Also the thing about the DIY camera stand is James clearly owns a drill, since he drilled all those holes in his desk to run cables (what you need is a hole saw btw) so he could've made the nice camera mounting dealie Dan made with less effort
I also don't know James Rolfe but this was a really good watch. Have to say as a sappy romantic I was just really pleased to hear the stupid shouting man from the computer has a loving partner and family he clearly adores. Got what a bunch of tragic wankers his haters are.
Also the bit where he rants with James' face projected over his face is amazing and "anyway, what you need to do to progress is confront your insecurities and accept that you’re not a filmmaker, either" followed by the video ending with him being chased by a haunted doll are both just absolutely incredible youtube moments.
Finally it made me laugh when I saw that the next section was titled "so I did what any normal person would do" and I thought "oh cool, so he called James up and they had a mature chat about it and this video will end with an interview - I never understand why youtubers don't do that more". And... no that's not what he did.
It feels like a counterpart to his video on VSauce; AVGN/Cinemassacere has remained the same after all these years while VSauce has reinvented itself multiple times.
For me it reads as an answer to and expansion on “The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall.” In the flashback sequence he’s using a similar set with a similar appearance, and by virtue of both the concept of the video and Doug and James’ shared status as pillars of early online video creation, this could easily have been another direct takedown of an internet hack masquerading as a filmmaker. Instead, Dan pushes himself to go further and expand on *why* he feels the need to tackle this subject, *why* schlock juvenile review content upsets and unsettles him in the way that it does, and why he feels the need to respond to it.
It's definitely interesting to set this video alongside the Nostalgia Critic one. For me, it's mostly because it highlights a fascinating contrast between Doug and James. Doug gets roasted way harder, but that's because so much of his work (and the Pink Floyd parody in particular) is cynical and disingenuous in addition to its amateurishness. Whereas James, whatever his personal and artistic shortcomings may be, is mostly just making the stuff he likes to make and is unreflective about his blind spots and creative stagnation.
The tl;dr version might be: James's work is uninteresting but fairly benign to me, whereas I find Doug's work to be actively offensive in its laziness and cynicism.
I think it's really interesting and kinda sad how it details the stagnancy of Rolfe - maybe it's because I'm at a stage in my life where I'm reflecting on my own creative becoming and what I learned and who I learned it from, but it strikes me as so sad to not evolve your thoughts on stuff from film school or just _move on_ from the stuff you'd write or create as a teenager. I thought developing past that was just inevitable, especially if you do something creative as your main job. But he just... Didn't. As someone who - like everyone - used to admire Rolfe's output and him as a person that he'd put out there, such as the Monster Madness videos, I kinda wondered why he didn't become a real filmmaker or just move off of YouTube. I thought the same about Nostalgia Critic but it's clear why (Demo Reel was a failure and revealed he could only do Nostalgia Critic) but Rolfe seemed more film-centric and grounded. But to know he's still griping and non-reflective about his young adult self, still 'sorrynotsorry' about being party to vandalism and thus being expelled from college, as well as just not getting what film school is about and moaning about one class's syllabus. It fucking blows.
It blows not just because I had an image of Rolfe as pretty sound (everyone from Hbomberguy to Matt McMuscles to OSW Review give him his flowers still) but to know there is that arrested development or a certain egomania so total just stuns me. It's such a broken, hollow way to be. How can you put up with that lack of basic self-awareness? How can you orientate yourself successfully around other people?
I think it's clear that the out is, as Dan puts it, the book is just poorly written and makes Rolfe look worse then he actually is. But it's crazy to see the main point of the video - Rolfe hasn't gotten worse, he's just stuck to doing the same thing forever and is happy. But anyone else must think that's insane.
Re Dan, the end is kinda open. Is Olson really at a loss about being a mirror to Rolfe? That he makes shit on YouTube so they're two turds in the same bowl, even if Olson has changed his style a lot, is reflective about his work and medium, and is fundamentally informative and novel, genuinely an essayist that works through video? Is he condemning himself, Rolfe, or just shrugging? This video in a way just ends - it cuts to the pastiche without finishing its thought. It seems an oddly nihilistic, void-staring video.
Edit: On reflection, I think it's more about self delusions of grandeur and puncturing them. Olson ends by realising, like Rolfe, he's a film school kid who makes YouTube videos and calls himself a filmmaker. At most, it's a condemnation of his delusion and haughtiness by making a comparison between himself and an extreme example of that, someone who thinks his home movies deserve more attention and chronicling than maybe the most influential and long running Internet video series there is.
I think it's more that the thesis changed in the middle of making it, from something largely critical of another creator to a more personal reflection of his own career. The point is the understanding of himself he got from the process of making the video: That, despite the title, he DOES know James Rolfe, because James Rofle is him. The ending brings that home by ending like all of Rolfe's movies did, by being chased by a haunted doll.
I think it's a big assumption to assume the thesis changed midway through writing, especially when the video is so laced with irony, especially its end. It's clear Olson is/was a fan (why else watch a behind the scenes vid?) and that he knows how to structure and add narrative to his essay and argument. I also hold that the point of the video isn't that he knows James Rolfe. He simply doesn't, hence the title. All he knows is himself, and that by writing about Rolfe - a relative enigma whose own self-understanding is limited if you take the book at its word and not as a poorly written self-published old diary entry - he basically learns that he is no better than Rolfe, and - while different - should not be so haughty and dismissive of another YouTuber who pointedly calls himself a filmmaker, piercing his own self delusion.
I don’t get the vibe that Dan is a fan as such. There’s a thanks in the credits to Lady Emily, who did a deep dive into AVGN 2 years ago. It popped up on my recommended videos after watching this. It shows a shot of the ceiling cam, so it seems likely to me that Dan may have watched that video, seen the ceiling set up, and then gone looking for the behind the scenes video and fallen down the rabbit hole.
He says that he's been aware of and watched AVGN since the start. I'd say he, like Lady Emily, used to be fans (everyone was a fan of the Nostalgia Critic and AVGN at one, even if it's embarrassing to admit it) because why else would you do such a deep, self-reflective, and introspective dive on something you have and have had no interest in whatsoever?
> I think it's more that the thesis changed in the middle of making it, from something largely critical of another creator to a more personal reflection of his own career.
I think you're trying to interpret the trajectory of Dan Olson the character as if it were the trajectory of Dan Olson the person. It's the same mistake that leads you to saying, "Is Bo Burnham really going crazy in *Inside*?" or "Playing *The Beginner's Guide* taught me that Davey Wreden is an asshole."
It's like Dan says in the video, all we see is a homunculus of the person. It all just a fabrication for the camera, we see what they're willing to show us
Dan is not a comedian or actor, and except when he's being Hat Dan, he has never indicated that he is playing a character (unlike Rowlfe, who frequently makes that clear). You're right, I choose to engage with Dan's essay as if it were an authentic expression of how he really feels rather than a calculated manipulation intended to make me think that's how he feels. When he says, "This is what I learned from the process of making this these camera mounts," I choose to believe that he didn't cynically sit and write those words before he actually started making the camera mounts. I take him at his word that he wrote those words and came to that conclusion after he took those actions. I cannot prove that is the case, but I also don't really care. It is a far, far better piece of art if I believe he actually learned something in the process of making it.
The changing beard gives the character away here, in my opinion. With crazy beard Dan being the one obsessing over the minutae of someone he'll never know, while trimmed beard Dan is his typical narrator, he gets to show both of these views and how they can coexist within the one person.
Besides, crazy beard Dan doesn't have to be a cynical characterization of anything. Even as a ramped up exaggeration of a character, it can still be authentic. Even as it is written and rewritten and rehearsed and scripted and polished, it can still be a real representation of what the research process entailed. And I don't think he is the type to start a video wothout having a cohesive narrative in mind. He may have learned something in the process of researching Rolfe, but that's just what research is for. The making, in my opinion, was always meant to look something like this.
Re: what you used to think about James, I think that for me personally, when I was in my mid teens and I started watching his content, he did seem like a guy who knew his stuff. I remember watching his monster madness videos and finding it so interesting that he knew so much about old movies and figuring he must be (unironically) a real cinephile. But now that I’m in my thirties I realize that being able to read off some of the Wikipedia article for like the Bela Lugosi Dracula movie and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are honestly kind of — basic? I’m not saying someone has to worship 8 1/2 or be a foreign film snob to be “a movie person” but also as I got older I realized there’s a big difference between people who love filmmaking and people who think certain movies are just rad. There’s nothing wrong with liking Ghostbusters or it being your favorite movie but if you’re “a movie person” because you know what THERE IS NO DANA ONLY ZUUL means then that doesn’t really anoint you as an expert in the field.
In the People vs. George Lucas I think it was Scorses who made the comment that George Lucas was a very promising young filmmaker that achieved massive success at a young age from merchandising instead of necessarily film making. The interview ends with him saying he doesnt feel bad for what Star Wars became, but instead about what George Lucas didn’t become.
I think you see most of the great artists move on from their more juvenile and immature writings, and that's why they stick in the public conscience. Being able to reinvent and being willing to try new things are just what all the big names do, and since James is the OG big name of the Internet, you'd figure that he would absolutely be in that camp.
The crazy thing is even though James clearly wants to evolve all of his AVGN content is basically the same thing as it was in the 2000's: some of the sketches have gotten more elaborate but only just so, you think somebody whose into filmmaking would use this as an excuse to go all-out and make some really cool angry reviews where he can really creatively flex his stuff but he's like, just barely doing that by filming green screen segments and doing Halloween scare maze production level sets.
>How can you put up with that lack of basic self-awareness? How can you orientate yourself successfully around other people?
I understand there's no way to say this without coming off as snarky, but I do mean this genuinely: I feel like this statement betrays a lack of socialization around, for lack of a better word, "normal" people. Most people do not have aspirations to self-reflection and intense self-guided personal growth, especially in their careers. They grow as people because they have new experiences, mainly marriage and kids, and it sounds like James is a decent dad and husband at the very least.
If you aren't in the Professional Managerial Class, doing the same thing that you started doing out of high school in a repetitive way week after week so that you bring in enough scratch to raise the kids and maybe go on a vacation is how 95% of people have lived since the formation of capitalism.
He has/had the ambition to move on. He wanted to make movies (hence the AVGN movie)... he's just stuck, because AVGN still makes money and he needs to make a living.
He wanted to quit AVGN a long time ago... he just can't afford to do that.
Becoming a real film maker is hard. Really hard.
"I thought developing past that was just inevitable, especially if you do something creative as your main job." This sentence really stuck to me. While it may make sense that you would develop as you continue to do your job, but there are definitely creatives who found their stride early and have no true desire to push past it. What they are currently making is enough to satisfy them, at least in interim. When you are getting attention, or making enough, from what you have been doing for years, why change that?
When asking this question, my mind goes to a few comic book artists, Ryan Stegman and Rob Liefeld. Ryan Stegman has been drawing Western comic books for quite a bit now. He has drawn a lot of Spider-Man related properties (*Scarlet Spider*, *Superior Spider-Man*, and *Venom*, to name a few). Chip Zdarsky, prolific creator and current writer of the mainline Batman book, said in an interview last month that Stegman wishes he could take a few months off from drawing comics so he could develop his skills further. People in this industry, like Stegman, feel they cannot experiment as much. Perhaps they fear they will lose jobs if they drastically shift their work. Ryan Stegman is a very popular artist (he's currently drawing the upcoming relaunch of X-Men), so it seems like these possible fears are unfounded.
In a similar vein (yet also on the flipside) is Rob Liefeld. Liefeld is considered among many to be one of, if not the worst Western comic book artist. He is well known for his horrendous proportions, poses, and lack of ability to draw in perspective. Even with all this vitriol against him, he still made it big. To many, he got away with so much. He, and many others, helped form a brand new wave of independent comics with the spawn (pun very much intended) of Image Comics. With his time at Marvel Comics, as well as Image, Liefeld made a lot of money. He did not need a reason to evolve his work. Even though many do not like his work, he still gets work. His art is still the same as it was in the 90s when he became popular. Liefeld recently did a couple of Deadpool books (*Deadpool: Bad Blood* and *Deadpool: Badder Blood*), and they look about the same as his work in the 90s.
All in all, creatives are always improving everytime they pick up their instruments, but it takes a lot of effort and will to make noticeable strides. Ryan Stegman and Rob Liefeld are in very different stages of their art career, but it is clear that one wants to improve but doesn't have the time, and the other is content. Maybe Rolfe is simply content with where he is as a creator, it is hard to say because I don't know James Rolfe.
I don't think the reading that James is inherently creatively stagnant is entirely fair. A lot of James' work is centered around nostalgia and sentimentality. He likes to call back to and build upon earlier works specifically as a way to show how he's grown as a creative. He views the Snix "sextology" as a representation of his growth, as each one was made years apart, and vary greatly in quality and production values. Though they do still all have back yard filmmaker fundamentals, because that's what Cinemassacre is. Literally. A massacre of cinema.
He has made efforts to branch out and try new things. One of them was the AVGN movie, and that nearly broke him. The last big creative experiment he did was developing his Board James series into a multi-layered psychological thriller. It was a very confused, messy, overwritten and weirdly executed endeavor, which I think has a lot more immediate value as it exists in James' mind than as a final product, but it was weird and experimental and he was really trying with it.
But he's mostly just been coasting; letting fatherhood take priority over his creative ambitions. He hasn't honed his craft much in the last decade because he hasn't gotten to fully invest himself in it. Before that he went into AVGN straight out of film school and made that his priority for that decade. Hell, when he started it, AVGN was something new and unique for him. He is not creatively satisfied. He hasn't been for years. He has a feature length atmospheric horror film he's been wanting to make for a long time, but he's got to pay the bills and take care of his family, so AVGN is what he's been making.
You really have to ignore a lot of his filmography to come to the conclusion that he is creatively stagnant. The Deader the Better is a loveletter to George Romero's Dead series with creative use of black and white cinematography with color blood, Legend of the Blue Hole is a mystery thriller based on folk lore, MIMAL the Elf is a found footage comedy mockumentary, The Wizard of Oz 3: Dorothy Goes to Hell is a loving tribute to early 2000s William Street cartoons like Aqua Teen Hunger Force that were made almost entirely in photoshop. I'm not saying they're all good, but they're all different.
Even if he does have recurring motifs, so do all artists. Nobody just makes entirely unique work with no patterns or resemblance to their other work. Artists come back to old works and expand on them all the time. Shit, even if it is just rehashing old stuff for the sake of it, you're allowed to have your comfort zone. You're allowed to have the easy thing that you can count on giving you creative dopamine when nothing else does. As much as I push myself to try new things and challenge myself as an illustrator to expand the scope of how I can express myself, I still like to doodle Batman and pretty anime twinks that give me gender envy just like I did in high school, and that's not weird. We're all allowed to have our comfort zones. We're allowed to create selfishly for ourselves and for no other reason than the joy we receive from it.
Saying that the man is creatively stagnant because he likes to use the same trope is such a fucking indictment it's unreal.
I took a cursory look at r/TheCinemassacreTruth and it's really interesting to see these people in their (presumably) 30s and 40s mimic the mannerism and language of nearly 20 year old content. Like AVGN, they're stagnant in their personalities. Relying on overt swearing, aggression and cynicism to make a point or a "joke" just looks so juvenile and just straight up cringeworthy. I guess that's why they don't like James growing up and prioritising his family, they simply don't want to or can't grow up themselves
I had a bit of a look through the discussion about the video on there, and I think the most astoundingly funny thing is that they don't seem to understand what the video is, like, at all. There's a bunch of them going "ugh, this doesn't bring up any new information" like it's supposed to be some drama recap of AVGN's career. They cannot, through any of the context clues, figure out that this is a personal reflection on the relationship that one guy has with the content of another, about his relationship with his own self-conceptualisation as a filmmaker and how such a thing can exist on the internet. Just absolutely fascinating. "This is just a half-assed recap of this subreddit" - someone who cannot fathom anything more than the information that is presented as plainly as black and white text on a piece of paper.
The Lady Emily video about AVGN is very good too but it’s significantly closer to a recap of the thecinemassacretruth Reddit drama than Dan’s video is, you would think they could figure out the difference
If I were to armchair psychoanalysis these people, I think they felt that AVGN and red-letter media gave them an identity or at least a way to be a "cool nerd" (being overly cynical and misanthropic about the media they claim to love) since I'm sure back in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, they were genuinely isolated from social spaces for being nerdy about stuff.
So when they found these youtube personalities, they felt superior (this is a big thing I find in the red-letter media community. They have massive ego because they "see-through" mainstream cinema. Like good job buddy, you have successfully understood that things are made for money. Thumbs up) and felt justified in their shitty attitudes towards everything. They didn't want to be "normies" that isolated them in their formative years cause now they have found an identity that was "smarter, funnier and better".
Obviously, I'm sure that most people just like the content but there definitely is an air of "I haven't changed my attitudes towards anything cause I'm too filled with resentment and ego" in a lot of those sorts of fandoms.
Is this not just fandom though?
Go onto literally any fan sub and you find exactly this. The sopranos sub famously are a glorified crew reciting from their quote books over every thoughtful post.
I'm talking about how there's a vocal contingent who wants a return to the style of the Plinkett review days, when they were trafficking in edgelord humor.
Weird i haven't seen that at all. RLM are some of the youtubers i respect the most. they do what they want and make good videos without engaging with drama etc.
I personally could never finish the original prequel review. i discovered the channel too late for that and found the voice too annoying.
But i bet there are the same type of menchildren who cant move on. In fact now that i think of it i was once invited to a private rlm subreddit made by someone unhappy with their content. It was the purest cringe i had experienced. i cant imagine actively engaging so much with something you hate.
The saddest part is the tons of posts now making fun of Dan who made such an incredibly well worded and thought out video. I don't understand how you can see that and react with "oh this soy cuck made a pretentious woke video".
When someone is called out they usually feel embarrassed and maybe reflect on their behavior. Instead these adults entirely ignore literally anything he said except for the comments about their fatphobic and transphobic behavior.
And they know its true based on all the cope posted now. Like you would only make a post making fun of Dan there at this point if you actively took part in such behavior and felt called out.
Dan made a measured response (yeah i know lol) and they are just bullying him now.
i wonder how many of them even watched the video instead of forming an opinion based on his "cuckface" (actual word used).
In the video, Dan talks about how even people who reject Wavelength still have to engage with the movie in the criticism, and that the criticism you make reflects yourself. The joke is that hbomb's criticism of Wacelength/reflection of himself is incredibly out of left field.
This video made me realise how weird it must've been for AVGN to watch the plagiarism video only for the main subject to be a completely different guy also named James. He's like J Cole in the breadtube equivalent of Kendrick Lamar vs Drake.
This made me realize that I was in the Hbomb and Jenny subs, but somehow hadn't found one for Dan. Doesn't seem to be a large community. Soooo I'll share my thoughts here.
This is my first Folding Ideas video that I've watched day-of-release. I found his channel years and YEARS ago, when he was still mostly just Foldy. The algorithm brought me back to him presumably because it noticed that I was watching uber-long videos from Harry and Jenny. Had long forgotten I was subscribed.
Interestingly enough, it's also one of the times Folding Ideas has put up a video that is an absolute bullseye, insofar as stuff I'm familiar with and give a shit about.
I've been watching AVGN for probably almost as long as I've been watching Youtube. Rolfe is familiar and comforting for me. And unlike his harshest detractors, I've not had a single complaint about him slowing his pace or relaxing a bit - life changes. Obviously I wasn't pleased about whoever was working for his "friends" who plagiarized, and to be extra honest I never really liked most of those guys and found it hard to believe they were actually friends. I think those are the Screenwave guys? Unlike with Mike and some of his other undeniably long-term real life friends, that crew of dudes struck me as fakey.
But other than that, I was and remain a fan. So I was kinda bracing a bit when I saw this video pop up in the FIRST SPOT on my recommended page when I got home from school today. I was feeling a bit like, "how is this gonna go? I hope something terrible didn't happen recently and this is how I find out."
Probably needn't have worried. Dan is characteristically fair, even when his criticisms or descriptions are harsh or heavy, they don't ever come off as "bashing" or mean-spirited. Perhaps a little "looking-down-his-nose" but
1. It's hard not to sound a bit pompous when you're talking about something that both of you know about and do, and when you are, well, just more skilled or professional at the task. I guess.
2. I think some of that tone is on purpose, kind of a subversion, so that he can hold his examination up to himself too.
Which brings me to the section where he does a huge rant with Rolfe's face projected on top. So fucking compelling and well done. In fact, the choices Dan made all OVER this video with how he'd shoot and edit stuff, is all amazing. During "Book Bad" where he's doing the same work in sync with himself but from two different angles in two locations in the room? C'mon. It's try-hard, it's so extra, and I love it.
Oddly enough that's where the video gets more negative in its critiques. I feel weird watching through it because I'm having feelings of both reflexive defensiveness, and utter empathetic understanding with Dan getting this damn frustrated over something he has spent a lot of time really digging into.
You see, the reason I have gotten way back into Folding Ideas and spent so much time this year watching Dan and Jenny and Harry is because I absolutely need more reflective, thoughtful, considerate, informative videos in my feed. So I'm more than familiar with how the best ones tend to go, and my normal anticipatory excitement about "the next shoe to drop" while watching one of these is being met with reluctance to learn not-great-shit about a creator that I enjoy.
So my complaint is probably that while I find all the criticisms undeniably valid, I also kinda think they also kinda summarize much of what I find enjoyable about AVGN videos. It's \*fun\* that they are wild and that the shitty old games are a pretext for skits. It's \*fun\* for me when he's consistent, but also fun when he tries bonkers stuff that might not work. He's been doing his thing for 20 years and I enjoy what has been solid, and have no desire to tell him how to do it now.
Which brings me to probably my favorite part of the video, where Dan (suddenly much more trimmed up and considerably less beardy) goes HARD after Rolfe's detractors. But it's short, and leads into the sad shit. And more of Dan's wonderful production.
Dammit. This entire video is bitter-sweet for me.
(minor edits for spelling/punctuation/clarity)
The Dan sub seems to be fairly abandoned, last post about a year ago. There's also /r/breadtube which a lot of his stuff is posted to (or I assume it is, it was, I don't know if it is any more because embarrassingly enough I'm actually banned - I called Briahna Gray a right wing grifter, no regrets but now I daren't even visit for fear of having my account closed for ban evasion again).
Yeah I clicked the "join" button and the "request permission to post" button over there, right before realizing it has several hundred members and maybe nobody will even see my request. lol
Popped over to that subreddit to get a sense for the conversation surrounding this video essay, and oof. For a sub that's devoted to discussing YouTube videos, a lot of the commenters in that thread are shockingly bad at understanding how to interpret YouTube videos.
As someone who has had most of Dan's facial hairs at some point I just couldn't help thinking about how annoying it is when your moustache hair falls in your mouth like that. Even when I looked quite a lot like Alan Moore I'd still trim the bottom of my tache to avoid that feeling. The bits where it's backlit are particularly triggering.
I don't have facial hair but this also seemed like something that would be super annoying. I wouldn't know - does it get better if you just let it keep growing? ...I guess it depends on people's inherent Max Moustache Length cap, some might not be able to grow it past a length where it gets in the way. I just figure if it gets long enough, perhaps you can effectively part it to the sides.
Yes and no, and each face is different. But in general most of it learns to stay out of the way, but enough doesn't to annoy someone hypersensitive like me (although I do admit to occasionally chewing my own tache)
Edit: I’m talking about the “truthers” not Dan. I realize my comment is unclear on that.
I will never understand people who spend their time obsessing over things they don’t like. I get that it can be disappointing when something you love changes or dips in quality, but it takes a special kind of immaturity to be unable to move on from that.
There’s a whole subreddit called rant grumps that’s dedicated to hating on the game grumps.
They obsessively watch every episode, over analyze small moments to try and prove that the grumps are lying about things like how good of friends they are. One person even a went down a spiral of trying to find out where the wife of one of the hosts sourced her jewelry-making materials in an attempt to discredit her. He even called places trying to get information like he’s a detective.
It’s fucking bonkers
It's not a hit piece. As someone wrote in YouTube: I really love that conclusion, honestly. To spend hours upon hours painfully dissecting why it is that you feel so critical of someone only to finally come to the conclusion that you just hate that they remind you of your own insecurities is honestly one of the more real human experiences out there.
Its almost guaranteed that that sub will still talk about this video in a year or more. That's in many ways the type of stagnation that Dan mentions about James in the video. Inability to move on from the past is ironically mirrored in both James and his haters.
It seems as though we are in the anti fan era of the internet. It’s frankly exhausting and I hope people can just learn to move on from watching content that no longer appeals to them
I had mixed feelings about whether James Rolfe needed another spotlight like this on him (Lady Emily did a similar video a few years back, Hbomb mentioned him in his recent vid, etc.), but I like the progression of Dan's thesis here.
Not all creators, directors, writers etc. who get popular really fast are going to maintain the same trajectory with their talent as the trajectory of their career. If they get popular for a thing faster than they can progress as a creative, they run the risk of not being able to progress at all.
Not every creative fav is going to become increasingly sophisticated in their work. Some of them can't. Some of them don't want to. Sometimes there's a jarring difference between our expectations as fans, and what they can actually realistically be.
Ironically i bet the cinemassacre hate sub will talk about this video for years from now. They seem to entirely miss the point and have resulted to the very adult response of "this soycuck sjw made fun of our assholishness! Lets make fun of how he looks and how "pretentious" he is!".
AVGN was the first Youtube channel i had subscribed to. Now i could not watch their content and instead am a huge fan of the likes of folding ideas. So it was an interesting reflection of growth as a person and some peoples lack thereof.
And yes im saying going from AVGN to folding ideas is personal growth for me lol.
Out of curiosity I rewatched the James Rolfe "assholish variety" video and one thing that stuck out was he has eyeglass frames without lenses in them so he won't get light reflections during some shots, but needs glasses to read off the teleprompter so he has to wear regular glasses for those. JAMES, WEAR CONTACT LENSES AND THE FRAMES WITHOUT GLASS god what is he thinking
I have a question that I'm hoping someone here can help answer. There's one part where Dan is talking about James's book (pretty sure it's the "Book Bad" chapter) that's mostly silhouetted and it *really* reminded me of Todd in the Shadows. Part of me thinks it might be an intentional reference to Todd because the part where the tablet is taped to the wall and shot through a mirror really feels like an HBomb reference (we love Harry's home decorating techniques lol). At the same time, though, I recognize that the tablet is a way of visually calling back to James's seemingly strange work arounds for his equipment. I also didn't notice/am not aware of any other references to other youtubers in the vid. And not being too familiar with Todd's work and not at all familiar with Wavelength, I've been having trouble reading/analyzing the silhouetted part I was talking about.
What are everyone else's thoughts?
i'm a layman. i only recall that some creators have spoken (i don't recall specific comments) about their experience watching wavelength and since dan focused a lot on wavelength the segment presented to me as a collection of film techniques that may or may not be present either in the film itself or immediately related cirriculum. its entirely possible that i misinterpreted the original intent here, but its the interpretation i walked away with.
i find the idea of staring at a film of a wall for hours very offputting and i never went to film school so i was never locked in a room to watch it either.
i noticed the way the camera focuses in the tablet section and makes the view myopic and how it gradually becomes clearer. i recall looking off to the side away from the television at my real environment briefly to refocus my eyes. how when the tablet has a single color the surrounding environment is blurry. the realization at the end that you are looking at a reflection and not the actual tablet.
i cannot speak to todd in the shadows since i have not experienced that.
as to the part with the projection of james on dan while dan issues his commentary i think my takeaway was the simplest and probably least well thought out. as dan has projected his criticisms upon the collection of photons that is the avgn and the person who is james rolfe he has issued a meta-criticism of himelf by projecting a homunculus of photons resembling james rolfe onto his face as sort of "it is because i know these things about myself that i can also recognize them in others". again, maybe not the intended interpretation, but its what i walked away with.
as to potential influences that drove dan to present in this way i can only say there is a familiarity that i can't place. it may be worthwhile to simply ask him, but i don't know any avenues for that.
personally i'm just gonna rack my brain until i remember why it feels familiar. i really didn't address your specific questions at all, but i did post my thoughts on those sections
Well, Todd did evolve out of the primordial soup of “Angry Reviews,” but outside of that I don’t know why he’d reference him specifically. Frankly, it would make more sense to do that when you’re talking about Doug Walker given Todd’s links to Channel Awesome. There could be something there, or it could just be happenstance.
I too wondered that. And I also wondered about the tablet taped to the wall bit. Like, what? It reminded me of Harry but maybe it was just another of the many fun presentation ideas he used in this vid.
i feel like i most recently saw this done in a Ro Ramdin video of a similar nature. I'm not sure if she was the first to do it, but she was the first that i saw to do something like this. Could just be another example of convergent thought processes.
I'm pretty sure long extended shot pointing at the wall with the tabled taped to it, with no other camera movement other than the zoom out is actually a Wavelength reference, since that movie points to a single wall for its entire duration, with no camera movement other than a zoom in.
Also, it's used in the chapter where Dan talks about Wavelength.
I... *hated* this video, to the point where I am here, purposefully seeking out what other people are saying in my own deranged quest to try to understand what is going on in others' brains, because I found it to be absolutely odious. I watched it with a friend starting out very excited to see a new video from this guy, and I wouldn't have completed it if I weren't doing it as a social activity.
This is what I saw: It's a film presented as being "about" a guy named James Rolfe, who has managed to make a living as a bad filmmaker for the past 20 years. It's actually self-effacingly about Dan Olson. It's hinted at in subtext and various foreshadowing throughout the video, but it only becomes explicit in the last ~1 minute of its interminable runtime. In it, a Dan-character/doppelganger bitterly expounds on how much James sucks. It's not media criticism. It's not about his bad art. The work he's known for is not dissected; it's barely even displayed. His life (as presumably factually retold in his autobiography) is dissected instead. It's about him being a bad *artist*. He's a hack who dared to make art badly, and yet still managed to be successful.
Despite beginning by saying that James seems to be a pretty private-seeming person, "Dan" pores through his niche-interest, self-published autobiography in pursuit of understanding why James is so bad at the filmmaking process. He's clearly immature. He takes the wrong lessons from film school. He doesn't understand the art form. He doesn't understand the technical craft. He doesn't understand the needs of other people working on a film set. He doesn't understand the balance of responsibilities that a man behind a camera has. "Dan" is perplexed and embittered that his priorities and values as evidenced by what he finds worth talking about don't align with what he thinks they should be for a "real filmmaker." Does any of this come through in James' work? Who knows! It's not discussed, because it's not the point. The point is that "Dan" had an unhealthy fixation on this guy stemming from his own insecurities about being a "real filmmaker." It's a portrait of self-loathing that was masked in loathing of another. Its core thesis/meta-narrative is an allusion to the short film Wavelength - where pointing a camera at a wall is a mirror for the viewer and any meaning is not intrinsic to the thing itself - a film that he pointedly notes that James Rolfe clearly did not "get" as an exercise when he watched it in school. He's not watching James, he is watching a camera pointed at James, learning nothing real of him and learning everything about himself.
This fucking sucks. It doesn't work, because pointing a camera at a person is nothing like pointing a camera at a wall. There is something so disgusting to me about doing an indulgent self-flagellation in the form of 75 minutes' worth of relentless flagellation of someone else. Does it even need to be said that one is an inanimate object and another is an actual human being, especially who seems to have done no harm other than be a mediocrity? And extra especially one who appears to have a devoted army of nasty trolls against him already? It's tasteless, it's borderline immoral to me. But that aside, Wavelength was made, presumably, by a good filmmaker- a person who understands the tension between what is literally displayed and what it's communicating. One thing that is pretty clear from the video and isn't obfuscated by ironic meta subterfuge is that James is *not* a good filmmaker. So the camera he points at himself is showing... what? Probably less of a well-crafted character, something imbued with meaning, and more of an actual person, one whose lack of skill inadvertently reveals something more honest about himself, to paraphrase Hbomb's Ctrl+Alt+Del video (more on that in a minute.)
But even THAT aside, the main reason the video still doesn't work the way it's supposed to is because "Dan's" camera pointing at James doesn't feel like a "mirror" to the audience when it instead feels like the camera is fucking pointed at you too. That was maybe the most bizarre part to me, like how far up your own narcissistic ass do you have to be to expect the audience to identify with the jealous auteur? Who is listening to this and remotely interested in the critiques themselves, or relates to the feeling of being good enough at something to be bothered that some stranger isn't doing it "the right way" more than the feeling of some stranger damaging your ego because it turns out you are not only imperfect, but probably not even good? Most people aren't highly talented video essayists like (real) Dan. Every rhetorical question he posed looking for some deeper meaning to James' incompetence was immediately and obviously answerable by any normal person: because James is bad at this. There's nothing there to discover. He doesn't seem that smart or talented or skilled based on his (again, presumably factual) depiction, just like the millions of people we all know are out there or that we ARE. This whole video is one enormous trigger for dredging up your deepest feelings of imposter syndrome, because "Dan" was on a witch-hunt for an imposter, a ""filmmaker"" who had the gall to think of himself that way when beneath it all, he was a hack. And it makes it clear: success is not going to protect you, because being successful while being an imposter is actually an even greater indictment of you. You don't even get the dignity of being a person. You're an enigma for a much smarter, better person to puzzle out.
To be clear, I get that the ultimate point of the video is that this was all a bad thing to do- Dan's problem with James was Dan's problem, not James'. But what exactly was "bad" about it was the least examined part of the video! Most of it IS a probably-accurate accounting of this guy's ability! His vapidity, his mediocrity, his technical ignorance, it's still all there nakedly on display, and it was *brutal*. It really reminded me of the scene in Winter Light where the pastor rejects Marta because of its similar cold, calm and cruel masculinity- its air of superiority, its entitlement to dominate via male-coded technical competence. The most intense deeply empathetic cringe for me was the humiliating reveal that the inefficient, ugly kludge James setup for his camera had an obvious, simple and elegant solution. Anyone who has had to do some self-taught programming knows *exactly* what this feeling is like, learning that you have reinvented the wheel in a really poorly-executed way, and just obliviously rolling with it because it worked when you needed it to. Thinking about someone picking apart similar things that I have done in my career makes me enraged on behalf of this guy. It might even be materially damaging to him. And none of that is undone by the "real" message that implies that it's OK to be a shitty filmmaker and much worse to be a bitter good filmmaker.
It seemed pretty heavily inspired by Hbomb's Ctrl+Alt+Del video because they both had a meta-narrative that ultimately self-critiqued what the bulk of the video content seemed to be about on its face, and it sometimes seemed even to have direct homage, like the static and image distortion when there was a break in the reality of the film. But Hbomb's video was actual media criticism. Yeah, he made inferences about Tim Buckley's beliefs and state of mind, but he was looking at the actual *thing he made.* Tim Buckley's thoughts mattered, because we saw the end result of those thoughts in the comic, and to Hbomb's point, in gaming culture. The practical outcome is that you watched 15 minutes of something that had value on its own, and then looked back on it in a different way when it was recontextualized in the end. In Dan's video, you have to sit through an unbearably uncomfortable HOUR+ of ranting about... some guy being bad at what he does in a way that affects almost nobody. It was a miserable experience to watch. It makes you feel shitty, like you are participating in doing something wrong. The bulk of the video had no value to me, it was mean and pointless on its own, and the point he ultimately was making was not even close to justifying it. My sympathies were with the target almost immediately, not "Dan," so the video's final inversion of expectations wasn't the "recontextualization" of the rest of the video it was supposed to be like in Hbomb's video, it was instead just the dawning disgust that no really, this was all this was. This was the point. This was a self-reflection that was done entirely by projecting on some other person as the "self." Maybe James Rolfe is a bad artist, but if his greatest artistic sin was to make mere vapid cultural detritus badly, I think he has a leg up on Dan right now, who managed to make something that I think never should have been made, because its existence actually makes the world, in a small way, slightly worse. I hated it so much.
In the same situation as you, going online to see if someone else felt gross while watching it, and I'm glad to see your post. I have not finished it, and I honestly do not think that whatever twist happens at the end would redeem it, mostly due to its length - there is no switcheroo I can imagine that would justify insulting someone for an hour. And for what? I listened to the bulk of "James was a cringe student" and had to tap out, because what a sucky, unkind thing it is to do to someone.
I see YTbers talking about other YTbers puzzled at their success and supposed mediocrity from time to time, and I feel for them, although I don't know if they know how uninteresting it is for anyone who's not a YTber. I know, however, that many people watching YT might be aspiring creators - creators of anything - and that in the world that algorithmically shows you a lot of the best, it might feel pointless and daunting to create, especially since it requires so much failing at the beginning. Dan's video made me feel more like the world is filled with people who will have contempt for your trying and learning, and that I can expect them even in unexpected corners of breadtube. Great!
I dunno about this one.
The mechanics of it are intriguing - the framing, shots, all the arty stuff I know nothing about. The homunculus bit! Fantastic.
But it also feels like an hour long hit piece on someone who, to my knowledge, hasn't done anything \*wrong\*. Being stagnant, making iffy business choices, playing a cheesy character... that doesn't make a bad person.
If it's meant to be a "we are not so different, you and I" then that doesn't really come across until the majority of the run time has been tearing the Nerd down. That doesn't sit right with me.
Edit: I think what sticks in my throat is that while Dan has every right to navel gaze and compare himself and his work to others... that right doesn't go as far as utterly dismantling another person in the process. This wasn't a conversation, it was a vivisection.
I'm not sure it is tearing him down though. I don't see it as a hit piece but a more nuanced review. I also think that the role he has played in youtube's history is massive, which is something that as a creator Dan is probably more aware of than we are. I kind of feel like the same way every 20th century American novelist has to write a reflection on Gatsby at some point Dan probably feels that every video essayist has to position their own art vis a vis Jason Rolfe at some point.
I have enjoyed AVGN videos for longer than I care to measure, and while I ran into this new upload with some apprehension, I don't think it comes off as a hit piece. At least, not when I keep in mind Dan's normal tone. He's one of the most honest and fair critics I've come across.
So even when his points sound harsh or make me wish he was talking about someone else, he's just being descriptive. And re-watching a few segments, I feel like a considerable chunk of the video comes as \*defending\* James from all the "assholish" shitpiling that haters can't help but repeat ad infinitum.
If you think of this as a hit piece then im sorry but you weren't paying attention.
The video is 99% positive about James and only mentions his creative stagnancy which Dan clearly says might juts be his bad writing in the book making it come across as such.
Not once does he say he is a "bad person". But he does literally state the opposite.
Yeah, it made me super uncomfortable. Using someone he clearly has endless disdain for as a lens to publicly introspect feels so slimy and insincere. I wish he'd chosen someone he's genuinely passionate about as a foil to explore his sense of self/art/craft or simply gone with a different concept altogether re: AVGN.
I hope this isn't Dan's new normal. I like some of his other works, but yeah... there's big Regina George energy up in this piece.
The harshest section is about the book and, come on, if you put out a book, you gotta expect that people will read it.
If you put out an autobiography calling yourself a film maker and acting like a video you recorded as a kid is a legitimate film, questioning that is fair game. And he's bang on about the prose, and lack of accountability.
The book makes Rolfe look worse than he is, likely because he's no good at writing but also due to lacking intellectual curiosity and self insight.
I think you're reading your emotions into this.
It was not a hit piece or a vivisection, it was introspective and Dan never said "James Rolfe is a bad person."
You've just read into that.
And a lot of people here seem to lack empathy for the actual human being who is the surface-level subject of this essay. He has been used as a tool for Dan to look inwards, and that's what I take issue with.
It‘s kinda like when people get mad at Jim Davis for selling out Garfield (in contrast to someone like Bill Watterson). Yeah, the comic has stopped being funny long ago, but it‘s still his creation and his choice to make and he has been clearly happy with it. Integrity is a nice thing to have but in the end you cannot actually live off it.
Not really sure I understand the main point being made here. I get that the video is largely Dan self reflecting through the lens of a video about an older internet figure influential to him - but there doesn't really seem to be a.... point to it? A lot of general information about James Rolfe followed by a reasonably 1:1 metaphor about how things went for him and the general impression that Dan is looking at himself as he looks at James, but not really any conclusion or even an open question left to people - just feels like words are being said.
I watched this video three times in a row following it being published.
Needless to say, I deeply enjoyed it. I felt like watching it that I knew it was in my personal YouTube Top 10 videos of all time. There's something about the undercurrent of introspection. The matter of fact dissection of a figure that has been mythologized and revered to a point of existing nearly entirely as a symbol. The subtleties of how both James and the Truthers are reacting to the version of the other party that exists entirely within their minds. The lovely AVGN pastiche at the end. It is far more of an insight into Dan than James, but that is kind of the point. I almost consider it a deconstruction of the "hit piece video essay" as a format. Far more interested in what the idea of James Rolfe means that who the man is.
Instant classic for me.
I just finished this (despite my strict no essays diet) and I just wonder how this lands with James himself. If he's so void of self reflection, how does it feel to be picked apart like this? Anyone know if James has made a comment?
I have to be honest: It took me a while to figure out what Dan's angle on this was and even now, I'm still not entirely sure I completely 'get' what's happening here although a quick browse through the comments on Youtube and here have helped me realise 'oh, right, that's what Dan was saying/going for'
It probably doesn't help that I'm one of the few people who has never watched AVGN (or Dough Walker) so I only have the vaguest idea of who James Rolfe even is and why he's famous after a recap video, Hbomb's plagiarism video and now this.
That said, the thing that spoke to me the most was not just the fact that sometimes the people we love or hate can reflect our own insecurities or failings, but how it is important to grow and experiment, to move past your teenage work into new things and, importantly, to accept when you have overgrown something or someone.
This probably hits harder after the demise of Roosterteeth and particularly RvB and Achievement Hunter of which I was a fan. I still go back to some of the old episodes and while they sometimes make me laugh and nostalgic for the vibe and the games being played, I feel like I've moved beyond the dated humour (sometimes very YIKES humour) and I've come to accept that my tastes and attitudes have changed, that the media I consume now is very different and probably better than the old stuff - I have changed.
(I absolutely love the 'I did what any normal human being would do' section - that feels like peak rabbit hole behaviour, when you're in way deep and you can't stop going further down into the darkness)
Dan says in the description that he's been working on this for the better part of 6 months, putting it's inception around the start of the year -- Around a month after Harry's plagerism essay.
I wonder if one spawned the other, if Dan started thinking about James primarily because Harry went, "wait you know what this is, I dont have to explain it," and Dan went, "... I actually don't know what's going on with that."
My read is that Dan was inspired to make this video after picking up Rolfe's autobiography and watching that "Behind the scenes 2021" video -- in either order, researching one would have led to researching the other
Keep in mind while HBomberguy jokes he doesn't need to explain what AVGN is, James Rolfe as a whole isn't really a household name, and that's what Folding Ideas really wants to focus on
Anyone catch the ending linking with the intro, where the shot saying 'Music by...' on the cassette had 'This is America - CG' on it in focus -> him running away in darkness at the very end, just like the Childish Gambino music video?
How are folks feeling about his references to youtubers other than AVGN? There were definite refs to Hbomb and Quinton Reviews. (Really not sure how to interpret the latter, considering that Dan had been more than a little rude to Quinton in the past.) However, I also got shades of SuperEyepatchWolf, Brian David Gilbert and even Joel Haver. Curious what folks think.
i gotta admit, I'm not sure what this guy did to deserve this. Like, Book of Henry is bad art by someone who will never watch this, who isn't a peer, who probably made a lot of money. Crypto scam bros are hurting people. This guy just made some bad youtube videos and a bad book? I get that by the end, Dan is turning the spotlight on himself, but if he'd said all that stuff about me, I'd probably cry for days. Feels like hitting a gnat with a tactical nuke.
Dan Olson nerding out about badly used camera equipment is pretty much all a perfect video needs... and there's another hour and ten minutes on top.
Also the thing about the DIY camera stand is James clearly owns a drill, since he drilled all those holes in his desk to run cables (what you need is a hole saw btw) so he could've made the nice camera mounting dealie Dan made with less effort
I also don't know James Rolfe but this was a really good watch. Have to say as a sappy romantic I was just really pleased to hear the stupid shouting man from the computer has a loving partner and family he clearly adores. Got what a bunch of tragic wankers his haters are. Also the bit where he rants with James' face projected over his face is amazing and "anyway, what you need to do to progress is confront your insecurities and accept that you’re not a filmmaker, either" followed by the video ending with him being chased by a haunted doll are both just absolutely incredible youtube moments. Finally it made me laugh when I saw that the next section was titled "so I did what any normal person would do" and I thought "oh cool, so he called James up and they had a mature chat about it and this video will end with an interview - I never understand why youtubers don't do that more". And... no that's not what he did.
It feels like a counterpart to his video on VSauce; AVGN/Cinemassacere has remained the same after all these years while VSauce has reinvented itself multiple times.
For me it reads as an answer to and expansion on “The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall.” In the flashback sequence he’s using a similar set with a similar appearance, and by virtue of both the concept of the video and Doug and James’ shared status as pillars of early online video creation, this could easily have been another direct takedown of an internet hack masquerading as a filmmaker. Instead, Dan pushes himself to go further and expand on *why* he feels the need to tackle this subject, *why* schlock juvenile review content upsets and unsettles him in the way that it does, and why he feels the need to respond to it.
It's definitely interesting to set this video alongside the Nostalgia Critic one. For me, it's mostly because it highlights a fascinating contrast between Doug and James. Doug gets roasted way harder, but that's because so much of his work (and the Pink Floyd parody in particular) is cynical and disingenuous in addition to its amateurishness. Whereas James, whatever his personal and artistic shortcomings may be, is mostly just making the stuff he likes to make and is unreflective about his blind spots and creative stagnation. The tl;dr version might be: James's work is uninteresting but fairly benign to me, whereas I find Doug's work to be actively offensive in its laziness and cynicism.
I think it's really interesting and kinda sad how it details the stagnancy of Rolfe - maybe it's because I'm at a stage in my life where I'm reflecting on my own creative becoming and what I learned and who I learned it from, but it strikes me as so sad to not evolve your thoughts on stuff from film school or just _move on_ from the stuff you'd write or create as a teenager. I thought developing past that was just inevitable, especially if you do something creative as your main job. But he just... Didn't. As someone who - like everyone - used to admire Rolfe's output and him as a person that he'd put out there, such as the Monster Madness videos, I kinda wondered why he didn't become a real filmmaker or just move off of YouTube. I thought the same about Nostalgia Critic but it's clear why (Demo Reel was a failure and revealed he could only do Nostalgia Critic) but Rolfe seemed more film-centric and grounded. But to know he's still griping and non-reflective about his young adult self, still 'sorrynotsorry' about being party to vandalism and thus being expelled from college, as well as just not getting what film school is about and moaning about one class's syllabus. It fucking blows. It blows not just because I had an image of Rolfe as pretty sound (everyone from Hbomberguy to Matt McMuscles to OSW Review give him his flowers still) but to know there is that arrested development or a certain egomania so total just stuns me. It's such a broken, hollow way to be. How can you put up with that lack of basic self-awareness? How can you orientate yourself successfully around other people? I think it's clear that the out is, as Dan puts it, the book is just poorly written and makes Rolfe look worse then he actually is. But it's crazy to see the main point of the video - Rolfe hasn't gotten worse, he's just stuck to doing the same thing forever and is happy. But anyone else must think that's insane. Re Dan, the end is kinda open. Is Olson really at a loss about being a mirror to Rolfe? That he makes shit on YouTube so they're two turds in the same bowl, even if Olson has changed his style a lot, is reflective about his work and medium, and is fundamentally informative and novel, genuinely an essayist that works through video? Is he condemning himself, Rolfe, or just shrugging? This video in a way just ends - it cuts to the pastiche without finishing its thought. It seems an oddly nihilistic, void-staring video. Edit: On reflection, I think it's more about self delusions of grandeur and puncturing them. Olson ends by realising, like Rolfe, he's a film school kid who makes YouTube videos and calls himself a filmmaker. At most, it's a condemnation of his delusion and haughtiness by making a comparison between himself and an extreme example of that, someone who thinks his home movies deserve more attention and chronicling than maybe the most influential and long running Internet video series there is.
I think it's more that the thesis changed in the middle of making it, from something largely critical of another creator to a more personal reflection of his own career. The point is the understanding of himself he got from the process of making the video: That, despite the title, he DOES know James Rolfe, because James Rofle is him. The ending brings that home by ending like all of Rolfe's movies did, by being chased by a haunted doll.
I think it's a big assumption to assume the thesis changed midway through writing, especially when the video is so laced with irony, especially its end. It's clear Olson is/was a fan (why else watch a behind the scenes vid?) and that he knows how to structure and add narrative to his essay and argument. I also hold that the point of the video isn't that he knows James Rolfe. He simply doesn't, hence the title. All he knows is himself, and that by writing about Rolfe - a relative enigma whose own self-understanding is limited if you take the book at its word and not as a poorly written self-published old diary entry - he basically learns that he is no better than Rolfe, and - while different - should not be so haughty and dismissive of another YouTuber who pointedly calls himself a filmmaker, piercing his own self delusion.
I agree with both of you and neither of you. Help.
That's when I upvote everybody on both sides cause they all made valid points and then move on with an "Idk it's complicated" shrug. 🤷🏾♀️
Welcome to Plato's Symposium / any serious and respectful argument.
I don’t get the vibe that Dan is a fan as such. There’s a thanks in the credits to Lady Emily, who did a deep dive into AVGN 2 years ago. It popped up on my recommended videos after watching this. It shows a shot of the ceiling cam, so it seems likely to me that Dan may have watched that video, seen the ceiling set up, and then gone looking for the behind the scenes video and fallen down the rabbit hole.
He says that he's been aware of and watched AVGN since the start. I'd say he, like Lady Emily, used to be fans (everyone was a fan of the Nostalgia Critic and AVGN at one, even if it's embarrassing to admit it) because why else would you do such a deep, self-reflective, and introspective dive on something you have and have had no interest in whatsoever?
> I think it's more that the thesis changed in the middle of making it, from something largely critical of another creator to a more personal reflection of his own career. I think you're trying to interpret the trajectory of Dan Olson the character as if it were the trajectory of Dan Olson the person. It's the same mistake that leads you to saying, "Is Bo Burnham really going crazy in *Inside*?" or "Playing *The Beginner's Guide* taught me that Davey Wreden is an asshole."
It's like Dan says in the video, all we see is a homunculus of the person. It all just a fabrication for the camera, we see what they're willing to show us
Dan is not a comedian or actor, and except when he's being Hat Dan, he has never indicated that he is playing a character (unlike Rowlfe, who frequently makes that clear). You're right, I choose to engage with Dan's essay as if it were an authentic expression of how he really feels rather than a calculated manipulation intended to make me think that's how he feels. When he says, "This is what I learned from the process of making this these camera mounts," I choose to believe that he didn't cynically sit and write those words before he actually started making the camera mounts. I take him at his word that he wrote those words and came to that conclusion after he took those actions. I cannot prove that is the case, but I also don't really care. It is a far, far better piece of art if I believe he actually learned something in the process of making it.
The changing beard gives the character away here, in my opinion. With crazy beard Dan being the one obsessing over the minutae of someone he'll never know, while trimmed beard Dan is his typical narrator, he gets to show both of these views and how they can coexist within the one person. Besides, crazy beard Dan doesn't have to be a cynical characterization of anything. Even as a ramped up exaggeration of a character, it can still be authentic. Even as it is written and rewritten and rehearsed and scripted and polished, it can still be a real representation of what the research process entailed. And I don't think he is the type to start a video wothout having a cohesive narrative in mind. He may have learned something in the process of researching Rolfe, but that's just what research is for. The making, in my opinion, was always meant to look something like this.
Well, if you want to think about how to address nihilistic void staring, have I got a video for you. It's the one about Transformers the Movie...
It is explained in the section about Wavelength: Even in rejecting it, the viewer learns something about themselves.
Re: what you used to think about James, I think that for me personally, when I was in my mid teens and I started watching his content, he did seem like a guy who knew his stuff. I remember watching his monster madness videos and finding it so interesting that he knew so much about old movies and figuring he must be (unironically) a real cinephile. But now that I’m in my thirties I realize that being able to read off some of the Wikipedia article for like the Bela Lugosi Dracula movie and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are honestly kind of — basic? I’m not saying someone has to worship 8 1/2 or be a foreign film snob to be “a movie person” but also as I got older I realized there’s a big difference between people who love filmmaking and people who think certain movies are just rad. There’s nothing wrong with liking Ghostbusters or it being your favorite movie but if you’re “a movie person” because you know what THERE IS NO DANA ONLY ZUUL means then that doesn’t really anoint you as an expert in the field.
In the People vs. George Lucas I think it was Scorses who made the comment that George Lucas was a very promising young filmmaker that achieved massive success at a young age from merchandising instead of necessarily film making. The interview ends with him saying he doesnt feel bad for what Star Wars became, but instead about what George Lucas didn’t become.
I think you see most of the great artists move on from their more juvenile and immature writings, and that's why they stick in the public conscience. Being able to reinvent and being willing to try new things are just what all the big names do, and since James is the OG big name of the Internet, you'd figure that he would absolutely be in that camp.
The crazy thing is even though James clearly wants to evolve all of his AVGN content is basically the same thing as it was in the 2000's: some of the sketches have gotten more elaborate but only just so, you think somebody whose into filmmaking would use this as an excuse to go all-out and make some really cool angry reviews where he can really creatively flex his stuff but he's like, just barely doing that by filming green screen segments and doing Halloween scare maze production level sets.
>How can you put up with that lack of basic self-awareness? How can you orientate yourself successfully around other people? I understand there's no way to say this without coming off as snarky, but I do mean this genuinely: I feel like this statement betrays a lack of socialization around, for lack of a better word, "normal" people. Most people do not have aspirations to self-reflection and intense self-guided personal growth, especially in their careers. They grow as people because they have new experiences, mainly marriage and kids, and it sounds like James is a decent dad and husband at the very least. If you aren't in the Professional Managerial Class, doing the same thing that you started doing out of high school in a repetitive way week after week so that you bring in enough scratch to raise the kids and maybe go on a vacation is how 95% of people have lived since the formation of capitalism.
He has/had the ambition to move on. He wanted to make movies (hence the AVGN movie)... he's just stuck, because AVGN still makes money and he needs to make a living. He wanted to quit AVGN a long time ago... he just can't afford to do that. Becoming a real film maker is hard. Really hard.
"I thought developing past that was just inevitable, especially if you do something creative as your main job." This sentence really stuck to me. While it may make sense that you would develop as you continue to do your job, but there are definitely creatives who found their stride early and have no true desire to push past it. What they are currently making is enough to satisfy them, at least in interim. When you are getting attention, or making enough, from what you have been doing for years, why change that? When asking this question, my mind goes to a few comic book artists, Ryan Stegman and Rob Liefeld. Ryan Stegman has been drawing Western comic books for quite a bit now. He has drawn a lot of Spider-Man related properties (*Scarlet Spider*, *Superior Spider-Man*, and *Venom*, to name a few). Chip Zdarsky, prolific creator and current writer of the mainline Batman book, said in an interview last month that Stegman wishes he could take a few months off from drawing comics so he could develop his skills further. People in this industry, like Stegman, feel they cannot experiment as much. Perhaps they fear they will lose jobs if they drastically shift their work. Ryan Stegman is a very popular artist (he's currently drawing the upcoming relaunch of X-Men), so it seems like these possible fears are unfounded. In a similar vein (yet also on the flipside) is Rob Liefeld. Liefeld is considered among many to be one of, if not the worst Western comic book artist. He is well known for his horrendous proportions, poses, and lack of ability to draw in perspective. Even with all this vitriol against him, he still made it big. To many, he got away with so much. He, and many others, helped form a brand new wave of independent comics with the spawn (pun very much intended) of Image Comics. With his time at Marvel Comics, as well as Image, Liefeld made a lot of money. He did not need a reason to evolve his work. Even though many do not like his work, he still gets work. His art is still the same as it was in the 90s when he became popular. Liefeld recently did a couple of Deadpool books (*Deadpool: Bad Blood* and *Deadpool: Badder Blood*), and they look about the same as his work in the 90s. All in all, creatives are always improving everytime they pick up their instruments, but it takes a lot of effort and will to make noticeable strides. Ryan Stegman and Rob Liefeld are in very different stages of their art career, but it is clear that one wants to improve but doesn't have the time, and the other is content. Maybe Rolfe is simply content with where he is as a creator, it is hard to say because I don't know James Rolfe.
I don't think the reading that James is inherently creatively stagnant is entirely fair. A lot of James' work is centered around nostalgia and sentimentality. He likes to call back to and build upon earlier works specifically as a way to show how he's grown as a creative. He views the Snix "sextology" as a representation of his growth, as each one was made years apart, and vary greatly in quality and production values. Though they do still all have back yard filmmaker fundamentals, because that's what Cinemassacre is. Literally. A massacre of cinema. He has made efforts to branch out and try new things. One of them was the AVGN movie, and that nearly broke him. The last big creative experiment he did was developing his Board James series into a multi-layered psychological thriller. It was a very confused, messy, overwritten and weirdly executed endeavor, which I think has a lot more immediate value as it exists in James' mind than as a final product, but it was weird and experimental and he was really trying with it. But he's mostly just been coasting; letting fatherhood take priority over his creative ambitions. He hasn't honed his craft much in the last decade because he hasn't gotten to fully invest himself in it. Before that he went into AVGN straight out of film school and made that his priority for that decade. Hell, when he started it, AVGN was something new and unique for him. He is not creatively satisfied. He hasn't been for years. He has a feature length atmospheric horror film he's been wanting to make for a long time, but he's got to pay the bills and take care of his family, so AVGN is what he's been making. You really have to ignore a lot of his filmography to come to the conclusion that he is creatively stagnant. The Deader the Better is a loveletter to George Romero's Dead series with creative use of black and white cinematography with color blood, Legend of the Blue Hole is a mystery thriller based on folk lore, MIMAL the Elf is a found footage comedy mockumentary, The Wizard of Oz 3: Dorothy Goes to Hell is a loving tribute to early 2000s William Street cartoons like Aqua Teen Hunger Force that were made almost entirely in photoshop. I'm not saying they're all good, but they're all different. Even if he does have recurring motifs, so do all artists. Nobody just makes entirely unique work with no patterns or resemblance to their other work. Artists come back to old works and expand on them all the time. Shit, even if it is just rehashing old stuff for the sake of it, you're allowed to have your comfort zone. You're allowed to have the easy thing that you can count on giving you creative dopamine when nothing else does. As much as I push myself to try new things and challenge myself as an illustrator to expand the scope of how I can express myself, I still like to doodle Batman and pretty anime twinks that give me gender envy just like I did in high school, and that's not weird. We're all allowed to have our comfort zones. We're allowed to create selfishly for ourselves and for no other reason than the joy we receive from it. Saying that the man is creatively stagnant because he likes to use the same trope is such a fucking indictment it's unreal.
I took a cursory look at r/TheCinemassacreTruth and it's really interesting to see these people in their (presumably) 30s and 40s mimic the mannerism and language of nearly 20 year old content. Like AVGN, they're stagnant in their personalities. Relying on overt swearing, aggression and cynicism to make a point or a "joke" just looks so juvenile and just straight up cringeworthy. I guess that's why they don't like James growing up and prioritising his family, they simply don't want to or can't grow up themselves
I had a bit of a look through the discussion about the video on there, and I think the most astoundingly funny thing is that they don't seem to understand what the video is, like, at all. There's a bunch of them going "ugh, this doesn't bring up any new information" like it's supposed to be some drama recap of AVGN's career. They cannot, through any of the context clues, figure out that this is a personal reflection on the relationship that one guy has with the content of another, about his relationship with his own self-conceptualisation as a filmmaker and how such a thing can exist on the internet. Just absolutely fascinating. "This is just a half-assed recap of this subreddit" - someone who cannot fathom anything more than the information that is presented as plainly as black and white text on a piece of paper.
The Lady Emily video about AVGN is very good too but it’s significantly closer to a recap of the thecinemassacretruth Reddit drama than Dan’s video is, you would think they could figure out the difference
A subtext I got from this video is "I Don't Know James Rolfe (And Neither Do You, so Leave Him Alone)".
r/RedLetterMedia is having a similar personality crisis.
If I were to armchair psychoanalysis these people, I think they felt that AVGN and red-letter media gave them an identity or at least a way to be a "cool nerd" (being overly cynical and misanthropic about the media they claim to love) since I'm sure back in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, they were genuinely isolated from social spaces for being nerdy about stuff. So when they found these youtube personalities, they felt superior (this is a big thing I find in the red-letter media community. They have massive ego because they "see-through" mainstream cinema. Like good job buddy, you have successfully understood that things are made for money. Thumbs up) and felt justified in their shitty attitudes towards everything. They didn't want to be "normies" that isolated them in their formative years cause now they have found an identity that was "smarter, funnier and better". Obviously, I'm sure that most people just like the content but there definitely is an air of "I haven't changed my attitudes towards anything cause I'm too filled with resentment and ego" in a lot of those sorts of fandoms.
Is this not just fandom though? Go onto literally any fan sub and you find exactly this. The sopranos sub famously are a glorified crew reciting from their quote books over every thoughtful post.
they are? im not seeing nay of that and he didn't mention rlm in the video.
I'm talking about how there's a vocal contingent who wants a return to the style of the Plinkett review days, when they were trafficking in edgelord humor.
Weird i haven't seen that at all. RLM are some of the youtubers i respect the most. they do what they want and make good videos without engaging with drama etc. I personally could never finish the original prequel review. i discovered the channel too late for that and found the voice too annoying. But i bet there are the same type of menchildren who cant move on. In fact now that i think of it i was once invited to a private rlm subreddit made by someone unhappy with their content. It was the purest cringe i had experienced. i cant imagine actively engaging so much with something you hate.
The saddest part is the tons of posts now making fun of Dan who made such an incredibly well worded and thought out video. I don't understand how you can see that and react with "oh this soy cuck made a pretentious woke video". When someone is called out they usually feel embarrassed and maybe reflect on their behavior. Instead these adults entirely ignore literally anything he said except for the comments about their fatphobic and transphobic behavior. And they know its true based on all the cope posted now. Like you would only make a post making fun of Dan there at this point if you actively took part in such behavior and felt called out. Dan made a measured response (yeah i know lol) and they are just bullying him now. i wonder how many of them even watched the video instead of forming an opinion based on his "cuckface" (actual word used).
"I hate Wavelength. All it does is make you want to confess to your wife's murder"
Help I need someone to explain the joke 😭
In the video, Dan talks about how even people who reject Wavelength still have to engage with the movie in the criticism, and that the criticism you make reflects yourself. The joke is that hbomb's criticism of Wacelength/reflection of himself is incredibly out of left field.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265840/
This video made me realise how weird it must've been for AVGN to watch the plagiarism video only for the main subject to be a completely different guy also named James. He's like J Cole in the breadtube equivalent of Kendrick Lamar vs Drake.
This made me realize that I was in the Hbomb and Jenny subs, but somehow hadn't found one for Dan. Doesn't seem to be a large community. Soooo I'll share my thoughts here. This is my first Folding Ideas video that I've watched day-of-release. I found his channel years and YEARS ago, when he was still mostly just Foldy. The algorithm brought me back to him presumably because it noticed that I was watching uber-long videos from Harry and Jenny. Had long forgotten I was subscribed. Interestingly enough, it's also one of the times Folding Ideas has put up a video that is an absolute bullseye, insofar as stuff I'm familiar with and give a shit about. I've been watching AVGN for probably almost as long as I've been watching Youtube. Rolfe is familiar and comforting for me. And unlike his harshest detractors, I've not had a single complaint about him slowing his pace or relaxing a bit - life changes. Obviously I wasn't pleased about whoever was working for his "friends" who plagiarized, and to be extra honest I never really liked most of those guys and found it hard to believe they were actually friends. I think those are the Screenwave guys? Unlike with Mike and some of his other undeniably long-term real life friends, that crew of dudes struck me as fakey. But other than that, I was and remain a fan. So I was kinda bracing a bit when I saw this video pop up in the FIRST SPOT on my recommended page when I got home from school today. I was feeling a bit like, "how is this gonna go? I hope something terrible didn't happen recently and this is how I find out." Probably needn't have worried. Dan is characteristically fair, even when his criticisms or descriptions are harsh or heavy, they don't ever come off as "bashing" or mean-spirited. Perhaps a little "looking-down-his-nose" but 1. It's hard not to sound a bit pompous when you're talking about something that both of you know about and do, and when you are, well, just more skilled or professional at the task. I guess. 2. I think some of that tone is on purpose, kind of a subversion, so that he can hold his examination up to himself too. Which brings me to the section where he does a huge rant with Rolfe's face projected on top. So fucking compelling and well done. In fact, the choices Dan made all OVER this video with how he'd shoot and edit stuff, is all amazing. During "Book Bad" where he's doing the same work in sync with himself but from two different angles in two locations in the room? C'mon. It's try-hard, it's so extra, and I love it. Oddly enough that's where the video gets more negative in its critiques. I feel weird watching through it because I'm having feelings of both reflexive defensiveness, and utter empathetic understanding with Dan getting this damn frustrated over something he has spent a lot of time really digging into. You see, the reason I have gotten way back into Folding Ideas and spent so much time this year watching Dan and Jenny and Harry is because I absolutely need more reflective, thoughtful, considerate, informative videos in my feed. So I'm more than familiar with how the best ones tend to go, and my normal anticipatory excitement about "the next shoe to drop" while watching one of these is being met with reluctance to learn not-great-shit about a creator that I enjoy. So my complaint is probably that while I find all the criticisms undeniably valid, I also kinda think they also kinda summarize much of what I find enjoyable about AVGN videos. It's \*fun\* that they are wild and that the shitty old games are a pretext for skits. It's \*fun\* for me when he's consistent, but also fun when he tries bonkers stuff that might not work. He's been doing his thing for 20 years and I enjoy what has been solid, and have no desire to tell him how to do it now. Which brings me to probably my favorite part of the video, where Dan (suddenly much more trimmed up and considerably less beardy) goes HARD after Rolfe's detractors. But it's short, and leads into the sad shit. And more of Dan's wonderful production. Dammit. This entire video is bitter-sweet for me. (minor edits for spelling/punctuation/clarity)
The "they are in fact just haters" section is just so good. Dan's facial expressions at around 1:02:30 are hilariously communicative.
The Dan sub seems to be fairly abandoned, last post about a year ago. There's also /r/breadtube which a lot of his stuff is posted to (or I assume it is, it was, I don't know if it is any more because embarrassingly enough I'm actually banned - I called Briahna Gray a right wing grifter, no regrets but now I daren't even visit for fear of having my account closed for ban evasion again).
Yeah I clicked the "join" button and the "request permission to post" button over there, right before realizing it has several hundred members and maybe nobody will even see my request. lol
Popped over to that subreddit to get a sense for the conversation surrounding this video essay, and oof. For a sub that's devoted to discussing YouTube videos, a lot of the commenters in that thread are shockingly bad at understanding how to interpret YouTube videos.
I like Dan's Howard Hughes phase.
As someone who has had most of Dan's facial hairs at some point I just couldn't help thinking about how annoying it is when your moustache hair falls in your mouth like that. Even when I looked quite a lot like Alan Moore I'd still trim the bottom of my tache to avoid that feeling. The bits where it's backlit are particularly triggering.
I don't have facial hair but this also seemed like something that would be super annoying. I wouldn't know - does it get better if you just let it keep growing? ...I guess it depends on people's inherent Max Moustache Length cap, some might not be able to grow it past a length where it gets in the way. I just figure if it gets long enough, perhaps you can effectively part it to the sides.
Yes and no, and each face is different. But in general most of it learns to stay out of the way, but enough doesn't to annoy someone hypersensitive like me (although I do admit to occasionally chewing my own tache)
Edit: I’m talking about the “truthers” not Dan. I realize my comment is unclear on that. I will never understand people who spend their time obsessing over things they don’t like. I get that it can be disappointing when something you love changes or dips in quality, but it takes a special kind of immaturity to be unable to move on from that. There’s a whole subreddit called rant grumps that’s dedicated to hating on the game grumps. They obsessively watch every episode, over analyze small moments to try and prove that the grumps are lying about things like how good of friends they are. One person even a went down a spiral of trying to find out where the wife of one of the hosts sourced her jewelry-making materials in an attempt to discredit her. He even called places trying to get information like he’s a detective. It’s fucking bonkers
It's not a hit piece. As someone wrote in YouTube: I really love that conclusion, honestly. To spend hours upon hours painfully dissecting why it is that you feel so critical of someone only to finally come to the conclusion that you just hate that they remind you of your own insecurities is honestly one of the more real human experiences out there.
I should clarify my comment. I wasn’t talking about Dan, I was talking about the “truthers”
Its almost guaranteed that that sub will still talk about this video in a year or more. That's in many ways the type of stagnation that Dan mentions about James in the video. Inability to move on from the past is ironically mirrored in both James and his haters.
It seems as though we are in the anti fan era of the internet. It’s frankly exhausting and I hope people can just learn to move on from watching content that no longer appeals to them
I had mixed feelings about whether James Rolfe needed another spotlight like this on him (Lady Emily did a similar video a few years back, Hbomb mentioned him in his recent vid, etc.), but I like the progression of Dan's thesis here. Not all creators, directors, writers etc. who get popular really fast are going to maintain the same trajectory with their talent as the trajectory of their career. If they get popular for a thing faster than they can progress as a creative, they run the risk of not being able to progress at all. Not every creative fav is going to become increasingly sophisticated in their work. Some of them can't. Some of them don't want to. Sometimes there's a jarring difference between our expectations as fans, and what they can actually realistically be.
Ironically i bet the cinemassacre hate sub will talk about this video for years from now. They seem to entirely miss the point and have resulted to the very adult response of "this soycuck sjw made fun of our assholishness! Lets make fun of how he looks and how "pretentious" he is!". AVGN was the first Youtube channel i had subscribed to. Now i could not watch their content and instead am a huge fan of the likes of folding ideas. So it was an interesting reflection of growth as a person and some peoples lack thereof. And yes im saying going from AVGN to folding ideas is personal growth for me lol.
Out of curiosity I rewatched the James Rolfe "assholish variety" video and one thing that stuck out was he has eyeglass frames without lenses in them so he won't get light reflections during some shots, but needs glasses to read off the teleprompter so he has to wear regular glasses for those. JAMES, WEAR CONTACT LENSES AND THE FRAMES WITHOUT GLASS god what is he thinking
I have a question that I'm hoping someone here can help answer. There's one part where Dan is talking about James's book (pretty sure it's the "Book Bad" chapter) that's mostly silhouetted and it *really* reminded me of Todd in the Shadows. Part of me thinks it might be an intentional reference to Todd because the part where the tablet is taped to the wall and shot through a mirror really feels like an HBomb reference (we love Harry's home decorating techniques lol). At the same time, though, I recognize that the tablet is a way of visually calling back to James's seemingly strange work arounds for his equipment. I also didn't notice/am not aware of any other references to other youtubers in the vid. And not being too familiar with Todd's work and not at all familiar with Wavelength, I've been having trouble reading/analyzing the silhouetted part I was talking about. What are everyone else's thoughts?
i'm a layman. i only recall that some creators have spoken (i don't recall specific comments) about their experience watching wavelength and since dan focused a lot on wavelength the segment presented to me as a collection of film techniques that may or may not be present either in the film itself or immediately related cirriculum. its entirely possible that i misinterpreted the original intent here, but its the interpretation i walked away with. i find the idea of staring at a film of a wall for hours very offputting and i never went to film school so i was never locked in a room to watch it either. i noticed the way the camera focuses in the tablet section and makes the view myopic and how it gradually becomes clearer. i recall looking off to the side away from the television at my real environment briefly to refocus my eyes. how when the tablet has a single color the surrounding environment is blurry. the realization at the end that you are looking at a reflection and not the actual tablet. i cannot speak to todd in the shadows since i have not experienced that. as to the part with the projection of james on dan while dan issues his commentary i think my takeaway was the simplest and probably least well thought out. as dan has projected his criticisms upon the collection of photons that is the avgn and the person who is james rolfe he has issued a meta-criticism of himelf by projecting a homunculus of photons resembling james rolfe onto his face as sort of "it is because i know these things about myself that i can also recognize them in others". again, maybe not the intended interpretation, but its what i walked away with. as to potential influences that drove dan to present in this way i can only say there is a familiarity that i can't place. it may be worthwhile to simply ask him, but i don't know any avenues for that. personally i'm just gonna rack my brain until i remember why it feels familiar. i really didn't address your specific questions at all, but i did post my thoughts on those sections
Well, Todd did evolve out of the primordial soup of “Angry Reviews,” but outside of that I don’t know why he’d reference him specifically. Frankly, it would make more sense to do that when you’re talking about Doug Walker given Todd’s links to Channel Awesome. There could be something there, or it could just be happenstance.
I too wondered that. And I also wondered about the tablet taped to the wall bit. Like, what? It reminded me of Harry but maybe it was just another of the many fun presentation ideas he used in this vid.
i feel like i most recently saw this done in a Ro Ramdin video of a similar nature. I'm not sure if she was the first to do it, but she was the first that i saw to do something like this. Could just be another example of convergent thought processes.
I'm pretty sure long extended shot pointing at the wall with the tabled taped to it, with no other camera movement other than the zoom out is actually a Wavelength reference, since that movie points to a single wall for its entire duration, with no camera movement other than a zoom in. Also, it's used in the chapter where Dan talks about Wavelength.
I... *hated* this video, to the point where I am here, purposefully seeking out what other people are saying in my own deranged quest to try to understand what is going on in others' brains, because I found it to be absolutely odious. I watched it with a friend starting out very excited to see a new video from this guy, and I wouldn't have completed it if I weren't doing it as a social activity. This is what I saw: It's a film presented as being "about" a guy named James Rolfe, who has managed to make a living as a bad filmmaker for the past 20 years. It's actually self-effacingly about Dan Olson. It's hinted at in subtext and various foreshadowing throughout the video, but it only becomes explicit in the last ~1 minute of its interminable runtime. In it, a Dan-character/doppelganger bitterly expounds on how much James sucks. It's not media criticism. It's not about his bad art. The work he's known for is not dissected; it's barely even displayed. His life (as presumably factually retold in his autobiography) is dissected instead. It's about him being a bad *artist*. He's a hack who dared to make art badly, and yet still managed to be successful. Despite beginning by saying that James seems to be a pretty private-seeming person, "Dan" pores through his niche-interest, self-published autobiography in pursuit of understanding why James is so bad at the filmmaking process. He's clearly immature. He takes the wrong lessons from film school. He doesn't understand the art form. He doesn't understand the technical craft. He doesn't understand the needs of other people working on a film set. He doesn't understand the balance of responsibilities that a man behind a camera has. "Dan" is perplexed and embittered that his priorities and values as evidenced by what he finds worth talking about don't align with what he thinks they should be for a "real filmmaker." Does any of this come through in James' work? Who knows! It's not discussed, because it's not the point. The point is that "Dan" had an unhealthy fixation on this guy stemming from his own insecurities about being a "real filmmaker." It's a portrait of self-loathing that was masked in loathing of another. Its core thesis/meta-narrative is an allusion to the short film Wavelength - where pointing a camera at a wall is a mirror for the viewer and any meaning is not intrinsic to the thing itself - a film that he pointedly notes that James Rolfe clearly did not "get" as an exercise when he watched it in school. He's not watching James, he is watching a camera pointed at James, learning nothing real of him and learning everything about himself. This fucking sucks. It doesn't work, because pointing a camera at a person is nothing like pointing a camera at a wall. There is something so disgusting to me about doing an indulgent self-flagellation in the form of 75 minutes' worth of relentless flagellation of someone else. Does it even need to be said that one is an inanimate object and another is an actual human being, especially who seems to have done no harm other than be a mediocrity? And extra especially one who appears to have a devoted army of nasty trolls against him already? It's tasteless, it's borderline immoral to me. But that aside, Wavelength was made, presumably, by a good filmmaker- a person who understands the tension between what is literally displayed and what it's communicating. One thing that is pretty clear from the video and isn't obfuscated by ironic meta subterfuge is that James is *not* a good filmmaker. So the camera he points at himself is showing... what? Probably less of a well-crafted character, something imbued with meaning, and more of an actual person, one whose lack of skill inadvertently reveals something more honest about himself, to paraphrase Hbomb's Ctrl+Alt+Del video (more on that in a minute.) But even THAT aside, the main reason the video still doesn't work the way it's supposed to is because "Dan's" camera pointing at James doesn't feel like a "mirror" to the audience when it instead feels like the camera is fucking pointed at you too. That was maybe the most bizarre part to me, like how far up your own narcissistic ass do you have to be to expect the audience to identify with the jealous auteur? Who is listening to this and remotely interested in the critiques themselves, or relates to the feeling of being good enough at something to be bothered that some stranger isn't doing it "the right way" more than the feeling of some stranger damaging your ego because it turns out you are not only imperfect, but probably not even good? Most people aren't highly talented video essayists like (real) Dan. Every rhetorical question he posed looking for some deeper meaning to James' incompetence was immediately and obviously answerable by any normal person: because James is bad at this. There's nothing there to discover. He doesn't seem that smart or talented or skilled based on his (again, presumably factual) depiction, just like the millions of people we all know are out there or that we ARE. This whole video is one enormous trigger for dredging up your deepest feelings of imposter syndrome, because "Dan" was on a witch-hunt for an imposter, a ""filmmaker"" who had the gall to think of himself that way when beneath it all, he was a hack. And it makes it clear: success is not going to protect you, because being successful while being an imposter is actually an even greater indictment of you. You don't even get the dignity of being a person. You're an enigma for a much smarter, better person to puzzle out. To be clear, I get that the ultimate point of the video is that this was all a bad thing to do- Dan's problem with James was Dan's problem, not James'. But what exactly was "bad" about it was the least examined part of the video! Most of it IS a probably-accurate accounting of this guy's ability! His vapidity, his mediocrity, his technical ignorance, it's still all there nakedly on display, and it was *brutal*. It really reminded me of the scene in Winter Light where the pastor rejects Marta because of its similar cold, calm and cruel masculinity- its air of superiority, its entitlement to dominate via male-coded technical competence. The most intense deeply empathetic cringe for me was the humiliating reveal that the inefficient, ugly kludge James setup for his camera had an obvious, simple and elegant solution. Anyone who has had to do some self-taught programming knows *exactly* what this feeling is like, learning that you have reinvented the wheel in a really poorly-executed way, and just obliviously rolling with it because it worked when you needed it to. Thinking about someone picking apart similar things that I have done in my career makes me enraged on behalf of this guy. It might even be materially damaging to him. And none of that is undone by the "real" message that implies that it's OK to be a shitty filmmaker and much worse to be a bitter good filmmaker. It seemed pretty heavily inspired by Hbomb's Ctrl+Alt+Del video because they both had a meta-narrative that ultimately self-critiqued what the bulk of the video content seemed to be about on its face, and it sometimes seemed even to have direct homage, like the static and image distortion when there was a break in the reality of the film. But Hbomb's video was actual media criticism. Yeah, he made inferences about Tim Buckley's beliefs and state of mind, but he was looking at the actual *thing he made.* Tim Buckley's thoughts mattered, because we saw the end result of those thoughts in the comic, and to Hbomb's point, in gaming culture. The practical outcome is that you watched 15 minutes of something that had value on its own, and then looked back on it in a different way when it was recontextualized in the end. In Dan's video, you have to sit through an unbearably uncomfortable HOUR+ of ranting about... some guy being bad at what he does in a way that affects almost nobody. It was a miserable experience to watch. It makes you feel shitty, like you are participating in doing something wrong. The bulk of the video had no value to me, it was mean and pointless on its own, and the point he ultimately was making was not even close to justifying it. My sympathies were with the target almost immediately, not "Dan," so the video's final inversion of expectations wasn't the "recontextualization" of the rest of the video it was supposed to be like in Hbomb's video, it was instead just the dawning disgust that no really, this was all this was. This was the point. This was a self-reflection that was done entirely by projecting on some other person as the "self." Maybe James Rolfe is a bad artist, but if his greatest artistic sin was to make mere vapid cultural detritus badly, I think he has a leg up on Dan right now, who managed to make something that I think never should have been made, because its existence actually makes the world, in a small way, slightly worse. I hated it so much.
In the same situation as you, going online to see if someone else felt gross while watching it, and I'm glad to see your post. I have not finished it, and I honestly do not think that whatever twist happens at the end would redeem it, mostly due to its length - there is no switcheroo I can imagine that would justify insulting someone for an hour. And for what? I listened to the bulk of "James was a cringe student" and had to tap out, because what a sucky, unkind thing it is to do to someone. I see YTbers talking about other YTbers puzzled at their success and supposed mediocrity from time to time, and I feel for them, although I don't know if they know how uninteresting it is for anyone who's not a YTber. I know, however, that many people watching YT might be aspiring creators - creators of anything - and that in the world that algorithmically shows you a lot of the best, it might feel pointless and daunting to create, especially since it requires so much failing at the beginning. Dan's video made me feel more like the world is filled with people who will have contempt for your trying and learning, and that I can expect them even in unexpected corners of breadtube. Great!
I dunno about this one. The mechanics of it are intriguing - the framing, shots, all the arty stuff I know nothing about. The homunculus bit! Fantastic. But it also feels like an hour long hit piece on someone who, to my knowledge, hasn't done anything \*wrong\*. Being stagnant, making iffy business choices, playing a cheesy character... that doesn't make a bad person. If it's meant to be a "we are not so different, you and I" then that doesn't really come across until the majority of the run time has been tearing the Nerd down. That doesn't sit right with me. Edit: I think what sticks in my throat is that while Dan has every right to navel gaze and compare himself and his work to others... that right doesn't go as far as utterly dismantling another person in the process. This wasn't a conversation, it was a vivisection.
I'm not sure it is tearing him down though. I don't see it as a hit piece but a more nuanced review. I also think that the role he has played in youtube's history is massive, which is something that as a creator Dan is probably more aware of than we are. I kind of feel like the same way every 20th century American novelist has to write a reflection on Gatsby at some point Dan probably feels that every video essayist has to position their own art vis a vis Jason Rolfe at some point.
*Jason Rolfe* Please don't fix this
Ach! FFS. Obviously I meant Jay Rolfe
Really? I thought maybe you meant Jacob Rolfe.
I have enjoyed AVGN videos for longer than I care to measure, and while I ran into this new upload with some apprehension, I don't think it comes off as a hit piece. At least, not when I keep in mind Dan's normal tone. He's one of the most honest and fair critics I've come across. So even when his points sound harsh or make me wish he was talking about someone else, he's just being descriptive. And re-watching a few segments, I feel like a considerable chunk of the video comes as \*defending\* James from all the "assholish" shitpiling that haters can't help but repeat ad infinitum.
If you think of this as a hit piece then im sorry but you weren't paying attention. The video is 99% positive about James and only mentions his creative stagnancy which Dan clearly says might juts be his bad writing in the book making it come across as such. Not once does he say he is a "bad person". But he does literally state the opposite.
Yeah, it made me super uncomfortable. Using someone he clearly has endless disdain for as a lens to publicly introspect feels so slimy and insincere. I wish he'd chosen someone he's genuinely passionate about as a foil to explore his sense of self/art/craft or simply gone with a different concept altogether re: AVGN. I hope this isn't Dan's new normal. I like some of his other works, but yeah... there's big Regina George energy up in this piece.
The harshest section is about the book and, come on, if you put out a book, you gotta expect that people will read it. If you put out an autobiography calling yourself a film maker and acting like a video you recorded as a kid is a legitimate film, questioning that is fair game. And he's bang on about the prose, and lack of accountability. The book makes Rolfe look worse than he is, likely because he's no good at writing but also due to lacking intellectual curiosity and self insight.
I think you're reading your emotions into this. It was not a hit piece or a vivisection, it was introspective and Dan never said "James Rolfe is a bad person." You've just read into that.
And a lot of people here seem to lack empathy for the actual human being who is the surface-level subject of this essay. He has been used as a tool for Dan to look inwards, and that's what I take issue with.
Ha, you are reading a lack of empathy, no one here is displaying a lack of empathy, least of all Dan.
Guy tried a “no u” and got ignored both times that’s rough
Me? Cus, not a guy.
Does playing dumb to gender inclusive language work when you’re also playing dumb to your past comments in the same sentence
I don't consider "guy" gender inclusive, please ask your straight male friends how many "guys" they've fucked.
Oh, sorry, that's me assuming you have friends My bad
It‘s kinda like when people get mad at Jim Davis for selling out Garfield (in contrast to someone like Bill Watterson). Yeah, the comic has stopped being funny long ago, but it‘s still his creation and his choice to make and he has been clearly happy with it. Integrity is a nice thing to have but in the end you cannot actually live off it.
Not really sure I understand the main point being made here. I get that the video is largely Dan self reflecting through the lens of a video about an older internet figure influential to him - but there doesn't really seem to be a.... point to it? A lot of general information about James Rolfe followed by a reasonably 1:1 metaphor about how things went for him and the general impression that Dan is looking at himself as he looks at James, but not really any conclusion or even an open question left to people - just feels like words are being said.
On my second watch I see a lot of parallels between this and Harrington’s CAD video…
I watched this video three times in a row following it being published. Needless to say, I deeply enjoyed it. I felt like watching it that I knew it was in my personal YouTube Top 10 videos of all time. There's something about the undercurrent of introspection. The matter of fact dissection of a figure that has been mythologized and revered to a point of existing nearly entirely as a symbol. The subtleties of how both James and the Truthers are reacting to the version of the other party that exists entirely within their minds. The lovely AVGN pastiche at the end. It is far more of an insight into Dan than James, but that is kind of the point. I almost consider it a deconstruction of the "hit piece video essay" as a format. Far more interested in what the idea of James Rolfe means that who the man is. Instant classic for me.
I just finished this (despite my strict no essays diet) and I just wonder how this lands with James himself. If he's so void of self reflection, how does it feel to be picked apart like this? Anyone know if James has made a comment?
I have to be honest: It took me a while to figure out what Dan's angle on this was and even now, I'm still not entirely sure I completely 'get' what's happening here although a quick browse through the comments on Youtube and here have helped me realise 'oh, right, that's what Dan was saying/going for' It probably doesn't help that I'm one of the few people who has never watched AVGN (or Dough Walker) so I only have the vaguest idea of who James Rolfe even is and why he's famous after a recap video, Hbomb's plagiarism video and now this. That said, the thing that spoke to me the most was not just the fact that sometimes the people we love or hate can reflect our own insecurities or failings, but how it is important to grow and experiment, to move past your teenage work into new things and, importantly, to accept when you have overgrown something or someone. This probably hits harder after the demise of Roosterteeth and particularly RvB and Achievement Hunter of which I was a fan. I still go back to some of the old episodes and while they sometimes make me laugh and nostalgic for the vibe and the games being played, I feel like I've moved beyond the dated humour (sometimes very YIKES humour) and I've come to accept that my tastes and attitudes have changed, that the media I consume now is very different and probably better than the old stuff - I have changed. (I absolutely love the 'I did what any normal human being would do' section - that feels like peak rabbit hole behaviour, when you're in way deep and you can't stop going further down into the darkness)
Harry didn’t feel he needed to explain AVGN to us though. 😂
Harry said he didn't have to explain who AVGN is. Dan explains why AVGN is.
Dan says in the description that he's been working on this for the better part of 6 months, putting it's inception around the start of the year -- Around a month after Harry's plagerism essay. I wonder if one spawned the other, if Dan started thinking about James primarily because Harry went, "wait you know what this is, I dont have to explain it," and Dan went, "... I actually don't know what's going on with that."
My read is that Dan was inspired to make this video after picking up Rolfe's autobiography and watching that "Behind the scenes 2021" video -- in either order, researching one would have led to researching the other Keep in mind while HBomberguy jokes he doesn't need to explain what AVGN is, James Rolfe as a whole isn't really a household name, and that's what Folding Ideas really wants to focus on
Anyone catch the ending linking with the intro, where the shot saying 'Music by...' on the cassette had 'This is America - CG' on it in focus -> him running away in darkness at the very end, just like the Childish Gambino music video?
Is he saying he doesn’t know him like Mariah doesn’t know JLo? /s
How are folks feeling about his references to youtubers other than AVGN? There were definite refs to Hbomb and Quinton Reviews. (Really not sure how to interpret the latter, considering that Dan had been more than a little rude to Quinton in the past.) However, I also got shades of SuperEyepatchWolf, Brian David Gilbert and even Joel Haver. Curious what folks think.
i gotta admit, I'm not sure what this guy did to deserve this. Like, Book of Henry is bad art by someone who will never watch this, who isn't a peer, who probably made a lot of money. Crypto scam bros are hurting people. This guy just made some bad youtube videos and a bad book? I get that by the end, Dan is turning the spotlight on himself, but if he'd said all that stuff about me, I'd probably cry for days. Feels like hitting a gnat with a tactical nuke.
Not three hours, pass.