Veritasium has really gone down hill. I honestly think it started when he did the video on “clickbait” and actually realized how much more lucrative it was to make shittier clickbaity content than make straightforward science content.
It went from “here’s why magnetism is just electric field + relativity” to “I buried myself in cement - you won’t believe what happens!”
I enjoyed the back and forth over the topic, personally, but that initial video of his felt… weak. I didn’t hate it but it did make me want to unsubscribe. It felt like a technicality and like a trick more than anything, to me.
The practicalities of how two nearby parallel wires work versus one big loop wasn’t the question posed, it was based on length (As I remember from watching it once). Felt like a ‘gotcha’ moment with no gotcha.
??? His recent videos have been nothing but great. His knot, IQ, Oppenheimer, entropy, and maze solving videos (and more) are all recent and amazing videos. What’s your criticism against him?
I think the problem here is that Veritasium these days now covers popular (possibly overrated) science-y topics rather than actually interesting (but not so popular) science content to stay on the radar. It’s about the covered topic, not the quality.
Knot theory, entropy and maze solving are things most people don’t know about though. If this critique is pointed at the Oppenheimer video because there was a popular movie then I would say that it’s ok to talk about something trending if most of his videos are relatively niche.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I’m fairly knowledgeable in the natural sciences, but I still used to learn a lot from watching his videos. These days, more often than not my reaction is just “well thats obvious”. It reminds me of the MythBusters episode when they shot a ball out of the back of a moving truck, and when they confirmed the ball dropped without moving, Carrie just sarcastically said “Yay we did vector addition…”
to be fair the last video, the nuclear near misses one, did seem like a bunch of things stuffed together to make… something? I guess the people who didn’t know about it will find it interesting but it’s easy to see the difference from the old videos, the ones about niche topics with very in depth explanations
True, that is a fair argument, I didn’t learn anything either, except how knots are counted, but that is pretty surface level, and kind of common sense if you think about it for more than 2 minutes.
I think you overly critical of him. His content is still good, and the video you mentioned is called “I buried myself in cement to explain how it works”, and even if you dislike this one, it’s one of many
Veritasium has really gone down hill. I honestly think it started when he did the video on “clickbait” and actually realized how much more lucrative it was to make shittier clickbaity content than make straightforward science content.
It went from “here’s why magnetism is just electric field + relativity” to “I buried myself in cement - you won’t believe what happens!”
So glad I’m not the only one who noticed. Curious if I just became hyper aware of his methods, or if he changed his video style.
The whole light second long cord switching on a light with a delay was super scummy. Milked that “controversy” for months.
I enjoyed the back and forth over the topic, personally, but that initial video of his felt… weak. I didn’t hate it but it did make me want to unsubscribe. It felt like a technicality and like a trick more than anything, to me.
The practicalities of how two nearby parallel wires work versus one big loop wasn’t the question posed, it was based on length (As I remember from watching it once). Felt like a ‘gotcha’ moment with no gotcha.
??? His recent videos have been nothing but great. His knot, IQ, Oppenheimer, entropy, and maze solving videos (and more) are all recent and amazing videos. What’s your criticism against him?
I think the problem here is that Veritasium these days now covers popular (possibly overrated) science-y topics rather than actually interesting (but not so popular) science content to stay on the radar. It’s about the covered topic, not the quality.
Knot theory, entropy and maze solving are things most people don’t know about though. If this critique is pointed at the Oppenheimer video because there was a popular movie then I would say that it’s ok to talk about something trending if most of his videos are relatively niche.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I’m fairly knowledgeable in the natural sciences, but I still used to learn a lot from watching his videos. These days, more often than not my reaction is just “well thats obvious”. It reminds me of the MythBusters episode when they shot a ball out of the back of a moving truck, and when they confirmed the ball dropped without moving, Carrie just sarcastically said “Yay we did vector addition…”
to be fair the last video, the nuclear near misses one, did seem like a bunch of things stuffed together to make… something? I guess the people who didn’t know about it will find it interesting but it’s easy to see the difference from the old videos, the ones about niche topics with very in depth explanations
still, most of the other videos are great
That video is a thinly veiled listicle.
He completely watersealed his skin a few years ago.
I thought his most recent knots video was pretty interesting, way more interesting than i anticipated from the clickbait title.
I thought it was interesting, too, but I didn’t really learn anything from it. He just doesn’t go into the same depth he used to.
True, that is a fair argument, I didn’t learn anything either, except how knots are counted, but that is pretty surface level, and kind of common sense if you think about it for more than 2 minutes.
I think you overly critical of him. His content is still good, and the video you mentioned is called “I buried myself in cement to explain how it works”, and even if you dislike this one, it’s one of many
That’s just the thumb, the content itself is still the same.