The TikTokification of comedy

I fucking hate TikTok. I hate "short-form content" in general, which means I loathe YouTube Shorts, Instagram/Facebook Reels and anything anyone feels the need to send me that is in a 9:16 aspect ratio. So if you're considering it… don't. I won't watch it.

My reasons for despising short-form content are numerous and varied, so I won't go into all of them here, but one thing in particular vexed me so when I stumbled across it yesterday that I felt the need to get this particular rant out of my system. And that is what I call the TikTokification of comedy — or, to put it another way, the divorcing of comedic moments from context purely so that idiots can quickly and easily steal them and share them on their mindless social media.

I've actually been thinking about this for a while. The first time I was particularly conscious of it was when I started seeing that a number of comedians had started upping their YouTube presence. And all their videos had a few things in common. Take a look at these thumbnails:

All of these are completely transparent clickbait. And while a certain amount of clickbait is a necessity on a platform as saturated with material as YouTube is, I really detest the whole "half a sentence" thumbnail format. I didn't click on this one, which has almost certainly floated across your YouTube recommendations at some point, either:

This, to me, is the YouTube equivalent of the Twitter engagement bait (that thankfully seems to have died a bit of a death… along with the rest of Twitter) where a brand would go "[our brand] is _________" and expect people to "fill in the blank". And people, dumb consumers that they are, absolutely would. And it didn't matter whether they were filling it in with obscenities or bootlicking nice things, it was engagement. It made the numbers go up. That's all that mattered.

It's the same with these comedy clips. I like all of those comedians above, but I don't want to click on their videos because it's rewarding manipulative behaviour, and also encouraging the main problem that I want to talk about today: encouraging people away from enjoying a creative work in its entirety and towards a grab-bag full of "best moments" that completely lack their original context.

Good stand-up comedy makes the entire show into an event, and runs a narrative thread through the whole thing. Not all comedians do this, but the best comedians, in my experience, make you feel like you've enjoyed a complete story by the time you've left the room. Sure, there may have been some deviations along the way, and the story may not have made all that much sense… but there was still a sense of narrative progression. A beginning, middle and end, if you will. For some great examples, check out Rhod Gilbert's show Rhod Gilbert and the Award-Winning Mince Pie and pretty much anything by Eddie Izzard.

When you slice a show up into little bite-sized bits, you lose that context. Sure, the individual moments might be funny on a superficial level, but you lose the added depth of them being part of something bigger. And that's a real shame. And this leads me on to the real reason I'm writing this today: my discovery yesterday that Friends, a TV show I absolutely adored during my formative years, has its own YouTube channel.

And yes, you guessed it, the Friends YouTube channel looks like this:

The stand-up comedy thing I can sort of forgive. While I much prefer seeing an entire stand-up set and enjoying that feeling of context and narrative, there are sometimes just single jokes or routines that you want to share with someone. And you can probably make the same argument about Friends.

But for me, and regardless of what you and/or the general public might think of it now in 2023, Friends was always about more than just the jokes. Friends was a phenomenon. Friends was about us spending 10 years alongside these characters in an important, turbulent part of their lives, and watching them grow and change. Friends was about us simultaneously being envious of these twentysomethings somehow being able to afford massive apartments in Manhattan, but also feeling like the moments they shared were relatable in their own ways.

And an important part of the entire experience was context. While Friends actually starts kind of in medias res, halfway through a member of this pre-existing friendship group telling a story in their favourite coffee shop, it still makes an effort to introduce us to everyone through the way Rachel enters the picture as a formerly estranged friend of Monica.

We feel included. We feel like we're learning who these people are — and over the course of the subsequent ten seasons, we really get to know everyone. And while the age of the show means that life in general is quite different for most folks right now — look how infrequently anyone on the show uses a mobile phone or a computer, for example — it's still relatable to anyone either going through that "20s to 30s" part of their life, or who has already been through it.

These characters grow and change as a result of the things that happen to them and the simple act of getting older. They enjoy amazing high points and some heartbreaking low points — although nothing too heartbreaking; this was a primetime comedy show, after all. But everything that happens helps to define these characters and make them more than simple, mawkish, two-dimensional representations of a single personality trait.

Slice all 236 24-minute episodes up into one-minute chunks, though, and you have content. You have individual moments that, in many cases, simply don't really work as standalone "jokes" because they rely on you knowing and understanding the characters and their relationships. And you have no sense of that ongoing growth and character development, because all these clips are posted in a seemingly completely random order determined by whatever the person running the Friends YouTube account felt like putting up today.

I realise this is a bit silly to get annoyed and upset over, but it's frustrating to me to see something that I loved so much in its original form and its original context be treated as fodder for the mindless content consumption machine of 2023. It irritates me to think that there are doubtless some people out there whose only contact with Friends will have been minute-long clips on YouTube, and through those they will likely have formed a totally different opinion of the show than someone who watched it from start to finish.

Is this elitist and gatekeepery? Not really, since Friends itself is easy enough to watch in its entirety via either streaming services or undoubtedly cheap DVD box sets that no-one wants any more. It's just the latest symptom in a disease that blights society, where no-one believes they have "time" for anything any more, so watch badly cropped minute-long 9:16 clips on double speed while they're doing their daily quests in Mindless Gacha Bullshit X, rather than settling down, taking some time to relax and just enjoying something in its entirety.

I hate it. Hate it. And while I'm aware there's nothing stopping me from doing what I describe above — I think I even still have my Friends DVD box set somewhere — it's exhausting just to be around all this short-form garbage, and frustrating to live in a world where seemingly no-one has an attention span longer than a TikTok video.

2431: I Also Made This

I made another video today in an attempt to further solidify my knowledge of Hitfilm 4 Express, and indeed to refresh my subject knowledge with regard to video editing in general, as it's one of those skills that can atrophy from non-use, particularly with how non-intuitive professional-grade programs can be.

I'm still in two minds about the advent of video on the Internet and how, for young people in particular, it has taken the place of good old fashioned text Personally speaking, I'd still rather read a good article with nice screenshots than watch a video — particularly if I'm out and about on my phone and am not in a situation where listening to the audio of a video would be practical — but I'm forced to reluctantly admit that for gaming content, video does sort of make sense.

Video games are, for the most part, a dynamic, audio-visual medium in which the way things move around the screen and the noises they make are just as important as what they look like as still images. This is more true for some genres than others — shoot 'em ups such as the two games I've covered with my videos over the past couple of days are a good example. But even in more sedate games, there's value to being able to actually demonstrate what the thing looks like in motion, how its interface works and all manner of other things. And while you could take the TotalBiscuit approach and make hour-long videos about options menus — there is value there for some people — I think the real strength in video coincides with the atrocious attention span most people have these days: short, snappy summaries of what something is all about and why you should pay attention to it.

I don't yet know if I've nailed that format in my videos just yet, but I'm enjoying making them if nothing else. Plus insofar as creative projects go, they could potentially end up forming a "portfolio" of sorts should I find myself in a position where my video-making skills might potentially get me a job of some sort. That would be nice, wouldn't it? I'm trying not to think about it too much, but as I'm broke it's kind of constantly on my mind.

Still, I guess this counts as a vaguely productive use of my time, and I did at least apply for two jobs earlier today, so I can say I got something done. Unfortunately none of those somethings quite pay the bills at present, but, well, doing something is better than nothing, non?

2203: Pete Reacts to Growing Older

A significant proportion of the Internet has been up in arms over a recent copyright kerfuffle on YouTube recently, where a collective I've never heard of called the Fine Bros had apparently attempted to trademark the word "react". Digging deeper, it seems that the Fine Bros had done this ostensibly as a means of trademarking the concept of "reaction videos" and allowing others to make videos in the same format — one which the group have had plenty of success with in the past — while allowing themselves an opportunity to profit from licensing fees.

Leaving aside the whole ethical implications of attempting to trademark a common word such as "react" — one of several different "brands" that Fine Bros had attempted to trademark, theoretically as a catch-all term to encompass any specific series they might concoct in the near future — this whole debacle brought one thing into sharp focus for me, and that is that there are certain aspects of modern popular culture that I simply don't understand the appeal of whatsoever.

The concept of a reaction video is simple. You show some people — preferably from a specific demographic such as "teenagers" or "the elderly" — a thing that is Shocking in some way, then you film what they do while they're watching or looking at the thing that is Shocking. Early examples of reaction videos included various instances of people seeing the notorious "2 Girls 1 Cup" video (for heaven's sake, don't Google that if you've never heard of it) as well as well-known shocking scenes from TV or online videos such as Game of Thrones' "Red Wedding" scene.

Trouble is, in the few reaction videos I've managed to stomach, it all feels so painfully forced as to not be entertaining. No-one I know whoops and hollers at the television, bellowing "OH MY GOD!" as something shocking happens. The most I do when seeing something shocking is flinch and wince at something gory, particularly if it involves eyes, but I don't shout and scream or anything. (That said, given the general difficulty I have with expressing emotions clearly when I'm "in person", I may not be the most representative example, but none of the people I know are like this either.) In other words, it doesn't seem believable, with the whole situation being so contrived as to seem utterly pointless.

And aside from the implausibility of some reactions, I simply don't see the appeal whatsoever. Why on Earth would I want to watch a group of people gathered around a TV that I can't see all screeching and gesturing at something I may or may not already be familiar with? And, by extension, why on Earth would anyone want to trademark such an utterly inane concept on the arrogant assumption that other people would want to pay them for the dubious privilege of churning out more culturally bankrupt tat like this?

I guess you can just add reaction videos to the ever-lengthening list of things that I just don't "get" in modern online life. It joins the illustrious ranks of Twitch chat, Twitch in general (unless you're hanging out with an actual friend), MOBAs, unboxing videos and doubtless a whole bunch of other things I'm not even familiar with yet.

I'm 34 years of age. Some days I feel like I'm still 16. Today, however, I'm feeling every one of those years. Now get off my fucking lawn.

2029: Our Video Future

0029_001 I've been playing a bit more with making some videos using the PlayStation 4 and its ShareFactory software. As it turns out, today I actually hit the upper limit of how many clips of commentary it's possible to add to a single project; apparently I need to record narration all in one go, then split it up later if necessary rather than recording in small chunks!

This was today's project:

Sword Art Online Re:Hollow Fragment is a really good game that I'm enjoying a whole lot, and making a video about it seemed like a good idea, because a lot of people who haven't taken a chance on it and just started playing it really don't know anything about it at all. My good friend Chris Caskie, for example, specifically thanked me for showing all the different parts of the game across the course of my six-minute video, since gameplay footage he'd seen in the past had only ever shown a tiny (and, from the sounds of things, boring) excerpt of what's actually on offer.

I think I've found a format I like working in, too: I never felt quite comfortable doing "Let's Plays" or recording live reactions as if I was streaming a game. At least part of this, I feel, is due to the fact that, as a viewer, I don't really have much interest in Let's Plays and streaming, because I'd much rather play a game than watch someone else play it. What I do appreciate, however, is the opportunity to see a game in action, find out a bit about it and perhaps a touch of personal opinion as to whether or not it's worth exploring. I am also uninclined to spend 20 minutes watching someone go through options menus and whatnot; short and relatively snappy is the key, summarising everything I might want to know about the game without rambling on and on about it for too long.

So that's the format I've adopted in my last couple of videos. I feel it works well; I've been pleased with the result (though not so much with the sound quality; I need to 1) adjust the sound levels between the game footage and my commentary recording and 2) invest in or find a pop filter for my headset microphone, which is otherwise proving to be pretty good for this) and I actually find myself going back and watching the videos I've recorded again; considering a few years back (prior to the first time I went on a podcast) I absolutely loathed and detested the sound of my own voice and would rather have stuck my head into a woodchipper than listened to myself, this is Progress of sorts, I guess.

I think the fact I'm enjoying making these videos — and that I can do so quite quickly — is important though. I will always be someone who enjoys writing about games first and foremost, and that's what the magazine project I'm currently working on is all about. For a basic "review" of sorts, however — which is effectively what I'm doing with these videos, or at the very least providing some first impressions after a few hours of play — video seems to be an eminently suitable medium, perhaps even better than dry written words on a page.

Perhaps I'll even be able to make some money off this sort of thing eventually, though I'm realistic here; my viewing stats have broken three figures on, I think, just one of my videos posted to date, with the others having anywhere between 10 and 70 views. That's not at a point where it's worth putting ads on my videos as yet, though that said I haven't really made a huge effort to try and promote what I'm doing; I'm just putting it out there to see what people think.

If nothing else, it's something to do on empty, tedious days, and I'm having a whole lot of those at the moment.

2022: Video Star

0023_001 Been experimenting a bit more with video today. Specifically, I had a play with the PlayStation 4's app ShareFactory, which allows you to take video clips and screenshots you've saved while playing PS4 games, then edit them together with commentary, music, transitions and effects into something that can then be rendered and uploaded (almost) directly to YouTube, Facebook or DailyMotion.

ShareFactory is a decent bit of software, it turns out, and works quite nicely with the DualShock 4 controller. Its interface is initially a little difficult to parse, since it's largely icon-based and not immediately apparent what all of said icons are actually for, but once you get your head around it it mostly works well.

ShareFactory is no Final Cut, obviously, but then it doesn't need to be. To make an effective gameplay video, all you need at most is the game footage along with perhaps some still images, some music and some commentary. There's no real need for multiple tracks of video or anything like that — though I believe ShareFactory does support picture-in-picture if you have a PlayStation camera — because you're not making a multi-angle extravaganza of a movie; you're making a video about a game.

I learned something else while making my ShareFactory project, too; I much prefer making videos that are "pre-scripted" rather than improvised Let's Play-style videos. This is probably due to the fact that I also prefer watching videos that are pre-scripted rather than improvised Let's Play-style videos. I grew up on traditional media, remember; I'm not really interested in watching Kids React To Something Pretty Mundane, nor am I interested in listening to someone's reactions in real time as they play something for the first time. I am, however, interested in seeing video used in the "documentary" style; footage of something relevant, with explanatory commentary over the top. This sort of thing doesn't have to be dry and boring, either; more importantly, though, it tends to be a lot more concise, with pre-scripted videos more often than not clocking in at considerably lower durations than Let's Plays.

More to the point, though, it means that I can write something in a "traditional" manner, then just read it out (with feeling!) when it comes to time to record the video. The only real difference is that in the script I found it was a good idea to mark where different video clips/sections should begin. That really helped with editing later, particularly with the way ShareFactory's workflow goes. I could take a clip at a time, record the commentary, then trim/split the clips down to fit the commentary afterwards. After that it was a simple matter to upload it to YouTube and share it with the world.

What's that? You want to see it for yourself? Okay then!

1904: 21st Century TV

The Internet has brought with it many things both good and bad, but by far my favourite thing about it is to do with video.

No, I'm not talking about YouTube generally — the whole "anyone with a webcam can make videos!" culture it promotes feeds into modern youth's unhealthy obsession with "being famous" — but rather the fact that, between the various streaming services out there, both legitimate and… less legitimate, there is probably some way of watching all those programmes/adverts/movies you wish you still had 1) the VHS tapes for and 2) something to play them with.

This last week, for example, Andie and I have watched Police Squad!, the TV-based precursor to the Naked Gun movies. Only six episodes were made, and back at university, when I "discovered" the show for the first time, I had a VHS cassette with two of them on it, so I had only ever seen those two episodes. Now, however, some helpful Polish person has kindly uploaded the whole lot onto YouTube for anyone to enjoy at their leisure. No waiting for TV networks to license them and show them again. No tracking down video tapes and VCRs. Just click and go.

The ability to rediscover old favourites is one of the best things about streaming video, then, as my rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the first time in about ten years will attest. But the fact that streaming services makes new favourites easier than ever to discover, too, is rather wonderful. I doubt I'd have become so interested in anime without my Crunchyroll subscription, for example; prior to widespread streaming video, the only real way to get into anime was to buy VHS tapes or DVDs, and with anime being niche-interest and somewhat "exotic", particularly when it first hit these shores in the mid-90s, it was a rather expensive hobby. Anime DVDs and Blu-Rays still cost up to twice as much as a regular ol' Western film even today, making online services like Crunchyroll much better value.

This is the TV of the 21st century, then; it really is the vision of the future we had twenty, thirty years ago: decide what you want to watch, then just watch it. In most cases, that's possible to do, even if you have strange, bizarre and peculiar tastes. And even if you're more fucked up than most, I can almost guarantee that there's some dark corner of the Internet out there somewhere more than willing to cater to your particular interests, whatever they might be… for better or worse.

In these days of people seemingly constantly yelling at one another on social media and comments sections on large sites being widely (and, sometimes, justifiably) regarded as fetid cesspits, it's easy to forget the great and wonderful things that the Internet has brought to modern life. I'm a strong believer that its ability to "archive" — for future generations to be able to enjoy movies, TV shows, animations and other videos from years ago — is one of the best things about it. And as technology improves and we find more and more ways to interact with this world-wide network, I hope we never lose sight of these simple pleasures that it's allowed us to enjoy like never before.

1858: A Day Like Today

So, I'm currently no closer to getting a job or some paying work (actually that's not quite true; I did apply for two jobs today, both of which can potentially be done from home, so there's that) but I actually feel like I've had a reasonably pleasant day. If only every day could be like today and still furnish me with a steady income, that would be just lovely.

So what did I do today? Well, I played my new piano a bit — I dug out a Mozart sonata I haven't played for literally years and took the first movement for a spin; it wasn't perfect, but I was surprised how much of it I remembered in detail — then applied for the aforementioned jobs and made a couple more videos. Again, said videos are experimental, somewhat rough-and-ready affairs, but I'm starting to get a feel for how it all works, and actually finding myself rather enthusiastic about producing them.

First up was a quick look at Mode 7's future sports game Frozen Cortex (formerly Frozen Endzone), which came out today on Steam after a period in Early Access.

Mic level ended up a bit high on this one, so the sound was a bit distorted, but at least you can hear me. (This is partly due to the fact that due to Frozen Cortex not using a "true" fullscreen mode and instead using a borderless window, I had to record using OBS rather than ShadowPlay, and haven't quite found the optimum levels for the former yet.) It's also marginally embarrassing to have video evidence of quite how incompetent I am at strategy games (that first conceded point where he just runs all the way down the side of the field because I was too dumb to notice there were no obstacles there… man) but I suppose messing things up makes for slightly more entertaining watching… perhaps? I don't know. Either way, it was nice to be able to get something immediately relevant out of the door.

Next up was a different type of experiment, this time with "pre-scripting" a video rather than delivering it off-the-cuff as I have been doing with the previous ones. Taking one of my articles on MoeGamer as a basis, I decided to record a video about the visual novel Kana: Little Sister, which is shortly getting an enhanced rerelease.

This took a bit longer to assemble as there wasn't any "game footage" per se — visual novels are tricky to make videos about as a result — and consequently I had to use the in-game artwork to put together a slideshow to accompany my narration. I then put some of the game's soundtrack in the background, and the result is what you see above. I'm quite pleased with the result; while just pretty much reading an article isn't necessarily the ideal format for Web video — particularly with shorter pieces — with a long-form piece like this it happened to work reasonably well. That and visual novels — particularly those with complex or challenging stories like Kana: Little Sister — are eminently suitable for in-depth exploration, commentary and criticism.

These videos may not go anywhere — and I haven't turned on ads/monetisation for them yet, as they don't have anywhere near enough views to warrant that — but if nothing else, producing these (and being able to do so quickly) is another string to my bow, and my YouTube channel will gradually become something of a portfolio that I can show off to people, perhaps even demonstrating the improvements I've made over time.

If you enjoy the videos, do please feel free to share them around a bit. I've only had a handful of views on each so far and it would be nice to know a few more people have seen them. Viewing figures aren't hugely important to me at the moment, but it'd be nice to see a bit of growth over time to see if there's any potential worth exploring here.

Now I'm off to bed; Criminal Girls awaits, but I'll save discussion of that for another day!

(Aside: just realised this is probably the only post on the Internet today that mentions Frozen Cortex and Kana: Little Sister within a couple of paragraphs of each other. Never say I don't push a few boundaries!)

1857: Video About Vidya

So I took the plunge today and experimented a bit with making some videos. They're rough-and-ready affairs, recorded live with no special effects, editing or indeed budget, but they gave me an opportunity to practice what it's like to be playing a game and talking about it at the same time. (It's harder than you might think!)

First up, I took a bit of time to highlight a Steam Early Access game that I'm terribly fond of: Witch Beam's Assault Android Cactus.

(This video runs at 60fps if you whack it up to 720p resolution! Exciting! And, moreover, entirely appropriate for a video about Assault Android Cactus, since the devs are very pleased with how fast and fluidly it runs.)

I didn't find this too challenging to do because I know the game very well already. (In fact, several earlier takes of this video where the mic level was all wrong saw me talking for even longer than the 9-ish minutes in this version; I felt I should probably avoid breaking the 10-minute barrier, though.)

The video was recorded using nVidia's ShadowPlay software that I mentioned yesterday. It's supremely easy to use, though there are some slight limitations: it doesn't work in certain games that don't use "true" fullscreen or that don't use DirectX, and the audio recorded from the microphone is compressed somewhat, leading to the slightly "digital" sound of my voice you may be able to hear on the above video.

Still, I'm pretty pleased with how it came out.

Next up, I decided to try something a little more experimental: a blind playthrough (i.e. trying it without knowing anything about it) of a game from my Steam backlog, in this case the indie platform puzzle game 1000 Amps, which I acquired from some bundle deal or other a good while back and promptly never played even once.

This turned out to be quite an interesting little game, and the blind playthrough with commentary was an enjoyable means of exploring it. I don't know if it makes particularly compelling viewing, but it was fun to sit there and talk about what I was thinking about and how it was making me feel as I was exploring and discovering it. It was kind of like sitting with a friend trying to figure something out for the first time, only the friend never said anything.

Actually, one thing I do quite want to try at some point is combining elements of the Squadron of Shame SquadCast, in which we discuss games in considerable depth, with this sort of thing. I feel going in "blind" but guided by someone who knows the game a bit better might make for some interesting discussions and an enjoyable format to explore. I shall put it to the relevant people and attempt to experiment with it while I find myself with a bit of time on my hands!

I fully intend to continue experimenting with these sorts of videos — and some other formats I have in mind, too — over the next few days and weeks. As I noted yesterday, I'm under no illusions that I'll be able to make any money out of these, but you never know what grows from the seeds of ideas. It's something I've been meaning to try for a while, and, well, no better time than the present, huh?

If you enjoy what you've seen here (assuming you watched them), do please feel free to share them around, like them, comment on them and whatever it is you kids do with the YouTube these days. There'll be more to come soon, and having now dipped my toe into this crowded marketplace, I'm actually pretty keen to get back to it, if only for fun.

1856: Streaming from Every Orifice

I decided to fiddle around with the "ShadowPlay" feature on my graphics card tonight. This is a feature of more recent nVidia cards that takes some of the strain off the main computer when either recording or streaming video of games. I hadn't tried it at all before, owing to the fact that I've never really had occasion to, but I decided to give it a try with Final Fantasy XIV this evening just as an experiment.

I'm impressed! There was absolutely no impact on the game's smoothness whatsoever, and the footage that was being streamed to Twitch (only at 480p and 30fps for this initial experiment) looked nice, clear and stutter-free. The ShadowPlay software also provides the facility to stream your voice through your microphone at the same time as the game audio, too, so talky types can speak all over the top of their favourite games like "proper" streamers do.

I'm slightly coming around to the idea of streaming, since a significant number of people seem to think that so far as video games are concerned, streaming and YouTube are the way forward, while traditional "print" (i.e. text-based) journalism and reportage is dying out. Certainly with the recent folding of Joystiq, one of the most long-running blog-style games sites, it seems that there are tough times ahead for the games press. I still doubt it will die out completely — and, moreover, I still vastly prefer reading a well-written article to watching a video in most cases — but it's probably worth embracing these newer things that don't seem to be going away any time soon rather than plugging my ears and going "la la la la la".

While I have a bit of time on my hands, then, it would seem prudent to use some of this time to experiment a bit. (I hasten to add to those concerned for my employment status that I have also been writing to various places in search of work, so please don't think I'm sitting on my arse playing games all day!) I've tried my hand at some sort of vaguely Let's Play-ish videos before, focusing on bullet hell shooters, but perhaps I should have another go. Arguably even more so than games writing, it's extremely difficult to get established in the fields of either streaming or YouTubing, but I certainly have the skills to do both and, on the off-chance things happen to go well, there's the potential to make some money there.

I'm under no illusions, though; this is very unlikely, and pretty much reserved for the already well-established personalities like PewDiePie, Boogie2988, TotalBiscuit and their ilk. Still, it just takes a few people talking about you — and the production of decent content, of course — to start the ball rolling on something potentially bigger, and it can't hurt to give it a try. In fact, it might even be quite fun. There are, I feel, some obvious gaps in the market so far as streaming and YouTubing are concerned, much as there are in the games press, so that's probably the place to start; let's explore it and see what happens.

1662: Moving Pictures

Call me a traditionalist, out of date, out of touch, whatever you like, but I'm really not a fan of the current obsession with video as the be-all and end-all of publishing things online.

I have numerous feelings about this, not least of which is the fact that as a former member of the gaming press, it smarts to see my particular skillset — writing compelling words about my specialist subjects — being sidelined in favour of video, but as a consumer of online content, it also frustrates me immensely, too.

Put simply, I like to read. I prefer to read. If I see an interesting-sounding link on social media, I'll read it if it's text, but if it's video I will, nine times out of ten, not watch it. And this is true whether I'm sitting at my computer or browsing on phone or tablet — though it's particularly true when I'm browsing on a mobile device, since due to patchy network reception and exorbitant data charges, watching video on the go is often, to say the least, a somewhat subpar experience. Text is much more desirable in these circumstances. (This is to say nothing of live broadcasts, which are even less desirable than video on demand to me.)

There are types of content where it's simply easier to refer to text, too. Take game guides or tutorials in general, for example; while video can show you the things the creator is trying to teach you in context, it's difficult to refer back to specific points or cross-reference things, whereas this is a snap to do with text. Again, if I'm using a mobile device to browse this information, I much prefer having the information open in front of me to keep referring back to, rather than watching a video and having to take as much in as possible, perhaps over the course of several viewings. It just doesn't seem like a very efficient means of delivering information — particularly when that information is complicated.

This isn't to say video can't work, of course. Video is a great means of delivering educational content that you passively absorb rather than actively refer to while working on something. Crash Course on YouTube, which my friends Mark and Lynette introduced me to recently, is a good example of this.

And video is great for comedy, when said comedy has been written to be performed in the form of video. Glove and Boots is my current favourite example of this:

I just get a bit annoyed when people make sweeping declarations about video being "the future" of online content, as if those of us who still like to read words on a page rather than watch and listen are somehow irrelevant. Like so many other things, there are plenty of different tastes out there, and lots of different ways of doing things. Rather than only pursuing one to the exclusion of all others, let's accept that fact: continue to provide relevant, interesting content to all people and all tastes, not just the fashionable, young market who, at this point, are obsessed with video. My individual opinion may not matter all that much, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person out there who will close a tab without checking out an "awesome" link if the link turns out to be just another video.