Maybe I'm not in the vast majority of readers here, but I absolutely cannot stand YouTube videos where the creator goes out of their way to be extra corny and silly. Just make the damn video without trying to be funny. Interesting topic, but I couldn't make it more than a minute in the video without being annoyed. Id much prefer a dry scientific paper about bed bugs than sitting thru that.

Mark Rober is easily one of the most popular science/engineering channels on Youtube. I find the corniness a bit irritating and lacking in detail, but he gets tens of millions of views so he’s doing something right. I get the impression that his audience skews young, so that probably explains why it’s not as interesting to technically inclined adults.

I try not to complain about the content because much of it is genuinely pretty impressive from a technical perspective. I would be unsurprised to see technical leaders ten years from now citing him as an inspiration though

I like Mark's content but it's not going to appeal to everyone. I'm glad we live in a time when we have so many options for entertainment and can so easily pick and choose.

>I would be unsurprised to see technical leaders ten years from now citing him as an inspiration though

I think you’re on to something, MIT chose him as their commencement speaker…

https://news.mit.edu/2022/mark-rober-2023-commencement-addre...

I watched a video where he made a robotic football punter, which was interesting. But then he trash talked a real-life football punter, which offended me. I get that it was a joke, but I saw something there I cannot unsee and I generally skip his content.

I do make time to watch his anti porch pirate videos though. Those are really interesting, despite all of the insecure shouting energy.

His Indian scam center sting videos were honestly some of the most impressive content I've seen on the platform.

Definitely worth a watch if you're interested in seeing scammers who ruin people's lives getting tracked across continents for a bold counteroffensive campaign.

It was like a real life version of the movie Taken, but with believable action.

That was amazing. I really did appreciate that.

If you like Indian scam callcenters getting busted, have a look at Scammer Payback.

Well, quantity vs. quality I guess. "Mostpopular", "tens of millions of views", "audience skews young". Thanks for sparing me the time of trying to sub him...

Have you looked at what's popular in general?

And with that information in mind, do you think it is desirable to be popular, that something being popular is a good endorsement of it?

I think it is orthogonal to qualities I look for although sometimes popular=profitable=budget to spend on content quality.

Using popularity as an argument for the quality of content isn't so useful. Quantity is often antithetical to quality. Look at YouTube front page when signed out, most of it is garbage.

The dude is genuinely smart. When it comes time to dive deeply into a technical topic, though, he never really puts in the main channel videos because he knows he's going to lose 90% of his audience at that point.

Doesn't this imply it's not a high quality channel?

No it means he knows his audience. He does broadly interesting projects, but doesn’t lose them in technical detail. For many people it’s mindless entertainment, but for some it will inspire them to look more deeply. Then, as you know, there are other info sources with more detail.

There many axes to quality. Technical detail is just one.

People under 18 and families are a big chunk of his viewership. Bill nye the science guy was oriented toward a similar audience but was even cornier

Fair enough! Like the other comment said, I think his stuff is aimed at teens and kids. Personally I'm happy to look past his pop style as his content quality is usually really high.

Yep that’s exactly why I don’t follow him. Not to my taste.

I watched this one. The content seems solid and he’s clearly talking to bed bug experts. I thought it was pretty well done. I guess for my tastes not that annoying (though his videos could be a tad shorter)

The fact he gets bugs hiding in his shoe soles was pretty interesting.

You’re criticizing one of the best youtuber. Ballsy.

Then he's not the channel for you. There's plenty of fun science/engineering channels, and there's plenty of dry channels. Just take your pick what you like

Being silly is how they make a buck and are able to put time and resources into technical impressive content. They aren't being silly just to be silly

Had not heard of him until just now.

You're in for a treat with the squirrel Olympics and the parcel thief traps.

If watching the parcel thief videos, start with the original, it's by far the best.

The last one where he goes to India to mess with call centers is pretty crazy, too, but not as hilarious as the first video.

The package thief videos are great from the engineering perspective, but always make me feel kind of bad. One of the things I find most distressing in that series is the kids who show up in the videos, participating in theft at the behest of their parents. Some of the conversations between those kids and their parents are extremely sad.

And look - steal a package off a porch, you deserve the ultimately harmless annoyance for sure. But even with that in mind, there's something kind of cruel about the level of effort that's put into the package traps. Once you've found a target that no one will defend, it's just fine to douse them in fart spray and glitter. People cheer because, well, fuck thieves, right?

I get it - I really do. But ultimately, it's fun at the expense of other humans and those videos have always left me feeling a bit gross.

If they were booby trapped and maimed the theft that'd be one thing. Public embarrassment is a fine punishment though.

I agree that it's ultimately harmless, and well-deserved, for the thief in question. I find it sad that there are often children involved, but if any good comes of that, it may be that some kids will learn a lifelong lesson about the results of the behavior their parents are encouraging.

Still, as I said - it's the level of effort put into the punishment machines, and the extraction of entertainment value from the punishments, that gives me the odd feeling that something about these videos might cross a moral line.

To each their own, I'm not trying to discourage anyone from watching and enjoying the videos. For me personally, they give me more heartache than joy, so I stick to his other videos - despite the rampant exploitation of innocent squirrels ;)

I don't feel gross at all. They are stealing.

I felt that way until I was the victim multiple thefts. Traps like these can act as deterrents.

If there's any good that's coming from these videos and traps, I would hope that it's teaching the children involved a valuable lesson about the results of being a shitheel thief.

However, I am somewhat skeptical that this is the case. The odds of encountering a stunningly well engineered annoyance device when stealing are still pretty low, and while thieves aren't known for their competence with statistics, I think that logic is fairly low-hanging fruit.

With sadness, I have to imagine that for every case of a kid or thief being converted to the path of goodness by these boxes, there are just as many who will angrily continue what they're doing as a "fuck you" to those who would impose punishment on them - which seems to be a large part of the ethos that drives these kinds of thefts in the first place.

Those poor kids are victims of their parents. No one else.

I watched a video where he made a robotic football punter, which was interesting. But then he trash talked a real-life football punter, which offended me. I get that it was a joke, but I saw something there I cannot unsee and I generally skip his content.

I do make time to watch his anti porch pirate videos though. Those are really interesting, despite all of the insecure shouting energy.