The other night, I saw a YouTube video about how conspiracy theories used to be fun. As a child, I had two X-Files loving parents and was once gifted a copy of the Weekly World News, so I sympathize with the view. Another one of the disillusionments of getting older is you realize what conspiracies are true are depressing, and that even a belief in aliens has a tendency to devolve into esoteric right wing thought (say, “Nordic” aliens).

This did not come up in this YouTube video. Instead there was a sort of wacky discussion of someone who thought Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift were time travelers. Meanwhile, a flat earth sign flashed in the lower right hand corner of the conspiracist’s video. Anyone who has watched (and my apologies for this citation) Andrew Callaghan of All Gas No Brakes walk around at the Flat Earth convention knows this sort of thought is always about two jumps-to-conclusion before it hits Jewish people. Which brings us to the next section, a discussion of Hollow Earth theory. The youtuber did not mention the memetic resurrection of Agartha, the kingdom inside the hollow earth often referenced by the most esoteric wings of the far right online as being populated by perfect Aryan supermen and women. I think I may have changed the video, or maybe ran off to do something else, but I didn’t like the chances he did.  

I’m not naming any one person throughout this piece at all because my criticism is of an entire genre, which makes it worth delineating what kind of YouTube video I’m talking about. We are very much in the Graham Potter “I don’t know what it is but I know it when I see it” territory, but generally speaking, when I talk about Commentary YouTube, I’m referring to:

• A video with one person. Other commentary YouTubers tend to guest.
• Usually about a recent event. Subjects may include: TikTok drama, “Am I the Asshole” reactions, YouTuber crashouts, etc. At the very least: the idea behind a commentary YouTuber is that they are reacting to something with commentary.
• Politics may be broached but not often in great depth. Commentary YouTube can belong to any side or shade of the political spectrum, and, in fact, tend to be open enough about it that it feels like political commentary, though not always getting deeper than pointing out “Erm, RFK Jr looks like a scrotum?” 
• Speaking of: videos are usually designed to be funny, but in a “light” way. Comedic performances are rarely bravura. Skits are occasional, even that is too much. 
• The audience is explicit to the proceedings. There is no pretending there isn’t one. Calls for likes, comments, and subscribes are now infamous, but the idea of the audience as a community bounded by interest in the YouTuber are in most commentary videos. Oftentimes, audiences will be given a name or a familiar calling card. Calls for subscribers usually include a fun fake reward. 

You now have a number of names in your head. Forget them. As you can surmise from this essay, I’ve watched a lot of Commentary YouTube, and will probably continue to. It creates conversation topics while never being so entrancing that it requires full attention, which allows my partner to crochet and myself to play Balatro or check my email until I have panic attacks. In a sense, Commentary YouTube acts as a replacement for game shows, reality TV, nightly news, reruns. It’s the kind of viewing that has led Netflix (somewhat wrongly) into believing there’s a great market for “second screen” viewing. To take a controversial tact: I don’t have a problem with the TV-as-ambiance model provided there are other options to watch. TV was a genre built on inanities like Mr. Ed and Gomer Pyle; The Sopranos and Twin Peaks of the world were a deviation from the norm. 

What Mr. Ed and Gomer Pyle didn’t strive for is deep identification between their titular characters and the audience member, to the point that it begins to resemble a level of charismatic authority on the horse and marine’s part. Commentary Youtube, on the other hand, inevitably creates the dynamic because of the strictures of the genre and format. Though the Commentary YouTuber never physically shows up in the viewer’s room, they create a presence because they are talking directly to you. Over time, this presence creates a relationship between the commentator and the viewer. Parasociality needs no introduction nor another turn at the Mr. Ed flogging station. There are reams of people who probably think taking Ethan Klein to task for marrying a former IDF soldier is ‘parasocial’. 

An underdiscussed effect of this is when the Commentary YouTuber steps beyond the set ‘em ups and knock em downs of criticizing Redditor’s tales of woe and moral quandaries into political critique (or, as my friend’s conspiracy video went, into unquestionably charged territory). To be blunt: there are a few astute observers of politics on YouTube, but the commentary sphere tends to default to progressive agreeableness, and the steps into anything more strident is subsumed. Not only is the individual analysis about equal to (and sometimes bested) by a random politically aware Discord, the dominance of a YouTuber’s personality strangles the criticism of these ostensible critics. After spending so much time with a YouTuber, who imposes upon you their personality as they discuss, say, Fruit Love Island, it becomes easier to let lazy thinking slip through or to ignore flaws for the sake of content. Nobody wants to be the asshole who tells their friends they are wrong for not immediately catching that a candy woman on an AI generated reality show is weirdly coded as a loud, promiscuous black woman, and how that might connect to other uses of digital minstrelsy. It becomes easy to forgive “remember when conspiracies were fun” when all the evidence points to the conspiracies highlighted in the video still being very much a part of the esoteric fringe of right wing thought because you see this YouTuber as someone who you find makes you laugh and shares your beliefs as they continue to sell you themselves (or Squarespace) over and over.

Because YouTubers are effectively small business owners, they also carry with them the excuse, hidden away like a cyanide capsule, that they are mere amateurs, that if you get mad at them in any way, they are just some person on a spinning rock in the galaxy. Yet: they are some person you should listen to. It’s enough to remind you that the commentary form has not evolved much since the days of That Guy With the Glasses, in sophistication of argument or presentation of personality. These personalities are without a doubt less ingratiating and have less of the stink of the fourth funniest person on a message board, but just as Doug Walker’s movies used their amateur status to dodge any sort of criticism, a similar interplay takes place when attempting to hold a Commentary YouTuber up to the sunlight. Criticizing a Commentary Youtuber on specifics falls into bean-counting, which is convenient. The result is a death of critical capacity. That might not mean much to you, but I believe criticism is how art sustains its second life. What can’t be discussed can’t live beyond the expiration date.  And the audience never wants you to criticize their friends. 

I don’t write this essay to tell you, say, any one commentary YouTuber is a capitalist roader. On the contrary, plenty put their money where their mouth is, and the solidarity with Palestine with efforts like Creators for Palestine means that their thinking is in the right direction. The problem is that the genre has strict limits that are influenced by their platform. YouTubers live in perpetual fear of ‘demonetization’: where a video becomes so controversial that YouTube refuses to run ads on it, cutting out the creator. Creators become beholden to advertising, whether it’s YouTube’s auto ads or selling space in their videos for greater autonomy from the YouTube model. And when a creator is demonetized, the audience begins feeling attacked as well. Walter Benjamin warned: “Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property.” What then, if the masses express themselves by supporting their perfect stranger’s right to express themselves? Property would have to remain preserved, and the advertising strangleholds of YouTube do just that. And the promise of YouTube is that expression. Commentary YouTubers may well realize this. But without avoiding the dodges and excuses that they hold in the lining of their clothes, it will remain stuck in that same expression, using the same YouTube voice, welcoming you to its channel.