#and a cook duck

[lover-of-mine]

Can y'all give me suggestions of rubber ducks Buck would like to get if he got ducked? Don't worry if they are plausible or not, just give me suggestions because I'm blanking lspkapakpakapa

[evertomorrowart]

Best of YouTube 2023

Yes, I did spend the first week and change of January on this. I wish I could have had it done for New Years, but too many people came out with incredible work in December, so waiting turned out for the best.

What these creators do are a huge influence on my life, I would honestly have difficulty doing what I do without them. That isn't to say that my favorites of the year are *only* on this image--It was almost impossible to narrow down my favorites. Many creators I wanted to include couldn't fit on a single page, and too many of them made more than one video I wished I could draw too!

But, to all of you, thank you for what you do. You're an inspiration.

For those who don't know, further is an explanation.

At the bottom center is an artistic masterpiece by Defunctland: "Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History." Over the last several years, Defunctland has risen from delightfully-entertaining commentary on decommissioned theme park attractions to occasionally dropping profound statements on the creation of art itself. "Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History" is worth treating like the cinematic experience it is: No second screen, you sit your ass down in front of a TV, set down the phone, and then you *watch it.* Any Disney, theme park, or independent film fan needs to pay attention to this one.

Bottom left is Caelan Conrad with their piece "Drop the T - The Deadly Consequences of Gay Respectability Politics." While I do think they've done more visually or artistically-daring pieces before, "Drop the T" is one of the most important videos released on YouTube in today's current climate of hate. We as queer folk (and our allies) need to understand how integral every identity of the queer experience has been since the start of the Civil Rights movement (and before!). While we are not identical, we *are* inseparable, and we deserve having our real history easily accessible.

TERFs and other conservative mouthpieces need not reply. Your opinions are trash. 😘

I cannot stop watching and rewatching this video by @patricia-taxxon, "On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People." It's not just a defense of furry fandom and its eccentricities, it's a thoughtful and passionate analysis of what the artform achieves that purely human representation can't. Patricia goes outside of her usual essay format to directly speak to the viewer about the elements that define furry media (the most succinct definition I've ever heard) and just how *human* an act loving animal cartoons really is.

As an artist who can draw furry characters, but never really got into erotic furry art, this video is a treasure. Why did I choose to have her drawn as a Ghibli character, hanging out with one of the tanukis from "Pom Poko?" Guess you'll have to watch, bruh.

Philosophy Tube continuously puts out videos that I would put on this list--I'm not even sure that "A Man Plagiarised my Work: Women, Money, and the Nation" is the best work she released in 2023. However, this video got many conversations going between myself and my partner, and the twist on the tail end of the video shocked us both to such a degree that I had no choice.

At the very tail end of the year, Big Joel released "Fear of Death." On his Little Joel channel, he described it as the singularly best video he's ever done, and I'm inclined to agree. However, for this illustration, I ended up repeatedly going back to a mini-series he did earlier in the year: "Three Stories at the End of the World." All three videos are deeply moving and haunting, and I was brought to tears by "We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot." While it may be relatively-common knowledge that the original Gojira (Godzilla) film is horror grappling with the devastation America's rush to atomic dominance inflicted on Japan, Big Joel still manages to bring new words to the discussion. Please watch all three of the videos, but if, for some reason, you must have only one, let it be "We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot."

Y'all. Let me confess something. I hate football. I hate watching it, I associate seeing it from the stadiums with some of my worst childhood experiences, I despise collegiate and professional football (as institutions that destroy bodies and offer up children at the feet of its alter as a pillar of American culture)--

I. L o a t h e. Football.

But.

F.D. Signifier could get me to watch an entire hour-plus essay on why I should at least give a passing care. AND HE DID IT. I might think "F*ck the Police," the two-parter on Black conservatism, or his essay on Black men's connection to anime might be "better" videos, but this writer did the impossible and held my limited attention span towards football long enough to make a sincere case for NFL players--and reminds us that millionaires can *in fact* be workers. That alone is testament to his skill.

Sit down and watch "The REAL Reason NFL Running Backs Aren't Getting Paid." Any good anti-capitalist owes it to themselves.

CJ the X continuously puts out stunning, emotional videos, and can do it with the most seemingly-inconsequential starting points. A 30 second song? An incestuous commercial? Five minutes of Tangled? Sure, why not. Go destroy yourself emotionally by watching them. I'm serious. Do it.

Their video Stranger Things and the Meaning of Life manages to to remind us all why the way we react to media does, in fact, matter. Yes, even nostalgia-driven, mass-media schlock. Yes, how we interact with media matters, what it says about us matters, and we all deserve to seek out the whys.

Folding Ideas has spent the last few years articulating exactly why so much of our modern world feels broken, and because of that his voice continuously lives rent-free in my brain. While the tricks that scam artists and grifters use to try to swindle us are never new, the advancement of technology changes the aesthetics of their performances. Portions of Folding Ideas' explanations might seem dry when going into detail of how stocks work in This is Financial Advice, but every bit of it is necessary to peel back the layers of techno-babble and jargon and make sense of the results of "Meme Stocks."

Jessie Gender puts out nothing but bangers, her absolute unit of a video about Star Wars might be my new favorite thing ever, but none of her work hit so profoundly in 2023 than the two-parter "The Myth of 'Male Socialization'" and "The Trauma of Masculinity." There's so much about modern life that isolates and traumatizes us, and so much of it is just shrugged off as "normal." We owe it to ourselves to see the world in more vivid a color palette than we're initially given.

Panels drawn after Kate Beaton and "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands."

"This is Not a Video Essay" is one of the most intense and beautiful pieces of art I've ever put into my eyeballs. Why do we create? What drives us to connect?

I don't even know what else to say about the Leftist Cooks' work, it repeatedly transcends the medium and platform. Watch every single one of their videos, but especially this one.

The likelihood you are terminally online and yet haven't heard of Hbomberguy's yearly forrays into destroying the careers of awful people is pretty slim. Just because it has millions of views doesn't mean that Hbomberguy's "Plagiarism and You(Tube)" isn't worth the hype. Too long? Shut up, it has chapters and YouTube holds your place, anyway. You think a deep dive into a handful of creators is only meaningless drama? Well, you're wrong, you wrong-opinion-haver. Plagiarism is an *everyone* problem because of the actual harm it creates--the history it erases, the labor it devalues, the art it marginalizes--which you would know if you watched "Plagiarism and You(Tube)".

Watch. The damn. Video.

In fact, watch all of them!

Thanks for reading this if you did.

[que3rduckling]

Hey ever think about how Nightwing is Batman’s greatest success and how Dick Grayson is Bruce Wayne worst failure? About how crazy that is? No? Just me? Okay…

[dulceswans]

Welcome back Gomez and Morticia Addams!

[mrgladstonegander]

[gadgetini]

i got around to reading @mean-scarlet-deceiver ‘s “Small World” (with moonie holding my hand the whole time) Im hurt. Im hurting.

[polisena-art]

I’m jumping in to submit a request! I love it when people draw one of the caballeros cooking. I think they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Personally I feel like Panchito is a dream in the kitchen. Part of me wants to make a joke about Donald burning water but he can probably at least make a good fucking sandwich. Zé…. Man I have no idea. He is a mystery to me.

I ended up rambling about headcanons OTL but! I’d love to see you draw a cab of your choice cooking or something like that!

OK SO,, Zé has been shown cooking in his comics and apparently he's pretty decent at it (his nephews do like his food) but, as everything in those comics, it all depends if it's gonna be relevant to the plot.

José might not be a chef but I'm sure he can make the Brazilian classics like rice and beans, strogonoff (the Brazilian remix), pasta with sausages, farofa de ovo, canja, bake a cake AND OF COURSE he can work a grill for churrasquinho of whatever mystery meat he can put his hands on. He doesn't do much cooking because it's "ARGH... work", but for his nephews and when it comes to showing his friends what Rio's cuisine is like, he will do it. Also, I think if he's feeling truly inspired and has people helping him, he can make a traditional feijoada, just... don't criticize it. like, EVER.

Traditional Feijoada is supposed to be rich, it's not supposed to be spicy/hot!

[figsbass]

"i'm here representing the weeds and the wildflowers" is actually such a succinct and beautiful analysis of duck team and the campaign as a whole. calder has always been singled out for being small. callie has always felt outside of her family. sol grew up alone until he went to launchpad where he was, with the exception of albin, as alone as he'd always been. they all joined mothership to be a part of something. to become monotonous and symmetrical cog in a bigger machine, to finally belong to something. but through knowing each other they discovered that their differences are where they draw their strength. individuality is what makes life worth living and this is what they are fighting for!!!!

[sunny1927]

✨🔎Spy Mickey 🔍✨

Out of no where an idea occurred to me, since Mickey is already a detective in the comic series. What if he is a spy aswell…👀 (him basically having an alter ego of himself as a spy in the night time, but at day he’s a detective. Hope that makes sense!)

So for a plot idea? I suppose, is that Mickey becomes an undercover agent/spy who goes by the name “Agent Mouse” or “Agent 28” (I don’t know which one to choose so-) to track down the villains and stopping them for good with their no good evil plan, without blowing his cover as a detective in the day. Not only Mickey has to stop the villains but also protecting his love ones from danger as well and other people (as he figures out some villains out there is trying to harm them…👀)

Anyway that’s all I got! Let me know if you wanna see more of this! (Sorry if it doesn’t makes sense I didn’t really plan out a plot 😅)

Also I wanted to draw Paperinik as well… or is it Duck Avenger? I don’t know aha-

[themintman]

something something joke about that part where jack falls off a cliff

[pinkfairiesteaparty]

[emaadsidiki]

Happiness is a flock of ducks! 🦆

[qkmlh]

Still ducking hilarious to me that Zoro & Sanji began their beef because they thought the other was misogynistic and it came to a head of no return when Zoro felt his title of ‘Luffy’s specialest boi’ threatened by Sanji’s comment

[meerkatp]

Thinking about their ark in the beginning of the 2010 comics again.

[dulceswans]

She was pretty real for this actually

[duckchef]

thinking about the fact jon and jordan really don't know shit about krypton or their heritage. clark didn't even teach them how to speak kryptonian or nothing they don't have kryptonian names they don't have shit.