Here is a modern analysis of Othello. I haven’t heard or seen of this youtuber’s videos before, but this particular video has over 100k views, one of his more popular videos “To Kill A Mocking Bird – Thug Notes Summary” has over a million views, and his handle “Wisecrack” has over 400k subscribers! It is very interesting to see how people can reinvent old stories and plays and then market it to a younger audience. It’s obviously not the same as reading the book, but after interning for a summer at A&E Studios I’ve learned short videos are the new way of delivering content. The amount of book readers is dwindling, and even more surprising is the amount of people turning off table TV subscriptions. Most people will take in content by watching small videos on their phone or laptop. This video has two parts. The first half is Wisecrack (the youtuber speaking) giving a quick summary about the play and the second half is an analysis on the play. This 5 minute video uses Black English with a stereotypical voice to deliver the content. Personally, growing up in NY it was easy to learn of black culture and Black English. My knowledge (and occasional use of the slang words and type of speech among friends) made it more interesting to watch then someone reading it with regular speech. One of my favorite lines in the video was time stamped at 3:07 when Wisecrack references god and then says, “ Like the big g-man Iago pulling all the strings up in this heezy.” It shows an understanding of the play where Iago is “pulling the strings” controlling almost all of the characters. While many would consider this version of the play crude, it is still informative and educates the reader/watcher in a simple way.

Iago “Pulling Strings”