Is it possible that cooking and making-videos-about-cooking are two entirely different skill sets?
The funny thing is I don't disagree with the premise of the article. But I doubt I could think of a worse metric to measure success than YouTube views.
I would much rather watch someone like Adam Ragusea (https://youtu.be/SDpCzJw2xm4), who may not be as good as Bottura, but is much better at cooking than I am and can communicate information well and produces engaging videos.
Also Adam is really good at making videos.
edit: typo
This is a really good point.
To put it in simple geek numerical terms, if I'm level 20, I need someone who's level 50 to show me how to get to level 30 or 40. Someone who is level 100 would be wasted on me, and I'd probably learn less because it's so far out of my league!
Getting to Bottura’s level is not.
If someone wants to get better at cooking they would gain far more value form watching what is essentially a decent home cook rather than a top chef.
The same thing can also be applied to developers most people would gain far more from watching an average developer with good communication skills solving a problem than a top 0.1% talent. Because quite likely the way and speed you think at and your problem solving skills are far closer to them than to someone who designed a programming language or built an entire framework from scratch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZmp69SeMhs
The gap for me, a complete amateur home cook, between one culinary instructor and the next is mostly down to who I find it fun to learn from.
I think you see the same thing in programming: some principal engineers are more fun to listen to, even if they’re not the “most talented”, and the difference doesn’t matter until you’re further into the field.
tldr: People who are top 5% talent and top 5% communicators are only 0.25% of the population, but they have outsized viewership in popular education materials. They’re their own kind of “special talent” in a field.
Those two are actually about learning to cook better, rather than "cooking entertainment", like PBS cooking shows vs. the Food Channel.
Absolutely. I teach programming and one thing I have learned is my presentations must be heavily scripted to be effective.
It is not that mistakes cannot happen during a presentation, but they should only be included with purpose (“I’m going to show you how this breaks...”). But mistakes that appear when unscripted, unless quickly caught and spun as being introduced on purpose can lead to a lot of confusion.
Even the end result (to me) is scripted and won’t account for all the different scenarios that might occur in a real-world setting (i.e. spec changes, different environments).
It’s entirely possible cooking videos may result in good-looking dishes, but since we never get a taste of the final result... :)
And not all masters/good teachers are entertaining or engaging enough for Youtube.