Hi everyone! I recently saw an article by Polygon on their list of the best video essays of the year, so I decided to steal their idea and do my own list. I still suggest you to look at theirs too, since their choices seem interesting. Mine is just a little silly compilation because I love these videos so much. They're in no particular order and I only list one main video per channel, and then other ones in the paragraph/section. Let me stress that all the channels are worth taking a look at.

- In Search Of A Flat Earth

Folding Ideas makes a wonderful video essay on the Flat Earth movement and [SPOILER??? IDK GO WATCH IT OK] QAnon, and boy is it good. Well shot, well written, well researched. Nothing to say, it's just perfect.

- Hayao Miyazaki - How Animation Comes To Life

A video on "how Studio Ghibli makes animated cinema feel alive". The channel is quite inactive (this is the last one they published and is from 2019), but the animation in on a whole other level. I'd also like to suggest the other video on Alien and the one on Disney's Animation.

- Marx was not a "statist"

A great video that talks about how the conception of Marx being a statist came to be, and proves the talking point wrong once and for all. The whole channel is great, and if you're interested in it I'd like to suggest watching the video on societies of control, the culture industry and hauntology

- "Woke" Disney

Lindsay Ellis shows how Disney uses meta-commentary in their new movies to justify their existence, not to examine the company's past, and how such meta-commentary has adopted a wokeness ethos that is merely performative, doesn't promote any major change (Sexism can be solved with a bunch of #girlbosses) and reconfigures any systemic oppression as the product of only a few bad apples. Another great video is Manufacturing Authenticity (For Fun and Profit!)

- Fallout: New Vegas Is Genius, And Here's Why

If you like this video you might also love is Bloodborne Is Genius, And Here's Why. And if you liked Ellis' video on Disney, you might like Hbomberguy's take on Woke Brands, in which he shows how many of them exploit conservatives' hysteria to just make profits

- Charles Darwin vs Karl Marx

Starting with a video on Darwin and Marx, it then dives into Malthusianism, Spencer, social Darwinism and Eugenics. It's not exactly light-hearted, but very well made. I wanted to suggest some more videos from the channel but I suspect you know it already

- Empires of Modernity

It talks about modernity, early capitalism, colonialism and the East India Company and its horrors in the colonies, specifically in Bengal. A summary on the horrors of British imperialism. Other great videos from the channel are The Fist of Modernity and Proudhon: What is Property?

- No More Presidents

A history of the development of the institution of the US presidency and its continuous expanse of power. It's an undemocratic institution and the product of a broken system, and it should be abolished. Another great video is MAGA and Fascism.

- Lisa Hanawalt: Being Human by Being Animal

A video on Lasa Hanawalt's characters (the creator of Bojack Horseman and Tuca&Bertie). Also, another great video from the channel and a personal favorite, Night In The Woods: Do You Always Have A Choice? (contains major spoilers)

- Life in the Shadow of Midgar

Jacob Geller makes awesome videos, so much so that it was actually difficult to choose which one to put to represent the channel. This one starts with the design of the city of Midgar, in FF7, as a representation of structural inequity, and then talks about real-life developments of hellish environments for the poor and the minorities. Another 'honorable' mention is Artificial Loneliness (btw, the photos by Aristotle Roufanis he mentions are simply gorgeous) and Capitalist Present, Collective Future, even tho I have yet to watch it (because it gives major spoilers for Tacoma, which I have yet to play) but I'm sure it's crazy good.

A criticism of the modern conception of mutual aid

https://regenerationmag.org/mutual-aid-a-factor-of-liberalism/

#video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwO2qx1z1UU

#daily

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWex9MxaiaI

"One node that stands out along Kautsky’s timeline is the Dulcinians of Italy, a Christian sect from the fourteenth century. The group believed in gender equality, mutual aid, property in common, and the destruction of a hierarchical church system. Their efforts lasted between 1300 and 1307; Dulcinian leaders were ultimately burned at the stake or otherwise captured and executed after Pope Clement V launched a crusade against the group. The Dulcinians represented to Kautsky the first armed communist uprising in human history. But while armed, revolutionary, and opposed to the Catholic Church, the movement survived as a separatist and egalitarian Christian communist community nestled upon the fortified Monte Rubello in the Piedmont. Both their internecine and communal tendencies were justified by citing scripture. “Clearly, the two sides Kautsky has identified—communal life and revolution—come together with the Dulcinians,” Boer writes in Red Theology"

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