You’re Not Overthinking It

Over his illustrious career, Jacob Geller has written and produced a sprawling collection of video essays. Deftly interweaving video game analysis with complex narratives about art, politics and history, Geller’s work positions games as vital tools for understanding each other and ourselves.

“This is an effort to keep the text alive, to never have ‘the final word’ on something in a world where we never stop learning and growing.” – Jacob Geller

You’re Not Overthinking It: The Annotated Essays of Jacob Geller re-examines more of Geller’s most iconic essays, brought to the page for the first time and accompanied by his brand-new commentary. Featuring a foreword by the poet/novelist Kaveh Akbar. Each piece comes with afterwords from some of the industry’s best writers and there is stunning original artwork by Kilian Eng and other exceptional artists – including a graphic novel from renowned creator, Richard Blake.

Featuring original scripts and new industry analysis of the following works:

The False Evolution of Execution Methods

The Men Who Couldn't Stop Crying, and Other Unbearable Realities

Games, Schools, and Worlds Designed for Violence

How Can We Bear to Throw Anything Away?

Nothing Ever Stops Existing

Art for No One

The Shape of Infinity

Fear of Dark

A Thousand Ways of Seeing a Forest

Head Transplants and the Non-Existence of the Soul

Reviews

Featured on Sight and Sound’s list of “Best Video Essays of the Year,” – 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

Featured on Polygon’s list of “Best Video Essays of the Year,” – 2020, 2022, 2023

Jacob Geller … is to the video game essay what Annie Dillard is to the literary essay" – Patrick House, LA Review of Books

"It probably goes without saying that Jacob Geller is the Future of Writing about Video Games, but he’s also the future of writing about … kind of anything?" – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, How a Game Lives

Jacob Geller is the host of the podcast Something Rotten.

About the author

Jacob Geller writes about the intersecting worlds of video games, politics, art, and storytelling.

He primarily publishes essays to YouTube, where his work has been cumulatively viewed over one hundred million times.