#big joel

[bedknees]

[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.

[mothcub]

The thumbnail I drew for Big Joel's new video, 'Fear of Death'.

[zenosanalytic]

When Christians Kill God

I was watching a Big Joel video essay on Nebula this morning(sorry, can't link it rn: he hasn't put it on youtube yet) about the God's Not Dead series of christian-nationalist movies, and it crystalized something for me:

When Nietzsche said "God is Dead"(and I have my Issues with Nietzsche this is not a "Nietzsche is Great" post), he didn't mean god had ltrl had a heart attack or something, nor did he mean ppl didn't BELIEVE in god anymore. He meant "God", as a concept, had lost the explanatory and organizational meaning he felt it had in the past: that "God" was no longer a transcendent and otherworldly point for social cohesion, which provided structure and meaning to society and life, and The Church no longer an institution everyone deferred to and interacted with by dint of its divine-connection, but rather that both had become subordinate to gross political power. He meant that God-as-concept was now a mere rhetorical means to achieve inescapably worldly, political ends(one could fairly argue if "God" had ever been anything BUT that).

There's a moment in one of the latest of these movies subtitled In God We Trust[1](we'll get back to this) that is VERY telling. The hero of the film, a conservative pastor running for congress, is debating a strawman liberal and the liberal says something like "Isn't do unto others the main message of Christianity? Isn't Love Thy Neighbor central to the teachings of Jesus?" to which the hero says "No." both times and then responds "central to the teachings of Jesus, IS Jesus." and follows it up with "the only reason the teachings of Jesus resonate is because he was the son of god" meaning that christianity isn't about following Joshua's teachings or example, but just baldly about worshiping him, as a deity and like:

First off Josh Says(Im going to have to quote the Gospel of John quite extensively here to make a point, so plz excuse that) pretty clearly

I am the way the truth and the life

That how he lived is The Life dedicated to god, and his example the WAY to god, and his life's teachings AND example the TRUTH of god, and reiterates it later when asked by Phillip to show them god by saying

have I been with you all this time, Phillip, and you still do not know me?

in other words 'WHAT HAVE I BEEN TEACHING YOU That you don't know god yet? Haven't you been paying attention to my words and actions?' and later

The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works

in other words 'The Words of my Teachings are the Work of God. I. HAVE. BEEN. TEACHING YOU. GOD' and then, still, following from that

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.

and later still

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me

It Could-Not-Be-Fucking-Clearer: Joshua is saying DIRECTLY 'If you believe in me you will live by my example and my teachings, and if you do not live The Way and The Truth I have brought to you FROM GOD, then you DO.NOT. believe in me' His message could not be clearer.

The people who made God's Not Dead: In God We Trust made it's culminating moment a DIRECT RENUNCIATION of Joshua's teachings, and John 14 specifically, in favor of worshiping divinity in-and-of-itself. They reject his life, his teachings, his works --Everything the Gospels equate directly to Joshua and through him to God-- to merely worship a god for being a god, and in doing so mark themselves out as not christian at all. They DO NOT keep his words, and so they do not love him, and they are PROUD OF THIS!

So, No, God's Not Dead: In God We Trust(which you CLEARLY DONT DO, Actually): Christ is NOT "the central message of christianity", his WORDS are his BODY and those who KEEP them in their Hearts make themselves a HOME FOR GOD. When you reject his Words, you reject his Way, you reject his Life, you reject God, You. Reject. Christ.

I am no christian, but by the standards of the professed beliefs of the people who made this work, of the VERY TEXT they claim is their inspiration and truth, bowing down to divinity is NOT Enough. You HAVE to Walk the Way; you MUST Accept his Words.

But more to my point: What better proof that "God Is Dead", no longer a pillar to build your life around and bring ppl together by, now nothing more than a tool for unscrupulous power-seekers, than a gang of wealthy liars calling themselves ~Christians~ proudly celebrating their Rejection of "The Way The Truth The Life" in favor of scraping at divinity's feet, as a tawdry tactic to drum up votes for an election.

They Spit on their God and call it "Faith".

[1]That they'd name it this is particularly galling, given everything else, because of course that Wasn't The Original Motto of the US, E Pluribus Unum(Out of Many, One) is, but rather one adopted in 1956 after a long campaign of political christians campaigning for it. In other words: That "In God We Trust" is the official US motto is yet another example of God being reduced from something holy to a political football. ↩︎

[malwarewolf404]

Okay you all can say I have early onset dementia or whatever but Big Joel on Youtube looks like. Exactly what I imagine Socrates looks like? Am I insane?

Is this anything???

[football-in-tuxedos]

One of the most frustrating things about American Evangelical Christianity is that I am opposed to refusing to name them Christians (Chrissy Stroop has a great piece on why) but it does feel increasingly like we need a new word for them. I was raised Christian, I have actually read the Bible, and while I'm an atheist now, it does feel like something is different with modern Evangelicals.

A few days ago I watched Big Joel's video on God's Not Dead 4 and 5 and there was a moment in the clips he showed that earnestly blew my mind; At one point in God's Not Dead 5, during a political debate, the Evil Atheist (TM) throws Jesus' teaching of Love Thy Neighbor and Do Unto Others in the main character's face, asks if they aren't central to the teachings of Jesus. And the main character responds:

"No, central to the teachings of Jesus is Jesus."

That earnestly made my jaw drop, not because I didn't think they believe that, but because I never thought they'd say it. This is not some caricature of Evangelicals, this was a piece of media made by Evangelicals for Evangelicals, and they just blurt it out unprompted.

This might seem odd, but I think it's important to understanding modern American Evangelicals. They want to be Christians, to be clear, but at least partly because Christianity still has massively outsized social and political power in America. Christianity is the only religion where a politician can stand up and say "I want to ban this thing because my religion says it's bad" and get away with it. But the teachings of their supposed Messiah, the actual messages of Love Thy Neighbor, Do Unto Others, that whole thing about Camel and Needles? That stuff can be picked up and dropped as they please.

Modern Evangelicals have, in essence, constructed a new Jesus, one who teaches them to brutalize anyone different from them, to gain wealth as a sign of faith and to abuse their children, and these invented teachings supersede anything and everything in the Bible. And if someone points out the difference, the fact that their Jesus' teaching differ from the teachings in the Bible, they can simply say that Jesus, their constructed, is more important than anything he said. Saying "Jesus believes this" is more important than anything he actually said he believes.

And I guess I wish we just had a word for that.

[luminouslumity]

I Watched Every Disney Channel Original Movie

Six hours!

[cheddar-baby]

I'm really enamored with this clip

[mwagneto]

> bored

> take 10 minute nap

> wake up

> think "haha what someone i like finally posted a big ass video while i was out"

> new 6 hour big joel video

[queenrizzardnthelizardscissored]

anyone else feel like all those analysis/video essays from 2014-2020 that deal with politics in media and philosophy and political debunking (think hbomberguy, shaun, skip intro, jack saint, big joel etc) feel so. idk. depressing now?

like they all try so hard to analyze this media and these events and these political movements, and they often have like. a LOT of effort put in. graphs, elaborate data, etc, and when i watched them then, it was like an antidote to all the far right bullshit that was spewed all over the place often by ppl laughing at it. highly entertaining and funny and also interesting and informative and a gateway for you to research more and think, and a lot of them help me develop my views on like. far right looneys from "they're just assholes" to "the large ones are motivated by capital, economics, and grifting, and the lower-class ones are reeling from economic shifts and tie cultural memory with economic memory (eg. I can't buy a house now, therefore the gays are what's wrong with the world since they showed up then.)" and these videos kind of have this hopeful tinge to them. like they all end with stuff like "well, if we build communities and organize labor and talk to these people, (and produce enough content to combat the far-right stream of disinfo) then maybe, maybe we can win. it will take a massive amount of change but we can do it, on a small scale first then a larger one." and then like none of that happened.

like the antidote was made and it was wonderful and it didnt matter for anyone except those healthy anyway. n like none of it happened. there wasnt mass community organizing (i tried but like. i was one teen), the ppl who were far right didnt stop being far right, and we like. went backwards. like there was a vid about how modern family or whatev normalized gay ppl and now its like we're going back. like far right assholes are in power n culturally important, the last election had right-wing talking points as the fulcrum of every discussion and trump WON by way way more than last time and most ppl i know either shifted right or were radicalized left but hopeless abt it. u see all these vids and they're like "well, heres a way we could fix this, here's the data to back this up, etc etc etc" or "here's how this media perpetuates negative beliefs about police" or whatever and then we didnt fix it and the media didnt change or still exists. all the hope they seem to have feels so fcking hollow when we are in the future they talk about and know everything still sucks.

[blazehedgehog]

I have been thinking of this video for a while. I'm not going to watch it. But, like, Youtube videos used to be short, right? Like 10-15 minutes. So if you're watching every (xyz) movie, you could do one video for each. 30, even 60 episodes. So why don't you? Well, that's easy.

I remember the Let's Play boom. My cousin and I even started our own channel. When you start a series, episode 1 is your peak and things slowly fall off from there until the end, and sometimes there's a big surge for the final episode. Happens to everyone. It's natural.

By rolling a series into one, big, long video, you can point to a big viewership number -- like Big Joel's 887,000 views. But I'm going to guess not even 50% watched past the 30 minute mark. Source: my own hour-long Youtube video. Analytics tell me 53% of viewers abandon in the first 30 seconds.

Of those 887,000 viewers Big Joel got, how many made it to the one hour mark? 200,000? Or what about the four hour mark? I doubt its even 50k at that point.

How many creators are lying to themselves, I wonder? To say nothing about Youtube itself, which pays for longer watch times over raw views.

There are a lot of questions I don't have answers for. Is it intrinsically better to have longer videos? Surely you're getting some amount of people who forget they have it on and watch the whole thing to completion, right? And that has to be higher than if it was a series of videos. But how high? And even if only 10,000 people watch all six hours of a long essay, the bigger viewership number has to be good advertising, right? "Oh wow nearly a million people watched this six hour essay, maybe I'll give it a shot." Right? That probably exists. But that's a "probably."

Personally speaking, I can't help but feel like this is a bubble that will pop some day. And there will be a graveyard of 2+ hour video essays nobody will ever go near ever again. But what do I know? My 19 year old Youtube channel hasn't even broken 100k subscribers yet.

[unburdened-by-what-has-been]

There’s a word for this sorta behavior…

[kineticpenguin]

lmao

[ellapastoral]

Hiiii! i love your new video. It was great to hear about your experience with the fandom and how positive it seemed I loved your little fantrolls and fankids so I wanted to draw a couple! i hope you dont mind some creative liberties I took It's meant to be in spirit of the modern resurgence of the fandom <3 (Ps I'd love to watch a video of you explaining your fancomic!)

Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm thrilled you enjoyed the video and my fantrolls and fankids.This fanart you make is so cute omg 😭, it's been making my day and i've literally been kicking my feet and squealing.

Your support really means a lot to me. And yes, I'll consider making a video explaining my fancomic. Thank you! <3

[cartoonscientist]

Jeannette: