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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]

#231

Post by fennecfoxy »

supernova87a wrote: post #16

I remember asking at some point what seemed to make Tom Scott so successful compared to the thousands of others who have probably tried to make it big on Youtube/social media. Was it the format/length/style, the topics, the camera work, the commentary/research, etc? I think the consensus was that he came out with generally interesting content, but most of all, predictably and sustained , which generated viewership. I…

Consistency in quality and other metrics is the key, I think.

People like McDonald's because it's filled with sugars, salts and fats but also because they know what they're getting and it's (mostly) consistent from visit to visit.

I think Tom was also one of the earlier "cool/casual science & technology" channels and was probably actually one of the main drivers of this type of content. The only downside is that as other people have mentioned in comments, this type of content has gotten more popular, which seems great at first but it ends up being treated as entertainment rather than provoking thought and really being absorbed (not Tom's fault, just the way the average person consumes).

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

#232

Post by fennecfoxy »

bornabox wrote: post #184
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #23

What a brilliant bit of foreshadowing with the helicopter statement. Given the other comments about the deep sea or space, maybe those are areas which he hopes he could've explored which he might end up tackling at some point! I'm really glad I was around for his journey. Sometimes creatives will keep pushing a form of media long past the point where it's interesting or exciting. It takes a great deal of courage and…

He really had me at the helicopter, too. I just had to smile, it made me happy.

Same here, and not even a whisker of trepidation either. Just pure, total exaltation as his feet lifted off the ground - can't help but smile and laugh along with him, what a genuine personality.

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

#233

Post by kragen »

kragen wrote: post #66
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…

the problem i have with educational youtube is that it's competence porn. it's quite satisfying to watch lyle peterson, kiwami japan, grandpa amu, nigel braun, grant sanderson, andy george, or xyla foxlin working through the problems involved in creating something, to the point that hours spent getting satisfied that way displace the far more effortful hours required to work through those problems myself. but i don't…

*juilliard

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

#234

Post by collinmanderson »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #192
mcmoor wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days Grey doesnt even do 1 per month. What does he even do now, only Cortex? I sometimes missed Hello Internet.

Oh I missed how youtube was rounding things, okay so for Q1 2022 - Q1 2023 he did 5 videos, but the year before that he did 10 and in the 8 months since he did 8.

Or depending on how you count Rock, Paper, Scissors, it was more like 115 videos, though most were unlisted. Plus he's been doing more subscriber-only videos.

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

#235

Post by valarauko »

mcmoor wrote: post #187
Dylan16807 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to figure out what "frequent" is here. Tom Scott was doing >4 videos per month, Mr. Beast does about 2 per month, CGP Grey has done 1 per month for a decade. Tom Scott, even on a very relaxing working schedule, could put out 1 video per month.

These days Grey doesnt even do 1 per month. What does he even do now, only Cortex? I sometimes missed Hello Internet.

I miss Hello Internet as well, and don't know why they stopped. Did they ever talk about why?

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

#236

Post by asveikau »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #156
asveikau wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unicode is variable length even if you use 32 bits, because glyphs sometimes require multiple codepoints. People sometimes write as if using more bits will remove complexity from Unicode but it doesn't really, you still need to handle multiple units at once sometimes.

Sure but that's at another level entirely. Dealing with two types of variable width is double difficult.

I disagree, if you are correctly handling Unicode you already are going through some "decode" function which parses a 32 bit quantity from utf-8 or utf-16. From there you need to handle multiple codepoints together sometimes, like for non-composed diacritics, han unification, and some emojis. This is complex regardless of whether or not you use utf-8 or utf-16, in fact I'd say it's more difficult to handle than those.

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

#237

Post by nudin »

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…

- Stefan Milo – Archeology, mostly the human evolution. [1]

- Adam Ragusea

- fern

[1] I have the desire to list him here 10 times in a row – definitely my current favorite!

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

#238

Post by supernova87a »

fennecfoxy wrote: post #231
supernova87a wrote: post #16

I remember asking at some point what seemed to make Tom Scott so successful compared to the thousands of others who have probably tried to make it big on Youtube/social media. Was it the format/length/style, the topics, the camera work, the commentary/research, etc? I think the consensus was that he came out with generally interesting content, but most of all, predictably and sustained , which generated viewership. I…

Consistency in quality and other metrics is the key, I think. People like McDonald's because it's filled with sugars, salts and fats but also because they know what they're getting and it's (mostly) consistent from visit to visit. I think Tom was also one of the earlier "cool/casual science & technology" channels and was probably actually one of the main drivers of this type of content. The only downside is that as o…

It really took me a surprising amount of time to notice the difference between his channel (and similar other actual content creators like Veritasium) and the many many other channels where some guy pretty much regurgitates information he did with only desk research, showing about 200 short stock footage clips while voicing over from some bedroom.

I suppose it just goes to show how easily you can be on autopilot and not appreciating or being able to tell actual journalism or original content from junk.

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

#239

Post by simonw »

Tom's incredible ten year run inspired me to write a thing about escalating streaks, and the power of doing something on a repeating schedule and trying to make it a tiny bit better every time: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jan/2/escalating-streaks/

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

#240

Post by tqi »

krick wrote: post #210
dom96 wrote: post #128

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]. Definite…

What's even the point of a newsletter in 2023 unless you need to gather people emails for marketing campaigns or other shady stuff? What does it do that RSS doesn't?

It meets people where they already are. I and (everyone I know) have an inbox, I don't have an rss client.
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