Shlantporium

Although I quite like this video by itself, I feel oddly removed from it. The idea for this video came to my mind when someone posted a link to an @ca_dmv_bot post in a Discord server, and I found it hilarious. I looked through the account's many other posts for a while before deciding that it would make for the perfect video. I think that what I made was good; it has just the right amount of editing, the more joke-intense parts such as the two song parodies are given room to breathe, there's a decent mix between my commentary and the inherent humor of the Tweets, and, over everything else, I'm very glad that I censored almost nothing. However, at the same time, since a lot of the humor comes from the Tweets themselves and there wasn't as much creativity that went into the scripting or editing of it as my typical videos, it sticks out in my brain. Honestly, I usually forget this video exists when I'm thinking about my videos, but maybe that's just me. I'm still glad I made this however, as around that time (January 2022), I was kinda running out of ideas that weren't huge projects to come months in the future, and most people seemed to  find this video quite funny.

I decided to make this video kinda on a whim. While usually I come up with ideas for videos months before I end up making them, I came up with this idea about 2 weeks before it came out. I wanted to get this out before Christmas so that it wouldn't get killed in the algorithm by people who were spending the holiday with their family, so I was in somewhat of a rush to get it out on Christmas Eve. This meant that I had to reduce the amount of editing, however, I'm glad that was the case. This was the first video I released since my 2022 return that I wouldn't consider 'over-edited', and I learned quite a lot in that department from making it. I remember on the 2nd day of editing I got 4 minutes of the video done, and I felt like nothing could stop me. As per usual nowadays, I didn't look at the analytics for a while after posting it, as I tend to obsess over the numbers, but when I checked on them a day after posting and saw it already had >200 views, I was ecstatic. Right now, I feel I'm in a period of major growth, and every video I make is considerably more competent than the last. Just 2 months after release, I already have quite a few gripes with this video, including that I think I should have added even less editing, the 80's slang definer could've been cooler, there's parts where the definer covers up semi-important images and text, and I could've done a better job at showcasing the memes themselves. However, judging from the 63 likes, it seems that people enjoyed it.

Sadly, I'm pretty disappointed with this video. For some reason, I decided to give the review section a time limit of 3 minutes, which meant that I couldn't say much on each book, and and it feels way too fast-paced. I spent so much time on the jokes shown on screen, yet I bet that a vast majority of people barely saw any of them. Also, this video came from a fan suggestion, and I feel kinda bad because I know I could've made a better video if I just thought through it some more,  but alas, we ended up with this.

I'm quite happy with this video! This was the first video I made that required actual research, and it shows. I looked at other 'history of traffic lights' videos before making mine, and not only is mine one of the most comprehensive, but it's also the least cut-and-dry. As I was making this, once I was done with every scene, they felt oddly... complete? Of course, whenever I'm done with any scene in a video it's complete by definition, but this video was particularly satisfying to work and make progress on. Leading up to me making it, my friend, A Random Blobfish, had suggested many times that we collab in a video that wasn't Totally Original Content, and I thought that this would be a good opportunity for that. The section with him turned out good, and it plays into the ongoing channel lore, so keep your eyes peeled for that! I'm about to mention something that may forever ruin your perception of this video's thumbnail, so if you don't want that I'd suggest not reading the rest of this diatribe. I couldn't find a good way to make all of the images equally sized in the thumbnail, so the middle planet image gets cut off prematurely on its right-hand side, which has always annoyed me. However, its not that  noticeable at the typical size that thumbnails are displayed at, and it's still a good thumbnail, so whatever.

I'm proud of this one! Although it is, predictably, over-edited, the video came out great, and there's not much I would change about it except for the editing. The few non-editing gripes I have are that some of my comments felt a little out there and like they were grasping for a joke, and that the end section with the Netherlands went by too quickly, but otherwise, this video is good. I did a good job at selecting a wide variety of burgers from a large span of regions, the transitions are cool, the music is fitting, and the thumbnail is one of my best. I felt oddly melancholic while making this video because I knew it would be a sort of capstone on the '2022 era' of my channel. Although I made two more videos later in the year, they feel distinct from the rest that came earlier in the year, and this was the last video I made before going back to school, and I knew even back then that things would be different. I think that the channel keeps getting better, however, this video in specific still sticks out in my mind.

Honestly, I remember more about making this video's thumbnail than of the rest of its creation, lol. This is probably my most chronically over-edited video. In every single second of this thing there is endless stuff flying across the screen, and it's disappointing that it came out that way, because the idea for this video was so good, and my commentary explained my thoughts perfectly. However, due to the editing, it's somewhat hard to watch in my opinion. If I had to choose which videos of mine I wish I could remake, this would rank 3rd behind "Reviewing 36 Classic Books in 3 Minutes" and "Shlant: 5 Years of Chaos". However, one thing I'm very proud of in this video is the music. All of the music is classical music named after the month that I'm currently talking about it, and not only does it give the music a consistent genre, but it's neat if you notice ithat fact. Also, this video caused me to create the first variations on the line & dot background, which, not only serves as a great channel banner, but has lead to even cooler variations in later videos, and just generally looks nice. Otherwise, this video feels somewhat empty for me, and that's a real shame.

This is a video I'm still fond of to this day. Like most all videos around this time, it too suffers from over-editing, but it's still fun to watch even months after. My jokes landed much more IMO, the use of a white background and comical visuals throughout softens some of the edges seen on other videos of mine, and it's scripted well. I remember that I expected it would come out in May instead of June, so the video immediately starts off by claiming that it's May, which is Truck Month, instantly making me seem like somewhat of a dunce lol. Not only is this fun to watch back, but I had fun making this, as not only did I get to play a lot of Euro Truck Simulator 2 for the video, but focusing my creative efforts so intensely on creating graphics was a fun escapade. If I could go back, I would've certainly recorded much less footage for this video, as so much of it went unused and was not needed, and I would've included way more footage of what I was talking about in the video, as those are my two biggest gripes with it. Maybe in that timeline, I would've had an extra video out by now, but we may never know.

Although I was very happy with this video during its creation, I feel estranged to it now. To give credit where credit is due, this video feels very distinct from not only those that came before it, but also those after it. It's also a good idea, and I don't think I did a bad job with it. Based on what I've heard from people who've watched it, most seem to like it, and I at least have that to take solace in. However, I wish I didn't rely so heavily on "animating" the wolf, as it simply gets annoying to look at after some time. There was so much opportunity for me to go in many different directions with this video considering that the entire premise of it is that it's bouncing between different styles of advertising, but I didn't see it through to its full potential. On top of that, the beginning of the video shows that there's a character who's actually watching the ad itself, which is such a shame. It's was a clever idea on my part, and it obviously wasn't something I just forgot about since he comes up again at the very end to finish the video off by skipping the ad, but I just wish that the character came up more throughout the video, not only because I think any scene where I have a character at a computer consistently ages well, but he could've acted as an actual foil to the advertisers rather than they themselves having to shoehorn in the commentary on ads. However, for me personally, this video does have a great amount of value to me, simply because it was made in the peak of my life (so far), and I remember not only how fun it was to make it, but also how proud I was of the thumbnail. Although the two post-break videos before this one had good thumbnails, this one, at least in my mind, truly ushered in an era of simplistic, but effective, thumbnails that I continue to make to this day, and it still holds up really well.