Published: September 14th 2022, 7:49:47 pm
The first time I posted an E-rose iThorn it was in bonus video format, but I think it should live on in text format from now on so $3 patrons can read them. Here's what's in this week's edition:
(A quick recap of the format for those who didn't see the first one— Rose & Thorn is a social game sometimes played while lounging or drinking where you share your day's "rose" (something good that happened) and "thorn (something not so good). Last week a patron named Spencer introduced me to a third variable called "bud", where you mention something that shows potential to bloom into a future rose so I'm stealing that. This is my poorly titled weekly game of rose, thorn, bud specifically for the world of *~Online Media~*
It's kind of silly to talk about a massively followed well-established Youtuber as a rose, but this channel is sharply pivoting from standard reaction-style content to more experimental conceptual videos instead of resting on its laurels. I think this started with the "I bought something from every company that served me a social media ad" series.
The results of reframing "here's a weird thing I should react to" as "I'm going to live the actual experience of honestly engaging with this weird thing" are longform videos that combine the sitting-at-a-desk appearance of a Twitch React Andy with the "damn he's really doing it" intrigue of a man-on-the-street, and the "there's a really well-thought-out point hiding in here" satisfaction YouTube Video Essayist.
Every streaming platform has something that I can watch within 2 minutes of browsing. Paramount+ has Bar Rescue reruns and Bravo has Below Deck Sailing Yacht. The bar is that low, and yet I can never find anything to watch on Netflix. The whole platform was designed for someone who has complete opposite tastes to mine. Usually what I end up selecting is whatever standup special is most high up on the home screen. This week it was a special called "same Time Tomorrow" by a comedian named Sam Morril, who I hadn't yet heard of.
I've never understood the role of a Director in a standup special. Presumably, you point the camera at the person who's talking and that's it, right? Same Time Tomorrow convinced me that you do need a director, specifically to keep that formula unchanged. I turned off the TV after the comedian started doing crowd work and brightly colored instagram-reel-style Mr-Beast-intro-level subtitles started popping up. It's definitely a psycho move to get this upset about subtitles, but watching ugly annoying social media design trends creep into a full-length high-budget standup special sent me into a spiral.
Bon Appétit has always struggled to get as many views as they once did with their personality-driven Test Kitchen series, and I'm hoping this new format of sticking cameras in a professional kitchen and letting the person in charge narrate over the footage is what finally helps. It's part reality TV, part documentary film, and part lightweight vlog, marrying the varying expectations of production value that come with each format.
