The editing quality, narration pace and tone are all very professional and pleasant to look at. Stylistically, it seems to try to remain impartial. It’s nice to see a subject as sensitive as this handled competently instead of just using it as propaganda material.
A couple of points that I would gladly have seen mentioned:
1) During the deportations, the soviets didn’t just pick random people to get rid of. The rich, enthuisiastic and hard-working were targeted first, as to discard the brighter minds of the nation and keep the simpler folk that were thought to be easier to manipulate.
2) In addition to producing a huge number of blatant fake news (all the while accusing others of doing the same thing, not even bothering to justify themselves), Russia really likes using trained people that are interviewed as “concerned locals”. Similar to the tactics in Ukraine, where unmarked soldiers appeared and started carrying out the will of Russia with military precision.
3) Russia has a ridiculous amount of internet trollfarms that spend 24/7 commenting, liking/disliking, making posts etc on multiple accounts, generating and supporting the narrative that the state currently needs. This seemed laughable in the early years when you could easily separate the few troll accounts and posts from real people, but if you carry the same thing out for years and years, you muddy the water so much that it’s very hard to tell what is real anymore.
4) The world of “alternative facts” and ignorance towards credible news sources has created a situation where it’s very easy to take the people who “haven’t decided yet” and present a strong, believable case to them, using them as your propaganda flock. The same thing can be seen with anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers – a subject that is really a separate topic alltogether is used as an anti-state movement. People are riled up so that they are easier to divide and conquer.
That’s all. Good luck!
Hey. Nice video, I watched it and will try to give you some subjective feedback 🙂
The title of the video is quite generic, I think I understand why you chose that title but I think that you could do better. Why not mention terms like: disinformation, russia, estonia, bronze night etc? It would reflect the nature of the video better. The current title is trendy and would suit a bestseller light reading novel.
This is very subjective, but I hated the editing. I hated the references to pop culture (south park, movies, those short clips in the beginning). To me it’s very low-brow and targeted at a much younger audience than me. I can speak from my perspective. I’m in my thirties. But then again, I don’t know whos your target audience. Maybe you are trying to captivate 24 year olds? I personally would not include such footage as they don’t ad any value and look cheap.
And the gamification of the entire video, my god. Here we are back again at the target audience. Who are you making this video for? For a wide audience? For academics? For gamers? I think that younger gamers might like this kind of editing, but again… that leaves a lot of room to improve. The youtube userbase is so much more than young gamers.
The narration: very well done. Professional, high quality. Pleasant pace, tone.
Soundtrack: again with the gamification. I’m not a fan.
The content: Overall I really liked the content (facts etc). You left out a few things that I think would be nice to include but this is a complex issue and you probably want to keep the video within a certain timeframe. Having said that. I’ll add my thoughts about how the content may be improved in my opinion.
You mention the expansion of NATO (by including the Baltic states) against the Russian border as a sort of catalyst for their actions. However in my opinion you are ignoring some important factors: 1. Russia used to occupy Estonia, withdrew from Estonia (and other Baltic states) when the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia has refused to ratify a border agreement with Estonia after that. Considering the past, the present and the size difference of the two countries, Russia still sees and has seen Estonia as something that could be theirs 2. In many ways Russia is a failing state (economical, sociological problems) & is falling behind the developed world in many aspects. That said, they are still one of the most powerful countries in terms of military and information warfare. Creating enemies (like the Evil Estonian country who supposedly persecutes Russian minorities in Estonia or other countries) is and has been their way of misdirecting their populations attention on what their own state of affairs is and how the country is doing. I’ll add a disclaimer here: I’m not a history major and since this is a complex matter, I think you can get a better summary with more accurate details from this sub or another sub (perhaps /r/askhistorians ?). The point is: Russia has serious problems within their country and making others look bad is a good way to distract the population.
You claim this: “there was little contact between estonians and russians through friendship and social networks”. While this claim is true for some russians who live in Estonia, it’s not true for many. I don’t have time to look for statistics but know that many russians who live in Estonia work here just like everyone else, they speak estonian, hang out with estonians etc. Obviously there are russians who don’t speak estonian (more so in the senior population and perhaps youth who live in Narva) but your claim is a bit too broad. This is a statement that isn’t entirely accurate in my opinion.
Summary: I liked your video. There were minor aspects in terms of the facts that I would suggest to do a bit more research on and re-do those parts. Narration was great. Editing was very well done and while I hated the approach you took (gamification, pop culture references) this is very subjective and maybe you know your audience so well and maybe they really love that sort of thing. I personally would love to watch a channel with such content but the form would have to be a bit different. Good job. I hope your video does well and if you plan to do any alternations, I am sure it will do even better. Feel free to PM me a link of your next video or if you plan to re-edit this one.
2 comments
Some thoughts:
The editing quality, narration pace and tone are all very professional and pleasant to look at. Stylistically, it seems to try to remain impartial. It’s nice to see a subject as sensitive as this handled competently instead of just using it as propaganda material.
A couple of points that I would gladly have seen mentioned:
1) During the deportations, the soviets didn’t just pick random people to get rid of. The rich, enthuisiastic and hard-working were targeted first, as to discard the brighter minds of the nation and keep the simpler folk that were thought to be easier to manipulate.
2) In addition to producing a huge number of blatant fake news (all the while accusing others of doing the same thing, not even bothering to justify themselves), Russia really likes using trained people that are interviewed as “concerned locals”. Similar to the tactics in Ukraine, where unmarked soldiers appeared and started carrying out the will of Russia with military precision.
3) Russia has a ridiculous amount of internet trollfarms that spend 24/7 commenting, liking/disliking, making posts etc on multiple accounts, generating and supporting the narrative that the state currently needs. This seemed laughable in the early years when you could easily separate the few troll accounts and posts from real people, but if you carry the same thing out for years and years, you muddy the water so much that it’s very hard to tell what is real anymore.
4) The world of “alternative facts” and ignorance towards credible news sources has created a situation where it’s very easy to take the people who “haven’t decided yet” and present a strong, believable case to them, using them as your propaganda flock. The same thing can be seen with anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers – a subject that is really a separate topic alltogether is used as an anti-state movement. People are riled up so that they are easier to divide and conquer.
That’s all. Good luck!
Hey. Nice video, I watched it and will try to give you some subjective feedback 🙂
The title of the video is quite generic, I think I understand why you chose that title but I think that you could do better. Why not mention terms like: disinformation, russia, estonia, bronze night etc? It would reflect the nature of the video better. The current title is trendy and would suit a bestseller light reading novel.
This is very subjective, but I hated the editing. I hated the references to pop culture (south park, movies, those short clips in the beginning). To me it’s very low-brow and targeted at a much younger audience than me. I can speak from my perspective. I’m in my thirties. But then again, I don’t know whos your target audience. Maybe you are trying to captivate 24 year olds? I personally would not include such footage as they don’t ad any value and look cheap.
And the gamification of the entire video, my god. Here we are back again at the target audience. Who are you making this video for? For a wide audience? For academics? For gamers? I think that younger gamers might like this kind of editing, but again… that leaves a lot of room to improve. The youtube userbase is so much more than young gamers.
The narration: very well done. Professional, high quality. Pleasant pace, tone.
Soundtrack: again with the gamification. I’m not a fan.
The content: Overall I really liked the content (facts etc). You left out a few things that I think would be nice to include but this is a complex issue and you probably want to keep the video within a certain timeframe. Having said that. I’ll add my thoughts about how the content may be improved in my opinion.
You mention the expansion of NATO (by including the Baltic states) against the Russian border as a sort of catalyst for their actions. However in my opinion you are ignoring some important factors: 1. Russia used to occupy Estonia, withdrew from Estonia (and other Baltic states) when the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia has refused to ratify a border agreement with Estonia after that. Considering the past, the present and the size difference of the two countries, Russia still sees and has seen Estonia as something that could be theirs 2. In many ways Russia is a failing state (economical, sociological problems) & is falling behind the developed world in many aspects. That said, they are still one of the most powerful countries in terms of military and information warfare. Creating enemies (like the Evil Estonian country who supposedly persecutes Russian minorities in Estonia or other countries) is and has been their way of misdirecting their populations attention on what their own state of affairs is and how the country is doing. I’ll add a disclaimer here: I’m not a history major and since this is a complex matter, I think you can get a better summary with more accurate details from this sub or another sub (perhaps /r/askhistorians ?). The point is: Russia has serious problems within their country and making others look bad is a good way to distract the population.
You claim this: “there was little contact between estonians and russians through friendship and social networks”. While this claim is true for some russians who live in Estonia, it’s not true for many. I don’t have time to look for statistics but know that many russians who live in Estonia work here just like everyone else, they speak estonian, hang out with estonians etc. Obviously there are russians who don’t speak estonian (more so in the senior population and perhaps youth who live in Narva) but your claim is a bit too broad. This is a statement that isn’t entirely accurate in my opinion.
Summary: I liked your video. There were minor aspects in terms of the facts that I would suggest to do a bit more research on and re-do those parts. Narration was great. Editing was very well done and while I hated the approach you took (gamification, pop culture references) this is very subjective and maybe you know your audience so well and maybe they really love that sort of thing. I personally would love to watch a channel with such content but the form would have to be a bit different. Good job. I hope your video does well and if you plan to do any alternations, I am sure it will do even better. Feel free to PM me a link of your next video or if you plan to re-edit this one.
All the best to you 🙂