A dattebow video essay.
A personal essay about a folder of pirated games I had for years and barely touched, next to a Steam library I actually used. The hardest part was keeping the honesty in it without turning it into a confession or a flex. Wrote the piracy part to land once, stated plainly, then move the argument forward, no dwelling on it either way.
Needed a real counterargument in there too, so I put in the fact that Steam doesn’t let you truly own anything either, you’re licensing it same as anywhere else, and if Valve shut down tomorrow the whole library disappears with it. Leaving that out would’ve undercut the essay’s whole point instead of protecting it, since the argument is about ownership feeling real even when it technically isn’t.
Used my Epic Games library as the clearest comparison, around sixty claimed games, maybe five ever played, no hours logged next to any of them. They’re free, unplayed, and somehow closer to that old pirated folder than to anything I’d call a library.