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Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

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Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#121

Post by Mountain_Skies »

JoBrad wrote: post #57
Waterluvian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before. My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality…

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others? Nile Red Nick Zentner Practical Engineering Real Engineering Ivan Miranda Joe Makes Tom Stanton Veritasium Numberphile Deep Sky Videos Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great) 3Blue1Br…

Interested in the geology and history of industry in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan? Alexis Dahl is a great informative source.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X3EE_jNDRg&ab_channel=Alexi...

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#122

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

withinboredom wrote: post #67
danwaterfield wrote: post #32

On the latest cortex, CGP Grey made the point that what's happening in youtube education-adjacent videos is much the same as what's happening for entertainment in those spaces: the law of the excluded middle. You either do long infrequent videos e.g., like MrBeast, or frequent short videos. Both CGP Grey and Tom Scott did frequent mid-length content, which gets squeezed out.

I assume cortex is a channel or something you watch, not brain matter?

It's a podcast he is on:

https://www.relay.fm/cortex/1

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#123

Post by Eisenstein »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #44
phillryu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but the burden is now on you to sift through the garbage to find the good stuff, especially since it's mostly mixed together in recommendations or search results etc. It feels more limited to me the other way around, like yes we have added some more good stuff, but good luck finding it. If my favorite hobby store kept on expanding and expanding and the ratio of great stuff to garbage kept going down, I would def…

This affects the other end too. Quality niche creators are partially motivated (and sometimes supported) by viewers. The bigger the sea of garbage they are swimming against, the less inclined they will be to start or continue.

People are motivated by viewers, but once it gets above a certain amount I think it becomes a different motivation. When I write things on reddit on a specific topic subreddit that have few posts in it, and those things get a few upvotes, I am more motivated to continue than posts in huge subs which get boatloads of upvotes. Because in order to get those one or two important ones, you need to know something specific and valuable, but to get thousands you have to find a way to appeal to a lot of people in a broad way.

Trying to chase the broad appeal will lead, in my experience, to a downslide where content gets less and less useful and more pop-culture oriented, or it becomes outright fraud or manipulation.

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#124

Post by moffkalast »

c54 wrote: post #68
JoBrad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others? Nile Red Nick Zentner Practical Engineering Real Engineering Ivan Miranda Joe Makes Tom Stanton Veritasium Numberphile Deep Sky Videos Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great) 3Blue1Br…

Applied Science Ze Frank Asianometry Premodernist Integza

There are just so many great educational/maker channels, here's a bunch more that are least known on my list (in no particular order):

Not David

iforce2d

Chronova Engineering

Posy

SuperfastMatt

Michael Rechtin

AlphaPhoenix

Hyperspace Pirate

Nicholas Rehm

James Biggar

Casual Navigation

Kraut

Spanning Tree

Geo History

EgyptologyLessons

Carl Bugeja

electrosync

Historia Civilis

Jeremy Fielding

there oughta be

Andreas Spiess

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#125

Post by mhh__ »

I'm not sure exactly how to define it but this is the end of something — certainly something for that clique of British YouTubers (e.g. Tom Scott did the graphics for many jay foreman videos and so on)

And really YouTube in general — Tom Scott understood the medium of youtube very early on. https://youtu.be/MrppkAIVhH4?si=6y2yRkk2QY6hknwF from 17 years ago is basically the exact same rhythm as a modern video, Tom Scott doesn't like memes so its also not massively dated either (other than the obvious).

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#126

Post by moffkalast »

graypegg wrote: post #115
moffkalast wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Through the magic of subscribing to both of them...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=r_LG8FDt51U&t=59 And I already have a subscription, right here!

Ahaha completely forgot about that one, perfect.

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#127

Post by amelius »

JoBrad wrote: post #57
Waterluvian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before. My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality…

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others? Nile Red Nick Zentner Practical Engineering Real Engineering Ivan Miranda Joe Makes Tom Stanton Veritasium Numberphile Deep Sky Videos Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great) 3Blue1Br…

StyroPyro :)

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#128

Post by dom96 »

Tom Scott is one of the great YouTubers. I don't know him personally but he does come across as a genuine down to earth guy who just wants to share knowledge with the world.

I also only recently learned that he has a newsletter. He mentions it briefly in some of his videos but I have never seen him ask people to sign up. The only reason I found out about it is because he included one of my articles in it[1]. Definitely highly recommend checking it out[2].

1 - https://mousetrack.co.uk/blog/mosquitoes-at-disney-why-do-yo...

2 - https://www.tomscott.com/newsletter/

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#129

Post by palemoonale »

janvdberg wrote: post #17

Tom is why I understand UTF-8 [1]. And it is not so much WHAT he explained but HOW he explained it, what really made it stick. It was his sheer unbridled genuine enthusiasm that put him on the map for me. One of the best to do it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MijmeoH9LT4

Half way in, i find this a tiring style of narration. Less enthusiasm would require less focus and thus less energy from the viewer.

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#130

Post by drstewart »

JoBrad wrote: post #57
Waterluvian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before. My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality…

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others? Nile Red Nick Zentner Practical Engineering Real Engineering Ivan Miranda Joe Makes Tom Stanton Veritasium Numberphile Deep Sky Videos Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great) 3Blue1Br…

Sebastian Lague is in the same vein, makes some of the best code exploration project videos I've seen. Highly entertaining and informative.
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