How the **** do I get videos off my iphone?!

Do you meet all of the criteria outlined in the article:

You can use the Photos app to import photos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac without using iCloud Photo Library. These steps also work for importing images from digital cameras and SD cards.

1. Make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes on your Mac. Importing photos to your Mac requires iTunes 12.5.1 or later.
2. Connect your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or digital camera to your Mac with a USB cable. If you're using an SD card, insert it into the SD slot on your Mac, or connect it using a card reader.
3. You might need to unlock your iOS device using your passcode. You might also see a prompt on the iOS device asking you to Trust This Computer. Tap Trust to continue.
4. On your Mac, the Photos app automatically opens. If it doesn't, open the Photos app.
5. The Photos app shows an Import screen with all the photos and videos that are on your connected device. If the Import screen doesn't automatically appear, click the Import tab at the top of the Photos app, or click the device's name in the Photos sidebar.
6. To import a selection of photos, click the ones you want, then click Import Selected. To import all new photos, click Import All New Photos.

Do you see your iPhone icon in the upper left hand corner right below the red/yellow/green dots?

Was your device turned on and unlocked?

And just to make sure, you do have photos in your Camera Roll on your iOS device, correct?

GB

You import them. As long as you are not using iCloud Photo Library on your device, you can import your photos easily to your computer:

PHOTO IMPORT IOS TO MAC/PC

Before iCloud Photo Library, this was how you got photos into the photos app on your Mac or PC.

This may also help:

Photos for Mac: Import photos from a camera or mobile device

Cheers,

GB

You can use Image Capture to migrate photos and video from your iOS device or a camera to your Mac.

Image Capture: Transfer images and other items from your device

If your software is out of date on either of your devices (particularly your Mac) you're likely to experience compatibility issues. If your iOS device is running newer software than your Mac, your Mac may not open content shot on your device successfully.

If your iPhone uses a 64-bit processor (iPhone 5s and above) upgrading iOS is unlikely to cause performance issues, particularly with the new Apple File System (APFS) in iOS.

If iOS is up to date and your Mac is using the Photos app (not iPhoto) you shouldn't have any issues transferring content

Opening up Image Capture just shows there's no images of any kind of my iphone, even though there is.

Have the photos been taken with the iPhone or did you sync them to the iPhone with iTunes? Photos synced with iTunes cannot be imported from the iPhone, because they are not in the camera roll. Try to take a new photo with the iphone camera and try to download again. Does this photo appear in the Import panel?

If you did not update iTunes do so now. This document states: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201302

Make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes on your Mac. Importing photos to your Mac requires iTunes 12.5.1 or later.

iTunes is needed to be able to to tell the iPhone to trust the Mac.

I don't want to upload it to icloud first and then download it (which is all I can find) because it requires upgrading my phone which I do NOT want to do because it will make it unusably slow and everything else I find online only talks about windows specific methods

Which iPhone model do ypu have, and which version of iOS?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Is that current and the system you are using on your Mac? How are you managing the photos and videos on your Mac? iPhoto? Aperture? Just in folders?

There are third party apps, some of which are free, that can transfer images to and from your phone. However, I don't think you will find a way to get them working with the very old iOS version on your phone.