Okay so I finally got a chance to watch your episode and offer some feedback. First of all, I do agree with TheFinest in that it was a bit funnier than I expected. You do have some creativity that I think is necessary to pull this kind of thing off, and that can’t always be taught. So you have one hurdle taken care of.
That being said I completely agree with Clayton. Like I said, at first I didn’t expect much from it, and was pleasantly surprised when a few early gags made me chuckle. (You don’t expect that from a video with such low production value, no offense). But after a few minutes I kind of stop and realize, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I start to wonder “what has been the point in all this?” “what is he trying to say?” “what is the focus here?” “what am I supposed to be getting from this?” And finally, “what is he talking about right now?”
In other words, I can definitely understand why your friends were only able to come away with that one quote. For one thing, Clayton was right, the video is titled as if it were an educational piece on economic concepts, but you barely touch on those.
In your posts here it sounds like you’re worried about overwhelming your “ignorant” audience, but the truth is you’re nowhere near that. You said the video was “too much” for the people you’ve shown it to, but I think you’ve got the wrong idea. It wasn’t too much economics…it was too much “stuff”. There was too much going on…you were jumping around too much and there wasn’t a clear focus. Just take a segment of monologue to illustrate what I mean:
“Who is the government really? War profiteers? Illuminati? Communist Kenyans from space? Who even with all their advanced technologies, could never even master birth certificate forgery? No the truth really is, the government is a reflection of the majority. And unfortunately the majority no longer believes in themselves. There really are no grand conspiracies…and won’t be…as long as the rule in the White House stands that when the President is alone, female interns must travel in pairs.” [cut to president intern gag]
Even after writing that down, and reading it again, I still have to ask…what the theck are you talkiong about? And what in the world does it have to do with job creation, free trade, or government intervention? I can understand laying some kind of predicate before going into a specific economic point, but I honestly have no idea what this is supposed to mean, let alone how it relates to some kind of point about any of your three topics.
And what’s more, it takes a full 45 seconds for you to say all that. That’s more than 11% of your video. Add in the accompanying gag, and it’s almost 19%. So you just took up almost a full fifth of your video—which is, at its current length, almost twice as long as the general recommended time for this kind of setting—for what seemed like nothing more than one big (confusing) joke. It’s like you went through all this obscure verbiage just so you could score a cheap laugh from the tired “spontaneous dancing stripper guy” gag…set up on the platform of the even more tired “closet gay, openly anti-gay southern politician” archetype. (See, and you thought you were avoiding those!)
I get your rebuttal to Clayton about wanting to appeal to the audience, and I don’t disagree that it is possible to get away with portraying specific real-life politicians…but Clayton does have a point. You could easily alienate people that way…especially when your actual educational points are not being made clear. It would be way too easy for someone to catch one of those gags and be like “oh just another dumb conservative on youtube.” Ideally, you don’t want them to be able to formulate a political label for you. This reaches the widest audience because you have people listening more to the message than their own mental filter based on what they assume you’re trying to say based on what they assume you political philosophy is.
Have a look here and especially here. Those are great examples of how to present the message in a clear way that doesn’t come off as partisan. The second one I think will be especially helpful to you, as he provides a pretty structured outline of how to proceed through an education of someone. I realize his is more political focused where you are looking to be more economic focused, but it should give you some ideas. The most important thing to take away from it is the structure, and clear presentation of points.
Some other good YouTube channels that might offer some useful info and ideas are:
The second two there are from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, and are extremely dry, but offer great info that you might be able to use as well as ideas for topics to cover.
ShaneDK has done a number of nice ones with an economic focus (and politics as well):
Economics Made Easy (with ShaneDK)
Politics Made Simple (with ShaneDK)
Local members Graham and Nielsio have put out some incredibly good originals, and Conza has put up some nice snippets of various lectures and such. Definitely explore through their channels.
Of course the Prax Girl channel offers lectures on praxeology…
And Jacob Spinney mostly does random webcam talks, but he’s done a few scripted productions on a few topics.
for you in particular, I highly recommened:
Graham’s
Ron Paul is a Voluntarist
Where do Ron Paul’s ideas come from?
and Jacob’s
The State is Not Great
