One of my favorite past times is to watch Youtube videos, if you want a place where creativity reigns supreme you are only a few clicks away from watching all sorts of people with different opinions, outlooks on life, dreams and aspirations moving up in the world doing what they love the most. Some enjoy making projects that expand beyond the boundaries of a screen and into the realm of ARG’s like EverymanHYBRID while some others dedicate their lives to pointing out the ins and outs of various parts of the gaming industry like Jim Sterling. Overall, there will always be someone doing something for their own audience.
One of the most prominent Youtubers I enjoy watching religiously, however, goes by the name of Nick Nocturne. With his channel called Night Mind, he makes it his duty to promote creative and great content as well as providing explanations and compiling documentation of ARG’s, creepypasta and other kinds of Internet oddities and mysteries. I’m sure that a lot of work goes into the creation of these videos, the content itself is incredibly well explained and Nick usually provides good arguments that give a brand new meaning to the theories he proposes, with evidence to support them spread across the products he reviews, unlike a certain theorist who relies on a translation addition in a localized piece of media for basis to make a pointless argument.
Night Mind has taught people a lot of things through his videos, even if sometimes he doesn’t downright say it, more often than not talking about creativity and how to do something with a property and make it unique so the message comes across in a clearer fashion. It’s certainly one of those channels that will always be in pro of creativity and will always have a subtle message to be interpreted, much like the projects he reviews.
And one of his latest additions to his channel left a very good impression on me because it definitely shows the importance of a constructive argument with evidence backing it up. Not to mention, how important it is to always listen to the people who think positively and negatively about a thing or piece of media since it will always provide you with a new perspective on the discussion. And all of this happened because of a horrible hissy fit.
The Cabin Fever Nightmare
It all started at March 31, when Night Mind announced a trailer for a sub series called Cabin Fever Dreams where, due to an involuntary hiatus. He became mad at his viewers for the constant bugging he got regarding various Youtube channels that they wanted him to analyze that were, in his opinion “FLASHY FLASHY FLASHY but no Lightbulb”. During the video however, he shows a strong resentment to a particular series that keeps being censored (Mostly to not spoil those who didn’t know about it at the time. Like me). It was later revealed by not so subtle comments that the thing Nick was talking about was the beloved Welcome to Night Vale.
Make a time skip to the end of April, (To May 8 because of unforeseen delay) and then we are shown a very resentful Nick talking about how much he loathed Welcome to Night Vale. The way he starts simply shows how much he despised Night Vale after reading the first paragraph of the book. He then continues throughout the video talking about the faults and fails of Welcome to Night Vale, insulting the creators and how he hated to be compared to Cecil Baldwin. (he spends around 6 minutes talking about it.)
Then the transmission gives us our first red flag as Nick mentions some “Technical Difficulties” due to a very dark and ominous cloud that seemed to have some sort of “Luminescence” in it. He comments about lightning as well, reassuring the audience that he might go off the air and to call emergency services if such thing happens. After making a few snarky remarks about the length of WTNV’s podcast intros (You know, because you’re totally not guilty of that Nick. Totally). However, after a few more minutes of Nick talking about how badly written and how badly paced Welcome To Night Vale is, we have a sudden break in the transmission. Followed by static and after that, a complete 180 turn.
We are now introduced to David Dayern (Har) or Day Brain, a counterpart to Night Mind who is seemingly very excited to talk about the Night Vale as well, praising it as something “Amazing”. It’s a move that I’m sure completely overthrew any of the avid watchers of Night Mind, when I was first listening to this, I was absolutely confused and wondering what the hell this Day Brain guy is and why we had this transmission from him. Even so, Day Brain continued talking as usual, as if he was talking to his own audience even though it was clearly not. Continuing to praise Night vale until we suddenly get another break in the transmission before being thrown back to Nick and the normal transmission.
The cycle continues for a second time until we get a break that nobody would’ve expected. Suddenly Night Mind and Day Brain are sharing the transmission thanks to the ominous cloud. And after a brief introduction to themselves, Day Brain and Night Mind engage into a discussion about how one likes Night Vale and the other dislikes it, usually when you see something like this right from the word “Go” it’s usually a one-sided conversation from the two sides of the coin. One tries to defend the product in question but the other tries to tear it apart, both of them trying to prove how they are wrong. And yes, Nick Nocturn shows this first by saying how Day Brain is wrong about his feelings toward Night Vale.
And through a natural progression, we see how Day Brain and Night Mind start arguing and discussing at length about how Night Vale is good or bad. With David mentioning the book that Nick didn’t want to read, this is the most important part to the point I want to bring across, Nick DID NOT read the book, and his impressions about Welcome To Night Vale were not complete because he didn’t complete his read, but Nick also talks to David about how the thing he claims is a great piece of podcast media is extremely flawed. Day Brain says that it’s simply impossible, but that he’s open to new ideas. After that, Nick proposes that he rewinds the entire broadcast he’s been doing so that David can listen to it, and he agrees but only under the condition that Nick reads the novel.
After an intermission with a nice musical piece, Nick once again talks to the microphone, with a rather ashamed tone. Talking about how he and David are back, Day breaks the silence by saying how he thinks he sees things under a new light. Only for Night Mind to say that everything he’s been saying is “Not precisely adequate anymore, most of it not even accurate anymore.”
From this point out, everything else regarding Night vale and the plot points discussed will be left for you to hear in the full transmission in the Night Mind channel, the point I wanted to bring with this is how (maybe unintentionally) people can reach a new light with their favorite or most hated pieces of media. And how important it is to have a constructive and open discussion about anything.
The importance of constructive discussion
In a day and age where many people think their opinion is absolute and that every opposing opinion is wrong, where people are raising complaints because a journalist thinks negatively on a popular piece of media. A place where closed minds are starting to run rampant, it’s become more and more important to get the message of having an open mind about things, listening to different opinions and look at the evidence from whole new perspectives,
There have been a lot of “I like this thing that everyone doesn’t like and viceversa” kinds of people. Some are trolls but some others truly see enjoyment or dislike certain things. One of the most prominent (And infamous) examples is Caddicarus when he mentioned that he didn’t like Final Fantasy VII. Or ProJared saying that Sonic Adventure 2 sucks, we also have people like ClementJ642 who mentioned that he doesn’t think that Mighty No. 9 is that bad, I can mention a lot more examples but I think I drove the point across.
Sometimes all we really need is a challenge, someone with a different point of view, maybe even a different background. To make us see the hidden beauty of some things, some other times. We also need someone who dislikes something to provide us their reasons so we can see the flaws in what we may consider masterpieces or great works of art.
As of now, I’m wowed at how much I got from a simple discussion between two people with two different ideals. When I put it to practice, I was amazed at how great the results came from a Bendy article that could’ve been just an empty rant about me looking at the game’s flaws and calling it a day. Definitely give the rest of Night Mind a watch, and see how creativity can rise from various places
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