This content explores the creative process behind content creation, specifically focusing on how unfinished ideas ("ghosts") can evolve, be revisited, and ultimately teach valuable lessons about life, relationships, and personal growth, even if they don't become fully realized projects.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
Good evening. It is my job as the man
who is currently sitting in this
hopefully very cinematic rectangle on
your screen to entertain you with a
complete idea. An idea that no one else
has talked about. An idea that compares
two things that shouldn't be related,
but oh, just wait until I use Greek
mythology to explain fake checkpoints in
video games. An idea that makes people
go into the comments and say things
like, "Well, now I'm crying at a
But tonight,
we talk to the ghosts of videos that
will never be. These are topics that for
one reason or another, I'll never make.
Maybe it was too creatively ambitious
and I chickenened out. Maybe I felt like
I had nothing original to contribute.
Maybe, you know what? Let's just let's
just do this. Let me tell you how this
video was originally going to start
because it wasn't always going to be
this. So, let's talk to spirit number
Twin bosses in video games have always
tickled my brain just right. In Ocarina,
when you fight the twin rova witches, Ko
and Kotake, you quickly discover that
one is the key to taking down the other.
You reflect Kotake's ice into the fire
wielding Kou to deal her damage and vice
versa. This design feels much more
clever than a simple fight two dudes
instead of one. And it makes it feel
like a unified encounter that was built
for two bosses, which I think is the key
to making a good twin boss fight.
Orstein and SMO are the obvious flagship
examples here because of the decisions
and potential strategies that spread
like garden weeds in the folds of your
prefrontal cortex. Do you try to kill
one quickly and ignore the other? Do you
try and get them both low so that when
one goes down and the other one becomes
stronger to compensate, it's not as
tough to kill them? Which one do you
kill first? Which one is tougher to deal
with alone? You'll figure a similar
mental calculus when you fight Thesius
and Asterius in Hades. Once one is beat,
the other one goes into a rage and
becomes much harder to take on. And I
found that this is how most twin bosses
are designed. Either they are protected
from dying separately like Magny and
Modi and God of War so that a cutscene
can play afterwards or they can combine
like a near automata or once you slay
one the remaining tag partner will go
berserk. And this is what I had in mind
when I fought a certain boss very early
in act two of Silkong. So yes, some
minor and early act 2 spoilers here.
The Cogwork Dancers are a three-phase
fight and they're deceptively
straightforward. This showdown, which
appears to be taking place in a massive
music box, doesn't play out like most
boss fights because the dancers actively
tell you where they are about to be.
Dodging is simple but not easy. And each
phase of the fight plays to a slightly
different song. The first phase is slow,
the second is faster, the third is
fastest. They regroup and change the
track as gears and cogs clack into place
behind them by telling you where they're
going and moving with the song. The
dancers almost present as a rhythm game
instead of a boss fight. Here are your
commands. Time your inputs correctly.
You almost get the sense that these two
would be waltzing even if you weren't
here right now. They aren't actively
targeting hornets like other bosses do.
They're just having fun and you're in
the way. If you get hit, well, you
weren't on rhythm. This is a dance. They
are leading. Do not get stepped on. But
at some point during that third phase,
the song will end as you finally take
one of the dancers down. And I expected
at this point, as many of us likely did,
for the remaining dancer to open up a
fresh and unrelenting hellfire of new
moves and a fourth song with a
blistering pace. But as he reound the
music box for another song, the gears
struggled and grinded without the other
half to match. Instead of a berserk
phase 4, I got a griefstricken halfp
performance. Instead of another song, I
got a broken sputtering of notes. None
of his moves worked anymore. His grand
embrace at the center was powerless
without his partner. And I love that
Team Cherry did this. They could have
easily gone the angry extraphase route
and frivolously added more difficulty,
but instead they chose to tell a story
with this encounter. They chose to
foreshadow one of the most moving
subplots in the game and lean into the
fact that without his partner, the fight
completely falls apart. This moment,
without saying a word, illustrates loss
in a powerful way. And this is one of
the many ways that Silkong tells its
stories wordlessly. And I'd like to take
you on a tour through some of my
favorite ways it does this. Or at least
I did. Because you see, then a fun thing
happened. The video mitosis.
All at once, I realized I can get two
videos out of this. And this happens.
Sometimes ideas are like sips of your
partner's drink. Sometimes one becomes two.
two.
or 27. I realized I could do a video on
twin boss fights and Silk Song's
wordless storytelling. I could talk
about the complexities of duo boss
fights and which ones go beyond the
norms like the cogwork dancers and Koshi
and Roshi. Or as originally intended, I
could use the dancers as a jumping pad
into the religious allegorories in
Silkong that are completely illustrated
in the gameplay. The fact that currency
is rosaries. The fact that the enemies
in the coral chambers are loaded with
them, but those in the underworks are
barely scraping by and don't really drop
any upon defeat. How benches and the
underworks are only for paying
customers, whereas up top they are
abundant and luxurious. How all of this
weaves into your interactions with
Sherma and Pavo. And oh, Jacob Geller
has done this exact video. Damn it.
I guess I should have played Silk Song faster.
faster.
Now, don't get me wrong, nothing but
love for Jacob. That video is
incredible, as is pretty much all of his
work. His video on The Darkest Zelda
made me a better writer. Jacob, if
you're watching this, thank you. But
this happens, you know. Hell, Rasbutin,
who has always been extremely kind to
me, has D'Med me before to joke about
the fact that I made a video before he
was able to get to it. We're all
scrambling to come up with good ideas,
all playing the same games. It's only
natural that we'd often share a brain
cell, but that's okay. The twin boss
fight thing is still a great idea. Son
of a [ __ ] All right. All right. All
right. I I'll admit it. It is a little
frustrating. I I I will I will fully
admit that we're all doing our best, and
I'm never I'm never mad at anyone for
beating me to a topic, but I guess
really more so just disappointed in
myself for not getting there faster. And
that's not a good place to be
creatively. Speed does not foster a
novel thought,
but novel thoughts were easier to have yesterday.
But enough from me. Let's hear from the
Graffiti in the real world feels like a
natural occurrence to me. Never have I
ever witnessed an antill being built. I
just walk outside one day and there they
are. Street art is the same way. I've
never seen something be painted in
person just by happen stance. It's
almost as if some sly little nocturnal
creature comes out and paints it in the
dark. It's incredible to me how these
massive murals somehow feel like they've
always been there, even if I can clearly
see that it's new. They're beautiful.
They're meaningful. If aliens ever
walked Earth's abandoned streets after
we were long gone, they're proof that
humans lived here. Yes, obviously
buildings are proof of that, too. But
this is proof we lived here. Things were
felt. Opinions were had. Imagination was
of value. Which is why I'm always
tickled pink when I find graffiti in
video games. The amount of work that
went into the scrawlings on the
alleyways and subway stations in Alen
Wake 2 is nothing short of
mind-boggling. In Dead Space, this alien
writing on the wall invites you to
imagine someone slowly losing their mind
as they slather this with their fingers.
Wall writing works really well in horror
games. Some examples are better than
others. I really love this one piece in
Stellar Blade that just says crime.
Wait, what did it say before they
patched it? It's one thing to come up
with a fake business and then put that
sign in the game as an asset. It's
another for there to be tatage drawn on
this sign in Yakaza. Street art makes
these places feel lived in. A developer
made this wall texture, but someone from
the neighborhood made this. In an era
where graphics try to emulate people,
graffiti is an underrated way to emulate
population. And I
Whoa, whoa, what's going on here? Ghost
number two wasn't done yet. What you're
looking at is my old desk setup. The
cable management has all the elegance of
a newborn zebra in a bouncy house. It is
stuck at one height, making comfort a
real problem. And there is so little
room that I've got my computer and my
PS5 in a wicker box on the floor. It's
not a fire hazard. Shut up. So, I've
been in the market for a new desk for
quite a while now, especially since I
want something that stands. It's not
hard to find research that supports the
notion that sitting for long hours month
in and month out, will slowly destroy
your body. And since I have this job,
that is a real concern. But standing is
associated with a host of positive
outcomes. So, when Flexis Spot reached
out to me about their E7 Pro standing
desk, oh, I was listening with baited
breath. Here is my new desk setup, and
it immediately addresses pretty much all
of my problems. The computer and PS5
have room to breathe now. The cables are
snugly tucked away into bed. And when,
not if, I inevitably get stir crazy
editing and researching, I can pop this
thing into standing mode and get on my
feet. I can stretch and dance and do FF7
squats. In only a few weeks time, I
already feel lighter. And this thing is
built to give me confidence. One, this
baby has a 440 lb static capacity. It
can hold twice my weight. Two, it is
ridiculously stable, both when I'm
aggressively typing about video game
graffiti and when it's changing heights.
And another thing I love is the variety.
There is a color that will match your
dream office perfectly. And as fate
would have it, Flexispot is having
Christmas sales right now. You can use
my code YTE7P50
for an extra $50 off and get your own E7
Pro standing desk. Or maybe you need a
better seat instead. Use code C750 to
get $50 off the C7 Max, which I have and
has been a gamecher. Thanks again to
Flexispot for sponsoring this ghost.
Sorry about that. The ghosts are a
little rambunctious tonight. Now then,
ghost number two, as you were saying.
Actually, that's that's all I had.
>> What? Really?
>> Yeah, that's that that's kind of it.
This is one of those topics where I
didn't have much of value to say other
than it's cool and rattle off some fun
examples. Why am I explaining this to
you? It was your idea. You tell them.
>> Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting that. The
street art topic is one where I felt
like no matter how much I wrote, I only
had like 5 minutes of video for you
guys. And all I really had to say was
it's cool and it makes video games
better and I like it. There were no real
larger meaningful points. And I have a
lot of videos like this. A lot of videos
I don't even know what this video is
going to be about. I just I I wrote it
down years ago and forgotten my point
was going to be. I never deleted it from
my notes because I thought it was
hilarious and would get clicks if I ever
cracked the code on it. I write every
idea down, regardless of how stupid or
underdeveloped it is. Because sometimes
all I need to come across is one good
example and then a landslide of
connections wash over me. This is how it
happens. Which is why when people reach
out to me for creative advice, I
typically say, "Write everything down."
Because you never want anything to wash
down the drain, especially when it can
resurface years from now. But sometimes
the opposite happens. Sometimes you have
a wonderful idea, but then don't strike
while the iron is hot and then people
stop talking about it. Sometimes, in fact,
fact,
always, it's frightening to write about
something completely unrelated to gaming
Clara Bo was 15 years old when she
responded to the fame and fortune
contest of 1921. "Are you young? Are you
pretty? Can you act?" The newspaper ad
read. If you possess all of these
qualifications, you are exactly what we
are looking for. Attending and winning
this contest would completely change the
life of a young lowerass girl from
Brooklyn. Clara's roots were tragic to
say the least. Her mother once attacked
her with a knife her father once
sexually assaulted her. But in spite of
this, Clarabau in five short years would
grow to become not just Hollywood's new
it girl, but would be the face of a new
age for women's identity in America.
This ad being the spark that lit the
fire as it gave her a chance to be on
screen and in front of producers. Clara
was bouncy, fun, emotive. Where the
other girls in that audition tried to
emulate actresses of the past, Clara was
simply herself. This is what separated
her from the pack. She was this bubbly
anthropomorphic rainbow that wore her
thoughts on her sleeve, which gave her
this almost cartoonish quality. Even
now, a full 100 years later, when you
watch her, she just demands your
attention in a way that none of the
others on screen do. And America loved
her. Oh my goodness. This newspaper from
the time pointed out that she had so
much fan mail coming in that Paramount
installed a private post office for the
over 370,000
pieces of mail each month. Yes, there
were simps even then. You have re your
great granddad had a Clara. But her
influence didn't stop there because the
20s was a time when women's identity in
America was going through a massive
change. After the First World War, the
old Victorian style norms for women
began to melt away. The wardrobe became
less flowy and instead shorter and more
comfortable. Birth control became easier
to find. White women could now vote. All
around it was a decade where a girl
could simply live lighter. And on
screen, Clara carried the torch of this
new confident woman. She became more
than a movie star. She became an ideal,
a symbol, a girl that women across the
nation wanted to emulate, which meant
everything about her became a product.
Lipstick, soap, shoe shine, makeup. This
was one of the first real surges of
consumer culture in the states. And as
Marcia Oruron points out in her book,
Making It in Hollywood, even stars
personal lives were part of this
product. Fan magazines would print,
however untrue, details of what
celebrities did from day to day. She
says, "Not only were the details of the
stars lives made public, they belonged
to the public and were made readily
available, purchasable is perhaps a more
accurate way to put it through the
medium of the fan magazine." And a
tragic implication of this is that for
many actors like Clarabau, they were
robbed of their ability to simply act
and then go home. Clara's fame
especially reached a critical mass.
Every tiny decision or mistake she made
was heavily scrutinized by the public.
If she behaved in a way that this new
modern woman shouldn't, the magazines
would shine a magnifying glass over it.
Her love life was heavily analyzed by
those with a platform to write. Later in
her career, it was often printed that
she was soft, stupid, had never really
been in love, couldn't stay in love, and
bounced from man to man. There was a
miscommunication at a casino that led
the nation to brand her a cheat. One
specific blast in 1931 printed a laundry
list of accusations about her,
including, but not limited to, incest,
drug addiction, alcoholism, orgies, even
beastiality. The grotesque claims were,
of course, false. The man who wrote it
was convicted in a federal court for
liable and sent to prison. But the
article still ran, still circulated,
still sat in front of the nation for
weeks and still made its way to Clara,
who was apparently so shaken at this
that she threw up, became physically and
mentally ill, and willingly checked
herself into a sanatorium. It wasn't
long after this that she severed ties
with Hollywood. She was only 25 years old.
old.
By the way, if you want to know more
about Clara, most of this information
came from this fantastic video by Be
Kindre. Link down below.
And it's haunting to see almost a full
century later. How many story beats of
Clara's life are echoed in a little
manga you've probably heard of called
Oshi Noco? If you somehow avoided it,
Oshino is a manga and anime series that
opens with I Hoshino, a fictional
Japanese pop idol that, like Clara, is
more of an ideal than a person. The
series does a tremendous job of
portraying the Japanese pop idol
industry, and it illustrates many of the
cruel realities that accompany it in the
modern age. Like Clara, I came from
nothing and is now a national phenomena.
Like Clara, I is overworked and
underpaid. Like Clara, I is a product to
be sold and in her words, a lie that
people buy into. She is the portrait of
perfection. She is on screen not for
herself, but for her fans, constantly
seeking the validation that perhaps she
never received as a child. The same
validation that you could argue Clara
was also seeking. And that's my
speculation, of course. But again,
Oshino doesn't shy away from some of the
grittier aspects of the industry. For
one, many real life lawsuits have
occurred in Japan because idols are
breached. There no dating clause imposed
by their agencies. So, when in the first
chapter, I arrives at a hospital
pregnant, it becomes a critical plot
point early on that this be kept secret,
otherwise her entire reputation and
career would come crumbling down. And
it's not just stated here. You see fans
actively hate the idea that their idol
is marrying. There is a sense that by
doing so they are betraying all of the
fans support. There is a vicarious
fantasy that otakus have with idols even
today that is extremely projective by
nature. Just as Clara's private life was
purchasable by the public, so too does
belong to her fans. Just as Clara was
verbally crucified for her dating
habits, I is subject to the same
scrutiny. It's a sickening sight to see
the malice Oshino portrays in some of
these moments and even more disturbing
to imagine that these people not only
still exist, but in some ways even did
in 1931.
And this only scratches the surface of
the, yeah, I'll go ahead and say it,
generational trauma portrayed in Oshino.
These problems reincarnate in the form
of social media and television
production. Just as Clara was sickened
and practically driven mad by the words
printed in that 31 article, Aane
Kurakawa, an actress, is completely
devastated in the wake of a tsunami of
hate she receives for her performance on
a reality show, ultimately driving her
to a numb, cold, rainy evening where she
considers taking her life. Again, I know
I sound like a broken record at this
point. Just like Clara, years after her
retirement, her husband was running for
government office, and the thought of
re-entering the public eye left her so
traumatized that she made an attempt at
her own life. In the note she left, she
stated she preferred death to a public
life. This is the type of anguish that
sinisterly looms over the narrative of
Oshino. Broken people trying to use the
eyes of others to rebuild themselves.
Products who desperately want to be
Well, that's a [ __ ] bummer. Way to
ruin the mood, ghost number five. I
didn't realize spirits could be so ghastly.
Little cold out there. I didn't finish
this video for a handful of reasons. The
main one being, duh, of course, everyone
knows that being a creator in any
capacity means you got to grow tough
skin because people suck. And as a
creator, I didn't want to sound whiny
about my own trials and tribulations,
especially since they aren't near as bad
as Ghost Number Five so eloquently
articulated for us. Another reason is I
missed my window to talk about this. And
this isn't like Silkong. I could have
talked about this anytime in the past
two years. The iron would have been
plenty hot. But I was too afraid to pull
the trigger. It is terrifying to risk a
video not doing numbers and go from
years of gaming videos into a random one
about an actress from the 20s and anime.
It features a dude being reincarnated as
the baby of the 16-year-old girl he had
a crush on. And there's also a
breastfeeding joke. And Jesus Christ, Akakasaka,
Akakasaka,
it's scary to roll those dice.
Especially when I do about sports, it
bombs and [ __ ] up my analytics for like
3 months. Plus, the way that Oshino
ended kind of ruined the series for a
lot of people, and it certainly didn't
cement it as an all-time great for me.
But then again, if I had a dollar for
every manga that I read that ended
perfectly, I'd have $1 in a box set of
Full Metal Alchemist. But despite it
all, I still kind of love Oshino. Aane
is one of the most interesting
characters I've read in the past decade.
Kana is a shallow, self-centered [ __ ]
Yeah, I said it. Fight me. I'm not a
ghost. That video is still getting made.
But yeah, Ghost number five is what I
would call a near miss. I even teased it
a few years back. It's a video that I
wanted to make not because I offered up
any real insight that anyone else who
has read it or talked about it hasn't,
but simply because it spoke to me,
especially at this stage of my career.
There are times when I feel like I have
to be something for the camera. And it's
not just me. I'm sure many professional
social media things out there feel this,
too. What would happen if I didn't have
a big grand point to make in a video?
What if I fall off? What if I do a whole
video on a topic and never once mention
a video game in it? What if I just
rambled in a parking lot in the middle
of the night because I couldn't come up
with a video this month? I get the
pressure of hoping people like your
soulbearing analysis on from soft games.
I get the almost hilarious and life
truly has no meaning sensation of seeing
hundreds of your hours of work pale in
comparison to the mountain of views
received on a random 2-minute Asold
clip. I get like Aane for the first time
this year actually watching as a small
subset of Twitter tears me to pieces for
a silly tweet I composed about
expedition 33 while I was sitting on the
toilet. I am a real person. I hurt like
you do. I am fallible like you are. I am
not a product. And I don't bring this up
to say woe is me. I'm past it. I'm
stronger for it. It was a dumb tweet. I
admit it. I bring it up to hopefully
create the same sensation in you that I
felt when I read Oshi Noo. Empathy and
the comfort that other people have
struggled too. That creating while a
wonderful privilege leaves your soul
exposed to the masses. Just as Taylor
Swift sings in her song Clarabo,
it's hell on earth to be heavenly.
Also, for the record, that was the ghost
quoting Taylor Swift in a video. I would
Uh, hi. Um, as I'm sitting here about to
edit Ghost number six, I was looking
back at the script and the more I read
it, the more I thought, damn, I've
actually got more examples I could talk
about. I've got more things I could add
to this. This could brew into a proper
video. And so,
I'm going to make a pimp decision. Ghost
number six is getting resurrected. We're
going to we're going to monster reborn
Ghost number six and it'll be a full
proper video next year.
Sorry. And you're welcome. I don't I
don't know how to treat this. Um
yeah, we're going to we're going to move
let's speak to our final spirit of the
evening. And I don't really have
anything super interesting to say. No
clever leadup here. just know that this
one is pretty special to me. So, without
in the opening seconds of 500 Days of
Summer, we're met with an author's note.
The following is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to Persons Living or Dead is
purely coincidental. Especially you,
Jenny Beckman. [ __ ]
[ __ ]
These lines immediately get your mind
churning. Okay, whoever wrote this is
angry about a girl. And it's through
this lens that you see Zoe D Chanel's
character Summer in this film. To
quickly give you a plot synopsis of one
of my favorite movies of all time, Tom
Hansen is smitten with Summer, the new
girl in his office, which really sucks
because she ultimately ends up breaking
up with him, leaving him so devastated
that he perches up next to his kitchen
counter and breaks plates repeatedly
while wearing a thousand-y stare. And
this isn't a spoiler. We learn of their
breakup 5 minutes into the film. The
story here is less about them falling in
love and more about diagnosing what
exactly went wrong. Summer is perfect.
He loves her smile, her laugh, the way
she sleeps, the way she likes his type
of music, the way they play like
children together in public. To Tom,
this breakup is a blind side. And
through a handful of details, you can
begin to see his point and in fact may
even start to grow angry with Summer.
She gives quite a few mixed signals. In
one scene when Tom's friend asks if she
has a boyfriend, she says she doesn't
really believe in labels or love. She
likes being free and as a child of
divorce, she doesn't much care to be in
a relationship.
>> Relationships are messy and people's
feelings get hurt. Who needs it?
>> And yet, not 6 minutes later in the
film, when Tom's buddy accidentally
spills the beans about Tom's affections,
she lights up and begins poking him
about it, clearly trying to see if he'll
admit it. And heck, it almost seems like
she'll give him a chance if he can
muster up the courage.
>> Just as friends,
>> I mean, I I don't know. I hadn't really
thought about um Yes.
>> He can't go through with it, though.
Later, she kisses him in the break room
to initiate things, then just doesn't
address it. Here, she reaches for his
hand, but here she hesitates to let him
take hers. After their breakup, she
dances with him at a wedding and invites
him to a party only for her to kind of
blow him off the whole time. And also,
well, I won't spoil that just yet, but
she's a walking contradiction. And
people online agree. It's not hard to
find folks who didn't get the movie and
think that Summer is just all around
horrible. She's manipulative. She leads
him on. She breaks his heart. And this
is exactly how I felt as a 17-year-old
kid watching this movie. I related to
Tom because little high school Daryl had
a summer had a Jenny Beckman. That Daryl
had a massive crush on this girl. And
we'll just call her Jenny to protect the
actual person. Sophomore year, he asked
her out. She never gave an answer. But
then suddenly, she wanted to flirt with
him all the time once he moved on to a
new girl. Fast forward to senior year.
Once he finally outgrew the relationship
with the new girl, he tried to initiate
things with Jenny again. She was the
girl he wanted to be with all along.
Anyway, he asked Jenny to prom. She said
yes, only for her to kind of ditch him
for his friend and and eventually date
that friend instead. Um, it's immensely
sad and hilarious looking back, but
Jenny broke poor little Daryl's tiny
heart. So discovering 500 days of summer
after all of that happened was hugely
cathartic. To know that he wasn't the
only one who received mixed signals. To
see that other people have felt the
plate smashing Twinkie inhaling. She
took a giant [ __ ] on my face. Literally
heartbreak is him. >> Literally.
>> Literally.
>> Not lit. That's disgusting. Jesus.
What's mad with you?
>> That's like my favorite part of the
movie. The point is, in high school,
this film was infinitely relatable, at
least from a 17-year-old me's perspective.
perspective.
Fast forward to college. I showed this
movie to a really cute girl, and she
liked it, but she disagreed with me on
one big point. She said, "Summer isn't
the villain here. Tom is."
And I thought, "Huh, that's odd. This
girl is really smart. I can't believe
she'd be so wrong." and then I dismissed
it. But over the years, I'd keep this
movie in rotation and with every watch,
I'd begin to see that she was right. And
I think this is what's so brilliant
about 500 Days of Summer. It's a movie
that changes as you mature. Let's take a
look at it from a different angle.
Seconds after that author's note, we see
a young Tom and the narrator says, "Tom
grew up believing that he'd never truly
be happy until the day he met the one."
This belief stemmed from early exposure
to sad British pop music
>> and a total misreading of the movie The Graduate.
Graduate.
>> And if you've seen The Graduate, you
know it's not a love story. Not really.
The final shot of the film isn't the
couple kissing as the camera pans away
to orchestral fanfare. It's them sitting
in the back of a bus as the sobering,
lifealtering reality of their actions
sinks in. the quiet discomfort that
follows indulging childish impulses. But
this is not how Tom saw it. To him, the
film romanticized the idea that love was
more important than anything else in
life. He is desperate for it and
completely misses the point of the film,
just as little 17-year-old Daryl missed
the point of this one. And so in those
opening seconds, the movie establishes
that Tom is both angry about a girl and
if you're paying attention, a wildly
unreliable narrator. And we see this in
so many ways. The film presents their
relationship in this very jarring back
and forth manner where you see them
happy and then it immediately jumps to
days when Tom is lamenting their breakup
or when things are falling apart in
front of his eyes. It purposely takes
these beautiful moments and contrasts
them with sobering ones to make you feel
like he does. It's a jumble of joy and
agony which only intensifies the remorse
at what could have been. When Tom is
happy, the screen is washed over with
shades of blue, water, trains,
wallpapers, and seats. backup dancer
outfit, which by the way is the color
Summer wears in almost every scene,
subtly queuing you to associate Summer
with his happiness. When he's
devastated, the blues are gone. It's
almost like the color has drained from
his world. His story revolves around
her, and it's unhealthy. And the way
these memories are cut together, it very
much supports his side of the story. But
later in the film, Tom's sister suggests
that maybe if he takes a look back, he
may realize that things weren't as
perfect as he imagined. And if you do
this, if you try to look at Summer's
actions in the film, not through Tom's
eyes, you see a different story. Summer
is clear multiple times that she does
not want a serious relationship. And
while that's contradictory to how much
time she spends with Tom, it actually
shows that she is trying. From her
perspective, what once might have felt
like scenes of her leading him on slowly
become moments where you can see her
giving him a real chance, testing out
what a life with him would feel like.
One of their biggest dates is in IKEA,
where they literally pretend to be an
old married couple. The scene in the
breakroom reads as her trying out a kiss
with him instead of giving into her wild
desires. And when the whole no labels
thing finally comes to blows, she even
shows up to his doorstep to apologize,
clearly taking some responsibility for
how frustrating this must be for him.
So, the breakup, while tragic at the
start, suddenly feels like the only
natural course of action when you look
at the full picture. But I think the
real nail in the coffin to 17-year-old
me and the folks that really can't stand
Summer is this moment at her party,
which spoilers, but hey, you you've come
this far now, right? Is this moment at
her party when despite all of that talk
of no labels, Summer is engaged.
What on earth happened to her
philosophy? How come she couldn't be
Tom's girlfriend, but has no problem
being someone else's wife? It makes you
furious upon first viewing. If you
relate to Tom, it made me furious all
those years ago, and it culminates with
Tom quitting his job, going back to his
old profession of architecture, and
trying to build the life he originally
intended for himself before he settled
for this office job. And in one of my
favorite shots of the film, we get this
parallel. Tom stoically rides on a bus
as he starts from scratch. And Summer
wears a glittering smile on her wedding
day. High school me felt such a profound
anger here that it it broke me out of my
sadness and made me want to do
something. And it's around that time
that I began taking the prospect of
college seriously. I thought, "Fuck
Jenny. [ __ ] summer. [ __ ] love. I'm tired
of losing. I'm moving forward now.
And the beautiful thing is that was my
favorite shot then because it was
motivating and it's still my favorite
shot today for a totally different
reason. One of the things that is kind
of glossed over in this movie is how
often Summer encourages Tom to get back
into architecture. In fact, their first
real conversation is basically, "Hey,
why are you doing greeting cards when
you're clearly passionate about
architecture?" and she presses him about
this in little ways throughout their
time together. But again, it's Tom's
perspective. These moments feel less
about his career and more about how
wonderful Summer is for believing in
him. So, in the final act, when he takes
his life in his own hands and properly
pursues it, you get the sense that this
is the real value. Tom is learning to
love himself. And I think that's the
real moral. It's certainly one thing I
took away from this film when I decided
to really start looking into college.
But also, I think it's important we take
a look at Tom's response when Summer
initially says she doesn't believe in
labels or love.
>> Well, I think you're wrong.
>> Okay. Well,
what is it that I'm missing then?
>> I think you know when you feel it.
>> While from Tom's perspective, Summer's
engagement is an outrage, he completely
overlooks the fact that this is her
architecture. She as a person grew from
their time together.
He was right. She even tells him this.
>> I just kept thinking Tom was right. >> No.
>> No.
>> Yeah, I did.
>> And while it hurts that it wasn't him,
the fact that she can love someone means
that their time together mattered. This
shot Tom on the bus riding to an
interview Summer on her wedding day
isn't a tragedy. It's a triumph. In this
moment, both of them are pursuing
something they were once desperately
afraid of. All thanks to their paths
crossing. She taught him how to be brave
in pursuing his dreams. He taught her to
be brave in pursuing what her parents
didn't have. Despite it all, they healed
one another. And as an adult, seeing
Summer's perspective and realizing how
wrong I was back in high school, I can
begin to see how things might have been
different. In retrospect, maybe if I had
waited for Jenny to give me an answer
instead of cowardly running to another
girl to avoid rejection, things would
have been different. Maybe if I had
clarified, "No, I don't want to go to
prom as just friends," the story would
have had a different ending. But you
know what? I'm infinitely grateful it
didn't. Because it didn't, I ended up
meeting that cute girl who made me think
differently about this film, the girl
who would eventually become my wife, my
equivalent of Tom's autumn. And if how I
handled things with Jenny was a mistake,
it has been the most grand and
magnificent mistake of my entire life.
12 years later, 4,453
days of autumn later, this story is
still unfolding. 500 Days of Summer was
never a romance film. It is a story that
finds value in a near miss and plants
seeds of gratitude that blossom over a
decade later when you realize how much
Yeah, I should have just resurrected
Ghost number seven. That was that was a
that was a complete video. But I think
500 Days of Summer is a really good one
to end this on because it swirls up all
of these dead ideas into one giant ball
of cotton candy, if you will. sometimes
almost and should haves and regrets and
never had the courage to teach us more
about ourselves than our accomplishments
do. Why were you so afraid? What did
that failure help you focus on? Was that
person really trying to hurt you or were
you just looking down on the situation
from a heartbroken balcony of self-importance?
And writing about all of these almost
has brought me a certain amount of peace
and in fact a tremendous amount of
courage. Every time I sat down to write
these ideas out, I without fail thought,
[ __ ] should I just make this? And I
think that is going to be my philosophy,
not just in 2026, but with every video
moving forward, with every decision
moving forward.
Life is far too precious to spend time
grieving the ghosts of things you never
did, words you never said, people you
never called. Don't just lament what
never was. Learn from it. Celebrate it.
Accept it. After all,
you're still breathing. You ain't a
spirit yet.
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
