A lot of hiking, camping, and cycling youtube video makers choose to film third-person footage of themselves alone in nature… sometimes with a drone, but sometimes with laborious, manual camera placement.

Nearly every Youtuber who works in this space will sometimes put a camera down beside a path, walk out of sight, then walk back across the camera’s field of view, to create the kind of “subject in motion” shot that professionally-produced video footage usually acquires with a team of camera operators.

This kind of shot is so natural in video storytelling, such a common part of all the filmed fiction and professionally-produced nonfiction that we watch, that it’s possible to just ignore how artificial they can feel in nature and sports videos produced by solo creators. These videos are often about the joy of being alone in nature. They have a diaristic quality, and they’re full of footage filmed with a camera in the hands. But the third-person footage implies the presence of a team filming the subject, which only reminds you that there’s no team, which in turn just reminds you, every time, that the Youtuber walked up to the camera spot, set it up there, walked back down the hill, then re-walked this path, possibly multiple times, in order to capture the perfect shot of themselves alone in nature.

I’m sure some people find it easy to ignore the process, but every time I see a third-person shot of a guy in motion in a solo biking video, I’m doing the Leo-pointing meme. This chump biked the same path twice to impress me!! And I’m not even impressed!!!

— Laura Michet, People filming themselves in nature, 2025