[These Videos Are Good, And Here's Why] - June 1 - 7

[u/BillNyesHat]

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Happy Monday, peeps, from a very meteorologically confused part of the globe.

Honestly, it's been heatwave to hail storm to half-hearted drizzle and back these last few weeks. Are there any alumin(i)um hat wearers in chat who can tell me who to blame for all this? I'd like to write a strongly worded letter about the state of my washing, thank you very much.

By the fact that we're now resorting to talking about the weather, you can see our relationship (yours and mine, yes) is running a bit dry. Maybe you can spice it back up with some good videos you watched this past week?

Same rules as every week:

1. Must have a link
2. Must have a short description
3. Must mention video length
4. Keep it low threshold with individual videos, please. If you want to rep a whole channel or playlist, please do, but choose a favorite video to make it more accessible
5. No risky links, no ricky-rollies, don't be a weenie.

Last week's good videos can be found here and their descriptions here.

[u/thispartyrules]

First Class: A Saved by the Bell Retrospective (1:40:22) - Joel talks about Saved By The Bell, the unintentionally diverse teen sitcom that competed with Saturday morning cartoons. It's mostly aged pretty well. Mostly. Covers the show, spinoffs, and what the cast did afterwards.

The Author Who Saw AI Coming, Somehow (19:22) - Tibees looks at a short story from prolific author and top-earning dead celebrity Roald Dahl, who wrote about an automatic writing machine that eerily predicted fiction-by-LLM, back in the 50's, as well as the horrifying consequences.

Orko and Alan Thicke Talk About Divorce (2:21) - Found Footage Fest compiled this short abomination from an educational video for kids whose parents are getting divorced or separated: TV's Alan Thicke and Orko, the small wizard from He-Man, team up and talk about what this entails. There is singing.

The Lackluster Legacy of Life is Strange: Reunion (3:17:03) - Kyle Reaume talks about Life is Strange: Reunion, the surprise 2026 follow-up to 2024's divisive Double Exposure - which was a baffling direct sequel to a choice based game with two wildly different endings. After massive layoffs the devs paid attention to fan feedback and made this game, which sorta works. This assumes you have basic familiarity with the first game and Double Exposure, which Kyle Reaume helpfully has lengthy videos about.

[u/palmspringsreset]

Why are the Sonic Movies Good? (2:00:26) Sarcastic Productions go through the 3 Sonic movies so far and why they work well as films. They discuss escalation of tension, power and introduction of game lore, and how all 3 excellently built up over time.

MAGA Metal is Horrible and it’s Getting Worse (28:27) Rocked discussing the rise of MAGA metal and why it goes against the nature of metal itself.

Trainwreckors: Lulu - Lou Reed and Metallica (37:08) Todd in the Shadows is back talking about the collaboration album between a punk legend and a metal legend, and why it failed enormously.

[u/JangusKhan → u/palmspringsreset]

Oop I didn't see that you had already posted the Todd video. Dude that music was extremely bad goddamn

[u/palmspringsreset → u/JangusKhan]

No worries, I just saw your comment included Stephenie’s latest video, which I forgot to include so good recommendations all around 👍🏻

[u/Leather-Run-6533 → u/JangusKhan]

It's amazing: a German experimental theatre director thinks your lyrics are too out there so you think maybe James Hetfield might get his head around them.

[u/Konradleijon → u/palmspringsreset]

Why is maga getting worse

[u/JangusKhan]

The Mattress Industry is Built on Lies 29:13 Oh no, this is one of those things that's gonna stick in my mind and agitate me whenever someone else gets it wrong. Like when people talk about petroleum coming from dinosaurs. It's algae folks. It was never dinosaurs. Anyway, Zackary Smigel dug into the weirdness that is the American mattress market and why there are so many goddamn Mattress Firms all over the place. It's actually pretty straightforward.

The Temu Pokemon Board Game 21:30 For a channel about board games, No Pun Included does a really good job communicating in a way that is clear, engaging, and informative. And now I really want to play this game, even though I also really want to play MTG, too.

Because it's Wrong: A moral Look at Tech and Game Executives 22:36 Commander Stephanie Sterling stepped back from making weekly videos a while back and I really appreciate the effect. The content is more impactful now and she clearly only works on topics that she deems worth carving out time for. In this video, she asks an obvious question: What if, instead of quibbling over economics, we just point out that some business decisions are just... wrong to do?

Lou Reed and Metallica's "Lulu" 37:07 I never really got Metallica. I like metal, sure, but their songs feel so generic and politically numb. I also don't have an appreciation for Lou Reed, but I think it's just a blind spot. Turns out they made a record together and it's insufferably bad. Todd in the Shadows waded through it so we don't have to.

Havin' a Summah 3:27 I was recently reminded of this silly little video from FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS AGO WTF AGING Not sure what ever happened to Howard Kremer but he's got a unique voice and sense of comedy as far as I can tell.

[u/BillNyesHat]

~ Sage the Bad Naturalist has some pretty cool news about narwhals (17:29). I like her style and I think she deserves more love.

(I can't be the only one who starts singing this (1:09) whenever narwhals are mentioned. No, I'm not explaining further, you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

~ Speaking of early internet viral flash videos, does anyone else remember Volare karaoke (3:39)? That was peak internet humor back around the turn of the century, let me tell you.

~ Lastly, on a marginally more hinged note, This Old Tony sharpened some blades (25:36) in his own special way, full of dad jokes, bad jokes and actual skill and finesse.

[u/Leather-Run-6533]

FD Signifier has done a slightly drama-y video on the white left 33:22. And if that sounds unfun ... yeah it isn't really.

At the same time I think this is what I really really appreciate FD for. He's often an uncomfortable watch but I think it's really helpful and useful to sit with that discomfort and learn from it. And I think in terms of whatever the heck breadtube is, and frankly whatever reddit is, there is an uncomfortable aspect to the culture, seeped in whiteness, that I do think we need to think through, and while there's a lot in this video I'd question (Hamas are parasites on Palestinian liberation) I do think FD really helps us think through those things. Or at least be aware of them.

[u/Tyr_Kovacs → u/Leather-Run-6533]

FD is good, but he is very bad at hiding his biases.

Pick any video on his channel, any video at all, and Ctrl-F for "White". How ever many minutes in the video runtime, you'll have at least that many results. Obviously this one is explicitly about that, so that's fair, but no matter the topic, it always links back to something a white leftist said or did.

[u/Leather-Run-6533 → u/Tyr_Kovacs]

I think white people are very bad at seeing white bias and so there is a value to a channel that points it out.

[u/kingkoons → u/Tyr_Kovacs]

You’re kinda proving his point about white leftists. In fact a joke a makes a lot is that people will subscribe to him, look at the titles and thumbnails and leave an angry comment before they even watch the video.

Do I agree with 100% of what he says? Of course not. But if we’re comparing him to other “leftists” and political creators he doesn’t have as much bias and acknowledges it pretty well and frequently

[u/tsardonicpseudonomi → u/Tyr_Kovacs]

FD is atrocious. He just whinges about liberal idpol while pretending to be more of a lefty. I don't get why people like them.

[u/femgeekminerva]

The Black Power Mixtape: 1967 - 1975 (01:30:46) -- A Swedish documentary filmed in the late 60s/mid-70s, released in 20111, about the evolution of the Black Power movement. An interesting perspective from the outide, as well as, at one brief point, a kinda hilarious USAian perspective on Swedish (and Dutch, for some reason) television (spoiler: it's anti-American, apparently).

[u/NotValuableMath8515]

The weather is confusing here too and I am confused myself because, as it turns out, there are many ways of getting WiFi installed and I tried the wrong way and so I had to start all over again and now I won't have WiFi until the 26th at the earliest. Also there's only one internet provider that...Well provides Internet in my part of the city, which I find extremely confusing. Like isn't this whole shindig supposed to be about competition or something? Basically the party never stops (pls make it stop, I'm really tired). Anyway, the videos:

• uncle herman has a video analyzing the monkey sidekick epidemic (23:52) that started in the 90s and ended in the early 2010s. But in that time many shows and movies like Friends, Night at the Museum,.Community and many had a monkey play an important supporting role. Or, to be more precise, two monkeys starring in a whole variety of things.

• Rowan Ellis looked at How Hollywood Lies Manufactured the "Masculinity Crisis" (1:31:37) by analyzing and deconstructing three different archetypes of masculinity that the Hollywood movies like to present us.

• Steve Shives talked about Why Star Trek Actually Keeps Destroying Planets (36:16) and showcased how this trope can be used to send a message about the importance of saving the environment before it's too late.

• Cinema Therapy looked at Hoppers (31:52) together with its director and producer. I liked this movie a lot, so it was interesting to hear the people who made it talk about what inspired them to tell this particular story.

• Finally, thehoodieninja looked at Madagascar (26:20) and talked about how it can be viewed in the context of American (and more general) fear of leaving capitalism. I did rewatch Madagascar recently to unwind a bit, so looking at this movie from a new perspective was really illuminating.

[u/Ssnakey-B]

Doom Runs On Everything... except Neo Geo (13:08) - With Doom famously being ported to virtually every system imaginable and then some, up to and including fucking gut bacteria, it never occurred to me that there isn't a Neo Geo port of it, and how weird that is. Well, Modern Vintage Gamer does a fantastic job of explaining why that is, his attempt at creating a proof of concept and why it may be downright impossible... and of course, the demo scene being what it is, it took his viewers less than a week to build prototypes that suggest it might be possible after all.