I’ll admit I’m a little lost/down, it came out of nowhere! Over the years he’s produced an endless stream of genuinely interesting videos. I can’t really think of any other video hosts that can make a wide range of topics sound so interesting.
Probably I’m just scared of change…
On the flip side though, I’m really happy that he’s decided his personal happiness is more important, and has decided to focus on people close to him.
What are your thoughts?
My thoughts are it is really strange to have this much attachment to a YouTube channel and it reeks ever so slightly of an unhealthy parasocial relationship.
Tom Scott is closer to Mr Wizard than an influencer
I wasn’t sad about Mr. Wizard ending, either.
He did mentioned he’s gonna quit half year ago, so it doesn’t really a surprise for me. Still, i’m gonna miss his series for a bit.
I don’t know if I could do the same thing for that long. He must’ve liked it.
Absolutely well deserved.
His videos are always fun to bring up when conversing with someone.
Good to see he’s putting his own well-being as his top priority and not the “influencer” career as many fall to. He deserves a break.
I’ll take things I don’t care about for 100 Alec.
Like its fine. Youtubers owe you nothing. Its his business what he does with his time. And like, who really cares what youtubers are doing? I mean is that something you should be caring about? Didn’t you have something important you were suppose to be doing with your time?
It doesn’t necessarily bother me that he’s retiring from weekly videos, but there’s something to be said for the comfort of regular videos from a person you’ve grown to like over the years.
Humans are by their nature social animals, and there’s really no harm in mourning the end of an era, however small it may be.
Humans are by their nature social animals
Watching a one-sided YouTube video isn’t social.
Is watching TV by yourself social? The fuck?
This just in, you don’t actually have a personal or social relationship with YouTube creators, you have parasocial relationship with them.
I never said watching a video is a social activity, I said humans are social animals. They crave connection, be it face to face, or a parasocial experience. Some people take it too far - as can be said about anything - but the vast majority of people keep it well within a healthy range.
I also don’t think it’s sad at all. Humans have had emotional connections to “characters” for as long as storytelling has existed. If you can’t see (or refuse to see) how this is an extension of that fundamental human experience, there’s nothing I can say to convince you.
your brain treats para-social relationships extremely similarly to social relationships, which is the whole reason its a thing in the first place
acting all surprised and befuddled because someone talks about a content creator this way while invoking para-social relationships is extremely weird
Dude, it’s “my favorite show is ending” not “omg i miss my friend”
Just saying the words “YouTube” really being people out of the woodwork doesn’t it
Its sad but these relationships might be some of the ‘most’ meaningful relationships some people have.
It’s incredibly sad, and as much as I have never had to endure that yet I’m sure I and many other will experience it at some point in our lives as we get older and all our friends die, leaving us all alone.
So you’ve never felt sad or emotional about a character in a book, or a film? You’ve never regretted that a TV series ended? Never been attached to any inanimate object (favorite shirt gifted by a dead family member f.e.), or whatever? These are all the same function. Yes, a lot of people take it too far and invest themselves too strongly. But this is fundamental to all functioning humans.
Humans create connections by their very nature, and if they don’t - they’re mentally ill and probably not fit for human society at large.
who is tom scott
A youtuber who has been releasing high-quality stuff weekly for ten years solid. His videos are well worth a watch if you like the topics at hand. His main series are on science and engineering, linguistics, and interesting places
I think his style and content is pretentious and shallow. The equivalent of reading wikipedia. Essentially it is a travel channel with semi interesting scientific adjacent trivia. Nothing wrong with that but let’s not claim it is truly a science channel.
I don’t think anyone did claim that? Least of all Scott himself. He pretty much always defers to an actual expert when his videos cover a more technical subject, his job is to be presenter and interviewer. The exceptions are typically the computer science ones since he actually does have qualifications and experience there. I only said science and engineering was a subject he covers, which is true.
Came here to say I don’t know who this person is
Came out of nowhere?
He announced it months ago.
Yea, known this day was coming for 3+ months.
Love his content, love his podcast, and hope that he finds a new stride for himself, either making more videos or doing something else.
deleted by creator
Great news, you’ve got lots of good viewing ahead of you. https://www.youtube.com/@TomScottGo/videos
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/@TomScottGo/videos
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
deleted by creator
Well, no one was planning on strapping you to a chair, as far as I know
I support his decision, imo some people stopping their channels is an early sign of the whole media transforming in the next 20 or so years, many interesting things will vanish, people with brain will more and more turn away from producing content / consuming content, the other will indulge in stupid stuff, like people today still watching TV & believe in it, it’ll shrink more and more. This is just the beginning, that whole (social) media thing will slowly die, more real experiences will emerge in it’s place again, it’ll all merge into something new, but the process will last at least one generation. Have fun, Tom!
Doubtful, I think the trend is going the exact opposite way
He’s still going to be posting videos, has a running podcast and produces for several other channels. It’s just this show that won’t be weekly anymore. People are melodramatic. It is the end of an era and it’s a significant lower volume of work for him. Definitely a series ending. But it isn’t like he died or anything.
Also, like everyone has been pointing out, he announced this in July. He talked about the possibility of ending the series a couple of years ago in a video about work ethics.
I mean, I am going to miss the regular videos, but I’m glad he’s getting to step away on his own terms. So many youtubers burn out, stop uploading, and then just disappear. Or they turn into a brand that they have to manage instead of creating what they want to. Not many get to fly off into the sunset under a helicopter, so that’s nice. Plus, he’s not stepping away from creating stuff entirely so there’s that.
Not to undercut how you are feeling about it, but didn’t he announce this was going to happen a year ago?
Not to undercut how you are feeling about it, but didn’t he announce this was going to happen a year ago?
He did. Another comment linked to the video and it’s now private, so it’s possible that OP missed the video between when it was released and when it was marked private.
Literally don’t care but maybe I’m not his target demographic. I feel like it’s because I’m a bit too old to think of YouTube as a platform for anything serious. Yes, by now I’m sure folks put good quality there but no that doesn’t make me want to watch it.
I honestly don’t even know who he is…
That’s pretty much where I’m at. There’s great content on YouTube, but for every minute of quality there’s millions of minutes of utter garbage. I don’t like the idea of wading through it, just feels like a huge waste of time unless I have a link to something specific I’m pretty sure I’ll like.
i can see what you mean, but tom scott literally is one of those links full of quality
I believe you. If a friend sent me a link I would give him a shot. But navigating YouTube looking for something to watch is my nightmare
I feel like it’s because I’m a bit too old to think of YouTube as a platform for anything serious.
I mean there are literally full college courses on YouTube, and everything between that and entertainment. [email protected] is a Lemmy community that aggregates these courses.
Yeah, cool? I don’t need or care about that… Like I said, I understand there’s decent stuff there now, I’m just not going to go because it’s not the only source of information out there, I still have a gut reaction of “YouTube = retarded,” and, on some levels, why watch someone explain something that I can read myself?
It’s a shame to see him go, as his weekly uploads were always interesting things to look at, and have inspired some parts of my bucket list…
Having said that, after 10 years of weekly uploads (about 520 videos) without missing a single one (excluding guest videos), he absolutely deserves a hiatus from this series.
If his passions lie in his other works (ala Technical Difficulties), I say let him pursue those - I’d much rather see Tom work on other content than have him burn out and dissappear from the internet entirely, he’s too good for that.
Plus, who knows, maybe he’ll come back to do one-off specials or start it up again with less frequent uploads - but either way, that’s for Tom to decide, not us.
