Yes, this is a 4 hour long review of a hotel that’s already closed.
What’s up with this video? I’m not interested in watching it, but YouTube keeps recommending it to me, and every time I see it the views on it keeps exponentially growing.
Jenny Nicholson is a really popular video essayist. She only releases like one of these essay videos a year because she spends so long working on them. (She’s got a patreon where she releases a smaller, lower effort video every month.)
The big videos routinely pull in millions of views, so I’m not surprised the algorithm spams it in people’s feeds. She’s got a lot of followers that watch it right away because they’ve been waiting for a year to see it, so it shoots to the top of the recommendations for other people in that niche. Then there’s a snowball effect where YouTube starts recommending it, more people watch it, so it gets recommended more, etc. You see the same thing on Hbomberguy’s yearly video.
As one of her subscribers, I can tell you that this video has been in the works for years, so we’ve been hearing about it for a long time and were hyped. I just finished it today - broke it up into three different viewings. She breaks all her essays down into chapters so it’s easy to watch just a portion of it at a time.
I had never heard of her. I do not watch influencer videos. I do not like influencer videos and suspect I would not like them personally. The 4 hour long runtime clearly indicated I would not be watching it.
I am now a subscriber and big fan of her work!
The cascade of bad decisions by Disney was so enjoyable to hear about and her experience with ‘Disney magic’ was so very relateble. I too have been placed behind inexplicably large columns, felt the arbitrariness of the ‘experiencing the magic’, and spent far too much money for the privilege of standing in sweaty lines in the Florida heat.
I feel bad for the people involved that really wanted to make something great but were crushed under the weight of corporate ineptitude. I personally knew someone who went, refused to say how much they paid, and refused to talk about their experience. Now I know why. Excellent video. She’s like the NeverKnowsBest of theme parks.
I’m curious and confused on the “influencer” part. My understanding was influencers are just people with “popularity” (manufactured users usually) pushing products in a “native ad” sort of way, never attributed it to general youtubers unless there’s something about the creator I’m unaware of.
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Jenny is very popular but hasn’t uploaded to Youtube in a year, so this a big comeback.
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Star Wars is a popular franchise but has had mixed success recently, and Disney’s perceived mismanagement of it is a popular topic.
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It’s organized as an Internet-friendly numbered list!
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I, and apparently a lot of other people, could listen to Jenny talk about theme parks all day.
Go watch her breakdown of The Church Play Cinematic Universe and you will understand.
