How do you feel about Tom Scott going on hiatus after 10 years?

𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.dbzer0.com to [Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation@lemmy.world – 184 points – After ten years, it's time to stop making videos.
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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?

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I'll admit I'm a little lost/down, it came out of nowhere!

Not to be a jackass, but I distinctly remember watching a video at the beginning of July about how he would leave in six months, and he even said his last video would go up on January 1st. It looks like the video has since been privated.

What are your thoughts?

I'm going to miss him as long as he's not making YouTube videos, but everyone deserves a break. Still, I selfishly hope he returns soon or at all, but if not then that's good too.

Thanks for the good times, Tom.

Was going to say the same - I distinctly remember him making a direct announcement back around June-July about him going on hiatus, and a fair few subsequent mentions throughout the last ~6 months of videos, so it's hardly fair to Tom to say it came completely out of nowhere

I think he privates all his update videos after a certain length of time, to avoid people being confused.

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.

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.

Why do I keep seeing people say it out of no where? He announced it months ago

He announced it twice. Once a year ago and then a couple months ago as a reminder.

Yeah ok, ive definitely known about it for a long time. I don't watch his videos every week and I saw it

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.

I respect it. He has been going on for 10 years. It's crazy seeing how much work it is. I hope he finds what make him happy.

Ultimately his biggest priority is himself, as he mentioned in the video to keep going he need to move to more of a manager role and he isn't keen on that so stepping back is the other option

I look forward to more techdiff stuff and hope he does well in his future endeavours.

Pretty happy about it honestly. He's been counting down to this for ages in his newsletter, so it's far from a blindside on my end.

I've preferred much of his "second channel" content for a while now anyways, and I suspect we'll see lots of interesting content outside of the boundaries of "things you may not know".

I'll miss his regular content, but dude deserves a break. All the best to him and I hope he continues to make content as he feels comfortable in so doing.

I support him in doing what he wants. The videos were great but the man doesn't owe me anything.

Best hope is that he comes back after a rest.

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.

It means that YouTube lost one of the better content creators. He will surely be missed.

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.

To me it's also about integrity. Know when to stop and when to take a break. Sometimes it's good to stop while things are good instead of him keep pushing himself to produce untill something bad happens like worse quality. Scandalous YouTube drama arises or what ever else he's in risk of ending up on. I'd rather keep remembering Tom as a really good person and YouTuber withe excellent content than a Tom who lost to the system. Also he might have a comeback with something else, something new and innovative that we couldn't even imagine.

This is the third post I've seen about this guy but the first to actually state his name. Thanks, still no idea who he is though.

He made videos about interesting places, things, and topics. And did so on a regular weekly schedule for 10 years (precisely)

Dude ABSOLUTELY deserves the hiatus.

Having a weekly schedule with an interesting video for 10 years?! Thats insane!

He has become a legend and deservingly so, I hope he enjoys his break and comes back with some bangers in the future

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.

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.

He's made the Internet a better place, I wish him well and thank him for 10 years of great stuff. And I've just subscribed to his podcast

Tom Scott has been in my life for the best part of 7 years and it didn't hit me how much I would miss him until that montage at the end of his last video, where I was reminded of so much stuff. It really made me smile, laugh and then feel quite emotional because the weight of that chapter ending suddenly hit me.

Sometimes you can only really appreciate something when it's too late. Tom put so much effort into all of his content. Far more than the average YouTuber.

That's not to say he's gone forever, which he clearly stated but I would love to buy him a drink and thank him in person for being in my life and entertaining me for all that time.

Absolutely well deserved.

His videos are always fun to bring up when conversing with someone.

I am surprised he lasted that long tbh. I dont think most people realize how much work it takes to do what he does and that is hard to maintain. I am not surprised he eventually found himself needing to step away from it.

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.

I'm sad, but I didn't want to comment on the video saying that I'm sad, because he deserves to choose what he wants to do. But I'm sad.

You can be happy for the person making the choice that they are making, but also feel bad/sad about the effect it has on you.

I don't want Tom to commit his entire life to YouTube. I respect him as a person and want him to do what's best for him, but I also really enjoyed his content and will miss his regular high quality uploads. One of the first things I'd do when I got home from that first work/school day of the week would be to watch the latest Tom Scott video. I've massively dialed back my YouTube watching in recent years, but I still always watch his content.

One silver lining is we might get more technical difficulties.

You're aloud to be sad, Vlad.

(Sorry I couldn't help myself)

This is how I feel when colleagues resign from my workplace... I'm sad that I'll miss their presence at work, but ultimately happy that they're expanding their careers and moving onto bigger things.

I like Tom Scott, I think his videos are interesting and well produced. But I'm glad for the break, I think I've reached saturation on Tom Scott content and am starting to find Tom Scott's Tom Scott mannerisms and speech patterns to be a bit too gratingly Tom Scott. The earnest Tom Scott monologues, Tom Scott's Tom Scott laugh while experiencing something Tom Scott about 3/4 predicted, the Tom Scott pause before delivering that last Tom Scott factoid.

Anyway, I hope he has a nice break and comes back some day soon.

I don't think I've heard of this person, maybe i'll check it out.

You definitely should! He has been making web content for 24+ years but the last ten he has put out one interesting video every monday without fail (plus doing a bunch of other things and being in a lot of other creator's content). He is passionate af about what he does and his content is as bite-sized as it is awesome

Happy for him, it was great content though.

Did anyone ever see the green text about Tom going off with a guys girlfriend? Hilarious, not saying Tom knew or anything.

He makes great content but a lot of my subs make great content so I doubt I'll notice when all is said and done.

I wish his videos cycled weekly. I missed the first few years so it would nice to catch up in a weekly format

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

Literally the first time I have ever heard of this man.

Its funny how youtube has its circles. Tom scott is in the science youtube sphere, with Smarter Every Day (Destin), Technology Connections (Alec), Practical Engieneering(Grady), Stand Up Maths (Matt Parker), Steve Mould, Numberphile, Computerphile, and many, many others.

Tom Scott is Nice in this category as his videos are usually short, to the point, interesting, and weekly. He has some longer form content and game shows on other channels to. Overall if your interested in science and trivia game show youtube, he's worth a watch. His other channels are Technical Difficulties, lateralcast, and no longer used Matt and Tom.

Thank you for accidentally recommending a whole bunch of channels for me!

Same. I have no idea who he is.

Lol apparently if you don't know who he is you get downvoted. Lemmy is just as dogshit as Reddit afterall :-). The community is just as toxic.

It's probably because you're not adding anything to the conversation. But I guess it's easier to throw your hands up and say "Damn everyone else is toxic for tapping a down arrow" than it is to have any sort of self awareness.

Lol unbelievable. Truly a clone of the Reddit hivemind. The fediverse may not suffer from centralized corporate decline, but it sure as hell will and has suffered from the same dumbass community as Reddit.

Instead of being a fucking knob, you could have engaged with me to explain who this guy is and why he's popular. Instead you just decided to be a fucking tool.

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.

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

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

Its para-social.

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.

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...

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. !opencourselectures@slrpnk.net is a Lemmy community that aggregates these courses.

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

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.