The List Blowup

Long after Let’s Plays were made an iconic part of the YouTube platform, people have been trying to figure out how to catch their audience’s attention when video games start to lose viewer’s interest. Well, one of the newer trends that have started to become recognized as entertainment has been tier lists whether it be over physical and emotional pain rankings from a channel that lasted a year, Unus Annus, or foods and beverages that has included cereal and their mascots, beer, and even fruit.

One YouTuber has made this trend blow up in popularity almost single-handedly if it wasn’t for the crew that helps him order all the food that he tests, Keith Habersberger from the Try Guys. Habersberger’s series on the channel called Eat the Menu has him ordering every item from a fast-food chain or restaurant and reviewing them. All, even the drinks, and ranks the best and worst items at the end. As of January 30th, 2021 the YouTuber has reviewed twenty-nine places with his newest video featuring Jolibees. In the summer, he has also promised to do a follow-up video to his Starbucks episode uploaded back in December in order to review both winter and summer special featured items, which would technically make that an incomplete Eat the Menu place until part two comes out. What a suspenseful way to keep the viewers waiting and coming back for more!

Now, why exactly do people want to watch people rank different items? Surely, that’d be boring. Well, aside from there now being an interactive board where pictures of said items can be visibly placed into categories of S, A, B, C, D, sometimes E, and F, the viewers want to see what their favorite YouTubers think about various pizza toppings or beer flavors to see if their tastes are similarly aligned. If not, of course, audience members will comment in various degrees of emotional reactions and that boosts the views of the video especially if said YouTuber is lesser-known. And just like with Keith’s technical two-parter video for Starbucks, others can and have also split videos into multiple parts for similar reasons: to keep the viewers coming back for more. Curiosity and opinion-based videos pair well together and allow for engagement on a different level than gaming, beauty, or comedy focused videos and channels would because whoever comments on a tier list video has more to say than they liked or disliked the video for whatever reason.

Sure, careless might not seem like the most interesting videos that YouTube has to offer, but they allow for conversations that seem tripe but are seen as important to people who regularly consume certain products and have a certain brand preference like the famous, ongoing Pepsi vs. Coca Cola debate.

Written by Mordecai Russell

Lynn Makes

Evan Conroy

Ron Peterson