Why Is This YouTube Video Six Hours Long? The Unusual Case of YouTube Video Essays
When a YouTuber with the username MauLer uploaded his fourth and final video in his series critiquing the movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he capped the series with a total four-part combined length of 11 hours and 15 minutes. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has a runtime of 2 hours and 18 minutes.
This kind of content is usual for MauLer, though. His video on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is 5 hours and 50 minutes; his video on Black Widow is 4 hours and 17 minutes, and his videos on Star Wars: The Last Jedi were a combined 5 hours and 42 minutes. Even though all of these would fall into the average movie-goer’s “way too long to watch” list, each of them have 3.3 million, 1.8 million, and 12.9 million views, respectively. All in all, his combined channel views exceed 92 million.
MauLer is just one of the creators who create what are called video essays on YouTube, and in the past few years, this subgenre has exploded in popularity. The format is obviously extremely niche, and viewers are drawn to this. They can find exactly what they want, and because it is exactly what they want, they are able to sit through however many hours it takes, and its unique form makes it accessible and engaging.
On a technical level, YouTube video essays are best described by two qualities. Firstly, while “regular” YouTube videos have a somewhat equal, if not slightly skewed, distribution of attention between video and audio components, YouTube video essays are first and foremost about the audio, the words. They use a running video component, whether that be them talking or the thing they are talking about, as support for their argument. Secondly, YouTube video essays have an argument to make, and for the most part, mirror written essays in this way.
Besides that, video essays are extremely diverse. Their lengths can range between 15 minutes to 11 hours, and their topics can range from “our conception of love is messed up” by oliSUNvia (6 million views) to “You (Probably) Don’t Exist” by exurb1a (7 million views) to “Spongebob Squarepants: Skin Theory” by Doug Woolever (9.4 million views) to “Let’s Get Sad — A Last of Us Video Essay’’ by Ladyknightthebrave (786 thousand views).
“I decided to start making videos because I was unemployed and didn’t have a lot to do for a minute,” explained LK, the user behind the channel Ladyknightthebrave. She started posting four years ago and since then, has gained over 150 thousand subscribers on her channel. Each of her videos takes longer than three months to make, but it’s the flexibility that keeps her posting. “These videos can be whatever I want them to be, and that leads to fun and stupid jokes and interesting asides that a published literary essay might not allow for,” she explained. “I doubt a published essay about ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ would allow for like a 20-minute side tangent about Merchant of Venice for example.”
This is the appeal for viewers and creators alike, flexibility. Unlike opinion pieces in news outlets, which have restrictions on length and content, anyone can make a video essay about whatever they want for however long they want. This accessibility is what creates niches, and the video essay genre depends on the ability to foster niches in its community. Most importantly, the audiences can feel this freedom in the creators’ work.
“It’s just like a good way to consume content and learn things that you’re interested in without actually doing the research yourself,” explained Mia Madonna, NYU student and avid consumer of video essays. “I usually put a video essay on if I’m brushing my teeth, or if I’m tired, and I want to fall asleep.” In a time when we are constantly bombarded with content whenever we open our phones, it is impossible to consume everything. To remedy this, many of us have gotten into the habit of, like TV on Christmas, just having something in the background while doing other things. This is not possible to do with written essays, and it isn’t possible to do with other video forms either if you want to know what’s going on. What’s important is that the visuals in video essays are not integral to understanding it. Viewers can have them on in the background, glancing at the screen when they get a chance and not miss anything.
“The uniqueness comes from how you tell the story. Interesting visuals, new aspects of the story not originally thought of,” explained Jake Joseph, the user behind A Bucket of Jake, a video essay channel currently sitting at 92 thousand subscribers. His niche is music, specifically, music in pop culture, and for his audience, he tries to appeal to “hardcore fans of the musician or topic I am talking about, and people who have no clue what the subject matter is but found themselves curious and desire to learn about it.” Appealing to a greater audience within a niche is very important to the growth of the channel and the genre as a whole, and Jake is very familiar with this. He’s been making content long before starting his YouTube channel, and he’s been a viewer and a creator as the scene has changed over time. “The gradual popularity rise is something I felt was deserved,” he said. “As more people learn about it and have the passion for information consumption, I feel the video essay genre will continue to grow.”
