Happy New Year! We’re counting down several of my favorite YouTube videos that were released in the past year!
Honestly, I should just call this my favorite video essays of the year since that’s what ended up making the cut. Also, I cheated and made some videos share numbers because there was a lot of tangentially related topics. It’s my page, I can do what I want.
One of my red flags is the majority of the content I consume is hosted on YouTube (or Nebula, which I highly recommend you sign up for to directly support a bunch of the creators listed below). Last year, when a request was made for some 2022 TV/Movie recommendations, I really struggled to put it together because I don’t watch a lot of recent stuff. This site is all the proof you need that I’ve been catching up on almost 100 years of musical movie content instead. But I do enjoy listening to smart people talk while I do other tasks, so YouTube has unfortunately been a bit of an obsession of mine that I’ve tried to minimize, but couldn’t. The amount of times I say “There’s this YouTube Creator…” per day is truly horrifying and embarrassing. Below is a small chunk of my personal favorite videos; a few even covering contentious events that took place on the platform. They may be cold tea shortly, but I think it’s helpful to analyze where we are today to better understand how the platform changed at the end of 2024.
I’m going to try and read more books this year, I swear. And maybe post more reviews? Perhaps not – I’m not going to make promises to you guys that are only going to break your hearts.
Fair warning – This is going to be a long one.
#10 RSK – How Beat Saber got me into K-pop (I swear it’s interesting)
Well, the feud between Jacksfilms and SSSniperwolf ramped up to 11 a few months ago, didn’t it? (I swear it’s relevant).
For context, OG YouTuber Jack Douglass has a long-standing beef with react channels, and rightfully so. A lot of them play the complete video they’re “reacting” to and provide zero commentary. This not only steals revenue from the creators by diverting the views, its acceptance (and even promotion) by YouTube is making the content farm problem worse. If you’re a creator that writes and films original works, you’re competing in the algorithm with shorts channels that churn out thousands of videos of someone’s stolen storytime audio played over stolen footage of someone playing subway surfers or frosting a cupcake because YouTube isn’t going to take these channels down if they’re getting views.
While Jack was low-key passive aggressive about this issue in the past, it was a tweet YouTube sent that I think pushed him fully into his villain era. This year at VidCon, YouTube decided to feature one of their biggest react creators, Lia Shelesh (I hate her user name; I don’t care if it’s a Metal Gear reference, it comes off super third reich-y to me) and ask her a bunch of dumb questions like How do you come up with your video ideas? Like, what ideas? She summarizes tiktok videos and says “bro” a lot. This incensed Jack enough where he started reacting to every single one of her videos on Twitch, mocking her predictable style while trying to find and credit the creators she’d been stealing from. This led to the creators filing claims against her videos, which meant she had to continually edit them to remove the content she freebooted.
I sincerely believe the intention was to create a big enough stink about her that YouTube might actually try to police this behavior on its platform, but like, Lia makes YouTube an obscene amount of money. She’s not stealing from multi-billion dollar corporations like Disney that have the funds to sue her for copyright infringement, what do they care?
I think the secondary goal to shame Lia into changing her behavior was even less likely to be successful. She had no incentive – She was making money off of these videos hand over fist with the gold-plated seal of approval from YouTube. Lia could have continued to get her bag and ignore Jack, but apparently the constant attention did get under her skin. This escalated to an altercation where her and her sister pulled up, camera in hand, to Jack’s home to “just talk” while doxing his address to her millions of Instagram followers. Oof.
This got the attention of several creators and fans, who joined Jack in pleading with YouTube to hold Lia accountable for violating their terms of service and putting his family in danger. Because he lives in California, there was also a ton of speculation on weather or not what she did was a literal crime. Over a week went by before YouTube responded by temporarily demonetizing Lia’s channel and stating Jack’s behavior of targeting Lia was also unacceptable since he essentially goaded a morally bankrupt human being into lashing out by constantly criticizing her definition of fair use.
Watching this whole thing play out was painful and not-at-all shocking. YouTube, like every other company, is in the business of making money. I don’t know if they contacted him privately, or if Jack saw the writing on the wall, but after this incident he decided to pivot his content into what he calls “a workshop for creators”. Creators can submit their YouTube videos and Jack might react to them live on Twitch while providing helpful feedback on how they can improve them, and thus their engagement. This long-winded several-paragraph intro was to explain how I found out about RSK through one of Jack’s streams.
This video essay on how RSK fell down the K-pop Hole is incredibly entertaining and relatable. Back in 2009 I got into 2nd Generation K-pop after several years of avoiding it. I knew of Rain because a few of my friends in college loved him, but I kind of viewed him as the Korean Usher and mostly just followed his acting career because I found that more engaging. But goddamn it, then 2NE1 had to drop “Fire”. Fuckin’ CL was my gateway drug into Girls’ Generation, After School, 4minute, Super Junior, EXO, SHINee, and most of all, Big Bang (and all their fucking solo careers). I watched their interviews. I tried to learn the dances. I was in my mid-twenties and I had a T.O.P bias. The worst was the air of smug satisfaction I felt when everyone started listening to PSY only proving I was right that maybe K-pop was a fun thing we could all listen to.
After several members of Big Bang left for their conscription (and one of their members became a literal sex trafficker, seriously, fuck that dude) my interest started to fade. Taemin was my last hurrah before I stopped following the genre altogether. I didn’t like BTS and Blackpink made me miss 2NE1 so I figured I was done. But that’s not to say I don’t find a banger every once in a while and revel when the love of the genre awakens in others.
Watching RSK boot up Beat Saber and Easy-A “Pocketful of Sunshine” their way into a Twice concert was truly hilarious. I know literally nothing about 4th Generation artists, but the transition from a casual tolerance for BTS into an unscripted rapid-fire rating of a bunch of current artists I’ve never heard of is the greatest representation of how quickly hobbies can devolve into a new obsession. I’d totally trust their opinion and check out the good ones, but I’m old and getting into new music is hard.
But at least CL is still around, thank fucking god.
Animations: 100%
Editing: 100%
Jokes: 100%
Earthbound Music: 100%
Pacing: 100%
Parts: 7
Storytelling: A+… Nah, not A+, not A+, just A… A-… Nah, just A. Just A.
#9 Eddy Burback – The Deceptive World of Ghost Kitchens
You may recognize Eddy from last year’s #8 video, Ted Nivision’s “I Drove to Every Rainforest Café in North America“. They did it again this year with Margaritaville, but that’s not the reason we’re here today. We’re here for analyzing how we are marketed to, deceived, and ultimately what we consume.
Eddy stumbled his way into discovering some commerical kitchens kind of drop-ship through food delivery apps? In addition to that, restaurants like IHOP, which don’t exactly have the greatest reputation, are selling their food under kitschy names like Super Mega Dilla and Thrilled Cheese in order to circumvent your previous mediocre experiences with the brand. Think Applebee’s food is flavorless? Well, try Cosmic Wings instead! Don’t want dry fucking chicken wings from B-Dubs? Get a burger from Wild Burger! In addition to the scummy nature of essentially bait-and-switching customers, Eddy talks about how ghost kitchens are significantly complicating the health inspection process.
Later in the year, Safiya Nygaard made a video focusing on tiktok ads and how false advertisements can con you out of $4 to $200 based on someone ripping off a product picture and sending the consumer something similar-but-cheaper they bought on AliExpress. The “What I Ordered vs What I Got” genre has been around forever, but usually a bit of common sense can warn you the wedding dress you bought for $30 isn’t going to look like the Pinterest pin. But because these things typically don’t have legal consequences listings are getting more bold in how expensive they are, making the could they really make this item this cheap? litmus test a little harder.
And depending on how savvy you are, that might not even be enough. Before Christmas, my mother was telling me about this handmade stuffed elf doll she ordered from a Facebook friend for my niece that was customized with her name on it. She hadn’t received it yet, but when she showed me the picture of like 25 identical dolls sitting on this woman’s stove with all different names placed on them I asked how much she paid for it and she said “Oh, only $6”.
“That’s not handmade, then.”
“I think it’s handmade!”
“It’s drop-shipped crap she put through an embroidery machine.”
“No, they all look a little different!”
“Probably because they’re poorly made.”
“How could she stick a premade doll through an embroidery machine?”
“Dude, I don’t know, I’m just telling you she didn’t handmake that doll. For $6?! The materials alone wouldn’t be that cheap, nevertheless her time. She cranked out like 25 of these in a few weeks!”
I looked on Temu and a bunch of other sites for this doll and couldn’t find it, which was a temporary loss until I went to Dollar Tree for gift bags and saw a whole display of them. When it finally arrived it wasn’t even embroidered. This woman clearly has a Cricut and was just ironing transfers on dolls. Honestly, $6 for what she does is a pretty fair price, but to advertise them as handmade? Please. And because my mother trusted this person she was very quick to defend her.
All this to say I’m kind of getting sick of the uncertainty that comes with ordering things without seeing them in person first. I’m *this close* to shopping at physical retail locations again.
#8 Princess Weekes – Anne Heche: When Community Doesn’t Show Up || Illymation – Perks of going to the Psych Ward
Biphobia is exhausting. From the early 2000s attitude of “you’re only saying that to get attention from guys” or “you’re gay and you just won’t admit it yet”, to the constant depictions in the media of being aloof assholes who “don’t like labels”, it’s bad enough getting judgement from outside our community. But man, it hurts a lot when the call comes from inside the house that someone is “not really bi” if they’re in a hetero-presenting relationship. Conversely, if a bi-identifying person pursues a same-sex presenting relationship their motivations are constantly in question – Are they doing it to “experiment” or to “gain access to queer spaces”? It feels very strange when some, in a community built on a need for acceptance, gatekeeps its members.
Princess Weekes, another top-notch creator (who is also on Nebula), examines how the treatment of Anne Heche from within the LGBTQIA+ community provided her with no social safety net when she struggled with mental health and addiction issues. We are in the middle of a reckoning on how we treated women in the 90s and 2000s who were in need of help and were instead lambasted and denied empathy. While opinions on Lindsay, Britney, and Amanda are widely changing, unfortunately, in the case of Anne and Sinéad, they were not alive to experience the shift in public opinion. Hopefully if we can be more outspoken when people are exploited in the media we can prevent others from suffering the same fate.
If Princess Weekes’s video is the shot, Illymation’s is the chaser. In the spirit of destigmatizing mental illness, Illy’s “Perks of going to the Psych Ward” illustrates her experience involuntarily (and later voluntarily) checking herself into a mental health facility. It balances the weight of the situation with moments of levity, including a hilarious Loss macaroni art moment. Ultimately she had a positive experience, but as someone who had their own mental health breakdown over a decade ago that involved all kinds of dumb shit I also don’t like to talk about, I relate to the feeling of failure each time I have to mark that disappointing checkbox on every doctor’s form; The unfortunate reality that having depression and anxiety can make doctors hand-wave away all sorts of medical symptoms I had until doctor #4 finally took me seriously enough to order scans to find out my issues had an actual physical cause. We have a long way to go to humanize mental illness, but at least we’re living in a moment where we are witnessing noticeable change.
#7 Pop Culture Detective – In Defense of Disney’s Solarpunk World
Pop Culture Detective writes incredibly well-presented essays about media tropes, introducing terms like Born Sexy Yesterday and Adorkable Misogyny to more succinctly describe common themes in sci-fi and sitcoms respectively. I especially liked their video speculating on the reasons why Hopper turned into an absolute knob during the third season of Stranger Things, and how prioritizing aesthetics over content can torpedo a previously well-rounded character.
It really was a toss-up between this video and “Searching for Humanity in Fortnight’s Battle Royale“, but ultimately I connected more with the Avatar-esque future where humans live harmoniously with the land. I wasn’t familiar with Solarpunk as a genre but had engaged with it my entire life. I was a child in the 90s when it felt like environmentalism wasn’t a political statement. We had Captain Planet and Fern Gully, and there was constant talk about how we needed to remedy the hole in the ozone layer instead of debating whether or not it existed at all. I never considered, however, how that media placed the onus of change onto the consumer instead of changing the system itself. As the Pop Culture Detective notes, based on the amount of stories depicting a dystopian Earth-ravaged future, there isn’t much held optimism if we need to rely on corporations to make systemic changes. Perhaps if there were more movies like Strange World, we would feel empowered to fight to prevent climate change instead of accepting it as inevitable.
#6 THE BIRDCAGE and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES: The Inside Story
Matt Baume’s channel is a gold mine of information on how queerness has been depicted in media over time. While I remember the loud outcry when Ellen came out on her television show, I’ve loved learning about programs released before my time, like those headed by Norman Lear, their cultural response, and how they ultimately changed people’s minds about homosexuals. His videos have also been particularly helpful in my musical reviews, providing perspective on Rita Moreno, Angela Lansbury, John Waters, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and most recently, Marilyn Monroe.
One of my mother’s favorite movies is The Birdcage, and as someone who saw it for the first time in middle school, it might have been my first experience seeing a family with gay dads depicted on film. I wasn’t a huge fan of Robin Williams in his comedic roles but I loved him as Armand, and Nathan Lane’s performance was so endearing and heartbreaking as Albert that every slight against him made me immediately protective. While I had some awareness of La Cage Aux Folles, I thoroughly enjoyed Matt walking through the history of the story, its on-stage musical adaptation, and Robin’s protection of Nathan on Oprah in order to prevent Nathan from being outed before he was ready to make that information public. The lengths it took to get this movie made and thankfully have it be well-received is truly a lesson in perseverence.
#5 Maggie Mae Fish – Is the “Off-Grid” Lifestyle a Lie? || Mina Le – the circus of celebrity house tours
These videos are two sides of the same coin – one where subjects revel in their opulence while the other is self-satisfied at how minimalistic they can be. But neither of these genres are truly genuine – curating your home and promoting a lifestyle ultimately is the same as taking a deliberately-angled selfie with the fake eyelash filter on. It’s contains a smidge of reality, but it’s mostly a reflection of your desired brand.
I’ve been following Maggie Mae Fish for a while. As a fellow Michigander I appreciated her video on Motel Makeover, but it was her series on Evangelical Christian movies that solidified my love of her. If you’re on Nebula (and you should be), her Unrated series about sexuality in films is top notch; it has an entire video about Showgirls, which is my favorite awkwardly edited for television movie. In her video “Is the “Off-Grid” Lifestyle a Lie?” she explores how genuine homesteading content is, specifically focusing on the channel Ghost Town Living. Its host Brent had the funds to buy a ghost town in California named Serro Gordo with the intention of restoring and preserving converting it into an Airbnb before accidentally burning it down. In the aftermath, Brent made constant calls for action from his subscribers to donate money (and in some cases resources and time) to help him build a new hotel over the old hotel’s ashes, aiding him in continuing construction on his for-profit business. The ethics of this are murky, especially if you consider whether or not Brent already has/could obtain the funds himself for this endeavor but is choosing not to. He’s been making videos about being “off-grid” for 3 years, selling and advertising this lifestyle of self-reliance in order to market his endeavor, even though he is employing (or exploiting) several people to make this dream happen.
Conversely, Mina’s video on “the circus of celebrity house tours” focuses on the history of televised personal home tours. The public is fascinated with the peek behind the curtain into celebrity lives, and this fixation has morphed over time and leveraged by celebrities to make themselves seem more fascinating or important based on the contents of their home. Much like an open house that is intended to sell a property to a potential buyer, celebrities are staging their home and renting cars to make them seem much more successful and wealthy than they actually are, carrying the underlying message that they’re better off than the viewers. Also, shoutout to Kendra Gaylord who further explores why celebrities would want their homes featured in AD, which includes a free way to literally market them for sale.
Both Maggie and Mina conclude that the true privilege of wealth is being free of the confines of capitalism. You can choose to either live off the land indefinitely or build a pool and a bowling alley in your home so you don’t have to go anywhere. If only we could be so lucky.
#4 Fundie Fridays – Sound of Freedom: Angel Studios use QAnon & Christianity to Take Over American Media
I’m a proud patreon backer of Fundie Fridays 
Reverend Jen started off the channel by covering aspects of Christian Fundamentalism while doing her makeup, but has branched out to cover other topics like how Christianity is reflected in shows like Veggie Tales and King of the Hill, the history of Christian Music, and most recently, the Precious Moments brand. She was even featured on the Shiny Happy People documentary that covers Bill Gothard’s IBLP organization and how it systematically created an environment of abuse against women, children, and queer people! I’m so impressed by all she’s been able to accomplish so far.
King James, Jen’s husband, started making their own videos on the channel back in 2021, typically focusing on the main players in conservative politics. This particular video about Angel Studios and the mess that is the collaboration between Mormon media and QAnon was particularly enlightening. James not only discusses the drama behind the release of Sound of Freedom, but also how this method of donor-funding media may shape the movie studio landscape in the future because of the way Angel Studios were able to game the box office system similar to a teen streaming “Yummy” on repeat with the volume turned down to make a song jump up to #1 on the Billboard 200 List.
This video sent me down the Tim Ballard rabbit hole, which is an abysmal place to be. Jordan and McKay, a channel that focuses on aspects of Mormonism in wider culture, have two livestreams that talk more in-depth about OUR and the lawsuit filed against Tim by former volunteers since Tim’s work has been lauded by the Mormon church. The Behind the Bastards and You’re Wrong About podcasts (check out the one on Anna Nicole Smith) also released episodes debunking the most common misconceptions about kidnapping and human trafficking. YWA also name dropped this Reply All episode from several years ago before Gimlet was outed for being all anti-union and having a generally hostile working environment for its Black employees. I recommend you check it all out if you want to simultaneously be relieved by how rare it is for a kid to be stolen off the street by a stranger and get angry about how sex workers safety is consistently disregarded.
If you want to watch something slightly more light-hearted, however, James kept his promise on TWO follow-up videos on the Tuttle Twins, and oh boy, it’s uhhh… that show is a choice. José’s video on Bentkey is a good one to watch if you want to dig even deeper on what conservative kids programming looks like.
#3 The Predictable Fate of Andrew Tate – Banned in Real Life || ContraPoints – The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling
Two of the best creators covering two of the worst people we’ve had to grapple with this year.
First, D’Angelo Wallace became my quarantine comfort obsession back in 2020 when I stumbled upon their videos on celebrity clout-chaser and armchair psychologist Shallon Lester. I liked the way he discussed mental health and called out creators for their bullshit ableist language. He made videos on pop-culture moments that frankly I’m too old to be exposed to organically, which after viewing made me feel like I was keeping my finger on the pulse of the community.
It was his (now deleted) series of videos on the Bye, Sister scandal that rocketed his channel into superstardom. He not only talked about the drama between the creators, but exposed how they were manipulating, exploiting (and in some cases preying) on their (majority underage) fans. I repeat-watched those mammoth videos for a year, but this also happened during the pandemic so I was searching for anything scandalous to focus on that didn’t involve people dying. He followed it up with a pair of videos on the Paul brothers, covering how these creators shaped the YouTube space and how they’re morphing their content to grow with their audience. I also loved his video on Blaire White that focuses on the conequences of her constant spread of misinformation on “bad” trans people and how it only gave right-wing ideologues a trans friend to hide behind and downplay their own transphobia.
D’Angelo returned this year after a long hiatus with this absolute classic on human jackwagon Andrew Tate: The Final Boss of Alpha Male Masculinity Culture and Literal Sex Trafficker. His video, while almost 2 hours long, is the most succinct summary of this dude’s history and how his lame bravado designed to sell scam hustler mindset classes has negatively influenced 7th grade boys worldwide. Every upload since then has been similarly fantastic (he even debuted a third channel with off-the-cuff commentary) and I’m incredibly excited to see what he’ll release in the upcoming year.
Second, If you’ve been in the YouTube space for more than like 10 minutes, you know who ContraPoints is. Natalie breaks down hotly debated (and sometimes philosophical) topics by reviewing their place in history and often relating them to her own personal experience as a trans woman. She critiques her misaligned subjects, but also presents them with a great amount of empathy – not to absolve them of their behavior, but to better understand how people succumb to the radicalization pipeline. Her costumes, bisexual lighting, and themed sets are also incredibly pretty to look at, making each video truly a masterpiece to behold.
Her videos on Jordan Peterson and Incels are two of my favorites and my introduction to her channel. While she’s covered JKR before, her video covering The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling Podcast and JoRo’s constant bitching about how her totally reasonable gender critical views are getting her unjustly cancelled while at the same time continually demonizing trans people is truly the nail in the coffin for the JKR discourse. We’ve moved beyond presenting Jo a miseducated billionaire who clearly needs to work through her traumas. The rhetoric she’s promoting is incredibly dangerous to trans people, not only promoting violence against them, but allowing politicians to pass laws to limit their access to gender-affirming healthcare. I was never a Harry Potter fan, but now I can’t encounter it in the wild without thinking of her spouting some bullshit nonsense on gamete production and getting angry all over again.
#2 HBomberguy – Plagiarism and You(Tube)
I know it’s not the coveted #1 spot on Jacksfilms Best of the Year list, but it’s something, right?
HBomberguy is another one of my comfort creators (ALSO AVAILABLE ON NEBULA, DO YOU GUYS SEE A PATTERN HERE). Similar to ContraPoints, Harry does a great job of summarizing current right-wing talking points and providing measured responses debunking them, tackling topics like vaccine harm, flat earth theory, and climate change. Their media analysis is also great – Their video on gaming web comics in the 2000s was the best representation I’ve seen on that subculture while the one celebrating Fallout: New Vegas inspired me to replay the game this year. But oh my god, guys, their argument on why Sherlock is garbage may be one of my favorite videos on the platform of all time. As someone who watched the show while it was airing the 3rd and 4th seasons it’s incredibly refreshing to hear someone loudly confirm that while the show wasn’t perfect before, it completely and utterly went off the rails by the end.
Harry’s four hour epic, “Plagiarism and You(Tube)” covers so much of what has been plaguing the platform, including ethics within media journalism, the iilluminaughtii content farm, and unlicensed adaptations. The back half of the video specifically targets James Somerton, a queer creator that rips off lesser known queer creators for profit all while constantly dismissing and excusing past accusations of plagiarism. This, like his Roblox oof video, can be cynically viewed as targeted hit piece, and it’s not not that. But this pair of videos exist to highlight the rampant crediting problem that emerges when monetary compensation is reliant on churning out constant content.
It’s kind of encouraging/hilarious how this video sparked immediate change within the community. I’ve noticed video creators changing how they’re crediting their sources, making it much more explicit on the screen itself where bits of information were taken from lest senpai notice them and include them in a future video. I’m sure his mother is very proud.
#1 Ryan Beard – Colleen Ballinger’s Ukulele “Apology” From Hell
This past year, YouTube has been bloated with exhausting 12-hour multi-part summaries and takedowns on current drama subjects, proving there is a large group of creators that think if they can talk about something for that long, that it’s worth talking about. That’s why I love Ryan Beard.
In this video, Ryan concisely breaks down the Colleen Ballinger situation in less than 30 minutes in a clever and hilarious way. It’s a masterclass in analyzing public relations and specifically what not to do when you’re accused of sending illicit materials to children. And, true to Ryan Beard form, the most biting commentary comes at the end by doing the exact same thing Colleen did, but honestly.
I have rewatched this a dozen times. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the dance (pun intended) creators do to address allegations while still retaining their career after a scandal hits. While the denouncing of Colleen’s behavior is going to become quieter and quieter over time like we’ve seen with James Charles (because apparently we don’t care if you groom kids if you tell everyone you’re a loser for doing it), Ryan’s video lives to commemorate a moment in time where we all collectively agreed this response was incredibly bizarre and unacceptable.
Congratulations, Ryan. Your insightful and campy style of approaching cultural touchstones is truly the best.
This also may be #1 because I’m bitter that being a millennial uke playing Colleen is now cringe. How dare she take that away from me.
Honorable Mentions:
Favorite Traditional Media in 2023:
(Note, not everything here came out in 2023 lmao)
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Movie: Theater Camp
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Song: Emily Ann Roberts – He Set Her Off
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Television: Reservation Dogs; Only Murders in the Building
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Game: Darkside Detective 1 and 2
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Podcasts: Dead Eyes, Flula Makes Five, Girls Next Level
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Book: John Steinbeck – Travels with Charley