the ironically shallow youtube deep dive
Like many people, I have enjoyed my fair share of video essays on YouTube. They're often the right balance of entertaining and educational - perfect to unwind to after work or listen to podcast-style while sketching. Defunctland's documentaries such as Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery and Disney's Animatronics: A Living History are funny, earnest, and always feature a central thesis that makes me step back and think. Alex Avila's essay on TikTok Gave Me Autism: The Politics of Self-Diagnosis braids philosophy and personal experience to comment on one of a pervasive topic at the time. Princess Weekes inspires me to want to take extensive notes on media again, especially videos like Black Horror vs. Black Trauma. Mina Le has grown so much since she first started her channel with an infectious down-to-earth energy, thoughtful commentary, and a great range of topics, including her recent videos like the death of personal style and goodbye fillers, hello... facelifts?.
One genre of video essay that I have been thinking about lately is the Deep Dive1; despite how many video essays invoke this phrase in their titles, many creatives forego depth for length. There seems to be two main flavors of this genre. The first features a youtuber who, after watching a series or learning about a topic, presents all the thoughts they have been bottling up about the topic. amandabb is a great example of this, such as her incredibly funny overview of Glee, in which she tracks the insane depravity of the show as it unfolded over six seasons. It's cozy - like gabbing with a friend, especially since Amanda does her makeup while she rants about how Will Shuester should have been fired so many times for misconduct.
The second flavor is a youtuber who extensively summarizes a piece of media or current event akin to a Wikipedia article. Enter my problem with "deep dives": rather than creating a video essay with a central purpose, or engaging the audience with personal commentary strongly woven throughout a rant/rave, the videos often rely heavily on summary to contribute to the length. The effect is less of a "deep dive" and more of a recap, maybe with occasional commentary thrown in if we're generous) ironically resulting in a shallow essay.2
As previously acknowledged, not every creative has the same purpose in mind for these videos. Some want to raise observations about things they noticed that bothered, impressed, or sparked something in them; or they might present a more solid thematic or character-based observation that they want to analyze with textual evidence; or they might have personal observations and experience that correspond with the media they have selected that they want to explore. In each of these examples, some degree of summary is likely unavoidable, if not outright necessary, to provide the audience with important context. However, a number of problems can arise via an overreliance of summary, such as:
Problem 1: too much summary lends itself to plagiarism, unintentional or otherwise
Let's get this issue out of the way first. If you're into video essays then you are probably familiar with the plagiarism busting that took place last year. Many big names covered egregious instances in their videos, including Hbomberguy and Todd in the Shadows. The central moral issue here was that the plagiarists in question were stealing ideas and presenting them as their own. That's not just summary, but argumentation, analysis, and extensive research. Under the guise of having "done their own research," the plagiarists would often wholesale read out, or even present typed passages, of content lifted from elsewhere. Even if citations were provided, they were sloppily documented and inconsistently applied.
However, I have also noticed some people plagiarizing summary. Several years ago, I was watching a popular True Crime YouTuber report on a case that I hadn't heard about before.3 While watching the video, I wanted to pull up more information to read on my own and what I discovered was that I was being read a Wikipedia article with minor words or phrases swapped around. Ever since then, I've been wary of content that relies too heavily on uninterrupted summary. Another YouTuber self-disclosed that she was referencing a wiki because it had been a while since she watched the show she was commenting on, and while I appreciate that minimal transparency, it did diminish my interest. After all, if I want to read a timeline or play-by-play summary of a TV show, I can read the wiki myself.
Problem 2: original commentary and insight is difficult to trace
As a millennial, I'm no stranger to the claims people have made about how XYZ are destroying our attention spans. To be clear, my problem with the "Deep Dive" video essay is not about its length; after all, many of the videos that I have cited throughout this blogpost have a run time of over an hour. Even though creatives can make an engaging, clear, and organized longform video, not everyone does. It is not uncommon for a video with a run time of 2+ hours to end up losing focus partway through if one was established at all.
Does it have to be that deep? Not necessarily. If someone's goal is to have that laidback breakdown of a series, including its roller coaster of events and characters, then a lack of a throughline thesis might not detract from an audience's enjoyment of the content. But when the premise is to analyze and the delivered end result is mainly summary, then the balance feels deeply out of alignment, especially given the scale of many projects.
One time I was watching a video that pitched itself as a deep dive into a cartoon that I watched as a teen. I was kicking around some of my own essay ideas about the show at the time so I had seen a couple videos on it at this point. What caught my attention about this one though was that it's run time was several hours long and the creative often would summarize, beat-for-beat, what happened in the show and then run clips of that same material/dialogue occurring in the show. It felt like I could have just watched the episode at that point because it was unclear what we were diving deep into. When the speaker did have points to raise about what made the show enjoyable, ahead of its time, or why certain characters were frustrating, it was hard to hold onto those points when they were buffered by so much redundancy.
I neither want nor expect every video essay to lean into academic speak and maintain a rigid essay structure. But some restraint in the editing process, letting some observations go, can help improve the viewing experience.
Problem 3: algorithms over ideas
I'm not a YouTube creative so I can only imagine how punishing the site's algorithm is when you view it from behind the scenes based on what other people have conveyed. I understand that titles, thumbnails, and hashtags can make or break getting your project into an audience's feed, which can be especially important if you're new and trying to break into the field or if creating these projects is a major source of your annual income. Sometimes phrases like "deep dive" or "[X] explained" are invoked to work with the algorithm in mind. The unfortunate downside to this is that the quality deep dives get lost in a sea of other videos.
There's a strong parallel here to journalism where the deep dive was, to my knowledge, meant to investigate and analyze a subject in a comprehensive and detailed manner. But the pulpy, pop journalism (Buzzfeed, Screen Rant, Mojo, etc.) might give us some degree of the two, but they are often lacking in a degree of nuance that I have come to desire from media analysis.
What we can learn from those who get it right.
Enough with the negatives: there are so many longform media analyses that strike a great balance between length, organization, purpose, and entertainment that can serve as examples of how might adjust their video essay plans if they are interested in pursuing deep dive content.
1. Follow a Structure: José
For me, José is the gold standard of a deep dive media analysis. Though a few of his videos had popped up in my Recommended Feed, the first I actually watched was One Family vs. The World: A Malcolm in the Middle Retrospective. According to Bingeclock, it would take 2 days, 11 hours, and 8 minutes to watch all 151 episodes of the show. Given that massive undertaking, I was struck deeply by how intentionally and seamlessly all of José's observations were synthesized. Despite not having watched the show since I was a teenager, the essay had my brain buzzing with ideas about the depth of Lois's character, how I related to Malcolm as a fellow middle child, and what it was like watching this show as it aired.
With an emphasis on American sitcoms, José's videos tend to follow a fairly consistent format (with some deviations for the bigger ensemble cast shows to make them more manageable. He usually begins with a contextual introduction that identifies the origins of the show (premise, characters, style) and its broader, cultural relevance and impact. Next, we get a close examination of the pilot that expands the basic premise to include more pointed observations, analyzing what worked in the pilot's favor at the time it aired and what impact that would have on the show's core themes and character development later on. The mid-section then traces the development of the show over its run, highlighting its cultural relevance, thematic throughlines, major plot pivots, social commentary, and acknowledgment of its limitations, room for improvement, and even decline in quality (if applicable!) This analysis is accomplished with a combination of summary, clips from individual scenes, and a breakdown of significant episodes. The video's end with a "Where are they now?" overview of the cast and also incorporates personal reflection on the show's meaning or impression on José.
Rather than commenting on every episode, because that would add a significant amount of length, José seems to pick out episodes that provide the best evidence for the observations he wants to convey. Honing in on a handful of scenes and episodes allows us to really dig into the characters, symbols, and themes that worked for (and, at times, against) the show's development. This approach is engaging, thoughtful, and inspiring. It drives home how much dedication goes into crafting these videos.
2. Large Scope with a Twist: You've Got Kat
If you love 90s/00s nostalgia content, then You've Got Kat has some great coverage (Neopets, Dollz, Babysitter's Club) in general, but her Degrassi Deep Dives are the longest and most detailed uploads that keep viewers and patrons clamoring for more - and with good reason! Her narration is charming, fun, and precise. Like José, a lot of research goes into these videos; after all, Degrassi is not a short series and she carries over her observation from one run to the next, which is a lot of lore to juggle at once. Though there are a lot of Degrassi deep dives out there, there are a few things that set Kat's approach apart.
One of these strategies is the choice to condense information down. For example, in Next Generation (Part 1), Kat focuses on the first season of the show and organizes the information based on each of the characters. This way, we get a sampling of their major story arcs, themes, and contributions. By the time we reach (Part 2), Kat covers multiple seasons at once but continues to organize information by character to make it more manageable. Since Degrassi consistently introduces characters who initially play a minor role, but become important later on, this approach helps the audience keep track of the bigger picture while still acknowledging the highs and lows of its individual players.
As with her previous entries in Degrassi Jr/High, Next Generation also includes smaller embedded segments with fun asides such as Theme Songs/Music and Fashion Corner. I love these intermission segments so much and you can tell that Kat had a lot of fun making them, too. Often when we're undertaking a project like these, a lot of ideas might end up on the cutting room floor because there's simply too much that is tempting to include. But I like that Kat rescues a few things that she just couldn't help commenting on, especially as a healthy way to decompress following some of the heavier plotlines of the show.
3. Dense Research: ErynCerise
In 2017, ErynCerise released the intro video to an ambitious project: a review series tracing the origins and transformation of the Magical Girl anime genre. Mahou Profile: A History of Magical Girls went on indefinite hiatus after 10 episodes due to extenuating circumstances (life happens!) and the extensive amount of preparation and research they took was unfeasible at the time. What ErynCerise managed to release is a deep dive still well worth watching due to the care she dedicated to the project.
The series as developed covers Sally the Witch through Cutie Honey. Those of us who grew up with Sailor Moon as the starting point of the magical girl genre will find these shows relatively obscure in comparison. This made the episodes a bit harder to find and ErynCerise also watched them all in Japanese, provided context of their significance to both the viewers and industry at the time of airing, and interwove her personal reactions to the content (and boy was there a lot of interesting things to comment on!)
One element that helps unify this as a deep dive series is the overarching goal of tracing what it means to be a mahou shoujo - the tropes, symbols, plot lines, etc - and the impact and relevance one show might have on the next. It's fascinating to hear about the thin line of similarities and differences between some of these early magical girls and how much the early plot structure was from what will become synonymous with the genre.
These videos are also so well edited (as were the video essays from the previous two creatives!) There isn't just depth in what is being communicated to us verbally, though ErynCerise has a great podcast voice, but there's so much to visually take in.
4. Pare it Down: La'Ron Readus
When watching some deep dives with longer run times, I cannot help but ask myself whether it would have been more beneficial to the creator and audience to have pared things down to a more concise, centralized idea. After all, the traditional video essay format has always worked for good reason: thesis-driven, approachable length, clear evidence and analysis, and a key takeaway.
There are so many video essayists I could highlight here for their concise vision, but I want to give a shoutout to La'Ron Readus. He has a great archive of videos delving into niche topics on pop culture. They're focused, fun, and well-organized. The first video that I watched was How Debbie Made the Addam's Family Even Gayer. I have always had a soft spot for the simplicity of a person talking to the camera interspersed with relevant media clips, plus La'Ron has a great voice and cadence that pulls me in as a viewer/listener.
What makes a more traditional essay format work is that its organization is so easy to follow. La'Ron tells us his main argument up front and then guides us through how he reached that conclusion by providing us with clear evidence: clips from the film, title cards with cited direct quotes, anecdotes from personal experience as a viewer, etc. The format prompts me to reflect on my own interpretation of the evidence, consider moments that were not included that I might analyze using the same lens, and also draw comparisons to other media.
In this way, a deep dive doesn't have to necessarily aim for comprehensive scope (every episode, every film, every scene). Depth can come by way of something more intentionally carved out, finessed, and well-presented.
Given the current state of media literacy, video essays are in a position to help us develop our critical thinking skills. I hope to see the genre trend in a direction that is insightful and creative to provide us with the depth promised by its premise.
Thank you for reading! ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ
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For this article, I will be focusing on media analysis deep dives specifically rather than videos on current events in politics or pop culture. I also consider videos in the vein of "[X] explained" that point out easter eggs or interpret the mysteries of the show as a separate category that might warrant its own discussion at a future point. As such, this post is not about the YouTube channels Deep Dive or The Deep Dive, respectively.↩
I have deliberately chosen not to feature examples of YouTube videos that I think fall into the problems I breakdown in this blog post because I do not want to drive negative attention to anyone who is, at the end of the day, just trying to have fun or make a living.↩
Related to this incident, I am very hesitant to engage with True Crime content in general for a variety of reasons. But casually reading Wikipedia summaries of horrific cases for views was a big wake up call for me.↩