Just in the last few months, it seems like everyone who is doing content creation on youtube (etc.) is holding a tiny mic up, in the frame of the camera.
I get that mics are needed, but a good desk mic or a headset or whatever else you might imagine is just as good acoustically, and far less distracting. And they were all in use up until a few months ago.
Is this just a fashion trend?
I watch clips where people can be heard super-clearly on lowly clip-on mics.
There is no reason to hold it in your hand. You’re not Bob Barker.
Compare with the vapid influencerati trash holding their phones like pizza slices and shouting into them and turning the sound uploke they’re on some reality trash show. Telling them that they’re absolutely using it wrongly, that engineers have tuned the mic and speakers for a completely different orientation, is just lost. So I make fun of them.