Critique of a Media Critic- Alex Myers

     When it comes to websites like YouTube they make a great place to vocalize your opinions to the masses in the format of reviews, podcasts, and straight up rants. While you have the ability to express your opinion it doesn't always mean you should especially if you rarely have anything nice to say. This may sounds hostile but I personally despise people who only look for the flaws in media like movies and television. I try to stay unbiased with my reviews by acknowledging and keeping in mind that while something may not be my cup of tea, someone out there probably really enjoys it. This isn't to say that I never give out harsh scores to films, some movies are just unapologetically bad. The example I always use is Unsane, a poorly executed mess of a film that was quite literally shot on an Iphone. But that isn't the goal of this particular piece today. The goal is to give a critique of another media critic and today I've chosen YouTuber Alex Meyers.

    
    With a massive 2.23 million subscribers Meyers is one of the more popular critics on YouTube. His channel houses multiple kinds of content but what we'll be discussing are his movie reviews. He has a general format in which he plays clips of the film in the background to illustrate points he makes and guide the videos along. He also uses his animation skills to insert his drawings into the videos to react to scenes or act out things. It's supposed to be humorous. I'll go ahead and give a disclaimer, I dislike the majority of movie reviewers on YouTube. As I viewed this creator's videos I found him to be no exception. What put me off about him is how the majority of his videos lean heavily on excessive negative criticism. Titles such as "The biggest problem with WandaVision" or "The Hunger Games is kinda dumb" it's easy to see what his MO is. This man seems to thrive on negativity. Essentially every title on his movie reviews has a negative connotation. 

    

    Let's take a look at the circumstances. By his own account, Meyers a 32 year old man, has had a pretty rough go of it so far in life. Telling stories of being homeless in Japan and other hard knocks it might make sense why he seems a bit bitter. His current iteration of content seems to target relatively popular movies and series that are completely out of his demographic most of the time. He dragged Marvel and the Hunger Games in the videos above, two of the biggest pop culture phenomena in the past 15 years when it comes to cinema and literature. This states some boldness to blatantly insult two wildly successful franchises but it does make sense. There are always hypercritical fanboys who will rally around the smallest of fallacies to try to ruin media for others. As someone who has a pretty strong love for both franchises I tried to set that aside to watch these videos from a neutral prospective but even then his analysis felt childish and cynical. In the stead of thoughtful critical observations he spits out mostly baseless opinions mocking the content entirely. While he does explain the plots of what he's reviewing he does it in the most condescending way possible. Nothing seems to please this man, I understand his current gimmick is to be the flippant kid on the playground who sticks his tongue out and blows raspberries at the other kids who are actually having a good time but it's a little excessive. When it comes to people they always want something to be mad at or make fun of and I guess he provides that. I will admit his clickbait-esque meanspirited titles to get him views, that much is true. 

      There isn't an overabundance I could really say as far as analysis goes of the creator. He's pretty two-dimensional and overall, in my opinion, just flat out unlikable. Not only does his voice grate on my ears but the jokes he tells just didn't land for me either. As one sided as this review probably reads it might seem ironic that I would lodge negativity that as my biggest complaint for Alex Meyers but in a sense I'm just giving him the treatment he gives everyone else's content they worked very hard to make. I think all in all what irritates me most is that, as I mentioned, he picks films that aren't even trying to appeal to 30 something year old white men to bash. Films like Disney's Descendants or Netflix's Tall Girl have fallen prey to his sarcastic snarky "humor". Allow me to get a bit informal to say in his general direction....dude grow up, most of these films are made for teen girls and not to please you. And most of the things he's reviewed found great success either widely or within their own target demographics. In closing I'll say that after doing the research for this article I'll likely never view another one of his videos, I won't allow someone so negative to live rent free in my head, especially when it's someone I don't even know personally.