PulpLit.net

The New New Essay

I enjoy watching Zero Punctuation every Wednesday on The Escapist. For those of you who are not familiar with Benjamin "Yahtzee" Richard Croshaws work, Zero Punctuation is a weekly video review of video games that is typically five minutes long, spoken by Yahtzee very quickly (hence the title), and features simplistic but clever multimedia including cartoons and images.

Now I've come across another video essay on sex in videogames that uses the same format, and acknowledges it does so at the end of itself.

One example is an innovator.

Two is a genre.

So, I'm gonna' be the first to go on record and call this the New New Essay for the internet age. This new essay features several telling characteristics:

1. The video is used to support the text. As opposed to a podcast or a video recording of a speech being presented, there is a clear interplay between the text of the essay and the images, whether they serve to reinforce or act as a counterpoint to the text.
2. The pace is very quick. Instead of the normal, belabored delivery of a typical essay, these essays are delivered as quickly as the person can speak in stand-up comedy style.
3. The information density is incredibly high. When compared to a short blog entry such as this, which takes maybe twice as long to create as it does to consume, a video essay take's it's author several hours at a minimum to put together (though Yahtzee apparently takes days), which translates to a heck of a lot of information in a short 5 or 10 minute clip.
4. The video essay is fundamentally is making an argument. This is that characteristic of all essays, but just to be clear, what I am talking about is distinct from story telling or YouTube video blogs or some other narrative or animated story via video. What I am talking about is people writing real essays, whether it is reviews or otherwise, that are arguing for or against a point of view.

I hope we see more of these video essays in the future. They are entertaining, and smart.

If I was all meta, I'd make this paper blog entry itself into one.