Incessant rants about events that may or may not have occurred have become a popular way to create content on YouTube. Whether it’s the recently controversial Tana Mongeau, the somewhat controversial and very loud Logan Paul, or other, smaller YouTubers, such as Nikki Glamour or Channon Rose, videos telling stories about what happened to the YouTuber have been garnering hundreds of thousands — or in the case of Tana, often millions — of views, along with strengthening the audience of each respective content creator.
While these stories can often seem trivial and extraordinarily exaggerated, I think we as viewers have to be careful with how we hold our standards. This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen entertainers do this.
In fact, comedians do this all the time.
Many shows by successful comedians, like John Mulaney or Amy Schumer, are heavily based on telling long, drawn-out stories in the form of jokes. Now, these stories tend to seem very ridiculous, but the number of stories that each comedian has is absolutely uncanny — either every successful comedian has the most interesting life ever, or these stories are fake or grossly exaggerated.
So is there a difference?
Well … sort of. Comedians tell these exaggerated, convoluted stories as jokes, which, in a sense, can be a defense on its own. The fact that it’s a joke says that it’s not true. That being said, the jokes are presented less as “jokes” in the traditional sense of the word and more as stories that actually happened that will elicit a reaction from the audience.
In this sense, “storytime” videos are the same thing. I don’t enjoy storytime videos. I think they are long, drawn-out, filled with uninteresting fluff and overall pointless. That being said, it doesn’t mean I think anything is inherently wrong with them. If someone else enjoys that kind of content, power to that person. At the end of the day, these stories are not being embellished with malicious intent. In fact, they are embellished for entertainment value to make a video that is interesting to some.
Now, of course, if you take every word a comedian or YouTuber says as law, then you might run into some serious trust issues later in life — they definitely exaggerate plenty, and you should take it for what it is: entertainment. That being said, if it is indeed taken as entertainment as it is meant to be, then there isn’t too much wrong with “storytime” videos at all. Are they rather cheap, easy ways to gain viewers that I personally think are stupid and uninteresting? Yes. Are they inherently bad or morally wrong? No, not really.
Marco Omta is a sophomore studying games and animation. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you watch storytime videos? Email Marco at mo183714@ohio.edu.
