Reviews WebVideo / Quinton Reviews

Unmitigated Slop

"Kitsch" is a term used to describe art seen as trashy or disposable. This is art with a shelf-life, meant to cater or pander to a demographic before they age out of it or the trend itself dies. But often there is more entertainment and insight found in the discussion of the kitsch itself. I can happily listen to Noah Caldwell Gervais wax lyrical for hours about the games he's played. Jenny Nicholson can take the most banal subject matter, like barely disguised fanfiction, and make it hilarious. Quinton... used to be in that list.

Originally, Quinton Reviews was a show where Quinton actually reviewed things. Maybe a forgotten TV show from early 2000s, or he'd look at some once popular youtuber who had since fallen off the map. He'd give an overview of the work, the context behind it, his opinion of the piece, and wrap it up in 20 to 40 minutes. You know, a review. But then there came a visible shift in his priorities.

I unsubscribed from his channel years ago when I finished his latest video and realized something. He just spend three hours summarizing the career of Fred Figglehorn. It wasn't just that charting the rise and fall of a walking meme. No, Quinton painstakingly recounted each and every single sketch, episode, and crossover Fred appeared in. He could have covered the gist in 45 minutes like his previous videos, instead he decided to waste both his time and the viewers' by leaving nothing off the edit.

For comparison, when Nicholson spend three plus hours talking about the doomed theme park, Evermore. What made that video work was it was about her opinions, her experiences, her footage, and her humour. I'd never heard of nor cared about some half-built, half-baked fantasy park. Yet Jenny's deadpan narration tied the whole thing together, like a rug. Meanwhile Quinton diddles on the rug by just baldly recapping entire episodes of television a lot of people already watched 15 years ago.

Bear in mind he's exclusively covering Nick sitcoms now, but he constantly talks around the major issue that overshadows them. If you showed Quinton the movie Dumbo, he could blather on for five hours and not once mention the flying elephant. Maybe he's just being coy, but it's disrespectful to spend so much time not talking about what's actually important, as if he's milking the subject matter before that point. I respect that youtubers need to eat, but it feels intentional how much work he puts into delivering drivel not worth watching. What you leave out of the text of your work is every bit important as to what you leave in. There have been over 40 hours of content since I unsubbed, all crammed into 7 videos.

Quinton Reviews is not a reviewer. He's a cynical acolyte of the algorithm.