5 ms·

Something about Veritasium absolutely rubs me the wrong way, and I generally like Youtube education creators, but his videos are borderline unwatchable for me.

Something about Veritasium absolutely rubs me the wrong way, and I generally like Youtube education creators, but his videos are borderline unwatchable for me. Does anyone have an explanation for what it is about his videos that is so grating?

jebr224 5y ago
same, It comes of as smug or some desire to prove he smarter, rather then genuinely trying to educate. The videos are of educational, high quality, and the content is accurate. But the presentation is not for me.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  I feel like its more the assertiveness on how right the information he's sharing is, when not everything he makes a video on is quite so correct but there isn't any of this nuance or doubt in his works. Doesn't feel like any of the professors I've spoken to, there's too much confidence. The only thing we can be that confident in is how wrong humans tend to be
Brian_K_White 5y ago
I don't know how to articulate it either. It's some form of uncanny valley type of thing where every detail or facet or property I might point out, there are other people exhibiting the same nominal qualities without bothering me. But something here is just slightly off in some way, but so subtly you can't say what it is. I honestly can't say he's doing anything actually wrong. I don't think even the most dumbed down ones are really guilty of being wrong. Not enough that I'd complain about it in a casual yt video. I can see some people maybe not liking his basic style of exposition. That slightly affected dreamy pondering thing. One thing I can observe is that another guy that just turns me right off even worse is the Smarter Every Day, and these two appear in each others videos at least a few times. Or maybe it was just one time and that one time just bugged me that much :) I don't know what it is but I frequently see a video from either of these guys where the topic they are presenting looks interesting, but then I do not like their video on that topic. I think it's down to the presentation just seems a bit too affected. And it's not even as bad as seeming fake or insincere. They both actually strike me as perfectly sincere.
- jalgos_eminator 5y ago
  Its interesting you mention Destin from Smarter Every Day, because he always came off as a very earnest learner in his videos. Yeah, he's still putting on a show, but it does seem like he genuinely enjoys and revels in the things that he does. It seems to me like Veritasium has a more contrarian thread of: "Oh, you thought the world worked like that? Well you were wrong, and here's a 15 minute video all about how you were wrong." There's an Onion video making fun of Vox that touches on this perfectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpkQEq75y18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpkQEq75y18 I guess to summarize, with Destin it feels like you are learning with him and Veritasium feels like you are being lectured.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    Hey, I also don't like chocolate all that much, and I seem to be some kind of inexplicable alien because of that. So, it's very possible "it's just me" that I don't like good things because curmudgeon. :) I see the distinction you make there now that you point it out.
  - boxed 5y ago
    Funny. Veritasium actually has some videos talking about why he has this approach :) I saw something similar all the time as a dance teacher: explaining stuff and showing over and over made the students feel like they learned a lot. But they just didn't. It was mostly a total waste of time. I switched to showing ONCE then they had to try. Then I showed again. The speed of learning went up dramatically. The problem I had then was that the students didn't like it! "Make people believe they're thinking and they'll love you. Make them actually think, and they will hate you."
    - l33t2328 5y ago
      See, I’ve heard that, but I like being challenged. I like to have to “pause and ponder” as the excellent Youtuber 3Blue1Brown puts it, but Vertiassium is just annoying.
      - 5y ago
ah9dja 5y ago
Same, but it wasn't this unbearable in the beginning. I think it's partly me thinking there's no way he understands such wide ranging subjects at such great depths without significant research and prep for the video, which contradicts how casually and confidently he's presenting everything. I'm used to expecting a more scripted presentation in these cases, which it probably is, but it doesn't sound like it.
- boxed 5y ago
  He shows him doing conference calls with scientists explaining shit to him quite a bit though. So that just feels like you're cherry picking.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Veritasium used to do a lot less a/b testing on his videos and I guess maybe he just got too big too fast. The thing that bothers me the most though is that he went from almost exclusively explaining interesting scientific facts/experiments to a more "aggressive" style where a lot of his videos are about x being wrong and here is z reason why. And I personally just don't like that style, especially when it turns out that there is a lot more nuance than his titles would indicate. I mean what are the odds of an entire field being wrong , and the truth is actually in a 15 mins youtube video by a very general science channel?
nodja 5y ago
Can't say if it's the same feeling, but to me it's the fact that he plays everything off like he's doing a helpful thing and trying to inform you for your own benefit, but the reality is the motivations are warped and the video only exists because some company paid him money to do so. I've unsubscribed from this channel and smarter every day because while I believe the authors feel like they're doing the right thing. They let themselves be highly biased/influenced by their sponsors that I cannot watch the video and believe that they're being honest.
eternityforest 5y ago
Doesn't he have some things that seem a bit "In this moment I'm euphoric"?
chowells 5y ago
All of his videos that I've seen have a weird thing where he challenges people to explain something, and then he reveals he was talking about something else and their explanation isn't relevant. This is just https://xkcd.com/169/ https://xkcd.com/169/ His videos don't strike me as intending to educate. They strike me as intending to show how much more clever he is than you - and it's entirely that he came up with some weird gotcha that people logically assume he couldn't be talking about because it's nonsense. It's like watching a smug teenager who never grew out of it. No thanks, I don't need that reminder of how grating I was.
- droidist2 5y ago
  That comic reminds me of all the times I've seen someone pose the Monty Hall Problem without mentioning that the host always reveals a goat on first round.
fsh 5y ago
I think he is easily one of the smartest people on YouTube and is producing some of the very best videos. He is also a brilliant educator. For examples, his videos on special [1] and general relativity [2] were real eye-openers for me, even though I have studied physics and have seen this stuff explained a million times before. What I really don't like are the new video titles. At some point he started A/B testing them to maximize his revenue. He even made a video about it [3]. Of course, this selects for the most outrageous clickbait in order to get that sweet engagement. I am starting to wonder if he took into account, how much this is starting to alienate long-term followers. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTn6Ewhb27k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTn6Ewhb27k [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRr1kaXKBsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRr1kaXKBsU [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng
aroundtown 5y ago
The two things that bother me about Veritasium are his brand of pseudo-intellectual (smugness maybe?) and the fact that his videos often aren't telling the whole picture.
dabernathy89 5y ago
I really enjoy his content, and I don't expect it to be exhaustive or cover all angles and approaches to a topic. To each his own ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

jebr224 5y ago

same, It comes of as smug or some desire to prove he smarter, rather then genuinely trying to educate. The videos are of educational, high quality, and the content is accurate. But the presentation is not for me.

netizen-936824 5y ago
I feel like its more the assertiveness on how right the information he's sharing is, when not everything he makes a video on is quite so correct but there isn't any of this nuance or doubt in his works. Doesn't feel like any of the professors I've spoken to, there's too much confidence. The only thing we can be that confident in is how wrong humans tend to be

Brian_K_White 5y ago

I don't know how to articulate it either. It's some form of uncanny valley type of thing where every detail or facet or property I might point out, there are other people exhibiting the same nominal qualities without bothering me. But something here is just slightly off in some way, but so subtly you can't say what it is. I honestly can't say he's doing anything actually wrong. I don't think even the most dumbed down ones are really guilty of being wrong. Not enough that I'd complain about it in a casual yt video. I can see some people maybe not liking his basic style of exposition. That slightly affected dreamy pondering thing. One thing I can observe is that another guy that just turns me right off even worse is the Smarter Every Day, and these two appear in each others videos at least a few times. Or maybe it was just one time and that one time just bugged me that much :) I don't know what it is but I frequently see a video from either of these guys where the topic they are presenting looks interesting, but then I do not like their video on that topic. I think it's down to the presentation just seems a bit too affected. And it's not even as bad as seeming fake or insincere. They both actually strike me as perfectly sincere.

jalgos_eminator 5y ago
Its interesting you mention Destin from Smarter Every Day, because he always came off as a very earnest learner in his videos. Yeah, he's still putting on a show, but it does seem like he genuinely enjoys and revels in the things that he does. It seems to me like Veritasium has a more contrarian thread of: "Oh, you thought the world worked like that? Well you were wrong, and here's a 15 minute video all about how you were wrong." There's an Onion video making fun of Vox that touches on this perfectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpkQEq75y18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpkQEq75y18 I guess to summarize, with Destin it feels like you are learning with him and Veritasium feels like you are being lectured.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  Hey, I also don't like chocolate all that much, and I seem to be some kind of inexplicable alien because of that. So, it's very possible "it's just me" that I don't like good things because curmudgeon. :) I see the distinction you make there now that you point it out.
- boxed 5y ago
  Funny. Veritasium actually has some videos talking about why he has this approach :) I saw something similar all the time as a dance teacher: explaining stuff and showing over and over made the students feel like they learned a lot. But they just didn't. It was mostly a total waste of time. I switched to showing ONCE then they had to try. Then I showed again. The speed of learning went up dramatically. The problem I had then was that the students didn't like it! "Make people believe they're thinking and they'll love you. Make them actually think, and they will hate you."
  - l33t2328 5y ago
    See, I’ve heard that, but I like being challenged. I like to have to “pause and ponder” as the excellent Youtuber 3Blue1Brown puts it, but Vertiassium is just annoying.
    - 5y ago

ah9dja 5y ago

Same, but it wasn't this unbearable in the beginning. I think it's partly me thinking there's no way he understands such wide ranging subjects at such great depths without significant research and prep for the video, which contradicts how casually and confidently he's presenting everything. I'm used to expecting a more scripted presentation in these cases, which it probably is, but it doesn't sound like it.

boxed 5y ago
He shows him doing conference calls with scientists explaining shit to him quite a bit though. So that just feels like you're cherry picking.
mardifoufs 5y ago
Veritasium used to do a lot less a/b testing on his videos and I guess maybe he just got too big too fast. The thing that bothers me the most though is that he went from almost exclusively explaining interesting scientific facts/experiments to a more "aggressive" style where a lot of his videos are about x being wrong and here is z reason why. And I personally just don't like that style, especially when it turns out that there is a lot more nuance than his titles would indicate. I mean what are the odds of an entire field being wrong , and the truth is actually in a 15 mins youtube video by a very general science channel?

nodja 5y ago

Can't say if it's the same feeling, but to me it's the fact that he plays everything off like he's doing a helpful thing and trying to inform you for your own benefit, but the reality is the motivations are warped and the video only exists because some company paid him money to do so. I've unsubscribed from this channel and smarter every day because while I believe the authors feel like they're doing the right thing. They let themselves be highly biased/influenced by their sponsors that I cannot watch the video and believe that they're being honest.

eternityforest 5y ago

Doesn't he have some things that seem a bit "In this moment I'm euphoric"?

chowells 5y ago

All of his videos that I've seen have a weird thing where he challenges people to explain something, and then he reveals he was talking about something else and their explanation isn't relevant. This is just https://xkcd.com/169/ https://xkcd.com/169/ His videos don't strike me as intending to educate. They strike me as intending to show how much more clever he is than you - and it's entirely that he came up with some weird gotcha that people logically assume he couldn't be talking about because it's nonsense. It's like watching a smug teenager who never grew out of it. No thanks, I don't need that reminder of how grating I was.

droidist2 5y ago
That comic reminds me of all the times I've seen someone pose the Monty Hall Problem without mentioning that the host always reveals a goat on first round.

fsh 5y ago

I think he is easily one of the smartest people on YouTube and is producing some of the very best videos. He is also a brilliant educator. For examples, his videos on special [1] and general relativity [2] were real eye-openers for me, even though I have studied physics and have seen this stuff explained a million times before. What I really don't like are the new video titles. At some point he started A/B testing them to maximize his revenue. He even made a video about it [3]. Of course, this selects for the most outrageous clickbait in order to get that sweet engagement. I am starting to wonder if he took into account, how much this is starting to alienate long-term followers. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTn6Ewhb27k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTn6Ewhb27k [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRr1kaXKBsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRr1kaXKBsU [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng

aroundtown 5y ago

The two things that bother me about Veritasium are his brand of pseudo-intellectual (smugness maybe?) and the fact that his videos often aren't telling the whole picture.

dabernathy89 5y ago

I really enjoy his content, and I don't expect it to be exhaustive or cover all angles and approaches to a topic. To each his own ¯\_(ツ)_/¯