Chronically online criticism: how we’re archiving the video essay boom
Pithy, playful, provocative – video essays have emerged as a major form of cultural commentary since the dawn of online video sites in the mid 2000s. Here we introduce the five video essay makers whose work we’ve selected for preserving in the BFI National Archive.
The video essay has become a defining form of online culture, steadily growing in popularity among both creators and audiences. As part of Our Screen Heritage, our project to establish the BFI National Archive as the most open moving image archive in the world, curators at the BFI have sought to reflect this by collecting the videos of several essayists.
Defining the video essay is far from straightforward. The sheer volume of content labelled as such has long frustrated critics. As early as 2013, Sight and Sound critic Kevin B. Lee noted the “ever-increasing output of online videos produced over the past few years by an ever-growing range of self-appointed practitioners”. Like much of the internet, the challenge lies in distinguishing meaningful work from the surrounding noise.
The video essay emerged online in the mid-2000s, enabled by accessible digital editing tools and the launch of YouTube in 2005. Anyone could now produce audiovisual arguments about cinema, culture or philosophy without institutional support. Rather than having a single origin or fixed form, the video essay draws on several traditions: the essay film, a hybrid form between fiction and documentary associated with the likes of Chris Marker (Sans soleil, 1983) or Jean-Luc Godard (Histoire(s) du cinéma, 1988 to 1998), the academic essay, with its structured argumentation, and the more exploratory, reflective essay tradition traced back to Michel de Montaigne and prized by philosophers such as Theodor W. Adorno. The video essay borrows from all three, remaining fluid and resistant to strict definition. This composite nature has made the genre a matter of debate at the start of the project, but it also reflects the breadth of online culture.
In recent years, the form has gained legitimacy beyond the web. Since 2017, Sight and Sound has run an annual poll of the best video essays, while journals such as [in]Transition have foregrounded videographic criticism in academic contexts. However, these institutional perspectives often favour work closer to essay films or scholarly essays, overlooking the full diversity of the medium. The interest of the video essay is its democratic production: it can be created by anyone with a laptop and an internet connection.
This diversity of origins is what Our Screen Heritage has strived to reflect. Each of the video essayists preserved in the archive may be considered to represent a different ‘strand’ of videographic criticism.
It’s fitting that the collection begins with video essays about film itself. Leigh Singer is a film journalist, programmer, and lecturer who produced around 100 audiovisual pieces for outlets including Sight and Sound and Little White Lies. His work ranges across thematic analysis (Barbaric Poetry: Can We Really Film the Holocaust?), trends (The Movie Gifs That Keep On Giving), and film history (Three Colours Silver: Kieslowski’s Trilogy at 25). His videos combine film extracts, quotations and narration. They can also be closer to the artistic form of the essay film: Women on a Bergman screen is silent, letting the images speak for themselves.
Similar methods are used in the BBC’s Inside Cinema, coordinated by Michael Leader, where short, accessible videos introduce viewers to filmmaking techniques (The Dolly Zoom by Tim Robey), genre (The Jump Scare by Mike Muncer) and key figures (All About Bette by Anna Bogutskaya). Leigh Singer and Inside Cinema both work to make the tradition of film criticism more accessible for online audiences.
At the other end of the rhetorical spectrum, Abigail Thorn (alias Philosophy Tube) has been uploading videos since 2013. As a philosophy and drama school graduate, Thorn’s work is closest to the academic and discoursal essay. Motivated by rising university tuition fees, she set out to provide “a philosophy degree for free”. Her work is rigorously researched, with each video accompanied by a bibliography. It follows clear argumentative structures while engaging with political issues. Over time, her videos have become increasingly theatrical, incorporating costumes and performance. This Brechtian approach turns the medium itself into part of the argument, staging ideas rather than simply explaining them. Among the works archived by the BFI are Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story, a personal and philosophical reflection on gender, and I Emailed My Doctor 133 Times, a detailed critique of systemic issues within the NHS. A video essay pioneer, she has been mentioned several times in Sight and Sound polls.
Between these poles is Grace Lee (alias What’s So Great About That?). Her essays engage with contemporary internet culture while drawing on theoretical frameworks and philosophical references (The Speed (and Stillness) of Being Online). Compared to Thorn’s longer, more elaborate productions, Lee’s videos are shorter and more rhythmically driven, relying heavily on editing rather than on-screen performance. She narrates but does not appear on camera, allowing the interplay of sound and image to carry her arguments. Her work is often self-reflective: in What Isn’t a Video Essay?, she directly addresses the difficulty of defining the form itself. Widely respected within the community, Lee has also been recognised in multiple Sight and Sound polls.
The final figure in the BFI’s selection, Rowan Ellis, brings yet another perspective. Her work is grounded in feminist and queer analysis, focusing on topics often overlooked by traditional institutions, such as fandom and online subcultures. An author and LGBTQIA+ rights advocates, Ellis explores issues of representation (The Evolution of Queerbaiting: From Queercoding to Queercatching) and identity in the internet age (The Chronically Online State of Asexual Discourse).
Her style is accessible and conversational, and influenced by blog writing. She directly addresses the camera and supports her arguments with film clips, archival footage, interviews and scholarly references. Her inclusion in the national collection opens the archive to new voices from the diversity of online production.