The Series I’ve Watched for Most of My Life (aka FOOD BATTLE)

I wanted to write something long and winding about the intricacies of one of my favorite series (The Sopranos), but it may have been a bit ambitious, and I simply do not have the time at the moment to delve into what makes Tony Soprano tick.

But I didn’t want to leave this issue of Birdbath empty-handed, so I’m pulling from something to share that I made in the last couple of weeks: a video essay about Smosh’s Food Battle Series.

As a preteen and teenager, I was an incredibly avid fan of the YouTube channel Smosh which made sketch comedy videos. Every year, they would post an installment of their series Food Battle.

I think there’s no better way to describe it other than a series because it truly relies on the form of each subsequent episode to add to the conventions that define it. It’s self-contained compared to their other sketches, and the series has just returned after a 7-year hiatus.

I can’t say that it’s the most well-produced series or that it’s the best thing I’ve seen, but I think that they are fairly fun, and they give me very powerful nostalgia to look back on.

About two weeks ago, I decided to make a video essay looking back on the history of food battle, and 5 days later I was posting the video onto my YouTube channel.

The extreme obsession that brought me to make this video in a few short days aside, I am really happy with how this turned out, and it is fun to look back on a series that I started watching over a decade ago when I was much, much younger than I am now.