JEREMY: You've gotta stop.
You've got to stop.
This is a problem - like, it was funny to
make jokes the first few times...
But it's literally every other day at this
point.
And it's not gonna stop.
It won't stop.
Because the general public is already kind
of like Idiocracy people.
I'm not - I'm not making this video for jokes.
I'm not joking around.
This is a serious cultural problem in America.
That we are dumbing down our entertainment.
They just jam whatever they want down our
throats and repeat it so many times that before
you even have a chance to decide that we hate
it - we're used to it.
And it's familiar.
And we're singing along.
And we want to die.
[MUSIC: Moth Equals - Money Tap]
BOB: Recently Jordan Vogt-Roberts made some
waves by criticising a CinemaSins video for
a film he directed.
Considering I’ve been mocking CinemaSins
for a while, now’s probably a good time
to spell out my own issues with the channel
in one stupidly long rant.
So go grab that friend who really likes CinemaSins
for some reason - it’s time for an intervention.
[MUSIC: Moth Equals - Hi-Wa Itck]
If you haven’t heard of CinemaSins - of
course you’ve heard of CinemaSins.
Their “Everything Wrong With” videos are
shoved down the internet’s throat via YouTube
recommendations,
news sites,
Twitter,
even bars
[CinemaSins speaking in a bar]
CinemaSins is everywhere.
So let’s kill the idea that anyone’s “going
out of their way” to criticize them right
out of the gate.
My major problems with CinemaSins can be summed
up in 3 points:
They’re bad for film criticism,
they’re bad for YouTube,
and they’re bad for critical thinking and
intellectual honesty.
All these points require some heavy-duty explanations,
so let’s unpack just what exactly CinemaSins
is screwing up first.
[MUSIC: Moth Equals - Damn Fine]
Generally when you say “CinemaSins is terrible”
regardless of your reasoning their fans will
shout “You've missed the point!”
That’s because CinemaSins have attempted
to explain away all their flaws by claiming
to use “sarcasm” in their videos.
JEREMY: We put our videos in the Film & Animation
category instead of Comedy because we’ve
already given our full allotment of f*cks
about people who don’t understand sarcasm.
BOB: CinemaSins also responded to complaints
about their channel on their subreddit by
saying “[...] a lot of the mistakes we make
are intentional.
We're playing a character.
A know-it-all movie-obsessed nitpicking asshole.”
This “satire/sarcasm/parody” defense would
make a lot more sense if it didn’t have
some pretty big holes in it.
For starters, there’s evidence to suggest
CinemaSins are just being themselves in their
videos.
Take Jeremy Scott’s “CinemaSins Jeremy”
channel.
I talked about this in my Age of Ultron video,
but for those who don’t know - Jeremy Scott
is one of the co-creators of CinemaSins and
voices most Everything Wrong With videos.
On his personal channel, Jeremy makes videos
called “before & after movie reviews”
that feature his and his friends’ thoughts
about a film before and after they see it.
The problem is that some of the criticisms
Jeremy and his friends make about a film in
these videos can be found repeated in Everything
Wrong With content.
JEREMY: It suffers from character exposition-itis.
Like there’s too many characters and we
have to spend so much time getting to know
each of them, that’s why-
JOSH: Well not just that but like even planets-
JEREMY: Exactly
EWW: This movie could easily have been called:
Getting to know a bunch of new planets and
shit
JOSH: His explanation of a black hole - like
that was one of those moments where I was
like alright.
I’m no scientist but that even sounds like
you’re dumbing it down for me.
And you’re talking to an astronaut.
JEREMY: Well yeah, that he had to explain
it in the first place to this guy that was
the only guy who could fly this mission-
EWW: Here, a genius NASA astronaut will explain
the theory of wormholes to another genius
NASA astronaut.
JEREMY: This movie basically gives a finger
to all the other movies that made it sound
like the time travel machine was complicated,
hard to build, one of a kind, and very limited
in its powers.
Because there’s time machines all over the
fuckin place.
JOSH: Everywhere you look someone’s got
a time machine.
EWW: YOU get a time machine!
And YOU get a time machine!
And YOU ge-
BOB: These criticisms throw a wrench in the
“we’re playing a character because satire”
defense by showing that at times CinemaSins
isn’t playing a character - they’re just
nitpicking movies as themselves.
Jeremy even acknowledged this in his Reddit
AMA, saying: “I've always been a hyper-observant
nitpicking jerk…
[Everything Wrong With] is just a manifestation
of that.”
Another hole in the satire excuse is that
CinemaSins have admitted to messing up in
their videos.
Jeremy said on Reddit: “Then there are,
you know… regular old mistakes we make.
Because we’re human beings.
Like when I accidentally called Final Fantasy
7 “Final Fantasy Twelve” or when I said
“there’s no gravity in space””.
But if Cinemasins really was satire, or at
least competent satire, they wouldn’t care
about being wrong when they screw up like
this, because according to them, it’s part
of their supposed character.
So if you’re playing a character who’s
an asshole for satire, why would you care
about being wrong?
Assholes don’t care about being wrong.
In fact, being more obviously and ridiculously
wrong would make it easier to believe they’re
satirizing nitpicky assholes.
Otherwise this “asshole” character is
occasionally not an asshole, he’s just a
critic who’s wrong most of the time.
And don't worry - we'll get into how wrong
he is in a little bit.
But here’s the biggest flaw with CinemaSins’
satire defense.
In April of 2015, Disney announced they’d
be making a live action Winnie the Pooh film.
Angered by this, CinemaSins Jeremy uploaded
a video of himself explaining why he thinks
that’s a terrible idea.
JEREMY: You offend me Disney.
You offend me as someone who has written,
and created original things.
They’re gonna come in the comments and say
‘you make videos on YouTube using other
people’s movies!
Blah-diddy-blah-diddy-blah.’
And…
Yes, you’re right.
We also make a shit-ton of other stuff.
But, more importantly, the reason we started
that channel was to point out when Hollywood
started slacking.
Started repeating too many things.
Started… falling into tropes, cliches, and…
cycles.
That’s the point of the whole channel!
Was to bemoan this shit!
BOB: To anyone who has ever defended CinemaSins
as being just “parody” or “satire”-
that was Jeremy, co-creator and voice of CinemaSins,
stating flat-out that the whole point of his
channel is to criticize films.
You have to admit based on this and all the
other evidence I’ve provided that the core
of what CinemaSins is attempting to accomplish
is criticism, even if they occasionally add
“jokes”.
The way CinemaSins attempt to rationalize
all their contradictory defenses is the same
way any great comedian would - with math.
CARLOS MENCIA, COMEDY GOD: What comedy is,
it's things that don't make sense.
They're equations that don't make sense.
Forest Whitaker is the first person outside
of comedy that when I explained how I view
comedy through mathematical terms, that he
looked at me and he went: "I get it."
I've tried to tell comedians this and they're
like "WHATEVER MR.
MATH MAN!"
BOB: Explaining himself to Reddit, Jeremy
said: “we do actual math here… we have
a specific formula for how many of the various
types of sins go in each video (joke sins,
intentionally ignorant sins, valid film complaints,
continuity sins, recurring gags, etc”.
Supposing CinemaSins was wholly “satire”,
a good way of understanding why partitioning
your satire like this is a terrible idea is
to substitute CinemaSins with the satirical
news site The Onion.
Both are attempting to do similar things,
but The Onion works because it's satire executed
well - their articles are over-the-top and
exaggerated enough as to not be confused with
real news.
But if The Onion executed satire the way CinemaSins
does, their site would have purposefully incorrect,
vaguely serious articles next to actual news
with zero differentiation between the two.
The only way you’d know if an article is
real or not is if you researched it yourself
- and when your audience has to figure out
whether you’re kidding or not,
you’ve messed up the joke.
There’s a line that needs to be drawn between
satire like The Onion and fake news on Facebook-
CinemaSins just don’t draw it, either because
they enjoy satire’s perceived immunity to
criticism,
or they simply don’t care.
[MUSIC: Moth Equals - Les Apaches]
If you’ve watched the film an Everything
Wrong With video is about, the first thing
you’ll notice is that the series is almost
entirely misinformation.
From misinterpretations,
to factual errors,
to a fundamentally flawed understanding of
writing and filmmaking,
CinemaSins has mastered the art of being consistently
wrong.
Just take a look at my Everything Wrong With
“Everything Wrong With” series to get
an idea of the sheer magnitude of wrongness.
You could pick any “EWW” video and find
errors in it.
Don’t believe me?
ROSE: Yeah, why?
That doesn't make any sense.
JEREMY: We find out this is a ruse to ensure
Rose has Chris’s complete trust, but…
does Rose really need this moment to endear
herself to Chris, when she’s been working
him for several months by now?
BOB: By pushing back on the cop, Rose is actually
avoiding a paper trail.
JEREMY: Thankfully for the viewer, whenever
a robot has turned evil in this movie, his
chest glows red instead of blue.
And while the movie has no explanation for
that-
BOB: The robots’ chests’ glow red because
of the A.I.
VIKI’s uplink with them, changing their
programming.
And the movie does explain this.
SUSAN: You’re using the uplink to override
the NS5’s programming.
BOB: This is also why the robots’ lights
change after VIKI’s destroyed.
JEREMY: The Guardian turns into an eagle-
BOB: That's not an eagle, that's a crow.
JEREMY: This girl who wants to run away from
an unseen attacker does it in the craziest
way imaginable in full view of everyone rather
than simply getting in a car or running away
less conspicuously.
BOB: Annie was taken by surprise by It Follows’
invisible monster and didn’t have her keys
on her, so she ran outside.
The entire opening of the movie is Annie running
away from the monster while it slowly comes
after her.
She’s waiting until it gets far enough away
from her house so she can run back in, grab
her keys, and drive away.
This is why she runs a circle around the camera.
She’s running around the monster as she
heads back into her house.
Yes, it seems “crazy” to onlookers,
but anyone would look nuts if an invisible
entity was trying to kill them.
JEREMY: Say, how come Anne Hathaway and the
other dude can’t hear these comms?
BOB: Because Dr. Mann ripped out Cooper’s
long-range transmitter.
MANN: These squalls do usually blow over.
COOPER: Okay then.
MANN: But you're gonna need a long-range transmitter.
COOPER: Got it.
BOB: These errors are often hand-waved by
CinemaSins fans as “jokes”,
but comedy generally doesn’t work if it’s
not based in fact.
Especially with the type of jokes CinemaSins
attempt to make.
These film-analysis nitpicks are done masterfully
on Mystery Science Theater 3000, so for the
sake of argument let’s compare the two.
To start, let’s examine an MST3k joke from
season 10’s “Squirm” - a movie about
worms killing people.
In one scene, Mick’s been bitten by a worm
while out fishing with his girlfriend Geri
and her friend Roger.
Mick is in town visiting Geri because the
two love antiquing,
and at this point Roger’s acting creepy,
causing Geri to want to leave with Mick after
he’s been bitten.
MICK: I wanna go back to shore and put something
on this.
GERI: W-well I'll go!
MICK: No no no that's okay!
You guys row me back I wanna catch a nap anyway-
GERI: Mick, I really-
MICK: -and you and Roger can catch some fish
for dinner.
BOB: She ends up staying with Roger at Mick’s
behest, and as Mick stares at a worried Geri
being rowed away by Roger, this joke happens:
CROW: Save the girl or go antiquing…
Hm...
Antiques here I come!
BOB: The joke couldn’t be clearer.
Not only is it mocking Mick’s antiquing
infatuation and romantic disinterest in Geri,
it’s also pointing out how obviously Geri
didn’t want to be alone with Roger and how
ridiculous it was for Mick to just leave her
alone.
This is a good joke that points out issues
with a character’s actions and is derived
from facts about the plot of the film.
Now, let’s look at a typical CinemaSins
joke.
This one from their “Everything Wrong With
Warcraft” video.
GARONA: A great gate...
JEREMY: Nothing I’m looking at even looks
like A GATE, let alone a GREAT gate.
It mostly looks like Six Flags in Costner’s
The Postman apocalypse.”
BOB: The “joke” here is a criticism:
“the green lady said there was a gate but
i don’t see a gate” - followed by a reference
- “the camp looks like a post-apocalyptic
amusement park”.
The problem with this joke is that it falls
apart if you’ve seen the film or have eyeballs.
The “gate” CinemaSins is having trouble
finding
is that huge stone statue in the middle of
the camp.
It’s the other end of the gate we see at
the start of the film.
This is a bad joke because you can immediately
find faults in its premise.
It’s not taking into account the facts presented
by the film, disregarding them in the hopes
that their viewers will too.
Another common defense of CinemaSins is that
they aren’t critics.
CinemaSins themselves have said as much.
In their own “Everything Wrong With CinemaSins”
video, they say:
JEREMY: We’re not reviewers.
We’re assholes.
BOB: Yet in the previous WarCraft gate joke
and all throughout their videos,
we see nitpicky criticism as a source of comedy.
The problem is that a lot of the time it’s
incorrect criticism that’s occasionally
based in fact.
For example, in the same Warcraft video CinemaSins
says:
JEREMY: The last 2 minutes has only been a
stone’s throw from all these characters
just looking into the camera and telling me
their relationships to each other.
BOB: This is a nitpick that says something
reasonably true.
The Warcraft film DOES have a lot of characters
stating their relationships outright at the
start of the film.
A video full of these kinds of nitpicks wouldn’t
be the worst thing in the world,
but combining accurate nitpicks with inaccurate
ones with no clear differentiation between
the two is when things get misleading.
So let’s make something clear:
CinemaSins may not consider themselves to
be critics,
but they are criticizing throughout their
videos because even their false nitpicks are
attempting critique.
In fact, they’ve contradicted their “we’re
not reviewers” quote during a Reddit AMA
by saying: “[...] we're parody, criticism,
and review rolled into one”.
They just drop the “criticism” and “review”
aspect of their channel whenever it suits
them.
[MUSIC: Moth Equals - 74% Cocoa]
This cruel joke of a bad joke of a criticism
series nets CS around a million views per
episode,
which inevitably results in a lot of people
taking their misinformation seriously and
spreading it, regardless of its satirical
value.
Read any comment section for a CinemaSins
video and you’ll find people saying things
like:
“I just watched it film, and thought "This
was great, now let's watch CinemaSins to realize
the shit I missed" aaand here I am.
Thanks dude.﻿”
“It's like watching the whole movie in 15
minutes﻿”
“thanks Cinema sins never was going to see
the movie keep up the kick ass content﻿”
“Wow... this is absolutely NOT what I thought
the movie was going to be about.
Trippy.
Not one I'd watch.﻿”
The implication with that last quote being
that CinemaSins spoiled the entire movie for
the person, which robbed it of a potential
sale while misrepresenting it.
So despite CinemaSins’ insistence that they’re
not reviewers,
a significant portion of their audience is
using their Everything Wrong With series as
review to inform themselves about the quality
of films.
And by the way, all these comments were taken
from the EWW video for Get Out - one of the
best films to come out in the past few years.
Dunno about you but that feels pretty gross
to me.
News sites aren’t any better about interpreting
CinemaSins videos.
Often they’ll just link an EWW video with
a description of “you wouldn’t believe
all the things wrong with [INSERT TRENDING
FILM HERE].”
The problem is that this is misrepresenting
CinemaSins as wholly criticisms of a movie
- disregarding what CinemaSins themselves
have said about their deliberate inclusion
of inaccurate information about a film.
As an example of why this is a problem, here’s
a sin from CinemaSins’ Watchmen video:
JEREMY: Okay, I was going to sin the weird
Vietnam War Movie Anthem, but the smiley face
on Mars?!
That s*it is worth five sins, and I think
I’m being lenient!
BOB: Reactions to this sin are mixed.
Some don’t question it since Watchmen wasn’t
seen as that great of a film - and of course
there’s no smiley face on Mars.
Meanwhile, others who’ve read the comic
or know their areography will quickly point
out that the Martian smiley is real - it’s
called the Galle crater, AKA the “happy
face crater”, and was deliberately put into
the comic the film is based on.
In context, the smiley is used to accentuate
Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre’s conversation
about her parents and her unlikely conception.
MANHATTAN: To distill so specific a form from
all that chaos...
It's like turning air into gold.
BOB: How unlikely, too, is it that a smiley
face has occurred naturally on the surface
of Mars?
It’s a sentiment so perfectly reflected
by reality that Dave Gibbons, co-creator of
Watchmen, thought the crater was “[...] almost
too good to be true.
I worried that if we put it in, people would
never believe it.”
Both reactions to this sin are wrong though
because according to CinemaSins, what they’re
saying is incorrect on purpose.
It’s one of their patented “intentionally
ignorant” sins, as Jeremy explained on Reddit.
“As for us being wrong on sins.
At least 50% of the time, we did it on purpose.
Like with Watchmen we had the Mars smiley
comment [...]”.
So if you took the sin at face value OR you
criticized it, you were misled - and Dave
Gibbons was already worried people wouldn’t
understand what was going on in his scene.
In this instance and many others, CinemaSins
purposefully broadcast misunderstandings as
poorly-executed “jokes”.
But by far the most negative aspect of CinemaSins
content aren’t bad jokes - it’s the frequency
of subtly incorrect criticisms in their videos,
which muddy the waters of what’s accurate
film nitpicking and what’s misinformation.
Most of the time people who’ve watched any
movie CS is nitpicking can spot the big errors,
but a lot of what’s wrong in an average
Everything Wrong With video is small - misunderstandings
of character traits or what a film is trying
to do and say that’s subtle enough to be
missed by most people who aren’t looking
for it or haven't seen the movie.
It’s these subtle mistakes that can lead
to the origination and perpetuation of huge
misconceptions and misunderstandings.
Take for example this sin from CinemaSins’
video on Get Out:
CHRIS: Why black people?
JIM: Some people wanna be stronger.
Cooler.
I want... your eye, man.
JEREMY: So most of these people just want
to be black because they think it’s cool,
and that’s fine… and this guy just wants
Chris’ eyes and couldn’t care less about
skin color.
But why hasn’t the market expanded to white
people or any other kind of race as well?
BOB: The answer to the question they're posing
is the essence of the movie.
The whole point of this scene in Get Out is
to highlight white people claiming they’re
not racist while they directly benefit from
a racist system that subjugates black people.
It’s a major theme of the movie, one that
often goes overlooked and undervalued by audiences
- and CinemaSins completely misunderstands
it while subtly questioning why Get Out was
made at all by attempting to ridicule its
foundational message.
Of course some will say this is CinemaSins
playing the asshole character for a joke - but
after a certain point it doesn’t matter.
If you pretend to be stupid long enough you
just look stupid,
perpetuating your stupidity to people who
are rightly confused about what you’re trying
to say.
[MUSIC: Moth Equals - Tricky - Unreal (Moth
Equals Valentine's Day Remix)]
The term “clickbait” may not seem like
it has any meaning anymore, what with its
liberal use in every facet of online culture,
but CinemaSins is one of the purest forms
of clickbait I’ve seen.
Clickbait, for those of you who don’t exist
because everyone knows what clickbait is and
I just really need an excuse to explain it,
is a term used for internet content that baits
you into clicking it with enticing headlines
that itch your curiosity.
The defining feature of clickbait is that
it’s all vapid - none of it says anything
of value because the point of clickbait is
to get you to click it and generate revenue
through ad impressions and clicks.
After that, its job is done.
CinemaSins, specifically their “Everything
Wrong With” series, is clickbait.
Not only for the obvious reason that it has
nothing to say, but because the people who
created it specialize in making clickbait.
Both Jeremy Scott and Chris Atkinson worked
for ReelSEO, now named “TubularInsights”,
before they created CinemaSins in December
of 2012.
ReelSEO describes themselves as a place that
“offers YouTube tips and tricks for video
marketing.”
“If you're selling or promoting products
and services, we'll teach you how to use online
video to dominate your field and setup your
sales conversions to be as effective as possible.”
If you’re curious how much CinemaSins’
experience with ReelSEO influenced their content,
Chris Atkinson wrote an article for them titled:
“EVERYTHING I LEARNED ABOUT VIDEO WAS FROM
REELSEO”.
If that didn’t spell it out enough, here
are both Jeremy and Chris in an interview
with ReelSEO in January of 2014:
CHRIS: Before I left ReelSEO, I wrote an article
saying “Everything I learned, I learned
from ReelSEO”.
I actually didn’t know anything about video
when I started writing-
JEREMY: Shhh!
CHRIS: No, I- Mark knows!
JEREMY: Yeah Mark knows but Mark’s readers
might not know.
CHRIS: Yeah well, they can cut this out if
they don’t want it.
BOB: Yeah, they didn’t cut it.
Don’t worry though - you can just say this
whole interview was satire or somethin'.
This is a bit off topic but I have to show
this clip from that same interview:
MARK: What’s the first movie that comes
to mind when you think about making fun of
movies together in a theater?
JEREMY: Like I can remember specific movies
that we watched that we would make fun of.
CHRIS: Yes.
Save the Last Dance is the big one.
That one, probably laughed about 30 minutes
through the whole movie during Save the Last
Dance because Julia Stiles was on the “my
mom just died” train - or whatever it was
that you said.
Probably laughed about that - there were actually
2 other people who were working with us watching
that movie at the time and they were like
‘shut up!
Be quiet!’ when it was Save the Last Dance.
This isn’t like, you know, art or anything.
BOB: I just love the fact that Jeremy and
Chris think they’re so hilarious that they
actively ruined a film for their co-workers
because they thought it wasn’t good.
And here they are gloating about being told
to shut up.
Really says something about how they feel
about films and people.
And if you needed further evidence of how
they feel about people:
JEREMY: So we both were naturally pushed to
working in the movie theater, which is where
we met each other and where we furthered our
love of movies and our distaste for people.
CHRIS: That’s right.
Our distaste for people was the main thing.
BOB: Anyway, the inception for CinemaSins
can be traced back to ReelSEO articles written
by Jeremy and Chris.
In one titled “EVERY BRAND WILL BE A STUDIO:
PHILOSOPHICAL MUSINGS ON THE FUTURE OF VIDEO”,
the pair discuss the future of advertising,
predicting that soon it will enter “a new
era where every brand creates content designed
to entertain and engage first… sell second?”
They also predicted that a “video gold rush”
was coming, so it’s no surprise that they’d
soon try their hand at it.
That article was written January 13, 2012,
and 4 months later Jeremy left ReelSEO to
create Viral Orchard, a self-described “online
video marketing firm [...] helping businesses
[...] all over the United States create, optimize,
and market YouTube videos.”
The pair continued working together, trying
to create viral content they could turn into
marketing on their previously-made “thecussingchannel”
which featured cussing supercuts,
as well as with “TheUnlearningChannel”
which they made in October 2012 and featured
their trademark lazy attempts at humor - like
their lampooning of breast cancer awareness
month.
JEREMY: Despite having made all Americans
aware of breast cancer years ago, breast cancer
awareness month plods on.
Pink is unnecessarily being worn by manly
NFL players.
And the league is unnecessarily donating to
charity 3% of their NFL store sales of pink
football merchandise.
Someone has to let them know they've already
succeeded.
That's why we're pleased to announce that
November has just been named "Breast Cancer
Awareness Awareness Month".
Breast Cancer Awareness Awareness Month is
designed to spread awareness to the fact that
everyone is already aware of breast cancer.
BOB: Jeremy and Chris also created a movie
review channel, which has since been deleted.
JEREMY: We were doing some movie reviews that
were sarcastic that nobody got and we deleted
that channel.
BOB: If you haven’t noticed the thread here,
it’s that throughout 2012 Jeremy and Chris
were desperate to break into video marketing.
They finally succeeded in December of 2012
with CinemaSins and their first “Everything
Wrong With” video.
You can see remnants of the pair’s ReelSEO
days in various aspects of EWW.
First, in their titles - specifically “in
X minutes or less”.
This is a tried-and-true clickbait practice,
derived from the idea that people just love
seeing numbers in online content.
This is why lists and ranked content are frequently
used, and why such content is often paired
with “in X minutes or less”.
Considering EWW is itself just a listicle
of film “sins”, it makes sense the phrase
is included.
Another marketing tactic CinemaSins regularly
employ is “Trend Surfing”.
This is when you release content based entirely
around a hot topic or trend - in CinemaSins’
case, that means churning out EWW videos related
to hot new films.
They do this so frequently it’s actually
pretty funny how predictable it is.
New Alien movie coming out May 19th in America?
EWW Aliens on May 18th.
War for the Planet of the Apes July 14th?
EWW the original Planet of the Apes July 11th.
The Mummy’s being remade and coming out
June 9th?
EWW the original Mummy June 6th and The Mummy
Returns June 8th.
Flatliners.
Power Rangers.
Ghost in the Shell.
Beauty and the Beast.
John Wick.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The Jungle Book.
Blade Runner.
In fact, it seems the only time CS don’t
follow this formula is when they sin popular
films that were just released on blu-ray - it
usually takes them around a month to push
those videos out.
It’s pretty obvious they’re forcing themselves
to sin films so they can trend surf and maximize
viewership, which is emblematic of clickbait
and seriously undermines the purpose of their
content’s existence.
If the only reason you’re making a video
is to capitalize on a trend,
it’s unlikely you have anything worthwhile
to say.
And CinemaSins does this constantly.
Another way to tell EWW videos are clickbait
is by considering how much effort is being
put into them - that is to say, the absolute
minimal amount.
For example, here’s a clip from Jeremy’s
“Drunk Behind The Scenes - How to Make A
Sins Video” in which he shows us the art
of writing sins for the movie Spring Breakers:
JEREMY: That guy’s grabbin’ his dick.
Okay, so I stop it there and I go…
One fourty-six…
That guy’s.. grabbing… his dick…
BOB: In the guy’s defence you can’t make
two videos a week without sacrificing quality.
CinemaSins have cranked out 561 videos in
almost 5 years and have barely changed their
original Premiere project file since their
first video, besides learning to bring their
audio levels down and stop speaking so fast.
Really, the only meaningful difference between
older and newer EWW is length.
Original EWW used to be around 2 to 7 minutes
long, whereas now the videos regularly push
15 to 20 minutes.
Jeremy tried to explain this on Reddit, saying:
“Are the videos longer?
Yes.
Everything we see in our analytics suggests
the overwhelming majority of fans prefer longer
videos.”
If that sounds strange to you, that’s because
it is.
There’s no way to determine whether someone
watching a YouTube video prefers a longer
video to a shorter one from analytics - you
can only see how long viewers stick around
and watch the video, which is called the retention
rate.
What Jeremy’s actually saying here is that
their viewers simply don’t care about the
length of their videos and will watch them
all the way through regardless, while admitting
the length of their content is arbitrary.
JEREMY: Yeah we did one movie, I can't remember
what it was- We did one movie that was so
terrible- It might've been The Room- It was
so terrible and had so many "sins" that we
just had to go over 10 minutes.
Instead of our usual 6.
And it did so well that we were like "Hey,
maybe we can make longer videos?"
And now we've put out some that are as long
as 20 minutes and our fans don't seem to care.
BOB: They can push the length of their videos
by forcing more inaccuracies - sorry, I mean
sarcasm - into them.
In late 2012 YouTube changed their recommendation
algorithm partly due to internet marketers
and Reply Girls.
The change YouTube made was to focus more
on a video’s length to promote content.
CinemaSins has taken full advantage of this
- making their content arbitrarily longer
simply to get higher placement in YouTube's
recommendations and garner more clicks.
If you’re curious why you constantly see
CinemaSins content recommended to you on YouTube
and why EWW videos have been getting longer
and longer, this is why.
They’re internet marketers and, at least
in that regard, they know what they’re doing.
The main takeaway here is this:
CinemaSins aren’t making their content longer
because movies suddenly suck more these days.
It’s because they’re video marketers and
they make more money by forcing their content
to be longer.
Longer videos means you appear higher in search
results, which means more people see and click
your content, which means you make more money.
Now don’t get me wrong - there’s nothing
innately bad about implementing reasonable
marketing tactics to promote content that
has value, but when the sole purpose of your
channel is to manufacture long, low-effort,
trend-surfing clickbait to generate revenue,
you forfeit any meaning that content could’ve
had.
On the plus side, you get to leech off the
work of others and absolve yourself from any
criticism you might receive.
Because as long as people are clicking, you're
successful.
Who cares about anything else?
[MUSIC: Moth Equals - Money Tap]
I know I’m preaching to the choir here because
most CS fans have peaced out of this video
to write some livid YouTube comment or be
upset all over the CinemaSins subreddit, which
is fine.
To those CS fans who stuck around: thanks
for hearing me out.
Now, I know that you’ve sacrificed some
time to make it this far - unless you cheated
and skipped to this point - but I’ve gotta
ask you for just one more small favor:
STOP WATCHING CINEMASINS.
Why?
Well, for all the reasons listed so far in
this video - but also because of those three
points I mentioned at the beginning.
Specifically:
CinemaSins is bad for film criticism.
People who haven’t seen the movie an EWW
is based on can be legitimately misled about
its quality,
as I’ve pointed out.
A lot of people, including CinemaSins, consider
EWW to be review, at least in part - which
is misrepresentation, but also contributes
to teaching YouTube at large that criticism
should be judged by its entertainment value,
rather than the merit of its arguments.
CinemaSins is bad for YouTube.
It touts CinemaSins as a success story through
recommendations despite its falsehoods.
CinemaSins serves to teach YouTubers not to
spend time crafting their content and instead
turn to video marketing tactics - cranking
out low-effort clickbait videos to maximize
engagement and therefore profits.
CinemaSins shows its audience facts are overrated
and can easily be excused with “satire”
and “comedy”,
which undermines other content on YouTube
that’s more thoughtful and meaningful.
And finally: CinemaSins is bad for critical
thinking and intellectual honesty.
People often won’t question CinemaSins or
content like it if it has even a sliver of
entertainment value, and will vehemently defend
it despite its many, many contradictions.
CinemaSins serves as a lesson that people
can say whatever they want and explain it
away later as either a joke, or satire, or
all of the above - as if these concepts are
just “get out of criticism free” cards
and not tools for crafting art.
Now, you CinemaSins fans may be thinking “But
Bob, if I stop watching CinemaSins, what can
I watch instead?”
Well there’s YMS, NerdWriter, RedLetterMedia,
Every Frame a Painting, Now You See It, Lessons
from a Screenplay... hell, go back and watch
all of MST3k if you haven’t already.
Just not season 11.
We don’t talk about season 11.
I’ve added all these channels to the description
of this video but feel free to post your own
recommendations in the comments below to help
people find better, smarter, more productive
content to enjoy.
Look, it sucks that I have to be so overtly
negative toward CS and go as far as to recommend
alternatives.
I originally had a finale for this video that
was something like “I sure do hope CinemaSins
fix these problems I’ve pointed out”.
That ending was full of things CS could do
to fix their numerous issues.
It naively assumed CS actually cared about
what they’re doing,
that they cared about the impact they have,
that they cared about something other than
their bottom line.
I wrote this new outro because in doing research,
I came across an old Reddit AMA with CinemaSins
in which they were asked what they thought
about videos like mine that criticize their
channel.
Their response?
“I don't care.”
It should be obvious to everyone by now that
CinemaSins aren’t going to improve their
content.
Their videos will simply continue being long
and wrong.
Numerous people besides myself have brought
up issues with their videos since their inception,
and their responses to those criticisms, by
them and their fans, are what I’ve refuted
throughout this video, repeated ad nauseum.
See, the problem isn’t with CinemaSins - it’s
with everyone else.
We just don’t understand the tortured logic
of their sincerely satirical, purposefully
misleading joke-criticism.
The worst thing about CinemaSins’ Everything
Wrong With series isn’t that their content
is a low-effort clickbait garbage fire.
It’s that they’ve somehow tricked their
fans, and themselves, into thinking that garbage
fire is art,
which lowers the bar for art... and for garbage
fires.
JEREMY: You've gotta stop.
You've got to stop.
This is a problem.
Like, it was funny to make jokes the first
few times, but it’s literally every other
day at this point.
Slow the fuck down!
Why do you have to do it so fast?
Why are you in such a hurry?
Now the first problem is a financial one,
right?
I understand you’re a business, but you
can be a business without being a whore.
You can be a business without losing any and
all semblance of trying to be art.
This is how we become the society in Idiocracy.
Not the failing education system, which would
probably get us there but it’s going too
slow.
This is gonna get us there faster.
Within 50 years there won’t be a person
alive who knows how to write an original idea.
Everyone will have only experience adapting
other people’s shit.
We are breeding out originality and creativity
and we’re going to create a cultural dilution
that we will not recover from.
We won’t.
Somewhere right now there’s a kid, he’s
15, he’s sitting in high school and he has
ideas.
He probably sketches them in his notebook.
But by the time he comes to age where he can
be creative for a living, there’s a 99%
chance that it’s gonna be the soul-less
recreation of another generation’s work.
And… that’s… tragic.
Everyone with dollar signs in their eyes flashing
over there.
And it's not gonna stop - it won't stop.
Because the general public is already kind
of like Idiocracy people.
Bullshit.
And we're losing our art.
Truly creative people can't get funding.
I’m not- I’m not making this video for
jokes, I’m not joking around.
This is a serious cultural problem in America
- that we are dumbing down our entertainment.
They just jam whatever they want down our
throats and repeat it so many times that before
we even have a chance to decide that we hate
it, we’re used to it.
And it’s familiar.
And we’re singing along.
And we want to die.
