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Video essays are thriving in the TikTok era, even while
platforms like YouTube are pivoting to promote short-form content. According to
Vox their popularity reflects our desire for more nuanced content online.
Video essays have been around for a decade or more on
YouTube. Since 2012, when the platform began to prioritize watch-time over
views, the genre flourished.
Today, there are video essays devoted to virtually any topic
you can think of, ranging anywhere from about 10 minutes to upward of an hour.
“Video essays are a form that has lent itself particularly
well to pop culture because of its analytical nature,” Madeline Buxton, the
culture and trends manager at YouTube, tells Vox. “We’re starting to see more creators using video essays to comment on
growing trends across social media. They’re serving as sort of real-time
internet historians by helping viewers understand not just what is a trend, but
the larger cultural context of something.”
To Vox author Terry Nguyen, what seems especially relevant is how the video
essay is becoming repackaged, as long-form video creators find a home on
platforms besides YouTube. This has played out concurrently with the
pandemic-era shift toward short-form video, with Instagram, Snapchat, and
YouTube respectively launching Reels, Spotlight, and Shorts to compete against
TikTok.
Yet audiences have not been deterred from watching lengthy
videos on TikTok either. Emerging video essayists aren’t shying away from
length or nuance, even while using TikTok or Reels as a supplement to grow
their online following, finds Nguyen.
She points to the growth of “creator economy” crowdfunding tools
[as discussed here:
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22301751/digital-tipping-creators-platforms], especially
during the pandemic, has allowed video essayists to take longer breaks between
uploads while retaining their production quality.
YouTube creator Tiffany Ferguson admits to feeling some pressure from audiences to make her videos longer.
“I’ve seen comments,
both on my own videos and those I watch, where fans are like, ‘Yes, you’re feeding
us,’ when it comes to longer videos, especially the hour to two-hour ones. In a
way, the mentality seems to be: The longer the better.”
In a Medium post, the blogger A. Khaled
remarked that viewers were “willing to indulge user-generated content that is
as long as a multi-million dollar cinematic production by a major Hollywood
studio” — a notion that seemed improbable just a few years ago, even to the
most popular video essayists. To creators, this hunger for well-edited,
long-form video is unprecedented and uniquely suitable for pandemic times.
Last month, the channel Folding Ideas published a two-hour
video essay on “the problem with NFTs,” which has garnered more than 6.4
million views to date.
Hour-plus-long videos can be hits, depending on the creator,
the subject matter, the production quality, and the audience base that the
content attracts. There will always be an early drop-off point with some
viewers, who make it about two to five minutes into a video essay.
“About half of my viewers watch up to the halfway point, and
a smaller group finishes the entire video,” Ferguson said. “It’s just how
YouTube is. If your video is longer than two minutes, I think you’re going to
see that drop-off regardless if it’s for a video that’s 15 or 60 minutes long.”
Some video essayists have experimented with shorter content
as a topic testing ground for longer videos or as a discovery tool to reach new
audiences, whether it be on the same platform (like Shorts) or an entirely
different one (like TikTok).
The growth of Shorts, according to Buxton of YouTube, has
given rise to this class of “hybrid creators,” who alternate between short- and
long-form content. They can also be a starting point for new creators, who are
not yet comfortable with scripting a 30-minute video.
“It’s common for TikTokers to tease a multi-part video to
gain followers,” reports Nguyen. “Many have attempted to direct viewers to
their YouTube channel and other platforms for longer content. On the contrary,
it’s in TikTok’s best interests to retain creators — and therefore viewers — on
the app.”
In late February, TikTok announced plans to extend its
maximum video length from three minutes to 10 minutes, more than
tripling a video’s run-time possibility.
Last October, Spotify introduced ‘video podcasts,’ which allows users
the option of toggling between actively watching a podcast or traditionally
listening to one.
What’s interesting about the video podcast, Nguyen suggests,
is how Spotify is positioning it as an interchangeable, if not more intimate,
alternative to a pure audio podcast: “The video essay, then, appears to occupy
a middle ground between podcast and traditional video by making use of these
key elements. For creators, the boundaries are no longer so easy to define.”
The video essay is
not a static format, and its development is heavily shaped by platforms, which
play a crucial role in algorithmically determining how such content is received
and promoted. Some of these changes are reflective of cultural shifts, too.
That’s because the
basic premise of the video essay — whether the video is a mini-explainer or
explores a 40-minute hypothesis — requires the creator to, at the very least,
do their research. This often leads to personal disclaimers and summaries of
alternative opinions or perspectives, which is very different from the more
self-centered ‘reaction videos’ and ‘story time’ clickbait side of YouTube.
“The things I’m talking about are bigger than me. I
recognize the limitations of my own experience,” Ferguson reports. “Once I
started talking about intersections of race, gender, sexuality — so many
experiences that were different from my own — I couldn’t just share my own
narrow, straight, white woman perspective. I have to provide context.”
This is a positive shift, concludes Nguyen. “A video essay,
in a way, encourages us to engage in good faith with ideas that we might not
typically entertain or think of ourselves.”
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