I watch too much YouTube. You can ask my housemates about this, but I really watch too much YouTube. It’s always playing on my AirPods, either in the background when I’m doing homework or when I’m going to sleep. Due to my heavy consumption of the medium, I am always on the hunt for new and interesting YouTubers. I’ve managed to find some pretty cool content creators, but no one around me ever seems to know who they are, which I find to be a disservice to the YouTube community. In order to spread visibility to some of my favorite YouTubers, I’ve decided to take this responsibility and start a series in the Daily on some of the best video essay creators with less than 300,000 subscribers. Without further ado, I would like to talk to you about YouTuber Allie Meowy.
I’m making a prediction now: Meowy is going to be a big star. Right now, Meowy’s subscriber count sits at just over 19,000, but I know that count is going to hit astronomical heights because of the quality of her video essays. I was introduced to Meowy’s content randomly as a video of hers was recommended to me. The video is titled “How Many Times Can You Pee in Heavy Rain?” and documents how many times one can use the bathroom in the video game Heavy Rain. (The final count was 14.) At the top of the comments section sat a comment from legendary BreadTuber, video essayist and liberal Hbomberguy, indicating to me that the quality of the video would be immaculate. With over 182,000 views, it is the most-viewed video on her channel. While the video does document the player’s ability to pee, Meowy manages to extrapolate meaning from this banal action, delving into how female characters are treated in video games made by David Cage (the game’s writer and director) and that the pee order can allude to plot points within the game. Over the course of an hour, I went from “Why am I watching this?” to complete investment in Meowy’s research.
Meowy’s library of videos is similarly made up of attention-grabbing titles: “so, Sonic can technically get a star on the Walk of Fame,” “Skyrim VS Ernest Hemingway” and “Pokemon Legends is really just about potatoes.” These are points I personally have never thought of but are still immediately intriguing. However, my favorite video is hidden under a more normal title, “Investigating a forgotten Edward Snowden Quote.” This video is anything but normal. It begins by highlighting the Snowden quote: “Some hentai games are very good.” Meowy then describes her process as to how she got to this quote — a process that is not linear — with the starting point being that she looked at a Wikipedia page for video games based on movies. On this page, she couldn’t find one game — “Elf: The Movie” — and began to think about video game preservation. Her brain tied game preservation to the National Security Agency’s collection of data, and naturally, that brought her to Snowden and his digital footprint. The rest of the video follows these two pathways: Snowden’s background and the background of “Elf: The Movie” (the game).
One would think these two plotlines are impossible to tie together or ask why anyone would care about either of these two storylines, but one would be wrong. Meowy captures the watcher’s attention, and you find yourself caring about both Snowden and “Elf: The Movie.” Her drive for preserving the legacy of an unknown Game Boy Advance game comes from a larger passion for media preservation. You feel just as confused as she does when she stumbles upon the conflicting “Elf: The Movie” information and just as triumphant when she uncovers the real creator of “Elf: The Movie.” Meowy is also incredibly entertaining, with her deadpan delivery and superb editing decisions creating an amusing final product. Her utilization of underscoring music is top-notch, making the viewer understand how they should be feeling in response to the script at all times. Her conclusion is also very poignant; in an age where the world feels like it is falling apart, Meowy advocates seeking out small silly things and seeing where that leads you.
Allie Meowy has a mind that I can’t quite understand or follow, but it results in some incredible content. She is truly unique in her ideas, and I cannot recommend that you follow her work enough. I have subscribed to Meowy’s Patreon, and I really look forward to the day that she gets credit for the incredible work she’s done.
