# Damn, how many middle age white guys do "edutainment" videos on YouTube? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 11, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351 "2020-09-11T15:51:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/42 "2020-09-14T15:54:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Vi Hart is one of the better math channels out there, and I don’t know her precise age, but I’m pretty sure that she’s less than middle-aged. And while she has appeared in videos in the flesh, most of her content is her drawings, wherein she represents herself as a triangle with arms, legs, and a face. Possibly to avoid the inevitable comments about her appearance. Hart (who was born in 1988) stopped releasing regular videos seven years ago in order to concentrate on software development. ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/43 "2020-09-14T16:19:16Z")
> [@linda101](#): > > Lol you’re right. No disrespect intended but I was simply wondering what the point of the thread was, or if it was intended to be a little satirical (which of course is fine as I’m like that too) ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/44 "2020-09-14T16:49:59Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Even then of course that is no guarantee. Many people (me among them) assumed that the great Barbadian Cricket commentator [Tony Cozier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Cozier) was Black. Huh. I was today years old when I learned that. Also, it had somehow passed me by that he died 4 years ago. Thank you for educating me on this small point. As to the OP, don’t know how we could have got 43 posts in with no mention of Atomic Shrimp, who fits the criteria to a T. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/45 "2020-09-14T16:57:58Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > So a white person and a black person, with the same accent and vocabulary can be ethnically identified reliably without seeing them? Such a possibility has never even occurred to me. Underlining mine. The underlined assumption simply does not hold for the vast majority of American black folks.It may well hold in the UK or in Australia; I certainly don’t know. But not in the USA. At least in the USA, it appears to me that the vast majority of native-US Blacks have a distinctive accent that is different from the white regional accent from the same geographic area. Said another way, there’s a distinctive “black accent” on top of whatever regional accent there may be. Certainly there are exceptions. Such as folks of whatever ethnicity who’ve trained themselves to reduce their ethnic and regional accents towards “US newscaster standard”. Other exceptions of whatever ethnicity are non-US natives. Here in Miami there are more black people recently emigrated from Jamaica, Trinidad, Haiti, etc., than there are 2nd- or 3rd-generation USA-born black people. Those folks have distinctive accents that are very different from “generic USA black.” Once you learn to recognize them, some of those accents are also highly reliable markers for blackness. Others are less so. Very, very few white Americans speak with one of the distinctly black accents. So that upon hearing the black accent you can conclude with near certainty that the speaker is black. Conversely, there are many blacks, especially in the media whose black accent was/is mild to begin with or has been trained down to a much lower level or even complete absence. So hearing the absence of a black accent doesn’t prove whiteness with the same reliability. Whether these facts are good or bad or desirable or undesirable is another conversation. But I assert these are facts. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/46 "2020-09-14T17:51:15Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Underlining mine. The underlined assumption simply does not hold for the vast majority of American black folks.It may well hold in the UK or in Australia; I certainly don’t know. But not in the USA. It isn’t an assumption of mine but it may be a misunderstanding by me. What I mean is that I’ve come across and worked with many people of various ethnicities who have accents and speech patterns indistinguishable from each other and from me and the other white people round them. e.g. two people, both with strong Scottish accents, one black, one white. If I didn’t know them and only heard their voices I couldn’t tell which was white and which was black, I’m not aware that there is anything inherent in their genetic make-up that alter their voices in such a way that would allow me to do that. If the original claim was all about accents and word usage and speech patterns etc. that are prevelant in black USA citizens and can be picked up by people then fine, I can’t comment on that and I’m happy to accept it on trust, but that was not the claim I thought I was challenging. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/47 "2020-09-14T18:29:40Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > e.g. two people, both with strong Scottish accents, one black, one white. If I didn’t know them and only heard their voices I couldn’t tell which was white and which was black, I’m not aware that there is anything inherent in their genetic make-up that alter their voices in such a way that would allow me to do that. And likewise I’m not challenging your claim as stated here. I agree there’s no genetic basis for a voice difference; it’s all cultural/regional. Yet another sad legacy of the US’ racially charged and racially segregated history is the development of separate-and-therefore-unequal accents. If your part of the world has avoided this scourge, bravo for you all. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/48 "2020-09-14T18:34:22Z")
> [@Mallard](#): > > No disrespect intended but I was simply wondering what the point of the thread was, or if it was intended to be a little satirical (which of course is fine as I’m like that too) The “point”, if any, is that I am legitimately noticing a plethora of white guys featured on edutainment videos. And I’m curious to know why. There has been a lot of speculation on here on why that is, some of it appears very valid, and I’m not seeing very many arguments that that is NOT the case. Just outliers. The “systemic racism” bit I guess you could classify as satire, as it was tongue in cheek, but I do legitimately find the disproportion it a little bothersome. Also, if one is bothered by “middle aged” comments, yeah that was a bit much I suppose. I’m mostly saying “well established”, guys who could have teenage kids, etc. Not some fresh faced kid out of college (though I’m aware that many of these people have been on YouTube for quite some time). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/49 "2020-09-14T18:38:41Z")
Apparently I don’t pay much attention to dates on youtube videos. I suppose I hadn’t seen anything new from her for a while… Still, what she has is generally good. Then again, I also didn’t realize that King of Random had died. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/50 "2020-09-14T20:26:28Z")
These sort of assertions always surprise me. According to [https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219), 76% of the US population is white. Assuming 50/50 female/male distribution that would make white males about 38% of the total US population. So yes a very large population segment with time and disposable income and interests/hobbies can make a lot of videos on those interests and hobbies. But I think it’s partly perception. YouTube latches onto what you’ve searched for and keeps showing you more of that, relentlessly. If you really want you can start searching for makeup or scrapbooking you will fall down a rabbit-hole of those, and YouTube will keep recommending them if you watch them. There is an almost incomprehensible amount of content on YouTube, you can only view a small amount in your lifetime. What you see depends on what YouTube suggests and what key words you search for. I have seen other people’s YouTube accounts and they are wildly different than mine. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/51 "2020-09-24T09:49:44Z")
Can’t comment on the ‘white’ part, but middle age seems quite obvious for edutainment. Young people usually do not have sufficient knowledge/experience to share, so you won’t find as many, at least not for the subjects you are interested in. There are lots of young youtubers doing videos about make-up, magic tricks, other kinds of tricks and experiments (e.g. Dude Perfect, Zach King to name just two). But you’d probably not call those edutainment, rather entertainment. Young people with expert knowledge are probably working on their career in their field, so don’t have time for the ‘tainment’ part of educational videos. You can find young university professors sharing their knowledge but those videos usually do not spend masses of time on entertainment. Its only if your career is not going to progress any further that you can spend time on making entertaining videos on expertise that you already have. So its really a middle-age hobby. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/52 "2020-09-24T10:00:26Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > When did ‘edutainment’ become a cromulent word? It doesn’t Embiggin us at all. Edutainment is the name of a rather excellent album by Boogie Down Productions. But it goes back to Walt Disney who used it to describe the True Life Adventures series in 1954. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/53 "2020-10-27T08:23:12Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > If the original claim was all about accents and word usage and speech patterns etc. that are prevelant in black USA citizens and can be picked up by people then fine, I can’t comment on that and I’m happy to accept it on trust, but that was not the claim I thought I was challenging. No need to accept it on trust. Just look up “black accent” on Google. Or even “White accent” to find some black people intentionally code switching. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/54 "2020-10-27T10:13:13Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > English is my first language and I certainly can’t tell ethnicity from voice alone. It’s partly awareness. When I was a kid, most of the people I knew didn’t recognize Australian accents at all. It was only middle-class English migrants – with their finely honed sense of class consciousness – who could tell what state you came from, which side of town, and what school you went to. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/55 "2020-10-27T15:22:33Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > It’s partly awareness. When I was a kid, most of the people I knew didn’t recognize Australian accents at all. It was only middle-class English migrants – with their finely honed sense of class consciousness – who could tell what state you came from, which side of town, and what school you went to. I’m fine with all of that, the point I _thought_ was being made wasn’t about accents at all. ---
**Author:** ![GMANCANADA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gmancanada/32/2837_2.png) [@GMANCANADA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GMANCANADA)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/56 "2020-10-27T18:09:39Z")
Sorry, going to have to call you complete bullshit on this post. This is a great example of confirmation bias fed into by the algorithms social media uses to supply your recommended content. When you click on your first video of a middle-aged white woodworker the algorithm ramps up and says “this user seems to like middle-aged white woodworkers”. _Not_ females or blacks or Hispanics or Australians or Europeans, but middle-aged whites. If then starts to tailor your suggested videos to middle-aged white woodworkers _ **plus** _ what other people who watch middle-aged white woodworkers tend to watch. The end result is you are a classic case of exactly what the movie The Social Dilemma on Netflix discusses - your worldview [or that of YouTube videos at any rate] is completely skewed away from reality and only towards what you have watched in the past. You’ve come to believe that that’s all there is out there, because that’s all you see and all that is recommended to you. In reality you’re _only_ seeing a custom made view for you based specifically on what you’ve clicked on in the past. If you haven’t seen **The Social Dilemma** , I would very strongly suggest you watch it. The issue that you’re experiencing, where your reality is completely different from others, is a huge problem in the United States and around the world today. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/57 "2020-10-28T06:50:23Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > Sorry, going to have to call you complete bullshit on this post. > > This is a great example of confirmation bias fed into by the algorithms social media uses to supply your recommended content. Yep. Non-MAWG edutainment content is out there, you just need to start looking for it. And once you do, the algorithms will follow. For instance, I started following [LiZiqui](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Ziqi_(blogger)) on youtube, and I started getting more Chinese female food tubes to follow. I started following [Blondihacks](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7Jf7t6BL4e74O53dL6arSw), and suddenly there’s more female makers in my suggestions. These things can be trained. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/58 "2020-10-28T09:31:36Z")
Need to be careful here, because I run a ‘white middle aged edutainment channel’ (The colour of my skin wasn’t a choice, nor indeed my age)… Popularity on YouTube is driven by a mishmash of different factors - it’s easy to say that the algorithm is just ‘driving it’ (it is), but the algorithm is also trying to measure what the audience wants to watch, and specifically, what matches well, and effectively with commercials. There is a self-reinforcing aspect to all of it, and I think you could just as easily say there is a slight shortage of diversity in the _style_ of the content itself. There is however, I think, some selection bias in the OP’s list. If you know about and have watched Smarter Every Day, TKoR, Mark Rober, Tom Scott I find it inconcievable that you would not have also encountered Simone Giertz, Physics Girl, Allen Pan, ViHart, etc. I don’t know if I even have a point to make, so I guess the thing to do it to highlight some counterexamples (i.e. not meeting one or more of the criteria ‘white’, ‘male’, middle aged’. I don’t think ‘edutainment’ needs much discussion): [FranLab](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMLgHbpJ8qYqj3CkdbvC0Ww) [Janice Fung](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2gschOCqpniO0CxT6RvgAw) [Liziqi](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoC47do520os_4DBMEFGg4A) [Physics Girl](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DdEm33SyaTDtWYGO2CwdA) [emmymadeinjapan](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzqbfYjQmf9nLQPMxVgPhiA) [Allen Pan](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVS89U86PwqzNkK2qYNbk5A) [Peter Sripol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp7JcmwKQcU) [Nicola White](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2K7yEwPIcPaQT5FM78dpyw) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/59 "2020-10-28T10:34:35Z")
And of course, a channel may have a MAWG fronting it (say, Tested’s Adam Savage), but have several PoC and women who get face time - so Tested has Norm Chan and Kate Sabicier on air a lot, and other non-MAWG guests often (occasionally Simone Giertz, for instance). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/60 "2020-10-28T10:38:38Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > You mean, if you hear an American talking, you don’t know if he is black unless you see his face? Just curious - what ethnicity do you suppose this youtube edutainer is? [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ycr9bpO-czI/maxresdefault.jpg "From Sketch To Sculpt: How to Make Toys - Sculpting Action Figures For Resin Casting") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycr9bpO-czI) ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351/61 "2020-10-28T12:20:48Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > When you click on your first video of a middle-aged white woodworker the algorithm ramps up and says “this user seems to like middle-aged white woodworkers”. _Not_ females or blacks or Hispanics or Australians or Europeans, but middle-aged whites. When channel owners upload videos, they can supply all kinds of useful tags for viewers (and algorithms) to find them. “Woodworking” would be a tag that a channel owner might reasonably be expected to supply along with a video they upload, but it’s doubtful that they would also include tags like “white” and “middle-aged.” So unless YouTube’s algorithms are sophisticated enough to review the actual video content and identify the presenter as white and middle-aged, I don’t think it’s going to be fine-tuning suggestions down to the level of only those videos being served up by white-middle-aged folks. At least not yet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-how-many-middle-age-white-guys-do-edutainment-videos-on-youtube/920351.md?page=4)