Parody Reminds Us To Turn Our Phones And Take Video In Landscape Mode

The most annoying videos on YouTube are the ones taken in portrait mode. When videos are taken in portrait mode and then uploaded to YouTube’s horizontal player, it creates all that black space on the sides. I’m guilty of doing it myself. I have uploaded videos taken in portrait mode to my own YouTube channel, and it’s embarrassing. Nothing screams ‘video noob’ more than forgetting to turn the phone to shoot the video in landscape mode.

It’s an epidemic that YouTube user chescaleigh hopes to help stop with her parody. This is a “No Scrubs” parody she created with help from her YouTube friends including Andrew Huang, DailyGrace, Hannah Hart, Soundlyawake, BethInShow and MilesJai. Her rap is cute, and it’s executed well. In the future, I will remember to turn my phone so I don’t commit a ‘vertical video crime.’

This isn’t the first time someone has created a PSA about using landscape mode when creating videos for YouTube. There have been several of these reminders over the past year or so. If you do a Google search, you’ll even find a post or two with special ways you can convert your portrait mode video to a landscape mode video. You can save yourself all that trouble though by just remembering to turn the phone. It’s easy.

There are some people who say that YouTube is to blame, and not the person shooting the videos. James Watt is one of those people. His argument is that if YouTube were more accommodating, we wouldn’t have to remember this detail. Some videos, like a hot air balloon rising for example, are definitely worthy of being shot vertically. Unfortunately, those will still display poorly on YouTube. The bottom line is, friends don’t let friends shoot vertical videos. If you plan to upload it to YouTube, turn your phone and shoot it in landscape mode.