Watching apology videos from a decade ago feels like a totally different world now

Honestly, I was looking at some old clips from around 2014, and the apologies back then were so different. They were usually just a quick statement read by a publicist, maybe 45 seconds long, filmed in a car or something. Now, it's a whole production with perfect lighting, a sad piano track, and a direct-to-camera talk that goes on for 8 minutes. The shift really seemed to happen after 2020, when everyone started filming from home and the whole 'raw, real' aesthetic took over. Do you think this new style actually makes them seem more sincere, or is it just a better act?

4 comments

4 Comments

casey8181mo ago

The 8 minute sad piano intros feel just as fake to me.

patricia321mo ago

Yeah, totally get what you mean casey818. It's like every artist now has to have that super long, overly dramatic start to prove they're deep or something. Reminds me of those movie trailers where it's just two minutes of a single violin note and a sad face. Feels less like real feeling and more like a box they're checking.

cole_murphy13d ago

I get what you're saying about the overly dramatic openings feeling fake, but I see it a bit different. That specific thing, the long sad intro, it's been around forever. Listen to old blues records or even some early folk stuff, they had rambling spoken word parts that went on forever. I think the difference now is we just notice it more because we're not hearing it on a record we bought for $15. We're seeing it on YouTube where the algorithm wants you to hang around for the first 8 minutes. The slow piano part is less about being deep and more about keeping you from clicking away.

craig.viola1mo ago

Maybe the real change is that we're all used to being on camera now. Back then, only famous people had to do this, but now everyone posts their own life online. So the new apology style just looks like any other personal storytime video, which makes it harder to tell what's real and what's just good content.