there's TWO of us!

Yeah :/ It was one of my main uses too, I read everything via lists, and most of those accounts aren't anywhere else, I'll to rebuild from zero.

Maybe it was the last push we needed to move on

I can do that too

Maybe I was the Vox Video Essay guy all along.

I'm telling you man, this is a Vox level video where a twenty somethings almost 30 guy with round glasses and a Ned Flanders mustache starts saying "Ever wonder why a lot of video essayists hold their microphones instead of using something that would it for them?"

So now instead of recording themselves with their phone from POV holding the inline mic from their airbuds to their mouth they are recording a talking head A-roll while holding a XLR condenser microphone because they don't know what a Lavalier is.

and that eventually evolved insto standalone usb otg mics cuz someone sold them on the idea of condenser microphones that work with your phone.
And when they migrated from short-form platforms to YouTube, their recording process was kept the same or barely changed.

The first batch of "short-form" content creators from those platforms started getting more "pro" about their audio by recording themselves with the in-line mic of their apple airbuds by holding it close to their mouth instead of recording straight from the phone's microphone.

It's so interesting because we are already in the "doing it for nostalgia/to emulate others without understanding why" part of the cycle, it is a trend 100% owned by content creators that grew on short-form content from TikTok, Reels, Shorts, etc.