"Home video/community space" obviously encompasses independent content creators, wherever and whatever they're creating. I mean, 90% of PewDiePie's videos are him at home. Why does the venue of a zoo define the category? In any case, independent creators going out in the world, zoos or elsewhere, creating content is representative of the divide between big studio content and independents.

I think you misunderstand the difference between “Me at the zoo” guy and Veratassium. It’s not that one is at the zoo while the other isn’t. :)

The dude in the zoo video is dab smack in the middle of what i would call “home video”. Some person with a video recoding device points it at their life withouth much thinking about what is that they want to say or how. It’s clearly not a nature documentary, though there are elephants on the picture.

Veratassium videos are much more intentional. The content creator clearly has thought about what they want to talk about, and how they want to talk about it. They hired a camera person and very often special cameras or drones to shoot the best footage to illustrate the content. Each video is a mini documentary about a fascinating topic, with expert interviews, experiments and models.

I think it is a disservice to call this second type of video “home video”. Doesn’t make sense to mix these two together in any sense of the word.

It's a matter of target audience. Maybe I've misunderstood something, but I thought home videos where made for friends and family, not millions of people.

"Home videos" implies amateurism, maybe candidness? PewDiePie is obviously a professional making video entertainment as a career. That's meaningfully different than a recording of me taking my kids to the zoo.

Venue isn't the defining difference, no. Some combination of intent and skill are. At least thats what I think.

Even in the "people at home" category, all the good channels I can think of have very high quality. They just happen to be about a person talking on or off-camera. AvE and This Old Tony come to mind.

>home video

I think of Steve Sutton (now Protopod).

https://www.youtube.com/user/protopod

I don't know why I watch it, it's just fascinating watching this guy talk about his life. No "smash that subscribe button" nonsense. Just an honest real guy living his life and making videos on youtube.

*Veritasium, as in Veritas latin for truth, hence an element of truth