The Collapse of Sam & Cat

Submission 5,467

Part of a series on Video Essay. [View Related Entries]

About

The Collapse of Sam & Cat is a video essay by YouTuber Quinton Reviews that summarizes and analyzes the final 10 episodes of the Nickelodeon series Sam & Cat, a spin-off of both iCarly and Victorious. The video, which clocks in at over nine hours long, is the third and final part of a series of videos on the show, the first part of which Quinton Reviews uploaded in August 2022. The video essay became the subject of memes and reactions following its December 2023 upload, with many criticizing and joking about the length of the video.

Origin

On August 31st, 2022, YouTuber^[1] Quinton Reviews posted the first of a three-part series of video essays on the short-lived Nickelodeon series Sam & Cat, a spin-off of two successful Nickelodeon shows, iCarly and Victorious, titled The Scandal of Sam & Cat. The video is around five hours long and summarizes and analyzes the first 20 episodes of the series in a comedic way. It gained over 4 million views in a year. On September 1st, 2023, Quinton Reviews posted the second part of the series to YouTube,^[2] titled The Decay of Sam & Cat, analyzing episodes 21 to 25 and clocking in at around six-and-a-half hours, garnering over 1.5 million views in three months (shown below, right).

On December 26th, Quinton Reviews posted the third and final part of the series, titled The Collapse of Sam & Cat, to YouTube,^[3] garnering over 666,000 views in two days (shown below). This entry is the longest in the series, clocking in at around nine-and-a-half hours and analyzing the final episodes of the series. Quinton Reviews shared the video on X^[4] that day acknowledging its length, writing, "a new REASONABLY LENGTHED video," garnering over 4,000 likes in two days.

Spread

Following its release, The Collapse of Sam & Cat inspired reactions and memes, many poking fun at its length. On December 26th, 2023, X^[5] user @jimmyoutsold posted a screenshot of the video, writing, "this video being longer than every episode of sam and cat combined😭😭😭," garnering over 16,000 likes in two days (shown below, left). X^[6] user @LRH_Superfan made a similar post that day, writing, "This show has 35 episodes running 20 minutes each, totalling a runtime of 11 hours and 40 minutes," garnering over 25,000 likes in two days.

This tweet was refuted by Quinton Reviews on X^[7] a day later, who wrote, "No hate but this actually isn't true. There are 35 episodes of Sam & Cat, one is double-lengthed, one is 8 minutes heavy. So that's about 14 hours when you put it all together," garnering over 4,000 likes in a day (shown below).

On December 26th, X^[8] user @yupperanna posted, "i just skimmed to a random part in the video and he was saying words super slowly with barely any editing, then took a sip of coffee & put up a black screen for like 3 minutes," garnering over 42,000 likes in two days (shown below, left). On December 27th, X^[9] user @BSOLZ_ posted, "Your whole year’s worth of content being dedicated to Sam & Cat is crazy 😭😭😭," garnering over 1,600 likes in a day (shown below, right).

That day, Redditor /u/DonkeyKongHomosexual posted a meme to /r/okbuddycinephile on Reddit^[10] where they Photoshop The Collapse of Sam & Cat into a parody list of Barack Obama's favorite movies of 2023 list, garnering over 1,200 upvotes in a day (shown below).