Critical Distance Confab – PostMesmeric

Alex Carlson, the subject of this month’s interview on thee Critical Distance Confab, and his channel PostMesmeric is a relatively new find for me. Because YouTube can only find it in itself to recommend videos I’ve already watched (multiple times) it closes off a lot of what is out there to me. I can’t find new channels and voices because the system does not allow you to know they exist. This is bad enough for channels that have enough subscribers to count as a following, but for small channels like PostMesmeric such treatment is a sentence to toil away in obscurity.

Occasionally, something weird happens with YouTube’s algorithm and I get a few fresh suggestions for a day before it reverts back to its old behavior. Alex Carlson’s channel was one such find. He’s a solid video game critic whose grown into his own over the past two years as he has experiment with form and settled into an area of specialization.

The purpose of these interviews was to get a feel of the field. Each one to understand the channel creator and collectively understand something of the video essay format and style. But when it comes to channels like PostMesmeric, Cagey Videos and the like, I can’t help but feel the interview is also acting as advertisement for their existence. I hope it helps.

I also feel the need to make a mention of the episode title. Both this one and the last one I couldn’t think of a clever pun or phrasing like I have with various level of success before. Maybe I’m over that habit. It’s probably best if I am. It’s better if something looking at the podcast knows what a particular episode is about than trying to guess.