Backlogs

2025 May 18

This all started around my junior or senior year of high school. I grew up with YouTube being my main source of "watched entertainment." Eventually I reached a point where trying to keep up with uploads every day was entirely unrealistic. (And I probably continued to do so a little past that point, if we're being entirely honest.) And so, along came my divine savior: the Watch Later playlist.

For being a pre-built and constantly pinned playlist, it's surprisingly easy to completely ignore the Watch Later feature's existence. I had used it once previously to cycle between 3 series I was watching outside my normal subscriptions. But now that I had reached a point in life where I actually had things to do other than mindlessly consume YouTube, it became helpful to stuff everything into one playlist.

And now I could not tell you the last time that playlist was empty. While there have been times where it's shorter, it's usually hundreds of videos long. And it's not like I just let it sit and watch the number go up (that's what my endless returning to Cookie Clicker is for). It's one of the main ways I watch YouTube videos. The only reason it's not the exclusive way is because I made the somewhat-recent decision to not include video series with more that a couple uploads in that playlist and track those in a seperate way.

Does having a playlist with several hundred videos that constantly grows if not met with diligence cause me stress? Eh. Maybe worry, and that's if I'm being silly and completely forgetting the point of the playlist.

It's not a playlist of videos I have to watch. It's a playlist of videos I chose to watch later.

I'm, what the kids call, a GAMER (insert airhorns of the reader's choice here), and so there's a reason why this post is titled "Backlogs" and not "The Watch Later Playlist." There is a trend where gamers will compile lists of games they own (and sometimes don't own (sometimes emulated, sometimes it's also their wishlist!?)) and dub the list "The Backlog."

The Backlog is infamous for causing gamers stress as they are constantly faced with a monument of their obligations, constantly growing. All while the games they are playing either take longer and longer to beat, or become unfulfilling as they try to rush through them in doomed attempts to conquer this beast.

This is nothing sort of absurd.

Now I have my own gaming backlog, and I'm no stranger to joking about how there are too many games to play (so do you really need that Oblivion remaster?). But viewing it as an obligation? We're playing video games here. That RPG I picked up can wait for me to be ready for it. It's just nice to know I won't forget about it.

Even if video games are part of your job, I fail to see how approaching the gaming backlog as an obligation is actually helpful. Especially if a game needs to be either "beaten" or "dropped" in order to be removed from the list. It's far more interesting (and more fun!!) to view it as a list of options.

There is the added wrinkle that, as opposed to YouTube videos, video games usually cost money. Not always, especially if a backlog contains emulated games, but usually. It still doesn't make games into an obligation. Beating a game isn't what should justify its price tag to you. It's your own experience with the title, no matter how much you've played. You arguably don't need to play the games at all to feel good or at least neutral about buying them (I'm not recommending collecting video games, but if that's your hobby, that's cool).

There's so many things in life that we only do because we practically have to. Our recreation doesn't have to join that list.

Backlogs

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