As an aspiring satisfying video maker, I’ve read all the blogs, hot takes, and Reddit posts about how you shouldn’t waste your time or money in satisfying video school. “You don’t need a fancy education to make satisfying videos,” they say. “There’s no better way to learn how to cut a bar of soap with an exacto knife than to get an exacto knife and a couple thousand bars of soap and get to work.”
On one hand, I see their point. But despite the time, cost, and little soap chunks that are now permanently embedded under my fingernails, I decided to go for my MFA in Satisfying Videos anyway, and I have no regrets!
It’s more than just the money.
We all know that the biggest players in satisfying videos pull in big bucks. “ASMR Tammy brushes hair 10 hours” played to 35 million people last year and made almost one dollar!
People frame satisfying video school as a waste of three years that I could be earning money as an Assistant Sand PA, or a Sand Wrangler, or working in Literal Craft Services.
Not me. Sorry, but I didn’t get into satisfying videos to make money!
I’m here because I grew up waiting for satisfying videos to exist, and once they did start to exist, I fell in love with them. At satisfying video school, I got to nerd out with fellow satisfying video geeks over the differences in crunch between Kinetic Sand and Madmattr, over game-changing moments in history like Instagram adding the “swipe up” feature, and how the three-act narrative screenplay structure will be dead in five to ten years.
Put a price tag on that.
This industry is all about who you know.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a satisfying video maker decry a “fancy” education and tell their own story of making it on their own… only to find out later they’re the nephew of legendary satisfying video maker @Slime.tagious.
Pretty easy to make it on your own when your last name is “Tagious,” pal!
For better or for worse, satisfying videomaking is all about connections, and also purchasing cool colors of soaps. If you don’t know anyone in the industry, satisfying video school is a great place to start.
Since graduating, my classmates have gone on to crush clay sculptures of Bernie Sanders in a hydraulic press, melt different shades of lipstick and then play with the melted waxy lipstick, and sell insurance in Waco, TX. (Unfortunately, it’s a competitive industry and not everyone will be willing to put in the work.)
My education sets me apart.
More people than ever are buying a fuckton of polymer clay and just mixing colors together for the Internet. What makes me different from any other kid who moved to Instagram with a backpack full of water beads and a dream?
My MFA in Satisfying Videos shows potential employers, investors, and fans that I’m dedicated to what I do, that I’m not going to run off after a few months and start fostering kittens or some bullshit.
So maybe an MFA in satisfying videos isn’t for you—that’s fine! But if you’re intrigued by the idea of spending your mornings discussing classic #satvids like “Will It Slime? Twinkies,” and your evenings in a state-of-the-art soundstage melting crayons with a hot knife, then maybe check out satisfying video school.
P.S.: Personally, I loved my program at the University of Southern California.