Project draft and update

The Cohen Saga Continues, and the Foldables get more work to do. https://www.reuters.com/technology/gamestop-names-billionaire-ryan-cohen-ceo-2023-09-28/ I'm excited for the finished version, its been interesting to see the changes between drafts!

One suggestion, if you re-edit anyway: it took me an embarassingly long time to figure out what "bake" means in context, so it might be nice on the vocab sheet (which I really appreciated)

At 1:05:07, there's an odd cut. Blink and you'll miss it.

So, the top of Crystal's head is out of frame from 9:55:11-11:22:00. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but it looks weird.

Hope you said hi to Dunkey @ PAX. He's hella rad

Finally, I had the opportunity to watch the new video. Loved the changes and organization of ideas. The transition between content felt well delivered, and everything flowed well. Additionally, I loved how many times you dropped shibboleth during the essay. Also, more additions of that YouTuber in the face paint making ridiculous statements with unearned confidence would make me smile.

The extra additions really helped bring it all together better. With the visuals completed im sure it will add a lot. Some small video & audio editing errors that need to be cleaned up but this is some good stuff. Great job Mr. Foldable

So, this video is already pretty long, and I'm sure you don't want to add time to fully explain the original Gamestop phenomenon. But if you could link in the description when the vid releases some fuller explanations, I think that would be helpful.

Big improvement The vocab cheat sheet at 7:18 helps RC Bed Bath timeline: It might just be me being bad with dates, but I had trouble parsing the timeline during the form section until cross-referencing with the graph at the end. The illustration of the Bed Bath Hudson Bay death spiral is good, but when it starts to take up the whole screen (~2:11:57) I found the blinking to be unpleasant to look at The blackjack 31 metaphor is brilliant Excellent work as always! I am excited to see the finished version!

Please consider what might be added to prevent reasonably skeptical people, who are going to have a hard time understanding "cohencidences" and whatnot, from assuming there is cherry picking going on to use a few crazies to paint the "investors" as weirdos. For example, showing some screencaps of the various crazy reddits including the member counts and just a view of the absolutely crazy post titles would work.

Couldn’t GameStop have just issued more stock? Like printed more shares and sold them on the market? Right?

I know it's not staying in but that 30 second pause to pour the balls in the moass jar at 24:15 was incredible and it took me a while to realize it was was not intentional

This version was a lot easier to follow. I will absolutely watch multiple times because it's so fascinating. Props to everyone who helped make this video!

This is great. As somebody peripherally aware of Apes, memestocks, etc... I found the previous edit really difficult to follow, and I'd say I'm much more informed on the topic than most regular folk who haven't thought about it at all since it was headline news in Jan 2021. The presentation of Heat Lamp early on as a key term to follow throughout the video was of significant help. In the earlier edit, it was just one more piece of jargon lost in the deluge of actual & imagined complexity. The explanation of the component conspiracy theories from around 0:30:00 is very clear. It is a shame to lose the "cascading nonsense" line from the previous cut, but Dan's hilarious delivery of "what are you doing, why are you here?" at 0:33:15 more than makes up for it. As another commenter mentioned, there's an odd repetition of "conspicuously absent until this point" for both DFV & RC. It feels like it's leading to a punchline which never comes. I miss the cut from the previous edit from "the worst possible way" to Dan-in-a-field saying "the usual way". It fits in less neatly with this overall edit which has a lot less field time, but it is still very funny. Watching both pre-release cuts with such a critical eye has done more for my appreciation of video editing as an art than anything since the Suicide Squad video. Great work, can't wait for the final release.

So much easier to understand!

I suspect there's no "right" answer here that would be best for everyone but I'm just going to throw in my vote for not explaining/defining everything explicitly up front. I like the setup and payoff. "Wait, what did that weird jargony phrase mean? I'm going to keep watching and find out!" is engaging.

Could have gone my whole life without learning the phrase "Wife changing money" and would have been happier for it.

A really great improvement over last draft. It's shaping up to be another fantastic Folding Ideas deep-dive, an instant classic! The only bit of feedback I have left is that "book vs. plan", " booking shares" etc., while mentioned a few times throughout, is still unexplained, AFAICS. I don't know if that matters a lot, or at all, but I thought I'd mention it. Other than that, I've got nothing that wasn't mentioned above. It's gonna be a great, fantastic video again! Keep up the brilliant work!

At REC TC 1:06:44:00, "Xbox Series X/S" should be replaced with "Xbox One."

Have you thought about doing some quick setup/explanation of "red Dan?" The color coding seems like an effective idea, but the effect kind of looks like a filter left on by accident and even people in the comments here are confused by it (I happened to catch your stream where you mentioned color coding, so I expected it going in). Maybe if you had an establishing shot where you dramatically flick on a red incandescent bulb and say something ominous and/or explanatory into the camera, then cut to red Dan. Just a thought, NFA.

I appreciate all the effort you put into this. I understood it a lot better this time around

Thanks Dan!! Overall opinion is that this draft is way cleaner. As with many other folks it took me a few viewings of the first draft to really sink in, but this one's way more structurally coherent from the outset. Agree with what others have said about levels needing normalization across the board, but I trust that’ll be fixed. Time-specific notes, some of which have been covered by previous comments: [00:08:03] - much clearer that this first Heat Lamp theory exposure is mocking/taking the piss out of some wackadoo bullshit [00:09:37] - fifteen seconds feels like a bit too long for this intro card, but I suspect that 1) that's the joke and 2) it's fine considering the fact that we're 5.882% of the way into video [00:09:55] - Crystal's audio throughout the short-sell explanation is missing the old-timey filter that was in place around 00:02:20; not sure if that's TK or if it's intentionally absent in the longform explanation? [00:10:31] & [00:12:03] - reflow image text or shrink font so as not to collide with borders [00:42:30] - I wonder if there's a way to transition between these two takes? feels a bit jarring currently, but not unmanageably so [00:51:48] - missing VO [00:53:53] - “Custom Title” graphic over music video; placeholder for your insert or was that actually on there in the source clip? [00:56:42] - re: “wife-changing money”—I wonder if it’s not more effective to hold on this a bit longer. It’s dropped once earlier as part of one of the parodic explanations of what the apes plan to happen, but in this context it sounds like a misspeak rather than a dig at the women-hating chuds that make up this community. [01:01:28] - missing animation on shareholder borrowing figures? or meant to be static? [01:12:17] - think this would work better as a compilation of DFV memes, and then a cut to the Reddit post on “here, for example…” at 01:12:32? But I suppose that breaks the PowerPoint as a narrative device—perhaps a highlighted cursor or laser pointer? [01:13:51] - audio in left ear only + perhaps highlight/punch in on relevant text here? [01:24:31] - Reddit post title appearing here leaves frame after graphic behind it has changed, rather than in time with it [01:30:32] - audio in left ear only [01:33:57] - accurate to call options and ETFs “more out there instruments”? or does ‘out there’ in this context refer to a layman’s understanding of markets (since, for example, many ETFs are widely available/traded and discussed, even by retail investors) [01:36:22] - see above note re: “wife-changing money” (I think it was said at another point in between here and 00:56:42 but I can’t remember what section) [01:41:34] - potentially add on-screen subtitles for this guy, who I suppose is the world record holder in speed mumbling? [01:43:34] - I’m not sure this clip flows well here—seems largely disconnected from the point made immediately prior about the stock market as the consensus last remaining economic ladder, nor does it flow cleanly to the following point about ape motivations [01:52:15] - you introduce Ryan Cohen with the same manner and text Keith Gill at 01:05:53—intentional? [01:55:11] - this guy sucks! [01:58:58] - image doesn’t fully fill screen. Part of arm and table visible at bottom of frame [02:05:39] - please tell me these are from a library [02:08:11] - bleep instead of mute? Or does that call too much attention to the slur [02:14:32] - which algorithm? I suspect it’s the DTCC one based on context, but feel it would be good to have this info more frontloaded [02:18:16] - no note here, more a shoutout to the absolutely unhinged claim in this post that apes should not use stop orders (a good mechanism that can help you to either lock in profits or prevent you from losing all your goddamn money!) because not going down 88% on your initial investment is FUD [02:32:09] - your sunglasses and face in the closeups from here through to the end appear more blue when compared to the medium shots at 02:32:15 and 02:32:26

47:50: you say "we've exceeded 100% short interest" but at that point in the example it hasn't exceeded it yet. It seems like the animation is mistimed with your narration a bit.

The pulled back shots in the PSA from about 00:09:55:00 to 00:11:22:00 (when the speaker is standing) has a weird crop/zoom. It cuts off her forehead and makes the overall frame feel weird. Starts again at 00:12:44:00 until 00:13:34:00. All timestamps are rounded to nearest second because I'm not watching on a computer and fine control isn't possible. Sorry.

After watching the original draft, I was left with a vague understanding of the movement and the key events, but because the vocabulary used by Apes was still unexplained, the arguments made using those colloquialisms didn't quite give the right amount of impact. Nearly all of that has been resolved in this version, your addition of explaining stocks in name and functionality is very welcome. I still feel like there could be some more verbal introduction of the terms like 'DD' earlier on by just saying "- Due Dilligance, or 'DD' for short, is etc etc etc...-". Additionally, the re-explanation of earlier concepts made them a lot more digestible, and the build up to explaining the insane Ape reality is much more gradual. While I absolutely think the re-filming of these sections was necessary and an improvement, I am a little sad to see the scenes of you standing out in the middle of a field go. I liked the energy and cuts, especially when you go "You know what's exciting? They turned off the buy button specifically to kill the squeeze. They WANT you to sell!" All in all, this shows how much work these videos are where you have some great concepts that unfortunately need to get cut so you can serve the purpose of the video better. Awesome work, I'm excited to see the final product

It's pretty great but frankly I think you might just want to add a bland explanation of what all these weird, conspiracy theory, reddit terms like baking and dd mean near the beginning.

This is a minor complaint, and maybe I just have a bad memory. I was having some trouble understanding the section on voting. At 1:04:15, you show the total votes. You mention once or twice before that there were 72 million Gamestop shares in circulation, but there’s a bit of a gap between when you mention that number and when we see the 55 million total votes, so I was having trouble remembering if that was larger or smaller than the number of shares. From context, I assumed it was smaller, but having the total votes and the total shares on screen at the same time, as a little reminder, would have been helpful.

What is "baking"?

@41:17 Maybe juice the diagram a little, introduce it a bit more? Explain the structure and maybe highlight sections when you're talking about them?

The MOASS section is where everything starts coming together. Maybe place some of it, or a reshoot portion with the same set, right near the start? MOASS is self-evidently absurd, it provides context/motivation to all the other behaviours, it emotionally sets up the story ("here is the tale of how a bunch of redditors convinced themselves they'd conquer the world by holding onto the shares of a company on its deathbed, the closer to death, the closer to its nonsensical phoenix revival"), is an excellent motivation for getting into the weeds of shortselling and finance, and gives an in media res style momentum

@28min glitch, everything is red

I don't know how much its because I've watched the previous version and how much its just because this is much better paced but it seems to be a whole lot better flowing. Couple of points: Might be a good idea to have heatlamp stuff at start read by chudan because he seems to be the person who normally uses terms which get explained later so it's a touch confusing coming from you. Some audio is left channel only, including Letter at 1.14 and some people in 1.30

Full video comments, sorry if this is long but wanted to revisit all my critical feedback from the original draft: Overall, great changes, this feels like a completely different video from the first one. I said the first draft felt like a movie adaptation of a book that only made sense if you had read the book (were familiar with the Superstonk saga)--but this one works entirely fine on its own. Every new clip is great and makes the video much clearer, and I think anywhere you moved old clips from the first draft has been an improvement. The MOASS jar gag where you hold on setting it up for a long time works both as a funny bit and also lets the audience just pause and absorb the importance of the term. The red-tinted sequence walking through the full MOASS conspiracy works great. The later re-use of the red tint makes it clear to the audience when you are speaking as a conspiracist instead of as Dan. The video as a whole feels closer to Line Goes Up now, while it has a lot of Dan sitting at the desk talking, it turns out Dan sitting at the desk talking is a really efficient way to communicate information. The "What even is a stock" education sequence is really, really necessary, if you're worried it feels long or indulgent, people are going to need it. Thank you for including it. DRS is introduced much more cleanly, in the new draft it is now properly built up to so it doesn't feel like it comes out of nowhere. If you wanted a compelling visual to show how seriously apes take DRS, you could consider showing a timelapse of their edits to reddit /r/place with "DRS" in huge letters in the center of the canvas. The DFV section is similar to what it was before and while I think it does a good job of creating contrast, "You just heard all this insanity, now look at the extremely reasonable guy who is inexplicably their messianic figure." I still think maybe one more quippy line leading into DFV will help people in the headspace to expect reason from this guy instead of insanity. From the perspective of a viewer who knows nothing about this saga, you've created a (reasonable) expectation that streamers and wallstreetbets posters are all pretty certifiably insane. To this uninformed viewer, DFV is just another guy posting on reddit and streaming, so if they don't get some kind of heads-up it may take them awhile to acclimate. So maybe a line or two leading into this segment hinting at the difference in his expertise and demeanor will get people to pay attention to all the ways he is NOT the other streamers and posters that have been demo'd so far. Something like "If you pay attention, compared to the Apes we've discussed so far, you might notice a few interesting differences about this character." Or even just saying "DFV is not an Ape". At 01:18:49:00 or so there is a microphone pop in the audio Another microphone pop at 01:23:17 (there are a couple abrupt pops in this section when transitioning from black screen back to Dan-at-the-Desk) Another microphone pop at 01:33:05 Black frames at 01:33:15:03 More black frames at 01:33:25:06 Microphone pop 01:34:10 The FUD stamp gags around 01:37 are very funny but the volume difference between the FUD sound and the dialogue is very sharp, maybe bring it down a bit It's stupid but the name at 01:43:00 is "hop-lias" not "hope-il-ahs", literally doesn't matter because it's some rando ape but figured I'd mention it This draft still has the doubled usage of "conspicuously absent to this point", it's used both for DFV and for Ryan Cohen. I think the DFV usage is stronger, and in this draft Ryan Cohen is in fact referenced several times prior to that transition, so I would consider cutting or re-recording it to avoid re-using the same line. Maybe the better gag is "Who the hell is Ryan Cohen?" as most of the audience will have the name saturated without context at this point. Toward the end of the video I think Heat Lamp still kind of comes out of nowhere. Of course it's set up at the very beginning but I think another line or two leading into it could help. The audience understands Ape DD at this point, so if they understand Heat Lamp as the Mother of All Insane DDs they can follow everything after. Overall the video is massively better and if you released it as-is (with missing graphics etc fixed but no additional structural changes) it would be excellent. Thanks for putting this out there and keep doing your great work!

There's some visual glitches in the short-selling sequence regarding title cards and aspect ratio

This is a big improvement over the last draft, and certainly feels more like a Folding Ideas video. I found the subject matter much easier to grasp (in particular I really appreciate the slide with the terminology breakdown), although I suspect this is partially because I saw the previous iteration. The only things I can think to mention are mostly polish issues. Aside from the missing graphics or VO that you've already addressed, there are two moments at [27:43] and [48:30] where everything is lit red for some reason? Also the shot of you setting up the MOASS bouncy ball jar, which someone else already mentioned above. The only other thing that caught me off-guard is there's a noticeable jump in volume between shots at [13:55], and I found myself turning down the volume for the rest of the video. Otherwise, I love it. This last thing isn't really a criticism of the video, just a bit that resonated with me personally. At [1:31:14] there's that post from someone who specifically identifies themself as autistic, and goes on to argue that, because they're autistic, they can confirm apes are indeed decoding real secret messages from Cohen et al. This spoke to me because I'm also autistic, and seeing someone else invoke that identity as a sort of ward against faulty logic, a rhetorical shield invalidating criticism of their reading because "they're special," it really twisted my gut in an unpleasant way. I want to describe it as cringe, but in a way that cuts much deeper. Also, their claim that autists are particularly good at deciphering coded language, a skill that autists are notoriously bad at, really threw the self-delusion into sharp focus. I have no thesis here, in part because I myself am unsure how to feel about it. If nothing else, it's a grim reminder no one is immune to manipulation, regardless of who you are. Again, this thought is only tangentially related to the video itself, and shouldn't be taken as a recommendation that the post be removed. In conclusion, my admiration and appreciation of your work only grows with time, and I look forward to the final release. Sorry for the long comment. Cheers

Yeah, continuing through the video, it seems like everything will be explained, all the content and intent is there, it's just that from a first-time viewer perspective it's hard to keep track of what's going on and why. Hell, it might just be a matter of doing some reshoots to get different reads, ones that better communicate tone and how I should be relating to what I'm being told.

I'm only 8 mins in, but I can say that the added context helps a lot. In fact, I think you could go even further. You spend a lot of time explaining the apes, but I feel like I need a stronger anchor at the very start about the core story and why I should care - setting the scene emotionally about what sort of story this is, and piquing our interest in the questions you're about to start answering. As is, it still feels a bit like a report commissioned to break down the gamestonk phenomena by people who already know the broad strokes. The information goes by fast, and by the time I'm grasping why some answer you're giving is bonkers, we've moved onto another topic where you're answering questions you seem to assume I've already formed in my head, and I have to scramble to keep up with what we're talking about and why. You're already doing this of course, but I feel like you're holding back. Remember that you've been studying this little subculture for months on end, and if the introductory context feels painfully obvious and a little condescending to you, then it'll be just right for us. And speaking from experience, every expert loves a well-presented recap of the basics, so don't worry about boring people who have been following this. A bottom-up explanation can feel validating to those who already know it, when done right.

24:18- Is the entire cut of you filling the jar with bouncy balls and picking some lint out left in intentionally? It's funny, but reads a bit like you forgot to trim the clip down and don't know you're in the video.

The first 45m is a much smoother watch this time around; I understood each concept as it was brought up and everything is flowing together well.

I still feel like the terminology jump from due diligence to DD is jarring. At 1:20:06 would be a great time to note that "ape due diligence = DD". Otherwise the main shift happens at 1:26:13 and you could call attention there instead.

when headband-dan says "diamond hands" in time with the music... these hills sing

Oh and by the way, what is the Young Neighbors song that plays in the opening and ending? I’ve gone through their Bandcamp catalogue but I can’t seem to find it.

I had just been thinking about rewatching the Aug 18 draft when I got this Patreon email. What a treat! The new structure and added/expanded explanations work really well. I had to watch Aug 18 three times to fully connect its parts; this one is much clearer and addresses pretty much all of the questions I had on my first watch of Aug 18. The vocab sheet at 7min really helps, as I remember terms staying undefined for long amounts of time being one of the issues I had. It might be helpful to add MOASS onto the sheet, since the term shows up in a reddit post voiceover way before the proper explanation around 24min. The one area I currently find difficult follow is the explanation of short selling around 10min; I keep expecting visual aides to show up, like the infographic slides during the voting explanation at 1h. Thank you for sharing these updates; it’s incredibly interesting to see these videos evolve.

Commenting that the first ten minutes are GREATLY improved especially by the explicit "This is going to be a journey" and acknowledgement "It's going to be awhile before that makes any sense at all" clips. Looking excellent so far!

Less than 10 minutes in, and I'm already getting a lot of what was unclear in the last draft. Huge improvement, clear tons of work went into it!

Between 10:00 and 11;19 is you cut off the top of crystal head. It feels a bit distracting.

Oh yay, I'm so so excited for when this is public!! I'm gonna post comments/suggestions here w timestamps & reply as I get further in the video. 07:07 Memestock definitions: This is genuinely helpful! Maybe adjust to bigger text & alphabetical for cellphone watchers? 08:08 Heat lamp theory: I think this is supposed to be irony & poking fun at over complicated conspiracy thinking? But I missed that on first pass thru, and suddenly I was being hit by gibberish that shut down my brain. I'd recommend more of a transition/lead in, with even more blatant tone so viewers can know we're leaving reality again.

Excited to dive into this! Truly feel with the ongoing events there could be a part 2 to all of this down the road, however I don't know if anyone would have the mental capacity to document apes for that long haha. Really incredible stuff though Dan, making prairie Canadians proud!

I was wondering if you were gonna do something for my birthday 🥳 ☺️ In all seriousness cheers & can’t wait to watch again, and maybe again again