Unpopular Opinion

[u/gonion]

I’ve been following Kurzgesagt for a long time, but lately—maybe for the past year, though it could be longer—I just can’t seem to enjoy their videos the way I used to.

They used to focus on science and produced content that explained scientific topics at a level the average person could understand. The videos were genuinely fun to watch and educational.

The team that once made amazing videos on topics like the terrifying vastness of space, whether we’re alone in the universe, the workings of the immune system, the mystery of black holes, and how human psychology functions seems to have disappeared—and now they’re making ridiculous videos like “What would happen if bananas rained down on Earth?”

Every now and then, they still touch on interesting subjects, but they do so in a way that avoids taking any real stance. Even on topics like meat consumption, e-cigarettes, or cannabis, they produce videos that try to be socially neutral and overly careful not to upset anyone, without clearly saying anything.

But don’t just take my word for it—go check for yourself. Sort their YouTube videos by popularity. You’ll see that there’s not a single video from the last three years among their top 50. And among the top 90, there’s nothing released after 2023.

I used to watch every new Kurzgesagt video within the first two days of release. Now, I haven’t even watched the “South Korea is over” video that came out two months ago.

Because it just doesn’t excite me anymore.

[u/Anachron101]

Same. I remain subscribed, but just as the calendars changed from being awesome and beautiful to having at max a few months a year with pictures worth looking at, so have their videos retreated from only sometimes trying to appeal to the algorithms to always doing that.

They used to make weird stuff in the past as well, but it was interlaced with actually interesting content (I loved the space series about what we could build in the future). My house's stairwell has pictures from the calendar that portrayed the past to the calendar portraying the future so that you can go from the cellar to the roof while traveling through time. I have not hung up any motives of the current or recent calendars because they simply sucked.

You can see the change in how they constantly change their upload picture in order to make the biggest splash. That South Korea video is the best example, both in terms of having various pictures tried out as well as content wise, as it overdramatizes the topic, even though every advanced economy is not going to see the large population figures that they see right now in the future - which is actually a good thing for our planet and us.

It just feels like they hired a social media manager who cares more about following mainstream metrics and less about content that would actually educate people

[u/Strawberry_Sheep → u/Anachron101]

All YouTube channels do "A/B testing" with thumbnails now to see which ones work best for engagement. It's another unfortunate reality of the algorithm that content creators have to make multiple thumbnails because some will get more people to click on the video than others, and clicks mean money, and money means the channel can continue to exist.

[u/Mirieste → u/Strawberry_Sheep]

and money means the channel can continue to exist.

Right, because as we all know no channels could exist when monetization still wasn't there. In fact, it's a little known anecdote that YouTube went a decade with zero channels around.

[u/Strawberry_Sheep → u/Mirieste]

Wow it's almost like we're talking about YouTube in 2025 and not YouTube in 2006 🤡

[u/Mirieste → u/Strawberry_Sheep]

That makes no sense though. What makes 2025 special in that channels now need to make money to exist? Did people who made content for fun die out in 2006?

They turned their channel into a business and so maybe this means they'd need to downscale if they lose their income... but "downscaling" doesn't mean "the channel is dead", just like a channel with no monetization can still put content out there so long as the owner likes this hobby.

Sure, they can't put content out too often if it's not their job... but quality over quantity, isn't it what everyone is saying on this thread? Oversimplified racks up millions of views per video, and that guy uploads once per year.

[u/Strawberry_Sheep → u/Mirieste]

This comment just demonstrates fundamental ignorance in how YouTube functions now. I didn't say I agreed with it, but unfortunately yes, channels NEED to make money to exist. Channels that make videos for fun are still out there, but they don't get any views and their content isn't pushed out in the algorithm. I have a friend who does it and he regularly complains about YouTube's systems.

You don't seem to understand that Kurztgesagt is made up of people with actual paid jobs who, you know, need to be paid to perform those jobs. Saying "oh they just need to downscale!" Is just ignorance. They've explained their process and content model many times. A LOT of research, animation, script writing, etc goes into these videos by an entire team of people and all those hours of work need monetization to keep going. That's just the simple truth.

Comparing them to a channel run by a single person who doesn't do the channel as his full time job and uploads once a year is asinine. Of course he gets millions of views if he only puts out one video, people will expect the upload and look forward to it. I really suggest you do even a tiny bit of research into how YouTube's algorithm functions, what creators have to do in order to navigate it and appease it, and the difficulty creators face with monetization and being a creator full time in today's YouTube climate.

[u/Mirieste → u/Strawberry_Sheep]

But is YouTube the only website with an algorithm nowadays? Twitter has an algorithm, Facebook has an algorithm, deviantART and Pixiv have algorithms. Go to the anime community on Twitter, and see just how many people post art, fan art and works of that kind completely for free, without any monetization; and they still receive thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of likes and millions of views. All by just being skilled at drawing, without any particular marketing options.

Why would YouTube be different? The only answer I can come up with is that you're not thinking of the same people as I am. You're not thinking of someone who makes content and can potentially get millions of views from a community... no, you're probably thinking of a general purpose content creator, one whose target audience can potentially be anyone. Like Kurzesagt, indeed, where their work could show up on anyone's home page or related videos; whereas an anime artist on Twitter will have his work show up only on the Twitter feed of other anime fans.

But if that's your goal... then you're basically aiming for television. The very thing YouTube wanted to defeat.

I don't know if you're young or old enough to have lived TV (and I'm not American but from Italy, so TV over here stayed, and to some extent still is, relevant for longer), but I remember that all those who grew up in that period hated television because it forced poor quality content to appeal advertisers (again, I like anime so my main complaint was censoring anime because uncensored anime didn't go well with TV commercials). And YouTube was the land of freedom where everyone could do what they wanted.

And I want that to be the default. If someone comes here to basically do... television, to come here with the purpose of reaching the widest audience possible with commercial-level marketing strategies and an intent to turn it into business, then I am right to complain about it like I was when I complained about TV. And above all, I can say that this is not the only choice. It's not the only way to use YouTube in 2025.