i've been watching this guy patrick cc: (https://www.youtube.com/@PatrickCc/videos) who makes video essays about various stars or people who used to be relevant but fell off the face of the earth. some particularly interesting ones are how Rob Dyrdek made MTV his own personal production company because he was making the company so much money:

and another good one on Macaulay Culkin's entire life:

i love watching video essays on all types of shit so post what you got

i also watch syrmor who makes really interesting VR Chat videos where he interviews people of interest (https://www.youtube.com/@syrmor)

these aren't really video essays but i didn't know a better place to post this, but anyway his interviews are really good like this one where 3 guys explain their military experience and how dysfunctional the american military is:

Just adding this to my bookmarks so I can come back and watch the videos. Macaulay and the dysfunctional military are both interesting to me. Sadly, most of my video watching are lets play series for some games, but below are the most recent items I have watched that I would consider a video essay.

Blockchain - Innovation or Illusion - Spoiler, its all bullshit (knew this before the video). Local First Software - I am not sure why people don't understand this and pretend the "cloud" is the future. Of course this could launch into my tirade about UI/UX designers that are f*cking stupid and have no real idea on what a proper UI is and how it should function (this coming from a programming/software background in the late 90s/early aughts). Web3.0: A Libertarian Dystopia - Haven't watched this one yet, so not fully sure their stance, but I will get there soon.

just watched two videos one on Jerry Seinfeld:

and another on Adam Sandler:

both kinda summarized the highlights of their career with some interviews stitched in. the adam sandler one was really endearing, while the Jerry Seinfeld one kinda pointed out a lot of scumbag stuff about the guy i never knew

Those were both surprisingly pretty good. After watching the Adam Sandler video though I feel like he is in the same boat as Robin Williams mentally. He seems like he is always trying to keep the comedy around to keep his spirits up, but his comments and serious rolls look like they are pulling from something deep he is not working out.

I think one of my favorite YouTubers, even though he stopped posting that much is NerdWriter1. He has an incredible catalogue ranging from painting analysis to film analysis. Has some videos about STEM science and some social science.

Overall, he is one of the people that I think was pretty much at the beginning of the video essay scene. I think for me he is one of the best.