288 To be fair though, I don't think we should confuse the so called "riffing" with "criticism". The whole "let's watch something and poke fun at it" is something MST3K started and its influence has been pretty strong on the earlier internet "critics", who in turn influenced people like Saberspark. Or at least his "What the f*** is up with" series.
For example, while people like AVGN and Nostalgia Critic call their videos "reviews", they are much more like riffs and they shouldn't really be taken that seriously. It's supposed to be just harmless fun. Though at some point Nostalgia Critic really did start to see his videos as genuine commentary and he started shitting out those terrible editorials that are just flat out bad. I think he himself didn't get the difference between riffing a film and actual video essays.
I kinda wish the art of "comedic commentary just for the giggles" was mentioned in this video as a lot of people who make film related content on CZcams don't even claim to be actual critics.
Not sure what this has to do with my comment, but sure, agreed.
@@samwallaceart288 Lol. Maybe my reply was a tad bit too general.
I suppose my original point was that Saberspark does these more riff-like videos simply because they're faster and easier to make than a more thought-out analysis or history videos that he usually does and he wants his audience to have something on his channel to watch, but this doesn't mean he replaced the latter with the former.
Then my mind went on a tangent and my reply made no sense anymore.
But now I feel that Saberspark is pretty much acting like everyone else with his latest content in terms of "bad faith criticism", nitpicking, and the whole bandwagon effect. I did liked some of his older videos that covered historical events and overviews of the entertainment industry (mainly animation), but now it feels like he's just running out of genuine ideas to talk about and just went straight for the easier/shadier tactics to gain him more attention. Plus he also comes across as a bit opinionated at times too. I even noticed how some of his videos got made prematurely for that reason as well and felt like borderline clickbait materials to support the hot topic/bandwagon effect... He made some redundant videos rambling about the same topics such as the current state of Cartoon Network and Teen Titans Go. Also, the current MLP isn't exactly the pinnacle of modern animation as he, and other bronies, made it out to be a lot (but I chose to let that one side with him anyhow). The "what the hell is ___?" video series are just him wasting time riffing on obscure, foreign, weird, and low budget videos. Basically doing what we already seen and heard other reviewers done long before him that adds nothing new.
Nice thumbnail heh
Do I nitpik too much? Maybe. Thats something I think about a lot. I do always try to back it up with why I think such and such doesnt work or whatever.
But I guess I mainly just use tv shows and movies as a springboard to tell storytimes or jokes or whatever that are really only tangentially related haha.
Or like in my recent Home Alone video, I just think its hilarious that Kevin's stunt double is clearly a middle aged man
For the most part, I guess the "joke" is that I actually really like teen dramas / romcoms but I also acknowledge that they are mostly garbage.
You touched on this a little at the end, but I believe there is room for "high brow" critiques AND stuff that you talk about in this video. (Unless its just factually incorrect which, I agree, is not good)
This sounds like a cheap excuse, but if someone is looking for deep, well researched critiques of movies and TV shows, my channel is probably not for them.
I mean I mostly just poke fun at Riverdale anyway haha.
*takes a moment to squeal about Alex* Ahem....ok...that totally didn't happen. Not like your content is stuff my partner and I wait for all week....not at all.
Ok so, I can't speak to what Sarah was going for specifically, but I feel like a good reason I PERSONALLY would leave you off the negative reviewers list is most of your viewers (including me) understand that your videos are overall not as serious. They're littered with jokes about your own life or those of a stereotyped nerd. You go out of your way to specifically comment when something is a joke, so any satire is quick to be picked up for what it is. When you ARE tearing something apart it seems to be from a similar perspective to Jenny, who is listed as one of the better ones. More a "so bad it's good to watch and laugh at" than aimed at talking people out of watching it. (God, I almost decided to pick up Riverdale, despite knowing it's trash, because of you.) Compare Cinema Sins. Now, I watch their content sometimes because it's good for a quick laugh and I immediately disregard any opinions they try through bias to get an audience to have. I also tend to stick to videos for media I have ALREADY seen. But, overall, they have been caught in interviews oscillating between calling their work satire OR something to be taken seriously, based on what reflects the PR Narrative they need/want to create to keep their base intact. It's a similar reason to why I stopped watching Family Guy ahead of the curve, or why I can't stand Seth McFarland. The "it's satire and you're dumb if you don't get it" is SUCH a copout. If it's satire, your viewers should know that, or at least it should be obvious.
I realize I'm being super tangential and rambly, so I'll cut it down to:
In my opinion at least, you take pains to avoid falling in this trap, and do a good job making sure your viewers don't take you too seriously, at least not too the subject media's detriment. You make me want to view stuff I wouldn't have otherwise, not the other way around. :)
Alex Meyers This may be a bit long, but it's only because I love your channel so damn much!
I think that what distinguishes your content is we were able to see the videos you made when you were genuinely critical (i.e. Amy Schumer is unlikable, 13 Reasons Why). So when you made the shift into a more animated, comedic, and (lovably) manic style, your audience could easily spot the difference.
And you always frame your newer content as "XYZ was a weird show," which makes you seem like either (1) an outsider looking in, or (2) an old fan reminiscing on something nostalgic. It never feels like you're some hypercritical super fan, you're just a viewer that can point at something and go "that's really weird." And that's why it's fun to watch you; you remind us that all the shows we were obsessed with were really really weird.
(Also, watching you subject yourself to the shitshow that is Riverdale will never stop being hysterical)
I definitely feel like you're the least problematic out of all of these. Mostly because you don't spread misinformation, or act like you're better than you think you are. I also appreciate your high school stories. Genuine, but far enough away to be funny.
~ TDG
My personal problem with your videos is that your title doesn't really match the video content.
Like the Home Alone video, you didn't really discuss any issues with the film and why it "doesn't make sense". You just bring up a couple inconsistencies with the phone plot point but that's it.
Like in the last minute in your wrap up at the end card you say that the character motivations don't really make sense, but you never discuss why that is or give examples. I get that your aim is comedy but the titles make it seem like you are going to do actual critique.
yeah but you're actually funny tho but the thing is just because you don't like something doesn't mean someone else is wrong for liking the thing good to you isn't always going to be good to me
I took a look at Lily’s response video just to get a balanced opinion and she’s already banished her dislike bar to hell so I think that tells you most of what you need to know
@ahsido1 you see to know that i'd have to be a watcher of lily's videos and the problem with that is that i dont hate myself
I think we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking a banished like bar automatically means a poor quality video. If I recall correctly, Dan Olson's channel also has that bar turned off for all videos. And Dan's channel is extremely thoughtful, well-researched, and empathetic to creators and audiences alike.
Reasons to turn off the bar include:
Mass dislike campaigns by online trolls.
To avoid using the numbers as a personal measuring stick (put a ? on this, because I don't know if creators can still see the number of likes and dislikes after removing it from videos).
And to clarify, I expect that Lily's response IS poor-quality. I'm trying to make a point about how we preemptively judge quality in general, not trying to defend the quality of this one particular thing.
@@StNick119 What do you mean by measuring stick?
Most of these “insert show is bad” videos almost always blow a small flaw as if it was a war crime, like people really acted as if season 4 of steven universe is the worst thing to ever be on television because it had a lot of filler.
The Crewnivers released a story outline pitch to Cartoon Network including the twist 5 years before the twist happens.
See, now this is evidence to refute the idea that they stole the idea from the community.
Of course, Lily never said that. Let me grab the quote:
"The big twist of the show is that Rose is Pink Diamond but that twist was guessed by the fandom the moment Pink Diamond's name was first mentioned. And I said at the time that the "Rose is Pink Diamond" theory was without a doubt the worst possible way to end that entire arc, which meant that Sugar was definitely going to do it."
In the later parts of the video I can maybe see where you would get the idea that Lily was saying that Sugar stole it from the community? Maybe if you cited a quote or something I'd understand better.
15:19 is the timestamp for that, btw. Not sure if you want that.
@@jowkeen9169 If it wasn't Lily specifically, definitely there were a ton of SU crits on tumblr who rallied behind the "stealing from fans" flag.
The whole situation makes me feel like Sokka in that one Avatar episode about Madame Wu's predictions.
in the sense that the populace is having blind faith in video essay's in general? I agree with that actually. I bet this was the norm for historical essayists too haha
Why is the fact that the twist wasn't mind blowing or unexpected a bad thing tho?
At this point into the series, the fandom had an extremely long amount of time to think about the possible ways the shattering of Pink Diamond Could have played out, the Rose is Pink Diamond theory, while prevalent, was quickly overthrown by other ones fuelled by Red Herrings or clues that could be missinterpreted, so the reveal ended up being interesting and somewhat unexpected because it brought back a somewhat forgotten theory into light, effectively surprising the audience.
Besides the fact that it didn't end up being overly predictable, the twist itself fits naturally into the narrative and makes us revalue and fully understand many of the characters, making the story richer in retrospect, what more could you guys possible want? Most other possible outcomes wouldn't have changed anything, making the reveal meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
@@nanusantos1696 personally o think the twist qpuld havd been awesome! If they didnt have a chunk of episodes that could have been squeezed down into something smaller、 therefore letting the idea be fresher and a little less "yes we know、 we knew from the start and the odea os boring and we camt theorize anymore because we already figured everything out" i think the crewniverse has a hard tome prioritizing.
I think even negativity needs to come from a place that's genuine. That's why I like Jenny Nicholson's content; even when she's tearing into a bad fanfiction or talking about a poorly contructed theme park, you can these are experiences she enjoys.
I've made some analytical videos of obscure low-quality cartoons in the past, but I do have an ironic fondness for them and want more people to know about their existence. There's been plenty of videos I haven't made because I'd have nothing to say beyond, "Look! Thing! Thing bad!" But I guess low-hanging fruit matters less when you get paid for it?
@Alex & Rah it doesn't seem like you got the idea lindsey was trying to say in the video...
I LOVE JENNY 😍
@Alex & Rah uh, the reason discussions about cultural appropriation are so serious in the first place is because of its relationship with colonialism. like lindsay said, it's a neutral term in of itself, but it gets contentious because of historical/cultural context.
I love Jenny. No matter how bad the thing is that she's talking about, she always sounds a mixture of thrilled/amazed that it even exists and sees the humor in all of it. I could watch her talk about bad teen movies and One Direction fan-fiction forever.
I think that a part of the problem is sometimes you don't know why you dislike something, you just know you do, or maybe you dislike it for shallow reasons. Like, I'm going to be honest here, the reason I dislike Steven Universe is that I simply cannot stand Steven's voice. It is just so grating to me and hard to get over. But I can't exactly do an essay on that, because it is about personal taste, and not objectivity. So perhaps all you can resort to is "thing bad!" But then maybe you just....shouldn't do an essay on it?
"Steven Universe is bad because characters are sometimes slightly off model!!!"
Me: *laughs in G1 Transformers as three Starscreams fly across the screen*
One show has multi-millions of dollars behind it and the other was made on a budget as large as an episode of Family Matters.
When you are a flagship TV show as popular as steven universe was, then yes. The animation needs to actually be to the standards of the budget. It wasnt.
@@ottekitfun9626 The animation was absolutely at the standards of the budget. The consistency of the art was not. Those are separate things. Please do not confuse them.
@@arosenthal3318 consistency definitely adds to the art quality in a fucking animation. The artists for the series did exactly what they were told to do, the storyboard artists were just extremely fucking lazy to draw consistent models in their storyboards. The animation studios that drew, Sunmin image pictures and Korea rough draft, are notorious for drawing and animating exactly what they are given.
The storyboard for the animation was drawn on fucking stickynotes and stuck together while creating the story, rather than making the story, and then making the storyboard afterwards. Which is the entire reason as to the haphazard storyboard.
@@ottekitfun9626 Animation is just movement. The consistency of the art has nothing to do with that. If the storyboarders had stayed on model for every single board it would have taken a lot more time and money to maintain the same amount of frames. There is actually an episode where the characters are way closer to the model sheets (here comes a thought), and the frame rate takes a major hit because of that. Storyboards being drawn on stickynotes is pretty common. Not sure why you specifically pointed that out. The fact that they wrote the story around the boards is silly but it’s a separate issue. Also while I do agree that the art could have had some better quality control, that’s the fault of the art director, not the storyboarders. You really shouldn’t be speaking about the animation industry in such an objective manner if you aren’t properly educated about it. It’s fine to just share your opinions, but you can’t act like what you’re saying is objectively true.
Wow, it's amazing how well this aged after five years, and it's looking to age even better as time goes on.
Yeah the whole "it's satire/tropy therefore bad" fallacy is annoying as heck when certain reviewers use it.
That's the reason why pkrussl got major shit for his Hazbin hotel pilot review because he hated it for using tropes but never, to my knowledge, elaborated as to why it's bad. Also the dude was nitpicky as hell.
Agreed. Critics have to give valid reasons for why something does or doesn't work along with giving proper context (I'm referring to the "Harder Daddy" joke taken out of context and hated on). To my knowledge, pkrussl only pointed out things he didn't like or thought would rile up people and bullshitted his way through an "explanation" of why it didn't work.
I haven’t even watched video in question, but pkrussl definitely did the same things in other videos. It makes him frustrating to watch, especially when he targets specific groups and says they’re bad, but has no elaboration as to why (like animation meme makers on CZcams. He says they’re bad...but that’s cause he normally searched for the worst of the worst, made by novices, and then used them as examples of the average content within the entire community. We also ask why it’s bad to have this content online, and he doesn’t give a good answer, other than it’s bad.)
Aka I don’t like pkrussl since he seems to love viciously ripping things apart but doesn’t put thought into why he’s doing it or why his audience should care or should also dislike the content.
Hazbin Hotel isnt very good doe, and it has quite poorly writing, comedic writing and timing, and pacing in general. But the animation was good doe
@@stenhansenmaling1281 don't know about Hazbin Hotel but I've been a fan of Vivzie ever since her Zoophobia days. When I watched the Zoophobia short I was kind of... insulted?
The original comic was fairly mature and had good writing but the short was so much of a kid's cartoon it was insulting to the original story. And as much as I love broadway songs the song Jack sings is just really bad and poorly written
@@drawnwithlove3499 I don’t know anything about Vivziepop, but I have watched all of the pilots for the different shows, and it feels like if you took kid show’s writing and simply put mature themes on it- because honestly, they seem to cater more to a young-teen audience. i feel bad for you though, watching a good series get toned down like that is painful
You completely nail one of my biggest pet peeves. “I don’t like this” does not equal “This thing is terrible.” It’s something I always keep in mind in my reviews. I’m not a fan of FPS games. They’re not my thing, so I can’t give a decent opinion on the gameplay of Destiny, Halo, etc., because I don’t like FPS gameplay. I’ve seen so many people equate their personal likes/dislikes with a piece of media’s quality and it irks TF out of me.
I don't like a thing. Let me explain why I don't like a thing. Here are the reasons why I do not like this thing.
well that's always with every critic. they are always biased. so if someone says it's terrible, always take it as I think it's terrible. hell, it's not only with critics. you can even disagree with pretty set facts. as long as you have better arguments that is.
All criticism is opinion though.
@@Science112095 not ALL criticism are opinions but alright
@@janetreid4515 You really believe that? I mean even Siskel and Ebert was opinion.
Jenny Nicholson is good at criticizing media, she has an almost 3 hour video in the Vampire Diaries series where she critiques it while also giving it a fair chance
This will sound weird but I only half agree. Like I think her criticism comes from a genuine place as opposed to the performative or flawed places of other critics. But I still find that that criticism comes from a bad place. Just a genuinely bad one as opposed to a genuinely good one. Which sucks as I find her very good at what she does and highly intelligent, but even when she talks about things positively it is with the caveat that she must mention the thing she loved is dumb. So everything feels very dark in content. With the exception of the spider video where we saw real joy from her and it was amazing!
I can’t take Jenny seriously. Especially her monotone voice that just screams “I wanna sound superior and so above everything I’m reviewing”. It’s hard to take a critic’s opinion seriously when they sound like they’ve never experienced joy in life. Whereas many bad reviewers have the problem of coming across way too overly-passionate and angry at media, Jenny has the opposite problem of sounding uninvested in it like she doesn’t even want to make the video.
@@8bitdiedie I’m actually ok with her tone and it never came off as superior to me. Though I will agree with a lot of time she feels like she doesn’t want to make the video she is doing. Vampire Diaries felt way better than most stuff though. There was a bit more joy and a lot less, “I love this but also it’s dumb and I hate it” in that video. Hell it finally got me around to subscribing.
@@Arufonsa1 I get where you're coming from, but a part of that may be due to a history of getting made fun of for having "cringey" media interests, especially when it comes to media aimed at young female demographics. It could be that she's internalized that and now feels the need to defend or somehow express self- awareness of their flaws, to pre-emptively avoid getting criticized. It's not ideal, but I don't think it necessarily comes from a place of malice or superiority
@@MentalSymbiosis I certainly don’t think it comes from a place of superiority. She is normally pretty humble if not a little prickly. And all that may be true but it doesn’t necessarily change anything. I think that type of attitude can still come from a bad place even if it’s one built out of trauma response. It’s certainly not the best way of processing but like… I don’t know their life and I’m not going to sit here and say what she should be doing for her mental health. I’m just willing to say throwing that much bad energy out there isn’t great and again while not from a place of superiority I would say it comes from a place of malice even if it’s malice against herself or a possibly deserved critic.
When I was in a comment conversation on a Jack Saint rebuttal video discussing MauLer, somebody once used the term *Schrodinger's Criticism.* Can we make that an official term? Because I think it applies to so many popular online media critics who conveniently switch between "This is my serious critique" or "This isn't a serious critique" depending on how many flaws one can find in their argument if they fact check it.
*Schrodinger's Criticism* - A piece of criticism which is either intentional or not meant to be taken seriously depending on how well it stands up when held to scrutiny and examination. Examples include:
CinemaSins - Claims that their nitpicky jokes or misinformation when dinging a movie are "satirical" or "intentionally wrong" as they play a character, but have numerous non-satirical videos on CSJeremy where many of the points they bring up as they drive back to their home are later found in the Everything Wrong With Videos. Also at points have claimed they are genuine review several times on Reddit and CZcams.
Doug Walker - Has an incredibly blurry line between the character of Nostalgia Critic playing an over the top character and sarcastically "jokes" about problems that are also found when he and his brother are sitting down to watch a film.
MauLer - When confronted on the fact he gets numerous nitpicks wrong in his Unbridled and even Critique videos defends himself via saying: "Those unbridled videos are not serious critiques." yet behaves, nitpicks, and tears apart media in extremely similar ways in both "styles" of video with the only difference being length and elaboration.
MauLer has always rubbed me the wrong way, it definitely seems like he takes his own opinion way to seriously to the point of calling it objective criticism
When has he ever said his Unbridled series is not serious criticism? On EFAP discussing this video from Sarah (which overall he found to have some strong points, just vague and lacking examples) he admits to Unbridled being somewhat overexagerated as well as that it mixes in objective observations and subjective takes. He owns up to his errors in his videos, whether it's something as small as calling Finn and Poe's escape in the Force Awakens a 'mutiny' instead of a desertion, plus admitting to some of his stances in his Black Panther: an Unbridled Rage being too vague or even off the mark in his observations. He admitted to this while covering a video taking him to task over that, he and the creator of that response video, Jay Exci, talked and ended up actually having a discussion that lead to them working together to this day. Unlike Quinton, who will actually misquote and mischaracterise him. In relation to the Last Jedi, MauLer is incorrectly quoted as saying: 'if you like the Last Jedi, good luck calling other films good' when he actually said 'if you think the Last Jedi is a good film, good luck calling other films bad'. There's an important distinction: overwhelming character and lore inconsistencies, plot holes and contrivances make a film (at the very least its script) objectively bad. It's perfectly fine to like the film, I like it just fine even though I know it is an objectively bad movie because of the major repercussions to the story, world and characters set up in previous films. Please just show me MauLer saying his Unbridled videos aren't serious because other than some hyperbole they are definitely not in bad faith. This is daft on my part to speak on his video making process, but from what I've seen the only films he puts in those series are films that elicit strong emotions (Rage, Praise or Meh). He doesn't go in wanting to hate or negatively slant a movie based on some personal vendetta. He doesn't want these movies to be bad or to not enjoy them: the existence of Praise or Meh videos shows he's interested in bashing every movie with 'an Unbridled Rage'. Just films that actually warrant that reaction, removing the idea that it is in bad faith or 'not serious criticism' which I have never heard him say
@@jordannewitt just because you’re talking about mauLer doesn’t mean you have to write an essay
@@sickomode2761 clever. Write that down before someone takes it
I love the similar phrase "Schrodinger's Douchebag": when someone says offensive stuff and decides whether they're kidding or not based on other people's reactions.
Doesn't help that many if the few good points LilyOrchard made were stolen from me. (Not kidding. She credited me as a "source" in her Steven Universe essay when many of her points were deliberately copied from my video on SU)
God, I noticed that and I'm so sorry
Robobuddies Yeah, I noticed that too. Rather unfortunate to see such plagiarism
How are you not verified?
@@aaronlandry3934 wait like did she lift them point by point or did she just vaguely mention them? cause I feel like some of the stuff like the animation errors are kinda obvious in a general sense, no?
Yeah, when I saw the video, I was thinking that too.
13:50 Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-"It's Satire!"
This (Sarah's) comment is such a concise and apt way of describing the phenomenon of "I was joking (unless you agree with me)" that I'm just happy with words right now.
The code would give you 30 Satires actually.
Can’t believe I missed this video, really great stuff 🙌
Didn't expect to see you here. Love your KOTH videos!
All of Lily's videos are like that Steven Universe one. She misses the point of everything she criticizes and makes baseless accusations that make no sense in context. She's like a bad parody of what alt-right people THINK leftist youtubers are like.
Well, isn't that just your opinion, no? From what I can see when I watch her videos, she tends to stay on point way more than any other CZcamsr I watch, and she tends to reach a conclusion that is well backed up by actual facts and/or things the show clearly shows.
@@ottekitfun9626 Then you might want to consider watching better youtubers
@@JesseColton and please, for the love of all things LGBTQA+, stop strawmaning
@@ottekitfun9626 You keep using that word I'm not sure it means what you think it means
@@JesseColton you mean strawmaning? The thing where you attacked me with "watch better CZcamsrs" rather than the argument at hand? Oh yeah, guess that is an ad hominem. Not that it matters much, seeing as the same principle is behind it.
"Sequels and remakes trying to fix plotholes that were never really problems to begin with.... like "where did Nagini come from?""
not gonna lie, this hit a nerve for me
I certainly hope that CinemaSins does not consider themselves legitimate media criticism
At the start they probably didn't but now it's really hard to tell, they still have joke sins but most of it seems really serious, at least most of their new ones.
They're Schrodinger's critics: they're serious until someone criticizes them, and then it's just satire/entertainment
I thought they were a satire/comedy channel... Are they not?
they dont, its for entertainment purposes
@SerNoddicusTheGallant nope they’ve let it go to their head. They think they’re actual critics. Command/control-F “fair use” in this Reddit AMA. “We’re parody, review, and criticism all rolled into one.” www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5eki3q/we_are_jeremy_barrett_of_cinemasins/
This is why I never click on videos that have “EXAMPLE is terrible and here is why” type titles.
I have always felt that they were more about the creators of those videos going on a power trip and tearing to shreds whatever piece of media they are talking about, without really having to face any of that same criticism that they are oh-so-proudly dishing out.
Basically I see them as the CZcams version of bullies. So vocal in their tear downs of others, but completely elusive and non-engaging to anyone who wants to call them out on their own behaviour.
I personally enjoy watching videos that are dissections of popular media, but I make sure that I am extremely picky about who I trust enough to subscribe to and watch regularly, precisely because I am aware how much my opinions will become informed and influenced by these videos, and by extension, their creators.
Exactly
Me too
I feel like this is in part due to the parasocial Relationship between a creator and their viewers. It's easy to get a high off of the community you built and telling them what to think. Even if your called out, your own community will cling to you. This also applies to everyone, including the good critics. It really feels like the main reason we even have this problem.
This actually helps explain why Red Letter Media still reviews Star Wars and stuff like Picard, and don't JUST do "Best of the Worst" and re: View, even though those two seem like the actual projects they have passion and drive for!
Thanks, 4 years ago Sarah Z!
Jenny Nicholson and Lindsay Ellis are on the recommendation list, so I must check everyone else.
Update, I checked all of them. Didn't really like Now You See It.
And let me recommend Cosmonaut Variety Hour
"Just Write" is another great channel. :)
I stopped following Jenny when I realized she was still whinging exclusively about "Rise of Skywalker" two months after the fact.
@@rabbitsurvivor1896 So? If you're passionate about someone you're gonna talk about it
@@rabbitsurvivor1896 It's bothering me too because I really don't like that franchise, but I prefer her videos when she's passionate about the topic, so I'm just waiting it out until she finds a new thing to focus on.
The “cartoon critical” movement is unbearable. Inb4, I “think critically” about the media I consume and I have no issue with acknowledging media can’t be perfect. But people who subscribe to the idea that every little thing they don’t like means that something is terrible and has no worth are wrong. This coupled with the easy access to creators we have with social media now leads to danger. We can let a writer know they’ve written something racist in about five minutes, good, but we can also send then death threats for...Not writing the story YOU wanted to see just as fast, bad.
We’ve got blogs full of people who say the most awful things about actors and creators’ lives based on the fact they just don’t like the work they’ve done, shitting on hard working artists, writers, ect when they themselves have no experience in doing any of that or doing it well, who get praised for some kind of “genius”. There’s so much clout to be gotten in these communities for being as mean and nasty as possible which is what I especially hate. It makes people think of creators as machines and not HUMAN BEINGS. Also it makes people think that plot and writing as bad, somehow.
It’s SUPER annoying and disheartening. And this has bled into all forms of consumption. People will have this attitude about a small time story done by a hobby artist in school, treating it like a studio funded blockbuster film. It’s not right or fun.
Again, calling out something that is actually bad in media that hasn’t been acknowledged in the story and called out in-story as part of the narrative is good but treating “I hate this art style for a reason I can’t articulate other than I just don’t” as some sin worthy of harassing someone off the internet for is off the wall.
Anyway, good video that needed to be made. I’m hoping this current fad in approach to media dies sometime in the New ‘20’s because I want people to actually like things to like them again and I want people who are telling stories in new(er) and more empathetic ways to get praise instead of hate so that more people are encouraged to create NEW things instead of this recycling of things we’ve seen before.
The "Cartoon critical" movement got really bad cause I felt like it got taken over by only Nostalgia Critic knock-offs and there's nearly no one who looks at animation from a technical/historical perspective. People like RebelTaxi and MysteriousMrEnter have grasped this scene and I think they are skewed so heavily on personal opinion. Saberspark is someone I like, but he tends to revolve around trends.
That's sound like YMS which nitpicks or criticize the audience that likes a movie than talking about what the movie is trying to do.
Yeah. I want a Sonic games to be like Sonic 06. Sonic 06 has some worth after all.
@@MayorOfEarth79 wait does rebelTaxi go after people the same way enter does?
cinema sins interacts with every film like it's their first exchange with human culture & it makes them very stressful to watch
A lot of these bad media criticisms seem to almost always end up being a personal vendetta against one content creator.
The worst thing is that this kind of criticism leads to creating bubbles. It's not "The Last Jedi Review" but instead "Why The Last Jedi is bad".
The only way I could know whether Solo was a genuinely bad film was to see Jenny Nichols destroy it. The unbridled, unapologetic, and utterly self-aware-less hysteria surrounding the Last Jedi literally had people who liked the movies changing their opinions post review. Luckily Nichols was as similarly unapologetic and stubborn-headed as these flip-floppers about all the reasons she liked the movie.
They were complaining about a director who's previous work had been lauded over by the nerd community, a guy many of them didn't seem to realize directed one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad, and who obviously is a talented filmmaker on the film's merits alone, and these fanboys made jokes about him never working in Hollywood again, and celebrated his expulsion from the series' future installments. Despite making a _universally critically acclaimed_ commercial blockbuster, and despite it being the final film of beloved Star Wars actress and _feminist_ Carrie Fisher; of course the film's toxic criticisms were tinged with the same anti-feminist rhetorical hackery as The Force Awakens, dialed up to 11.
It's no wonder then that when a prequel featuring Han Solo dropped, with a reportedly "Hollywood Blacklist" level script behind it, and another acclaimed, and this time Academy Award _winning_ director in Ron Howard, that I was skeptical of the film's low quality, even when accounting for the reported production problems, and a change in directors.
It felt good, in a weird sort of way, when I tuned into Jenny's video and she had very little that was good to say about the movie, because at least I could trust that her opinions were sincere and considered.
The Last Jedi turned my 15yr-old niece off Star Wars; her mum had been raising her on the franchise for years - being an avid fan herself - but Rian Johnson killed her interest in ever seeing another Star Wars movie.
Luckily she still loves the Marvel movies, so I can take her to see those instead. I'm the "cool" aunty because I like the "cool" things that she and her little friends like, so I'm actually kinda glad she doesn't want to see any more of the Star Wars stuff. Personally, my favourite sci-fi was Babylon 5 and Farscape. Never really cared about Star Wars, that was my sister's love, so I'm actually a little bit greatful to Johnson for making such a shitty movie and saving me from having to see any more of that dull universe.
@@CalamityM r/thathappened. stop pretending that because a small child has your opinion it makes you credible.
@@CalamityM r/thathappened. stop pretending that because a small child has your opinion it makes you credible.
"Why The Last Jedi was SJW FEMINIST PROPAGANDA TRASH!"
Not to be confused with "Why Black Panther is ANTI-WHITE MARXIST GARBAGE"
I notice this with Dunkey fans. When Dunkey says he hates JRPGs, his fan base will immediately shit on Japanese games that they *didn't even play*
They immediately call turn based combat "outdated" because they don't like that form of combat. That's fine if you don't like TBC. But calling it "outdated" is ignorant. I don't like racing games. But I won't call every racing game outdated.
Turn based combat is very broad gamey, so I can understand why people don't like it, but like, porting board games to computer software is not the worst thing to do, particularly given you can do things where you expect a player to win more, and hand off DM duties to a machine at the cost of flexibility
Heck even dunkey himself admits he just doesn't like slow stuff. Idk why people get mad over jrpgs
Wow, I've heard people call it that in real life and didn't realize where they got it from. Was always taken aback by it.
No the his fan base that does that are the one that already have that opinion before dunkey made a video on it. Just because they shit on Japanese game because dunkey made a video on it doesn't mean they were brainwashed by him. They probably already those kinds of games since the beginning
@@menantumakawak idk about that. I think that it's absolutely true that people who consume media criticism have their opinions shaped by it, unwittingly or not. Even if I didn't like the Star Wars prequels I'm going to dislike them more because of RLM's Plinkett reviews showed relevant information that I didn't understand when I saw it as a kid. Even knowing about the production process for media informs one's opinion of it. There are for sure impressionable people who listen to their favorite CZcamsr shitting on JRPGs and all the sudden think that Chrono Trigger is terrible without playing it. That's kind of the point of Sarah's video.
I was a casual viewer of Lily's Steven Universe video with no knowledge of how the animation industry worked, and I thought it was a good video at the time and believed it. Luckily my friend sent me a response video to Lily's that detailed all of the factually incorrect and unsubstantiated things that she said, and that reversed my opinion on the vid. I was and still am a big fan of SU.
Which video?
Everything Sarah said here was a lie btw
@@beamer9872 huh
@@beamer9872 If by "everything" you mean literally nothing, then yes.
@@Hawkatana thank you for reminding me that i used to watch steven universe video essays, this sucks.
Oh, I saw "Steven Universe is garbage" once... My favourite argument was "fusion with 66% gems who look black for me is less stable than fusion with 50%gems who look black for me so the show is racist".
holy shit dude that one sent me
Also "How DARE Rose tell Bismuth that killing is wrong? So racist!"
And who can forget the complete misunderstanding of Garnet’s character that she only read as “two smol gays in a trench coat”?
@@coffeeaddict9605 but they literally killed millions, that’s like saying hitler shouldn’t get the death sentence if he didn’t kill himself
@@Smugly33810 maybe he shouldn't if you think that nobody should. Would this sentence even matter? Maybe, but it isn't something you can tell for sure or objective, but rather matter of morality dilemma.
I felt so old when you explained the evolution of video essays like it was a history class because I lived all of it personally TT^TT
I getcha. How old are we, that this is worthy of the history books already?
Lindsey Ellis actually wrecked Cinema Sins for me, she pointed their flaws out and I just couldn’t sit through it after that
For me it was jay exci and cinema wins
@@lolface_9363 I stopped watching it after watching bobvids video "Sustaining Stupidity--Why CinemaSins is Terrible."
@@lolface_9363 th3birdman did it for me with his two parter on CinemaSins
@@masoodhk258 Shaun for me
Wow, I haven't watched Lily in so long , I completely forgot how angry Steven Universe tended to make her
@YaBoi Depression
Have you watched Mlp?
@YaBoi Depression it's also made for 7 year olds so i dont take it seriously.
It's easy to make someone sound angry when you only show the parts where they yell.
@YaBoi Depression Great argument.
@@thehumanflintfun9666 yo, Lily sounded angry in HER video lol. That's fact
In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is a magic xylophone, or something?
I personally dont really consider CinemaSins criticism at all, more like low grade jokes and opinions being thrown at a movie.
The trouble is that people do view them as genuine criticism. Plus like Sarah said, their format can work for smaller channels where you're just picking apart terrible films, but as they've got bigger they've had to cover current films that'll get clicks and end up just being insanely nitpicky, and very often misinformed. Hell, you can watch almost any cinemasins video these days and find several things they got wrong, whether from not understanding the film/plot or from just... not knowing something about basic general knowledge. When this is brought up, they also never admit they're wrong, it's always excused as "satire" or "oh the character i'm playing is just an ignorant asshole who didn't know the thing, but *of course* i knew the thing. it's a joke!!!"
Cinemasins is the family guy of film analysis
I feel the same way about CinemaSins, though I get that not everyone will. I enjoy watching their videos about things I enjoy, but I've been frustrated by their videos about things I genuinely dislike, because they are not actually being critical. Some of their videos feel more like love letters than negative reviews. And I can't watch them talk about something I haven't seen, because all they're really doing is pointing out interesting things you might have missed and sharing their reactions, and I need some familiarity to have any idea what they're getting at.
I get what you mean, as most people, and some people I do know believe they are valid critics. I just wish they'd start actually giving real criticism. I used to really enjoy their content, especially when they made fun of bad/mediocre horror movies, but with how their channel is now, its just sad. Sad because something good can be there, but it's not since it's easier to stick with the formula than change to legitimate criticism.
Yeah I've never really made it through a whole videos of theirs because the jokes are so unfunny
I watched Lily's Steven Universe video, and I genuinely don't recall her saying Rebecca stole from fan theories. I remember a *ton* of personal attacks, just not that one.
She did, it was around when she began talking about Pink Diamond. I don't blame you for not remembering it though, the video is over two freaking hours long, people are bound to miss some of it.
That's actually incorrect. In the video, Lily was talking about how the Pink Diamond is Rose fantheory had been batted around the moment it was revealed Rose shattered Pink, and Lily basically said "that's the stupidest possible story decision, so of course it'll be the one Sugar picks".
She's probably lying about having "called it" because anyone can say they called something in hindsight, but I've listened and re-listening to her analysis something like five times now-nowhere does she say Sugar STOLE fan theories.
O.K, after double checking a transcript of the preview, it turns out you were right.
Lily was just saying Rebecca was leeching off fan theory's made by "people far more creative then her" and her show was only popular because of those un-named "creative people" filling in these "supposed gaps" making everyone supposedly think Rebecca's more creative then she is...
I'll admit I was wrong, but to be fair, it's an easy misconception to make.
(Apologies in advance for this being long, I went off on a rant about a minute in.)
There's a lot of implication and subtext in both of these videos, so I can forgive Sarah to some extent, but some things in this video she blatantly lied about. Like how Stevenbombs made up a "significant" amount of the video, i.e like seven minutes in a two hour video, or how Lily blamed solely Rebecca for the animation problems when she actually widened the scope of her critique to the people who did storyboards on the SU team-one of which, yes, is Sugar.
But in her response, Lily also (basically) lied about how Sarah said Lily has some kind of past vendetta against Sugar that's caused her to want to hate the show; in reality, Sarah focused more on how Lily seemed to connect a bad show with a bad person and how because all her analysis seemed to be made in bad faith, she spends more time digging into a showrunner being bad than saying the product is bad.
Basically, this whole thing is a mess. However, while I do stand by most of the things said in the original "SU is Garbage and Here's Why" video as why the show is bad, I have to side with Sarah on this one. Lily's video is needlessly aggressive and vindictive. I actually came to THIS video after watching Lily's rebuttal for a second time, because I was curious if she might be lying herself, to find that only six minutes of a twenty minute video-mainly about GENERAL problems Sarah has with the critique community-were about her. If you just watched her rebuttal, you'd assume the whole thing was shitting on Lily.
I've suspected it for a long time but I genuinely think Lily has some serious issues regarding her position as a CZcamsr with clout who's been (sometimes) wrongly accused and vilified by analysis communities. It's made her defensive in the extreme, to where she perceives Sarah as yet another mean-spirited detractor and goes ALL OUT. Did Sarah lie at some parts? Yes. Did she only use the three audio clips where Lily is either screaming or coming to the big conclusion of a point? Yes, although that can be semi-forgiven because this video isn't a step-by-step takedown of Lily's points.
Does that warrant her being so needlessly mean about it? Not really, and it doesn't endear her to people watching who aren't already fans. She's basically just concluded, "welp, I'm 'the one who gets angry about things and gets yelled at for being angry', so fuck any chance of redemption".
You know what, that's a fair assessment.
It's actually really amazing how toxic the media criticism space can be. A lot more than I feel it should be
If CinemaSins is just a comedy channel, why isn’t it funny? Why is it just presented as actual criticisms?
LOL exactly! It’s just a cop out for them.
Translation: I'm a very smol and defenseless, helpless, senseless child that needs all humor to be very clearly pointed out to me and explained thoroughly, and I also think my opinion is what everyone thinks
But it is funny. It points out shit that we already notice and don’t really care about.
@@napoleonbonaparte7529 lmao that’s exactly what he said
@@napoleonbonaparte7529 Translation: I'm a spiteful idiot that thinks insulting and infantilizing people is equal to an argument
The funny thing about HBomberguy is that I thought his "X is garbage and here's why" videos were titled in such a hyperbolic way to make fun of the exaggerated "either it's gold or it's crap"-mentality of CZcams media criticism (as HBomb's own takes within were very often nuanced with some jokes thrown in) that was already present. I saw the style of those video-essays as being parodies of something already present in CZcams, not something original that was later imitated and propagated within CZcams without the irony of the original.
@Falcon Fern I mean, in a sense I think part of his whole persona is being just this very extra and dramatic raccoon in a human skinsuit so hyperbolic titles would be kinda up his alley.
Then again arguably his whole persona is kind of an ironic take on angry video game critics, one of his most common gags is him saying something along the lines of "this and that is... sorta... middlingly bad, and that is like, terrible" and proceeding with a nuanced take on it. So I guess he took the piss out of a more general genre, and his style of taking the piss spawned a format of that genre.
@@antonioscendrategattico2302 That first sentence is an amazing description of Harris, and I hope he sees it one day
I also want to add Pop Culture Detective as another video essay channel that is well researched and useful!
I find it to be quite useful.
Yupp some of the best videos
Love that channel!
lmfao no, macintosh has never been useful in his whole life.
@@velessia4840 oh man really??! i used to believe i'd learnt soooo much from his channel, but now i know that was some kind of mind trick, thanx for enlightening me mate
It’s like Star Wars. Everyone overthinks it. I just go in and enjoy the movies. It’s like anyone is looking to hate on the new movies.
Everyone digs way too deeply into it a lot of the time.
@@alexandriaisokay964 especially MauLer. He is the king of making absurdly long "critiques"
Because they suck
@@samt3412 yea when he "objectivly" criticises based on his own subjective opinions lol, or when the dog dude reacted to IHE video sentence by sentence, sometimes not even that maybe like half a sentence
last one sucked ass but I had a really good time watching it in a theatre and being confused with everybody else.
Reminder to anybody leaving a comment that misgendering Lily is not a valid way to express your problems with her