A sweary, ranty YouTuber who's become an isolation cooking sensation | Hacker News Reader

A sweary, ranty YouTuber who's become an isolation cooking sensation

theguardian.com

266 pointsmathgenius182 comments

Australian here. I just watched the curry and bolognese videos. Although I'm vegan and hate recipes with meat, I laughed out loud, a lot. Loved it. Can't wait to play them for my household. Just yesterday I was planning to make a home cooking series featuring the housemates, dammit! Too late..

As for whether he's a typical Aussie.. I have met people who talk pretty much like this. Probably none who are good cooks though.

I had a German friend here who had a very fat book of Australian colloquialisms he was learning, but I hadn't heard 95% of them. Full of stuff like "dry as a dead dingo's donger". You hear them much more in country Australia I think.

About 10 years ago our Prime Minister was widely mocked for saying "fair shake of the sauce bottle", when everyone knows it's a fair suck – a failed attempt to talk like an average Australian.

https://www.google.com/search?q=rudd+fair+shake+sauce

p.s. Damn, the housemates had already seen them and love them too.

I have to share Michael Cusack's animations[0], they're very funny, appalling, and super-Australian. I've met many Australians who talk exactly like this. It's the most Australian stuff on youtube I've seen.

[0] particularly the Damo & Darren series and the YOLO series, but pretty much all his videos since the first YOLO are amazingly good. (The very short Chuck Her In The Ute is genius.)

https://www.youtube.com/user/aekime/videos

Damo & Darren pt 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmL72sgVdAQ (ha, I just noticed most of the comments are from Australians confirming that it's very realistic)

It's worth adding that for foreign viewers that no respectable Australian speaks like this, haha. The train station in the animation is supposed to represent Dapto, which is a lower socio-economic area located a few hours south of Sydney. In my experience, the animation captures the area pretty well.

You're not gonna hear any American news anchor or enterprise sales rep speaking in appalachian or black english yet there are no shortage of people who speak either.

Just because the well to do don't do something doesn't mean that isn't part of a place's culture.

A close friend of my S.O. is a German woman, who moved here about 15-20 years ago to marry an Aussie bloke who speaks with a very strong "Strine" accent (which is not so common here in Melbourne).

It's one of our greatest delights to hear her use, in her still-strong German accent, the Australian slang words/phrases she's picked up from him. Like the time we dropped into their house, and she greeted us, ushered us in, and said (if you can imagine this being said in a thick German accent) "Mark will be with us soon, he is just on ze blower".

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=On%20the%20b...

Actually my grandfather had friends who spoke of the telephone as 'the blower' and I'm from Michigan. These would be guys mostly born in the 1880-1900 range.

Yeah interesting. As I searched for references I found it originates from Britain.

This Quora thread has some interesting info: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-people-call-their-telephon...

That business with a "sauce bottle" has just filled 20 mins for me before I dive into the helpdesk at work, here at home (in the UK.)

...

Sauce is alcohol, not ketchup - now it makes sense! That's why you would suck and not shake the thing. We use the term sauce in the same way but not the term sauce bottle.

I just watched the curry recipe. It's funny but far from being anything close to authentic (bell peppers was the first sign).

Sure, but then again chilly/paprika/capsicums were none existent in India before the 15th century, so what is ever authentic and original except a continuous change?

Your post reminded me of a story I have, I was the CTO for a company that exited to a Spanish owned company. When that happened we had a lot of Spaniards that would come over and work for a while.

Anyways somehow there became this competition among them to learn and use the most obscure American English colloquialisms and use them in meetings. One of them the CTO for Spain became a very good friend of mine and we decided to start teaching him some words so he could win in these competitions.

With that said I am from a rural town in the US southeast (Florida to be specific). Needless to say he learned a lot of obscure US country colloquialisms. I can still remember the look of wordsmithed defeat by the other executives when he declared, in a meeting, that they where carpetbagging hornswogglers for deciding something without him. I have to say I nearly fell out of my chair with laughter in seeing how impressed with himself he was. The meeting quickly devolved into defining what was a carpetbagger and what was being hornswoggled, as well as requests for other words in which my friend declared that they need to get their own US mentor and not steal his. I was all good fun.

I also learned some Spaniard ones. My favorite which I could not spell out here to save my life, was one that amounts to the equivalent of monkey business.

Speaking of Floridian, long ago, I worked with a developer from a rural area in that state. My favorites were, "Shittin' in high cotton!" when a program finally ran correctly and when the network connection finally came up, "We're swappin' spit now!" .

Heard and used it many times, an equivalent to high cotton would be "Eating high on the hog". Which comes from the higher cuts being the better cuts of pork.

My absolute favorite was the one my grandfather used to tell me, he would say "Boy if your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough and you are, by far, the toughest kid I know" I love the back-handedness of the insult.

The other one that I think is funny is due to Tombstone most people think it is: "Im your huckleberry" when in fact the correct term is "I'll be your huckle bearer" which is the equivalent of a pall bearer, in the south we call the casket handles huckles. The term basically means keep it up and you are going to get the fight you are looking for.

I love this, it makes so much more sense now.

The other one he uses is "Your a daisy if you do", which may be rather apparent but it references another colloquialism of "pushing up daises" in other words being dead and therefore plant food. Both of which, at least in the south, pretty much mean that the person is done talking and are serious warnings, that they are done talking. I would assume that they where also used in the American west at a time given that a lot of Confederate Civil War soldiers went west after the war.

The movies use of them was actually well played as Holiday was from Georgia and would have shared many of the colloquialisms that where in use in the deep south of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, etc.

It's "huckleberry". The phrase is documented back to the 19th century and taken straight from the 1920s Tombstone historical novel.

I am not disputing the fact that, the movie, the script or novels state huckleberry, nor am I disputing that historically someone not from the south quoted Doc Holiday as saying it, what I am saying is that the term is still used today, as it was back then and in the South where Doc was from the term is "I'll be your huckle bearer". It was almost assuredly a misquote from a person not from the deep south. My great grandfather used to use the term and was a child during the late wild west era. This was why I said it was funny that Tombstone popularized it, because outside of the south people think it is huckleberry due to the fact that, that is what he said in the movie.

> the term is still used today

Not the term, a term. They're different idioms with completely different meanings, both well-attested historically. "Huckleberry" is not a corruption of "huckle bearer" here or anywhere else.

Doc Holliday isn't quoted as having ever said the phrase, by the way. It's taken from historical fiction, in a context where "I'm your huckleberry" -- "I'm game", "I'm up for it", "I'm your guy" -- makes far more sense.

"They say you're the gamest man in the Earp crowd, Doc," Ringo said. "I don't need but three feet to do my fighting. Here's my handkerchief. Take hold." Holliday took a quick step toward him. "I'm your huckleberry, Ringo," replied the cheerful doctor. "That's just my game."

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tombstone/4PnFRfNtyhYC?...

Yes I understand that, but Burns was also one of the first to use huckleberry, before that it only showed up in one other historical writing (in which is is clear what Huckleberry is interpreted as) that does not predate his Tombstone work by much (about 30 years IIRC). I also know that there is no direct quote of someone saying Doc Holiday said this, but Burns interviewed Earp as well as a lot of the residents of Cochise County. I was simply stating that I don't dispute that someone in those interviews may have quoted Holiday as saying it as huckleberry, The point is it is too coincidental that a man from an area where an expression was and still is, used liberally is "fictionally" quotes as using a term that is almost identical to one that he would almost assuredly be familiar with and used. If it was quoted and Holiday did use it, it would have been huckle bearer. I am not disputing your point that the movie, the book both say huckleberry and I acknowledge that there may even have been someone from the era that quoted him as saying it as huckleberry.

> before that it only showed up in one other historical writing (in which is is clear what Huckleberry is interpreted as) that does not predate his Tombstone work by much (about 30 years IIRC)

This simply isn't true. It was a common phrase and is widely attested in texts from Holliday's lifetime.

You originally said:

> due to Tombstone most people think it is: "Im your huckleberry" when in fact the correct term is "I'll be your huckle bearer"

I'm not arguing that "huckle bearer" wasn't also a common phrase. It's just not the "correct term" here. There's no basis for the idea that "huckleberry" was either a misquote or a corruption of "huckle bearer". Both the immediate textual context of the novel and the broader historical evidence for the phrase clearly establish otherwise.

The cook in a pizza joint in small town West Virginia:

"Faster'n a pack o' dogs on a three-legged cat"

It's funny my wife is from West N Carolina, it's a totally different type of country slang in WV, Virgina, North Carolina and South Carolina. What is funny is they all think I have a country accent, because the old Florida accent is similar to a Texas draw and I think they all have one. The norther south is a totally different pronunciation and accent from the deep south. I can understand the Cajuns better than someone from WV or the western Carolina's. Then you get to Tennessee and it's like a blend of the deep south / Texas accent and the upper south.

The equivalent deep south colloquialism for that would be: faster than a raped ape. I don't exactly understand why apes are so fast when they are raped but apparently they are fast. The other one I hear, but not as much, is faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

One of my other favorites that is tangentially related is:

Ya'll cover your ass faster than the new guy on D'block.

That's hilarious. It reminds me about the insults and alliterations they throw around on Letterkenny Problems.

https://youtu.be/Z0sq3T5fErQ

> My favorite which I could not spell out here

Ironic, considering the highly phonemic orthography of Castilian.

I know, I can take a stab at it but I don't know if it is correct so I would not want to steer anyone wrong on it but it was basically: "que esta tehe mehanies" the last two words are what I am not sure of, that is how they would sound but I am not sure if it is correct in written form.

I have heard something like that in Colombia. Un teje maneje (think sewing and handling). https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/spanish-english...

Yeah that is it, it was explained to me that it would be similar to our saying of: "What is this monkey business". Which would loosely translate to something like child play or a commotion.

You guys/gals/tweeps need to spend a month in "Cordoba Capital", Argentina. You'll hear one of the weirder, funniest, impossible to imitate dialects of spanish. Basically we adore them, but it's very far from what most "argentinean spanish" is, which is pretty distinctive itself amongst the latin american variants of spanish.

He seems funny but I can't stand the Youtube-style "ADHD" editing with cuts every 3 femtoseconds. I feel like I'm holding by breath watching it. There's no gap to process what you've just seen or heard.

I get that it's effectively the point: you overwhelm your audience without giving them the time to consider switching to a different video, but I find it frankly unpleasant.

> I get that it's effectively the point: you overwhelm your audience

Equally, you could argue reading a recipe in a book takes less than a minute; stretching the same recipe out to five minutes is already pretty leisurely.

If a video maker wants a shot for 'rinse the rice before you boil it' anything over 3 seconds is filler.

Yes. Still, I thought the comment you responded to made a refreshing change from 100 successive HN comments saying they have to watch youtube videos at 1.5x speed cause they're boring and a waste of time otherwise! Can't please everyone I guess.

I can understand tight editing and skipping over redundant parts but this goes way beyond that. Take this video from the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uBDNhe6Gkk

It starts with "Guess what's for dinner everyone <cut> shitty mall curry in a jar <cut> [puts bin on table] <cut> he shoots he scores <cut> almost... [intro] What's going on <cut> we're back in the kitchen saying <cut> no to jar sauce [cut to filtered dramatic zoom] neveee <cut>" etc... They should add an epilepsy warning at this point.

Many of these cuts don't actually cut anything, they're just changing the crop to make the video more dynamic. I find it headache inducing. You never have a continuous shot that lasts for more than 5 seconds or so. Everytime he naturally takes a breath while talking he cuts. Every time a shot lasts for more than 5 seconds he changes the crop to make a dramatic zoom on his face or something.

It's a very popular type of editing on Youtube as far as I can tell, but I find it unbearable to watch.

I think this “YouTube style” started as a way to work around having only one camera, and often no-one behind it, even, but also not being good enough to get compelling long, static shots with no cuts needed in the edit (which is quite difficult)

It's probably part of it but cutting away all the breaths and making the video as dense as possible reminds me of TV ads. You want to pack as much as much as possible in a short timeframe and sound super dynamic and not give the audience the opportunity to think about what they're watching. Trim all the fat. It looks like an infomercial almost.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Bingo, yes! You put the words to it... This YouTube style is exactly like those irritating ShamWow and OxiClean commercials that feature pitchmen filling every millisecond with their voice, without any break in the dialog. But instead of 30 seconds of it, they go on like that for 10 minutes. I tried to watch that video and couldn't take it for more than about 30 seconds. Totally exhausting.

Honestly it's just amateurish editing combined with single-camera footage. Lot of modern TV shows and movies also cut every 1-2 seconds, and reality/contest TV is worse than YouTube with cut frequency. But, they do things like overlapping the audio through the cut, switching camera angles on the same, "continuous" scene of events, using good cinematography to make the cuts feel natural, like you're just turning your head as someone else starts speaking, or to respond to some new event happening "over there."

The criticism of simply the frequency of cuts seems weak to me, it's been like that forever with most types of video entertainment content.

If you're making a video of a recipe, it seems to me like a unique opportunity to focus in more detail on what it looks like when each step is done properly.

The one that always comes to mind is when I'm baking and the instructions say to whip egg whites until soft peaks form. When exactly is it "soft"?! Sure, I know now, but I definitely didn't know back then, and as it turns out a video is a great way to get the point across.

I can't get my Australian friends 'dry as a nun's nasty', metaphor out of my head when talking in polite company.

I'm in my 30s and I grew up in Sydney. I have never ever heard the phrase "fair suck of..." until your post. Mind you, the first time I had ever heard any phrase involving sauce bottles was Rudd's famous usage. Which I feel brought it back into common parlance. With people mostly using it as an ironic exaggeration of country slang, and in tribute to Rudd.

It's worth noting, that Rudd was an actual country kid. While certainly not representative the average Australian, he would definitely have been exposed to more authentic bush slang than most.

For something less ranty I recommend Kenji López-Alt's channel. He puts a gopro on his head and shows everything that goes into making a dish. The videos have so many useful things and he knows what he's talking about.

He's done some of those POV-style videos before, but started to really lean into it about a month ago. I think his channel has grown by ~150K subs in the last month.

https://www.youtube.com/user/kenjialt

The guy's amazing. MIT grad and worked at Cook's Illustrated. Very analytical approach to cooking.

Kenji is wonderful. The Food Lab (https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0...) is still the first cookbook I turn to when investigating a recipe I haven't made before. His blog on Serious Eats has been amazing through the years - his advice on sous vide in particular is as good as anyone I've found, but all of his advice is solid.

If you're ever in the Bay Area, his Wursthall restaraunt is well worth a visit. I don't live there but I make it a point to visit at least once a year when travelling.

I just received a copy of The Food Lab. Any recommendations on some recipes to try first.

I've been loving the introduction and Kenji's very scientific approach to cooking. I've always been interested in messing around in the kitchen and hate when chefs in instructional pieces refer to "love" as that extra ingredient. In line with that, Kenji shuts down the notion of New York bagels being better because of the water.

Love this book too! Not crazy complex but his pancake recipe crushes any other I’ve tried :)

I have this book too and I like just sitting down to read it because it's filled with cooking info. His section on beef stew emboldened me to try mixing umami ingredients in other dishes to great effect. He also has an interesting take on how to slice onions for the type of dish you're making.

I agree. seriouseats.com (where Kenji's column lives) has long been one of the first places I look for cooking. I like Daniel Gritzer's stuff there too. They're both relentlessly transparent about their recipes and techniques, explaining every detail and rationale.

I just got wrapped up watching him make guacamole for the last 12 minutes. Wonderful stuff: I love watching talented people perform their craft. I learn so much more that way than I do from just about any other means. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KjWFcIi4_8&list=PLXonhhg5tU...

Totally.

I think there's something different about just being able to watch a master perform their craft vs a "masterclass". I pick up all these little details and routines that might be second nature to them and so they might not even think about bringing up in a "class" mindset or setting.

One of the clearest examples for me of this: when he's making hollandaise, he uses the water in the double boiler to also poach his eggs. It had never even occurred to me to do this, but it makes perfect sense, and I feel dumb for never thinking of it before.

Thanks for sharing that. He is very interesting. I'm digging it.

check out Adam Ragusea as well. He's like Kenji but a bit more on the practical side of the spectrum

A little too practical - my man literally put out like an 8 minute long squarespace ad a few weeks ago. And he's been doing the Raid: Shadow Legends ad shit now as well.

I'm all for getting paid, but man, at least put out ads relevant to your content.

Thanks for sharing. And for any readers in the Bay Area, his restaurant Wursthall is right next to the San Mateo Caltrain station and is super good. I believe they are offering takeout at the moment.

That was exactly the kind of cooking video I was looking for. Thanks for the recommendation!

His main channel, Binging With Babish, has like 12 million subscribers.

I kid, but anymore these days seems like every one of Babish's recipies comes from Kenji.

Also America's Test Kitchen. But IMO not a bad thing.

Why the hell did I never know he had a Youtube channel? Love him and Serious Eats.

A bit tame compared to our “les tutos”. It’s hilarious I recommend watching :) https://youtu.be/belUlgnhu9M

Oh my god. The fuck did I just watch?

I don't know either, but it's lodged itself in my brain.

That does make the Aussie look tame indeed :D

It requires a tektonik finish on top.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqYhuwu614Y

Yelle - A Cause Des Garcons

Thank you, made me laugh out loud!

Thank you that was insane. In a good way.

He's absolutely right about the Bolognese though! https://youtu.be/Sw_Ze9zIafM

This would actually "pass" on the Italia Squisita channel where Italian chefs mercilessly lampoon Youtube chef's screwing up Italian classic recipes (https://youtu.be/jQkc_1pQd3g)

His recipes may be correct, but this is unwatchable. The constant cuts every three words for the ADD generation is beyond irritating.

Then watch the follow up video [0] to ItaliaSquisita critique and you’ll be safe. Not to mention your Ragù is going to be orders of magnitude better.

[0] https://youtu.be/oomJC1sWyfs

Yeah, it's an acquired taste. Some of the earlier successful YouTubers popularized the style, it's funny if you're used to it and iirc allows for an easier time filming/editing (if you make lots of mistakes I guess).

Many, if not most, K-Pop videos are in a similar style, some are so aggressive they may very well cause epilepsy. Definitely give me a headache anytime I try to watch them hah

So I'm not too familiar with Australian humor or comedians, but this is still pretty funny to me (am American).

Humor aside, this is actually a pretty decent PSA. When this all started I do remember how the frozen food aisle looked: it was completely emptied out and I remember thinking that cooking these kinds of things on your own is, like this guy says, a) cheaper and b) better for your health.

From reading the comments I can see it's not exactly obvious what to look for if you're interested to explore beyond what's embedded in the article, so here's a bit of a guide...

- How To Make Quarantine Sauce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OEDjDKV038

That's the one that kicked the whole thing off, back in Mid March when panic buying cleared the shelves of frozen & packet food.

The others are:

Quarantine Spirit Risotto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSI4ZHVSatw

- Sin Bin Soup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIwhdOx9BL0

- End of Days Bolognese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw_Ze9zIafM

- The Crowd Goes Mild Curry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uBDNhe6Gkk

- Wham Bam Thank You Lamb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UWVym41dew

And if you're curious about the kinds of videos he was making before this foray into cooking:

- The Overpriced Boat Show Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXO3epj1lY4

- Summernats What I Reckon (at a car festival in which a major component is hotted up old cars doing burnouts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9EOundEuw8

Not to claim to be an expert in indian cooking (anglicized or otherwise), but I make a lot of curry from scratch, and I gotta say that featured video had a pretty excellent recipe. Entertaining but you can also tell he's an experienced cook.

The recipe is indeed not bad, but one thing that trips people up with Indian cooking is that store brought garam masala is pretty terrible. Using garam masala from the supermarket isn’t any different from using a jar of curry paste from the supermarket. Aside from the issue of quality, it goes stale, and when that happens the more subtle flavors fade first. Leaving you with something that is essentially cardamom powder, which can easily overpower a dish. For anybody that wants to get into Indian cooking, I’d suggest they always make their own masala mix at home, because it’s not difficult and the differences are pretty significant.

If the pre-mixed powder goes stale, is that also a problem for the other spices you'd use to make it 'fresh'? Just wondering because I don't see how that fixes the problem, unless there's some interaction between the ingredients.

I guess one benefit is you can put more of a particular spice in if it lost its zing.

I'm speaking from someone who uses ground spices in jars/bags, I typically don't use fresh (apart from nutmeg).

You keep cumin seeds, and then toast and freshly grind them the day you need them.

Same with coriander, cardamom, anise, cinnamon, dried chilis, etc.

whole spices preserve the essential oils better when whole.

roasting them whole and grinding them before use brings out the flavors since most of the essential oils have not evaporated.

Yep, that's the bit I was missing. I think a lot of us just buy pre-ground so it's important to make that point.

It probably explains why I pour a few tablespoons of cumin in everything (apart from it being great).

Dried herbs/spices can be thought of and treated much like coffee beans.

Keep them in cool airtight containers in the dark. Only buy enough for a few months, many lose their potency by about 12 months or so. (It varies)

Avoid buying them from supermarkets and other big-box type stores. If you have a local asian supermarket, they probably sell a lot fresher and better quality stuff. If you don't have one, you might be able to order them online instead.

Grinding/roasting your own is better, but if that's too difficult a good asian supermarket will have pre-ground stuff that's also pretty good.

Like coffee beans, they lose their potency faster once ground.

I'd also add that going to your local specialty grocery, you'll probably find that the spices there are actually cheaper as well, sometimes significantly.

I make it once every week or two, so they don’t have much time to go stale. The stuff on the shelf at the supermarket seems to have a much longer time in between being roasted and ground, and eventually finding its way into a shopping trolly. The bigger problem with ground spice mixtures though, is that they go stale at different rates. If the ground cumin seeds you have lose a little of their punch, it’s fine because you can just put more in. With spice mixtures, you can start out with something that’s well balanced, but the lighter flavors will start to fade, leaving behind the more potent ones (like clove or cardamom, in the case of garam masala). So when you go to use it, you taste the curry and it doesn’t have enough spice in it, so you add a little more and all of a sudden it has the over-powering biter after taste of too much cardamom, without much else.

The other benefit is that it’s obviously just going to taste better, or at least more the way you prefer it, if you make it yourself. Maybe I’m a weirdo though, because I don’t buy any pre-ground spices aside from chili (which keeps really well), and turmeric (which - in powder form - is used more for color than flavor).

Thanks for clarifying. There are a few that are great to get pre-ground like onion/garlic powder and paprika, which are a little harder to replicate at home and have a different flavour profile than their fresh counterparts. I do need to try and branch out more with whole spices in the future though.

I really like curries, but it's one of the dishes I haven't made much effort to do properly at home yet (my recent Japanese curry doesn't count because they use English-style curry powder).

Personally I think the SEA curries are a bit more forgiving than the Indian ones. Indian curries use a lot of dried ingredients, where as in SEA they tend to use pastes made from fresh spices (in Indonesia and Malaysia this is called bumbu) as the basis for a lot of their cooking. Which gives you a little more room for error when it comes to quantities for most things. You just grind everything together with your onions (or usually shallots), fry it off a bit, and get on with the rest of the recipe. If you add a little too much fresh galangal, it’s not much of a problem, but it’s a lot easier to throw the balance of a dish off with dried powders.

[Read in Nat's voice] I'd bung in the garam masala at the end, champion (after turning the heat off).

Back in the sixties my Mom's favorite cooking show was the galloping gourmet. Guy was always boozing on the show and told one joke after another. It was so different than any other cooking show it became a big hit.

Graham Kerr was a Brit who started his show in New Zealand then got an offer to move it to Canada where it was syndicated to the US. In 1971 at the height of his popularity he and his wife were in a bad car accident and retired.

Today looking back it's outrageous fashion and bad taste jokes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czrj4yJm6z0

Am Australian. I realise he's parodying an archetype, but question whether it needs (more) parodying.

The sweary thing is one way to distinguish from the competition I suppose, but all my favourite comedians manage to amuse without regular obscenity, in part because they reserve it for when emphasis is needed. (I'm not prudish about swearing - I swear like a trooper at home - but I do seek more thoughtful / less cheap material from my comedians.)

I also note that he's adopted - though not as savagely as many - that favourite youtube technique of removing the full stops from the end of every sentence, leaving the whole monologue sounding like one long breathless sentence replete with visually jarring cuts. It's a horrendous editing technique. Evidently enough people can put up with it for it to remain popular, but I just quit any videos done in that style.

He's leaning into the archetype, sure, but it's not a parody. People that know him are reporting that he's mostly "just like that", only now he's making videos.

>leaving the whole monologue sounding like one long breathless sentence Unfortunately, the trend (piloted by South Park and cemented by Family Guy) of humorous media these days is to have as many jokes packed in as densely as possible and rely on the fast-fire rate to compensate for the weaker jokes. That's just what's popular these days.

Can confirm. I've met him, briefly - he's not quite as 'full on' in person as when performing to a camera but it's not an act.

Oh, I'm sure.

I expect (hope) that IRL he takes a breath between sentences, and while I've met people who manage to have a swear:meaning word ratio of 1:10 or higher ... I expect he's actually much more thoughtful in person, as he's clearly a smart guy. But I wasn't trying to assert otherwise in my earlier comment.

He reminds me a lot of the guy in this legendary interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAXp58W9aEE

I guess some Australians are just like that, love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KavEoHGiU5I

This is my favourite one.

> youtube technique

It's called "supercuts".

I thought supercut[0] referred to an editing style of taking clips from different media, but with the same theme or meta-content, and string them together.

The style is discussed around the web (mostly annoyed people asking why other people do it). It seems to be called a jumpcut[1] though the definition for that doesn't really match what we're talking about.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercut

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_cut

This is by far the most Australian thing I've seen in years (expat :)). This is legit 'Straya.

As an aside, Capsicum (peppers / bell peppers), I struggled for years overseas with the terminology until I finally broke the habit. Same with using Eggplant and Zucchini in the UK (Aubergine / Courgette).

His like/dislike ratio on each video is absolutely incredible. The latest video has over 5000 likes and just 4 dislikes! I skeptically watched his linked video in the article and it’s really funny

This reminds be a bit of AWE and "crime pays but botany doesn't"

There's a big area of tone and presentation between Julia Childs, Bob Villa/Roy Underhill and Gordon Ramsay.

Somewhere between Gordon and Roy would be interesting. Roy made mistakes, including nicking the shit out of himself regularly, but never got frustrated and told too many dad jokes even for me. Gordon is a little too frustrated with bullshit even for me, and I should carry an epi-pen for my bullshit allergy.

Totally unrelated with the Aussie thing but totally related with metal music and cuisine: Black Metal Vegan Chef https://youtu.be/CeZlih4DDNg pretty old now but I still find it funny

Indian here and I loved it. Death to jar sauce! I have been clamoring for no-nonsense cooking tips for ages...too many chefs take themselves too seriously. The video is a little jarring I must admit, but he looks like he is having fun!

For an American take of exactly the same kind of video, I recommend You Suck At Cooking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsB57FtaxXQ

I love YSAC, but he's not really ranty. Plus I think he's Canadian.

Just remember: F* JAR SAUCE!

Australian here. This is probably not going to earn me any goodwill for posting, however I feel it needs to be said. I grew up in a very working class area, so I'm familiar with 'broad' Australian accents and culture. The accent in the videos strikes me as a lame affectation. In the last few years it's become trendy for washed-up alternative Australian youth to remodel themselves after the kids who bullied them in high-school once they hit their 30s. Straight-edge and crust-punk gigs are traded in for the cricket team and "sinking VB with the boys". This put-on accent invariably comes with it. 'Struthless' is another high-profile example of the newfound lame fascination with all things 'bogan'.

Hell, Aussie pollies have been doing this for donkeys ages (also comedians.. wildlife park owners).

But I always found it funny that the broadest Aussie accents I've heard outside NT have been in urban Melbourne or Sydney.

Same here, there’s something about the schtick that I can’t really warm to, ultimately it’s an insincere adaptation of bogan culture. To me bogan culture was always about letting an object rip and basking in its glory, not making self aware cooking shows.

But I’m okay with that, I’m not the target audience and if they’re getting something out of it then I’m fine with that. I’ll stick to my happy middle class serious eats and bon appetit cooking videos.

To me bogan culture was always about letting an object rip and basking in its glory

Can you interpret this, for someone who is not familiar with Australian culture?

For whatever reason, my brother decided to adopt a really working class accent when he was about 17 - and at the time, I thought it was ridiculous. After fifteen years, I can see that it's not really just a silly affectation. It's actually him engaging with the culture he likes, and the people he likes, being who he wants to be. I don't really see anything wrong with that.

That's a very interesting interpretation of the situation, and I'll credit it. However I can't help but feel that purposefully affecting an accent like this is inauthentic, and untrue to your real self. I can see your counter-argument that, for your brother, this act is bringing him closer to his ideal self.

I also think authenticity is a strange bird at the best of times. Humans are basically defined by their inauthenticity. In the bible, the moment humans attain knowledge is also the moment they attain the art of lying, of concealing, of feeling shame for what they are and presenting something different. It's a deep part of how we see ourselves - that we represent things, ourselves included, to persuade, to play, to organize our thoughts.

There's something funny going on with our use of the word - we call some people and cultures authentic, while others are called insincere and affected - and I don't think it's strictly related to how performative a given culture is. Somebody could be authentically Italian, and that could literally mean they perform their life at a very high tempo.

In the UK we call it Mockney, Jamie Oliver being a prime representative of the phenomenon

Australian here, too. That's a pretty uncharitable and baseless generalisation. His accent is pretty consistent over his videos and in radio interviews [0], and he strikes me as being a pretty genuine, funny person. Of course, he's performing a bit in his videos to entertain, but it's pretty authentic. Hardly trying to be trendy.

> In the last few years it's become trendy for washed-up alternative Australian youth to remodel themselves after the kids who bullied them in high-school once they hit their 30s.

Where are you getting this from? I don't think I've ever seen this. Struthless is a pretty poor example - his content is typically satirical parodies of social trends[1], but rarely does anything "bogan"-related appear in any of his content.

[0] https://soundcloud.com/thebiganxiety/interview-with-nats-wha...

[1] https://www.instagram.com/struthless69/

Ordinary Sausage is my go-to for youtube chefs.

Binging With Babish is one of my favorite channels on YT if y’all are into cooking shows. When my wife and I are on the couch together it is the goto.

I find it... meh. I don’t understand why he has so many views.

I appreciate his very high production quality but I don't get the appeal either. I think it has to do with the intersection of movie fandom + food media

I don’t get it, he’s just a typical Australian?

This is not true, please don't propagate stereotypes on a public forum even if it is an attempt to brag about Australian culture.

Depends on how you define 'Typical Australian'.

He's certainly playing up a character to a degree, but it's not too far off-base for a lot of folks I know who play up this kind of character when they're having a bit of fun anyway.

For the cooking show this guy's doing it's actually informative, gives good advice, and keeps it pretty easy to follow.

Very useful for folks who genuinely find it scary to cook anything that didn't come out of a packet or had more than four steps.

As a seasoned bogan, I reckon he's a bit over the top. I think if he cranked it down about 20% he'd sound more natural. There's a few 'fuck's in his videos that don't naturally fit into the sentence.

My favourite was the "mm! Get fucked." when the curry tasted good at the end. Don't know if people say that, but I knew what he meant.

Although it's not too far removed from (the very non-Australian) Stephen Fry saying "Fuck off!" responding to a Derren Brown card trick at about 1:50. Both are impressed by something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI5-NDiY7IM

Calm your farm there sunshine.

> typical Australian

Speaking of Australian YouTubers, Dave Jones (EEVBLOG) has permanently infected my brain when it comes to pronouncing some names in electronics. Beauty

Totally! It's really weird to hear myself say "multimeter" with an aussie accent, but now it just comes out like that sometimes.

Louis Rossmann, AvE, or Joey Santore has a cooking show?

(Slow news day reporting WFH, I guess.)

I thought it was going to be PaymoneyWubby

> AvE ... has a cooking show?

Well, a series, but yes. Starts from here[0] where he makes the steel griddle for his BBQ.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNAr7adtpdY

e: Forgot HN doesn't do markdown.

I can't make it through these millennial-style edit every second and imma meme-lord videos. I suppose there is pearls of wisdom hidden somewhere in there (I mean front page of hacker news?).

Sadly, Joshua Weinstein has also evolved into this style.

How is someone with 128k subs a 'sensation'? I mean, he might become one now that he's got the Guardian plugging him, but still...

Reddit frontpage several times, and I'm sure other places too.

I've already been sent links to him twice, and reddit from page, etc.

To be honest, I'm kind of shocked he only has 128k subs... surely this article will help, but I would have thought he'd be pushing a million by now.

Why bother subbing on a platform well-known for mistreating its content creators, when everyone shares the living fuck out of his videos on facebook anyway?

The same reason you tip a waiter in North America even when they work for a crappy boss.

650k subscribers on FB too, with nearly 10m views on some of his facebook videos. That's where it's really taken off.

Subscribers aren't really a merit on YT anymore. It's all about AVG views on high cadence content.

exactly viewers and engagement are the true metric of any social media/youtube. anyone can buy subs/followers

His videos get shared like crazy on FB.

Take a look at his view counts in just the past month:

3.6M

5.8M

7.6M

6.8M

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iqssylubr7y503k/nats-what-i-reckon...

That's interesting, he's only got about 300k-600k views for the same videos on YT.

Yep, it's the shareability that makes it work so well on FB.

YouTube views are driven more by people seeking a particular personality or topic (e.g., Joe Rogan), and algorithmic recommendations, but Nat hasn't been a big deal long enough to get so much of that kind of traffic.

"Rising star" maybe?

And the slow march to Idiocracy-style content continues. Can the media cover YouTubers that don’t gain attention by swearing and being obnoxious?

If you can see past that, his actual cooking is good and is motivating a lot of other people. If you can't see past that, the great thing about media, is you can choose to ignore it.

> If you can't see past that, the great thing about media, is you can choose to ignore it.

If only the world were so simple. In a democratic system, what is highlighted by the media affects everyone. Politics, culture, daily life. Certain political figures would not be political figures if the media didn’t cover their vulgar and obnoxious behavior constantly.

It's a cooking show on youtube. I think we'll be ok.

Behaviors and attitudes deemed acceptable or mainstream don’t need to come from a grand source. Small things add up. This guy swears about 5 times in the first 60 seconds of his videos. It’s unnecessary and yet it’s being covered in a mainstream newspaper.

No, it's a fucking cooking show on the internet. It's not going to add up to shit.

When I was a kid people like you were complaining about all the cussing in hip hop. "They swear 5 times in the first 60 seconds". When my grandparents were young, people like you were complaining about the vulgar new "jazz" music that was going to corrupt the kids and make white women smoke dope.

btw, necessary is a completely bullshit criteria by which to judge any art or entertainment.

I admire your intent, but you've picked the wrong target for this kind of critique.

Nat seems to be achieving the opposite of what you say you're concerned about.

The point of these videos is to educate people how easy and affordable it is to eat fresh, nutritious and tasty food at home.

He's attracted millions of views before any mainstream media outlets have given him any attention, and he's done it by being quirkily entertaining, as well good natured and encouraging to his viewers (exemplified by lines like “Just have a go, you’re more talented than you realise”).

The only thing he's swearily abusive towards is lowest-common-denominator, anti-nutritious, big-corporate-commoditized food.

Earlier videos that have attracted a lot of views involve highlighting the absurdity of conspicuous largesse (luxury boat shows) and masculine hooliganism (e.g., burnouts in cars).

These seem like the very things that would be most associated with the style of politics you're most concerned about.

Yep he has tattoos and swears, but from what I can see he's only trying to raise society's standards, not lower them.

Sometimes it takes a trojan horse to get the payload to its target.

Fair enough. I watched a few of his videos and was immediately put off by the constant unnecessary ‘fucks’ every few sentences. It doesn’t seem like he is dramatically more popular than a whole host of other cooking channels which manage to be both insightful, entertaining and not vulgar. So, I don’t see why The Guardian needs to pick this channel when plenty of others exist.

I also don’t really appreciate the ‘pearl-clutching’ bit. Not wanting to hear swear words constantly doesn’t make me some ancient conservative who wants kids off my lawn.

> So, I don’t see why The Guardian needs to pick this channel when plenty of others exist.

It's because he's reaching an audience that normally wouldn't seek content about healthy home cooking. He also has an interesting personal backstory.

I've edited my comment to take out the personal jibe, but I would encourage you to think about the impression your comments give if you don't want to be seen that way.

Content doesn't always have to be pleasing to us personally for us to be able to peel back a layer and understand its place in the world.

Nat's pretty smart - it's just buried in a lot of swearing and performing. I'd much rather a sharp and sweary guy with a good underlying sense of humor and a unique p.o.v. than yet another middle-brow "Ted talk dipshit" saying inane things while using $50,000 words they learned while coasting through grad school.

I don't care about the swearing either way. I don't think it's offensive, and I don't think it's hilarious. It's just - swearing.

But as an introvert this style of full-on campy hyper-edited perma-abrasiveness is incredibly tiring to watch.

My takeaway is that - unlike a good stand-up - he doesn't look relaxed or like he's having fun. It feels very forced, and that makes me uncomfortable.

I'm slightly surprised as well and I'm wondering where is the innovation. There is a multitude of channels like this one, some even with slightly more sharp jokes. Maybe this could be sensation for someone who watches something on YouTube once in a month? Someone here mentioned that his videos are extremely popular on FB and this might be explanation - fb mainstream audience can be a bit of uninitiated and this style could be novelty for some.

All the people I see sharing these videos (in Australia) are educated people in their 30s and above, who really care about well-made, nutritious food, and love the fact that someone is presenting it in a quirky entertaining way that can reach a wider audience.

I think you'll find he's just behaving like a typical Australian.

his videos are a great way to test how much cringe you can handle in a sitting

I feel the same way about Joshua Weissman. He has fantastic recipes but I could really do without all the weird faces and the mistakes that he should've just edited out.

I can't do the close face action in his cupboard but I really do appreciate folks who don't edit out their mistakes. It really helps knowing that it's ok to mistakes when you're learning to cook, that there's a lot of leeway with cooking, and getting better is just a process of doing it again and again.

Yeah I agree about the mistakes. A few YouTubers do it and it really helps, along with the casual "do this or that doesn't matter, whatever you want" to make it all a bit less scary and stressful.

Adam Ragusea is pretty good at that too I think. And he also does the occasional more scientific video where he looks into stuff like whether teflon or olive over high heat is actually dangerous, which I find very interesting.

I should clarify: I don't mean cooking mistakes! I really like when e.g. Binging with Babish admits he accidentally forgot the salt.

I mean mistakes where he drops something, forgets to plug in his stand mixer, fumbles with his words, etc.. An example is here [1] where he accidentally spits in the camera. Just do another take!!

[1]: https://youtu.be/9BPofD8uuzQ?t=29 (timestamp 0:29)

His videos are very "local" in its sense of humor; people from the area he lives in find it fairly amusing.

Agree. Am local, find it hilarious.

Local also and very sensitive to overwrought cringy videos, and I don't find his presentation offputting. He's quick enough, genuine and to the point that the little jokes (parrot milk) are easy enough to ignore if you don't like them.

I'm far from local and I find him funny :D

I don't spend time watching clips of YouTube celebrities.

Am I missing something important?

Some would argue by ignoring the likes of YouTube you are missing the modern era of entertainment. You do you, though.

I am not ignoring YouTube at all. I watch a lot of videos from which I can learn something or find entertaining.

I've just found that I don't enjoy very much videos made for the sole purpose of making money.

I think people should make money from their work, but there also should be a bit of value for the viewer also.

This is sort of regurgitated. Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time was quite popular around 7-8 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Wu3Bps9ic

Aussie here, the self aware piss take is a great cultural tool that we do well (tim minchin as the highest form), but it's got to be used well. Too many self aware jokes in nat's videos are played for gags and used to suck all the tension out of the video. Using that tool to punctuate boring moments just highlights how boring it is to trying and find the tap whilst looking at the camera or dump a load of ingredients into a bowl. That tool is best used when bringing the elite and pretentious (self-styled picasso chef) down to the ground floor with love and highlighting a valuable revelation.

This stuff could be really good with a bit more quality and a bit less gratuity.

I think in comedy the practice of using swear words as punctuation in lieu of actual wit has some similarity to the cgi overload in modern movies substituting for an intelligent script.

I (regretfully) swear like a navvy myself at times and am up for vulgarity in comedy when its accompanied by actual - you know - comedy. Examples: Viz (uk magazine), Beavis and Butthead, etc.

This was just childish, unoriginal humour and added to the cliched visual presentation was presumably mostly aimed at particularly dull teenagers.

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