Took way too damn long, but it’s finally time! Welcome to my annual list of my favorite video essays of the previous year. This time, I have 25 excellent essays to share from 2025, and despite it being several weeks into the following year, I can guarantee all of these are still fun, informative, or relevant to watch. If this is your first time here, then much like the previous lists from previous years, this one will be unranked, but the final entry is far and away my favorite. Each title links to each video, but at the end I will share a YouTube playlist with (nearly) every essay in it. Finally, if you want even more video essay recommendations, I have a much larger list at the very end that contains nearly every video essay I enjoyed enough from 2025 to consider for this list. I gotta admit, 2025 was…one hell of a year, and 2026 seems to similarly be so. But thankfully all of that turmoil helped lead theses 25 hearts and minds to create the following great works of art. I hope you all enjoy, and with that, let’s get to the first entry!

Disney’s Living Characters: A Broken Promise – Defunctland

While I did visit Universal Studios a few years back to see the new Super Mario Land, I can’t even remember the last time I stepped foot in Disneyland, or even DisneyWorld since I live closer to Florida. Ever since I stopped caring about Marvel mostly after Endgame, and severed all passion I had for Star Wars after Rise of the Skywalker, I haven’t had much reason to pay attention to anything coming out of the house of mouse. But that hasn’t meant they’ve stopped innovating, or should I say “innovating”. Yes, Disney has helped produce some incredible art and experiences, but in their modern era, it is hard to see anything truly revolutionary coming out of the company.

Well, this video essay from the incomparable Defucntland seeks to see if Disney is actually innovating. And, in terms of autonomous technology, it seems they actually are. But a company with as much corporate nonsense as Disney doesn’t make that answer completely cut and dry, so Defucntland spends just as much of this 4 hour essay weeding through the confusing definitions and corporate decisions as he does discussing the history of animatronics at the parks. But trust me, despite that intimidating runtime, I can say that this video is one of his best yet, right on par with the last Defucntland video to grace one of these lists: Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History. If Disney history, or just the future hellscape of technology overall, fascinates you, this is absolutely worth a watch.

Games About Letting Go – Daryl Talks Games

I spent a lot of 2025 learning how to let go of the past. I spent so long doing so because, as I’m sure you know, holding onto the past feels great. Every other major hollywood movie or big budget game is a remake or legacy sequel. The biggest musical artists in the world are often acts that have been around for a decade or more, often with hits that directly riff off old classics. And nostalgia is one of the hottest commodities of our modern times; you can look at both Disney and Fortnite’s chokehold on many corners of pop culture as proof. Well, I’ve been trying to get better about looking forward more than I look back, in more ways that just the media I consume, and Daryl Talks Games’ video here did indeed help me along on that journey.

This essay, which compares Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Final Fantasy X, uses the similarities in each narrative to discuss the pain that comes with clinging to destructive cycles and refusing to advance past them. Both of these games are spoiled pretty thoroughly, as well as some other smaller titles like 1000XResist and Neva, but the detailing of these plots is vital to the essay. Daryl, despite how jovial he can be in some videos, really shows a great ability to pace out his writing for maximum emotional impact while still keeping the tone of his videos light and relatable. This video is the closest I’ve ever come to wanting to try a Xenoblade game, and it reminded me that I need to finish 1000XResist as soon as possible. But despite me dragging my feet on that, I’m glad I made it a priority to check out this truly awesome essay.

Who Gets to Be “Crazy” – Foreign Man in a Foreign Land

Most of us like to think that, at least most of the time, we are normal. For most of us, we don’t have to try and be normal, we just are. But for some of us, it takes a lot of effort and training for us to be perceived as normal, even if we may never actually be deep down. As for me, I’ve never been told I wasn’t normal, but I have been told I’m special, even from a young age. I’ve almost never been given that term derogatorily, at least not in a way I caught, but after being called “special” enough times, I began to wonder what people meant by that. Going into my first relationship, I made it clear that I was “special”, whatever that meant, but by the end of it, my proximity to her version of normalcy eventually made me feel not special, but crazy. After that ended, I spent a lot of time, some of which in therapy, pondering what specific flavor of crazy I was. And then, in the middle of this months long introspective spiral, I was graced with this video by Foreign Man in a Foreign Land.

Foreign has been a favorite creator of mine for some time, and he’s graced one of these lists in the past, but this video just hit me at the right time. It questions why black folk like me have such a complicated relationship with mental health, and how that relationship is molded just as much by bigger external forces than they are by our own communities. Considering all of the traumas and hardships we go through as black folk, it would be impressive to be black and not have any kind of neurological quirks. But the video goes so much deeper than that. Neurodivergence is a bit trendy right now, with hyper specific TikTok algorithms and the mainstreaming of internet and geek culture combining to make so many more people familiar with those who have autism, ADHD, and other…let’s stay, status effects. But neurodivergence isn’t always seen as so cute when your black, and the journey to even discover if you are neurodivergent is paved with difficulties as well. This video talks about all of this, and while not every part of it hit home directly, every bit of it was factual and Foreign shows once again why he’s one of the best in the genre.

Instagram is turning you into a GOONER. Here’s how to stop them. – Lauran Irion

I’ve spent the last few years re-examining my relationship to social media. I’ve gotten a lot from being online, including several friends I wouldn’t have met otherwise, unforgettable viral moments, and the ability to connect with people who’s work I deeply respect. Since COVID was at its height, it hasn’t felt the same online, but before that pandemic ever started, I’ve always disliked Instagram. The fact that website encourages pictures over words meant that I felt like I never had anything to share, since I don’t often have an interesting sight to post a picture of. In fact, when my Meta account was deleted due to a hacker, I was content with never using the site again. I eventually re-joined as a friend at the time really wanted to be able to tag me in stories and send posts to me, but since I’ve been back, the app has felt…different.

This video essay from Lauran Irion is about why the app feels so different. In it she discusses the cognitive effects of seeing dozens of scantily clad women online all the time. She even gets specific enough that she shows content and behaviors that hit a little closer to home than I would care to admit. I’ve had an idea that content like this can’t be good for my mind or my algorithm, but watching this video definitely made me a bit more active in rejecting content like this before it swallows my entire feed. Much more recently, after being consumed with the app at the height of the pandemic, I reinstalled TikTok as I felt like I had to engage with it in order to do content creation properly. But thanks to this video, I’ve been much more mindful about content that puts me in this state, and I can thank this video for that mindfulness I’ve been exercising now.

Cruelty Squad, Charlie Kirk and Controlling the Narrative – Renegade Cut

You know what, I’m part owner of this website, so let me keep it real: the death of Charlie Kirk is the funniest political event I’ve lived through since January 6th. January 6th was, in most ways, a national tragedy, but as we get further from the day and it proves to be an increasingly insignificant footnote when compared to the current state of the country, it’s hard to not consider the spectacle hilarious in an admittedly morbid way. But the death of Charlie Kirk is funny almost in the opposite way. A podcaster getting shot is, in the grand scheme of things, not worth more than a passing mention. Like no one can tell me that if this same thing happened to a Joe Rogan, a Joe Budden, or even an Andrew Tate, that it’d be the biggest topic of conversation for several weeks. But because the dude was cozied up with the current administration, the consequences of his own rhetoric became all if our collective problem. The humor in this comes from knowing just how insignificant this man’s legacy will be once enough of the American public not only sees that the Emperor has no clothes, but no longer feels threatened by him as a result. There will come a day where the fact that people were fired for joking about his neck piercing will be absurd, and we can all only hope that time comes soon enough for those affected to have new jobs from which they can finally laugh as well.

This video is not quite about how funny it is that his neck just did that, but it does use the absurdity of the event to speak to something much more serious. Charlie Kirk wasn’t a nobody, but he wasn’t a figure worthy of lowering a flag to half mast in the front of a company. This video is about not only why Charlie isn’t that important at this point, but also why it should be fair game to throw the kind of insults I’ve been throwing in this segment to, really, anyone without fear of punishment from the government. The way the government has whitewashed and idolized Kirk after his death is evil and insane, but expected from this administration. But to see elected officials and companies shame folks for joking is truly insane, even me writing this could be a risk. But it’s been some months, hopefully the fervor has died down, and Renegade Cut’s excellent commentary on that fervor will likely be relevant and accurate for many years to come.

You Are Witnessing the Death of American Capitalism – Benn Jordan

I hope I’m not the one to break this news to you, but the economy is really fuckin weird right now. It’s hard to find or even keep a job, with layoffs happening monthly in major companies, and AI being sold as the magical solution to having to pay a worker a living wage. For a lot of Americans, ownership is either a wet dream, in the case of home or land ownership, or not even something that occurs to us, like owning the movies, music, and games we enjoy instead of subscribing to access them. And with the current administration encouraging and actively causing this imploding system, it doesn’t seem like things are set to get better in the near future.

There are plenty of actual people we can blame, Ronald Regan being chief among them, but if we’re pointing fingers at systems, capitalism would have the most pointed at it. However, Benn Jordan’s essay here claims that things are getting so dire that capitalism might actually be dying as well. But that’s not so original, as that metaphorical sky seems to have been falling in some way for the last half decade. But what makes this video so great, besides the snappy editing and Bill Nye style vibe of the video, is how Benn tries to look forward to see what could potentially replace capitalism. This isn’t what I’d call the most hopeful video, as it’s less about what us normal people could replace capitalism with but what the billionaires and venture capitalists would most like to replace it with. It’s a bit of a bummer, but it’s a hell of an eye opener, and I think anyone else who is also suffering under late stage capitalism would benefit from watching it.

It’s not about Bayonetta | Platinum Games & The Industry – ConstantlyCaden

When it comes to my favorite game developer of all time, it’s a toss up between Insomniac Games and Platinum Games. I’ve played nearly every Ratchet and Clank game, almost every Resistance game, and I’ve platinumed neary every Spider-Man game. But despite my long running history with Insomniac, so few of their titles hit the same highs that Platinum games have hit for me. It took me over a decade to play Bayonetta, but once it did, it immediately became my favorite game of all time. I liked Vanquished from a few years prior, but the Bullet Witch caused a lowkey obsession with the studio that carried me through the 2 sequels, and back into Transformers Devastation and even God Hand, let alone Nier Automata.

ConstantlyCaden’s video is a runthrough of both the history of the studio and what makes the studio so unique when compared to others. Platinum was making action games in their own unique style well before they were even named Platinum, and this video gets into not only that, but also how shaky their future is now. But what makes this video an all timer for the year is how he connects the ups and downs of Platinum to the ups and downs of the game industry itself. Through the lens of this one studio, he touches on every single kind of depressing headline that all of us have scrolled by at least once in the last few years. It’s an excellently paced, funny, and surprisingly moving look at not only one of my favorite studios, but also the wider industry trends that have helped sealed it’s fate. Even if you’ve never played a Platinum game, this video will make you want to, or at least bubble up spite for the forces that have backed it into a corner.

Romantic Comedies Aren’t for Poor People – Yhara Zayd

2025 was the first time in some years where I once again tired to be active in the dating market. And while I’ve only done so much in that market, holy hell do I know how expensive it can be to just meet people. Living so close to Atlanta has a lot to do with it, as lounges, clubs, and cute little events that happen here can quickly add up, but even the more low-key stuff I aim to do can rack up once travel to and from the city is also factored in. Even when I was previously in relationships, I had a hard time keeping up with big city tastes as a member of the working class, and it wasn’t until this year where my savings began to recover from those years of excess spending.

Because of this, it has felt like there’s a financial requirement to being able to find love. Some of this perception comes from how we see working class love portrayed in media, and Yhara Zayd spends this essay looking at that very thing. She points out that, while it seems obvious once it’s pointed out, a major part of the romantic fantasy is economic stability. However, she tries to see what love looks like when it isn’t between two people who backpack in Europe and work in corner offices. Some of her findings are a bit disheartening, but all of them are fascinating, as this essay shows once again her talent for finding underrepresented perspectives in art. This video is excellent, but if you want more from her, her video about Chameleon Street and Black Cinema is also fantastic.

Jimmy Fallon: Evil Incarnate – The Serfs

Before the events of the last few years, I used to think it was really hard to be evil. Like, to actively make the world a worse place should be really hard to do, right? You’d have to work against the general consensus that being evil is…bad, and the stain of the blood on your hands would be a scarlet letter that marks you as evil to others. But lately, it’s felt like being evil is just…the vibe nowadays. Before the current presidential administration led many to see outright fascism as acceptable, the acceptance of the genocide in Palestine was maybe the biggest early indicator of the current vibe shift towards the normalization of the abhorrent.

But just accepting evil as “the way things are” does implicate you in the violence as well. When “Me Too” was a trending topic, men seemed to be learning finally that being one of the good ones means nothing when you excuse and protect men who do outright abuse and demean women. Well, using that same logic, someone like Jimmy Fallon has a whole lot of blood on his hands. As The Serfs discusses in this excellent video essay, Fallon has not directly murdered any Palestinian children, molested any children, or (as far as we know) worked to directly put fascists in power in America. But his willingness to go with the corrupt status quo of America makes him no better than those who we most justifiably vilify. This video is more than just a Jimmy Fallon hate video, which it absolutely is, but it also shows how normal, seemingly well meaning people can taint their own reputation when they never seize any opportunity to better the world.

S̶i̶l̶k̶s̶o̶n̶g̶ NakeyJakey is Outdated – NakeyJakey

This video is great, though I do feel a bit called out by it. I am a “fan” of Nakey Jakey in the same way I’m a fan of, like, Pizza. I didn’t eat Pizza for the half of my childhood, but once I finally gave it a shot, I really enjoyed it. But now, I eat it sometimes, but it’s not anywhere near one of the most important things in my life. If I can be honest, I stopped really checking for his content after his negative videos on Red Dead Redemption II and The Last of Us Part II. I accept that those games aren’t for everyone, and my thoughts on TLoU P2 have lessened over time a bit, but I just had a hard time putting myself in the shoes of someone who had those kinds of critiques with those games. He still made great content since, his Counter Strike video is very good, but I didn’t necessarily feel like it was for me, ya know?

Well, it feels like he heard my thoughts, because this video feels like it was made for me in a scary amount of ways. Before even getting to that, there is a pretty great discussion about Silksong here, and it’s good enough for me to almost want to learn how to downswing and finally beat the original Hollow Knight. But beyond that, this essay is a meta look at not only Jakey’s own output, but the landscape of gaming video essays overall. By the end of it, he even talks about some personal hang-ups that resonated with me deeply. It’s a great video, and I hope it marks the start of a brand new era for Jakey, and maybe even for my creative journey as well.

‘Somebody needs to do it’ – Taylor Lorenz

I feel a special kind of kinship with those who understand the unspoken. As both a black person, and a nerd, I often find situations where a reference, a word, or sometimes just a knowing look communicates an entire story or idea. It’s one of those things that, I feel, connects me to others on a deep level, and exposes a bit of universality shared among all, or most, of us citizens of the world. Well, one of the darkest examples of that phenomenon is the subject of this video.

Taylor Lorenz talks about the rarely spoken fact that many, probably most of us, lust for some brave lone wolf to take care of our troublesome commander in chief. At this point, all you have to do is to openly wish and pray for “it” to happen, and almost everyone knows exactly what you are talking about. At first, it was a funny bit, but the fact that it’s has become such a widely understood idea says something about American culture right now. Lorenz looks at what that something is, and how we even got to this point politically and socially. It may not be full of a bunch of revelations, especially as the current administration continues to deteriorate everything this country has claimed to stand for, but it does connect many well known dots in an entertaining and informative way.

The Ethics of Vigilante Counter-Tërrörism – philosofree

Note: This video was taken down by YouTube and therefore is no longer available on the platform. This is expected considering the tone and subject matter of the video, but I will be keeping it on this list. The link instead goes to philosofree’s Patreon, where the video is available for free. And instead of the typical thumbnail, you can watch the video right here on the site as well.

Speaking of bloodlust, remember when a different billionaire directly responsible for the deaths of thousands was actually shot in the street to the glee of nearly everyone? Luigi Mangione became a bit of an overnight folk hero, as he became a symbol of not only everyone’s frustrations with the health insurance industry, but our collective disdain for billionaires. Plenty of people dream of wearing the boot themselves, but all us us currently underneath the boot of late stage capitalism are openly fed up with having to live life under the heel. So, it makes sense that Luigi became such a lightning rod of hope for the downtrodden. But, does any of that mean anything?

Philosofree’s excellent video on the (assumed) philosophy of this murder and the (actual) impact on the working class spells out why this event was so important to people. He doesn’t stop at discussing the murder as just an act of vengeance, but how that moment could, and in some ways have already, led to a wider sense of class consciousness and more permanent actions of class solidarity. It’s hard to know if I’ll live to see the day when the boot is completely removed from our collective necks, but perhaps the weight is already shifting from off that leg thanks to events, and essays, like these.

Trans Day of Vanishing – Lily Alexandre

2008 was a major year in my life. It was the year I moved to a new town, where I still live now, and I’ve found some of my longest friendships and first relationships while staying here. It was also the year that Barack Obama was elected, and that kicked off an era of hope for black folk. I remember how, almost overnight, it felt like we could do anything and that we were seen as legitimate as a people in a way we hadn’t before. Our art, ideas, desires, and perspectives of the world seemed to be centered by American culture and, as a teenager at the time, it was liberating. But by the time I hit adulthood, all of that momentum not only stopped, but seemed to revert. Being “woke” is no longer a cool trend that corporations and politicians latch onto for free brownie points. Instead the backlash to being “woke” has been centered so effectively that even those who do believe in social consciousness are still using the version of “woke” that has been bastardized by grifters instead of the defination black folks came up with first.

So, with this culture shift, and the fact that 2024 was a rough year of introspection for me as well, my introversion has flared up to new extremes near the top of 2025. I never dreamed of anything near self termination or harm, but the idea of not existing did begin to seem a bit more appealing, especially as someone who’s as online as I am. Lily Alexandre’s video here talks about that very feeling I’ve had, but through the lens of transness. I’ve always felt a slight kinship with the trans community as I too belong to a minority group unjustly vilified by the country I live in, but I still feel like this feeling is universal in some way. Anyone who has a conscious, or even believes in logic, has likely felt a variation of this feeling in the last few years, and Alexandre’s personal, detailed, and raw exploration of this topic is as captivating as it is real. I hope this feeling doesn’t manage to spread, as 2026 has already proven to have it’s own continued difficulties. But for those of us who have felt this emptiness previously, I hope we can support those who still need help coming out more full on the other side.

Nintendo: The Loss of Wonder – MozieFresh

As a PlayStation player for most of my childhood, I always had a chip on my shoulder when it came to Nintendo. When everyone else talked about their dear childhood memories with Mario, Samus, and Link, my stores about Sackboy, Nathan Drake, and Ratchet just didn’t carry the same cache for folks. I resented this a bit as a child, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate my slightly more obscure tastes. But that distance has meant that I don’t often “get” the hype that many Nintendo titles enjoy from many other games writers and commentators. There are games that many hold up as some of the greatest of the medium, but when I play them, I also have a blast, but see them as the sum of various inspirations from other games rather than just a brilliant new idea on it’s own. In fact, from my perspective, Nintendo often gets treated as a mystical dream factory so regularly that I question if our ability to perceive them as a corporation is somewhat compromised. I mean, if Willy Wonka was real, would we not also be pissed when his company avoids paying taxes, or would the chocolate river be just too cool for us to care?

MozieFresh’s look at Nintendo, on the precipice of the release of the Switch 2, is great because it doesn’t seem to be clouded by the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia. Sure, she does share in much of that nostalgia, but it doesn’t stop her from holding a critical eye towards the company. Of course, Nintendo is far from the worst company on earth, or even the worst in the games industry. Ubisoft just announced massive layoff weeks before publishing this article, EA is being bought by the the corrupt Saudi Arabian government, and Microsoft not only owns an disproportional amount of the games industry, but are also closing many of those studios to boost AI and continue to aid in Israel’s genocide. But I still think this video is important because it makes two things very apparent. One: Nintendo cares more about profit than whimsy, and no matter how petty, they will make decisions with that priority in mind. And two: Nintendo does not have a monopoly on the kinds of games that formed those childhood memories. If more people truly internalized those ideas, perhaps our view of the company would be perhaps…more balanced, and maybe this video can help with that.

be your own algorithm – pagemelt

I’ve talked a bit about my relationship to TikTok earlier, but I wanna talk a bit about why I was so addicted to it back then. Well, it seems to have a perfect understanding of the type of art, ideas, and comedy I care about and define myself with. It’s algorithm, and the ones on similar websites as well, has spent years building a very specific profile about me and, for the most part, the profile is right on the money. But as I get older, I see how dependency on this machine powered middleman leads me to just have less of a connection to the non-machines in my life.

This excellent video by pagemelt is a pitch to get you to leave algorithmic consumption behind. Sure, it starts off small, as the video initially is just an expanded response to the authors response to a book review she wrote to one of his books. But as the video continues, it covers a lot of very different ground that all leads up to a fantastic culmination of all of those seemingly disparate ideas. I’ve seen many videos about how things like TikTok and such are not great for us, but this is one video that broadens that idea into it’s effects on culture as a whole rather than just it’s effects on a single person. It’s a great video, and I hope she eventually finds the time between BookTok content to grace us with another long-form video, because she’s really good at it.

The Internet Used to Be a Place – Sarah Davis Baker

I wish I wasn’t online as I am, but to a certain degree, it was inevitable. As a young child, I spent most of my pre-teen years on computers, and being handsomely rewarded for doing so. I quickly learned and excelled at making PowerPoints and Word documents in school, in an era when both skills were impressive to the adults raised on radios and monocolor TV. But also, I found so many wonderful oddities every time I walked into our computer room. I spent hours and hours on Nicktropolis, Turntable.FM, PSP Demo Center, and even StumbleUpon in those formative years, and all of the fascinating discoveries I made on sites like these would stay with me when I left them. But that’s just the thing. After a few hours, I would eventually leave those places and log off both digitally and physically. None of these websites were designed to be a constant part of anyone’s life, but that is no longer the case with today’s internet. Everything from social media apps to fast food retailers are fighting for your attention at all times, and the battlefield is your own attention span.

Sarah Davis Baker has become one of my favorite video essayists of the last year, to my surprise, and her video about this very topic is what got her on my radar. In it, she not only waxes poetically about how much better the internet used to be, but she also talks about why it is the way it is now, and never hesitates to name the specific forces and people that got us here. However, despite the targeted writing, the tone and vibe of this essay remains light, warm, and longing for not only a world that once existed, but can potentially live again if we choose. She only began making video essays in 2025, but she’s already developed a striking and unique voice and style all of her own. This video is a great example of that and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone longing for a life where we could be more humanely online.

The Unforgivable Sin of Ms Rachel – Lindsay Ellis

One of my strongest held beliefs is that we should create a world that best supports the children in our society. I feel this because giving them the room and space to grow into, not the best of what we want them to be, but the best version of who they already are is the most direct investment in our future that we can make as a species. However, while this seems sensible to most, not many of us treat children accordingly. Often we are too tired and have too many other responsibilities to truly nurture our young in all the best ways, so we lean on screens to raise our kids much of the time. This can be detrimental, in the case of the strange sea of Kids YouTube videos, Cocomellon, and Italian Brainrot. But every now and then, a creator like Miss Rachel manages to impart ideas of empathy and compassion alongside the catchy songs and bright colors. And that empathy is the very thing that had hundred of people online hating on her.

One of the OGs of the video essay genre, Lindsay Ellis, returns with a massive piece about Ms Rachel, and how empathy is very difficult to foster in masses when genocides and injustices seem to be a dime a dozen. It has everything from a healthy amount of lore about my generation’s Ms Rachel: Mr. Rogers, to one of the most comprehensive breakdowns of the history of conflict in the land of Palestine I had seen all year. And the video widens the scope even further and discusses other historical and active genocides that are just as, if not more, devastating, yet have not gotten as much attention. It attempts to tackle a lot at once, but it is done so with the care, comedy, and intelligence we’ve all come to expect from Ellis. It’s absolutely worth a watch, especially if you’ve begun to become indifferent on issues like these.

The Hole at the Bottom of ARC Raiders – peterspittech

2025 is the year I became most aware of the dark patterns that seem to be inherent to most modern online games. I put over a hundred hours into Apex Legends, spent more money on Fortnite skins than I’d like to admit, and I’ve prestiged at least once in every Call of Duty game since the original Modern Warfare. Like gorging on candy instead of eating a proper meal, I’ve spent many dinners nibbling on my dark little patterns. I’ve tried to drop all of these kinds of games lately, but a wrench was thrown in those plans once I got really into…The Finals.

I love The Finals. It has one of the most generous monetization schemes of any free to play shooter, the most impressive destruction tech in any game I’ve ever played, and one of the most compelling gameplay sandboxes of any multiplayer game I’ve ever loved. But there was a small part of the internet that complained about the Embark’s use of AI generated voices in the game. I found out about this a few weeks into my Finals obsession, but I kept playing, because it just didn’t seem to meaningfully effect my enjoyment of the game. Then Embark put out their next game: ARC Raiders.

Peterspittech has become a new favorite of mine in the gaming video essay space, and his essay here is a great reason why. He’s talks at length about the ethical horrors of AI use, but also about the fact that he still enjoys playing ARC Raiders. There were a million video essays about AI this year, but in the case of chatbots and “enhanced” AI features in existing tech, it is easy enough to ignore. But ARC Raiders is one of the earliest examples of something we’re going to likely see more of: art that we connect to deeply that has unknowingly been poisoned by the shareholder endorsed plagiarism machine. This essay takes a long hard look at what it means to connect to art that is, ultimately, helping to normalize something evil. Besides the rise of AI, this essay also holds a lot of relevance in the face of Microsoft’s continued financial support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and EA’s new Saudi Arabian owners who kill and torture those who speak against their regime. There’s so much great art out there to witness, but this video pushed me to question if literally all of that art needs my attention. But one thing I do know that this video is absolutely deserving of your attention, as well as Peter’s podcast with Jake Steinberg: Critical Error, which you’ll love if you dig this video as much as me.

If Pretty is a Privilege, Ugly is a Curse – Olurinatti

For the first 2 decades of my life, I was certain I was ugly. I feel like I have enough proof by now to say that I’m not, at least not anymore, but man did I go through it up until my mid 20s. I’d like to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and whatnot, but that sentiment doesn’t feel so true when most of the people you crave most to behold you come to the same conclusion on your looks. Now, a lot of my personality today if formed by being the kid whose whole family laughed at his face every day for months until they all got used to his new glasses, and I am largely grateful for the person experiences like that formed. But also, it does indeed fucking suck to know that you don’t exist within most people’s beauty standards. But what annoyed me for most of those years is the insistence that I would inevitably be perceived as desirable by someone someday. It was a hollow promise that, regardless of it it eventually came true or not, didn’t seem intended to make me feel better, but make others feel better about pitying me. The very platitudes we, including me, stumble to when someone is grieving or facing tragedy reflects the phrases we tell those who we could never imagine being attractive enough to receive desire from another.

Olurinattis’ video here tackles this topic, but with even more direct and honest language. She uses academic research, as well as analysis of several different pieces of media, to examine the social taboo of ugliness more thoughtfully than I have ever seen. It makes for a video that made me feel just as justified in my annoyances as it has made me feel ashamed in my own unconscious behaviors. No problem in society can be solved by ignoring it or excusing it, so as this video makes clear, why would it make sense to brush off the experiences of ugly people as anything but that, in those exact terms? This video is a tough watch, and doesn’t pull any punches, but I feel that is exactly what makes it so vital of a watch. There’s plenty of lighter humor in there, as that’s a staple of an Olurinatti Production, but you will hopefully leave with a new perspective on the world and those we denigrate.

Greed is Destroying the World – Drew Gooden

This video is a very obvious addition. I mean, half of these videos already give enough reasons to despise capitalism, but I swear this one isn’t so redundant. Drew Gooden is a name that I’ve heard before, but I didn’t check out his stuff until this pass year. I’m sure his older videos are great, but ya know, you see one random white guy talk at length about a random pop culture trend or hyper obscure topic, you’ve seen them all, ya know? But he caught my eye in 2025 when his videos got progressively more…politically aware. There’s something special about seeing a YouTuber talk about random MTV shows and Instagram accounts one day and then switch to talking about how corporate greed will be the end of us all the next. I can’t say what his politics were before he started putting them so explicitly in his videos, but I guess it is heartening to see those who could coast by as apolitical deciding that it is actually the cowards way out, and instead deciding to talk about topics like these head on.

But I’m not simply adding this video because it’s not quite like most of his other content in the past. Notice how the title focuses on greed specifically, not just capitalism on it’s own. America has always been a capitalist country, but the flaws of this system have only become most glaring in the last few decades. Gooden explains why that is using one specific example of a particularly ruthless and callous CEO, and shows how his tactics have stood as the worst example for other CEOs to strive for. Yet, as we’ve seen, everyone has indeed strived for it regardless. The system itself is broken, yes, but for those who can’t quite understand or accept that fact yet, it helps to frame the current failures of capitalism as a moral failing of individuals first before digging into why these morals continuously fail. I like to think of this as a funnier, lighter, easier to digest companion to the Benn Jordan video I shared earlier, but this one is easily good enough to stand on, and be recommended, on its own.

The Plight of the Black Pop Star. – Camryn Suzanne

One thing you all need to know about me is that I love me some Chloe X Hallie. Their sophomore album, Ungodly Hour is one of my favorite albums of all time, and I can’t think of an R&B album that has had as big of an impact on me since. However, while I think both of those sisters are incredibly talented, I’ve had a harder time falling in love with their individual solo outputs. I straight up disliked Chole’s debut, and while I did love her second album, I haven’t been able to find that passion for Hallie’s solo debut. Because I have seen the heights these girls have gotten to previously, I can’t help but feel that my inconsistent tastes of their solo output is, in part, on me.

Camryn Suzanne’s video aims to tackle why people like me hold black pop stars up to a higher standard, when non-black pop girlies get much more praise off of much less work. This feels like a somewhat niche phenomenon, but she spells out how this is not only reflective of how our societies treat black women in general, but also how this problem has existed for decades in the music industry. Admittedly, this one comes off a bit more conversational than a traditional video essay, but the research and insight is clearly present, and it resulted in a video that definitely opened my eyes to some of the biases I unconsciously held.

Huniepop, and The Plot to Censor the Internet – Superdude

As other references to my teenage years have hinted at in this article, I didn’t sling any part of my anatomy much during my adolescence. This, and a fairly religious upbringing, meant my views on sexuality subconsciously became a bit conservative. I can’t recall ever questioning the legitimacy of what anyone else does in their bedroom, as I did begin gaining political consciousness in the Obama administration after all. But still, the lack of intimacy as a regular part of life early in adulthood meant that I’d often be…uncomfortable when it came up. Thankfully, it did come up enough later that I eventually got more comfortable, and then began to challenge my previous default understandings of the things people do behind closed doors. These questions arose less from a voyeuristic desire to see what happens behind closed doors, but more from a fascination in how people perceive those actions from outside the room. I’ve slowly come to discover that many people share my prior extreme discomfort with sexuality as an idea, even those way older and experienced than I, and I couldn’t help but be made uncomfortable myself with what that fact could imply. But I didn’t have to imagine much, as we got one hell of an example in the back half of 2025.

Back during early fall last year, Collective Shout spearheaded a movement for the mass censorship of adult video games. What started as a moral panic around one game that allowed for the playing out of certain rape fantasies eventually ballooned into all or most adult content of any kind being removed from massive indie game storefront: itch.io and the biggest PC games retailer: Steam. This led to the livelihoods of the creators of this kind of content being in question, and the consumers of this kind of content with less ways of paying for it legitimately. Superdude discusses this movement, but in a move I appreciate, does so through the lens of one of the games under threat.

Huniepop made a lot of waves when it first released years ago, but not many cared to look at it’s game design and narrative with any kind of seriousness. It’s a porn game, it couldn’t possibly be saying anything, right? Well, Superdude fights against that idea, and I appreciate how someone who does not often talk about games like these managed to with both nuance and respect. The video is a great breakdown of both Huniepop and the Collective Shout situation, but it also stands as a positive example of how we should maybe be treating outsider art like this. When we immedately see these kinds of games as illegitimate, they are the the first to suffer when controversy comes to a medium. But if we let the distasteful art die, who’s to say that the art we actually like isn’t deemed as distasteful down the line? Superdude made a great video, and I hope it is one of many that try to change the widely accepted narrative on outsider art.

Liberalism Won’t Admit What it Actually Stands For – Jessie Gender

One thing I often do, despite the pain and frustration it often brings me, is talk about politics with…my dad. Now, I’m in a black household, so there’s only so far he’ll get with conservative thinking and ideas. But with the Democratic Party in the United States being so close to it in practice, that distinction doesn’t often indicate so much of a difference. The first election I was old enough to participate in was in 2016 and my (or really, the country’s) opinion of the Democratic party has only deteriorated further since. In the years before that election, my preteen understanding of what the world could be was supported by an era of political rhetoric of hope, optimism, and the possibility of substantial change. But as I’ve continued to hold and inform those ideas into adulthood, the Democratic Party seems content to never even hint at a better tomorrow if it means it has to change anything at all about today. The conversations I have with my father often stop right at this impossibility to imagine a better world, as the manufactured limits of government that the party has stuck to has been received by him as gospel rather than something to question.

This excellent video by Jessie Gender attempts to tackle why the core political philosophy of the Democratic Party, liberalism, fails the United States public so often. She uses several people in the liberal establishment, as well as some to the left of that group, to illustrate the limits of their world view, and alternative ideologies that could better help our people. I love this video so much because it can often be hard to see how our own inherited understandings of the world can limit it’s potential. Recognizing those walls as limits and not natural or inevitable end points is the first step to tearing down those walls, so I can’t recommend this video enough.

Just Say You Hate Women – Shanspeare

Thanks to having many girl best friends throughout my life, I’ve often been seen as “one of the girls.” I’m still not completely sure what about me invited this, but I can remember as early as 4th grade being the only boy invited to a sleepover because all the girls were certain I wouldn’t try anything. They ended up being right, but even for someone as “well behaved” as I was around women, I know for a fact that even I have internalized some aspects of misogyny. From how I talk about women to how I’ve treated them in the past, I know that for all the things I might have gotten right, there’s still some wrong that I need to work on. But I like to think that isn’t because I’m inherently misogynist myself, but because I live in a system that encourages it at nearly every turn.

This excellent video by Shanspeare attempts to spotlight this system, and how it insidiously turns even other women on each other. Especially in this modern world in which reality is heightened as consumable spectacle for strangers, so much of those theatrics come out especially when a woman is at the center of it. Her video uses many examples of this happening, many of which from the recent past, to show how these waves of hate form, and why American culture so often leads us to find a villian in every story. We can always choose to be better people, but in order to do so, we have to know there’s even an opportunity to change. I hope this video can help folks recognize misogynistic trends as they happen, so that they not only don’t participate, but can help push back against them.

The Art of the Tushy Dance – Tensai Productions

This year I did something I never thought I would do: Attend a Nine Inch Nails concert. I knew nothing about NIN outside of the fact that they did some music for Quake, but one of my best friends, Andy Sitz, is a massive fan of theirs. He asked if I’d attend their Atlanta tour stop with him and, intrigued by the adventure, I agreed. I had a grand time, we were in the pit so we danced all night long, and the hardcore fans we danced beside embraced me despite my newbie ignorance. However, I latched onto one song that I now know is one of the most mainstream songs the group has ever produced: Closer. It took a few weeks, but I began to see the song everywhere and soon got a bit tired of it as well. However, that song is popular for a reason.

A slight obsession I’ve had over the last year is the party scene from Sinners. I don’t wanna spoil exactly what it depicts, but the way it shows how debaucherous behavior is a part of being human that is shared by our ancestors across cultures was an idea I never thought of. I grew up in the church, and I’ve always been an introvert, so the appeal of the party lifestyle never really found me. I’ve had some substances and done a few things, but I never felt the allure of club life or anything adjacent. This isn’t even something to necessarily feel proud of, as I never have been, but I’ve had friends and partners who have not had this perspective. My proximity to those who do feel these urges and flirt with these kinds of lifestyles has made me consider the importance of debauchery not only in society, but in my own life.

This video essay, The Art of the Tushy Dance, is my favorite video essay of the year by a mile. Tensai has an eerily similar perspective and fascination with these same ideas, but he channels it through something we all know: Twerking. This ends up being the perfect lens through which to examine these ideas as they allow for a bit of sensational messiness alongside the philosophical pondering. But what’s insane is how he ties together so many of the same moments, memes, and people I’ve considered when thinking about this topic. It genuinely feels like someone just took my own thoughts and feelings and put them together more artfully than I ever could. I want nothing less than to get to parasocial about anyone I don’t know, but I felt seen by this video essay more than any other I’ve ever seen.

This year, I also did something else that some may seem uncharacteristic of me. I went to see family for fourth of July, but this side of the family is known as the rowdier side. I love them all the same, of course, but when I was younger, more timid, more unfamiliar with the world, hanging out with this side of the family would make me a bit nervous. Like, I grew up loving hip hop, but I also was the child who was actively afraid to listen to the uncensored version of Trina – Look Back At Me in my own headphones on my own PSP. This side of the family loudly blares songs like this, and much more, at family events, and that’s just how they roll. But this year, with that kind of energy surrounding me at every turn, I didn’t feel uncomfortable in the slightest. In fact, I felt more at home than I maybe ever felt. I felt as close as I possibly could to that side of the family while hearing about how great Glorilla’s pussy was. I felt as close as I possibly could to my friend Andy while hearing a 60 year old man sing about a biblical orgasm. And, in a year where sex on the internet has been so demonized and stigmatized, I don’t think I felt closer to God than I did while watching this video essay. This is truly an incredible work from Tensai, and if you have the money, I must recommend you watch the version on Patreon, as it lacks the cuts and censorship needed to maintain monetization on YouTube.

So, for the 5th year in a row, that concludes my shortlist of my favorite video essays of the year. Above you will find the YouTube playlist with (almost) each and every video listed. For you sickos who hunger for video essays isn’t satiated by just 25, here is a 110 video playlist of every video essay I considered for this list throughout 2025. If a video or creator you expected to see here didn’t make my shortlist, you will likely see them in that larger list. And if you don’t, feel free to recommend them to me on Bluesky, I’m always looking for new creators and perspectives to learn from and be entertained by. 2026 is shaping up to be…well it already is a pretty challenging year. But I think we can all overcome those challenges by seeing ourselves in each other and fighting for each other as fiercely as we would for ourselves. I feel essays like these help encourage that kind of thinking, so I hope any of the words and images highlighted here inspire you do participate in that fight, in any way you can.

Keep it real, keep it trill, and play on Playas.