"Worth It" is a collaboration between musician Moses Sumney and film director Allie Avital, the first of four music videos (to date) that they have done together. Avital sets stark, minimal visuals against Sumney's brooding, multitracked falsetto voice and sparse instrumentation (consisting here only of hand claps and finger snaps). The lyrics are depressive: Sumney tells a prospective lover that he isn't good enough for them, and they should look elsewhere. The video has no setting; it is only a dark nonspace, giving us figures without ground.

Sumney, clothed in black, emerges out of the darkness. A series of wavering cuts brings him closer, until his face fills the screen. In alternate shots, his hand reaches out towards the camera. Finally we get a reverse shot, more tactile than visual: the naked back of another human body (the dancer Martha Nichols). Sumney's index finger hesitantly taps and traces a line down between her shoulders. In response, Nichols writhes back and forth; we see her muscles undulate. At this point, the video is almost an abstract study of the beauty of black people's skin tones.

Gradually Nichols' movements modulate into a full-fledged dance. She keeps her back to the camera, but twists around in wider arcs, and bends her head and torso ever further back. We find that, disturbingly, she has no eyes: just smooth flesh sealed over where they should be. All this is conveyed discontinuously, with cuts between closeups and even more extreme closeups. Nichols' motion contrasts with Sumney's near-immobility, as the video cuts rapidly between them. Eventually, Sumney cradles Nichols' body in his arms, in a kind of inverse Pieta.

After a few more jump cuts, during which Nichols continues to writhe and twitch, her body softens into passive immobility. The camera now tracks smoothly back, away from the two of them. This continues for a while even after the music ends, until a final fade to black. The song/video is intense, immersive, and intimate; yet also implosive and claustrophobic. Human contact is inescapable and overwhelming, yet also nonreciprocal and uncommunicative. This is a truth about bodies and feelings, but also about the media environment that both sustains and isolates them.