For a full-length director's commentary on this video, including easter eggs and sections that didn't make it into the video, join my patreon at www.patreon.com/JacobGeller
Obama says that PewDiePie has bigger pp than me. Have an opportunity to smell it on ma channel before it's recommended after 10 years. Let's make this come in next lwiay !
Honestly, whether I agree with you or not, I think you have the best writer's brain of anyone on this platform. The sun in Dark Souls is actually just how bright your future is in writing. Keep doing what you're doing man.
"Realizing how much beauty has always existed so near to you, and yet you weren't able to see it." Immediately plucked my heartstrings and gave me chills. It reminds me of what its like to come out of a depressive episode. Sometimes life's so beautiful I want to cry, and sometimes it's so gray and hazy that I simply can't.
"sometimes life is so beautiful i want to cry, and somwtimes it's so gray and hazy that i simply can't" is what gave me chills and made me tear up. I know exactly what you mean because I've felt both ends of the spectrum a lot, but to see it put into words and shared by other humans is so viscerally touching.
Oh my god, thank you so much for telling about "17776", I spent the whole day reading it without breaks and only finished a minute ago. Thank you so much, Jacob. It's a gem of a story.
Ever had a power supply explode while in use? Smells just like an Australian bush fire, and there was plenty of smoke thanks to my Antec 900's large top fan.
Ultimate power play: the guy known for his emotionally charged, poetic video essays decides he can't do an Edvard Munch quote justice, and so calls in the one guy known for even _more_ emotionally charged video essays to read that single line. I'm in awe of the power.
My city was almost subsumed in a massive wildfire at one point. We beat it, fought it to a standstill so precise it was like our city had walls, but it's always stuck with me. What was burned into my memory, more than any other image, was the ash cloud as it rolled in. It literally extended from the ground straight up into the sky. In a way I'd never imagined before, I saw exactly how high the clouds where, and they dwarfed my city so completely that a thing the height of that wall of ash would be as tall as my city was wide three or four times over. It curved as the day went on, and it looked like the entire surface of the planet was curling up to fall on me in some kind of cosmic catastrophe.
The human brain isn't designed to understand how stupidly big everything is. Clouds are floating seas of water vapor, ridiculously high up, but we just see them as part of the background scenery most of the time.
@@sammshoyu8434 ik, i went to a sloss furnace in arizona and the sheer size of the rusted vats and machinery really made the place feel even more empty than it should
On the flip side, seeing the aftermath of towns ravaged by wildfire is humbling in a different sense. Oftentimes the only thing left of a home after a wildfire is the fireplace and chimney. They stand straight and tall on an empty plot where a foundation was. It feels like looking inside someone’s home and yet there’s nothing there anymore. All that was built, the sweat and memories and wood that made up that home are gone, the same as the surrounding forest. Driving through a burned out town feels like driving through a copse of bones. Punctuated by the odd patch of untouched land, an unmarred house with a green lawn and decorations still in their places. Wildfires are humbling in so many ways. They block out the sun, change the color of the sky and turn the air into a wall of blackened, poisonous debris. They burn hot and bright, they turn the world upside down into a place where the ground is bright and blinding and the sky is dark and heavy. And when they are gone their destruction is as contradictory as their presence. Lonely brickwork devoid of the humans that once gave it warmth side by side living homes seemingly oblivious to fact that they should be nothing but ash. That was entirely overly pedantic but living in wildfire country has given me some Feelings about them.
For a man who regularly connects deeply with games, this brings to mind my favorite line from 17776, “The point of play is to distract from play being the point.” We have plenty of work that we need to do in the face of the world today, but the statement of 17776 that when left to our own devices, at our core nature, free from stress and fear and the frameworks of a bigger world... we play. That’s special to me.
Last year, in spring 2019, i attended a protest that centred around a pink boat being parked in the middle of oxford circus, one of the busiest roads in central London, and for a glorious week we got to see what that area would be like without cars. i dont think you can really understand how much we sacrifice to cars until you've seen what it's like when they're gone. These paths of congestion and pollution and danger criss-crossing through the city were replaced by people, not stepping on each others heels, not getting mad when people slow down in front of you, not having to step into the danger of traffic to pass someone walking in the opposite direction, but able to walk ten abreast and free. for an environmentalist protest i think it made a pretty strong case for itsself. There was a similar protest by the same people in Cardiff last year, with similar results, and this year when we went back again we found that permanent seating had been installed in the middle of the road, and barriers either end to keep cars out. it seems the city saw the same vision that i had, as small as these bay steps are.
You should definitely look up Japan's Omotesando area in Tokyo. They close to car traffic for purely pedestrian traffic on Sundays. It gave me the same feeling you had at seeing the roads completely taken over by people.
@@dreamdesk7258 There's one big problem I first had contextualized when reading World War Z, urban sprawl. What is city anymore? Plus, the infrastructure doesn't yet exist for the other methods of transportation thanks to mistakes of the past, and the momentum of actions already behind us puts us further and further from that dream every day.
This is the first time I've actually stopped watching a video to go read something a youtuber recommended before finishing their video and boy do I not regret reading 17776
omg, thank you! I didn't know it had sequels. I read 17776 couple month ago and can't stop thinking abot this thing! One of the greatest books, (if you can call it so) i've evere read
I stopped watching the House of Leaves episode to read the book and the Disco Elysium video to finish the game. HOL I started 3 days ago, Disco Elysium still needs to be finished.
@@liquidmech1727 there's allegedly a sequel called 20021 in the works too! or there was before the pandemic, not sure if it'll still happen. still crazy that i just found this video, and immediately thought of 17776 lol
So glad to see someone talking about 17776! An all-time favorite for sure. Loved how you transitioned from the forgotten lawn as seen in 17776 to the forgotten lawn as rendered in MFS2020, really nice touch!
this is why I hate making skyscrapers and cities in Minecraft. The taller I build skyscrapers, the longer/wider parks and streets became, the more distinct everything looked, the more it resembled real-life cities, the more it felt empty and unnatural. The savanna I used as space full of trees and animals now is just an entire group of deserted furnished skyscrapers and buildings, the vast open field now filled with inhabited streets and sidewalks, the forest now burned to the ground just for my little own replica of the world. All that effort into the architecture just makes me sad and empty in the end.
That's why I always build underground. I start in a large hill, and just dig. The natural landscape gets preserved, and I still get unlimited space for my creations.
"There's an uncomfortable kinship we share with volcanoes: both able to demolish ecosystems, change atmospheric composition, inspire great art, both able to create cities without people. The difference between the annihilation of a volcano and the annihilation of we've slowly been building to since... [shows disaster clips] ...is that we can see ours coming. And while this means that it is inexcusable that we've built our own Vesuvius, it also means that we have the power to prevent a situation where the shells of bodies litter the streets for future historians to find. Just as in 17776 we do have the power to get everyone out, rehouse the entire population. This is not a fantastical goal, this is achievable; it doesn't even require us to magically stop aging first. Humans matter more than concrete, full stop." I always end up transcribing long parts of your videos to share because you have such a way with words, my goodness And also?? Much love for Football 17776 oh my god, I forgot about it so thank you so much for writing about it !!
“Humans matter more than concrete, full stop.” Too bad out governments refuse to agree with this sentiment and even worse we as citizens have no power to change it as our means to vote, protest, and even criticize our masters are stripped away more and more every day.
Seriously what a statement. That holds so much power. This is why I love Jacob's videos. The editing, scripts, and imagery always manages to have a profound and inspirational affect on me.
"There is an uncomfortable kinship we share with volcanoes, both able to demolish ecosystems, change atmospheric composition, inspire great art. Both able to create cities without people." That part was so exquisitely written with a great narration and tone as well as being supported with beautiful background sceneries. I honestly couldn't but clap, well done sir!
My favorite part of the forgotten lawns bit of 17776 is the last bit; “You know who would have wandered out there? Just to do it?” “Children.” “children.”
I find 17776 sadder than most people, I think. The comfort humans find is comforting to read about, and the idea that _play_ reveals itself as the bedrock of humanity is a beautiful one. But the idea that _curiosity_ dies, not just in some people but from the entire species, twists my gut and nags at me. We're told _nobody_ is still trying to figure out why we became immortal. _Nobody_ is still trying to explore more of space. Worst, human minds have been active for millennia but the form of the 21st century still dominates their lives. I can't object to the happiness humanity finds in that future, but I find it overwhelmingly melancholy anyway. Would _I_ lose my curiosity if I lived that long? Will I lose it in my mortal lifetime? _Who will I be when I'm no longer capable of change?_ I think I'm wrong when I say 17776 makes me sad. It actually terrifies me.
Ditocoaf I don’t remember where but someone told me that death is what gives life meaning. when we know that we only have a certain amount of time on this earth we try to make the years leading up to death worthwhile. But immortality can be more of a curse. If you yourself are immortal and nobody else is it can be ridiculously lonely. If everyone is immortal than they lose the need to do anything because in the end it won’t matter. When I face thought experiments like this. I go outside and I stare at the trees and the sky and realize that I’m still here and my home is still here, the trees are still green, I wasn’t killed in a solar flare. I’m still here and so is society. Instead of thinking about inevitability, fight for gratefulness. You don’t have to give in to the unchangable darkness or let yourself fall into the despair so easily. “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
I almost started crying when you talked about how alienating all this is. I'm often consumed by this crushing sorrow, even rage, at how loneliness is literally carved into our world, separating us all from each other and from what makes us human.
@@jimmybean420 He's right. It's a really melodramatic comment you can only get from chronic internet overdose or severe personal isolation. The world's not that bleak. It's a very pretty place. Visit some friends.
@@Freak80MC It's not that bleak and i'm gay. There's shit people, but a lot of people are nice, too. Most people, even. You can spend your whole life grieving that some people choose to be assholes, but most people want to be good, they're just lost.
This feels like a spiritual successor to the Universal Paperclips/Space Engine video, kinda like how Fear of Depths was a successor to the Bloodborne Chalice Dungeon video. And oh boy was it effective. It truly is quite something to have a video's footage almost entirely derive from a single game + the real world (and 17776's world too of course), all the layers of reality - not just any old realities, but specifically realities of our own geographical world - mixing and merging with each other in a wonderful dance of editing. Very good work! And I really appreciate you touching on the hopeful aspects of 17776 too. I am very sick of doom and gloom apocolypse stories even if they are 'more realistic' futures than the ones I prefer to see. Certainly the sci-fi universe I want to write is going to lean less gloomy at least. :)
If you want some more comforting examples of progress, check out the Not Just Bikes channel on UA-cam. By all means, we need to hear the bad news, too, but as you say, it's good to remember the good news too :) .
@@nairocamilo may I humbly submit for your list the genre Solarpunk? I find to be a really cool movement, especially good for folks concerned with the environment
Generality I would prefer to interpret it as a condemnation of the present we have created, and a warning of what the future could be if nothing is changed - and in some cases, a fear of how much power we actually have to change it from the course we’ve already set it towards. Not in the sense of “it’s not worth trying”, but rather... “how much can we still do?”
Roads fade away. "The highway" moved from one side of my farm to the other 90 years ago. The blacktop decayed to gravel. Trees keep trying to sprout in it. A pothole filled with leaves turns to grass. I can barely fit an ATV through the walls of pressing forest.
This is so true. If you removed all humans from the earth today, in a hundred years, you'd barely be able to tell we were ever here. I find this comforting.
@@ahobimo732 mm... But our plastics would remain. Our garbage. Skyscrapers, things we love, would surely crumble and fall eventually. But the nuclear waste? The tons of microplastics and toxins? Those aren't going anywhere, at least at the moment
@@salamencerobot Those things are actually pretty irrevelant and won't matter much to life on earth, look at chernobyl for example, its not a wasteland but a wildlife refuge
Flight simulator X had it's fair share of eastereggs and... weird missions back in the day so I would only be very slgihtly surprised if it turned up somewhere in FS2020
"anti apocalyptic fantasy" Thank you for putting this into words. Man, I neede dthat. I feel like so many people these days succumb to a sort of "humans are bad and we deserve to die and soon we will destroy earth anyway" mentality. I can emphasize with that way of thought, but I also know it's not good for me and I cannot deal with this all the time. And to achieve positive change we need positivity, we need hope and we need reminders on how humans can be good and how we are part of this beautiful, incredible world we live in. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.
I love how the shots of you in the woods featured a fence confining nature from the cars just barely visible through the trees. Fantastic work as always
That part at the beginning, about cars and parking lots, was weird for me as a European. I'm like, what the heck, why is there so much parking space???? In our cities it has to be hidden umderground, or stacked in multi-floor parking lots, an it's always full, and never enough. I am honestly speechless that parking lots this big exist in the US. Goddamn you guys have so much space. Side note, I also love clouds. When I'm feeling down on a cloudy day, I say to myself, "There is always sun behind those clouds". And I imagine how great it would look if I flew over them in an airplane. And I feel a bit better :)
Multi floor parking lots in the US are so terrible. No one wants to park there when the spaces are always too small (sometimes uneven), you can never see around corners if someone is coming, and it's not uncommon to come back and find someone hit your bumper and fled. The only alright ones seem to be in airports. Maybe it's only the parking lots I've been to, but I hope Europe has better layouts than the ones here.
Alice Is Calling they’re probably pretty similar in space and general shittiness but European cars are generally much smaller than American cars so it’s not really noticed.
@@dantaylor9132 Yeah, there is SUV trend like in the US, but also big parking and big supermarkets are less of a thing in general in at least western europe. There are still big stores like that but usually it's stuff like IKEA and tool stores and stuff that require warehouses. Europe is just more urban that the US
As a pilot and former flight instructor, I was deeply touched by your enthusiasm and of you have not already looked into it, I think you should look up your local flight school and ask about doing a Familiarization Flight. They take you up, let you fly for a few minutes, and give you a basic idea on how to fly. Its exhilarating, and maybe you can get close to one of the miles tall, miles wide clouds that you look up towards. That said, the mood whiplash caught me full bore, and while I am flying home today, looking out over the empty prairie covered in an infinite grid of evenly spaced roads, I think I am going to feel a little sad.
Yes I did one of these when I was 16 and now am studying to get my PPL. Definitely one of the best experiences of my life just to be up there with all the world below you and all the freedom you can ask for.
The story of the volcano sunset reminds me of the poem “Never Again the Same” by James Tate. I’ll paste it here - I think you’d enjoy it. Speaking of sunsets, last night’s was shocking. I mean, sunsets aren’t supposed to frighten you, are they? Well, this one was terrifying. Sure, it was beautiful, but far too beautiful. It wasn’t natural. One climax followed another and then another until your knees went weak and you couldn’t breathe. The colors were definitely not of this world, peaches dripping opium, pandemonium of tangerines, inferno of irises, Plutonian emeralds, all swirling and churning, swabbing, like it was playing with us, like we were nothing, as if our whole lives were a preparation for this, this for which nothing could have prepared us and for which we could not have been less prepared. The mockery of it all stung us bitterly. And when it was finally over we whimpered and cried and howled. And then the streetlights came on as always and we looked into one another’s eyes- ancient caves with still pools and those little transparent fish who have never seen even one ray of light. And the calm that returned to us was not even our own.
Pollution has been my number one fear. When i was 6 i wanted to become an environmental scientist to prevent the incoming apocalypse. I chose this path originally because of fear and guilt, but now... i choose this path because of my hope.
'If you look long enough, you will find a parking spot. That's not a promise that can be kept if you're looking for a home.' As always, incredible video with a superbly written script. I'm surprised how bleak this one was, from how we've changed our world and landscape to suit our lifestyle, to how our world and landscape will change directly against us, and how we're doing so little to slow this process that you worded it as though it was completely unavoidable. I'm glad you didn't skirt around these truths, even though as an audience they can be hard to stomach. Cheers for the recommendations, I'll be reading Football 17776 and Exhalation now!
One moment in 17776 I love is when a character says that 'I wonder if there's a single place in the whole world that's never had a story' and talks about how something interesting has happened almost everywhere in America. It's not really related to the topic of this video, but I really like that thought.
Honestly, Nancy and the Bartender Conversation (and especially the video chapter right before it) was what really let me know on the first time read that this wasn't just a funny story about football in the future.
as someone who played and loved all of Outer Wilds it really kicked my emotional response to the video into overdrive. This man knows just how and when to use audio and visuals to accent his fantastic writing.
I randomly clicked on this video to listen to in the background of cleaning my house. Found myself unable to clean my room and instead fully on the verge of tears for most of the video. Jesus. My stomach is in a knot, in the best way possible. This is a beautiful video and you are a seriously talented creator.
@@Professor_Utonium_ Elon Musk: Here's cars, but better and fancy tunnels for them to drive in Workers in the global South getting poisoned to dig up all the lithium for the batteries: *sigh*
@@theiveyed8677 Exactly, there is always a cost to everything. But it's not always a bad thing. Had people not made sacrifices (or unfortunately forced others to do so), we'd still all have mud roofs and no electricity.
@@emiki6 Well.. Mud roofs encourage bugs, rodents, they stink and drip in rainstorms. Electricity gives us light, warmth, and has allowed us to expand our knowledge and improve quality of life in a lot of countries. Would you really rather live in African slums, challenged by disease and living isolated from the other world due to the absence of the technology electricity has given us, or live how first world countries do now.
I recently took a friend of mine to go see stars for his first time. While the spot we went wasn't the best and I was a bit disappointed about how little we could see he was stunned by seeing them for the first time. That moment is something I will cherish.
Are you talking about like stars in the night sky? Do you live in a city with lots of ambient light or something? I live in the desert southwest in California and I am so used to a sky crowded with stars I had to read your comment twice and think about reasons someone could possibly be viewing stars for the first time. I appreciate my night sky. If I knew someone had never seen stars like I see every night I would have to make sure they got to see them too.
@@JohnRay1969 i live in the burbs and i can usually see, very faintly, just orion if the sky is completely clear. I only saw a clear night sky once as a child on a camping trip. One day soon, now that im an adult with adult money, i want to see the milky way :)
@@nguiklian I live in Phoenix, AZ and even at 3am it's so bright from ambient nightlife that you cant see more than a few scattered stars. I hope to see the milky way some day soon too :)
you bringing up 17776 was such a pleasant surprise. i love that story to death and i have such fond memories of reading the updates every day they came out
im 15 seconds in and i'm already enamored by his love for clouds because man, clouds are great they're so big and the thunderous ones are so scary that they almost feel like day to day eldritch horrors, things that are far greater than us and just kinda do their own thing
The volcanic sunset takes a new meaning for me having experienced something similar living in Philadelphia and seeing a blood red sun and pink sky from the fires in Oregon. A fire on the literal other side of the country
The exchange that aches the most in 17776 is "JASON: He just ... we said we were gonna meet up in Charleston. LORI: But Charleston is JASON: Charleston, West Virginia. LORI: Oh! Oh yeah, right. Supposed to have good biscuits, right?" 15000 years on and they still instinctively think of Charleston SC 15000 years mourning a city
it's easier to imagine Manhattan Island underwater; movies love to do it. it's much harder for me to reckon that it means somewhere like Savannah GA is much deeper. and in reminiscing on drowned homes, i remembered Lake Lanier. weird how i spent my time at summer camps on the shore of a lake with a literal town in it.
Yeah and LA, San Francisco, Seattle, all underwater. So weird. Biggest cities on the west coast would all be gone or dead, and then life elsewhere goes on as normal.
It's amazing what you notice when you're in a area off peak hours. Or even just off the arteries through the area for longer than it takes somebody to park.
In a reverse of the Himalayas example, I moved to Denver and was able to see the Rockies very clearly from the street I'm on. Because of the wildfire smoke, though, there's been entire weeks where they've been completely obscured.
21:13 You can hear the undertone of this music piece from a mile away. It is beautiful. The use of End Times from Outer Wilds here is the perfect song to encapsulate this weird feeling towards the end of the world. Mild spoilers for Outer Wilds: This song accompanies the sun exploding. For some video game songs, hearing them gave me a sense of anxiety as I looked for a fight or knew something bad was coming. For this it inspired a weird sort of melancholy feeling as you watch the world burn into nothing. It isnt panicked as there is nothing you can do at that point, but it is the perfect theme for this kind of discussion of the apocalypse in this toned down, cold way
Haha yeah I just played the game a month ago so the audio immediately had me feeling things. Beautiful game and really neat reference on Geller’s part.
I kinda had a profound, visceral reaction to this one. I watch a lot of video essays, it's basically my preferred genre, but these ones that you make always seem to reach out and pluck my heart free with a cloying feeling of ennui. I feel like these are the videos that will haunt me for decades.
Mr Geller, I know you will never see this, but I am a teen that this world is being given to, and you have given me this painful hope of salvation that I haven't had in years
It's people like you Thomas that give us old fogeys a glimmer of hope. Like they said in the 60s: don't trust anyone over 35! I can't trust people my age to care about more than their mortgage payments and tax rates. It's a deeply toxic desire to not care about what troubles the world.
Don't hope, work for it. It's not fair that you inherited a mess, but if you don't fix your part of it, all you will do is pass off a mess to someone else a few decades from now. Hoping is a dangerous thing.
@@Professor_Utonium_ Ah, so you want this teen to overthrow capitalism all by himself? It's this individualist mindset that got us trapped here in the first place. Stop perpetuating it. All we can do now is form mutual aid networks, unions, and eat the rich.
I come back to this video every 8 months or so because it gives me chills. Also this introduced me to 17776 which I have now read all of, and is now my favorite written work.
man this video probably hit hard for anybody living in a state bordering the coast, huh? from the sudden hit of the implication of the entire east coast drowned under water, some of the oldest cities in america with the most rich history and proud people drowned, lost _forever,_ to the suddenly REAL and present descriptions of volcanic sunsets, and red skies, contrasted with our own red skies, skies i personally have been living near (and in, not to as much as an extent, but the sickly yellows of spokanes sky this week have been getting to me) on the west coast really fucked me up.
Have you heard of Build The Earth? It's a project in Minecraft that's been underway for a bit, the goal is to build a 1 to 1 scale replica of everything on earth, with what you said at the end about preserving our present world, the people working on it have pretty much the same goal, I think you'd find it interesting.
@kevin willems it really is so vastly underadvertised in the scope of bois' work. he has millions of views combined on his youtube video essays, yet i'd imagine because 17776 is hosted exclusively on a sports website, it gets less traffic from a larger audience that would appreciate it.
Maybe I did forget what an impact this video essay had on me. I’ve been thinking about that book, How a Game Lives. Preordering the deluxe edition and how much these video essays have set a foundation for how I think and how I feel. The idea that something so beautiful might be lost is heartbreaking but also I want so dearly to be able to have hope to hope for anything better than what we currently have. I want so badly to have a conversation that doesn’t end with “well that’s the world we live in” or “there’s nothing we can do about it.” I want people to understand that there’s more that we can do. Even if we feel powerless maybe we can do something about it. I hope we can at least. I hope it isn’t too late. I hope we don’t grow complacent. I hope that everything will turn out just fine…
I feel like the closest to this idea of "cities without people" was in Grand Theft Auto IV. At one point, while playing the multiplayer, there were so many people fighting the cops at the airport that it bugged out and despawned every car in the game except at the airport and it was such a fun experience walking across Liberty City from the airport to alderney
Just discovered your channel today with "Fear Of Cold" and have been marathon watching for a few hours, and when that Outer Wilds song crept in I immediately began crying. You've definitely earned my subscription to your channel.
"It's like if you made a cornhole simulator, and started by programming the residual impact of the big bang" is probably my favorite thing you have ever said in one of your videos
17776 is one of my favorite pieces of media ever. I’m so glad you’re bringing attention to it. It’s such an incredible experience that I wish more people knew about. I absolutely adore it. You’re the first youtuber I’ve seen mention it.
your mention of 17776 literally gave me goosebumps. I remember being there when it first got popular and it was such a quaint & surreal experience that I sometimes forget that I read it at all.
this was my first video ive seen from you, aftrer seeing it in the sidebar for a while. i subscribed as soon as it was over. and i feel like i shot a post-rock album straight into my veins lol not just character and delivery but the dark and light mixed mood throughout, gloom and hope.
A shorter version of that Himalayas story happened to my dad. He was in Guangzhou in the 90s for an extended business trip. The first few weeks there was nothing of not out the window of his hotel. Then one day, the winds had shifted enough long enough that the smog was gone and a radio tower on a hill about a mile away was now visible. Was a real shock to him and he was glad he wasn't staying too much longer.
"In the same way you might follow a river if you're lost in the wild" Please, don't do that. Water finds its way down in the fastest way possible. If you are in terrain that is at all steep, this means it goes down gullies that wind up out in the middle of cliff faces, where you have to either backtrack for miles to find a safe way up out of the gully or just sit there at the cliff hoping search and rescue will spot you. (In fairness, that latter strategy is somewhat viable: here in BC they know where those places are and make a point of checking them because of this myth of wilderness survival that will get you killed in mountainous terrain. If you want to get to safety in mountainous terrain, look for safe ways down. You are almost always looking for something that is off the mountain, because building on top of mountains is way harder than building in valleys. Keep track of water sources, certainly, it's a valuable resource in keeping you alive and functional enough to keep walking. But don't follow the rivers, they will bring you to waterfalls, not safety. By looking for safe ways down, you'll wind up in a valley, possibly the one with civilization in it, but probably not. Once you're down in the relatively mild terrain of the valley, then you can follow a river for a bit. If it's a big valley. Also, regardless, make a point of leaving a trail that people can track. Any animal that's hunting you is doing it by scent, which is difficult to break. Any human that's looking for you will be using visual tracking clues, so make their job easy for them, because that job is getting you home alive.
@@nathanaelraynard2641 It is, and it works in low terrain. Problem is, in mountains, you run into the ravines first...and you don't survive taking the water's path to the town.
Thanks, almost did a kayaky and went down the river here, I was getting desperate. Glad I opened this video and saw your comment. (For clarification purposes my comment is a joke)
@@OBryanAguiar I know it sounds silly, but I live in a part of the world where hikers in mountains getting screwed over by this "follow the river" advice is very common. I habitually respond to instances of that advice in hopes that someone who gets into that situation will remember my response and take a safer approach.
I wonder if someone somewhere out there had just enough juice in their phone and a small glimmer if wifi to see your comment and was able to save their life with the advice you just gave them. What are the chances it saves any of us in the future?
My first experience with this channel was fear of the depths and it shares quite a lot in common with this video in terms of the way it makes me feel and think about things that both awe and terrify me that are both so familiar and so far out of reach.
I just absolutely love the build up of the intro. It goes into all the fascinations of MFS accompanied by the amazing soundtrack of Super Mario Galaxy...and then that sudden hit and cutoff of “It has- ...‘Cities Without People’”. It suddenly hit me: “Huh, I mean I know it’s called Microsoft FLIGHT Simulator, but there’s an eeriness to having an almost exact replica of the Earth, but absolutely no people.” It’s my favorite intro among all the videos you’ve ever done.
yesterday morning it finally started raining, and around 6 pm i went outside and saw the clouds and the horizon and the pine trees on the mountains in the distance for the first time since september 7th, and the air inside the hallway outside my room didn't smell like a fireplace in a log cabin anymore. waking up, opening your eyes and seeing the light shine bright orange through your dorm window every morning feels like a nightmare. this video made me tear up thank you :)
I've watched this video more times than I can count and every time I hear Mr. Eyepatch Wolf I still get unreasonably excited. It just rules to see two of my favorite video essayists collaborate, even if only briefly.
For a full-length director's commentary on this video, including easter eggs and sections that didn't make it into the video, join my patreon at www.patreon.com/JacobGeller
"SUPLEX THAT EQUUS!!!!"-Macho Man Randy Savage.
Obama says that PewDiePie has bigger pp than me. Have an opportunity to smell it on ma channel before it's recommended after 10 years. Let's make this come in next lwiay !
your playing music from mario be careful Nintendo can take your video down maybe
SURPRISE SUPEREYEPATCHWOLF CAMEO, JACOB YOU AMAZING MAN YOU! You guys are the best! I'm addicted to your incredible videos/essays. Thank you!
Hey. Could you tell me the soundtrack you use from 14:48 - 18:48? And the violin piece just after that?
Me: Say the line, Jacob!
Jacob: I think about it a lot.
Me: *cheering*
we've all gotta have a brand
top notch comment here
@@JacobGeller not related to this conversation, but nice beard
I can't believe I never clocked that he says this in practically every video!
@@noahmorris1015 Oh, it doesn't take _any_ thinking for Jacob to top Notch.
Honestly, whether I agree with you or not, I think you have the best writer's brain of anyone on this platform. The sun in Dark Souls is actually just how bright your future is in writing. Keep doing what you're doing man.
this means a lot, I've been a fan of your work for years
This is quite the accolade from someone who talked about Death Stranding for 7 hours.
@@Shakenmike117 Trust me bro I'm a literal white light, it was there, it just went to sleep when gwyndolin died.
_Aaaaw..._
Even though he's like the Bob vila of videogames?
"The most dominant species on the planet"
All of the sudden cars the movie starts to look more terrifying and existential
always has been
ua-cam.com/video/hdhyrPq3Jxc/v-deo.html The Killer Cars!!!!
Kenvl Excellent use of contemporary meme
Imagine being a sentient species that’s mere existence would spell doom for the planet. (Uhhh, cows too I guess)
I'm pretty sure it was Douglas Adams who made the "cars are the dominant species" joke in the Hitchhikers Guide
"Realizing how much beauty has always existed so near to you, and yet you weren't able to see it." Immediately plucked my heartstrings and gave me chills. It reminds me of what its like to come out of a depressive episode.
Sometimes life's so beautiful I want to cry, and sometimes it's so gray and hazy that I simply can't.
"sometimes life is so beautiful i want to cry, and somwtimes it's so gray and hazy that i simply can't" is what gave me chills and made me tear up. I know exactly what you mean because I've felt both ends of the spectrum a lot, but to see it put into words and shared by other humans is so viscerally touching.
@@throughcolouredglasses9300 Same..
I want to frame this comment and put it on my wall.
this is the conclusion you come to at the end of an acid trip lol
This was poetic.
jacob showing a shot of the stone arch bridge got me crying in the club rn
his ability to bring out so much emotions from people with his videos is amazing
Had to do a double take when I saw it
omg my every favourite youtuber is showing up in this video, love you man!
What are you doing watching youtube videos in the club?
@@egregius9314 if you're not watching jacob geller whilst in the club, what is even the point of being in the club?
Don’t think I didn’t notice the use of a song from Transistor, a game that features a city without people.
Chickpea I knew I heard that!
Outer Wilds too.
he also used hollow knight music, specifically the white palace. The whole game is about you exploring a desolate dead kingdom with no people
I also heard Little Inferno, a game about staying inside, the streets dead and lifeless as mankind settles inside to avoid the snow
he has good taste
brilliant as always. and to echo the intro: I also love clouds.
Why does it not surprise me to see you in the comments here ;)
It feels like this channel is to video games what you are to MTG.
Get back to Delta Sleep you crazy kid.
also, someone totally should make a game where you just fly through clouds. maybe on jupiter or something
Agreed, clouds are good. (and the video)
I’m glad you watch Jacob too. anybody else go back to the APE OUT video repeatedly?
Oh my god, thank you so much for telling about "17776", I spent the whole day reading it without breaks and only finished a minute ago. Thank you so much, Jacob. It's a gem of a story.
Have you read the sequel? its called 200020
Soap of Goddess?
I just finished 17776. What a wild ride!
That was booooring
That line, "Humans matter more than concrete." That hit me hard.
"Full stop."
lost opportunity to say "hit me like a cinderblock"
Tell that to shareholders. They won't listen, because they have no souls.
Watching this video before burning down my neighbors house.
KAREfree laughed so hard I COULDNT BREATHE
"best clouds I've ever seen inside a computer"
I don't know man, those smoke clouds in my computer that one time were pretty good.
Ever had a power supply explode while in use? Smells just like an Australian bush fire, and there was plenty of smoke thanks to my Antec 900's large top fan.
@@V742 did u get high
Ultimate power play: the guy known for his emotionally charged, poetic video essays decides he can't do an Edvard Munch quote justice, and so calls in the one guy known for even _more_ emotionally charged video essays to read that single line. I'm in awe of the power.
Did not expect to find you here jeez
It's wierd finding a comment from a person who's video I watched recently on a video I watched two years ago
How'd I only just find this? I've been too busy for the livestreams lately but I love what you do man
Who was the guy who read the comment ?
@@shiiche super eyepatch wolf
My city was almost subsumed in a massive wildfire at one point. We beat it, fought it to a standstill so precise it was like our city had walls, but it's always stuck with me.
What was burned into my memory, more than any other image, was the ash cloud as it rolled in. It literally extended from the ground straight up into the sky. In a way I'd never imagined before, I saw exactly how high the clouds where, and they dwarfed my city so completely that a thing the height of that wall of ash would be as tall as my city was wide three or four times over. It curved as the day went on, and it looked like the entire surface of the planet was curling up to fall on me in some kind of cosmic catastrophe.
That sounds frightening and badass af
The human brain isn't designed to understand how stupidly big everything is. Clouds are floating seas of water vapor, ridiculously high up, but we just see them as part of the background scenery most of the time.
@@sammshoyu8434 ik, i went to a sloss furnace in arizona and the sheer size of the rusted vats and machinery really made the place feel even more empty than it should
just another day in the imperium, eh alpharius?
On the flip side, seeing the aftermath of towns ravaged by wildfire is humbling in a different sense. Oftentimes the only thing left of a home after a wildfire is the fireplace and chimney. They stand straight and tall on an empty plot where a foundation was. It feels like looking inside someone’s home and yet there’s nothing there anymore. All that was built, the sweat and memories and wood that made up that home are gone, the same as the surrounding forest. Driving through a burned out town feels like driving through a copse of bones. Punctuated by the odd patch of untouched land, an unmarred house with a green lawn and decorations still in their places.
Wildfires are humbling in so many ways. They block out the sun, change the color of the sky and turn the air into a wall of blackened, poisonous debris. They burn hot and bright, they turn the world upside down into a place where the ground is bright and blinding and the sky is dark and heavy. And when they are gone their destruction is as contradictory as their presence. Lonely brickwork devoid of the humans that once gave it warmth side by side living homes seemingly oblivious to fact that they should be nothing but ash.
That was entirely overly pedantic but living in wildfire country has given me some Feelings about them.
I was not expecting to hear SuperEyepatchWolf here, but thinking about it it makes perfect sense
I was tabbed out when I heard his voice and thought I was mistaken lol
instantly recogized
As I was watching this, I kept thinking "I bet EyepatchWolf would really like this." When I heard his voice I got the biggest smile on my face.
I heard him and was like HEY WAIT A MIN-
@@kitsunerose9545 literally read these comments the second his voice started haha
For a man who regularly connects deeply with games, this brings to mind my favorite line from 17776, “The point of play is to distract from play being the point.”
We have plenty of work that we need to do in the face of the world today, but the statement of 17776 that when left to our own devices, at our core nature, free from stress and fear and the frameworks of a bigger world... we play.
That’s special to me.
Last year, in spring 2019, i attended a protest that centred around a pink boat being parked in the middle of oxford circus, one of the busiest roads in central London, and for a glorious week we got to see what that area would be like without cars. i dont think you can really understand how much we sacrifice to cars until you've seen what it's like when they're gone. These paths of congestion and pollution and danger criss-crossing through the city were replaced by people, not stepping on each others heels, not getting mad when people slow down in front of you, not having to step into the danger of traffic to pass someone walking in the opposite direction, but able to walk ten abreast and free. for an environmentalist protest i think it made a pretty strong case for itsself. There was a similar protest by the same people in Cardiff last year, with similar results, and this year when we went back again we found that permanent seating had been installed in the middle of the road, and barriers either end to keep cars out. it seems the city saw the same vision that i had, as small as these bay steps are.
You should definitely look up Japan's Omotesando area in Tokyo. They close to car traffic for purely pedestrian traffic on Sundays. It gave me the same feeling you had at seeing the roads completely taken over by people.
What's it like to live somewhere where you can walk to places
Hey I was there too :)
Cars should definitely only be allowed for inter-city travel. There’s no reason we can’t walk, bike, or train in our cities.
@@dreamdesk7258 There's one big problem I first had contextualized when reading World War Z, urban sprawl. What is city anymore? Plus, the infrastructure doesn't yet exist for the other methods of transportation thanks to mistakes of the past, and the momentum of actions already behind us puts us further and further from that dream every day.
This is the first time I've actually stopped watching a video to go read something a youtuber recommended before finishing their video and boy do I not regret reading 17776
IT HAS A SEQUEL ITS CALLED 20020
same. im reading it right now and this is phenomenally strange
omg, thank you! I didn't know it had sequels. I read 17776 couple month ago and can't stop thinking abot this thing! One of the greatest books, (if you can call it so) i've evere read
I stopped watching the House of Leaves episode to read the book and the Disco Elysium video to finish the game. HOL I started 3 days ago, Disco Elysium still needs to be finished.
@@liquidmech1727 there's allegedly a sequel called 20021 in the works too! or there was before the pandemic, not sure if it'll still happen. still crazy that i just found this video, and immediately thought of 17776 lol
So glad to see someone talking about 17776! An all-time favorite for sure. Loved how you transitioned from the forgotten lawn as seen in 17776 to the forgotten lawn as rendered in MFS2020, really nice touch!
Right? It's about time 17776 get some more attention (because it deserves, like, literally all the attention)
i finished it today! stealing the dialogue style right now
Avant Garde Sports Dramedy is usually kind of a hard sell, but man, Bois is so good.
this is why I hate making skyscrapers and cities in Minecraft. The taller I build skyscrapers, the longer/wider parks and streets became, the more distinct everything looked, the more it resembled real-life cities, the more it felt empty and unnatural. The savanna I used as space full of trees and animals now is just an entire group of deserted furnished skyscrapers and buildings, the vast open field now filled with inhabited streets and sidewalks, the forest now burned to the ground just for my little own replica of the world. All that effort into the architecture just makes me sad and empty in the end.
Cities in Minecraft make me feel happy of what I achieved, the normal biome is just empty and boring
minecraft lorax character arc
Then fill it with villagers or something, no need to get so philosophical...
That's why I always build underground. I start in a large hill, and just dig. The natural landscape gets preserved, and I still get unlimited space for my creations.
unrelated but may ik which anime your profile picture is from? 👉👈
"There's an uncomfortable kinship we share with volcanoes: both able to demolish ecosystems, change atmospheric composition, inspire great art, both able to create cities without people. The difference between the annihilation of a volcano and the annihilation of we've slowly been building to since... [shows disaster clips] ...is that we can see ours coming. And while this means that it is inexcusable that we've built our own Vesuvius, it also means that we have the power to prevent a situation where the shells of bodies litter the streets for future historians to find. Just as in 17776 we do have the power to get everyone out, rehouse the entire population. This is not a fantastical goal, this is achievable; it doesn't even require us to magically stop aging first. Humans matter more than concrete, full stop."
I always end up transcribing long parts of your videos to share because you have such a way with words, my goodness
And also?? Much love for Football 17776 oh my god, I forgot about it so thank you so much for writing about it !!
This line made me start crying, hungover, at 10AM, and I'm absolutely here for it in every possible way.
“Humans matter more than concrete, full stop.” Too bad out governments refuse to agree with this sentiment and even worse we as citizens have no power to change it as our means to vote, protest, and even criticize our masters are stripped away more and more every day.
Seriously what a statement. That holds so much power. This is why I love Jacob's videos. The editing, scripts, and imagery always manages to have a profound and inspirational affect on me.
"There is an uncomfortable kinship we share with volcanoes, both able to demolish ecosystems, change atmospheric composition, inspire great art. Both able to create cities without people." That part was so exquisitely written with a great narration and tone as well as being supported with beautiful background sceneries. I honestly couldn't but clap, well done sir!
My favorite part of the forgotten lawns bit of 17776 is the last bit;
“You know who would have wandered out there? Just to do it?”
“Children.”
“children.”
Which would never happen anymore.
@@estellaruiz3125 The question we have to ask is "Can we have class outside?" Not as the children, as the parents.
I find 17776 sadder than most people, I think. The comfort humans find is comforting to read about, and the idea that _play_ reveals itself as the bedrock of humanity is a beautiful one. But the idea that _curiosity_ dies, not just in some people but from the entire species, twists my gut and nags at me. We're told _nobody_ is still trying to figure out why we became immortal. _Nobody_ is still trying to explore more of space. Worst, human minds have been active for millennia but the form of the 21st century still dominates their lives.
I can't object to the happiness humanity finds in that future, but I find it overwhelmingly melancholy anyway. Would _I_ lose my curiosity if I lived that long? Will I lose it in my mortal lifetime? _Who will I be when I'm no longer capable of change?_ I think I'm wrong when I say 17776 makes me sad. It actually terrifies me.
Ditocoaf I don’t remember where but someone told me that death is what gives life meaning. when we know that we only have a certain amount of time on this earth we try to make the years leading up to death worthwhile. But immortality can be more of a curse. If you yourself are immortal and nobody else is it can be ridiculously lonely. If everyone is immortal than they lose the need to do anything because in the end it won’t matter. When I face thought experiments like this. I go outside and I stare at the trees and the sky and realize that I’m still here and my home is still here, the trees are still green, I wasn’t killed in a solar flare. I’m still here and so is society. Instead of thinking about inevitability, fight for gratefulness. You don’t have to give in to the unchangable darkness or let yourself fall into the despair so easily. “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
@@estellaruiz3125 Fuckin hell dude, I just got goosebumps holy shit. I didn't put 2+2 together until I saw your comment!
"All of New York is lovingly recreated"
>Starts flying towards lower Manhattan
Oh no
Oh shit
YEAHHHH BUDDY TIME FOR THE SEQUUUUUEL
9 12
@@PurpleColonel OH FUCK
HERE WE GOOOOOOO
Really great stuff. Visceral reaction to End Time while flying over actual Earth.
realizing I could end the video with that was one of the most exciting moments I've had in the past year lol
I can't hear half the songs from outer wilds and not have an intense emotional reaction. So fuckin good!
Thought I recognized that track. Fantasticly somber piece. Now if Jacob could sample from Gustavo Santaolalla... 👌👌👌
I somehow never get tired of video essayists putting end times in at 22 minutes into the video its just such a good gimmick
I still cannot hear almost any Outer Wilds tracks without tearing up.
I almost started crying when you talked about how alienating all this is. I'm often consumed by this crushing sorrow, even rage, at how loneliness is literally carved into our world, separating us all from each other and from what makes us human.
Go outside and touch grass. Maybe hang out with some friends. The world isn't as bleak as you think.
@@jimmybean420 He's right. It's a really melodramatic comment you can only get from chronic internet overdose or severe personal isolation.
The world's not that bleak. It's a very pretty place. Visit some friends.
@@funnyjokeman6175 "The world's not that bleak" *laughs in lgbt where literally everyone and their mother wants me dead just for being who I am*
@@Freak80MC It's not that bleak and i'm gay.
There's shit people, but a lot of people are nice, too. Most people, even.
You can spend your whole life grieving that some people choose to be assholes, but most people want to be good, they're just lost.
@@Freak80MC lol. Lmao.
This feels like a spiritual successor to the Universal Paperclips/Space Engine video, kinda like how Fear of Depths was a successor to the Bloodborne Chalice Dungeon video. And oh boy was it effective. It truly is quite something to have a video's footage almost entirely derive from a single game + the real world (and 17776's world too of course), all the layers of reality - not just any old realities, but specifically realities of our own geographical world - mixing and merging with each other in a wonderful dance of editing.
Very good work! And I really appreciate you touching on the hopeful aspects of 17776 too. I am very sick of doom and gloom apocolypse stories even if they are 'more realistic' futures than the ones I prefer to see. Certainly the sci-fi universe I want to write is going to lean less gloomy at least. :)
If you want some more comforting examples of progress, check out the Not Just Bikes channel on UA-cam.
By all means, we need to hear the bad news, too, but as you say, it's good to remember the good news too :) .
I worry that the increasing pessimism in our media is teaching us not to strive for a better future.
Retrofuturism and post-cyberpunk for the win!
@@nairocamilo may I humbly submit for your list the genre Solarpunk? I find to be a really cool movement, especially good for folks concerned with the environment
Generality I would prefer to interpret it as a condemnation of the present we have created, and a warning of what the future could be if nothing is changed - and in some cases, a fear of how much power we actually have to change it from the course we’ve already set it towards. Not in the sense of “it’s not worth trying”, but rather... “how much can we still do?”
Roads fade away. "The highway" moved from one side of my farm to the other 90 years ago. The blacktop decayed to gravel. Trees keep trying to sprout in it. A pothole filled with leaves turns to grass. I can barely fit an ATV through the walls of pressing forest.
Wow true
This is so true. If you removed all humans from the earth today, in a hundred years, you'd barely be able to tell we were ever here. I find this comforting.
@@ahobimo732 mm... But our plastics would remain. Our garbage. Skyscrapers, things we love, would surely crumble and fall eventually. But the nuclear waste? The tons of microplastics and toxins? Those aren't going anywhere, at least at the moment
nature always finds a way
@@salamencerobot Those things are actually pretty irrevelant and won't matter much to life on earth, look at chernobyl for example, its not a wasteland but a wildlife refuge
I am still searching for Laputa in some of the big clouds to this day.
I absolutely did this as a kid
Same lol i carried binoculars around outside and would look for it
Me, a spanish speaker: 😳
Flight simulator X had it's fair share of eastereggs and... weird missions back in the day
so I would only be very slgihtly surprised if it turned up somewhere in FS2020
@@JulianDanzerHAL9001 That would be amazing!
"anti apocalyptic fantasy" Thank you for putting this into words. Man, I neede dthat. I feel like so many people these days succumb to a sort of "humans are bad and we deserve to die and soon we will destroy earth anyway" mentality. I can emphasize with that way of thought, but I also know it's not good for me and I cannot deal with this all the time. And to achieve positive change we need positivity, we need hope and we need reminders on how humans can be good and how we are part of this beautiful, incredible world we live in. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.
New constipated horse renders the car irrelevant.
Zero emissions for the entire life of the product!
@@googiegress and short life it will be. I imagine that after a little while you'll need a new one and- wait nevermind that's still normal.
@@cybersilver5816 AND it's organic!
I'm afraid to watch the video, or I will lose the childlike wonder of "what the fuck does this sentence mean?"
I've bought 31! Demand will go UP
I love how the shots of you in the woods featured a fence confining nature from the cars just barely visible through the trees. Fantastic work as always
I didn't even notice that, I was wondernig why he chose to shoot segments in the woods.
That part at the beginning, about cars and parking lots, was weird for me as a European. I'm like, what the heck, why is there so much parking space???? In our cities it has to be hidden umderground, or stacked in multi-floor parking lots, an it's always full, and never enough. I am honestly speechless that parking lots this big exist in the US. Goddamn you guys have so much space.
Side note, I also love clouds. When I'm feeling down on a cloudy day, I say to myself, "There is always sun behind those clouds". And I imagine how great it would look if I flew over them in an airplane. And I feel a bit better :)
This video explains the US situation with parkings: ua-cam.com/video/Akm7ik-H_7U/v-deo.html
Multi floor parking lots in the US are so terrible. No one wants to park there when the spaces are always too small (sometimes uneven), you can never see around corners if someone is coming, and it's not uncommon to come back and find someone hit your bumper and fled. The only alright ones seem to be in airports.
Maybe it's only the parking lots I've been to, but I hope Europe has better layouts than the ones here.
Alice Is Calling they’re probably pretty similar in space and general shittiness but European cars are generally much smaller than American cars so it’s not really noticed.
@@dantaylor9132 Yeah, there is SUV trend like in the US, but also big parking and big supermarkets are less of a thing in general in at least western europe. There are still big stores like that but usually it's stuff like IKEA and tool stores and stuff that require warehouses. Europe is just more urban that the US
@@tlr9403 Yup, we use the public transport a lot more.
Hearing Super Eyepatch Wolf's voice was an absolute treat
it shocked me
Actually went "YOOOO" hearing Super Eyepatch Wolf's voice
Same!
Scrolled down literally after shouting YOOOO
Blessed be the dark prince
when?
@@NoNameAtAll2 Our favorite sad leprechaun @19:28
Same lol
As a pilot and former flight instructor, I was deeply touched by your enthusiasm and of you have not already looked into it, I think you should look up your local flight school and ask about doing a Familiarization Flight. They take you up, let you fly for a few minutes, and give you a basic idea on how to fly. Its exhilarating, and maybe you can get close to one of the miles tall, miles wide clouds that you look up towards.
That said, the mood whiplash caught me full bore, and while I am flying home today, looking out over the empty prairie covered in an infinite grid of evenly spaced roads, I think I am going to feel a little sad.
Yes I did one of these when I was 16 and now am studying to get my PPL. Definitely one of the best experiences of my life just to be up there with all the world below you and all the freedom you can ask for.
Plot twist: Jacob thinks about everything and everything occupies his thoughts all the time.
Lol, if, "I think about this a lot," wasn't said at least once in one of his videos, I'd be worried.
He is 4 dimensional but he seems 3D because some other 4D jerk is pushing him foreword through time forcefully
when he stops thinking the entire universe stops too lmfao
Watch the next video he releases be about the 2017 game "Everything".
I can relate
The story of the volcano sunset reminds me of the poem “Never Again the Same” by James Tate. I’ll paste it here - I think you’d enjoy it.
Speaking of sunsets,
last night’s was shocking.
I mean, sunsets aren’t supposed to frighten you, are they?
Well, this one was terrifying.
Sure, it was beautiful, but far too beautiful.
It wasn’t natural.
One climax followed another and then another
until your knees went weak
and you couldn’t breathe.
The colors were definitely not of this world,
peaches dripping opium,
pandemonium of tangerines,
inferno of irises,
Plutonian emeralds,
all swirling and churning, swabbing,
like it was playing with us,
like we were nothing,
as if our whole lives were a preparation for this,
this for which nothing could have prepared us
and for which we could not have been less prepared.
The mockery of it all stung us bitterly.
And when it was finally over
we whimpered and cried and howled.
And then the streetlights came on as always
and we looked into one another’s eyes-
ancient caves with still pools
and those little transparent fish
who have never seen even one ray of light.
And the calm that returned to us
was not even our own.
Well fuck. Thanks for that. Like genuinely. Im not one to read poems very often, but that one hit me in a place i cant even describe
Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem.
That is chilling
I have no wors.
oh my god
Pollution has been my number one fear. When i was 6 i wanted to become an environmental scientist to prevent the incoming apocalypse. I chose this path originally because of fear and guilt, but now... i choose this path because of my hope.
This deserves top comment. It's honestly really nice to see someone preach hope these days
Yeah but what about that profile pic, Ian ? 🤐
Bran ate Jojen paste what about it? Its a frog friend.
Hmm interesting. Partly why I'm studying astrophysics now, is because I want to help humanity get off-world onto new planets.
That was my goal, too bad I am horrible at science
Using Outer Wilds music in your melancholy ending is basically cheating
Just like using the music from The Leftovers: ua-cam.com/video/PHiYJM2aTEs/v-deo.html&ab_channel=ctrstudios
@@RagamuffinGunner13
And Hollow knight, for that matter
MrDivinity22 yeah I was gonna say hollow knight was too perfect of a choice
Comrade Mae Yeah the outer wilds music at the end was perfect because since I have played the game, I associate the song with the world about to end
And then sudden shift to goofy Okami music for the ad break was a little jarring...
'If you look long enough, you will find a parking spot. That's not a promise that can be kept if you're looking for a home.'
As always, incredible video with a superbly written script. I'm surprised how bleak this one was, from how we've changed our world and landscape to suit our lifestyle, to how our world and landscape will change directly against us, and how we're doing so little to slow this process that you worded it as though it was completely unavoidable.
I'm glad you didn't skirt around these truths, even though as an audience they can be hard to stomach.
Cheers for the recommendations, I'll be reading Football 17776 and Exhalation now!
One moment in 17776 I love is when a character says that 'I wonder if there's a single place in the whole world that's never had a story' and talks about how something interesting has happened almost everywhere in America. It's not really related to the topic of this video, but I really like that thought.
Honestly, Nancy and the Bartender Conversation (and especially the video chapter right before it) was what really let me know on the first time read that this wasn't just a funny story about football in the future.
"When you take the horses away, the poop stops."
-Jacob Geller, 2020
a true intellectual
Hitting that Outer Wilds music at 22 minutes is such a perfect little touch, instant sub
He started it just at the same time that the game does, around 21 minutes into the loop
as someone who played and loved all of Outer Wilds it really kicked my emotional response to the video into overdrive. This man knows just how and when to use audio and visuals to accent his fantastic writing.
I mean the track was perfect for the moment but I did NOT notice the timestamp. Nice touch, Geller. Nice touch.
Quite an effective advertisement for the game, that's for sure.
quite an effective advertisement for existential dread as well
@@cumunist2120 yea that's true 😂 also, god, that name
I randomly clicked on this video to listen to in the background of cleaning my house. Found myself unable to clean my room and instead fully on the verge of tears for most of the video. Jesus. My stomach is in a knot, in the best way possible. This is a beautiful video and you are a seriously talented creator.
The guy who invented the car: The environment is saved!
People 200 years from then: *sweating nervously*
Whoever invents the "better car" will feel the same way :)
@@Professor_Utonium_ Elon Musk: Here's cars, but better and fancy tunnels for them to drive in
Workers in the global South getting poisoned to dig up all the lithium for the batteries: *sigh*
@@theiveyed8677 Exactly, there is always a cost to everything. But it's not always a bad thing. Had people not made sacrifices (or unfortunately forced others to do so), we'd still all have mud roofs and no electricity.
@@Professor_Utonium_ But do we really need electricity and what is the problem with mud roofs?
@@emiki6 Well.. Mud roofs encourage bugs, rodents, they stink and drip in rainstorms. Electricity gives us light, warmth, and has allowed us to expand our knowledge and improve quality of life in a lot of countries. Would you really rather live in African slums, challenged by disease and living isolated from the other world due to the absence of the technology electricity has given us, or live how first world countries do now.
I recently took a friend of mine to go see stars for his first time. While the spot we went wasn't the best and I was a bit disappointed about how little we could see he was stunned by seeing them for the first time.
That moment is something I will cherish.
Are you talking about like stars in the night sky? Do you live in a city with lots of ambient light or something? I live in the desert southwest in California and I am so used to a sky crowded with stars I had to read your comment twice and think about reasons someone could possibly be viewing stars for the first time. I appreciate my night sky. If I knew someone had never seen stars like I see every night I would have to make sure they got to see them too.
@@JohnRay1969 i live in the burbs and i can usually see, very faintly, just orion if the sky is completely clear. I only saw a clear night sky once as a child on a camping trip. One day soon, now that im an adult with adult money, i want to see the milky way :)
@@nguiklian I live in Phoenix, AZ and even at 3am it's so bright from ambient nightlife that you cant see more than a few scattered stars. I hope to see the milky way some day soon too :)
Jacob Geller: Here's a cool video talking about Flight Simulator- PSYCHE it's actually about Football 17666
17776
Yeah haha
Number of the beast
you bringing up 17776 was such a pleasant surprise. i love that story to death and i have such fond memories of reading the updates every day they came out
im 15 seconds in and i'm already enamored by his love for clouds because man, clouds are great they're so big and the thunderous ones are so scary that they almost feel like day to day eldritch horrors, things that are far greater than us and just kinda do their own thing
If there was a mod for this game that just had Azathoth and cthulhu hanging out and wrecking the place I’d be so happy
@@christiangjernes3629 always nice seeing other lovecraft readers
Therapist: “Minecraft Steve in real life can’t hurt you”
Minecraft Steve in real life: 5:00
why does this only have ten likes
@@kyoseryt
Sometimes the Truth is unpopular.
Dear God how did I not notice
Jacob is literally Steve when he had beard
There's an uncanny valley-ish effect going on with his pseudo-rustic and rugged appearance yet highly urbane and tame voice and mannerisms.
The Outer Wilds music put me into instant apocalyptic dread mode, good choice.
The timing was perfect, too.
I was immediately like, "bro! You can't just drop that on a guy without warning." Gave me palpitations.
Heccc yeah. The second I heard it I dove into the comments so search for other's who noticed it. As always, brings tears to my eyes.
I heard that and immediately went to the comments because I knew I wasn’t the only one to notice that shit. It was actually beautiful.
The volcanic sunset takes a new meaning for me having experienced something similar living in Philadelphia and seeing a blood red sun and pink sky from the fires in Oregon. A fire on the literal other side of the country
The exchange that aches the most in 17776 is
"JASON: He just ... we said we were gonna meet up in Charleston.
LORI: But Charleston is
JASON: Charleston, West Virginia.
LORI: Oh! Oh yeah, right. Supposed to have good biscuits, right?"
15000 years on and they still instinctively think of Charleston SC
15000 years mourning a city
it's easier to imagine Manhattan Island underwater; movies love to do it. it's much harder for me to reckon that it means somewhere like Savannah GA is much deeper.
and in reminiscing on drowned homes, i remembered Lake Lanier. weird how i spent my time at summer camps on the shore of a lake with a literal town in it.
Yeah and LA, San Francisco, Seattle, all underwater. So weird. Biggest cities on the west coast would all be gone or dead, and then life elsewhere goes on as normal.
I thought this when I was homeless.... like less than 1% of the space we "use" we actually do use at any given moment.
It's amazing what you notice when you're in a area off peak hours. Or even just off the arteries through the area for longer than it takes somebody to park.
Well, lawn doesn't have to be stepped on to be "used", we use it with our eyes, it adds beauty to our environment.
@@ligametis "beauty" is a weird word to use for lawn. An ever present alien monoculture shorn to an unnatural length; is not my idea of beauty.
It's traditional and feeds our livestock. It is ugly, but it can be comfy
@@oldtimetinfoilhatwearer lawn doesn't feed livestock, grasses do. Lawn is almost insignificant in terms of foliage mass
In a reverse of the Himalayas example, I moved to Denver and was able to see the Rockies very clearly from the street I'm on. Because of the wildfire smoke, though, there's been entire weeks where they've been completely obscured.
21:13 You can hear the undertone of this music piece from a mile away. It is beautiful. The use of End Times from Outer Wilds here is the perfect song to encapsulate this weird feeling towards the end of the world.
Mild spoilers for Outer Wilds:
This song accompanies the sun exploding. For some video game songs, hearing them gave me a sense of anxiety as I looked for a fight or knew something bad was coming. For this it inspired a weird sort of melancholy feeling as you watch the world burn into nothing. It isnt panicked as there is nothing you can do at that point, but it is the perfect theme for this kind of discussion of the apocalypse in this toned down, cold way
Haha yeah I just played the game a month ago so the audio immediately had me feeling things. Beautiful game and really neat reference on Geller’s part.
also, it starts playing 21 minutes in. How long into the game does that track start playing? 21 minutes.
@@karhu7581 Well I just never noticed that. Jacob Geller, as always, is unbelievebly clever and intentional in his editing choices
Such a beautiful and conscious choice, I love Jacob
I kinda had a profound, visceral reaction to this one. I watch a lot of video essays, it's basically my preferred genre, but these ones that you make always seem to reach out and pluck my heart free with a cloying feeling of ennui. I feel like these are the videos that will haunt me for decades.
"yeah, but so's lunchables, phyrric victory" - JUICE, 17776
This is the reason I consider Football 17776 to have a dystopian setting
Mr Geller, I know you will never see this, but I am a teen that this world is being given to, and you have given me this painful hope of salvation that I haven't had in years
It's people like you Thomas that give us old fogeys a glimmer of hope. Like they said in the 60s: don't trust anyone over 35! I can't trust people my age to care about more than their mortgage payments and tax rates. It's a deeply toxic desire to not care about what troubles the world.
Ah. You are indeed quite wrong Thomas. Geller has hearted your comment, congratulations
Don't hope, work for it. It's not fair that you inherited a mess, but if you don't fix your part of it, all you will do is pass off a mess to someone else a few decades from now. Hoping is a dangerous thing.
@@Professor_Utonium_ I say good luck to him if he does that lmao
@@Professor_Utonium_ Ah, so you want this teen to overthrow capitalism all by himself? It's this individualist mindset that got us trapped here in the first place. Stop perpetuating it. All we can do now is form mutual aid networks, unions, and eat the rich.
I come back to this video every 8 months or so because it gives me chills. Also this introduced me to 17776 which I have now read all of, and is now my favorite written work.
man this video probably hit hard for anybody living in a state bordering the coast, huh?
from the sudden hit of the implication of the entire east coast drowned under water, some of the oldest cities in america with the most rich history and proud people drowned, lost _forever,_ to the suddenly REAL and present descriptions of volcanic sunsets, and red skies, contrasted with our own red skies, skies i personally have been living near (and in, not to as much as an extent, but the sickly yellows of spokanes sky this week have been getting to me) on the west coast really fucked me up.
Have you heard of Build The Earth? It's a project in Minecraft that's been underway for a bit, the goal is to build a 1 to 1 scale replica of everything on earth, with what you said at the end about preserving our present world, the people working on it have pretty much the same goal, I think you'd find it interesting.
Thats just the plot of Synecdoche New York
@@TooFatTooFurious OOF
this was an incredible essay. also, 17776 is a modern masterpiece and thank you for showing it off here.
@kevin willems it really is so vastly underadvertised in the scope of bois' work. he has millions of views combined on his youtube video essays, yet i'd imagine because 17776 is hosted exclusively on a sports website, it gets less traffic from a larger audience that would appreciate it.
Maybe I did forget what an impact this video essay had on me. I’ve been thinking about that book, How a Game Lives. Preordering the deluxe edition and how much these video essays have set a foundation for how I think and how I feel.
The idea that something so beautiful might be lost is heartbreaking but also I want so dearly to be able to have hope to hope for anything better than what we currently have. I want so badly to have a conversation that doesn’t end with “well that’s the world we live in” or “there’s nothing we can do about it.”
I want people to understand that there’s more that we can do. Even if we feel powerless maybe we can do something about it. I hope we can at least. I hope it isn’t too late. I hope we don’t grow complacent. I hope that everything will turn out just fine…
This guy makes me care about things I didnt know I needed to care about.
I feel like I just traveled the entire world in 25 minutes.
His narration and portrayal of the features he's talking about is so immersive.
I'm not even suprised to see you here.
What are you doing here fella
4:48 no, that's Ford Prefect in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galax"
I literally thought about Ford Prefect yesterday and was like "....damnit."
I feel like the closest to this idea of "cities without people" was in Grand Theft Auto IV. At one point, while playing the multiplayer, there were so many people fighting the cops at the airport that it bugged out and despawned every car in the game except at the airport and it was such a fun experience walking across Liberty City from the airport to alderney
4:50 wow, Flight Simulator renders people in the woods photorealistically, too.
I just gotta say thank you for introducing 17776. By god, that was such a good Experience, and the sequel was great too.
I get the feeling Jacob is gonna be using a lot of Outer Wilds' OST in the future, it fits the tone of his work SO well.
Just discovered your channel today with "Fear Of Cold" and have been marathon watching for a few hours, and when that Outer Wilds song crept in I immediately began crying. You've definitely earned my subscription to your channel.
Man be out in the woods with his boy scouts belt
The White Palace music gave me chills. You know how to set the tone of a video better than anyone.
"It's like if you made a cornhole simulator, and started by programming the residual impact of the big bang" is probably my favorite thing you have ever said in one of your videos
Can we talk about how brilliant the background music in these videos is? The outer wilds supernova music at the end hit really hard!
17776 is one of my favorite pieces of media ever. I’m so glad you’re bringing attention to it. It’s such an incredible experience that I wish more people knew about. I absolutely adore it. You’re the first youtuber I’ve seen mention it.
your mention of 17776 literally gave me goosebumps. I remember being there when it first got popular and it was such a quaint & surreal experience that I sometimes forget that I read it at all.
Dammit, Geller, I was about to get to work.
Thanks for turning me on to 17776! It was really good!
"It's like if you made a Cornhole Simulator and started by programming the residual impact of the Big Bang."
I LOLed.
Oh so that's why I can't finish anything
this was my first video ive seen from you, aftrer seeing it in the sidebar for a while. i subscribed as soon as it was over. and i feel like i shot a post-rock album straight into my veins lol not just character and delivery but the dark and light mixed mood throughout, gloom and hope.
Been watching him irregularly for a few months and post-rock is such a good analogy for this, never thought of it.
They tore down an area of woods to build a parking lot that doesn't even have an entrance.
I came expecting a rather simple video about Microsoft Flight Simulator, instead I found myself drawn into this beautiful piece.
17776 getting recognition here makes me so happy. One of the best reads I've ever had
This guy's beard is so dense, I'm baffled it doesn't collapse into a black hole...
It's like Billy Mitchell if he got a decent haircut.
A shorter version of that Himalayas story happened to my dad. He was in Guangzhou in the 90s for an extended business trip. The first few weeks there was nothing of not out the window of his hotel. Then one day, the winds had shifted enough long enough that the smog was gone and a radio tower on a hill about a mile away was now visible. Was a real shock to him and he was glad he wasn't staying too much longer.
"You can take cars off the streets but you can't rip up the roads."
Damn.
Unless, perhaps, you're China Mieville.
i read this comment as he sais it in the video
@Iwasneverhere more just infrastructure
Microsoft makes a gorgeous, extremely accurate flight simulator, with great attention to detail and how the planes handle
Jacob: *_C L O U D S_*
Did you stop watching in the first 90 seconds? lol
@@Professor_Utonium_ ^^^^
@@Professor_Utonium_ I think he made a joke
"In the same way you might follow a river if you're lost in the wild"
Please, don't do that. Water finds its way down in the fastest way possible. If you are in terrain that is at all steep, this means it goes down gullies that wind up out in the middle of cliff faces, where you have to either backtrack for miles to find a safe way up out of the gully or just sit there at the cliff hoping search and rescue will spot you. (In fairness, that latter strategy is somewhat viable: here in BC they know where those places are and make a point of checking them because of this myth of wilderness survival that will get you killed in mountainous terrain.
If you want to get to safety in mountainous terrain, look for safe ways down. You are almost always looking for something that is off the mountain, because building on top of mountains is way harder than building in valleys. Keep track of water sources, certainly, it's a valuable resource in keeping you alive and functional enough to keep walking. But don't follow the rivers, they will bring you to waterfalls, not safety. By looking for safe ways down, you'll wind up in a valley, possibly the one with civilization in it, but probably not. Once you're down in the relatively mild terrain of the valley, then you can follow a river for a bit. If it's a big valley.
Also, regardless, make a point of leaving a trail that people can track. Any animal that's hunting you is doing it by scent, which is difficult to break. Any human that's looking for you will be using visual tracking clues, so make their job easy for them, because that job is getting you home alive.
I'd think the follow the river is more for finding towns and or village, since they are usually found near river rather than finding a way down
@@nathanaelraynard2641 It is, and it works in low terrain. Problem is, in mountains, you run into the ravines first...and you don't survive taking the water's path to the town.
Thanks, almost did a kayaky and went down the river here, I was getting desperate. Glad I opened this video and saw your comment.
(For clarification purposes my comment is a joke)
@@OBryanAguiar I know it sounds silly, but I live in a part of the world where hikers in mountains getting screwed over by this "follow the river" advice is very common. I habitually respond to instances of that advice in hopes that someone who gets into that situation will remember my response and take a safer approach.
I wonder if someone somewhere out there had just enough juice in their phone and a small glimmer if wifi to see your comment and was able to save their life with the advice you just gave them. What are the chances it saves any of us in the future?
My first experience with this channel was fear of the depths and it shares quite a lot in common with this video in terms of the way it makes me feel and think about things that both awe and terrify me that are both so familiar and so far out of reach.
4:16 RIP car on the right side of the freeway going off a 30' cliff.
F
F
F
i mean, it's not just one car...
Yo props to you for using a Outer Wilds’s “End Times” song at the end of your video
Honestly Outer Worlds End Times music gives me such a massive emotional Whiplash
Agreed, I had to close my eyes and enjoy the longing which its inclusion caused.
And The Ancient Glade around half way through
Manu My apologies, I meant @ 21:13, although you are correct when talking about the very end of the video (it’s a nice song ❤️)
Really cool that you mentioned Jon Bois’ Football 17776, easily one of my favorite pieces of Sci-fi out there.
I just absolutely love the build up of the intro. It goes into all the fascinations of MFS accompanied by the amazing soundtrack of Super Mario Galaxy...and then that sudden hit and cutoff of “It has- ...‘Cities Without People’”. It suddenly hit me: “Huh, I mean I know it’s called Microsoft FLIGHT Simulator, but there’s an eeriness to having an almost exact replica of the Earth, but absolutely no people.” It’s my favorite intro among all the videos you’ve ever done.
That moment when the image is of a bridge you also used to commute on.
Recognized it too! Old Man River.
yesterday morning it finally started raining, and around 6 pm i went outside and saw the clouds and the horizon and the pine trees on the mountains in the distance for the first time since september 7th, and the air inside the hallway outside my room didn't smell like a fireplace in a log cabin anymore. waking up, opening your eyes and seeing the light shine bright orange through your dorm window every morning feels like a nightmare. this video made me tear up thank you :)
i honestly thought this was real camera footage until he mentioned the game's title
Same, I was like "how did they shoot this" lol
When I hear that I started to thing what mountain range it was.
Have you heard of the trend of kids flying into their friends houses and showing the "footage" to them while they are at school? Oh, children.
I've watched this video more times than I can count and every time I hear Mr. Eyepatch Wolf I still get unreasonably excited.
It just rules to see two of my favorite video essayists collaborate, even if only briefly.