Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - How Tom Scott Makes Videos

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Tom Scott comes to the studio to talk with Marques and Andrew about everything from YouTube Shorts to sky diving! Plus, he shows us how fast he can type the alphabet. Spoiler alert: it's fast. Thanks so much to Tom for coming by to chat and make sure to check out his channels linked below! Links: Tom Scott: https://www.youtube.com/c/TomScottGo Tom Scott plus: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHC4G4X-OR5WkY-IquRGa3Q Twitters: https://twitter.com/wvfrm https://twitter.com/mkbhd https://twitter.com/andymanganelli https://twitter.com/adamlukas17 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wvfrmpodcast/ Shop the merch: shop.mkbhd.com Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We're your hosts. I'm Marques. And I i'm andrew and on this episode we have a guest one of my favorite creators yes i'm very excited it was a long time coming but we got him in the studio he's not from the u.s so it really was a long time coming but tom scott joins us um he's a one of my favorite youtubers and uh has over five million subscribers so you've probably heard of him at some point but it is kind of hard to describe his channel it's very hard to describe his channel. It's very hard to describe. Some of his most recent video titles include, I Rode a Giant Mechanical Elephant. You can too. Great video, by the way.

Really good video. How Does Britain Know What Time It Is? Just a great video to click. He also has a video called, This Video Has 53,699,710 Views. And it does, in fact, have 53,699,710 views. So we talk about the wild variety of things that he does on his channel and sort of categorize it and talk about how he makes videos. We also talk about his process. And it turns out he's also super competitive.

He's hyper competitive. And we found that out firsthand on this episode. And it was a good time overall. So definitely buckle up. Enjoy. It's also super competitive. He's hyper competitive, and we found that out firsthand on this episode. And it was a good time overall. So definitely buckle up, enjoy. It's a fun conversation, and let's just jump right in. Hello. Tom Scott is joining us for Waveform this week. Welcome, Tom.

Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me on. We appreciate it. We were just talking for a second about the temperature yesterday, and you said it was 36 degrees. It was. And I was like, where were you? But that was Celsius, and I now have to calibrate exactly high 90s high 90s i'm not built for that it was hot yesterday so uh so you're from from europe yes where would you say

you're from right now because we're talking about that too. I am traveling so much at the minute that I am not entirely sure. It is lovely to finally be out on the road and like I'm bringing packs of lateral flow tests with me and I'm being really careful where I go. It feels strange to me to be without masks in a podcast studio. I know we're tested, we we check all that but after two plus years of this and being so careful it's it's lovely to be back out i seem to be way more careful than a lot of people are though because i all over europe all over the bits of the us i've seen here like there's there's a lot of indoor dining there's levels there's for sure levels to it like i'll go somewhere where everyone is wearing a mask and i'll go somewhere in the same town where no one

is wearing a mask it's it's yeah it's a huge variety here, but I, I wanted to talk to you for a long time. I I've watched your videos for a long time. Well, likewise, we'll, we'll, I mean, we'll save the mutual admiration for sure. Yeah. Um, my favorite question to ask fellow creators is how do you explain what you do to people who don't know. So, I mean, it depends. I know you did a video on this. Like, if you're in the back of a cab and someone asks what you do. What do you say? I mean, the easy out is I run a video production company, which is what I do.

Other than that, I am basically a TV presenter from the 90s at this point. Like, I grew up watching the four channels that were available. And I seem to infuse a lot of that into what I do. Because I think I grew up in the age of linear television, in the age of content that unless you specifically video recorded something and saved it, you would never get to see again. And there's still quite a lot of sensibility of that in my head. And I sometimes find a disconnect between myself and, is it too patronising to say the kids? The kids who grew up with the internet from birth,

with YouTube from birth now, living in a world where almost any media you want is available on demand, either through someone illegally uploading it to YouTube because it's 20 years old and it's not in content ID, to any streaming service, to anything like that, to what I assume is still piracy going on. I remember the days of torrent trackers and all that. I assume they're still going, but we now have a world where it seems to be streaming for most stuff. Yeah. So you feel like a host on your channel but you i mean your videos if i were to just open up your channel right now and just start scrolling through video titles it's all over the map like there's i have i make it i have a theme it's tech videos so like you know tech products come out i can explain that to people i i review and talk about the newest technology

it's like okay that's sort of a concise thing if i were to try to explain your channel to I can explain that to people. I review and talk about the newest technology. It's like, okay, that's sort of a concise thing. If I were to try to explain your channel to someone who hasn't seen it, I might start with, what was the last video about? I don't remember. Yes, it is. I have no idea. This is the question. I will occasionally get someone asking me about a specific thing I've done in the past.

I've got no memory of it. No clue. None at all what what i would like to run is the kind of 1990s uh fact and so factual entertainment um magazine show would would be the term in the uk which is in the same manner that you would you would look through a magazine and there is an article on this an article on that an article and maybe you're not interested in everything but you want you know the writing that goes into you know you know the the style most of it is is going to and maybe you're not interested in everything, but you know the writing that goes into it, you know the style, most of it is going to be something you're interested in. And because that was appointment to view television, then you would tune in for the show.

I think the example that sticks in my head is the BBC, and then a load of other broadcasters, had a show called Coast for a while in the mid-2000s, I want to say, which was just, it was stories about the coast of Britain. And one of them in each episode might be about biology, which is not generally something that, okay, it's some fish, I'm not interested. And then it might be, okay, here's a bit of archaeology that's this old infrastructure thing. Oh, brilliant, that's what I'm interested in. Right. But I would watch the thing about the fish because it was in the show. And I knew that the show was going to be good. And I like that brand. I feel like that's what I'm trying to imitate. Ideally, I would be putting out half hour shows that cover three or four things,

but the medium has changed. That's not what YouTube wants. That's not what the end time medium is set up for. And you have to adjust your content to fit the medium. That's not a complaint. That's just a fact. So in a world where you have to clickbait every title and thumbnail, what I'm doing is taking the sections from what would be that magazine show. And now I can't do the thing about the fish. I mean, I still can, but if I do, fewer people will watch it. They're going to channel flip immediately to something else, to use the 90s analogy. And I guess I'm not saying that it was better then, because it's really easy to get nostalgic for things that were obviously worse. You know, it is obviously a much better thing that we have access to so much more variety so much more variety so many more

perspectives so much more information more information is always a good thing yeah uh don't hold me to that i'll find a counter example to that at some point that's a fair more information is generally a good sure yeah yeah um but at the same time it's really easy to get in that that kind of idea of i can only do this now. That happened to me during the pandemic. I now do four to five minute videos generally about interesting things in the world. Okay, that's, I think, key.

Because I think when I see your channel, I would argue you could do the video about fish and I would watch it because- I did. Because I know it's a Tom Scott video. But I had to title it, It's Like a Spaceship for Sharks. Yes. And I will watch it because... I did. Because I know it's a Tom Scott video. But I had to title it, It's Like a Spaceship for Sharks. Yes.

And I will watch that because I know somehow Tom Scott is going to tie this together and make this actually work. I talked about the infrastructure. It was filmed at an aquarium. But I made the analogy to a spaceship and to life support systems because you are taking these creatures

that are way outside their natural habitat, putting them in a thing with a wall and maintaining a higher pressure environment that if it breaks, they'll die. That's a spaceship. That's just like a spaceship. But how do you sell that to an audience where if you say this is about fish, they're going to click on any of the other dozen things that are in there? Right. I think that might be one of the things that weirdly TikTok sort of solves and Shorts sort of solves because you just get served things. And as long as you can make that argument

in the first three, four seconds, you don't need to clickbait. You need to clickbait the start of your video. That's a different type of bait. But that's a different type of bait. Yeah. I mean, TikTok terrifies me. Oh, we can go down the rabbit hole.

I love TikTok. So do you make tiktoks at all no i responded i responded to shorts by starting a new channel where everything's four times as long and looks like a really 90s tv show so i no i didn't because i it's i feel weird talking this much by the way i'm going to say this i've learned i've realized that's what i'm here for like i'm the guest on this and i keep keep having to go, I am talking too much. Should I, I should be asking questions. This is not my job here.

This is. No, we love this. This is, I like talking to creators because I always find that we have a lot in common and we always have different parts where we might diverge on either how we approach something or how we create. Probably my second favorite question to ask is like,

how do you make a video which is probably even more interesting for you because there's such a variety of topics you mentioned it's interesting things or interesting topics that you care about right so that might be anything um there's a lot of by the way there's a lot it's mostly infrastructure so there is a wonderful channel by a friend of mine called ev, who runs a channel called Rare Earth. He's been a guest on my channel before. He is interested in people. So he makes videos about people. So he makes videos about people and humanity

and the things that we do to each other. He takes it to some very dark places. Whereas I seem to be interested in things. And that's how my brain works. I'm sure someone could do a huge amount of psychoanalysis on that to find out. But ultimately, people make, I think, sustainable channels on whatever medium that is, make videos about the things they're interested in. Absolutely.

If you have a popular channel, but it's something you're not interested in, I suspect it wouldn't survive that long. Yep. That's how burnout happens. It's also interesting, though, because when we talk about, or when people talk about channels being successful, they say, find a niche. Your niche is things, which is the least niche thing possible.

And it didn't used to be. It used to be that the channel had my name on it, and it was just going to be about whatever i'm interested in and there was all sorts of stuff there was game show stuff and there was all sorts of things and that is not how youtube works in the 20s which is a bit frustrating again magazine show but and i feel like again shorts is a thing where you get to experiment more with that because terrifying as it is it polls your audience and the wider audience in the first few minutes finds the niche for that video and then goes from there yeah i mean what are your experiences with it this is this is what i'm

asking creators that i meet yeah as someone who hasn't gone into that world because it feels like a whole lot of effort i don't have brain space for to learn a new medium right okay it is fascinating so i have a bunch of thoughts on it and to sort of tie it to what you mentioned my channel is about tech so i do feel an obligation with whatever video i make next to have some sort of tech in it we just talked about how i'm i'm reviewing a new car for top gear there's usually some sort of tech in every possible thing, whether it's an electric car or a high-tech car or a hybrid powertrain. And this one's a Maybach. And I'm thinking, this might be the least tech car. How do I bring tech

in this to find a way for me to be the one talking about it? But with short-form content, like you said, each individual video gets its own exposure to whatever. So people aren't necessarily subscribing to a shorts channel or subscribing to that shorts experience, but they're just scrolling through their feed and it gets served to them. And so I found while I do make an effort to make tech related shorts, I have found, uh, you can experiment way more and often find success if you make a good native video on something you really care about, it will find that audience. That being said, the most viewed piece of content we've ever made was a flip phone. It was just the

LG Wing just flipping it open. It has 40 million views on TikTok. And I just... How long is that video? It's like 30 seconds not even not even we shot it in probably five minutes yeah but i think that's kind of interesting there are there are things we find really interesting sometimes where the interesting thing is only about a minute long i mean like sometimes it's not worth a full video that's where we found that i reject video and yeah i reject video ideas for that reason. Maybe 30 seconds in there, I'm just like, that's probably a good way of doing it.

But then I put the effort in, and I hate to sound mercenary about this, there is not much return there other than being able to promote the channels where you make money. I hate to have the full mercenary attitude to that. There is not a sustainable monetization option for shorts yet. There wasn't for YouTube in the early days either.

But if you're only producing 10, 20 seconds of content, then you are not going to get as much back from that anyway. I think someone told us most TikTokers want to become YouTubers. It was the same with Vine. It was exactly the same with Vine. Look at some of the biggest YouTubers right now. They were Vine artists because there is no monetization there.

And I'd say we spend the time making shorts and all that. But exactly like you said, that is for it because its algorithm is so good to hit an audience that we're hoping some of that brings it back to where we're creating content. Yeah, I created a separate Shorts channel, and I get asked a lot of times why I created a separate channel for it because, honestly, the better ecosystem decision probably would be to do occasional Shorts on the main channel because what I've always found is those will just be super low effort, super short time.

They will find an audience and just bring in new subscribers to the thing that actually makes the money. So if I put them in a separate silo on a shorts channel, they're just going to be in a separate silo somewhere that doesn't make money. So whether or not that was a good business decision, we have yet to see

because I'm still experimenting with shorts. But I've done one short on the main channel and it was a green iPhone unboxing. how long could you possibly talk about a new phone color? Right. It's green. Here it is. So yeah, 12 seconds. There it is. Um, but that's, you know, my experiments with, with shorts are not over. I'm very, I'm very curious about the future of that. I want to talk about the Maybach that you've got at the moment, just because how are you making that a technology video, if that's what you're going to do?

Because I would absolutely, anytime I'm looking at car reviews, anything like that, the thing that I actually want to know as someone who doesn't really care that much about engines and things like that is not, it's not how fast does it go? It's not how comfortable the ride is. It's, is this entertainment system going to annoy me for every minute I'm in this car? I think the answer is yes for most.

Is the adaptive cruise control going to actually work or am I going to have to guide it along as it breaks too late all the time? And it doesn't feel like that's what most reviewers are going for. But then my concerns about cars are probably not those that most of the public have. I love this question. So first of all, the Maybach is for Top Gear, which I write a column for. So I won't even be making a video about it. I'm just going to be writing a column for him. Nice. But I have made a bunch of car videos. And that is always a question of like, how does my car perspective fit into the world of car videos? And I watch a lot of car videos,

and a lot of them are just like you described. Driving dynamics, handling, power, acceleration. We're going to do a drag test now. Now we're going to do a stopping test. Now we're going to do a cornering test. I'm going to be doing 55 down a motorway. Like the actual ownership experience is very different. So for a lot of these high-tech cars, and maybe I'm a little guilty because I've done a little bit of like the supercar world. And that's what people really care about in that world. But when you're buying something, I try to put it in your hands through the camera, I try to actually let you sort of own it, hold it, use it. And for a car, it's driving around on regular streets, it's going grocery shopping, it's dropping people off, it's

a carpool, it's a road trip. And that's what I want to be able to give people for like regular cars. Yeah, you did the EV road trip, didn't you? We did the EV road trip, just like what is it like to charge an electric vehicle for a thousand mile trip versus a gas car? When your country doesn't have a national standard charging connector. It's really interesting to actually go through that process and figure that out. So yeah, for the Maybach, for something like that, it's like, all right, I don't know. For people who are going to actually buy this $190,000 Mercedes in disguise, what do they actually care about when they're going to buy it? For some of them, it is the infotainment system.

I will talk about that. For some of them, it is what's it like in the backseat? And I'll talk about that. Some of them, it is, what's it like in the backseat? And I'll talk about that. But that's a unique challenge for a product reviewer, is talking to the exact person who wants to buy that thing. Right.

Figuring out who it is before you even talk about the product. And everyone has different requirements. Yeah. Every product has different requirements. Yeah. Like, I'll review a phone, and it's like, if I review the iPhone, that's one audience. If I review the ROG Phone 6, I could talk about it the same way as the iPhone, but it's going to be lost on the people who actually want to buy the rog phone 6 i could talk about it the same way as the iphone but it's going to be lost on the people who actually want to buy the rog phone 6 so you have to sort of adapt to

the language a little bit i'm not sure there's many of those people there's well that's exactly right it's a very small subset of those people and they're over here so they care about performance and gaming and and clock speeds and things like that frames per second but uh yeah that is a challenge of talking about products i think i think we found that to be pretty considerate especially when it's a product kind of like that is in our range because it's technology but also kind of isn't in our range and it's hard to see a lot of comments being like stay away from cars stick to this but that's the other thing but like i love hearing you say like you're watching a video like that because you are interested in a car that you're going to drive but you're not interested in it from a mechanical standpoint or something the first thing i do when i get into a rental car is

right how do i plug my phone in here how do i get carplay working oh god how does this cruise control system work why can i only test this when i'm going at speed how i shouldn't have to learn a user interface exactly at 50 miles an hour yeah um you know I would argue there should be a standard on that, but there isn't. As someone who very much likes a car that can just basically drive itself on motorways, finding that every model performs differently, everyone will hold a slightly different position in the lane,

have a slightly different or completely different interface to deal with. I don't think a review would help with that. You just have to find ones. No, this is what makes me want to start a car channel. This is what makes me want to start. Like, I review phones kind of in this uber-detailed way, where it's like, I know about using a smartphone

because I've tested and reviewed and used, can I say thousands? It's been hundreds at least. Definitely. It's probably thousands. It might be thousands of phones um and now as i slowly grow my fleet of cars that i've tested i'm developing the same things i'm like wow this one sort of bounces back and forth between the lane lines when i'm in control oh this one just sort of holds on the left side and will sort of wiggle when i pass a car like that's kind's kind of weird. Like, these things you notice

that you don't really put in the car video because a car video on YouTube is supposed to be one thing. Yeah. And when you vary from that, they go, you don't know cars, you're not doing a good car video. So I want to make, I want to, yeah, that's... Yeah, no, you want a car video for the commuter.

Yeah. For, yeah, you're going to be driving X miles in this every day, back and forth. What's that like? Here's what it's really like.uter. Yeah. For, yeah, you're going to be driving X miles in this every day, back and forth. What's that like? Here's what it's really like. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

That's a free idea for someone if you're not taking it. I love it. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and we'll talk more YouTube stuff. I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh, what? Just like that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin?

Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable. Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Uh, nope. You're on your own there. Could've skipped it. Should've skipped it.

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exclusively on Paramount Plus. I actually have a question. You want to start with that? On creation stuff. One of the questions I have for people who make long form like this is your shooting ratio is the wrong term for a podcast, I guess, but the time you record versus the amount you publish. So I used to do a show called Citation Needed with some friends, which was just sitting around with friends. Again, I used to do very different things and it was possible to do that. And that found an audience,

but these days, if you're launching something like that, you'd have to fit the medium. Anyway, point being, we shot probably about two to three times what went into the show. We dropped any slow bits. We kept the funny bits. We looked far better than we were because, as anyone who attended the live shows will know, we looked far better than we were because, following on from BBC Radio Comedy and everything like that, you record so much and then you put in a show trim trim yep what's your approach to doing that so immediately when you brought that up I I got

this little like scale in my head um of the type of content and where it would fall on the scale if we go from a scale of one to 10, one being we use everything we shoot, 10 being we trim most of what we shoot. A one is the podcast, right? It's especially because with the podcast, we'll also trim clips out and those will also be published. So it's like a great ratio. Somewhere in like the three range is the bread and butter smartphone videos i write them i know them super well i i every single shot where we'll go into the shot and we'll start shooting something i'm like we're not gonna use this like we don't need to shoot this yeah and we know very quickly what to shoot and what not to shoot we get higher towards like the sixes with car videos because we'll shoot

just a ton of rolling shots. Right. We just got a ton of shots of the car. It's driving. Let's get another shot of it driving. I think I remember reading that the Grand Tour has something like a 2,000 to one shooting ratio. Oh, they are.

Because they've got like seven cameras rolling all the time. I mean, when I'm talking about that for podcasts, I'm not counting like the three cameras we've got here. Sure, sure, sure. Just in terms of time. Of time, right, exactly. Yeah, I think we shoot a lot of time for the car stuff, and those end up being trimmed a lot.

And then I actually see on the furthest end of the spectrum, at like a nine, is when we shot Retro Tech, which was a YouTube original series. Oh, because that was TV style. That was exactly. Yeah, that was with a production company with a TV style producer. Yep, so we shot for six weeks for six episodes. Wow.

So there was quite a bit of things that we either didn't use at all or used 90 seconds out of three hours. Or people flew in and we ended up, you know, making a bonus content or whatever. There's a lot of that. So that's sort of the scale in my head. I think I aim for like a three on a good day. I don't know about, what is your typical ratio? On the channel that's just got my name on it yeah um probably about a three on that scale i'd say because there's a lot of cut down interviews

and those obviously you're taking 20 minutes and cutting it down to two but i'm going in with a script where i've got hopefully every word written in advance you fully script everything yeah we have to ask this question because it is very impressive. Hopefully there should be no surprises. I go in and there's Destin who runs Smarter Every Day, who has the exact opposite approach. As far as I can tell, he goes in, gets the interview, goes around and then patches it up afterwards,

tells the story afterwards. And that's a lovely approach and it does not fit with the way my brain works. It's a different skill. I don't like cutting down anything. I don't like looking at my own incompetence. So like, cool, get that recorded, get that done, get the interview, get the B-roll,

get my piece to camera, tick, tick, tick, job done. I always like the ones where I break away from that script. There's one in production right now from France where, yeah, act two and three, week away from that script um there's one in production right now uh from france where yeah act two and three the script just says see what happens yeah but that's always a nightmare for my editor so the cost goes from research into production so that's that's the the i can't call it the main channel anymore because i'm not sure it is. It's fair. The channel with my name on it. It's funny you said it goes,

the cost goes from research to production, but also the time goes from research to production. So as I've been the editor for the last 10 years, it's like, I prefer to plan everything and know exactly what we're going to shoot. But then there are some things where like, I'm just going to need someone to explain this to me and then I'll cut it down. And there's some things where it's like I'm just going to need someone to explain this to me, and then I'll cut it down.

And then there's some things where it's like, let's just try it and see what happens. And I always feel like those, you feel pressure to get something out of it. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. Those are interesting. But I think you were going to ask about scripting, right? Yeah. Scripting, like, your videos are insanely impressive with the scripting. We love them.

I think a perfect— like your videos are insanely impressive with the scripting and to have a video it's i think this is luck that i have by by no design of my own i write in roughly the same way i talk i can write in my own voice so that's a skill what i'm doing is just researching like i will have 50 tabs open long documents open skim skim notes notes notes and i just start writing i put paragraphs together and move things around and i've got a script um that's that i hate to say that's all there is to it like that's that's the one the one skill i've got the one actual skill is taking a thousand pages of content and turning them into four paragraphs that tell a story or occasionally like half an hour that tells a story. That's the one thing I can do.

And then over on the plus channel, which increasingly that sounds like it's a second channel and it's becoming the main one. But in that case, that is unscripted to the extent that sometimes I don't really know what I'm going into. I know what the top line is. I know I'm going to a farm and it's going to be something about herding

sheep. And literally that's all I knew going into that video. And then I spend a morning learning sheep herding and learning with someone who is really good at it and who can show off their skill. And I can show off someone else's talent or learn a thing. That's really been quite a different experience for me and a really rewarding experience for me. But I'm aware that the only reason that exists, the only reason that basically I have become, and this reference will not land for anyone in this room,

the only reason I've basically become a Blue Peter presenter is that I have the old channel, which means that people are following me as a person, which is something I'm generally uncomfortable with. And it's the reason that the channel is about working with others and learning from others, generally, as opposed to it being about me. You'll notice that I have evaded almost all the questions about history and workflow by changing it to being about you or about something else, which is what I always do. I think I always, I tend to divide YouTubers into like type A, type B in so many different ways.

I think we were just touching on one, which is like scripted or unscripted. And in tech, one which is like scripted or unscripted and in tech most of us are very scripted and i think most of us want to try to also do unscripted stuff so we'll do like unboxing stuff this or conversations podcasts it's such a different skill and it's it's a different skill and it's kind of fun to like i i know out of that i know from university radio many many years ago that i am bad at solo unscripted just i'm bad at it fine if i've got some people to bounce off but solo unscripted is is not a thing i can do it's it's it could i spend years building that skill up as well yeah i could but anything i do is now very public and you you can't launch a thing learn in public right right yeah i mean you can as long as no one's really watching. Right.

Here's another type A, type B. Uses a teleprompter, doesn't use a teleprompter. You're 100% prompter. You do? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I couldn't tell. Really? Like you're good at reading from a teleprompter.

I think some of the situations you're in make it very, like when you're walking around, I think the last video video did was on a mechanical okay let's let's say it's 100 scripted okay that's uh that's a better way of putting it but i don't enjoy learning lines like you you've written it all so you know it very well yeah but then as far as like actually reading from let's say a teleprompter on the lens you can sort of look away and make it feel natural because you know. Because I write like I speak. Right, right.

So a lot of times that's not acting as a prompter. It's acting as a guide. A guide. It's a bumper. I can move a few words around and know it'll still work. I can recover occasionally from going off on a tangent, coming back, speeding up my voice a little bit so I can get in. And I'll write, yep, I'm back with the words now.

Yeah. But the reason that I have to do that is if I get a fact wrong, coming back, speeding up my voice a little bit so I can get in. All right, yep, I'm back with the words now. But the reason that I have to do that is if I get a fact wrong, everyone will call me on it. And there will be another note on my corrections page. I was filming many years ago at the top of a wind turbine, and I accidentally said thousands instead of hundreds or something like that the other way around. It's an obvious error. There's nothing I can do about it. Nowadays, I could probably have an AI clone of my voice

or cut away and dub over. I've had to do that before. I forget what the line was. I just said it completely wrong on location. Just indefensible blunder, just got the words completely wrong. But I was just kind of standing on a road somewhere. So I went out to a similar road with a similar thing, put the microphone in the same position, had an earpiece just repeating the line over to me. To match it. Dubbed the words in, and it sounded close enough. There is a video, and I won't say which one it is because I don't want people to go looking for it. There was a video, and I won't say which one it is because I don't want people to go looking for it.

There is a video where I consistently mispronounced a word like four or five times. I just got two of the syllables the wrong way around. No one called me on it at the time. I don't think anyone noticed at the time. It's a fairly obscure word. What we did, and the audio editor, just, I have so much respect for them. Because what we did is I went to a room about the same size, I played the line back, I just, I ADR'd it. I just said the line repeatedly correctly, and he just crossfaded between the two at the right moments.

And you cannot tell. The lip movements don't actually quite match if you know what you're looking for. Yeah. But no one's going to spot that. Nobody's looking for that. You can get away with a lot by just quietly cutting away. Yeah, I think that's something...

Sorry, carry on. Well, I was going to say, we have that in common. We're like, we're talking about things. And if you get a fact wrong, everyone likes to point out that the fact about the thing was wrong. With tech, that's notorious, if you get a fact wrong in tech. So I do write 95% of what I'm saying. And so what I'll do, I've said this before,

I have all of my bullets and my paragraphs on my phone and my phone is like in my lap or something on a table next to me. And so I'll pick it up, get the facts that I need to get right, put it down and deliver it. So I can kind of veer off and do a tangent and whatever. And hopefully none of those facts are wrong. But as long as I hit those things, I'm still fine.

But I've never been good at actually reading and then talking and then seeing the lines moving. I'm just terrible at that. I look like I'm staring into a camera, which is not good. So shout out to you for doing that super well. I think only the people who are making the things really realize that that how edited these things we're watching are i feel like every time i watch something i am watching it in one half of my brain for the entertainment value and then the other half of my brain for how i think they made it there's a cut there's a cut there's a cut that

was filmed at a completely different time what was um on the plane i watched um hobs and shore the fast and furiousious spin-off, because I would like to turn my brain off for two hours of this plane joke. Why not? There is a scene at the power plant, which I thought was the ending of the movie, and then it just keeps going. It's just a set piece in the middle. And there's one point where they cut to the characters,

and they've got bright sunlight on them and shadows, which are present in none of the other scenes not even close it's a cloudy day for everything apart from three cuts why what happened there yeah that is a what seven eight nine figure movie budget you couldn't have reshot that i don't know somewhere it's a curse of being a video creator. I went to film school too, and just watching movies, those little continuity mistakes here and there, just like, wait a minute,

and my wife hates when I scroll back, I was like, that was wrong. Did you see that? You cut away from that character, and then cut back just as they finished that line, so that was done afterwards, because some exec went, I don't understand what's going on here.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a classic one. Would you find, I'm interested in how you edit a lot of your stuff because a lot of it seems one take. There are multiple, multiple. I think the one I think of the most is the really bad roadway

with the music in California. Yes yes that felt like oh no that because obviously i am driving yeah i cannot use any sort of prompter uh no but i've got like five cameras if you ask and then i did up and backs at the same speed enough times enough gopros i knew going in that that was going to be a nightmare yeah so i just yeah is it cheating i don't know no i would say if you asked me i would have said you scripted that perfectly to get to it hit it turn back around because you can see you making the u-turns going back around i honestly would have thought that was fun so kudos to editing and scripting and everything on that video i think that was me editing as well i think that was was me. Very well. I'm not sure. Apologies to the team if that wasn't me. All right. I want to ask you a question about

your workflow and how you make videos just directly. You have such a variety of topics. Do you start with, here's a thing I like, I'm going to make a video? Or do you go backwards, which is what I've learned a lot of YouTubers do, start with a title and a thumbnail, and go, that's a video I want to make, and then go back and decide how to create that video? Because I've done both at this point. I find it more challenging sometimes to do one than the other,

but it depends on the topic. For the regular videos, for the ones I'm known for, it's from the subject and out and so you make the whole video and then i have to come up with the damn time okay yeah which is which is deeply frustrating again spaceship for sharks yep the only reason that i was able to do that video is i came up with the title which again really annoys me but that was the thing that made me go okay yeah this works yeah and i have had to not do videos in the past because I'm like, there is no way to get people to click on this.

It's really interesting. If they watch it, it'd be great. But I know they're not going to. Again, YouTube versus magazine show from the 90s. However, for longer form stuff, particularly on on the plus channel then yeah that can that can be driven by the title okay the one a while back on uh copyright from many years ago like youtube's copyright system isn't broken the world's is oh that's a title that is i remembered that going from the title and going well yeah that's the thesis I want to make.

All right, here we go. Time to dive in. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's some videos sometimes where I'm like, I think tech YouTube deserves a video with this title. Because this is the point that needs to be made. Now let me reverse engineer my way of arriving to that point. Because I like to structure videos in a way that sort of lands somewhere where you can get to the title or get to the thesis i'll tell you a video that i i want to do but can't okay uh and i'm going to throw this out because because by throwing this out here i will finally get the video out of my head and i don't have to i don't have to pour over

this on my ideas board right i've got it out someone out there can have it which is on content for kids on youtube not really being uh so we're not talking about like the stuff from years ago with like algorithmically generated elsa and spider-man videos and we're not talking about stuff that is for younger kids we're talking about stuff that's for, so the ages, maybe nine to 13, that kind of age. If you ever looked at YouTube trending, that'll show up there quite a lot. And what, so there's a couple of reasons I don't want to do this.

First, it would involve actively calling specific creators out. I could not tell this story without naming people. And I don't want to do that. I don't think that's a fair thing to do. Certainly, if i don't want to do that i don't think that's a fair thing to do certainly if you're ever going to do that then the thing to do is do right of reply you reach out to them you get their response to it like there's a whole ethical thing that you're required to do that apparently is mostly ignored on youtube but like basic ethics you reach out

you get the response i don't do that i don't want do that. I don't want to name this is the problem. But for the examples I know, I would have to specifically go, this is the problem. Fine doing that for television. I did a video about advertising disclosures. And I'm okay to call out a television show because that is run by a corporation with 100 employees. I'm not saying you there, you have made the mistake. Most YouTube operations, I would be pointing at a person. I don not, I'm not saying you there, you have made the mistake. Most YouTube operations, I'll be, I'll be pointing at a person and I don't want to do it. It also feels like

punching up instead of punching down. Absolutely. Yeah. So anyway, setting that aside, I would have to make specific examples. Maybe I could, maybe I could like get someone to animate, but you're still talking about people. And secondly, I don't want to deal with the backlash from that audience. You know, I don't want kids angrily, I don't want internet kids defending their heroes to come at me because you're not gonna be able to reason with, you're not gonna be able to reason with any internet crowd, but it's just, I don't want that hassle. So this is, this is what this came from, is comparing two videos on what was judged age-restricted and safe. So again, the title would be something like, How Safe is YouTube for Children? or something like that.

Again, so your first comparison is to the TV I grew up with, and to all the regulations that broadcast television has to have for protection of kids. And the one that is in my head, aside from all the stuff about sex and violence the obvious ones there is one about uh imitable behavior i might be using the right i might be using the wrong word there in behavior that could be imitated yeah so the two videos i really want to compare neither of which like i endorse as a thing just to be clear um there was a british youtuber team about three years ago i think now who are doing big uh just hurting themselves for views which like it's jackass it's a genre right i have no problem with that like i grew up in that yeah like yeah um he like the the title was cementing my head

inside a microwave jesus now it's not actually cement it's um i think the u.s term is like spackle it's the stuff you put on walls it hardens like it's not actually cement it's um i think the u.s term is like spackle it's the stuff you put on walls it hardens like it's like fixed drywall patches and stuff like that yeah i'm like i'm not gonna call these guys out because the first 15 seconds of that video is some of the best editing i've ever seen for a coming up it's it's brilliantly done yeah but obviously age restricted backlash like no adverts on it absolutely like youtube still has that up i think but obviously like that was a news story because the fire brigade had to come and save his life because it went wrong yeah like yeah it was it was a news story public apology kind of thing like

no ads and anything like that and that was in my head because i saw something on trending a few months ago which was and again i have to call out a specific video here. There's, there's no, I, I don't want to imply that this is a deliberate thing. This is, I would read it as folks who have no one in the loop who is saying, this is maybe not something we should do. So I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm not going to criticise overly. I'm criticising the idea, which was, which was last to escape concrete wins. Yeah. And you've got three guys doing all the hyperactive cuts that has become common for you, Chief Young,

pretending to be in setting concrete. And it's clearly not, because, like, that's... A, like, A, alkali burns, like, physical burns because it's an exothermic reaction. That is obviously not real, but they're playing it as real. And that's the sort of thing that would be completely, utterly blocked from broadcast, at least in any European country. I don't know how

the First Amendment affects that in the US, but certainly for kids. Growing up, we had, the US term is public service announcements. We call them public information films about not playing on construction sites or with construction equipment. The idea that a show for kids, teenagers, anything like that, would encourage something like that is just... No, absolutely not. You don't even... If there's a million kids watching that, and one of them now thinks that it's safe to play in concrete,

then not only is that a bad thing, obviously, because the kid's going to get hurt, but also that's a lawsuit in enormous liability for them. Just from a purely selfish perspective for them, ignoring the welfare of kids, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. But YouTube will happily serve up adverts on that. That's suitable for everyone. That's suitable for all ages. And rather than the overt worry that this is clearly bad for kids, there is this subtle thing of this is... So that is...

Sorry, that was a long diversion. But there is a lot of stuff out there that is not obviously unsafe for children, but with a moment's thought that the algorithm doesn't have and that human reviewers generally don't have time to have. They'll be... Is this obviously a stunt? Is this, uh, it's someone messing about in some grey slime. Okay, right, we're fine.

There was a lot of stuff that could cause immutable behaviour. I would love to make that video. I can see, like the copyright video, like the advertising video, I have the structure of that in my head. It's 30 to 40 minutes long. It's got a few jokes in there. A really nice conclusion. And nope, I'm not going to call out specific people,

despite the fact I just kind of did. But you know what I mean by that. I'm not going to put someone's face in the thumbnail. And I don't want to have to deal with a load of kids defending that crowd. That sounds like a Nerd City video, doesn't doesn't it it does and that's someone who is absolutely up for that fight you know i'm i'm just saying i totally get not wanting to you know unleash that potential comment section because even in the the tech world here like i'd say most tech youtubers are pretty close to each other there's not a lot of drama going on in here.

And yet I'll still see in comments people attacking other creators or defending other creators on things that, like, there is absolutely nothing to defend against. Maybe just two people had a different opinion. Like, it's this whole parasocial relationships thing, which, like, it feels like there's been so much meta discourse about that now. Because I had a talk... I'm sorry, I'm going to name drop here. I had a talk at the Royal Institution a few years ago, which again, sounds like a prison from a comic book, but the Royal Institution is a very famous scientific society in London,

and had a whole section at the point where where parasocial relationships were starting to become a mainstream concept that you you attach this person and defend them and my brain does not do that i just i don't have that in my head i find it deeply uncomfortable when someone does that towards me and try to discourage it as much as i possibly can but at the same time the second channel's kind of about that. That's kind of what it's built on. Even if you just go by the first channel, and it's your name. It's my name.

And you're the host every time. Right. And so they come back expecting one thing to be common about every single one of these videos, is I get to see Tom do something. Which is why I love doing guest videos every January. I didn't do them this year. I really enjoyed going, yeah, you I didn't do them this year. I really enjoyed going, yeah, you know what?

Taking this week off. Here's another person. Yeah. And despite the fact that these videos are frequently better than the ones I'm doing, if the title's good, yeah, it'll work. But you can see the regular audience not coming back as often for that. And that is something I'm not really comfortable with. Like there are loads of people who've handled that really well. I mean, how do you handle it? Because your channel is, do you have a distinction between you as your name and

you as MKBHD? So yeah, definitely. And it's very intentional. There is a difference between what I share publicly and what I experience. And it's a very limited slice that NKBHD is. It's a presentation of a limited slice of that. And that's on purpose. Now, it is kind of cool still that I'll be, you know, I share the videos and the tech stuff and I'll see people in public. And I'm like, oh, I bought this phone because of you. Like it's, you know, they feel that attachment, which is cool.

And I do share. Sorry, sorry. I do also, I play a sport, which is a public sport with spectators and they will come to games and that's cool too. And some people will even say they started playing the sport because they saw it in, you know, on a channel or something like that, which is cool.

But yeah, it is a very limited slice of it specifically so that I cannot feel uncomfortable with anything because I did not share it. Exactly. Which is why I'm always so cautious in interviews like this. Why, again, why I keep diverting the questions. Yeah. Because I am here as that public version of me. It's like going back, I should have picked a stage name by By the time I realized that, it was far too late. But ideally, for anyone who is starting out on YouTube, like, number one, pick a stage name. I wish it was possible to pick a stage face.

I'm kind of slightly envious of the people who are wearing masks. That's an interesting point. But I suspect that's true for pretty much everyone who's ever been in the public eye. Oh, yeah. Well, so there was a point on YouTube, and this was maybe, let's see, probably about three to four years into when I started making videos that I decided actively not to show my face. And I was making videos about devices. My hands were in it sometimes

like I'd had, I had videos of my face in the beginning and I was like, no more face, no more face. This will just be my voice and my hands hands and I would show gadgets and I would show device and things like that and so I went for like a full year or two without showing my face and I was like very happy with the fact that I you know no matter how this goes there is some level of anonymity um which is really cool but then it was much harder to make those like personal recommendations where people can come back to an MKBHD video and know to expect the thing that we do like so well. So I went back to a roll showing my face and talking to a camera and it made a really big difference and people now knew what to come back to so there it is a little

bit of a balancing act where you know maybe someday in the future there'll be like a deep fake version where i can like slightly alter my voice and face so like it'll be personal but not me um you also see channels doing the management where they have had that presenter for a long time and then they sort of start another person and start another person and it becomes the team over time i think that is very difficult and especially if the name of the channel is already the first presenter yes it might just be doomed from that you know who's done that really well uh answer in progress that's a great as long as because it's answer in progress and the name of the channel isn't it wasn't originally. It's been a steady change.

That was three years ago. That was one person doing one thing. And it's a whole brand shift. As far as I can tell, I don't know, but as far as I can tell, that seems to be... I mean, it's three very clever people. I think that's very interesting. If that's not premeditated from the start, I'll be very surprised. And they've done it and they've come through the other end.

It can be done. Maybe not for me. Yeah. Yeah, I think we're in the club of, you know, people like Linus or I'm just thinking of people who go by their name. Linus did do it, though. He has multiple other hosts now. I would say he's in like a gray area where it's his name and people mostly come back for him. But he does have some other hosts that do well.

And do I think he could leave that channel and it would have the same feel and still be called Linus Tech Tips? I don't know. I think that's a three year strategy. Yeah, that's a long term gray area. But again, it's got that parasocial element. Do you know Dropout? Formerly College Humor. Oh, yeah.

So they have basically pivoted to being a streaming service that is basically parasocial. It's the same crew every time. It's doing different formats, but it's about them. And I think an approach for a lot of people would be, we're going to do a Patreon and host it on youtube whereas they have gone no we are a streaming service we're doing professional shows and there seems to be the spectrum from it is one person you are supporting them to this is a brand and this is what you come back for and this is a

reputation and i would love to push more that way. Difficult when you want it. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. With Uber Reserve, good things come to those who plan ahead. Family vacay? Reserve your ride as soon as you book your flights. To all the planners, now you can reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance.

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netsuite.com slash waveform. I don't want to put you on the spot too much here, but I now have a channel that is about meeting other people and collaborating with YouTubers or people with skills or companies or anything like that. So what would you pitch as that? Because obviously you have sport, that so what would you pitch as that because obviously you have you have sport uh but there's not i'm not gonna be able to do uh do an ultimate frisbee match in like uh in like one day of filming right right what would what would you want to do for something like that this is this is me

saying come on the plus channel but there's also me going what are you interested in because i'm i'm using that as an excuse to get over fears that I've had to introduce things to other people and to have things introduced to me. What's on your bucket list of, I have not found an excuse to do that? And while you're thinking about that, because one of the things that I have is there are things I want to do that I don't have an excuse for. I want to go and do this. Yeah. It's a couple it's not a good video it's not a good thing i can't i can't reasonably expense this um like what's what's on your list for stuff like that so i have like the the sort of core things that i i enjoy it's the tech it's making videos it's the sports that i play but i also have these other i've probably mentioned this at some point

before these other couple random bucket list things where I really like experiencing natural phenomenon, like weather phenomenon. I've had, I mean, here we get hurricane blizzard. Down south, you get, you know, hurricane. I've not yet done two, which are seen a tornado. Yep. I thought storm chasing was going to come. Yeah. And experienced the aurora borealis.

I have not actually seen or heard it. One of those is scarier than the other. For sure. For sure. Terrified of electricity. No, I'm just kidding. And from a production perspective, they're a complete pain in the ass because. Oh, hard to capture those and not be in mortal danger, at least the first one.

Well, either you're in mortal danger or you need to see the solar forecast and then drop everything and travel many, many miles. Yeah, okay. I mean, I'll add storm chasing to the list. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. If it happens, I'll let you know. I was hoping you were going to pitch something that was going to be like in New Jersey. Well, here's the other one. Okay, the other one is

I do want to visit all 50 states, but I have a hard time coming up with a reason for about 10 of them. All right. All right, let's offend 10 states.

Tornado and Oklahoma might just be the perfect, like I've never been, but like I got to see a tornado and like, you know, the Great Plains. Maybe there's a reason there. But yeah, I've gone to like, I think i've been in 35 something like that states so yeah

maybe there's something there yeah have you i mean i assume how many states actually i should ask how many states of the united states have you actually been oh see see you added of the United States, I'm going to denial. I don't know. Not very many. There's only a couple of good ones. I'm just going to be honest. I'm just going to be honest. Oh, no, Iowa. Iowa is going to come for you so hard.

I've never been, so I can't speak for them. But, you know, I know the ones I like, you know. I'm keeping my mouth shut on this one. I'm not going to risk offending an American state. Look, Tom Scott's been in New Jersey. We've got New Jersey pride going. It's one of the good ones. First time I was in New Jersey,

I was driving down one of the big roads, probably the turnpike. I just realized I was driving through the opening sequence of The Sopranos. Nice. Turnpike, yeah. By luck, I had Woke Up This Morning by Alaba 3 on my phone. Like, all right, I'm going to play that.

I'm going to cruise down here for a while. This is, yep, this is. Yeah, yeah, see, it's one of the good ones. Yeah. Your channel, you were just saying how you're, like, kind of getting with other creators and going over fears and stuff like that. Has there been any one that you almost didn't do because of how scared you were of it?

Or is there, like, a specific one that just, like, you really, really were nervous about before were of it? Or is there like a specific one that just like, you really, really were nervous about before going into it? Yeah. When's this podcast coming out? Is it Friday? So Friday, maybe? No, it's going to be in a week's time. It's going to be the next video.

I have had a phobia of roller coasters for a long, long time. I remember you saying something about that. I think you mentioned you were on those robo coasters and I think you mentioned one in Seaside, which is actually not too far from here. Yeah, there are a few places in the world where you can get on a robo coaster, which is a robot arm with two seats on the end.

Yeah. What? It's in Seaside Heights. It's a big industrial robot arm. There's a couple in the US. I think the ones in the UK have closed down now. There's one in, I think, there's a lot in Leg u.s i think the ones in the uk have closed down now um but there's one in i think lego there's a lot in in lego land in denmark i think okay and there's definitely a couple in the u.s they don't they didn't bother theming it for this one it was just do you want to ride on a robot arm we put two seats in a harness on the end and you've got five settings

and setting five is like uh the incredible hulk uh swinging you around oh my god oh if you ever get the chance do it i need to the thing i'm particularly scared of is not stuff like that because over the years i've been able to do all sorts of adrenaline junkie things i've been scared by all of them but it's not a roller coaster which is the thing i'm actually scared of it is that harnessed in no emergency stop no power or control you are just on a track going and there is no way to stop this and that uh that for all my life ever since i was young has been the thing i want to do and uh without giving away any spoilers uh yeah the next video on the plus channel is is uh it's me and and the thing i'm collaborating with is largest theme park in the uk awesome that's diving right in yeah uh yeah yeah that was that was a lot and what happened is you know

months ago the crew went uh tom yeah we've got this on the list do you want to do it sure that is that is a problem for future me i know that's that's a psychology thing right you you ask someone do you want to start uh putting money in a pension pot they go no you ask do you want to start in three months ago They go, yeah, absolutely. Same way, future me will be fine with that. Yeah, but once it's in the calendar, it's your problem. I would like anyone who watches that video to know that none of that is acting.

I am not overacting for the camera at any point. That is just me. That is just, unworryingly, it is like actual me it's not it's not presenter tom scott presenter tom scott went away you can you can kind of see the change happen from because we got to go behind the scenes uh i looking at the safety equipment and doing a track walk will not make me feel better because the actual thing that i'm scared of is the drop is that over the over the top stomach drop feeling that's thing scared off so none of that helps you can sort of see me go from oh yeah no this is great i'm doing behind the scenes infrastructure stuff oh

yeah i can ask this question to me just very scared oh man that's that's gonna make it a great video i can already tell so obviously, obviously, I have to ask. Yeah. What are you scared of? That's a good question. I was going to say, like, when you go from roller coaster adrenaline level to, like, bumping up, my brain just went straight to skydiving, which is theoretically about the same safety level. Oh.

As far as statistically. You're more likely to get injured skydiving yeah by the way fact like this is one of those factoids that i don't know if it's true there is a story that the uk national health service uh makes a loss on charity skydives because it costs more to the nhs to heal all the people who've broken legs than it does that it's raised. Okay. All right. Well, then it's probably...

It's a little bit different to roller coasters. But having said that, skydiving is one of the things I did when I was like 20, 21. Hated it. Stomach drop feeling. It's a hell of a way to find out you don't like skydiving. That's hilarious. Yeah. But yeah, whatever it is that that you are scared like whatever it is that's in the back

of your head that if you knew you were meeting that or doing that in half an hour you'll be freaking out that's where i was going into alton towers going into the theme park because it is not a rational fear it is not something that i can just breathe and get over it is it's a phobia right and uh but you you legitimately yeah overcame it or would you say i'm not giving you any spoilers for that yeah i will say that the crew had shooting scripts ready for he's got on the roller coaster and he's not got on the roller coaster like That's awesome. There were multiple branching paths available there. Yeah. To go back to a Tom Scott Plus video real quick,

you did a collaboration with James Hoffman. He's one of my favorite creators. You'll be happy to know that he's just as lovely in person. We've spoken a couple of times and he's sent us coffee and stuff. He really is the best. You went into it. You did not like coffee when you were 14. And I never re-evaluated

that because i don't really i think a lot of people do that i didn't start drinking coffee till i was like 25 or something and now i'm obsessed with it but um but anyways towards the end you decided you did kind of like it at least you liked the espresso you thought it was an experience are you drinking any since then has it become a daily thing a weekly thing no but it's become a thing i can do socially you can do it which is really nice that feels like what i unlocked from that was being in a coffee shop um one video it comes to mind i was in scotland a while back and we're just meeting up beforehand i would just go in for coffee and being able to go actually yeah and i'll

i'll get that as opposed to going can I just get a glass of tap water? It's quite a nice social lubricant thing to do. And being able to unlock that skill is what I got out of that. I haven't reached that level. I was going to say, do you think James could convert to Marquez? We have had Peter McKinnon tried once, but it was just like a latte from the bistro down here, which was not great. I kind of want to see the full-blown. You were there for, it was a half hour video. He went from the start of like. It's a weird, I mean, he could sell that as an experience. I don't think

he wants to. I would buy it as an experience. I think that is an experience, like you don't like coffee, let's work through this. But there was also the possibility that i genuinely yeah didn't like coffee um i feel like it felt a bit like hot sauce it's a bad comparison to make i know in many many ways but this is something that is in in coffee's case bitter and an espresso is i i think not a pleasant thing until you get used to what you are experiencing and until you get used to what to expect from it. Because, yeah, if you just... Here is an arbitrary bit of substance. You don't see people, like,

looking at Nintendo Switch cartridges with a bitter coating on them and going, oh, yeah, no, we would add other subtle flavours to this. If that's how your brain's reacting, yeah. But it turns out that it's actually yeah i i see why people like it it's still not a regular thing for me but for me it was it was unlocking that social experience that made it worth it you're not a coffee person yeah no i'm i also feel like my brain is very brutally analytical in that way

where it was literally just like here taste this substance i do not like this taste all right the end i don't like coffee like that's just how it went um yeah same same with me yeah but then if that was true there's a lot of stuff i didn't like as a kid that i wouldn't like now right so you know i hot sauce will happily well yeah that was that was look have you just done a thing with hot sauce our last episode know, hot sauce will happily work. That was a look. Have you just done a thing with hot sauce? Our last episode was just hot sauce. I was going to suggest that's what you two do, but I don't know.

After his second round, I don't know if you'd want to go into that. I'm 100% over that. It's a lot. I mean, if you ever get the chance to try the hot ones, hot sauce is there. We have them here afterwards if you want to. Oh, yeah, we're absolutely doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a trip. It's a good time all right well i have i have one more question for you and this might be a question uh i'm actually hoping you've never been asked before all right

see now i'm worried no i don't have a prepared response perfect okay even better uh how fast can you type the alphabet oh uh i don't know but is this a is this the thing you test everyone on all right it sure is okay yeah screen recording here okay see it's a macbook keyboard so we do have a uh we have a mechanical keyboard and we have a chiclet style keyboard if you'd prefer something i mean what i'm tempted to do is bring my own laptop in i mean you can it's just a website i'm gonna bring my home laptop in yeah we can. It's just a website. I'm going to bring my home laptop in. We'll take a break. Sorry, that's not my job.

Full size. I'm expecting good things now. We'll see how this goes. I have only just realized this. This is your mouse. Thank you for loaning the mouse. Because I spilled water on my touchpad and I haven't got a warranty replacement yet.

I have only just realized that this is RGB mouse, which is ludicrous. It's glowing. It's beautiful. Okay, so what we typically do is give people three shots. Okay. And just FYI, as you're typing, if you mess up a letter, it will not continue.

You have to hit every single letter A through Z. Okay. And that's the only rule. You don't have to hit enter at the end because sometimes that resets it. All right. Let me put my glasses on for this because I am extremely competitive. I am expecting.

I'm going to move the microphone as well. Is that okay? Yeah, yeah, sure. Sorry to the sound engineers. All right. I was going to point this at the keyboard, but it's not turning, so we'll just go with it. So, first of all, what time am I trying to beat?

Oh, okay. No, I love this so far. what time am I trying to beat? Oh, okay. Oh, my God. No, I love this so far. You don't even want to go? I am competitive as hell. Okay. I think you're looking at about four and a half seconds. Four?

Is it Quinn number one, I think? Quinn from Snazzy Labs? It's definitely under five and above three. Oh, my heart's going now. I'm over competitive. Oh, man. I wish you had like a fitness track run or something and you have the stats up on the 5.1 i want to put the mic that's not good enough it's not good enough i screwed up i screwed up on

w do you want a reference to where you are with that you get three tries so okay this is trying to set up this is try number two so was that two or was are we going into two now no no that was one you're all right um you said it was 5.1 yeah so you're right between jad from radiolab and josh wardle the creator of wordle oh i've got to beat that you've got that all right here we go it would be fourth place all right It would be fourth place. All right. 3.5. That sounded... 3.555!

There we go! We're never going to get that beat. You're almost a full second ahead now of first place. That was incredible. Do you want to go one more? I mean, yeah, let's try it. We'll count fastest. Because I definitely had to retype something there.

There's a big gap. Yeah, W, X, Y, Z. Yeah. That's where I screwed up every time. I'm interested. You're going very fast. Does this feel... It's weird typing the alphabet, right?

Yes, it's really weird. Because it's something you almost never do. There's a couple of times where one hand is doing everything. But wow. Yeah, it's W, X. All right, here we go. Hands are shaking now. Probably put pressure on me.

No, already went. still 3.5 3.55 that's gonna be that's gonna be on the leaderboard my friend i'm gonna have a hard time quite a while seeing someone beating that but yeah i had one bit of luck there that everything just i still think i mistyped a w in there and just i reckon i reckon with effort i could get that under three but it would be like a hundred tries and that would be that would be the best uh well i am thoroughly impressed with 3.55 on your second oh that's a relief that's really that feels like that feels like the top gear lap yeah that's what we faced it all after we do need the physical board of like the magnets eventually though there's something intimidating about that yeah oh well that's a great way to end That's what we based it all after. We do need the physical board of the magnets eventually, though.

There's something intimidating about that. Well, that's a great way to end it. Thank you for joining me. If I'd screwed up, I'd never forgive myself. Make sure to save this game recording so we definitely have evidence of it. I'm glad I witnessed a sub four. That was pretty sick.

Well, we'll come back next week. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk a lot more tech next time, I promise, but this was way too much fun. See you guys later. Waveform is produced by Adam Molina and Ellis Roven. We are partnered with Vox Media and our intro outro music was created by Vane. Take care.