Building Towards

Written 57-H07 [2026-02-08], Edited 57-H07 [2026-02-08]

Image credit: Twitter Twemoji

The upside-down man with a neckbeard looked directly at the camera and pointed at it. Which meant that when Hank watched the video, the upside-down man seemed to be looking and pointing right at him.

“You know how in YouTube video essays, the host starts by mentioning something weirdly specific and barely relevant to the topic at hand? But later, that weirdly specific irrelevant detail was actually building toward a conclusion. On today’s episode of Xavier Explains, we will be exploring the common tropes in educational and pseudo-educational content on YouTube. That’s right, it’s a video essay about video essays.”

The upside-down Xavier winked. Hank rolled his eyes.

“Isn’t that clever?” Xavier insisted. The camera zoomed in on his unshaven face. “A video essay about video essays I bet you never heard that bef-”

Xavier’s essay was cut off by an advertisement inserted by YouTube without warning.

“You want to skip this ad? We get that. You want to afford rent? We get that too. That’s right, this is an ad for a cryptocurrency exchange which is aware that it’s an ad! Isn’t that clever? An ad that knows it’s ad! I bet you never heard that before!”

Hank’s hands shook in fury. He grabbed his mouse and clicked the close button twenty times, continuing the click the desktop background when the window disappeared.

His phone rang - his ringtone was a song he thought was clever as a kid. “They’ll play my song on the radio” said the lead singer of “Tone Tones”. Goddamn thought Hank. I’m getting sick of this but I forgot how to change the thing.

The call turned out to just be a robot voice who said “I’m definitely not a scammer, I know it’s hard to believe.” Hank ended the call with prejudice.

Hank’s college-aged brother Carl walked into the living room. Carl’s shirt depicted an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail. He was holding some math homework.

“Hey can you help me with my MATH 108 homework?” asked Carl. “It’s about proof by induction. These self-referential proofs are a bit too clever to me.”

“Fuck you.” Hank said firmly.

Feedback from the Joy of Writing group

• consider replacing “ended the call with prejudice” with “terminated with extreme prejudice” - and disgust.