xkcd.WTF!?

Explanation ➲

This comic compares selected pros and cons of 3 video "orientations" (also known as angling), one of which is entirely made-up. This comic could have been inspired by articles published by Mashable, and Scientific American, which comment on how videos are now filmed vertically through smartphones.

Randall's observations on horizontal vs vertical indicate that he has resigned himself to the acceptance of vertical videos. However, he does love a good compromise, so he suggests "Diagonal Orientation" as a third option to equally dissatisfy both types of user. The issue with this is that diagonal angling fails to fully capture the benefits of either horizontal or vertical angling.

This is another comic claiming that an obviously bad idea keeps being done by accident "so we might as well just accept it", following on from 2116: .NORM Normal File Format a week prior.

Horizontal orientation

Pros:　

• Good for people not used to phones, and has been used for over a century for capturing video.
• Easier to control the composition of the image, especially wide shots.
• Main distribution format for most video types.

Cons:

• Not the best at capturing a human's entire body, without also capturing much of their surroundings.
• Potentially uncomfortable for the one making the recording to maintain over a long period of time, as most phones were designed for vertical holding.

Vertical orientation

Pros:

• Supposedly the norm for most users capturing video on their smartphone (thus we should accept it as such).
• Made for mobile devices by design. This means you can quickly post to multiple channels with a single video with no need for complicated editing or tweaking.

Cons:

• Not ideal for capturing the background, as our world is mostly a "horizontal plane".
• Limits techniques you can use, for example it restricts the way you can compose shots, scan the landscape, and present different scenes.

Diagonal orientation

Pros:

• Not a standard format of video, thus "bold". It's "dynamic" since it can capture significant portions of both human and landscape.
• Equally annoying to all viewers.
• Flawless, as in perfect in every way.^[dubious]

Cons:

• None.

The diagonal orientation is similar to the "oblique angle" or "Dutch angle" in cinema, and is often used to portray psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed. Note that while "Dutch angle" is filmed diagonally, it is projected in the classic Horizontal orientation.

Circular video

Pros:

• Solves the aspect ratio problem, as it will always be 1:1.

Cons:

• The title text quip about non-trustworthy opinions from someone inside a circle could be a nonsense statement, or refer to various things, such as having a demon trapped inside a summoning circle; being spoken to by members of a select or secretive circle of people; HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey; Loki in The Avengers, who is the god of trickery and is held at one point in a circular cell; an advertising trope where a talking head in a circle is superimposed over images of the product being advertised, usually this is the case in low budget productions for "as seen on TV" products.