5 ms·

This is clearly marketing, and clearly good one. From what I can tell, it's a course that was mostly produced by someone else and will be delivered by someone

This is clearly marketing, and clearly good one. From what I can tell, it's a course that was mostly produced by someone else and will be delivered by someone else, but they recorded Mark Rober - the guy famous on YouTube for glitterbombing people - as the instructor. But their FAQ already states that he will "be able to" look at what students are doing and "may occasionally [..] give feedback", so most likely he won't be around to run the course. Also, from watching the videos, I had the impression that the technical work is mostly done by other people, e.g. the famous glitterbomb was built by Sean Hodgins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI So first and foremost, it appears that Mark Rober is a great showman and a great narrator. Plus he's collaborating with people like Mr Beast who have the power of a skilled agency behind them (nightmedia.co) to produce just the right narrative to go viral. And his first videos appear to be sponsored by a marketing agency. So I'm not surprised that this course is hyped up and not actually done by Mark Rober. I'd treat this more as a case study on how to perfect your social marketing ;) That said, their core promise of building 3 own projects within 30 days sounds reasonable if they have skilled instructors running the course. And the price seems reasonable for such a learning experience. When I was younger, my dad built some technical projects with me. Over the course of a weekend, I would learn more about electrics and physics than in a year in school. And once you built something that actually works in the real world, you'll never go back to observing technology as a passive bystander. That attitude change alone might be worth the $250. Plus, I believe Mark Rober to be a great showman. This course will likely be entertaining to watch, and paced just like a good movie.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
It’s increasingly common for online courses and other material to be attached to famous influencers. Leveraging the influencer’s audience and credibility is a shortcut to gaining massive traction. People really, really trust their favorite influencers. I was shocked when a semi-famous influencer admitted that one of the businesses that bears his name actually receives zero input from him, yet he takes 60% of the profits. He was approached by someone who wanted to use his name to jumpstart the audience and the deal was too good to pass up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recently publicized “Mr Beast Burger” is a similar collaboration. It’s pitched as something Mr Beast came up with, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some entrepreneurs were already building a ghost kitchen business and shopped it around to influencers who were willing to claim it was “theirs” in exchange for some of the profits.
danvayn 6y ago
I was linked and ended up watching his last video where he advertises this course at the beginning and end. I agree that he is a great showman, but I felt like he was a bit misleading in regards to how much he would be participating in the class. I guess he's not lying when he says he would be "seeing [them] there" but I think that implies a little bit more of an active role. Considering the size of his platform, limited engagement probably the most feasible thing to do...but I suspect that there will be a number of people signing up that will expect Mark to be present and open for engaging.
smoe 6y ago
I think it is inevitable with online courses of this scale, that the instructor recorded for the video lectures can't be involved on the day to day of the course. It is the same for e.g. Coursera courses where it is peers and a bunch of students from the university answering questions in the forum not the professor. I quite like the model of Schoolism.com art classes where you can either pay a monthly subscription for all access, start/finish any time or pay a quite a bit higher fee per course with fixed schedule and personalized feedback from the instructor
thaumaturgy 6y ago
Thanks for pointing this out. I've enjoyed quite a few of Mark's videos over the years. He's clearly smart and talented, but it was unsettling how insanely productive he seemed to be. That sort of thing naturally creeps into my subconscious and not in a healthy way. He mentions the people he works with but the videos are still presented in a way that makes them feel like a single person production. I should've figured there was more to it than that.
- TedShiller 6y ago
  He also pollutes the environment with all of his projects. Filling his swimming pool with plastic balls for views.
  - hojjat12000 6y ago
    I don't think any body cares about that. Specially when you can collect the plastic balls (because it's in your pool) and recycle it (which I'm sure he did, I don't think he dumped it in his kitchen trash can). He also uses biodegradable glitter.
    - O_H_E 6y ago
      > biodegradable glitter ok, wow. TIL such thing exists.
      - TedShiller 6y ago
        They don't. See links above.
    - TedShiller 6y ago
      If you read HN you know that recycling doesn’t work. If I care about the environment I’m not going to buy millions of plastic balls for views
    - randycupertino 6y ago
      Biodegradable glitter is a marketing scam, fyi. https://www.getlemonhead.com/blog/the-truth-about-bio-degradable-glitter https://www.getlemonhead.com/blog/the-truth-about-bio-degrad...
forrestthewoods 6y ago
> Also, from watching the videos, I had the impression that the technical work is mostly done by other people, e.g. the famous glitterbomb was built by Sean Hodgins. That seems a little unfair. From the description is "Mark came to me with an idea and a design. Who knew a simple idea could turn out to be such a complicated device? [...] It was fun being able to bring Marks concepts, designs, and ideas to reality, and together work to solve each problem as they arose". Mark releases about a video a month. No way can he do 12 projects a year entirely on his own. Everyone big on YouTube has a full team behind them. It's big business! Is a company founder the only force behind a startup? No! They hire and build a company! But are they the driving force? That's often a fair statement. I feel like you're pitching a story of "YouTube personalities are just a facade who don't do anything". Which I don't think is generally true. However I think the following is very true. "YouTube personalities have 10+ person teams behind them. And big channels have media empires pushing their brand."
sytelus 6y ago
I am indeed blown away by marketting efforts around this. They successfully and continuously targetted me on FB and the ad was effective enough to make me click. Now I see they got on HN which is hard for even legitimately deserving posts. They know their target demographic extremely well and knows how to get noticed. The ultimate give away for me was the fact that this cannot be good in-person class given such a huge marketting effort and potential enrollment that might be in order of 10s of thousands. Ultimately it's no more than buying a lesson video.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

It’s increasingly common for online courses and other material to be attached to famous influencers. Leveraging the influencer’s audience and credibility is a shortcut to gaining massive traction. People really, really trust their favorite influencers. I was shocked when a semi-famous influencer admitted that one of the businesses that bears his name actually receives zero input from him, yet he takes 60% of the profits. He was approached by someone who wanted to use his name to jumpstart the audience and the deal was too good to pass up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recently publicized “Mr Beast Burger” is a similar collaboration. It’s pitched as something Mr Beast came up with, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some entrepreneurs were already building a ghost kitchen business and shopped it around to influencers who were willing to claim it was “theirs” in exchange for some of the profits.

danvayn 6y ago

I was linked and ended up watching his last video where he advertises this course at the beginning and end. I agree that he is a great showman, but I felt like he was a bit misleading in regards to how much he would be participating in the class. I guess he's not lying when he says he would be "seeing [them] there" but I think that implies a little bit more of an active role. Considering the size of his platform, limited engagement probably the most feasible thing to do...but I suspect that there will be a number of people signing up that will expect Mark to be present and open for engaging.

smoe 6y ago

I think it is inevitable with online courses of this scale, that the instructor recorded for the video lectures can't be involved on the day to day of the course. It is the same for e.g. Coursera courses where it is peers and a bunch of students from the university answering questions in the forum not the professor. I quite like the model of Schoolism.com art classes where you can either pay a monthly subscription for all access, start/finish any time or pay a quite a bit higher fee per course with fixed schedule and personalized feedback from the instructor

thaumaturgy 6y ago

Thanks for pointing this out. I've enjoyed quite a few of Mark's videos over the years. He's clearly smart and talented, but it was unsettling how insanely productive he seemed to be. That sort of thing naturally creeps into my subconscious and not in a healthy way. He mentions the people he works with but the videos are still presented in a way that makes them feel like a single person production. I should've figured there was more to it than that.

TedShiller 6y ago
He also pollutes the environment with all of his projects. Filling his swimming pool with plastic balls for views.
- hojjat12000 6y ago
  I don't think any body cares about that. Specially when you can collect the plastic balls (because it's in your pool) and recycle it (which I'm sure he did, I don't think he dumped it in his kitchen trash can). He also uses biodegradable glitter.
  - O_H_E 6y ago
    > biodegradable glitter ok, wow. TIL such thing exists.
    - TedShiller 6y ago
      They don't. See links above.
  - TedShiller 6y ago
    If you read HN you know that recycling doesn’t work. If I care about the environment I’m not going to buy millions of plastic balls for views
  - randycupertino 6y ago
    Biodegradable glitter is a marketing scam, fyi. https://www.getlemonhead.com/blog/the-truth-about-bio-degradable-glitter https://www.getlemonhead.com/blog/the-truth-about-bio-degrad...

forrestthewoods 6y ago

> Also, from watching the videos, I had the impression that the technical work is mostly done by other people, e.g. the famous glitterbomb was built by Sean Hodgins. That seems a little unfair. From the description is "Mark came to me with an idea and a design. Who knew a simple idea could turn out to be such a complicated device? [...] It was fun being able to bring Marks concepts, designs, and ideas to reality, and together work to solve each problem as they arose". Mark releases about a video a month. No way can he do 12 projects a year entirely on his own. Everyone big on YouTube has a full team behind them. It's big business! Is a company founder the only force behind a startup? No! They hire and build a company! But are they the driving force? That's often a fair statement. I feel like you're pitching a story of "YouTube personalities are just a facade who don't do anything". Which I don't think is generally true. However I think the following is very true. "YouTube personalities have 10+ person teams behind them. And big channels have media empires pushing their brand."

sytelus 6y ago

I am indeed blown away by marketting efforts around this. They successfully and continuously targetted me on FB and the ad was effective enough to make me click. Now I see they got on HN which is hard for even legitimately deserving posts. They know their target demographic extremely well and knows how to get noticed. The ultimate give away for me was the fact that this cannot be good in-person class given such a huge marketting effort and potential enrollment that might be in order of 10s of thousands. Ultimately it's no more than buying a lesson video.