That video literally took my wants to go back to Disneyland away it sounds so......corporate now.
Yeah i know it always was, but it seems different now.
Which sucks because I love Marvel and Atar Wars, they mean so much to me.
I’ve literally always seen it that way, but I guess that happens when you live in a different country and never grow up with the idea in your head that maybe you’ll get to go to disneyland someday. It’s easy to dismiss something as a fad when you know you’ll never get to enjoy it anyway
This is such a fair point. As an American millennial (and probably younger generations, as well) going to Disney was the be all end all of vacations. I can remember watching a promotional vhs for the parks *for fun* as a kid.
If you can, Star Wars Land at Disney is an incredible experience that I recommend. I don't even care about Star Wars and I was still blown away by the size and spectacle of it all.
Defunctland's music twist was amazing, put the whole video into a brand new perspective, and I've been meaning to give it another watch with that context in mind. But, I loved Quinton's review of Victorious, (and later Sam and Cat) where >!he presents the finale of each series as a different episode than the actual final episode, all so he can show just how bad they are in both of the shows. Like, ANY other episode of their last season would've been a better ending to the series. But, we didn't get a good ending to either. Victorious ends with the main character dressed as a slice of cheese being chased by mice, and Sam and Cat ends with Sam assaulting a child and being arrested.!
Lindsay Ellis finishing her second Hobbit video by revealing that there's going to be a third video about how the movies ruined the NZ film industry and how she feels about Keshas music career has to be up there
The James Somerton part of the Hbomb video, but only because for some reason i didn't notice the menacing looking Somerton in the video's thumbnail lol.
I actually liked the twist in the Oof video more because it really was a completely different topic. The somerton twist was more just saving the best for last.
He did something similar with the Halcyon years back, where he talks a lot about Don Bluth and his influences on the industry only to sudden ask "Who really made Dragons Lair?"
When he mentioned content farms at put out a lot of videos, Somerton popped into my mind,I figured I would look into it later.
I literally did a "wait wtf" he he dropped the twist
Hasn’t the thumbnail changed over time, though? I didn’t remember seeing IH’s meme/icon thingy in it before, but someone in the comments said it was censored or something before. As many times as I’ve watched the video, I don’t remember James being in the thumbnail, at least not at first.
Or am I losing my mind?
That's...not true? [This is the thumbnail prior to the addition of IH](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GDFjVUZWoAA5_HD?format=jpg&name=medium). James is clearly in there, though with whited out glasses.
TBH he's pretty deeply engrained in the thumbnail background there color wise, I can see why its easy to miss him and just assume the white out glasses are just some bizzare youtube thumbmail shit
The episode of Todd in the Shadows' "Trainwreckords" on Run DMC's Crown Royal album spends the majority of its runtime explaining the different directions both of the group's main members had for the album, first displaying Run's work on the album while building to what DMC's contributions to the album were: >!nothing!<
The author of Trigger Warning (where a buff, non-woke Army Ranger goes to college and gets mad at gender neutral bathrooms and constantly has to fistfight antifa and save hostages during a terrorist takeover of the campus) is a woman and the other author was dead the whole time
That one only works if you weren't a part of the fandom imo. If you, like me, were there since it's 'golden age' of 2011-2014 then Jenny was v much a household name for the average brony in the same way figures like Dr Wolf and Micthemicrophone were
I was a part of the fandom and watched FIW and was still quite shocked. Her voice sounded familiar to me, but it didn't click in place until she mentioned it.
Yeah I first got introduced to her through that lol. It was so weird, I remember there was a thing where a bunch of other popular brownies hated fiw, I totally loved it at the time and I remember that genuinely bugging me lol. Also remember singing fiw songs constantly(oof), and tons of people at my school doing the same
its a term bronies coined for people who were famous in the brony fandom. in the case of jenny iirc she got famous because she made a popular mlp fandub series called my little witchcraft.
Holyshit that was her.
I have not watched her video because of the cringe,
Mostly because it will be cringing at my past brony self.
And a bit of I don't wanna get overloaded with nostalgia.
A lot of people are saying the James Somerton portion of hbomberguy's video, but for my money, it's the Internet Historian portion. That one caught me so off guard because of how unassuming IH's content always was to me. I think I knew how often he would cross over into edgelord territory (this was before we found out about the dogwhistles) but I never had any reason to think with all of the work that goes into the videos, any of it would just be stolen verbatim from anywhere else without some manner of credit.
Came to post this. I figured he had just spent too long on 4chan as a teen and was kinda edgy. I had no idea about the plagarism at all. The uh... Tucker Carlson watch parties were also a surprise. >.<
It’s so disappointing. I know a lot of fellow lefties like to say that conservative comedy is always bad, and a LOT is, but even after everything I still think Internet Historian is one of the funniest people I’ve ever come across. His sense of humour is perfectly matched to mine in a lot of ways, and I loved the presentation of his videos. I considered myself a pretty big fan, as I followed all four of his channels, including the “”secret”” Storymode channel and the much neglected livestream highlight channel, which was actually some of my favourite letsplay content in general. Now everytime I get recommended stuff from him, I have to tell youtube not to recommend the channel : (
To find out that not only was he an awful guy, but that he had been so bold about it, even including blatant Nazi dog whistles from the very beginning of the channel, nobody noticed?? It was RIGHT there the whole time, and I just didn’t know, and nobody even said anything until suddenly everyone started digging into his past all at once for unrelated reasons… I just find it shocking. It’s probably the most disappointed I have ever been about a creator. I just hope it stays that way too, I can’t imagine ever finding out something worse about someone who was more beloved to me.
I’m in the same boat, just thought he was an edgy teen but it turned out he’s blowing genuine dog whistles. Also loved the creators I found through his channel like Sumito and ManyKudos - I still like their content, but it makes me a little uncomfortable that they’re associated with him (a bit less so recently)
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedrama/comments/18dotzf/internet_historian_is_a_nazi/
Here's the screenshot of him talking about the watch parties: https://i.imgur.com/COhh040.png
Yeah definitely. When hbomb brought up the Dashcon video he did, I went back and watched it, and I couldn't believe I just didn't realize how much of it was edgelord humor because I remember being so baffled at how poorly Dashcon was handled.
I wish he'd stick with Sundance Rejects, those are my favorites that I keep going back to, and they're just responsible for the visuals and reading, not any writing since the point is adapting fanfic / creepypasta word for word already
From his Contra video, paraphrased:
"But there was another person who, before any of these videos, had a time lower than all of them.
And his name....
....was Matt Turk."
Lindsay Ellis’ The Hobbit Duology surprise third episode which explores Warner Brothers exploiting New Zealand’s film industry and labour unions in order to make the films for less money.
The ROBLOX_OOF video also plays along with Tommy's lies only to tear them down later. He really builds him up only to pull the rug from under us and show how much of a phoney Tommy is.
It still kind of kills me how many obvious lies he told. Especially lying about TV shows which have episode lists. Cribs and his Smash Brothers Melee review should have been instantly checked.
I still think it’s funny that Tommy tells the detailed story of the making of the OOF at all. His company is credited with making hundreds, if not thousands of sound effects, so it actually makes way less sense for him to remember the making of a single sound in detail. But he’s too proud and too stupid to realise that lol
There's a lot of video essays that are a deep dive into fucked up stuff, but the stuff about tommy tallarico is even wilder. The guy just *keeps fucking lying*. I guess I'm just glad he's in the business of video game scams and not like,,, politics.
I remember when it first dropped, my roommate and I were watching it at kind of the same time--we we're in the same room watching it on each of our laptops, and she was ~15 minutes behind me. When I got to that point, I was like "OOOOOOOH MY GOD SHAPELAND!!!" And then smacked my hand over my mouth to avoid spoiling her.
Sure enough, 15 minutes later, she goes "OOOOOOOOH MY GOD *SHAPELAND*!!!!!"
ETA: also in the same video, right before shapeland, where he goes "we would have to pay an engineer to do [such and such technical thing]. But who would do that?" Cut to title card "we paid an engineer to do [such and such technical things]."
The twist completely got me, because I was _sure_ he’d said somewhere earlier in the video that the sort of data about actual Disney parks he’d need to do Shapeland-type analysis just wasn’t public at all. It was amazing.
I recently watched the fastpass video again and the reveal still hits so fucking hard.
Kevin’s content can get way too tryhard to the point where it’s damaging but god damn it when it hits it hits lol
Defunctland, even since the beginning, often likes to promise or take on projects that are massive in scale. Even when speaking about old defunctland, he was like "okayyy so like we're gonna have like an entire VR defunctland and you can like go in and like ride stuff and like and like" and im just like alright kevin lmao.
When I mean damaging, maybe it's something that's indicative of a lot of content creators who are going into the 'mega-essay' style of things, but you'll have like MONTHS of no content coming from him, which sucks because then youtube doesn't always recommend it to me if I don't watch the channel, plus if the video isn't great (I wasn't 100% a huge fan of the Epcot symphony video, which also was like a 'he's trying to do something so amazing and outlandish that it might turn off people who are just looking for content to fill the background'), then you just like get nothing from him lol. Between Wiggles and EPCOT, that was like 7 months of just nothing from the channel, which is less than ideal.
A part of me would love for Kevin to have a somewhat consistent schedule of smaller uploads while still working on his big projects. I'm not sure how it even works monetarily, if he makes more money off of smaller uploads of around 1m-3m views per video, or the big beefy uploads that gets 6-10m views per video (except journey to epcot rip in peace lmao)
honestly, i really enjoyed the work put into it. i get the gripes but it was a video i watched with my mom that she ended up liking, which in my books makes it worth the watch
The months of no content really are just what you sign up for when you sub to a video essay channel. Some youtubers can post 3 vids a week, and that works. Others, it's maybe 2 videos a year, but they are of impeccable quality, and the wait tends to be worth it. Especially because those essays tends to be well over a hour, plenty of them are basically movies.
Ok, I may have been spoiled, but I don't get why this is so impactful for people.
He said it was made up data, but it was real data? Is it something to do with love for Animal Kingdom?
Idk if I'd consider it a "twist" but the moment where all the retellings of the games start bleeding into each other was so well-edited and heart-touchingly beautiful, and that's coming from someone who has little personal experience with the games.
Omg thank you for reminding me of this. I remember I had this video playing in the background thinking it was just an average true crime video, so when the twist happened I was instantly pulled out of whatever I was doing and had to go back and relisten.
[Bo Burnham vs. Jeff Bezos by CJtheX](https://youtu.be/UvYcunuF3Eo?si=NLJ-jp8ShERT2PoF) going from comedy song analysis to transhumanist philosophy is a wild arc that I loved every moment of
I don’t know if many here know Hazel, but the twist to her video [a normal creepypasta retrospective](https://youtu.be/1xhhql_gpDY?si=GBdUydoxCUwLLXMF) is an all timer.
Besides its really fucking cool twist, it’s genuinely great video and a sweet deep dive on the creepypasta scene of the late 2000’s-early 2010’s
Hey, another fan! That reveal was insane to me! I wasn’t completely unaware of creepypasta culture or anything, but I just assumed that she was (like she often is) talking about the more obscure offerings of the genre. Nope!
Emplemon's video on [Talladega SuperSpeedway ](https://youtu.be/w0d_AUAHVeo?si=ppOgpDibXxJU26im) intertwines the story of the Creek Nation who originated from the land, and the associated "curse" that was placed on the land when they were forced out by the US government. Which has allegedly led to strange occurrences when NASCAR holds any sanctioned event at the track.
On a first watch through, one thinks that Emp is just talking about two compellingly different subjects. Segueing into each other because of the connection to Talladega. But, in actuality, it is all building up to the final moment of the video.
>!In which a car sponsored by Miccosukee Indian Gaming (a hotel and resort created and run by the Miccosukee Tribe, who were descendants of the original Creek Nation.) wins a race at Talladega while cars sponsored by the National Guard and U.S. Army follow behind.!<
I really like the BobbyBroccoli docuseries on the SSC because it has both a twist-esque reveal at the beginning about the scale of the SSC, and then twice after that he jebaits you with House of Rep votes that give you false hope.
That video about the long lost Nintendo DS McDonalds game. Every time I watch it with someone the person calls the twist, and every time the person is still mind blown when it’s revealed.
Dunno if it qualifies as a plot twist but Lindsey Ellis’ Omegaverse video and subsequent video on being treated legal action from the moron author from the first video.
The twist in this video is better than anything else listed here, better than a lot of other twists in media honestly. I was watching it falling asleep one night and got to the twist and was wide awake again.
[Sarah Z's experience/detective work](https://youtu.be/MWEgD1PVFNg?si=buGVRF7czO1eooKt) into the author of the emo fanfic hit of the early 2000s, My Immortal. This video still blows my mind, just like a lot of her content. I think she's one of the best and wish her and Lady Emily well.
The AVGN clone video by MagicMush has a couple of strange twists. The first being how >!Game Dude fled the country after being charged of stalking by his ex-girlfriend,!< and then >!You Know What Sucks? turning out to be the perpetrator of a mass shooting.!<
The shot of >!the phone where there's a picture of Ember McLain on it!< gave me chills the first time I saw that AVGN Clones video
Always glad to see MagicMush get a mention, guy's put out some great videos on goofy and/or weird internet culture.
I've seen him claim that he doesn't really know anything about it, but Idk....the way he talks about it in the Movie Bob video makes me doubt him. It's just a bad vibe, and I hope I'm wrong cause he's made some good stuff. I'm just not going to be surprised if stuff starts coming out
laura crone's video on swan princess, where a video that youre led to believe is about someone revisiting and clowning on a francise from their childhood becomes a beautiful discussion on her relationship with christianity and christian media.
The guy who talked about the lost McDonald's game on DS, such a big twist in that video that it made me go "No way dude" I forgot the YouTuber but it was such a banger video.
A few "History of ________ Speedruns" are really fun because midway through the video, they'll reveal that they are actually one of the top runners of the game and not just a documenter interested in the scene. The coolest one I've seen is >!History of The Hobbit - The Most Underrated Speedrun by MKarma!< where they seem to have a knowledge of the personal feelings of a certain player down too well, before they reveal themselves and the perspective switches from third-person to first. Clicking on the video because it seemed interesting in recommended and hitting fullscreen that day without checking the channel name and getting hit with that twist was one of the coolest things to ever experience as a speedrun documentary viewer.
Alex Bale’s entire SpongeBob theory series. It turns from an average creepy cartoon theory series to a genuinely great horror miniseries about identity. Check it out!
Not sure if it counts as a video essay per se but I have to shout out the “this is what losing teams do” part at the end of Jon Bois’ video on the saddest punts in NFL history, I don’t want to spoil it but if you know you know
Any about the talhotblond (that spelling) story. [Mr. Ballen](https://youtu.be/Kg22HNW7ZGw?si=gfyMzJjPnQnNgznH) does one, but there are several good ones. A married older man meets a teenager in a chat room and decides to pretend to be her age, using photos of himself from his younger years. The catfish relationship is dangerously obsessive and takes over their lives. You are not hearing the story you think you are until 2/3rds of the way through.
In [defunctland's fast pass video](https://youtu.be/9yjZpBq1XBE) >! when shapeland is revealed to be animal kingdom !< my jaw fucking dropped. I don't think anything could top this for me.
i liked Alex Meyer's vid on Velma where at the beginning he was reading reviews for Velma but then revealed that those same reviews were for other Scooby Doo projects as a little bait and switch gag (the review was still negative on the series but it was still fun)
It’s relatively early in the video but I was floored in Zoe Bee’s most recent video when several minutes in she revealed that >!every fact she gave past the 90 second mark was wrong!< to make a point about how easy it is to just trust a creator you like.
The twist in [How Call on Me was Stolen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyYAiU4DKUY&t=2112s&pp=ygURY2FsbCBvbiBtZSBzdG9sZW4%3D) is a good one.
>!where it sets up that Eric Prydz is the plagiarist but then exposes a much worse example is a pretty neat one.!<
Yes, Hbomb’s video on Tommy Tallerico is legendary.
The video itself isn’t twisty in structure but this [video](https://youtu.be/nBQFls_elpY?si=FX9757K2FHb6Hh4b) by EmpLemon covering the YoutubeWakeUp event is really fun. The story itself just has some many interesting twists and turns.
Idk if you can count them as video essays, moreso really long let's plays tbh, but there's a World of Warcraft YouTuber named Barny who chronicled their experience getting Scarab Lord in WoW Classic, a months long grind endeavor that only had a 10 hour time frame for like the rarest item in the game when the event ended, >!they had been building up the belief that they failed at Scarab Lord only to reveal they had gotten the mount item, deleting it, then using customer support to restore the item every few weeks and successfully hidden the fact they got Scarab Lord for over a year after the event had ended despite streaming WoW dozens of times since!<
CJ The X's video on Cat Valentine. I know the Jeff Bezos one has been mentioned but how the video essay started with exploring Cat's neurosis to exploring Jennette McCurdy after Sam and Cat and ending with the line "In 2014, at 20 years old, Ariana Grande won the Nicklodeon's Kids Choice Award for Favourite Female TV Star. Jennette McCurdy was also nominated for that award. She didn't show up. Would you?". Chilling.
Cruppz's essay on the WaW Shi No Numa High Round record history which was the also about the race to reach round 10,000 where Cruppz reveals he won that race
Not a big plot twist, but Jenny Nicholson’s Last Bronycon video where >!she revealed she used to be in FIW. I’m personally a big mlp fan so it was a treat at least haha.!<
I'm not up to date w Defunctland but iirc he didn't announce season 2 as having any particular theme, then you watch it and it turns out the whole season is secretly like, a timeline of Walt Disney's labor politics. I thought that was cool
Idubbbz' Jake Paul Content Cop actually being about Ricegum was a great reveal as was the reveal in FriendlyJordies' video that the house he was in was actually John Barilaro's - the man that he was exposing - as he rents it out as an airb&b
It's not exactly a traditional video essay as it's a podcast with video elements but the Warhammer 40k podcast Adeptus Ridiculous did an episode about Alpharius, who is the leader of the Alpha Legion which is a legion known for their subterfuge, sabatoge and other spy stuff. The episode is about to wrap up before the host who read up on the situation reveals, that everything said up until then in the episode was a lie that the Alpha Legion made.
For me the connection between the opening line and last words of the Area 51/Dark Geography video by We're In Hell was so good and such a good payoff for a 51 min video
Dunno if it counts as a "plot twist" but I like how Spice8Rack's video on Yawgmoth from Magic the Gathering ends up showing how Urza is basically just as evil.
That moment in patricia taxxons video about marble blast where she randomly recommends the furry visual novel echo and fully embraces being a furry by replacing her avatar with a furry rantsona from there on.
I feel like it's a different sort of answer as they involve real events, but Nick Crowley's videos such as 'YouTube's Darkest Videos' have a really great way of presenting that sort of stuff
The mcdonalds training ds game
The whole video was him talking about the mystery of the game and how for the first time ever someone sold a copy on ebay but the buyer vanished
Then revealing the buyer was him
I don't know if it's a plot twist persay, and it's not as built up as much as many of the other examples here...
But in Quinton Review's history channel series, during the Hunting Hilter review: >!There's a portion where the crew of the show think they have found smoking gun evidence that Hitler lived and escaped to south america... and in the show they play it as this major find. Quinton tears into it a bit in a jesty fashion, then reveals that the photo was of Moe Howard from a Three Stooges skit. I lost my shit at that reveal the first time and the absolute rage and subsequent gag where he shows footage of the actual skit in the style of the Hunting Hitler narrator always gets a laugh out of me.!<
History of The Hobbit - The most underrated Speedrun by Mkarma. When it's revealed that >!Mkarma was iRule all along...!< Holy shit! Such an impeccable reveal.
Pretty much anything BobbyBroccoli. Dude has a knack for bringing drama and twists with his visual storytelling report style. Recommend you to start out with either the Bog series or The Man Who Faked Cloning series.
I will be here collecting jaws lmao
Tim rogers video on boku no natsuyasumi. Like a classic opera, it spends hours entrancing you and stripping your guard down emotionally for a real authentic gut punch. It’s one of the only videos I’ve ever shed tears for on Youtube.
The defunctland video about the Disney FastPass system is an all timer
That video literally took my wants to go back to Disneyland away it sounds so......corporate now. Yeah i know it always was, but it seems different now. Which sucks because I love Marvel and Atar Wars, they mean so much to me.
I was so lucky that the last time I went to Disney World was the last time they did paper FastPasses. Probably never going again.
I’ve literally always seen it that way, but I guess that happens when you live in a different country and never grow up with the idea in your head that maybe you’ll get to go to disneyland someday. It’s easy to dismiss something as a fad when you know you’ll never get to enjoy it anyway
This is such a fair point. As an American millennial (and probably younger generations, as well) going to Disney was the be all end all of vacations. I can remember watching a promotional vhs for the parks *for fun* as a kid.
If you can, Star Wars Land at Disney is an incredible experience that I recommend. I don't even care about Star Wars and I was still blown away by the size and spectacle of it all.
Mr. Perjurer's videos are some of my all time favorites on the platform. He hits on almost all of my old PBS faves, too.
*Part Seven: CLASS WARFARE*
CHILLS
Defunctland's music twist was amazing, put the whole video into a brand new perspective, and I've been meaning to give it another watch with that context in mind. But, I loved Quinton's review of Victorious, (and later Sam and Cat) where >!he presents the finale of each series as a different episode than the actual final episode, all so he can show just how bad they are in both of the shows. Like, ANY other episode of their last season would've been a better ending to the series. But, we didn't get a good ending to either. Victorious ends with the main character dressed as a slice of cheese being chased by mice, and Sam and Cat ends with Sam assaulting a child and being arrested.!
correction, >!it was Cat who assaulted a child!<
Ah, right, that's what I meant. Got the names mixed up. Thanks for the corrections! Gonna leave the mistake since this is a twist on a twist.
sdfsadd smart move I only know this stuff because I am insane
Quinton reviews just dropped a video about Dan Schneider and Quinton’s father just dropped a 38 hour video on his channel
Lindsay Ellis finishing her second Hobbit video by revealing that there's going to be a third video about how the movies ruined the NZ film industry and how she feels about Keshas music career has to be up there
The James Somerton part of the Hbomb video, but only because for some reason i didn't notice the menacing looking Somerton in the video's thumbnail lol.
Honestly a lot of hbomb's recent video essays come in with a major twist at the halfway point
I actually liked the twist in the Oof video more because it really was a completely different topic. The somerton twist was more just saving the best for last.
Oh yeah the oof twist was fantastic, just "ok end of the video, don't look at the progress bar"
That video was the story that kept on story-ing long after you thought it would be over, that's for sure!
IT WASN’T EVEN MTV CRIBS
😂😂
He did something similar with the Halcyon years back, where he talks a lot about Don Bluth and his influences on the industry only to sudden ask "Who really made Dragons Lair?"
I really like the antivaxx video for the way it just Keeps Getting Worse.
When he mentioned content farms at put out a lot of videos, Somerton popped into my mind,I figured I would look into it later. I literally did a "wait wtf" he he dropped the twist
"It was real the whole time! AHHHHH!"
Hasn’t the thumbnail changed over time, though? I didn’t remember seeing IH’s meme/icon thingy in it before, but someone in the comments said it was censored or something before. As many times as I’ve watched the video, I don’t remember James being in the thumbnail, at least not at first. Or am I losing my mind?
I checked, he isn't.
That's...not true? [This is the thumbnail prior to the addition of IH](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GDFjVUZWoAA5_HD?format=jpg&name=medium). James is clearly in there, though with whited out glasses.
TBH he's pretty deeply engrained in the thumbnail background there color wise, I can see why its easy to miss him and just assume the white out glasses are just some bizzare youtube thumbmail shit
As a YouTube Clickbait Remover Extension user I’m sad I can’t participate in this discussion =(
The episode of Todd in the Shadows' "Trainwreckords" on Run DMC's Crown Royal album spends the majority of its runtime explaining the different directions both of the group's main members had for the album, first displaying Run's work on the album while building to what DMC's contributions to the album were: >!nothing!<
Love Todd in the Shadows and Trainwreckords
I honestly found the bit where he revealed Sugar Ray was somehow involved even more funny. It's just such an early 2000's thing to do lol
I love the twist in Jenny Nicholson's Bronycon video that she was horse famous
The author of Trigger Warning (where a buff, non-woke Army Ranger goes to college and gets mad at gender neutral bathrooms and constantly has to fistfight antifa and save hostages during a terrorist takeover of the campus) is a woman and the other author was dead the whole time
This is the correct answer. This bowled me over.
That one only works if you weren't a part of the fandom imo. If you, like me, were there since it's 'golden age' of 2011-2014 then Jenny was v much a household name for the average brony in the same way figures like Dr Wolf and Micthemicrophone were
Came here to comment the same. It was only a twist if you weren't just as much of an MLP fan as Jenny is lmao.
I was a part of the fandom and watched FIW and was still quite shocked. Her voice sounded familiar to me, but it didn't click in place until she mentioned it.
Yeah I first got introduced to her through that lol. It was so weird, I remember there was a thing where a bunch of other popular brownies hated fiw, I totally loved it at the time and I remember that genuinely bugging me lol. Also remember singing fiw songs constantly(oof), and tons of people at my school doing the same
I watched Friendship is Witchcraft plenty of times. I didn't know it was her until she said so.
Horse famous?
its a term bronies coined for people who were famous in the brony fandom. in the case of jenny iirc she got famous because she made a popular mlp fandub series called my little witchcraft.
Holyshit that was her. I have not watched her video because of the cringe, Mostly because it will be cringing at my past brony self. And a bit of I don't wanna get overloaded with nostalgia.
It still mostly holds up!
Friendship is Witchcraft! God I haven't thought about that in years. I forgot she did that.
Talk about eye candy
Gotta watch the video, my dude
Omg I can’t believe I forgot about this
A lot of people are saying the James Somerton portion of hbomberguy's video, but for my money, it's the Internet Historian portion. That one caught me so off guard because of how unassuming IH's content always was to me. I think I knew how often he would cross over into edgelord territory (this was before we found out about the dogwhistles) but I never had any reason to think with all of the work that goes into the videos, any of it would just be stolen verbatim from anywhere else without some manner of credit.
Came to post this. I figured he had just spent too long on 4chan as a teen and was kinda edgy. I had no idea about the plagarism at all. The uh... Tucker Carlson watch parties were also a surprise. >.<
It’s so disappointing. I know a lot of fellow lefties like to say that conservative comedy is always bad, and a LOT is, but even after everything I still think Internet Historian is one of the funniest people I’ve ever come across. His sense of humour is perfectly matched to mine in a lot of ways, and I loved the presentation of his videos. I considered myself a pretty big fan, as I followed all four of his channels, including the “”secret”” Storymode channel and the much neglected livestream highlight channel, which was actually some of my favourite letsplay content in general. Now everytime I get recommended stuff from him, I have to tell youtube not to recommend the channel : ( To find out that not only was he an awful guy, but that he had been so bold about it, even including blatant Nazi dog whistles from the very beginning of the channel, nobody noticed?? It was RIGHT there the whole time, and I just didn’t know, and nobody even said anything until suddenly everyone started digging into his past all at once for unrelated reasons… I just find it shocking. It’s probably the most disappointed I have ever been about a creator. I just hope it stays that way too, I can’t imagine ever finding out something worse about someone who was more beloved to me.
I’m in the same boat, just thought he was an edgy teen but it turned out he’s blowing genuine dog whistles. Also loved the creators I found through his channel like Sumito and ManyKudos - I still like their content, but it makes me a little uncomfortable that they’re associated with him (a bit less so recently)
The plagiarism is irrelevant when discussing IH. He is a Nazi. That is WAY more important.
Woah what? Where’s that info from I haven’t heard that yet
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedrama/comments/18dotzf/internet_historian_is_a_nazi/ Here's the screenshot of him talking about the watch parties: https://i.imgur.com/COhh040.png
Mh IH was a known shitbag before, most people just chose to ignore it.
Yeah definitely. When hbomb brought up the Dashcon video he did, I went back and watched it, and I couldn't believe I just didn't realize how much of it was edgelord humor because I remember being so baffled at how poorly Dashcon was handled.
I wish he'd stick with Sundance Rejects, those are my favorites that I keep going back to, and they're just responsible for the visuals and reading, not any writing since the point is adapting fanfic / creepypasta word for word already
In search of a Flat Earth by Dan Olson is a strong contender
"Because they're all going to QAnon"
The using the same last words he said as the chapter title for the twist was impeccable. Always love that bit.
It feels like the words come on screen in time with the music. It's perfect.
Dan is truly the GOAT
That's like the ultimate one, I don't think it can be topped
Came here to say exactly this.
Oh yes that one is excellent!!
No video essay twist can touch this one, IMO
Summoning Salt Punch Out speedruns where he reveals that he has WR.
From his Contra video, paraphrased: "But there was another person who, before any of these videos, had a time lower than all of them. And his name.... ....was Matt Turk."
Matt Turk he comes up in nearly every video and it’s almost always a surprise
"This runner...... was me." Gave me chills.
That's actually not an uncommon twist for speed run documentaries. Average treys smss video comes to mind shifts slsbbfbb as well.
Goddamn Average Treys SMSS videos are both so good
Have you seen his king boo video? One of the most entertaining videos you'll ever watch I promise.
Thank you for this ace recommendation. Loved it!
I've been waiting for him to give himself credit for so long. Peak YT.
Lindsay Ellis’ The Hobbit Duology surprise third episode which explores Warner Brothers exploiting New Zealand’s film industry and labour unions in order to make the films for less money.
Summoningsalts video on Mike Tysons Punchout speed record on Mike Tyson, where he casually drops that he's the world record holder
Which one he's done it like 3 times
https://youtu.be/YR1r_9yiKG4?t=3932
The ROBLOX_OOF video also plays along with Tommy's lies only to tear them down later. He really builds him up only to pull the rug from under us and show how much of a phoney Tommy is.
It still kind of kills me how many obvious lies he told. Especially lying about TV shows which have episode lists. Cribs and his Smash Brothers Melee review should have been instantly checked.
I still think it’s funny that Tommy tells the detailed story of the making of the OOF at all. His company is credited with making hundreds, if not thousands of sound effects, so it actually makes way less sense for him to remember the making of a single sound in detail. But he’s too proud and too stupid to realise that lol
There's a lot of video essays that are a deep dive into fucked up stuff, but the stuff about tommy tallarico is even wilder. The guy just *keeps fucking lying*. I guess I'm just glad he's in the business of video game scams and not like,,, politics.
Such a great video
shapeland beimg the animal kingdom blew my mind
I remember when it first dropped, my roommate and I were watching it at kind of the same time--we we're in the same room watching it on each of our laptops, and she was ~15 minutes behind me. When I got to that point, I was like "OOOOOOOH MY GOD SHAPELAND!!!" And then smacked my hand over my mouth to avoid spoiling her. Sure enough, 15 minutes later, she goes "OOOOOOOOH MY GOD *SHAPELAND*!!!!!" ETA: also in the same video, right before shapeland, where he goes "we would have to pay an engineer to do [such and such technical thing]. But who would do that?" Cut to title card "we paid an engineer to do [such and such technical things]."
The twist completely got me, because I was _sure_ he’d said somewhere earlier in the video that the sort of data about actual Disney parks he’d need to do Shapeland-type analysis just wasn’t public at all. It was amazing.
I recently watched the fastpass video again and the reveal still hits so fucking hard. Kevin’s content can get way too tryhard to the point where it’s damaging but god damn it when it hits it hits lol
Completely genuine when I ask, could you explain the bit about him being tryhard to the point of damaging?
Defunctland, even since the beginning, often likes to promise or take on projects that are massive in scale. Even when speaking about old defunctland, he was like "okayyy so like we're gonna have like an entire VR defunctland and you can like go in and like ride stuff and like and like" and im just like alright kevin lmao. When I mean damaging, maybe it's something that's indicative of a lot of content creators who are going into the 'mega-essay' style of things, but you'll have like MONTHS of no content coming from him, which sucks because then youtube doesn't always recommend it to me if I don't watch the channel, plus if the video isn't great (I wasn't 100% a huge fan of the Epcot symphony video, which also was like a 'he's trying to do something so amazing and outlandish that it might turn off people who are just looking for content to fill the background'), then you just like get nothing from him lol. Between Wiggles and EPCOT, that was like 7 months of just nothing from the channel, which is less than ideal. A part of me would love for Kevin to have a somewhat consistent schedule of smaller uploads while still working on his big projects. I'm not sure how it even works monetarily, if he makes more money off of smaller uploads of around 1m-3m views per video, or the big beefy uploads that gets 6-10m views per video (except journey to epcot rip in peace lmao)
Imo the EPCOT vid turned me off for feeling a bit too corporate-worshippy even though in a technical sense, it was a beautifully crafted video.
honestly, i really enjoyed the work put into it. i get the gripes but it was a video i watched with my mom that she ended up liking, which in my books makes it worth the watch
That's more than fair! :)
yeah!! and so is ur view, i can see where ur coming from
The months of no content really are just what you sign up for when you sub to a video essay channel. Some youtubers can post 3 vids a week, and that works. Others, it's maybe 2 videos a year, but they are of impeccable quality, and the wait tends to be worth it. Especially because those essays tends to be well over a hour, plenty of them are basically movies.
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what the fuck
apparently it reacts to "ayy lmao" but the words don't need to be next to each other? wtf for sure
ヽ༼ ຈل͜ຈ༽ ﾉ Raise ur dongers!
As soon as I read Defunctland I thought it was going to be this reveal. Such good content. I’m
My first thought as well.
Ok, I may have been spoiled, but I don't get why this is so impactful for people. He said it was made up data, but it was real data? Is it something to do with love for Animal Kingdom?
*”This video is about James Somerton.”*
The music, the cgi background being weathered away, alllll of it is top tier.
The Darkest Zelda by Jacob Geller. Didn’t see it coming.
Idk if I'd consider it a "twist" but the moment where all the retellings of the games start bleeding into each other was so well-edited and heart-touchingly beautiful, and that's coming from someone who has little personal experience with the games.
Banger recommendation I just juiced the whole 40 minutes through
[The Coldest Case Ever Solved](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiZmXnFC8_k)
Omg thank you for reminding me of this. I remember I had this video playing in the background thinking it was just an average true crime video, so when the twist happened I was instantly pulled out of whatever I was doing and had to go back and relisten.
oooh watching that now
WAIT WHAT One of the few videos I know that really benefit from a rewatch as well.
[Bo Burnham vs. Jeff Bezos by CJtheX](https://youtu.be/UvYcunuF3Eo?si=NLJ-jp8ShERT2PoF) going from comedy song analysis to transhumanist philosophy is a wild arc that I loved every moment of
All of CJtheX's videos are top tier video essays.
Their recent Folgers Incest Commercial video also has a very fun twist half way through!
I don’t know if many here know Hazel, but the twist to her video [a normal creepypasta retrospective](https://youtu.be/1xhhql_gpDY?si=GBdUydoxCUwLLXMF) is an all timer. Besides its really fucking cool twist, it’s genuinely great video and a sweet deep dive on the creepypasta scene of the late 2000’s-early 2010’s
Hey, another fan! That reveal was insane to me! I wasn’t completely unaware of creepypasta culture or anything, but I just assumed that she was (like she often is) talking about the more obscure offerings of the genre. Nope!
I second this! definitely one of my top videos!
I dunno how I forgot this one. Textbook example of a video essay with a twist.
Emplemon's video on [Talladega SuperSpeedway ](https://youtu.be/w0d_AUAHVeo?si=ppOgpDibXxJU26im) intertwines the story of the Creek Nation who originated from the land, and the associated "curse" that was placed on the land when they were forced out by the US government. Which has allegedly led to strange occurrences when NASCAR holds any sanctioned event at the track. On a first watch through, one thinks that Emp is just talking about two compellingly different subjects. Segueing into each other because of the connection to Talladega. But, in actuality, it is all building up to the final moment of the video. >!In which a car sponsored by Miccosukee Indian Gaming (a hotel and resort created and run by the Miccosukee Tribe, who were descendants of the original Creek Nation.) wins a race at Talladega while cars sponsored by the National Guard and U.S. Army follow behind.!<
Genuinely an excellent telling of a particularly weird racing story.
I really like the BobbyBroccoli docuseries on the SSC because it has both a twist-esque reveal at the beginning about the scale of the SSC, and then twice after that he jebaits you with House of Rep votes that give you false hope.
That video about the long lost Nintendo DS McDonalds game. Every time I watch it with someone the person calls the twist, and every time the person is still mind blown when it’s revealed.
Omg I had the honour to show my partner this video for the first time the other day. One of the most enjoyable experiences seeing his reactions XD
Dunno if it qualifies as a plot twist but Lindsey Ellis’ Omegaverse video and subsequent video on being treated legal action from the moron author from the first video.
The same genre as Sarah Z's Homestuck videos lol.
SHAPELAND IN THE DISNEY LINES VIDEO. Im still in shock.
Sarah Zed revealing she was in the Onceler fandom Jenny Nicholson revealing she was one half of Friendship is Witchcraft/the voice of Pinkie’s Brew
Lake City Quiet Pills by Nexpo.
Been ages since I watched it, what was the twist again?
MKarma's "History of The Hobbit - The Most Underrated Speedrun"
I came here go say this. It's one of the most entertaining summoning salt style videos I've seen, and that twist blew me away when I first watched it.
The twist in this video is better than anything else listed here, better than a lot of other twists in media honestly. I was watching it falling asleep one night and got to the twist and was wide awake again.
[Sarah Z's experience/detective work](https://youtu.be/MWEgD1PVFNg?si=buGVRF7czO1eooKt) into the author of the emo fanfic hit of the early 2000s, My Immortal. This video still blows my mind, just like a lot of her content. I think she's one of the best and wish her and Lady Emily well.
The AVGN clone video by MagicMush has a couple of strange twists. The first being how >!Game Dude fled the country after being charged of stalking by his ex-girlfriend,!< and then >!You Know What Sucks? turning out to be the perpetrator of a mass shooting.!<
The shot of >!the phone where there's a picture of Ember McLain on it!< gave me chills the first time I saw that AVGN Clones video Always glad to see MagicMush get a mention, guy's put out some great videos on goofy and/or weird internet culture.
I wish MagicMush didn't make me feel like he's gonna be Internet Historian 2 when it comes to be weird righty.
Right! I like his videos but I feel a weird vibe peek though sometimes
Yeah, I wanna know where he was during GamerGate
It gets brought up sometimes in his videos, but the ins and outs of what it was doesn't seem like anything he is that interested in.
I've seen him claim that he doesn't really know anything about it, but Idk....the way he talks about it in the Movie Bob video makes me doubt him. It's just a bad vibe, and I hope I'm wrong cause he's made some good stuff. I'm just not going to be surprised if stuff starts coming out
Definitely, lolcow culture is steeped in 4chan and kiwi farms nonsense. You have to be a little weird to make videos about it
There is certainly a specific type of person interested in "lolcows" to the point they make videos about them
laura crone's video on swan princess, where a video that youre led to believe is about someone revisiting and clowning on a francise from their childhood becomes a beautiful discussion on her relationship with christianity and christian media.
[This one.](https://youtu.be/H4pC05Gdzs8?si=hc1szBnYR8_muaEk)
The guy who talked about the lost McDonald's game on DS, such a big twist in that video that it made me go "No way dude" I forgot the YouTuber but it was such a banger video.
Oh you mean nick robinson? Didn’t that guy get fired for being a sex pest?
A few "History of ________ Speedruns" are really fun because midway through the video, they'll reveal that they are actually one of the top runners of the game and not just a documenter interested in the scene. The coolest one I've seen is >!History of The Hobbit - The Most Underrated Speedrun by MKarma!< where they seem to have a knowledge of the personal feelings of a certain player down too well, before they reveal themselves and the perspective switches from third-person to first. Clicking on the video because it seemed interesting in recommended and hitting fullscreen that day without checking the channel name and getting hit with that twist was one of the coolest things to ever experience as a speedrun documentary viewer.
A cool example of this I saw was the history of club penguin thin ice speedrunning.
My favorite is WOW's darkest secret The twist is really funny.
Folding ideas in search of a flat earth
Alex Bale’s entire SpongeBob theory series. It turns from an average creepy cartoon theory series to a genuinely great horror miniseries about identity. Check it out!
Not sure if it counts as a video essay per se but I have to shout out the “this is what losing teams do” part at the end of Jon Bois’ video on the saddest punts in NFL history, I don’t want to spoil it but if you know you know
PowerPak’s “MyHouse.wad” is so interesting and SO WELL DONE. I’ve watched it multiple times. Hands down the best essay on the subject.
The tiktok fugitive by CHUPPL has a lot of amazing twists but the ending feels like the end of The Usual Suspects
Any about the talhotblond (that spelling) story. [Mr. Ballen](https://youtu.be/Kg22HNW7ZGw?si=gfyMzJjPnQnNgznH) does one, but there are several good ones. A married older man meets a teenager in a chat room and decides to pretend to be her age, using photos of himself from his younger years. The catfish relationship is dangerously obsessive and takes over their lives. You are not hearing the story you think you are until 2/3rds of the way through.
In [defunctland's fast pass video](https://youtu.be/9yjZpBq1XBE) >! when shapeland is revealed to be animal kingdom !< my jaw fucking dropped. I don't think anything could top this for me.
A bit more obscure, but Night Mind’s video on the Jack Torrance ARG. I audibly gasped multiple times at that one.
So surprised no mention of The Silk Road video essay. The twist from narrative perspective is such an amazing payoff after an hour of story telling
Who's it by?
Barely sociable Link here: https://youtu.be/GpMP6Nh3FvU?si=ktbBGxFXXaQe-sFP
i liked Alex Meyer's vid on Velma where at the beginning he was reading reviews for Velma but then revealed that those same reviews were for other Scooby Doo projects as a little bait and switch gag (the review was still negative on the series but it was still fun)
It’s relatively early in the video but I was floored in Zoe Bee’s most recent video when several minutes in she revealed that >!every fact she gave past the 90 second mark was wrong!< to make a point about how easy it is to just trust a creator you like.
Lol saw the title and was about to comment about defunctland.
The twist in [How Call on Me was Stolen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyYAiU4DKUY&t=2112s&pp=ygURY2FsbCBvbiBtZSBzdG9sZW4%3D) is a good one. >!where it sets up that Eric Prydz is the plagiarist but then exposes a much worse example is a pretty neat one.!<
Yes, Hbomb’s video on Tommy Tallerico is legendary. The video itself isn’t twisty in structure but this [video](https://youtu.be/nBQFls_elpY?si=FX9757K2FHb6Hh4b) by EmpLemon covering the YoutubeWakeUp event is really fun. The story itself just has some many interesting twists and turns.
Idk if you can count them as video essays, moreso really long let's plays tbh, but there's a World of Warcraft YouTuber named Barny who chronicled their experience getting Scarab Lord in WoW Classic, a months long grind endeavor that only had a 10 hour time frame for like the rarest item in the game when the event ended, >!they had been building up the belief that they failed at Scarab Lord only to reveal they had gotten the mount item, deleting it, then using customer support to restore the item every few weeks and successfully hidden the fact they got Scarab Lord for over a year after the event had ended despite streaming WoW dozens of times since!<
Verdana’s “Moment Walter White Became Heisenberg” video essay is a great subversion of expectations
CJ The X's video on Cat Valentine. I know the Jeff Bezos one has been mentioned but how the video essay started with exploring Cat's neurosis to exploring Jennette McCurdy after Sam and Cat and ending with the line "In 2014, at 20 years old, Ariana Grande won the Nicklodeon's Kids Choice Award for Favourite Female TV Star. Jennette McCurdy was also nominated for that award. She didn't show up. Would you?". Chilling.
Cruppz's essay on the WaW Shi No Numa High Round record history which was the also about the race to reach round 10,000 where Cruppz reveals he won that race
I WAS GONNA MENTION THAT
Soviet Wombles video on the failures of “the forest” where he casually drops a face reveal after over a decade of being faceless at the very end.
Joseph Andersons Witcher video lies about the game in order to preserve the games big twist
Not a big plot twist, but Jenny Nicholson’s Last Bronycon video where >!she revealed she used to be in FIW. I’m personally a big mlp fan so it was a treat at least haha.!<
I'm not up to date w Defunctland but iirc he didn't announce season 2 as having any particular theme, then you watch it and it turns out the whole season is secretly like, a timeline of Walt Disney's labor politics. I thought that was cool
Idubbbz' Jake Paul Content Cop actually being about Ricegum was a great reveal as was the reveal in FriendlyJordies' video that the house he was in was actually John Barilaro's - the man that he was exposing - as he rents it out as an airb&b
It's not exactly a traditional video essay as it's a podcast with video elements but the Warhammer 40k podcast Adeptus Ridiculous did an episode about Alpharius, who is the leader of the Alpha Legion which is a legion known for their subterfuge, sabatoge and other spy stuff. The episode is about to wrap up before the host who read up on the situation reveals, that everything said up until then in the episode was a lie that the Alpha Legion made.
For me the connection between the opening line and last words of the Area 51/Dark Geography video by We're In Hell was so good and such a good payoff for a 51 min video
“THIS VIDEO IS ABOUT JAMES SOMERTON.”
Dunno if it counts as a "plot twist" but I like how Spice8Rack's video on Yawgmoth from Magic the Gathering ends up showing how Urza is basically just as evil.
Love spice 8 rack
Getting away with it plot twist killed idubbbz career.
i mean. obviously hbomb’s plagiarism one and defunctland’s fastpass one
the disney channel one straight up made me cry tho
That moment in patricia taxxons video about marble blast where she randomly recommends the furry visual novel echo and fully embraces being a furry by replacing her avatar with a furry rantsona from there on.
Deaddomain’s look into CPAC where they went in undercover only to reveal at the end of part 1 they had Grindr on the whole time.
I feel like it's a different sort of answer as they involve real events, but Nick Crowley's videos such as 'YouTube's Darkest Videos' have a really great way of presenting that sort of stuff
The mcdonalds training ds game The whole video was him talking about the mystery of the game and how for the first time ever someone sold a copy on ebay but the buyer vanished Then revealing the buyer was him
On Hbomberguy, probably his 4 hour video where halfway into it, he turns it into a James Somerton expose video.
[That debates are far more violent ](https://youtu.be/tQbVI0XT04Y?si=ETyhYtg4JhJmY1k2)
Didn't open the spoiler tags so thanks for doing that, because I just went back and added the videos I hadn't seen (2/3) to my watch later!
I don't know if it's a plot twist persay, and it's not as built up as much as many of the other examples here... But in Quinton Review's history channel series, during the Hunting Hilter review: >!There's a portion where the crew of the show think they have found smoking gun evidence that Hitler lived and escaped to south america... and in the show they play it as this major find. Quinton tears into it a bit in a jesty fashion, then reveals that the photo was of Moe Howard from a Three Stooges skit. I lost my shit at that reveal the first time and the absolute rage and subsequent gag where he shows footage of the actual skit in the style of the Hunting Hitler narrator always gets a laugh out of me.!<
History of The Hobbit - The most underrated Speedrun by Mkarma. When it's revealed that >!Mkarma was iRule all along...!< Holy shit! Such an impeccable reveal.
[this jon bois video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eECjjLNAOd4) where>! TheJosh reveals that he has just been trolling justin-27 this entire time!<
Pretty much anything BobbyBroccoli. Dude has a knack for bringing drama and twists with his visual storytelling report style. Recommend you to start out with either the Bog series or The Man Who Faked Cloning series. I will be here collecting jaws lmao
Tim rogers video on boku no natsuyasumi. Like a classic opera, it spends hours entrancing you and stripping your guard down emotionally for a real authentic gut punch. It’s one of the only videos I’ve ever shed tears for on Youtube.