Remakes (Patreon)

I don't know what you think of my practice of remaking videos, but I thought I'd take a minute to explain my philosophy about it.

Historically, the video that gets the most attention from new people is the one that has been called "What did Old Norse sound like?" (It's not going to have a question mark in the title anymore; I've learned my lesson about that.) Up to today, this has existed in three different forms that I can remember, made in August 2014, December 2016, and August 2017. There might even have been another version during my UCLA days. The December 2016 version is my most-watched video, with 451,831 views, and the August 2017 version is the second most-watched, with 187,308.

This video is a funnel for attention to my channel, and therefore I also want it to represent my channel at its best. I feel like I've taken another several steps forward in the last year, and that it's time to refresh it again. This reflects not only improvements in my techniques of video-making and editing, but also improvements in how I pronounce Old Norse, since I've gotten a lot better at consistently distinguishing long vs. short vowels in what I believe was the Old Norse manner, ever since a windy day in an old barn.

Among other major, very popular videos that I've remade lately have been the video about how the modern Scandinavian languages differ from Old Norse (which replaced three, less organized, videos), the video about Old Norse names, and the video about how the Norse gods might have been worshipped. I'm much happier with the current remakes.

In each case, I delete the old version(s) because of Youtube recommended-video inertia. At any given time, Youtube seems to be recommending one single video of mine to a lot of people, and it tends to be an older video (I guess because older ones have accummulated more views). Because few people will notice the superior remake if I leave the old one there soaking up traffic, I get rid of the old one, hoping that people's interest in the topic will lead them to find its replacement.

Another reason I continue to remake old videos is that, since I left, UC Berkeley has actually received donations from people who think I work there and want to support what they think is my department. Since to this day, most people only ever see one video of mine and move on (strange as that might seem to some of you), I want to make sure that the probability is that they'll see a video that's reflects my current employer, as well as my current language skills and editing proficiency.

In the meantime, I do make a point of not making both of the regular uploads in a week remakes. I've settled into something vaguely like a pattern, in which I try to upload a video of interest to the dedicated student of Norse language or myth on Tuesday, and a video for a more general audience on Thursday. It doesn't always hold, but it's been a good guiding principle for me.