Bad YouTube Guitar Reviews

"It has a lot of stuff on it that's good. You know..."

Thanks for the input, hyperheart24. I now know that the Dean MLX has two "DiMarzio" pickups (pretty rare on a $189 guitar), 22 frets, doesn't have a whammy bar, has a "jack at the bottom right there", and looks "very nice". All of these things I could have gathered from looking at a picture of the guitar, but your grainy cell phone camera really enhances the experience. I will keep all of this information in mind next time I'm in the market for an entry level guitar. You've been incredibly helpful.

Not to pick on this poor kid exclusively, but this is a perfect example of a rising trend on YouTube of "guitar reviews" that don't go anywhere, are full of gross misinformation, and take the whole "reviewing" part out of the review. After wasting 1 minute and 44 seconds of my precious lifespan, I still have no clue what the Dean MLX sounds like, if it plays well, sits well, feels durable, anything. hyperheart24, like many clueless YouTube guitarists before him, treated us to a minute and a half of him mumbling things out as he saw them on the guitar. 

I've stared at a wall in a Guitar Center for over a minute. I had no idea it was called a "review". 

If you just bought yourself a new guitar, suffer from delusions of grandeur, own a video camera, and are conceited enough to pretend you know what you're talking about, here are some mandatory steps to follow if you want to post a video review of your new instrument:

• Give us a quick, accurate equipment rundown. If you're not 100% positive about what's on your guitar, or what it's made out of, do three minutes of research before making a jackass of yourself and turn your comment section into a pillar of corrections. However, do not stop the video here, that's not a review, Satriani.
• Play on a clean channel. You don't have mountains of high gain and distortion to cover up your sub-par playing, so try and keep it nice and simple. Showing off the sustain will mean playing only one note or chord and waiting several seconds.Then you're off the hook. 
• Play with distortion. I'm going to have to add that you should be a guitar shredding demon before posting a YouTube video of you playing guitar. People want to know what this thing is capable of. Your critics will also be senselessly brutal. It's really easy for me to tell you that you suck and what you're doing wrong via YouTube comment, regardless of whether or not I've picked up a guitar in my entire life. That's just the internet. If you're still just a beginner, then your opinion on the guitar isn't reliable, because you don't know enough yet, and shouldn't be posting "reviews" anyway.
• Switch between pickups. Nothing too fancy, but if your guitar has more than one pickup, show off how the neck sounds, the bridge sounds, how they sound together, etc. 
• Tell us what you DO LIKE and DON'T LIKE about the guitar. Be honest, I know you put down a lot of money on this thing, ($189 can be a lot of money for the person who buys the $189 guitar) but nothing in the world is perfect, and the rest of us who watch reviews want to find out why. 

A lot of people in the market for a new guitar surf YouTube videos to get a good idea what the guitar sounds like at its full potential. This means that your video is going to get a fair amount of views from serious players who want information, and you should treat it as such. Watch a couple of professional guitar reviews on YouTube by the likes of Guitar World for a reference point.

Or just leave all the reviewing to them.

If you have a youtube guitar review done right, feel free to share it in the comments below!