this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
267 points (91.1% liked)
Science Memes
20727 readers
542 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Don’t support Veritasium
What's the story? What'd they do?
I hate this so much,
Someone is mentioned on Lemmy and there is always a drive by comment saying don't support X or X is a bad person with no context whatsoever. No mention of what specifically they are accused of doing/saying, no way to figure out if that clashes with your values or not, no documentation etc.
And subjectively it feels like half the time I research why this might be true it's debatable at best, I assume because if there was compelling evidence the person doing the drive by would have linked it.
Don't support u/Agent641
Lemmy sometimes feels like one big ball of barely seething social outrage.
That's most of the internet these days
So many didn't grow out of their "I'm so special and unique, I don't follow the mainstream" teenage phase and it really shows.
I should start replying to random shit with "don't support X" with no context or followup
Also, create a thousand accounts in advance at random days, never use them and make this comment their only, but when account is not fresh. That way it would look like it's a legitimate reader that was just once so outraged they decided to comment and then shut up forever
Don't support Djahngo.
(Kidding. Kidding.)
Sold out to some venture capital firm.
I didn’t know he did that. He was shit long before that. Here’s my comment:
So what? If he gets a good offer for what he built, why shouldn't he be allowed to sell his own channel. His content is still good. I prefer independent creators but he's in full right to sell of what he made. He doesn't owe the community content or to stay independent
Personally I've noticed topics covered by smaller content creators, explaining almost the exact same thing (minus maybe a few details like some random guy's age), uploaded a few weeks before, and then suddenly Veritasium decides to cover the topic with basically the exact same info over a longer time span.
Not to mention the clickbait titles and thumbnails, less focus on the technical side of topics and more on the emotional/personal side, and the whole selling out to private equity thing.
Aren't they also bought out by private equity?
Veritasium themselves has a video on the topic, they've indeed sold parts to investors
He created fake science experiments to sell products and slipped them into normal videos, like the video where he claimed wet wipes are flushable, then created a fake experiment “proving” they were flushable. He’s incredibly untrustworthy and also, not a scientist! He’s an art major or business, can’t remember which.
According to Wikipedia
He himself claimed he’s not a scientist so /shrug
you yourself said he is an art or business major, so, you know, fuck off and stop trying to spin your lies.
I’m not trying to spin anything. He literally made a video where he states he is a liberal arts or business major. I’m not going to go find it cause I’m not going to support him. You can either support the liar or not, I don’t give a fuck. You can also either believe Wikipedia or his own mouth.
He is correct: Having a Bachelor in science does not make one a scientist unless actively pursuing research. He has a solid science background but like many others with science diplomas, he's not a scientist. He is an entertainer, like all YouTube science channel figureheads unless their daily job is at a lab ( and even then: they are not necessarily talking about subjects they know well, science is a wide area of knowledge).
I'll preface this by saying I don't particularly like the direction the channel has gone. He's sold out big time, as described by many comments above (both literally, by selling the channel to VC, and metaphorically, by selling out whole videos and the integrity of their content to advertisers as the Tom Nicholas video explains). And his ties to grifters like Colin Grey and Philipp Dettmer (of CGP Grey and Kurzgesagt fame) definitely don't work in his favour.
But that said, I think this comment you made is a bit reductive. He has a PhD in effective science communication. He can legitimately claim expertise in communicating science to the public via YouTube in a way most popsci content cannot. Obviously not the same as doing scientific research himself, but he also doesn't claim to be doing that.
Kurzgesagt are grifters?
Yup. I've got two main stories in evidence of it, but I'll just share one here because the other is much longer.
Both Kurzgesagt and CGP Grey were early members of the creator-owned streaming platform Nebula. Creators literally have an ownership stake in the business, and are paid out a slice of revenue based on their viewership.
But early on, when it was still taking the shape we know it in today, Grey and Kurzgesagt were members with an ownership stake. They left it a long time ago citing "creative differences" (or some vague nonsense like that). From little pieces that have come out on the rare occasions that existing Nebula creators have said something about it, apparently those two were less interested in the vision of Nebula as a place where multiple creators support each other in growing their collective revenue; instead they wanted to take more of a parasitic approach where they could profit off of the backs of other, smaller creators. Because the then-co-owners weren't interested in that, Grey and Kurzgesagt ended up leaving.
I can share the other if you're interested, but chiefly, it demonstrates that Kurzgesagt is deeply mistrusting, a quality known to map to mistrustful people, and it shows Dettmer behaving in a very dishonest way towards a fellow creator who went by Coffee Break (now Coffeezilla).
To be fair some wet wipes are flushable (as in they disintegrate when flushed), the problem is that not all of them are and there's no standard they have to adhere to, so even the ones that shouldn't be flushed are allowed to advertise themselves as flushable.
No that’s literally the experiment that Derek did. He “showed” that the wet wipes “disintegrated”. What they actually did was break apart under a large weight he put on top of them. That’s not what happens in a sewage system. Along with that, unless they completely dissolve they will still cause issues as the broken up strands.
Unless you are a civil engineer you should not be deciding what goes in a sewer. And no one making wet wipes are civil engineers.
I haven't seen his experiment and don't really care what he did. Other independent experiments have shown that some wet wipes do disintegrate. The reason authorities recommend against their use is what I said: there is no standard for what constitutes "flushable" and the industry is rife with false advertising.
Here's some plumbing YouTube guy testing a bunch of them and finding some that do disintegrate while others do not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVijZZ2yAtc
Of course the best option is a bidet, but this is as of yet unknown technology to most Americans.
So I just watched that video and I’m sorry, but that dude is just as bad as Veritasium.
Let’s cover some of the bad science:
And here’s where we find out what he’s looking for: 12:20. He’s seeing whether these will make it through a house plumbing system. NOT a city sewer system.
Guess what. That same guy has this video from 4 months ago: https://youtu.be/6CQ5rMRvn8I. The title: “The Lie of Flushable Wipes”. He proceeds to say no flushable wipe is safe…wait for it…except the brand he’s selling. And he directly refutes all the bits of the exact tests he ran two years ago. He even says “your sewer system doesn’t agitate the wipes, it’s like a lazy river, slowly turning”.
Think of it this way. The wipes are wet in the package they’re sold to you in. If they haven’t disintegrated in the packaging, they’re not disintegrating in the sewage system. Else they would just sell you wet toilet paper.
Based fact-checker
There's no standard they have to adhere to, but there are certifications you can look for that guarantee they break up properly.
Dont know if theres anything else, but I've seen the criticism covered in this Tom Nicholas video. I still watch Veritasium though.
I know they've been wrong a couple times. Take anything the channel says with some salt.
like you hopefully do with all things you see online, right?
Now its company owned the quality has picked up a lot. Recent videos are much more likely to be correct
Nothing like a good old corporation to make sure everything is tip-top, right.
And why would that be?
Personally, I just don't like the guy and his vibes. But I wouldn't tell random people online to avoid him, he's not that bad.
There was also that self-driving car video which turned out to be really scummy.
He created fake science experiments to sell products and slipped them into normal videos, like the video where he claimed wet wipes are flushable, then created a fake experiment “proving” they were flushable. He’s incredibly untrustworthy and also, not a scientist! He’s an art major or business, can’t remember which.
people are annoyed that he sold to a venture capital business
but then not realizing that so far, their quality improved, while also releasing more videos
i liked his older videos far more, so quality is definitely subjective. it was one guy's channel about physics with specific vibe, now it is just general channel about everything, indistinguishable from all the other science channels...
production value increased, quality took a nose dive.
which is funny because that's most established content on YT, whether you realize it or not.
people still think that youtubers with 100k+ subs do all the work themselves
Edit: sorry people, santa is also not real
absolutely not, but not all are owned by venture capital
Don't support shitty youtube. It sucks since googol bought it.
That’s the number not the company.
Don't support shitty youtube. It sucks since googol bought it.