Pāhonoa te oro

Around the mid-2010s, the topics addressed by YouTube video essay criticism became increasingly political. When focused largely on the cultural politics of media objects (as noted above), essayists largely operated within established frameworks of the so-called ‘culture war’ – especially concerning the politics of representation as regards race and gender. From around 2013-2016 semiotic wars of positioning raged between conservative and liberal-aligned video essayists with opposing perspectives