Kind of a trend, the amount of youtubers who i had loved but their content became generic after gaining popularity is quite a bit, most drastic one being mrwhosetheboss, his uniqueness went down faster than MH27 MH17
Sabine Hossenfelder, used to love her takes on physics until she fell in the usual expert’s trap of believing she can talk equally usefully about things OUTSIDE her expertise.
First trans care, which missed a few important nuances. Then autism, which had a decades-old perspective and was at best “not informative”.
Then hoo boy Capitalism where she made a huge tangled MESS confusing and conflating markets with monetary systems and credit, all apparently based off half-remembered textbooks from 1950 using long-disproven historical claims.
A lot of criticism was sent her way. None was acknowledged, or apparently taken to heart. Repeatedly.
From skillfully presenting physics with a “explain it like I’m 5” style, she’s now spouting any trending topic in a “explained by a 5 year old” style.
She’s always been a weird nerdy lady, but endearing. Her videos were never professional, a bit tacky, but very informative. But I too dropped her channel because she started talking about nonsense she had no business giving opinions about.
This was such a disappointment, I really liked her explanations of quantum physics.
This, JFC so much this. The trans care thing was a serious blow to my interest in her videos. That capitalism BS. That killed it dead. Didn’t finish that video, haven’t watched since. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
To be fair, I think her reputation might still be salvageable. But it would take sincere apologies, earnest corrections, and getting back in her ”lane” of experience. As a physicist she’s fine, but not so much as a physician or politician.
I used to watch iilluminaughtii several years ago, probably because I’ve been grabbing popcorn and enjoying watching someone dunking on multi-level marketing since, uh, 90s at least. Then I watched some video that was about some topic that I was kind of in middle of a deep dive, too (I can’t remember which exactly. Elan School, probably?). And the video was bland as hell. And then I was like “yeah, most of these other videos are kind of forgettable shallow pap too”.
…and this year we found out about the whole landlordy corporate town fancier backstabby financial abuser helicopter-CEO situation. And the content mill situation. And the plagiarism thing. Can’t forget the plagiarism thing. …I was like, “oh this all just makes sense now.”
Illuminaughtii was getting pushed into my feed so hard right before everything went down that I’ve started to cast side-eye on anyone that the algorithm starts to push hard.
On the plus side, I found Cruel World Happy Mind because of all the awful stuff Illuminaughtii did to her.
Cinema Sins. Used to be 5 minute videos pointing out continuity errors or over-use of something (Iron Man 2 Bird Bonus Round) but then bloated into 20 minutes of nit picky bull crap.
Linus Tech Tips.
They were pretty good in the beginning but the drive to create more and more output diminished the quality of the individual vids. Hence, the latest controversy.
To be fair, they dragged their feet on addressing it, sure, but then took massive steps to address it when they did. Top-to-bottom company-wide analysis and restructuring, limiting Linus’ role and voice, a complete moratorium on releasing videos while they made plans to slow the release output, and refocusing on quality-control with additional community input. Totally get if you still don’t like their videos, but I think they did everything possible to address everyone’s concerns.
I actually like the WAN Show podcast more than their videos. I think you get a sense for their genuineness and passion as they discuss current tech news…
Still waiting on the internal investigation results.
Yeah, willing to give them a second chance, but very much want this to be addressed first.
Did Linus ever really apologize for the “we didn’t sell the prototype we auctioned it” comment. I only saw him make excuses about miscommunication (blaming the company that lent the prototype). Or apologize to Gamers Nexus for saying they didn’t do “real” testing?
I only saw a long corporate speak “we will do better” video.
Hard to cite sources at the moment, I’m on mobile. From what I remember, both of those things ended up being a little bit overblown.
Prototype company had initially said that they could keep it. There was still a goof, as LTT said they would send it back, but it makes the logistics mix up a little more understandable.
The kinds of testing that the two different channels do are very different. I do think it was disingenuous to say Tech Jesus didn’t do real testing. But also, if they were as close as they said they were before this whole thing, he could also have called up Linus and called them on their slapdash bullshit on the phone.
And nothing has been released about that internal investigation. But that wouldn’t be the first time they promised to do something and didn’t. In this case, it’s highly possible investigation is still going on. Once it’s finished, they may even be legally barred from making the results public (IANAL). Either way, if it is truly being conducted by an important 3rd party, they’re doing the right thing.
Prototype company had initially said that they could keep it.
That was the lie that Linus told that got me to stop watching LTT. The company sent Gamers Nexus the email chain where they clearly had been asking for it back and got the run around until it was auctioned. Then Linus had the gall to say, “We didn’t sell it, it was auctioned.”
LTT is a big company. Mistakes were made. But instead of saying, we screwed up they tried to blame the prototype company when it wasn’t their fault at all.
I only saw a long corporate speak “we will do better” video.
Linus didn’t have a direct apology to the prototype company. He blamed them for his auctioning off their prototype. Saying, [sic] “Sorry, you made a mistake and we didn’t follow through correctly.” isn’t a real apology.
The company responded by sending the email chain to Gamers Nexus to prove their side of the story.
So you didn’t watch the video, or pay attention to the part I linked to.
Finally I want to apologise to Billet Labs for auctioning off their monoblock at LTX 2023.
Literally verbatim from that video, followed by some further explanation about what happened.
Is it a sufficient apology? Maybe not. But to say they didn’t apologise is completely false.
GN August 14th https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc&t=108s breaks story
Linus claims Billet said we could keep it and we didn’t sell it we auctioned it.
Linus defends his “we didn’t sell it we auctioned it” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cTpTMl8kFY&t=948s by saying its important to get all the details.
However the details, as Linus already knew, was that Billet asked for it back 2 weeks earlier, they lost track of it and sold it.
Linus response August 14th: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cTpTMl8kFY&t=948s claims they offered to pay for it before they were under any pressure
GN August 15th https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3byz3txpso&t3m54s Billet labs shows email chain they didn’t receive a response until after GN video was released and LTT was under pressure.
Billets email chain shows that they asked for it back long before it was sold. Linus claims they offered to pay for it before being pressured. Billet labs email chain shows they didn’t receive an offer until after GN’s videos hit the news.
Which didnt negate the fact that Linus apologized.
Not that it matters, it was a shit thing to do.
Joshua Weissman. He started out super chill, most of his recipes were pretty approachable, the editing wasn’t over the top, the b-roll stuff at the end was tasteful.
Now it’s like he’s catering to a whole different crowd. The editing is over the top and jammed with memes, he’s more idk, psychotic isn’t quite the right word, but it’s way less chill, he’s constantly saying stuff like “if you don’t use XYZ ingredient then what are you even making this recipe for?”, his recipes are more over the top, and he has a much more elitist opinion of himself and his food. The change happened so quickly too, it was kind of shocking.
For actual cooking stuff, I prefer Adam Ragusea. He dives more into the history and molecular gastronomy side of things, to explain how a dish came to be and why it works. Not quite as sciencey as Alton Brown, but I definitely see the influences. And for actual historical food stuff, you may want to check out Tasting History. He’s a creator who does deep dives into historical dishes, then tries to recreate them.
Both interesting in their own ways, but Adam’s stuff has helped be become a better cook simply by understanding the why, rather than the how. Because if you know why something works, (rather than simply knowing how to do it) you’ll be able to translate that to other situations where it will work, and be able to avoid/work around situations where it won’t. It took me from “following recipes” to “making my own recipes” if that makes sense.
Already subbed to both of those channels lol. I also like J. Kenji Lopez Alt and Brian Lagerstrom for similar reasons - their videos are more about how to cook than just following a particular recipe.
Penguinz0. His content was garbage when I discovered him so I just avoided him but one day I got recommended his old commercial parodies and it was pure gold. His videos about Kate cooking were also great too. Nowadays, he’s a drama youtuber. He scroll Twitter, read about a random scandal, do the bare minimum research to not sound like a fool and then make a video about it.
I’m on the same boat. But my “what the actual fuck?” moment came when (for those unfamiliar with it) YouTuber Idubbbz came out with a sincere apology for many of his videos that used extremely racist or ableist terms. While aware that his apologies did not automatically translated into being forgiven by the memebers of the groups he insulted, Idubbbz still felt it was important for him to apologize.
And in this situation, Penguinz0 just said that “Idubbbz shouldn’t have apologized and it felt like he was exaggerating the whole thing”. Way to inject yourself in something that did not involve him at all. Also, that really told me the kind of person Penguinz0 is: someone who dismisses others suffering when it’s not his place to do so and someone who just goes off his own gut feelings alone.
Mark Rober.
He got louder, flashier, less techy and more talky and is doing a gazillion reruns of the same general idea over and over. Can’t really enjoy it anymore.
No one gives me Fellow Kids vibes more than Mark Rober.
Not exactly the question, but there’s no way I can enjoy Internet Historian now that we know he’s a Nazi.
Oh shit. He’s a Nazi? Fuuuuck. I thought he was just a plagiarizer.
Unfortunately not:
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedrama/comments/18dotzf/internet_historian_is_a_nazi/
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yeah. Sorry for the reddit link but that’s where a lot of the info is aggregated.
Wow. Someone over there is defending him being a fan of the Proud Boys guy because he claims the Proud Boys aren’t a terrorist group (despite having been declared as such).
He says they’re “very extreme right at worst”, as if there’s some sort of sliding scale on the right wing that eventually gets to “extreme right”, “very extreme right”, “terrorist organization” just naturally…and he isn’t aware they crossed the line years ago.
Never would have called him a favorite of mine exactly, but a channel I used to watch was Shadiversity. Had some interesting videos on medieval life and castles. These days he seemingly only does “let’s test this wacky weapon” videos and has a terrible second channel where he whines about “woke culture”.
I lost interest after he sang the praises of the Goblin Slayer rape scene. BuT tHe GoBLiNs nEeD tO bE sCaRy! You can “make monsters monstrous” without adding explicit rape scenes to your mid-tier manga.
Tangential fun fact: the guy from “Shadiversity” and the guy from “Drawing with Jazza” are brothers. This is incredibly odd to me because I don’t think that they look or act alike at all.
has a terrible second channel where he whines about “woke culture”
That’s disappointing. I’ve watched a lot of his videos over the years and didn’t even know about a second channel or his beliefs.
Isn’t that kind of a good thing?
Some people don’t want to financially support creators who on record have said things like homosexuality is wrong and should not be encouraged. Watching youtube videos is financial support.
I understand that, but I also respect creators that keep their main channel focused on its core.
Pretty much every car repair channel starts off good, then quickly changes to fixing exotic cars that nobody can afford.
Scotty has the most clickbait titles. “If you have a car you will REGRET this ONE SIMPLE TRICK and DESTROY YOUR ENGINE” (video is about winter octane stabilizers or something completely mundane)
Aging Wheels, Rainman Ray’s Garage, and Garbage Time are all fantastic channels you should look into.
Check out Garbage Time. It’s a channel about an Aussie and his mechanic buddy repairing old, shitty cars. Many of the cars are Australian specific too.
Sinfest. Used to be a charming and funny daily webcomic about an eclectic cast of colorful characters getting into surreal and philosophical situations. Then one day in 2011 it suddenly swerved hard into radical feminism. I’m not anti-feminist myself, but the comic became obsessed with it – literally every strip was related to The Patriarchy in some way and it became extremely preachy and boring.
I checked out for the better part of a decade, and when I randomly revisited a couple years ago it turned out that the author had transited the TERF-to-fascist pipeline and turned into an extreme-right antivax conspiratorial fascist loon, of the “teachers are secret pedos” and “the war in Ukraine is a hoax” variety. Super sad to see.
On a similar note, Questionable Content needs to just stop already if it hasn’t. That turd’s been circling for years and years, proving everyone wrong every time they insist it couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Less “downhill” and more “dropped into a sinkhole straight to the pits of hell,” but Creepshow Art. I thought she was really fun to listen to, and it was interesting hearing tea spilling from a community I’m not privy to. At some point she opened up about a stalker who’d been following her for years, harassing her constantly, trying to get her fired from her job by sending compromising photos from her past to her boss, threatening her life… And then it turns out she was the stalker, and the victim was Emily Artful! She was the psychopath threatening someone’s life and trying to get them fired and shit! And I was planning on donating to her patreon!
I have the opposite problem where Youtubers who I watch because I enjoy their unedited, off-the-cuff content keep deciding to put more effort into their channel and start producing videos that are scripted and edited well, which I find way less interesting and watchable than their stream-of-consciousness rambling was. WolfeyVGC is a big one. He theoretically has a second channel for low effort content but he rarely posts to it.
You might like Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t if you like that style of video. It’s a crass low brow approach to botany and ecology presented by a Chicago Italian. Been going for years now and has improved his quality but it’s still off the cuff rambling.
Linus Tech Tips …
Click baity as heck and most of the content are just ads or have misleading information.
The clickbait is what gets me.
The video is covering the Toughbook CF-19 but it’s not mentioned in the title and the thumbnail looks like generic YouTube trash and makes me not want to watch it out of principle.
Unfortunately, the stupid thumbnail and clickbait title is by design. Linus has spoken about this long before the latest controversy, but unfortunately they do increase views.
I’m fact, they trial different titles and monitor which brings in more views - if you catch a video early enough, you’ll probably notice the title change a few hours later as they trial different ones. So as frustrating as it is, it’s a symptom of the platform and the market at large.
For all of Linus’ flaws and mistakes, he’s generally a good businessman and make no mistake, LMG is a business at the end of the day. Put yourself in his shoes, is he going to do the thing that will get him 1,000 views but put off 1 person, or appeal to that 1 person but lose 1,000 views? It sucks, he been vocal about how much he also hates it, but it is what it is. His goal is to grow his business, at least he’s up front about it.
I’m not completely defending Linus as an individual here, he’s definitely fucked up a lot (especially lately), he still thinks he’s a “little YouTuber” and doesn’t appreciate how much sway he has, how his words can destroy an entire business overnight - the very thing his own company was nearly hit by several times in the past when he was small - but the clickbait and thumbnails aren’t something I think he should be blamed for, he’s just playing the YouTube game and if I was in his position, I’d do the same.
Veritasium. After he put that uncritical commercial for the self driving car company on his feed I couldn’t take any of his content seriously anymore.
It was his video on IQ tests that set off alarm bells for me.
IQ tests are not some method of determining intelligence they are very much linked to relative education/socioeconomic standing. His complete lack of criticism and neutral/positive support of IQ tests make me think he likes the result of his score…
“Oh and by the way, this is a sponsored video 🤷” and then spends half an hour sucking a company’s dick for money
That and the shampoo ad killed my interest in the channel, and ever since then I’m extremely wary of everyone. Kurzgesagt is also up there, for producing propaganda for a billionaire’s charity.
some recent ones have been interesting, but yeah that ad really was a scummy move
I stopped watching after the “speed of electricity in a wire” video. When I realised a video about something I knew about was bollocks, it made me question every other video that taught me about something I didn’t know.
Even if that had been a one off, how would I know? The trust is gone.What was wrong with that one?
Without getting into it too deeply the way he conflates induction and conductivity just to set up some kind of gotcha.
