Seems a lot of YouTubers are moving on these days, with farewell videos hitting the front page quite a bit. Huge channels I've never heard of, 16 million subscribers or whatever.

There's three videos I want to go through to fill up time before I can head home from work, and I'm gonna rank them by levels of narcissism, because humanity is getting insufferable.

Tom Scott

The first one I saw was this 'TomScott' guy. I feel certain I've seen his face around but can't put my finger on it. It does seem like he did a lot of interesting stuff, sending bread into space and whatnot. I'm sure it was fun to watch at the time.

He does seem like a lonely, single old man, though, hinting in the video that he dedicated his life to his youtube videos, so if that's the case, he's probably leaving it a bit late to start taking a break and moving to greener, more personal pastures.

The video goes on for 8 whole minutes as he walks in a field babbling on, before being hoisted up by a helicopter and flown off into the sunset, dangling beneath on a harness with epic string music and flashback footage of greatest moments - all in slow motion, of course, ending off with a peaceful noodling on the upper piano keys.

As an outsider, this is pretty fucking narcissistic. He comes across as quite humble as a first impression but this just made me feel like he was expecting people to get on their knees and cry for their deity ascending to the heavens. You run a youtube channel. Humble yourself!

That being said, it was quite nice in and of itself, good style, and I'm sure his fans appreciated it.

Narcissism score: 7/10

The Game Theorists

I literally just subscribed to this a few days ago feeling like my subscription feed needed filling up a bit to move away from politics which is getting more active lately.

This guy starts with him sitting, more humbly at first than Tom Scott, on a sofa in a room. then he starts crying and saying 'you guys' and 'we' and pointing to the camera and back at himself like there's an audience of family members in front of him. In reality he's alone in a room crying to a reflection of himself in a camera lens.

Again, I get he's been going for 13 years and people have literally grown up with him, but this is just excessive. TWENTY FIVE whole minutes, half of which he's in tears at the idea of saying goodbye for whatever reason.

Spoiler alert, he's not even leaving, he's just taking a more backseat role from now on. Honestly I'm not even sure that needed more than a tweet.

He rambles on and on about the good times, going in and out of teary moments. One particular cringey moment he's saying, with the most faux-genuine, faux-heartfelt look into the camera; 'You matter to me. You are so important to me.. every single one of those people who stop me in the street? - puts his fist on his heart - It's an honour'.

This guy is 37 and wears multiple colourful bead wristbands.

_{Me! Look at ME and how SAD I am}

He even starts talking about him as some honourable grandfather in third person. 'He so looks forward to seeing you, and the love he has for you doesn't go away. He is so proud of you and he cherishes the relationship that you've had so much. he's so honoured to be a part of your life (increases crying), and help you experience the world...'. This is a direct quote. It goes on, the camera slowly zooming in on his face for maximum emotional impact.

Narcissism score: 11/10

Daft Punk

Oh man, this one's a doozy. It made me cry when I first saw it.

In a way, this is very narcisisstic, except... who are they? Can you put a name or face to this duo? The narcissism comes in the form of their actual art. They cease to exist, while staying in character right to the very end, with a simple cut to opening and closing dates, and the surviving bot walking off into the sunset for 2 solid minutes.

Imagine if, instead, they took their robo helmets off on a sofa in France and started 'being real' with their fans. Ugh.

They kept the art real instead. In essence, they are giving their art the capacity to say farewell to its fans, via the medium of, well, their art.

Narcissism score: 0/10

This is how you say goodbye.

When I think of other youtubers I've followed for my whole adult life, please don't do as the others did.

As Ricky Gervais famously (or infamously) said:

Accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God, and fuck off

I'm aware of the irony of my blogging to myself with such a high horse tone being almost as narcissistic itself