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  • Barges into Youtube

  • Uploads interesting videos weekly for a decade

  • Refuses to elaborate further

  • Heads off into the sunset

Image of Tom Scott flying under a helicopter in a harness


  • @Agent641@lemmy.world
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    151 year ago

    His brother, Joe Scott, is still uploading skits and interesting videos, just not as ‘on location’ as little brother Tom.

    • @IndefiniteBen@leminal.space
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      1 year ago

      I’d like him to do more, but maybe he’s done everything interesting enough to make it onto his channel. I’d rather he stop than start making lower quality (in terms of topics) videos.

      Maybe he’s just embodying the quote: “you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.

    • @rbits@lemm.ee
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      481 year ago

      I’m honestly excited. He mentioned in the video how there will probably be some more experimental stuff, and I really like his experimental stuff. Money, for example, was really good. And there’s still Lateral for us to listen to while we wait.

  • MudMan
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    31 year ago

    Saying that Tom Scott “refuses to elaborate further” may be the biggest stretch I’ve ever seen on the Internet.

    I thought the guy was meh. Very much the middle of the road for big sci-comm Youtubers. Less annoying than some of the other really big ones. Him dropping the weekly cadence is only a bummer because I’d been tracking the passage of time by his receeding hairline, like counting rings on a tree stump.

  • rivermonster
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    321 year ago

    He will be back. Nobody with that kind of viewership stays gone forever.

    • @Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Hell, he even said as much. That he’ll most likely make some more videos. It’s basically just a departure from the feeling of obligation to keep up a weekly schedule.

      Though, he’s not even leaving content creation. He’s still got plenty of other projects running. That makes him less likely to hop back on than most, since he’s actually got real other plans

      • @Lemmygizer@lemmy.world
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        151 year ago

        Exactly! 6 months ago when he made the announcement, that’s exactly what he said. He will still be making content across his multiple channels. But his ‘new video every Monday’ is done with.

    • To me, this farewell video was more about ending the weekly churn than anything else. He probably sees the millions of subscribers and figures that people hit that button to get more of exactly what he was producing, and when it would release. The non-commital tone here also suggests that he has no idea how/what is going to change, and that he’s taking a indeterminately long break to avoid burnout.

      In retrospect, his channel has been astonishingly high quality considering the rate of production he’s had. And that’s with all these side-projects and local/international travel on top of it all.

      Scaling back to less frequent releases may well improve his already impressive content style. I’m excited to see what he does next.

    • @mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      101 year ago

      He’s not even really gone. He’s just not doing 52 videos a year, on the regular.

      Presumably his next release will be circa February. Just a wild guess for enjoying a long-anticipated break. Then I’d expect another 20-odd videos this year, distributed basically at random.

      Not counting videos that are just him and the squad, which will hopefully come back in style. Citation Needed videos are fantastic. Four people with wildly different areas of expertise, who’ve known each other for ages, faffing about on-camera.

    • @denast@lemm.ee
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      181 year ago

      It’s not about viewership at all imo. It’s extremely hard to completely change your lifestyle after 10 years of exact same work. I bet he’ll be back very soon, perhaps on random schedule, but still doing the same stuff

      • I’ve heard in a couple of places that the TV, streaming, and movie systems can’t really make an appealing offer to top-tier YouTubers. YouTubers want the prestige of being a “real” content producer, and not “just” a YouTuber, but non-YT producers can’t offer the level of control one has over their own channel. It’s not even about money, it’s about taking orders from some executive about not only content but monetization as well.

    • @Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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      111 year ago

      He said once his iconic red shirt and grey sweater started from a weeks long TV shoot he was doing where everyone wore a different color and he naturally ended up with several identical outfits for continuity throughout the shoot

  • Transporter Room 3
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    1441 year ago

    I might have teared up during the montage.

    It’s like the end of an age. But as he literally said it’s not.

    I’ve almost never been this conflicted in my life.

    • @Technus@lemmy.zip
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      751 year ago

      For the past decade I’ve been waking up to a new Tom Scott video every Monday. The positivity and curiosity helped me start my week. I’m really going to miss it.

      • Transporter Room 3
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        281 year ago

        I remember someone telling a suuuuper dumb joke and then linking “two drums and a cymbal” several years after he made the video, and I’d see vids occasionally.

        It wasn’t until “Danger: Humans” that I went through all his “things you might not know” he had at the time, and subscribed.

        I’ll just have to binge the channel some more.

    • @dasgoat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It feels like a bit of ‘old internet’ died with him, where he’s always been an internet optimist and someone who has lived through basically all of it. He stuck to his principles through all of it. And I guess that has become a rarified breed.

      Him taking a step back feels like a bit of that old internet of the curiosity, community and creativity of the early days of the internet go with him. Mind you he’s not going anywhere except the people he cares about and I completely understand the choice he made, and I only wish the best for him, so this is just me attempting to explain why it feels so confronting and kind of sad. For me it goes beyond ‘oh there just won’t be anymore of those videos then’, which I can live with although it would be sad to see those go. It’s his personality that has, through the entire history of youtube and the many, many changes it went through, stuck to the principles of its first ever users. Be curious, be authentic, and generally just try shit out and see if it works.

      I’m sure that core of the personality he showed on screen will never really go away, other people will carry that torch. But it’s ok to be a little sad to see someone wave off like this. It shows us all how much we enjoyed it all these years.

      Also as a MINOR sidenote on the meme, he never refused to explain, you couldn’t stop this man from explaining if you tried lol

      • @Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        The old Internet and its ideals where great.

        I actually felt at the time it was mankinds glorious future. Something worth dying for, people have died standing for less.

        But it just wasn’t to be. Humanity isn’t worth saving because they refuse to save themselves.

    • @Neil@lemmy.ml
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      81 year ago

      I had to turn it off when that started. Noped out of there and the nieces and nephews came in from outside asking me what’s wrong.

      Gonna try again during a later, more private moment.

  • SonnyVabitch
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    731 year ago

    An absolute national treasure. People have been given MBEs or even OBEs for far lesser achievements.

    • @Technus@lemmy.zip
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      251 year ago

      I was thinking about this earlier. I’m not sure the OBE would consider his achievements to be noteworthy. If you look at other notable recipients, they all had careers spanning many decades, and the ones in entertainment all have backgrounds in more “classy” vocations (theater, film, music). I’m not sure they’d consider “some guy posting videos on the Internet” (from their perspective) to be of sufficient pedigree. That, and occasionally poking fun at the government and royalty probably hasn’t put him very high on the list.

      However, i think that even if he was offered knighthood, he’d probably decline it, either because he thinks he doesn’t deserve it or because he would be too nervous or embarrassed to accept it.

      • @JK_Flip_Flop@lemmy.world
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        41 year ago

        Brady Haran (numberphile etc.) was made an OAM, the Australian equivalent of an OBE, largely for his YouTube work. So it’s not impossible.

        • @Technus@lemmy.zip
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          21 year ago

          I’d argue that isn’t quite the same thing.

          For starters, OAM doesn’t confer the title of “Sir” or “Dame” for some reason despite the award still coming from the Monarch of Australia (i.e. the Monarch of the United Kingdom). It seems to me that this was a deliberate choice to not to “dilute” the title when they created the award, suggesting OAM doesn’t carry quite the same intended prestige as OBE.

          Secondly, Brady Haran’s tenure on YouTube is 6 years longer than Tom’s (2008 vs 2014), if we’re talking about regularly posting videos vs just uploading random projects, and Brady’s videos directly promote higher education and academic research through his collaboration with the University of Nottingham. He also worked for the BBC as a journalist for six years before that. This isn’t to diminish Tom’s work, but I think objectively speaking he’s not quite as prolific.

          Thirdly, I believe Australian citizens can still receive OBEs as citizens of a Commonwealth realm, so Brady may still receive one down the road, especially if he sticks with it. But if he hasn’t gotten one yet, I doubt that Tom would at this point in time.

          • @JK_Flip_Flop@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            All valid but OAMs and OBEs are exactly equivalent, both are the lowest honour and neither confer a title. Only much higher ranks from each honour system KBE/DBE or AK/AD make you a Knight/Dame