Meta Month: Catch-Up Part 1: JonTron, Film Brain, Todd In The Shadows and Lindsay Ellis (2017)

It’s April again, and you know what that means! It’s once again time for Meta Month, where I dedicate the whole month of April to discussing my critical influences and the people that I spend an unhealthy amount of time watching on YouTube. Well, not exactly. Given how last year’s catalogue consisted of articles and lists that I had literally been cultivating for at least a year beforehand, I’m not set up to do the same thing again this year. However, I will be doing some special reviews this month as well as doing a bit of catch-up on the reviewers I’ve already covered. See, while I have pinned down my favourites among their respective bodies of work, they have still been keeping busy and making videos that honestly stand alongside some of their best. So, in light of that, I’m going to go through what they have gotten up to over the last twelve months and cherry-pick some examples that, in my not-so-humble opinion, deserve a spot amongst the Best Of lists I did last year.

Top 20 Todd's Pop Song Reviews

In the interest of full disclosure, the reason why my other Top Lists for this month so far have started the way they have is one of proper honesty. It’s a chance for me to air out whatever legitimate grievances I may have with a creator before setting them aside to highlight their strengths, in honour of my own views concerning the separation of issues with creator and issues with creation. This… is an exception to that rule. Call it petty, and in a way it is, but there’s a very prominent bruise on my grey matter thanks to a certain conversation I had on Twitter with Todd. Something about not only being attacked by someone whose work you regularly watch to get away from these very situations, but to have his fans join in and support him while doing so, will probably never sit right with me any time soon. It was an issue tangentially connected to GamerGate, further proving that the whole debate just seems to bring the ugliness out of everyone, and I won’t go into it any further here. Just know that, as I get into today’s list, I am still somewhat irrationally holding something against the guy personally. I set out to highlight a wide(ish) spectrum of reviewers with Meta Month, and what better way to illustrate that than with a guy who, despite me finding him extremely funny and insightful in places, has shown himself to be a bit of a dick IRL. Anyway, discarding that for now, here’s my Top 20 list of the best Todd’s Pop Song Reviews.