In 2021, I started a video channel on YouTube which is called ByzantineBooks. My intention was to start a multimedia project to get people interested in Byzantine history. I saw there was a lack of interest in Byzantine history outside of academics such as Anthony Kaldellis and some others. I am not an academic, but I got teaching in college and my own self-education. However, there is always questions that bothers anyone making a channel on YouTube: What content is the audience trying to see on there? That was an issue to contend with.
Generally speaking, a YouTube channel in the past was more about the novelty of a channel giving out content than the quality. However, as YouTube has been changing, the site has moved away from views towards watch time. This means, hypothetically, you should be making content that catches people attention not just trying to get views. However, the system has been breaking down and seems to be no longer as efficient as it once was. As Tik Tok got more popular, YouTube had this desire to get copy the service’s short form videos. When YouTube began in 2005, the main emphasis was on long form videos, not short form content. However, YouTube’s decision in pivoting to this has hurt many channels, especially those that concentrate on history as their main topic.
History videos are tough to make. While one could make short form videos that talk about history, I think that it would be better if longer form videos were made. Instead of relying on short form videos that people hardly remember after watching them, we need to get people to focus more on understanding long form content instead of just getting short snippets. In an age where people are not really reading books, we need to get people to think about ideas in a way that mimics long-form reading, which is being replaced by videos. That is what my channel and others are trying to recreate.
Byzantine-Empire.com 