This has got to be the best thing to come out of George Mason University since 2006, when the Patriots made the NCAA basketball Final Four. It’s a fantastic example of how a creative video can make a dry topic (economics is called “the dismal science” after all) vibrant and interesting.
This one definitely gets a Chancellor’s Choice Award for Best Use of Video in an Educational Context:
As of this writing, Fight of the Century has racked up 621,000 views in just two weeks.
Here’s the first video in the series, which has had more than 2.2 million views:
And this video, also from the EconStories channel, includes an interview with the George Mason professor and his creative sidekick behind the series:
Together, these videos — which range from 7:33 to 10:10 — demolish the conventional wisdom that a video needs to be short to get traction, or that the “ideal” video is less than three minutes, or two minutes, or whatever a supposed “expert” says.
Length doesn’t matter. It’s more important that a video is interesting. And it isn’t necessary to be interesting to a mass audience. You just need to be interesting to your audience.
This video on myelofibrosis is about the same length as the Keynes/Hayek boxing match. Not funny at all, but extremely interesting to people who have myelofibrosis. As of today, it has more than 8,200 views, which has made it extremely successful. It has reached and interested the right people.
What’s your favorite video that’s more than four minutes long?