This week on The Deep Dive: The event that taught us about internet behavior and breaking news, “Eh, just hold it,” says New York City to its 8 million residents, when 2D animation and 3D animation became one, how to fix the film industry’s poster problem, and the disturbing ending of a popular TV show that never should have existed.

INTERNET

How 9/11 Changed the Internet Forever by NationSquid (16:08)

Think about how you react when you first hear about breaking news in the year 2024. First, you might be shocked, even confused or in disbelief. The next thing you’d do is open up Google and start searching away. Maybe you’d skim through Wikipedia pages or news headlines that populated at the top of the page as an algorithmic reaction to the news. And millions of other people would be doing the exact same thing. But how did we first learn about those behaviors? Or maybe the better question is what happened to teach us more about the way we behave on the internet in a time of crisis? In this video, NationSquid explains how tragedy at the turn of the century taught us how to tell the difference between a cyberattack and a ton of people trying to get the same information at the same time. 

URBANISM

What happened to public bathrooms? by Kendra Gaylord (16:59)

How surprised can we really be that local governments have decided to make what little public restrooms were available to residents even more inaccessible, oftentimes by straight-up closing them down? But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s pretty bonkers to give hundreds of thousands if not millions of people no place to go – especially when they have no other options. In this video, Kendra Gaylord explores what happened to public bathrooms and the cities that once seemed so excited about providing them. You may be thinking to yourself, “If only there were self-cleaning restrooms that pay for themselves, say, through advertising revenue and could be placed in convenient locations throughout major cities. That would solve the problem, right?” Wrong. Because those exist and have for a while, but San Francisco is the only place you’ll find them.

ART

Hybrid animation is NOT “The Spider-Verse Style” by camwing (32:41)

If you’ve noticed a rise in animated movies in styles similar to that of 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, you’re right! But you’re also wrong, according to people who know way more about animation than I do. In this video, camwing dives deep into why only some movies that use hybrid animation, or the combination of 2D and 3D animation, are given proper credit for their fusion of two different styles. Into the Spider-Verse wasn’t the first to use hybrid animation by a long shot, proven in part by the fact that the Peanuts franchise even dabbled in it just a few years earlier. Hybrid animation has been used since the 1980s, but the key lies in how well the 2D and 3D graphics are blended together and how intentionally.

FILM

Movie Posters (used to) Rule by Mason idk (33:08)

On this week’s edition of “Some Things Used To Be Better,” it’s hard to argue that movie posters did, actually, used to be better. When was the last time you felt compelled to hang up a recent movie poster on the walls of your room to communicate something about your taste and interests in an aesthetically pleasing way? Between ensemble films that cram as many characters as they can on 27 by 40 inches and movie stars smiling or smirking or frowning into a camera to reflect the tone of a film, the issue of boring movie posters is hard to ignore. In this video, Mason idk makes sure of that by comparing and contrasting movie posters of film’s past, moving through iconic decades in cinema and the final breaths of cool movie posters in the late 2000s, before bringing us to where we ended up today. And that doesn’t even cover the “guy holding weapon” trope in video game covers. Also books.

TV

that time To Catch A Predator kinda killed a guy. by Skip Intro (1:32:25)

Uh…yeah…I don’t know how to make a smooth transition into this video, but this did happen. Regardless of whether you can argue that To Catch a Predator was doing noble work, the incident referenced in the title of this video puts a big, ugly spotlight on the show’s true underlying purpose at the end of the day – to make good TV, no matter who or what it has to exploit. In this video, Skip Intro revisits one of the most problematic shows in TV history and how it’s responsible for exaggerating the risk of “stranger danger” while platforming a vigilante group with unconventional and unethical methods. It also blurred the lines between civilians and law enforcement and projected a positive bias toward police units and the “bad apples” that “occasionally” exist within them.

The Deep Dive’s Bonus Video of the Week

Shoutout to Jess from South Africa for recommending this video! Hollywood’s obsession with ambition only fuels our culture’s fixation on it. This video is about the media we consume that glorifies working toward a goal that we’re well aware may not even make us happy. Is there anything we can watch to help us see the beauty in the mundane world? Can we find contentment in boredom instead of vilifying it?

If you have a bonus video you want to share for a shoutout in an upcoming newsletter, check out the poll below – it doesn’t even have to be a video essay!

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