CGP Grey

CGP Grey is an American-Irish educational YouTuber and podcaster who created his YouTube account on 12 August 2010.[3] Grey also posts videos on his secondary channels CGPGrey2 and CGP Play, describing the latter as "anti-professional streaming on a potato".[4][5][6]

CGP Grey
The stick figure Grey uses to represent himself in his videos and elsewhere
Personal information
Born
New York, U.S.
NationalityAmerican and Irish
ResidenceLondon, England
Websitewww.cgpgrey.com
YouTube information
Also known asGrey
Channels
Years active2010–present
GenreEdutainment and Education
Subscribers4.35 million+ (CGP Grey)
175,000+ (CGPGrey2)
39,500+ (CGP Play)
Total views561,104,929+ (CGP Grey)
8,483,513+ (CGPGrey2)
632,014+ (CGP Play)
Associated actsHello Internet, Brady Haran, Myke Hurley, Relay FM, Cortex
100,000 subscribers 2012 (CGP Grey)[1]
2016 (CGPGrey2)
1,000,000 subscribers 2013 (CGP Grey)[2]
Updated 11 August 2020

His YouTube channel mainly features short explanatory videos on varying subjects, including politics, geography, economics, history, and culture.[1] Grey's channel surpassed one million subscribers in 2013,[2] and his videos have been reviewed in publications such as Business Insider and The Washington Post.[7][8]

In addition to video production, Grey is known for creating the audio podcast Hello Internet in 2014 with fellow educational YouTuber, Brady Haran. Since 2015, he has also hosted the audio podcast Cortex with Myke Hurley, the co-founder of the Relay FM podcast network.[9] Along with Philipp Dettmer and Dave Wiskus, Grey started the company Standard Broadcast LLC, which provides production and administrative support to digital creators.[10] However, CGP Grey left Standard; Wiskus stated that this was due to "philosophical and creative differences at the business level".[11]

Early life and career

Grey grew up in the Long Island suburbs of New York City. He went to college in upstate New York, earning two degrees – one in physics and another in sociology.[12]

His grandmother was born in Ireland, and when he was a child, his father applied for Irish citizenship on his behalf; Grey thus has dual American–Irish citizenship.[13] This enabled him to look into opportunities in the European Union, and its then-largest city, London. He later said that if he had not lived abroad while 'still free of life's anchors', he never would later in life, which made it all the more reason for him to go. He attended a masters in economics program in London, and stayed in the city for more than a decade.[14][15]

Grey decided to become a physics teacher in the UK; he went through a one-year course to earn a physics PGCE, and graduated being qualified to teach physics in England and Wales. After spending several years teaching in the UK, Grey wanted to 'escape the system' and become self-employed. During the time he lived with his family in Hawaii to save money. His attempt 'failed miserably,' and he later returned to the UK hoping to find a teaching job and found one. He taught on until his career as a YouTube creator became reliable. Since January 2014 he has co-hosted a general discussion podcast, Hello Internet, and began a second podcast, Cortex with Myke Hurley of Relay FM.[16]

Videos

The YouTube channel CGP Grey features, among other things, Grey Explains, a series of explanatory videos[17] on a range of subjects, including politics, geography, economics, and British culture. The videos feature Grey narrating over animations, stock footage, and still photographs. While nearly all of Grey's videos feature his voice, his face has never been shown in his videos, and Grey almost always has his face obscured when appearing in other people's videos;[18] he generally uses a stick figure with glasses to represent himself.[19] Grey has stated that the presentation style of his videos is influenced by that of Yahtzee Croshaw's Zero Punctuation series.[20][21]

Grey records his voice over the music playing in the background on Logic Pro X.[22] The backing music of his early videos is usually credited to Kevin MacLeod. Since 2016, most videos contain music written by David Rees. He used to use Inkscape to make the key frames of his videos and Final Cut Pro X to edit them together from 2010 to early 2016; but now he uses Adobe After Effects to do both. The switch is primarily because he now works with other animators on most of his videos, and they use After Effects.[23] Videos are released on the channel significantly less frequently than other YouTube channels; Grey has said that this is due to thorough research and scriptwriting, with the majority of videos never being finished.[2]

Grey's video that debunks popular misconceptions has been featured on CBS,[24] as has his video about the history of the British Royal Family.[25] Two videos differentiate London, England and the City of London, while explaining the history and government of the latter.[26][27][28][29] Another two videos explaining copyright law and the Electoral College have been featured on Mashable.[17] The channel also explains the economic disadvantages of US one-cent coins in a video titled Death to Pennies.[30][31] Other videos, including How to Become Pope, have received media attention and used in instructional settings.[8][32]

Grey's video Humans Need Not Apply was covered by Business Insider[7] and Huffington Post,[33] and his animated video of Nick Bostrom's "The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant" was "unanimously praise[d]" by the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation.[34] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Grey released a video titled "Lockdown Productivity: Spaceship You" in which he provided advice on how to remain productive and sane during quarantine.[35]

Podcasts

Hello Internet

Main article: Hello Internet
The logo of Hello Internet

In January 2014, Grey launched the podcast Hello Internet along with co-host Brady Haran, another educational YouTuber and online content creator. The podcast peaked as the No. 1 iTunes podcast in United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Canada, and Australia.[36] It was selected as one of Apple's best new podcasts of 2014.[37] The Guardian included the podcast among its 50 best of 2016, naming episode 66 ("A Classic Episode") its episode of the year. The paper described the podcast as having "in-depth debates and banter that is actually amusing."[38] Grey reported a podcast listenership of approximately "a quarter million" downloads per episode as of September 2015.[39]

The podcast features discussions pertaining to their lives as professional content creators for YouTube, as well as their interests and annoyances. Typical topics include technology etiquette; movie and TV show reviews; plane accidents; vexillology; futurology; and the differences between Grey's and Haran's personalities and lifestyles.[40] Grey's and Haran's opinions and comments on feedback usually starts the next episode of the podcast. As a result of their conversations, Haran has been noted for reappropriating the term "freebooting," among other words, to refer to the unauthorized rehosting of online media.[41]

The podcast has an official flag called the "Nail & Gear" which was chosen from five candidates by a postal vote by the podcast's audience using an instant-runoff voting system.[42][43][44]

Cortex

On 3 June 2015, Grey launched his second podcast, Cortex, with co-host Myke Hurley of Relay FM. Each episode, they discuss the methods and tools they employ to be productive and creative, and how they improve their self-employed lifestyles.[45] Frequently revisited topics of discussion include time management, workflow automation, and Apple products.

gollark: Dalecoins? Tell me more.
gollark: Note that Minoteaur has no specification whatsoever.
gollark: If you want this, you do it.
gollark: I never implemented that.
gollark: Nope. It can't actually delete things.

References
  1. Grey, C.G.P. (30 January 2012). "One Year & 100,000 Subscribers Later (Thank You!)". CGP Grey. Retrieved 20 January 2013 – via YouTube.
  2. Grey, C.G.P. (20 November 2013). "Q&A with Grey #2 (One Million Subscribers)". Retrieved 15 September 2019 – via YouTube.
  3. "CGP Grey/about". Retrieved 18 July 2018 – via YouTube.
  4. "CGPGrey2". YouTube. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  5. "CGPPlay". YouTube. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  6. CGP Play (25 April 2017). "CGP Grey Trucking Madness". YouTube. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  7. Love, Dylan (13 August 2014). "Not Even Doctors And Lawyers Are Safe From Machines Taking Their Jobs". Business Insider. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
  8. Aaron Blake (25 February 2013). "Why is the pope always so old? (Video)". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  9. Hackett, Stephen (2 June 2015). "Introducing Relay FM's 2015 Summer Pilots". Relay FM. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
  10. "About Standard". Standard.tv. Standard Broadcast LLC. Archived from the original on 5 May 2018. (Cited information missing in latest version.)
  11. "r/watchnebula – watchnebula is dead on arrival". reddit. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  12. "Q&A With Grey for 500,000 Subscribers". Retrieved 3 April 2017 – via YouTube.
  13. "#26: Pick your Poison". Relay.FM. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  14. "Q&A With Grey #3: Millenia of Human Attention". Retrieved 26 March 2017 – via YouTube.
  15. "British Numbers confuse Americans – Numberphile". Retrieved 26 November 2019 – via YouTube.
  16. "H.I. #10: Two Dudes Talking". Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  17. Allegra Tepper (24 July 2012). "These 10 Videos Turn Tough Topics into Child's Play, 7. C.G.P. Grey: Copyright: Forever Less One Day". Mashable. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  18. Veritasium (28 June 2012). "Science YouTubers Unite! feat. ... CGP Grey". Retrieved 26 October 2013 – via YouTube.
  19. "Numbers confuse Americans – Numberphile". Numberphile (YouTube). 25 July 2013. Retrieved 7 November 2013.
  20. Haran, Brady; Grey, CGP (28 May 2014). "Nobody Owns the Facts". Hello Internet (Podcast). No. 13. Hellointernet.fm. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  21. Grey, C. G. P.; Hurley, Myke (14 August 2015). "Cortex #10: Zero Artistic Skills". Cortex (Podcast). Relay FM. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
  22. Grey, CGP (6 April 2014). "Twitter / cgpgrey: Finally getting the hang of..." Twitter. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
  23. Grey, CGP; Hurley, Myke. "Cortex Episode #41: Spiralling". Relay FM. Relay FM. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  24. Bailey Johnson (24 January 2012). "Eskimos do not have 100's of words for snow, and other myths debunked". CBS. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  25. Savage, Lesley (17 July 2013). "How to become a British monarch and why it won't be you". CBS. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  26. Keith Shaw (23 July 2012). "Learn about the London inside London". IT World. Archived from the original on 25 July 2012. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  27. Sam Gibbs (20 September 2012). "How to Become the Lord Mayor of the (Secret) City of London". Gizmodo UK. Retrieved 21 September 2012.
  28. The (Secret) City of London, Part 1: History, retrieved 22 April 2020
  29. The (Secret) City of London, Part 2: Government, retrieved 22 April 2020
  30. Mary Beth Quirk (13 January 2012). "The Case Against Pennies Might Make You Want To Send Yours Back To Uncle Sam For Something Useful". Consumerist. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  31. Bailey Johnson (30 November 2011). "Death to Pennies". The Feed Blog. CBS. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  32. Lindsay Jolivet (21 February 2013). "How to become pope instructional video goes viral". Yahoo! Canada. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  33. "Why Robots Will Steal Your Job, In One Brutal 15 Minute Video". HuffPost. 18 August 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
  34. "CGP Grey: The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant | Lifespan.io". www.lifespan.io. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  35. "How to Survive Staying at Home". Retrieved 2 May 2020.
  36. "CGP Grey & Brady Haran – 'Hello Internet' American iTunes Chart Performance". iTunesCharts.net. Retrieved 4 July 2014.
  37. Haran, Brady; Grey, CGP (25 December 2014). "Bumper Christmas Special". Hello Internet (Podcast). No. 27. Hellointernet.fm. 46:30 minutes in. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
  38. "The 50 best podcasts of 2016". The Guardian. 21 December 2016. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
  39. Haran, Brady; Grey, CGP (29 September 2015). "Grumpy About Art". Hello Internet (Podcast). No. 48, 58:05. Hellointernet.fm. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
  40. "Top 3 Podcasts You Must Listen To in 2016". Intention Deficit. 31 December 2015. Archived from the original on 22 August 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  41. Oremus, Will (17 July 2015). "Facebook's Piracy Problem". Slate. The Slate Group LLC. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  42. Haran, Brady; Grey, C.G.P. (16 December 2015). "Two Dudes Counting". Hello Internet (Podcast). No. 53. Hellointernet.fm. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  43. "Hello, Hello Internet!". PortlandFlag.org. 22 November 2015. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  44. "Flag Vote". Hello Internet. Retrieved 13 April 2017.
  45. "Cortex". Relay.FM. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
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