YouTuber Quinton Reviews Thinks Cincinnati is an Underrated City

Photograph Courtesy of Quinton Reviews

A YouTuber who goes by the name of Quinton Reviews (real name Quinton Hoover) has taken the internet by storm in recent years. While he’s been making videos about pop culture and media for around a decade, Hoover’s increasingly lengthy and intense analyses of Nickelodeon tween sitcoms of the late 2000s and early 2010s caused his views to skyrocket.

It may seem insane for somebody to sit down and watch a several hours long piece about nostalgic media but Quinton’s eight-hour video, “The End of Victorious ,” has over 6.8 million views. That isn’t even his longest work—Hoover’s video for April Fool’s Day was 24 straight hours of material about The Beverly Hillbillies (which was tragically removed for copyright claims).

Local fans of Quinton Reviews were in for a delightful surprise when at the five hour and fifteen minute mark of “ The Decay of Sam and Cat ,” the creator stopped to talk about how much he loves Cincinnati. “I love a city where it feels like you can never run out of stupid museums that you’ve never gone to,” raved the reviewer. Of course to Quinton, calling a museum “stupid” is the highest form of flattery. Union Terminal, Jungle Jim’s, and especially the American Sign Museum all received shout-outs in this six and a half hour long video with 1.8 million views.

We figured if Quinton loves Cincinnati so much, we should show love right back. Here’s our conversation with him.

You make extremely long and in-depth videos about a lot of Gen Z/Late Millennial media like iCarly and Victorious . What inspired you to make these?

One of the most interesting things about YouTube is the average video takes a long time to make. So when you go to someone’s YouTube channel, and you start scrolling, if they’ve been doing it long enough, it’s like you’re scrolling through a huge chunk of their life. And I was really interested in this idea of doing a video where you could see that process in one project. You could see this took six months and six months is a long time. It also occurred to me one day that I would always do videos and then regret having something that I meant to say or having to cut something for pacing for time. I used to believe that all YouTube videos had to be 30 to 40 minutes. And that led to me cutting a lot of stuff. And then one day I decided, Hey, let’s do a video where I say everything I could possibly say. And that led me to doing the iCarly project, the way I ended up doing it.

I think when I do these videos, they feel like a bunch of smaller videos stitched together. And that’s kind of what I love about the process the most, because I get to research topics that I don’t think would work as standalone videos because people wouldn’t click on them. But they can work with smaller segments to a larger thing piece. And I think I intend these long videos to be viewed in multiple multiple viewings.

You mentioned in your video, “The Decay of Sam and Cat ,” that you really enjoy Cincinnati. What are the things you like most about the city and why do you like coming here?

I think Cincinnati is a very underrated two day vacation city where, you know, it’s fun to go somewhere. Just pick a cheap hotel for a couple days and just exist somewhere else for just a second. Cincinnati has a good amount of eccentric museums. There’s a lot of fun walkable areas. It’s also relatively close to other places that have that kind of thing.

I grew up like two hours from Cincinnati, which is one of the big reasons that I’m so nostalgic for it, we’d always go up to Cincinnati for special events because it was close enough to go up for a day and then drive back. I’ve always thought Cincinnati has one of the most underrated skylines in America. That view when you when you cross the Ohio River and all the buildings line up in such an iconic way. I think there are cities that are more famous in Cincinnati that have a less good skyline and I’ve just always liked the setup of the area and the community. I think it’s an underrated vacation spot for sure for sure.

You’ve talked about how you really like the American Sign Museum. Do you go there every time you come?

If I’m in Cincinnati for a longer period of time I make sure to go there. Last time I went I was so exhausted. I could’ve passed out in the museum, but I was like, I still need to go because it’s the best museum ever.

You are also a fan of Jungle Jim’s, right?

I really really like Jungle Jim’s. Yeah, very exciting local place. I love things like that. I think Ohio is a very fascinating. I always tell people it’s the most American state. And I think it has to do with that America. And the way that people distracted themselves and the way that it persists, even if Ohio is no longer the centerpiece of industry, you get to find these artifacts and these exhibits and these little glimpses of Americana. And I think that’s one of the most beautiful things in this country. And that’s why I like Cincinnati as well, because I feel that very much in my bones whenever I’m there.

What are some of the more personally interesting things that you’ve found through making your videos?

I really enjoy capturing eras. Capturing a moment. When I was doing the iCarly thing, I always loved finding TV, movies, commercials, toys, and that kind of thing. I think that’s a really fascinating rabbit hole to go down just like, you know, the network treating these kids like their assets. And they’d be taking a break from filming iCarly but the execs would be like “We got to use these guys while we got ’em. Let’s film a really bad TV movie!” Stuff like that.

I also love physical attractions as well, which is something I’ve been researching a lot. That was something that came up in the April Fool’s video, which got taken down and we’re reworking. There was a Petticoat Junction theme park in Florida and I did a bunch of work, getting archival footage from that area. I hired people to give me drone shots and all this other stuff. The place where the theme park was is a Walmart now but there’s a tiny bit of the original structure that’s just abandoned. I think that’s one of my favorite things to research right now is kind of the physical history of places like that in communities across America. And that’s been the main focus for a documentary I’m making about weird McDonald’s.

Is it anything like your other video about themed McDonald’s ?

I’m doing the actual sequel that I promise in that video. There’s nothing else I’m more excited about than that. I wish Cincinnati had one. I know that I did a lot of research because I do like Cincinnati. And the only thing I could find is there’s a McDonald’s in Cincinnati that has a sign that goes at an angle for some reason but that’s the only interesting thing I could find.

Are you going to be sticking to more of the physical things like weird McDonald’s in the near future rather than going back to the Nickelodeon stuff?

Well, I think my instinct is that I want to stay away from Nickelodeon specifically for a moment. So I’m not going to come back and be like, “Hey, we’re doing a video about The Amanda Show and next week, Drake and Josh !” But I really want to do more videos just about these cultural things. I’m probably going to do a few Disney Channel videos, I have some concepts written out, I might start writing those soon.

The big thing is that I’d love to have a bunch of my videos be like one hour to three hours long for a while just to sit and set a new normal. But I definitely think that looking at media and doing these analysis/recap reviews is good. I might try and shy away from the episode-by-episode style. I do think it’s not going to be going back to the old style of video. As if we haven’t gone through this big voyage. There’s going to be some kind of evolution to the presentation. But I think it’s gonna work out. I’m really looking forward to it. I think I’m gonna make some of my best material next year.

You can check out Quinton on his YouTube page .

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