If you were to compare someone to Bob Ross, what would you mean?
Question is motivated by seeing this guy - a bodybuilder who is currently popular on yt, tiktok etc, and someone will often comment that he’s the Bob Ross of bodybuilding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmadyVqdORw
(some swearing).
I’m British and hadn’t heard of Bob Ross - the guy in the vid has a calm, thoughtful manner which sets him apart from a lot of fitness and weightlifting influencer types.
Bob Ross never swore. No mention of happy little weights, either.
He’s doing the rotator cuff move wrong.(There’s actually three different movements involved.)
He needs cardio. He shouldn’t be so out of breath doing nothing.
Perusing Ross’ Wikipedia entry, I came across this:
Artist and art critic Mira Schor compared Ross to Fred Rogers, host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, noting that Ross’s soft voice and the slow pace of his speech were similar.
So, Ross was the Fred Rogers of painters, and the OP asks for examples of the Bob Ross of some field or profession.
As Lisa Simpson pointed out, “Anything that’s the something of something isn’t the anything of anything.”
I don’t know much about Ross, either, so, aside from that smart-ass comment, I’m not able to contribute much here. What characteristics of Ross is the OP asking about? Soft-spoken? Gentle soul or something like that?
He’s just…just… incomparable.
I’m old, so my reference is Jon Nagy, not Bob Ross. I only know of Ross through comments I’ve seen on the net.
There’s lots of Bob Ross on youtube if you want to see what he was like. Here’s a sample: Bob Ross - Towering Peaks (Season 10 Episode 1) - YouTube
Bob Ross’s defining characteristic is his calmness. He’s so calm and chill that he calms his audience. You can’t be angry about anything after watching a Bob Ross video.
So if this bodybuilder is similarly calm, it’s an apt comparison.
'Zactly. In addition to his overwhelmingly calm measured delivery, Bob was also earnest. You knew that he totally believed in himself and his art and his teaching. Not in a bragging way; it just worked.
His art was simple and repetitive, bordering on cliché. But he was competent at delivering it and lots and lots of budding artists (or at least brush wielders) would improve their game following Bob’s simple conceptual recipes.
Bob was the guy who could take a scared newbie through to something they’d be willing to show to their friends & neighbors. That’s huge.
Bob Ross is the poster child for solo entertainers that compel viewers to stay tuned by doing and saying very little that should interest anyone. So Gene Scott is the Bob Ross of evangelists and Miss Cleo is the Bob Ross of fortune tellers.
That makes Fred Rogers the Bob Ross of children’s television.
So who is or was the Bob Ross of cooking shows?
Julia Child? Graham Kerr? Emeril in his prime? Kevin Belton? Ellie Krieger?
John Doe is absolutely the Bob Ross of X.
How can anyone be the “Bob Ross of such-and-such”, if people haven’t heard of Bob Ross?
I actually have one for this.
GoodTimesWithScar is the Bob Ross of Minecraft. He does videos where he builds just incredible stuff, and talks through his building techniques and he got a very similar super-optomistic, super supportive vibe.
@Northern_Piper two above …
Bob Ross was well-know to a certain era of a certain (large) subset of Americans.
To them the comparison makes sense. Of course to anyone else ignorant of Bob Ross it does not.
Jacques Pepin, very nearly tied by Julia Child, so that when they cook together it is such a treat to watch.
John Robbins was the Bob Ross of children’s literature.
Being American and familiar with Bob Ross, I’d say his defining features were his gentle, calm nature and his encouragement for people to try painting by showing how to get pleasing results in a simple fashion.
In that vein, my first thought on reading the OP was that OzTalksHW is the Boss Ross of PC Build videos. Calm guy, explains his choices without getting overly technical, explains how to emulate what he’s doing and a chill vibe.
Bob Ross was the Bob Ross of Bill Alexanders.
Ross learned everything he knew about wet-on-wet oil painting from Alexander, and Alexander had a PBS show before Ross had his. They may have had a falling out at some point. The first painting class I ever took was on the Alexander technique and was astonished by the resulting large-ish finished oil painting achieved in a couple of hours.
Appropos of that, I can remember watching Bob Ross’s show when I was in college. As I remember, he was on PBS once a week. The other four days, in that same time slot, there would be some other painter doing similar painting instruction. I don’t know if Bill Alexander was one of those painters, but he may have been.
But despite there having been other people doing very similar shows at around the same time, Ross is the one we remember today. I can’t even recall the names of any of those other people. But something about Ross stood out. Partly it was his calm and gentle demeanor. Partly it was his distinctive appearance, with the goatee and the big curly perm hairstyle. Partly it was his memorable phrases, like “happy little trees” and “we don’t make mistakes, we have happy accidents,” and his general attitude that anyone, using a few simple techniques, could learn to paint pictures that were at least passably attractive, even if they would never be artistic masterpieces.
Just to add: I just got back from Gen Con, the gaming convention. I saw at least one person doing Bob Ross cosplay. He’s still that well-known and distinctive looking.