Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

Tom Scott’s work stands out as some of the best examples of how interesting and valuable web content can be. In a sea of short derivative junk-food content, he made things that i honestly learned from, without demanding more than 10 minutes of my time a week! There’s of course a lot of people also doing the same sort of great content, but it does feel like a slowly dying breed. Tom definitely deserves an indefinite break though. If/when he goes back to short form web video, I’ll be happy to watch again! :)

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before.

My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality as having gone way down. In a limited sense, sure: it might be in the way. But it didn’t replace the good stuff.

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others?

Nile Red

Nick Zentner

Practical Engineering

Real Engineering

Ivan Miranda

Joe Makes

Tom Stanton

Veritasium

Numberphile

Deep Sky Videos

Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great)

3Blue1Brown

CGP Grey

Undecided with Matt Ferrell

The B1M

Kurzgesagt

Scott Manley

PBS Space Time

Deep Look

Looking Glass Universe

Institute of Human Anatomy

Smarter Every Day

Be Smart (formerly Its OK to be smart)

I’ve also recently started watching Scam Nation, which is a walkthrough of various magic tricks, in a relaxed setting. It’s not as dense as some of the others, but very good.

Great list and the majority I watch also. But you are missing Technology Connections. You'll probably find them interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TechnologyConnections/videos

Hehehe. This channel is full of videos about "boring" topics and still you play them and bam, you are sucked into 15 min of nerdy details about a 90’s microwave that doesn’t even exists anymore and now you are wondering why you can’t have it. Amazing channel.

I don’t see Steve Mould and Technology Connections, but thanks for your list :)

One more vote for Steve Mould. I don't follow him directly but I still end up watching a bunch of his content through random suggestions, he's quite good.

Stuff Made Here

Not quite in the same theme, but as far as gaming goes I'd put both videogamedunkey and MandaloreGaming there.

Dunkey doesn't post hour long video essays, but I find that apart from the occasional filler and joke content, his focus is on fun and it is completely infused with an empathetic passion for gaming.

Mandalore does the occasional deep dives into the weird and obscure but he's thorough and doesn't take it too seriously. Again, seems like a guy who is passionate about games but prefers to go off the beaten path in terms of game coverage.

Answer in Progress - a bit of everything, personal favourite right now!

Simone Giertz - engineering

EEVBlog - engineering

ElectroBoom - engineering

Technology Connections - stories about technology

Cathode Ray Dude - stories about technology, watch if you like technology connections!!

Socratica - math, science, programming explainers

VWestLife - retro consumer tech

TechMoan - retro consumer tech

AvE - Canadian in a workshop, a special kind of content

RobWords - language (Tom’s Language File fans check him out!)

Art of the Problem - math/programming but so varied, really worth a watch

Patrick Kelly - medical history, how did we discover a drug, stories about research

Epic Gardening - gardening! Big focus on fruit and veg.

Paige Saunders - Transit, Montreal, whatever he’s interested in!

RMTransit - Transit policy and operation

This thunderf00t video made me avoid "Undecided by Matt Ferrell": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQDXqOfC61U

Applied Science

Ze Frank

Asianometry

Premodernist

Integza

StuffMadeHere is also an absolute gem. Truly incredible feats of engineering for a single person to tackle, explained in an entertaining way.

High quality and entertaining content is a great descriptor.

There’s nothing wrong with watching stuff that’s 99% entertainment and 1% educational. Sure Fermilab is worlds better than PBS Spacetime from an education standpoint, but it doesn’t ignite that sci-fi/wonder itch.

Nerdy fun without the fig leaf of it being ‘educational’ content is great.

Yeah but the burden is now on you to sift through the garbage to find the good stuff, especially since it's mostly mixed together in recommendations or search results etc. It feels more limited to me the other way around, like yes we have added some more good stuff, but good luck finding it.

If my favorite hobby store kept on expanding and expanding and the ratio of great stuff to garbage kept going down, I would definitely perceive the overall quality as being well into some death spiral.

Is it really on you to sort and sift, or is it on you to find a good guide? In the hobby store example, there are other people around to ask, and I think that is similar as well.

The future is more content, not less, so finding mechanisms to cope with that is well worth the effort.

Not exactly. Assuming the number of people in the hobby store didn’t grow exponentially, you would be completely empty in your favorite isle, most of the time.

And the guides do increase in the 5 crappy to 1 good ratio also. Eventually it’s infinite crap even thought there is gold in there.

This affects the other end too.

Quality niche creators are partially motivated (and sometimes supported) by viewers. The bigger the sea of garbage they are swimming against, the less inclined they will be to start or continue.

the problem i have with educational youtube is that it's competence porn. it's quite satisfying to watch lyle peterson, kiwami japan, grandpa amu, nigel braun, grant sanderson, andy george, or xyla foxlin working through the problems involved in creating something, to the point that hours spent getting satisfied that way displace the far more effortful hours required to work through those problems myself. but i don't gain skills by watching someone else work through problems (or, in the less praiseworthy cases, glossing over problems); at best, i might get an idea to try out, or a feeling of inspiration, or a declarative, factual understanding of a particular mechanism—a kind of understanding which still requires exercise to convert into knowhow. but it's much easier to just click on another video and vicariously enjoy someone else's stunning competence than to close the window and struggle with my own

worse, sometimes it isn't actually competence. yesterday i watched a video where a guy made opaque soda-lime glass and convinced himself it was a better refractory than his insulating firebricks because he was, among other things, confused about thermodynamics, confused about different material properties, confused about the composition of waterglass, confused about the composition of garden lime, and confused about the temperature of his oxyhydrogen torch (and, I suspect, in significant danger of blowing his foundry to kingdom come)

watching porn or sex tips videos won't make you a great lover. neither will reading alt.sex.wizards

fifty tom scotts is ten hours a week of, basically, watching porn. i spend more time than that on watching the youtubers listed above and others; what if i spent that time on deliberate practice instead? ten hours a week of etudes might not get you into juillard, but pretty soon you're better than the average garage band member

where do you get your etudes or katas, and how do you judge your success on them? textbooks are pretty okay for that, and it's possible to make youtube videos with exercises in them, but those aren't the videos that become youtube hits. and i think it runs counter to the nature of the medium: not just memetic fitness, but also the effort gradient for both creators and consumers

It’s interesting to hear your perspective. I personally have had the opposite effect from watching these people on YouTube. I find it highly inspirational and I’ve gone out and made interesting projects on my own without them. Not all educational content needs to be structured like school, in fact most of it shouldn’t. With this stuff it just needs to humanize the process, so you can see the process for yourself, and follow it for yourself.

Are those fifty Tom Scotts all competing with each other to become 'experts of the week' on the same topics in slightly different ways? (that's what my 5 or 6 Tom Scotts do)

I wish YouTube channels could be viable by following the Periodic Videos model - stick to a single domain but keep it fresh by improving on old content.

Dr. Brady Haran really hit this perfect balance with his channels. Each one has a perfect niche.

That’s a good point, it’s the absolute numbers that give a bad impression. I think the main thing tainting my feeling about the whole situation is TikTok/Reels/Shorts content. Feels like the sort of video I like just can’t exist in that sort of format, and it’s a pretty over-emphasized format currently. (at least in the YouTube app)

still though, so many cool and interesting things to learn online from interesting folks! :)

Tom is why I understand UTF-8 [1].

And it is not so much WHAT he explained but HOW he explained it, what really made it stick. It was his sheer unbridled genuine enthusiasm that put him on the map for me.

One of the best to do it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MijmeoH9LT4

This is a great video! I’ve been writing about UTF-8 on my blog and I noticed that many programmers don’t understand it, after 10 or 20 years

The main impediment seems to be that languages like Java, JavaScript, and Python treat UTF-8 as just another encoding, but really it’s the most fundamental encoding.

The language abstractions get in the way and distort the way people think about text

Newer languages like Go and Rust are more sensible, they don’t have global mutable encoding variables

What's not to understand about UTF8? It's a way of coding up points in the Unicode space. You decode the bits and it yields a number that corresponds to a glyph, possibly with some decorations. The only thing special about UTF8 is that it happens to write ASCII as ASCII, which is nice as long as you realize that there is much outside that.

Either that, or I'm completely off base and part of the vast horde who don't get it.

I read your comment in the “Simpson comic book nerd” tone of voice.

It's misleading to describe UTF-8 as "the most fundamental encoding", because of the existence of UTF-32 (essentially just a trivial encoding of "raw" Unicode code points) and UTF-16 (which has certain limitations that later became part of the specification of what code points are valid in any encoding)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-16#U+D800_to_U+DFFF_(surro...

UTF-8 is the most ubiquitous encoding on the web, but that doesn't make it more fundamental than any other.

Interesting… never heard of the “null problem” as a requirement before.

And he's why I know I shouldn't roll my own time zone library.

https://youtu.be/-5wpm-gesOY?si=eL38cruwJZDiuHVS

I first came to learn about the complexity of character sets by finding out that SQL Server's default characterset is 2 bytes per character. I eventually came across Scott's video. UTF-8 encoding is only as new as SQL Server 2019.

https://sqlquantumleap.com/2018/09/28/native-utf-8-support-i...

What struck me was “it’s either keep growing and become a manager or stop and do smaller projects”

As someone who many years back looked at a team of 40 developers I was leading and went “nah, I want to be an IC again” that resonates

I'm not sure I buy his reasoning there. He said that he uploads a video every week which is a brisk pace. Why not a video every month? Every quarter?

Perhaps he really just wants a break and this explanation sounded the most reasonable. But I hope he didn't get burned out because he was afraid of switching things up.

I don’t think it matters what you buy. He just doesn’t want a schedule, I think he explained it pretty well.

Well, smaller could also mean moving this project to a monthly basis.

Same same. I get the desire to manage more folks (status, money, org impact, joy of mentoring) but the ability to see what you directly build help solve problems... We'll, that's hard to beat.

Godspeed, Tom Scott (and thanks for your help on POPFile all those years ago).

What’s the story there?

As a teenager Tom Scott helped write the documentation for POPFile. By chance he interviewed me years later on stage at some conference and just before we went on stage he told me that some of his very first contributions to anything on the Internet were to POPFile documentation. I had no idea.

https://getpopfile.org/docs/welcome

Huh, that really feels like one of those “small world” occurrences. Interesting to think about.

Tom Scott was an early contributor to POPFile.

Tom's commitment to accessibility is fantastic.

Turn on the subtitles on any of his videos (particularly when there are multiple speakers) and you'll see the effort that goes in to it.

Far too many people who publish to YouTube just let users deal with the the auto-generated subtitles, even when they have the ability and budget to do it properly.

"'Oh look at me I bought a Lamborghini!' Buy some damned subtitles" -- Tom Scott.[0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m__OZ3ZsO4Y&t=334s

I've lost a lot of my hearing so I play games, watch videos and people who put effort into subtitles are very much appreciated.

Simple things like tagging who is talking is so helpful to understanding what is going on when there are multiple people in the video

In a number of his videos, they'll use different colours for different speakers. As best as I can see, while also choosing bright colours unlikely to cause problems for people with colour-blindness. It makes such a difference.

Turn on the subtitles on any of his videos (particularly when there are multiple speakers) and you'll see the effort that goes in to it.

He actually did a video on subtitles recently, "Why don't subtitles match dubbing?":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU9sHwNKc2c

What happened to the "Six months from now, this channel stops" video he posted?

https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1675158819629064192

Today is 6 months from then.

Yes, exactly. So why was it removed? The only reason I can think of is if he changed his mind, which he obviously didn't.

He usually hides channel announcement videos after they're no longer relevant. I assume so he doesn't receive ideas/pitches he solicits in them.

I remember asking at some point what seemed to make Tom Scott so successful compared to the thousands of others who have probably tried to make it big on Youtube/social media. Was it the format/length/style, the topics, the camera work, the commentary/research, etc?

I think the consensus was that he came out with generally interesting content, but most of all, predictably and sustained, which generated viewership. Interesting how that can be the main factor -- maybe both in keeping people's interest, but also developing the skills to create content that was improving each time and becoming more engaging. And I guess he points to that explicitly in this last video, where he says he challenged himself to make it his real job. For 10 years.

There’s something grounded in a very particular kind of 1980s/90s BBC Television content in the values Tom Scott’s videos embody. It’s sort of like he managed to give himself a job roleplaying as a Blue Peter/Tomorrow’s World presenter. He basically carried forward the kind of Reithian ‘mission to inform’ BBC values that largely disappeared in the John Birt era and somehow brought them onto YouTube.

Yeah this makes sense to me. He covered interesting and unique topics, and posted about them on a regular basis. That's extremely difficult to do in any medium, let alone something like video where filming and editing demands are significantly higher and a well researched piece just takes far longer to put together.

I'm glad he's still doing the Lateral podcast (as that's the only thing I know him from). I do wish he would get somebody besides Youtubers as guests, though. It's frustrating to hear 20-somethings with very little cultural and historical knowledge try to work through the problems.

One of the more recent ones actually had a joke about this - one of his guests was significantly older than the other two, and some cultural references didn't quite land on either side.

He's had a few "mainstream" people on as guests. Professor Hannah Fry is one guest who's a pretty established broadcaster (in the UK at least).

On the latest cortex, CGP Grey made the point that what's happening in youtube education-adjacent videos is much the same as what's happening for entertainment in those spaces: the law of the excluded middle. You either do long infrequent videos e.g., like MrBeast, or frequent short videos. Both CGP Grey and Tom Scott did frequent mid-length content, which gets squeezed out.

I assume cortex is a channel or something you watch, not brain matter?

I've learned a great deal from him over this time. Thanks Tom!

I dislike montages and yet this was a wonderful one.

You made countless lives better, in small ways times a million.

If this is the best thing you’ll ever do, it’s already good enough. The rest is gravy.

RIP you solid lad

gg wp

Totally had not heard of the fellow. But HN is a gateway to so much goodness.

You'll be missed. Each video was interesting, fun and well made.

I recommend to anyone to have a look at the backlog, especially the series about linguistics inspired by the "lingthusiasm" podcast.

Tom Scott has been one of the best YouTube creators ever. He deserves a break.

I started watching his channel at the beginning of Things You Might Not Know. He’s one of the all-time greats. His RI lecture “There Is No Algorithm For Truth” is as prescient as ever. He truly helped make YouTube a special platform, even if it doesn’t always recognize its own strengths, and chases trends it’s fundamentally incapable of adopting properly.

Imagine making a video every week for ten years, 520 videos. I don't even think I've made git commits that consistently.

Well deserved. The amount of travel he's done was crazy. I'll still listen to the Lateral podcast and whatever he'll come up with in the future.

What a great ending to a video to end a great channel!

(If you didn't watch to the end, go back and watch it, one of the best ever outtros).

Good luck Tom.

I honestly didn't feel I'd be so emotionally moved by this send off, but here I am.

When you're done you're done, and 10 years of persistent, meaningful and education videos(not merely 'content'), published weekly, is more than anyone can ask of a single person and his crew.

Onwards and upwards, the adventure of life, and not work, still beckons.

One of my favourite youtubers, a well-deserved break.

End of an era. I knew this was coming and it still was a shock to see it hit my feed today.

Best of luck on everything Tom Scott!

I always appreciate when authors of successful projects decide to stop after they've figured out the formula for success. Whether these are films without sequels, TV shows without dozens of seasons, or video content creators who are not compelled to keep uploading in perpetuity. It signals true care and dedication to their craft, and a desire to keep innovating in perhaps other areas of their career. It also avoids the pressure of keeping the high bar for quality, as there are not many authors who can consistently pull this off. I'd rather enjoy high quality content for a short time than see it gradually worsen over a long period.

Still, 10 years is a long run for any type of content, and uploading every week without fail is very impressive. I'm sure Tom Scott used the "Seinfeld strategy" for this, which goes to show that great minds think alike, considering Seinfeld is one of the shows that ended at the peak of its success.

Thanks for the interesting content over the years, Tom, and best of luck in whatever you decide to pursue next.

I agree with his self assesment. I liked many of his videos but many I also found disagreable and opinionated without much of a sound argument. Sounds like he doesn't like those videos either. All in all, his videos are heads and shoulders above most of YouTube and I wish him well.

That literally brought tears to my eyes. We love you, Tom!

What a brilliant bit of foreshadowing with the helicopter statement.

Given the other comments about the deep sea or space, maybe those are areas which he hopes he could've explored which he might end up tackling at some point!

I'm really glad I was around for his journey. Sometimes creatives will keep pushing a form of media long past the point where it's interesting or exciting. It takes a great deal of courage and creative integrity to let great things come to an end.

To this day when I have buffering problems with online videos I immediately think about his explainer-demo with confetti [1]. Love his work!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Rp-uo6HmI&themeRefresh=1

Tom Scott was so sharp, he knew to end on a high note, and damn near his peak.

It’s one thing to produce a lot of great content, but it’s very rare for someone to wrap it up when they clearly were still at or near their best.

There’s nothing in my life right now except work

Quite sad

Damn, this is a video I didn't want to see today. I love Tom Scott's videos, and just about everything he's ever made has been a great watch. I still remember the VPN videos debunking common myths about them, and the one about how electronic/online voting was a bad idea.

But sadly, I get what he means here. YouTube has basically split down the middle, with the assumption being that you'll either pump out content quickly without much time to prepare, or you'll work on more infrequent essay length videos on a monthly basis or longer. And in both cases... the expectation seems to be that most videos are a professional endeavour now, created by a team of people with pro level editing skills and different people working on things like the script, research, getting the footage needed, etc.

It honestly feels like the platform isn't 'fun' anymore, and the kind of content we used to visit for is becoming less and less common by the day.

Regardless, enjoy your break/retirement Tom! You've made some incredible videos over the years, and I'll be excited to see what you create in future too.