Icystorm 9 REVIEW

This article was written as the script for the next Icystorm 9 video.

I’m Icystorm 9. I’m 17, I live in the Japanese state of Nebraska, and I live without a mouth. I play video games and listen to pop music. And I’m a character. I’m scripted and voiced by an adult living in Nebraska, United States, NOT Japan, and my character is just a vague representation of my own person.

My channel began dedicated to complaining about Minecraft. I quickly ran out of things to complain about, so it became Icystorm9Reviews in 2015. But I didn’t know what types of videos I wanted to make. That was, until I got sick in 2017. I was struck with a terrible condition that left me bedridden for about a month. In that time, I watched a lot of YouTube channels that inspired me. The most important one is Project COE. I liked other long-form review channels, like LambHoot, SomeCallMeJohnny, Todd In The Shadows, and TheDoubleAgent, but they weren’t making the type of videos I thought were in short supply. I wasn’t hungry for more of this. But I found Project COE’s Saturnday reviews addicting. They were short and to the point. They gave a brief overview of the game of the week with gameplay to discuss their main points. And they were talking about something that wasn’t super common to talk about: relatively obscure 90s video games. It was a true review. Not in the sense that the episode would go over everything about the game early. But in the sense that you would know after a few minutes whether it was something you’d find worth your time and money, or if it wouldn’t. It was so easy to watch the whole playlist in just a few sittings, or at least wish I could. It brought me a lot of comfort in the days where I couldn’t really walk or stand or breathe. I wanted to make videos that gave that same feeling.

Ever since I started in 2019, the videos got more and more complex to edit. I learned a new editing trick in each video. Things moved around more. Now, going back to the Life of Pablo video, I find it crazy how little happens. Things sit still for more than 3 seconds, which is unthinkable in a modern Icystorm 9 video. But the problem is that this took a lot of time. I remember making the Glowing Man video in a few hours, after I got home from school, but before a 7pm Wednesday night lenten service. For comparison, the Hurley video took upwards of ten hours just to edit 100 seconds of footage. The Hurley video is no doubt better than the Glowing Man video, but I don’t think it was thrice as good. I was putting in a crazy amount of hours for little output.

I’ve written a fair bit on my website in the interim. I’ve reviewed a dozen or more movies, reviewed dozens more albums, and discussed more personal subjects that mean a lot to me. But writing is not my passion. Writing isn’t something I can sit and do for hours on end without taking a break. It’s the video making that propels me to do it. The reason ten hour video editing sessions are bad for me is because I like doing them. They’re really bad for my physical health. And my emotional health as well, according to my psychiatrist.

I’m looking for ways to make videos that don’t take so much time. I want to make the videos that require ten hours of editing, without taking ten hours to make them. I’m not sure how that will play out or look like yet. But soonr than soon, I will be uploading more good stuff.