WatchMojo

They make bad lists as well as good ones.

I watch new videos in my spare time.

There are many things that make WatchMojo one of the worst list channels out there. To be fair though, most of them are far from great. Grunge, Screen Rant and Looper all can be just as annoying as WatchMojo, so what makes this one worse?

For one thing, they have the most inconsistent opinions I have ever seen. In one video they will condemn an edgy show for being... edgy, while in another one they will praise the show for it. Or they will call a musician s'hit, but in the next one lists their ten best songs. Makes no sense.

Part of why this happens of course is that they don't really base their lists on personal opinion, but what the majority agrees with. The problem however is that they often seem to have no clue what the population really think. For example Gravity Falls was listed as one of the worst Disney shows even though it's universally loved. Now, I've never watched Gravity Falls, but I know when someone's speaking out of their ass. Plus sometimes they'll call things offensive when nobody else agrees that it is. The "Jokes That Would Never Fly On The Simpsons Today" list is the worst one they've ever done. They completely misunderstood what most of those jokes even were about, and it reeked of overanalyzing for overanalyzation's sake. And for caring so much about calling out stuff that is offensive, they're not exactly cleancut themselves. I get kinda baffled by the sexism in some of the videos talking about beauty, treating any woman who isn't conventionally hot like she's in need of a make-over.

They will never play a full clip whenever talking about a highlight. Now, I don't know if this is for copyright reasons or whatnot, but it's very distracting when they start playing it, interrupt, continue playing it, interrupt and so on. Either play the clip or don't show a clip at all. Make up your minds.

It varies a bit which narrator they use, but most of the time it's Rebecca Brayton. And... nothing against her as a person, but her voice is so monotone and even downright annoying that it can sometimes alone make the videos unwatchable.

They reuse topics constantly, to the point where you'll often see titles with the words "Another" or "Yet Another". Or they'll talk about it on MsMojo (which is really just the exact same thing). And some of the lists are just flatout bizarre, which while unique are still ultimately pointless and headscratching.

And while there are many channels which use them, WatchMojo is one of the most grating when it comes to bleeps. Sometimes even when the swearing is relevant to the subject matter they will often bleep words out anyway. Come on, which kid is gonna care about WatchMojo? Please treat the audience like grownups. Nobody is gonna care about a curse word here and there.

And yet despite all these criticisms, I was stuck in the WatchMojo swamp for quite a while. Due to their insanely fast upload schedule, their videos will often show up in your recommendations, trying to lure you in with topics that might interest you. But don't let them trick you. Every time you give in and click on a video counting down "Top 10 Movie Birds" or whatever, you will be surrounded by a feeling of shame afterwards, knowing that those 10 minutes could have gone to cleaning my bathroom instead. And I *hate* cleaning my bathroom, so that tells you how little I value this channel.

I'm not actually going to write ten reasons, but let's start with at least one. That should be enough.

The listicle format of so many articles and videos on the internet is a dreadful trend that repurposes other more meaningful content for clicks and views. WatchMojo aren't the only entity guilty of this - BuzzFeed's entire existence is largely built on it - but they are easily one of the most prolific examples of such non-writing on YouTube.

I watched a handful of their videos out of curiosity a while ago. It quickly became a regrettable experience as their work - even from an editorial standpoint - is bland and unimaginative, with zero sense of any distinct voice or passion. Even their narration sounds suspiciously like someone reading the opinions espoused in other listicles scattered over the internet, delivered in a tone that lacks personality and may well be computer-generated.

Worse yet, the sheer volume of videos they produce means they inevitably show up in recommendations in place of other material that might have been produced with a modicum of effort. It's content farming at its most cynically lazy, obviously geared to exploit the algorithms behind YouTube's search and recommendation systems.

If I didn't have to be constantly reminded of the company's existence via the right-hand side of the YouTube page, I would eventually (and thankfully) never think about the company again. As they keep announcing their existence whenever I'm looking for something else, they draw enough ire for me to write about it.

Honestly? The content here is pretty dull, and sometimes outright bad. But it is FAR from the worst stuff on Youtube if you can believe that. It isn't even the worst "top 10 list channel". Just let that sink in.....

The positives? Well, their videos can be pretty informative. If you want some quick info on irrelevant (or very relevant) stuff this is a good place for general info. Sometimes their videos can be entertaining too, but usually only if the narrator is having fun and making some good jokes *cough COUGH Todd Haberkorn cough*. And overall, I just like watching them to see my favorite stuff end up on their best lists or stuff I hate be on the worst lists. That's why anyone watches these in the first place right? Not ashamed to admit that honestly.....

Want a better top 10 list channel? Check out PhantomStrider! His main subjects are cartoons, animation, and movies but he talks about other stuff like games and sometimes gives advice on mental health. Plus he always enjoys what he does! Has more spirit and "pazazz" than the people behind WatchMojo, so I always enjoy seeing him talk about anything. He is also just in general, a really REALLY nice guy who cares about his audience! What's not to like? Check out PhantomStrider on Youtube!

On the other hand, are you curious to know what could possibly be WORSE than WatchMojo? Check out Screen Rant, The Richest, and *shudders* "The Things". How are they worse exactly? I don't think explaining it here will do it justice, and you only need to see ONE of their videos to know how truly awful and poorly researched their content is. At least WatchMojo does SOME research whereas these channels are 100% clickbait and behind the clickbait is just painful content. Check out one of their videos if you dare, but you are almost guaranteed to be disappointed (The Things in particular are so bottom-of-the barrel that I could barely sit through a single minute of their videos.....)

Oh my lord, except for one and only partly, the reviews here are talking about this programme like it's one of the worst things ever, and it's not so terrible at all, you could do much worse with your online time. It's like you people are happier hearing pure negativity or something.. I mean certainly the show has really started to go downhill these last couple of years and is fast becoming a shambling corpse of its former self, and I would agree that as a channel Watchmojo is indeed on its last legs and has definitely outstayed its welcome and that they should definitely think about calling it a day as most of the latest top 10s have been getting pretty grim, but still they have put out a lot of fun entertaining content over the years that is deserving of a little consideration. And they're certainly tryers, they're bailing on that sinking ship for all it's worth, they even got canned one time and recovered from it! The subjects of the top 10s offer so many different themes and subjects that virtually anyone could gleam a little enjoyment from them, variety is one of their big pluses, as is sheer consistency, these guys make at least two videos for every single day of the year, and this has been going on for at least four years now, and they have to write a kind of script for each episode's Voice-over. And I do like the narrators, the main guy and girl that have done most of them have pleasant voices that don't tend to yell inanely or grate against your eardrums. I like the humour that they try to put into it and how they'll use a clip for a movie or TV episode ironically. My favourite types of Mojo uploads are always the video game related ones, or horror movies, or anything to do with the. Power Rangers! I find their top 10s to be better made and more entertaining than the ones done by Screwattack or Peanutbuttergamer. It's a very 'easy' show to snip in and out of that doesn't take up too much time or indeed require a great deal of thought, not that I have any particular aversion to that. This guy from a pretty good series called "I Hate Everything" did a scathing video about Watchmojo where he said that it was a soulless series that was made for the sole purpose of capitalising on the mindless fandom of viewers who enjoyed not being challenged, or some such.. Mm, fair enough, but why attack the people who like the show and not the show itself? Some might watch it and like and comment on every last video that they put out downright religiously but I don't, I take what I like from this show and I know exactly what I'm watching it for, I'm not a dummy. It's just a decent little time burner and a bit of enjoyable entertaining internet crap, none of it really means anything, it's amusing and informative fluff that's here today gone tomorrow and is quite harmless, to dismiss the whole thing as "wrong" is just silly. Far worse has been just as popular in the past like "Fred" and the "Annoying Orange", and that "Damn Daniel" viral video from a little while back did show that people en-mass will flock to the stupidest sh*t and love it if a buzz of some kind gets generated. And Watchmojo is slightly better than all of those, it's nothing spectacular or amazing but it's certainly not boring either, it has and deserves its place. So please relax and lighten the hell up, as it's really not that bad! x