Here's an idea what if Idea Channel never actually existed and it is in fact a fantasy created in the minds of several pop culture nerds who are so neck deep in it that they have mentally constructed a UA-cam show about over analyzing pop culture, and therefore Mike himself is actually an alter analytical personality that millions of users on UA-cam have made up.
I'm about to start my senior year of university, and over the course of my time as a student, I've become increasingly aware of the elitism of ideas especially within academic circles. It certainly does not apply to every student or professor, but I've found that there are people who only want to consider ideas that come from a certain kind of source. If you happen to be as queer as I am, it's imperative to remain calm and clear as crystal in order to avoid some people's intellectual dismissal. I guess my point is that one of the things I love about Idea Channel is that anybody can comment and have their perspective valued even if they do not fit into the classic vision of a thinker. I can bring my queerness explicitly to my comment or leave it out, but I never need to hide it. I've felt continuously accepted as a viewer and as a commentator. In every episode, Idea Channel has embodied the decentralizing of the 'idea market' which I value so much. Thank you for being my favorite thing on the entire internet (that's not an exaggeration) for the past few years since I found this channel.
I've been putting off watching the final three episodes of this channel for almost five years, as a way to never have this show end. Today I guess I start the episodic walk to the funeral.
I still remember fondly the chapter of Sideways Stories from Wayside School where one of the kids was going to get a tattoo, and he ended up getting a tattoo of a potato. And all the other kids had things to say about how he should've gotten this or that other tattoo, it would've been better or cooler, but he was just like "But I wanted a tattoo of a potato." Now that is a kid to emulate ^_^ knows what he wants and doesn't let peer pressure decide for him, or social criticism make him doubt his own sense of style.
Everyone can make complex ideas, but not everyone does. Some don't take the opportunity. Thank you for providing such an opportunity for those who may not have had one otherwise.
I honestly didn't expect your videos have such a well-thought out 'strategy' (or, uh, forumla?) behind them, and I'm glad you're willing to open it up to us. It might be better that this show is ending, because I think this 'idea' is more valuable than maybe all the others you've presented - and ironically, the only way to present it, to give it justice, is to undermine the entire show as a piece performance art. Once the magic trick is revealed, the magician is out of a job. But this idea is worth sharing, because too many educators share knowledge the wrong way. They teach things to know, or methods to do, without giving the student a reason to care, beyond vague ideas of 'being educated' or 'being cultured', or more direct (but short-term) incentives, like passing a piece of assessment. Giving people direct, meaningful examples that they will care about (because it's from pop culture they consume, or it's related to recent news events) is worth more than a lecture, and I think you've done something positive. And hey, now everyone is their own idea channel.
Mike and the Idea Channel Team, I know you may not get to see this comment, however I just want to thank you for making these videos. They always sparked my curiosity and were such a relief to watch when I needed a break from school work. In a small way how the videos got my brain working and my ability to adequately research and study concepts discussed instilled me with the confidence to finish up my degree, and now I am pursuing graduate school! Thank you for everything!
This channel and this community are a beacon of hope to a world that it's drifting away from the practice of nuanced thinking. Thank you Mike, for creating materials that prompted and incentivized a love for knowledge and a higher appreciation of popular culture and thanks to this community for sparking great ideas and great discussions in a very engaging and courteous way! I will certainly miss it, but I'm also very excited for all of Mike's future endeavors and for all the amazing ideas that the members of this community will have!
I fear being wrong. I lose my repuatation of being a good idea person once I'm wrong. Once I'm wrong, people move on to the next thinker. And high achievers, especially in school, are known for fearing being wrong, and I feel like it is because of these expectations. Let's build communities where we don't attach ideas to the names that gave them. Where we don't pass the judgement on the idea onto the person. Where we don't take offense when we are wrong.
Thank you Mike for bringing us all Idea Channel. I can say that Idea Channel has helped me to develop the way that I think and go about my daily life. The mere concept of presenting concepts and receiving info as observation has helped me to better share my Ideas with others. I am so happy that you lured me in with the promise of memes and justification of my own confirmation bias. Instead of merely entertaining me you showed me a new perspective on all the things that I love and opened my mind to new things to love. The format of The Idea Channel is the best analogue for my thought process and how i process the world. The observational way of thinking has helped me to be a happier person and helped me to make other people happy as well. Once again, thank you Mike, Idea channel has helped me to become the person i am today. It might have taken me my entire life to learn the lessons that this series has taught me. I hope you get to reading this. I also hope that the Idea channel somehow outlives its brief life on UA-cam so that others may learn from it as I did. -Drake
I started watching Idea Channel and I wish I got on board a little earlier. Time to go back and watch all the old stuff and not really participate in the community...
Ive been around since early and have hardly participated. We both have our regrets. He isnt disappearing from online though, dont know what yet but hes kinda hinted at other things he has in mind after his vacation. Edit: Just want to be clear that it isnt going to be on this channel.
I'd probably give a kidney _and_ my appendix to go to this farewell event. Oh, boy, there are so many fucking things that are in my way 1. I'm underage 2. Both my mom and dad are unemployed 3. Mom's a freelancer, but, since she is getting a master's degree she's not doing any jobs for the moment 4. My stepmother just had twins earlier this year and my dad is not only buying a house but also trying to start a company 5. I live in Brazil. Far away and in crisis. Oh, well. ... BUT MIKE WILL BE THERE SOOOOOO PACKIN' MA BAGS also R.I.P. Idea Channel, I fucking love you
In the context of communication ideas must be commonalities, but to stand out they must be different, this duality always plays into my concept of confidence, as it really is in many ways about what you feel you can confide to the people around you. To constrict yourself to having only original ideas is a quick way to stop communicating, so it's a real balance in making a piece of art or culture and even just in conversation sometimes to not be afraid to draw upon the world and ideas which aren't just yours, but also to keep being spontaneous, random and to keep shaping your ideas (consciously or unconsciously) to resemble yourself.
I am so sad to see this channel reach its end. I think this has been one of the very best things on the internet. You've provided deep and meaningful but still light hearted insight for so many topics from the grand to the very mundane. Never above a cheap laugh, and yet a source of wisdom anyway. Thanks so much for all the thought and effort over the years. A genuine force for good in a maddening world.
Thank you for doing Idea Channel for so many years. I only discovered it a couple of months ago, and I have watched nearly every video already. A couple weeks after I subscribed, I was sad to see the video about Idea Channel ending.
There's been some good ideas and some less agreeable ones, but all in all it's been a good ride. And it's been a real treat to see my own contribution make it into a couple of the discussion videos! I've been challenged on a few things and really made to consider unconventional viewpoints, and that's always a good thing. It may be difficult to quantify the affect Idea Channel has had, but it's really a special thing when a UA-cam comment section can be this consistently good, even when dealing with controversial issues. Here's to whatever comes next (maybe a bit preemptive given the two videos still on the way), and to the hope that more will be inspired to do as you've done here~
I will miss new videos when you're gone. BUT this is not a sad thing. this channel has inspired deep thought, and has even been shared with others to nothing but positive ends.
This was extremely inspiration. You turned something that I was sad about, Idea Channel ending, and turned around instead of this being an ending you thrust the torch of ideas and the tools needed into the hands of everyone watching this video. Thank-you.
Well, now I know why I liked this channel so much. Apparently I was using nomadic thought most of my life. It's strange when we have "original thoughts" on our own, but then find out that someone else had them before us (and given them a name). I'll miss this channel. Thanks for everything Mike.
I got close to crying already. I think it is likely I'll go all out with bawling in the next two episodes. Amazing stuff as always, Mike, and the team.
Here's an idea: Mike is secretly a grey alien who feeds off of the thinking process of primitive species like humans, he's one among many who came here to conquer earth and use our ideas as cattle for their eternal hunger.
I really appreciate how you tried to allow for differing ideas and perspectives, and how you recognize that others can experience a complete different reality from you. I am queer and the gender episodes you did way back helped turn me on to philosophy and cultural theory. In those episodes especially you drew from ideas that were based around an experience that was totally different from yours and still allowed for a discussion that recognized different perspectives as valid. Compared to the lack of civil discussion occuring in the present, the fact that this community has stayed open to contrasting views without polluting discourse altogether is inspiring. It's sad to see you go.
Holy cow I've never been so early to one of your videos before, but I literally couldn't wait to watch this one. I think another kind of point to make in regards to your "taking big ideas and mixing it with other ideas," is it really creates a place for people who aren't familiar with these big-name theories a good applied introduction. You mentioned this somewhat in the video, but I think it's an important point, at least for me personally. At this point I've read stuff like 1000 Plateaus and the like, but I dunno if I would've ever heard of folks like Baudrillard or Barthes as early as I did if it wasn't for you and your videos. You do a great job of not just giving a basic overview of people, but in fact applying and using them in places that we (the audience) are familiar with. I think that's one of the best parts of Idea Channel, is that ability to make hugely complex ideas accessible without necessarily just "dumbing them down" or "simplifying" them.
So sadhappy to begin this farewell tour, and I love this episode because it so adroitly and clearly puts into words something that I've felt and understood about IC for so long, without the terminology to state it, BUT: Mostly, I'm just loving how Ben is pulling out ALL THE STOPS, as we head into the home stretch. Kudos, ʒife-meister.
This idea about doing then deciding what you make of the experience is new and helpful for me, since I have a hard time writing due to too much self criticism. So thanks for this one especially.
seeing idea channel under the interpretation of nomadic thought was the first thing so far to actually convince me that you're right in ending such a good show.
The practice of name-giving is a fascinating one. I love the use instead of build perspective on thought, but I never had words to describe it. And now the words have lifted this perspective out of the realm of sensations into the world of concepts. Thank you Mike :)
Honestly Mike, I think you should seriously consider your next step as confronting all the "bad" ideas out there. You have previously steered relatively away from the polarizing ideas, with a few amazing exceptions. Our world is increasingly becoming an ideological war front and I think you could do some amazing work digging into the trenches and start more dialogues across isles. I'm pretty positive that this needs to happen more, and it needs someone thoughtful to lead it. I can think of no one better than you. I hope you at least consider this and thank you for all you've done.
I really wish I'd found this channel much earlier. As usual, I found something awesome not long before it ends. I'll still be going through the older videos and enjoying them, some of them more than once so I can reflect on them, but it'll be a sad thing, knowing that it's finite and there are no new ones coming. I wish you the best in wherever you're going next - and I'll be watching for that!
So I don't actually comment in any media a lot, but I just wanted to say that nothing has made me want to interact in forums like UA-cam more than Idea Channel. UA-cam comments are famously fickle, and the idea of embracing that forum as completely as this channel does has, for me, really expanded the idea of what an Internet community can look like. The conversations that have been supported through this channel, the material for the episodes, and the wide variety of media that Idea Channel has introduced me to, have noticeably impacted my own conversations, interactions and ideas since I first subscribed. I point people to this channel's material as often as I can, and will continue to do so as long as it is conversationally relevant (Which will be at least as long as I keep using GIF/JIF/ZHAIF to discuss the fragility of language and irritate my friends). So thanks, and best of luck to all in whatever other communities we find ourselves.
I think this is a very healthy and productive way of looking at things. We tend to be daunted by the giants of the past. We think we cannot match them, but their greatness is built upon their past and so we can do the same. The only thing left to do is trying.
Idea Channel has been kind of formative to me through highschool and college. Also, I have a blanket which I crochetted entirely while watching Idea Channel episodes in high school
As already noted in the comments, it seems like this is more an idea about ideas :-) "the philosophy of Idea Channel" in a sense. It feels like you explain the thought process in depth, with care and honesty. Love it :-)
This tends to be my modus operandi. I just have ideas, I exposit them and I guage reactions, I store them and I move on. I will get back to some of them and be surprised and that is when the building process really starts.
I just watched an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson where he talks about how people who are struggling to survive don't really have time to wonder about the nature of the universe, and I get that. To some degree, our ability to have complex ideas is due to the security of homes and reliable food; we have the luxury and _time_ to consider impractical things (not saying impractical stuff is bad, it's just that some people can afford it and some can't).
I love this! The idea that the value in ideas is their application. Here's an idea - our brains are incentivized to discover simpler and better ways of predicting the world. Each idea is a component in the stew of synapses, contributing to larger ideas that your brain learns to reach for in certain situations. As you experience more things, you are better able to find commonality and reduce the number of neurons needed to sufficiently "describe" an idea. There are a lot of tempting analogies from machine learning, where we are constantly looking for more efficient ways to teach computers strategies for learning from data (experiences) - to the point where the representation of the data inside the model is also learned, much like it appears to be in our brains.
I'm going to be in New York that week! Also, I kind of wish this was more what VidCon panels were like, the structured thought of how to run a channel. Not just how to get more view but how to have and execute a mission for a community.
So, if one uses an idea before it has been cemented in their thought, they have a better chance of improving that idea. More so if that idea is shared in a space where it can be constructively criticized.
Nomadic thought for you - living inside of our shared reality bubbled up into our species and out of our mouths is ideas...and we take these ideas to mean exactly what is the reality we share. and then we live by them as if they were not quite so fictional, not fragile stained glass of ancient churches but the mountains our holy men came down from. and we build the cathedrals so that we can come together and share. the more we share the more bricks are in the church the more it seems to be a mountain. it becomes inescapable. so we abstract away enough for perspective but as we do we have reformed once again and collapsed back into this shared space so that when we synthesize we are still inside. you are the architect of my thought and I of yours. and we keep moving and building and breaking and remaking and underneath it all still lies the same truths about ourselves. we are still telling the same stories and creating the same frameworks that we did when we first arose from the dust upright. and we feel as if each telling is more pure more right more just more correct...what if it was the first concepts that were at the truest they could ever be...when the first brick was laid and I went next door to your cave and struggled to make sounds that we could share and when we shared them we felt the purity of the concept and the purity of sharing it... or more likely we began to fight because you didn't understand exactly what I was saying and I couldn't fathom how this revelation didn't immediately overwhelm you with a sense of awe and absolute truth.
As a filmmaker & visual artist I want to share ideas. It's hard to articulate when you've spent most of your life behind an easel or at an editing bay. I think it important to get your ideas out there because we get bogged down by ideas if we allow them to stagnate.
Great thinking. Thanks for sharing. "Nomadic thinking" is also a great way of thinking for people who like to think aloud/verbalize and exchange their thoughts with others.
The comment responses are understated pretty severely, I think. There are a few important functions that comment response videos serve, and one of the most important ones is to provoke thought. Inviting all kinds of constructive thought into a discussion creates a sort of natural desire to be part of that conversation, and to help advance ideas further than before comments were left. Comment response videos are important because they remind the viewer that the conversation isn't over with what the video says - there is always room to question, expand, and modify existing ideas to make them better, even the time-tested ones by famous philosophers, and anybody can take part in this process of idea refinement, and the very concept of idea refinement is one of the most powerful thinking tools a person can have.
It's strange yet satisfying to think about ideas in this way. I know I have ideas and I know I evaluate them but I don't know how frequently, actively or to what end they are influenced by other thinkers but I know they happen. That all said I know this show has definitely changed the way I think. I wonder if that's the case with others in this community. I imagine so but still think it would be cool to hear from others and also if it changed how Mike thinks and works with ideas as well.
I forgot about this channel because youtube decided I wasn't watching enough, one of your videos popped up in a conversation with a friend and I find out the channel is done. Sad day.
Holy cow this was an amazing episode! Especially 7:52 to 9:27 - which I want to dig into. From my perspective, a lot of the idea channel conversation has been rather secular and rarely makes connections to faith-based schemes of thought. My own Christian faith is personally my fundamental frame of reference, and as a result I often haven't connected strongly with IC (even though I like it very much!) But the section of the video I just mentioned really seized me on an emotional level because the concepts there strongly parallel some of my faith's important themes "incarnating ideas in a foreign medium" In my view, one of the main activities God created us for (secondary to knowing him) - to engage with his creation by cultivation, remixing it, transforming one medium to another, inventing new media and creating works of our own "authors steal from other disciplines with glee but they are more than happy to return the favour" OK, so God invented everything rather than building on someone else's idea, but it stands that he absolutely rejoices in our creative exercise - having ideas, and as you say... "worry more about using, exploring, testing" God loves us to engage with his creation, understand it, puzzle it out, play with it - even if it's just for the sheer joy of it, with no concrete purpose "and ideally we do it together ... with one another, in conversation" God literally created us in order to extend the trinitarian community of himself - who do everything together. He desires for us to join in, and do life with him in every aspect of our lives. In the garden God walked with Adam and Eve, he listened to them and spoke with them. He listens and speaks now - whoever has ears, let them hear! These are all aspects of the Creation element of the gospel - it hasn't been necessary to refer to the Fall, Redemption or the New Creation, but I wanted to mention them, just to highlight that Creation isn't the whole picture of my faith/worldview, though an essential one! Phew! Long comment, thanks for reading. Hopefully I communicated my thoughts effectively Also... the zhaif game in this episode was seriously out of this world!!
"Don't have just ideas, just have ideas." What a beautiful idea to work from. Mike, your work has definitely been inspiring, and sparked many conversations about ideas. In my own life I find the phrase "Here's an Idea" creeping into my everyday speech, often preceding an absurd but curious thought. I was wondering if your philosophy of "nomadic thought" has anything to do with the onslaught of Zhaifs and references accompanying you in upper right corner of the screen. What thought goes into those? Cheers, good luck, and thanks for everything.
1) a concept is a particular sequence of thoughts strung together to give rise to a unique meaning not already contained within any other sub-strings of thoughts 2) an idea is simply a particular sequence of such concepts strung together to carry a higher dimensional meaning 3) a meta-idea is an idea of an idea.. a photo of a photo of a collection of thoughts still in the process of being developed.. of becoming something that may carry meaning in this world.. (if and only if it were to be recognized to carry significance).. in those rare instances the thought photographer may be so blessed as to witness the rare event and capture an idea of an idea so fundamental as to reveal the foundations of all thought.. with such penetrating insight.. this image may serve to change our perception of reality.. and perhaps even reality itself.. (care must be taken as to which ideas should be captured and how they should be portrayed less the power of changing the perceptions of others taints our ambitious natures) 4) idea channel is a channel that discussed many ideas
Meta Ideas...I love it! Great episode, I especially like your ending remarks because I am always overly cautious in trying to express my ideas. I guess I should be more concerned in expressing them period.
Talking about ideas & concepts: I wonder what PBS stands for. The only time I came upon this three letters was in a Kurt Vonnegut jr. novel & it's meaning was "pearls before swines". Bingo?
Looks like I have a new book to read. Nomadic thought puts into context the approach to thinking I've always more or less used, and goes a long way towards understanding why Idea Channel resonated with me so much off the bat. I hope my own work reflects your influence this well. Speaking of which, an interesting outgrowth of nomadic thought is what for convenience I'll call nomadic storytelling. Off the top of my head I can only really think of Homestuck doing this--borrowing plot beats and thematic arcs from sources as diverse as Peter Pan, The Princess Bride, The Neverending Story (the novel), Gnostic, Greco-Roman and Egyptian mythology and working them into its own plot in turn. I wonder what other stories are out there that use reference and taking from other works outright to structure themselves that way.
I think Aristotle would be proud of Idea Channel and its fellow idea nomads. To him, art is FOR working through ideas and emotions. He coined the term "katharsis" for it, referring to the popular tragedy plays of the time. He wrote in response to popular culture in The Poetics, writing a manual for what makes a great play. He believes great art makes profound truths stick in our minds. We SHOULD be thinking of art in this way, dragging our friend to coffee to exposit our epiphany of how Doctor Who gave us an understanding of religion or how the way we label products is influenced by our culture. Heck, Aristotle didn't even want us to be able to vote until we could think critically. (How we could measure that is another thesis paper in and of itself.) He called people who could think critically about their world, have a wide breadth of experience, and masters of his 11 virtues the guardians, and that these people should be our leaders. I think Aristotle would be proud to sit down with a Yoda mug of coffee and discuss these same conversations with us
Nice thoughts and ideas. I couldn't find 11 virtues of Plato, so I guess you mean the 12 virtues of Aristotle? I'm sure the ancient ones and their ideas were not invulnerable to flaws but I agree those virtues are pretty great and in my opinion make a good way to judge a person by. These virtues and your point about art are the reason why I mostly listen to music that has meaningful lyrics and is made by good people. I got this quote by Ernst Fischer from a band shirt I have: "In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it."
I've been thinking like this recently but with respect to writing. I've been doing lots of stream f consciousness writing, ideas, thoughts and observations- often not even adhering to explanatory or narrative structures. I have found that it has allowed me the capacity to simply write and then to digest my writings as I see fit, after the fact. It's a kind of meditation really.
This notion of using ideas for things which they were not originally intended made me think of a quote from William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy: "The street finds its own use for things." So while there may be a...caste? Quorum? Cabal? of elite thinkers who build ideas from scratch, it falls to us, the people on the street, to use those ideas in our everyday lives. We can learn to be Idea-hackers, breaking down convention and applying the results in a more democratic, more open-source kind of way. Anyway, Mike, just want to say thanks- I've been following this channel from the beginning, and it's never let me down. Time to see where the road ahead takes us.
I think we all kinda cant know if we are right and kinda just work with has work for us and others most of the time, we may be building castles of sand but we kinda can't know until we test it. I think we are all in exploration duty and I think treating ideas like so is a nice idea on itself :)
Hey Mike, I am currently binge watching your channel while I am writing my master thesis in chemistry, I really like your and am sad that it is ending. I wanted to tell you guys that your Idea Channel in chronological order playlist is missing some episodes, the bullet hell episode from late 2013 for example is missing in the playlist.
I felt like you were implying but not outright saying that the goal of talking about the classics like this, of not worrying about getting them perfect is to let people who might feel that they have no place with the classics (especially people historically denied from academic discussion) to feel a little more able. My own issues with studying a lot of philosophy in school meant I didn't really quote philosopher's or even academics in general as much as I'd like, but these videos gave me a framework to connect with them. I still will likely not read a philosophy book, because I'm still uncomfortable, but I have some kind of seat at the table when people talk about them
My roving thoughts: The world is in a constant state of flux. That includes us, not just physical entities but as creatures of ideas, memetic if you will. I've changed how I view things, constantly and consistently, as have you. Yes, you. The hard part is seeing others as having this almost magical ability, we other them, trying to anchor them to their current mode of thought. My current way of thinking is to let go of ideas, separate them from myself and my ego, end let them do their thing. Let them touch others as they will, and be touched by the thoughts of others as I can. Also, you're a pretty cool dude Mike.
Here's an idea idea
What is the opposite of a welcome potato? A goodbye artichoke?
What's the most impactful word in Public Broadcast Service Idea Channel's name?
EDIT: All of them, or none of them?
A farewell funnelcake
Here's an idea what if Idea Channel never actually existed and it is in fact a fantasy created in the minds of several pop culture nerds who are so neck deep in it that they have mentally constructed a UA-cam show about over analyzing pop culture, and therefore Mike himself is actually an alter analytical personality that millions of users on UA-cam have made up.
The problem is that I met him once,... HOW DEEP DOES THIS GO?!?!?
I'm about to start my senior year of university, and over the course of my time as a student, I've become increasingly aware of the elitism of ideas especially within academic circles. It certainly does not apply to every student or professor, but I've found that there are people who only want to consider ideas that come from a certain kind of source. If you happen to be as queer as I am, it's imperative to remain calm and clear as crystal in order to avoid some people's intellectual dismissal. I guess my point is that one of the things I love about Idea Channel is that anybody can comment and have their perspective valued even if they do not fit into the classic vision of a thinker. I can bring my queerness explicitly to my comment or leave it out, but I never need to hide it. I've felt continuously accepted as a viewer and as a commentator. In every episode, Idea Channel has embodied the decentralizing of the 'idea market' which I value so much. Thank you for being my favorite thing on the entire internet (that's not an exaggeration) for the past few years since I found this channel.
What I'm gonna miss most are the GIFs (not GIFs). I've never seen a channel with a so perfect selection. Whoever selects them deserves a medal.
We're never going to have the "Is skateboarding actually a kind of ballet?" episode.
It took me five years to say this... Thank you. Thank you for making these great videos.
I've been putting off watching the final three episodes of this channel for almost five years, as a way to never have this show end. Today I guess I start the episodic walk to the funeral.
1:44-1:50
BUT WHAT IS MORE UNEXPECTED THAN A POTATO, MIKE?!?!?!? :P
Doughboy Devito I know the answer:
POTATO.
See, I thought you would say two potatoes, but then you had to go an surprise me with a single potato.
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
I still remember fondly the chapter of Sideways Stories from Wayside School where one of the kids was going to get a tattoo, and he ended up getting a tattoo of a potato.
And all the other kids had things to say about how he should've gotten this or that other tattoo, it would've been better or cooler, but he was just like "But I wanted a tattoo of a potato."
Now that is a kid to emulate ^_^ knows what he wants and doesn't let peer pressure decide for him, or social criticism make him doubt his own sense of style.
I would've said no potatoes.
Everyone can make complex ideas, but not everyone does. Some don't take the opportunity. Thank you for providing such an opportunity for those who may not have had one otherwise.
I honestly didn't expect your videos have such a well-thought out 'strategy' (or, uh, forumla?) behind them, and I'm glad you're willing to open it up to us.
It might be better that this show is ending, because I think this 'idea' is more valuable than maybe all the others you've presented - and ironically, the only way to present it, to give it justice, is to undermine the entire show as a piece performance art. Once the magic trick is revealed, the magician is out of a job.
But this idea is worth sharing, because too many educators share knowledge the wrong way. They teach things to know, or methods to do, without giving the student a reason to care, beyond vague ideas of 'being educated' or 'being cultured', or more direct (but short-term) incentives, like passing a piece of assessment. Giving people direct, meaningful examples that they will care about (because it's from pop culture they consume, or it's related to recent news events) is worth more than a lecture, and I think you've done something positive.
And hey, now everyone is their own idea channel.
Mike and the Idea Channel Team, I know you may not get to see this comment, however I just want to thank you for making these videos. They always sparked my curiosity and were such a relief to watch when I needed a break from school work. In a small way how the videos got my brain working and my ability to adequately research and study concepts discussed instilled me with the confidence to finish up my degree, and now I am pursuing graduate school!
Thank you for everything!
Here's an idea, the world needs the idea channel
This channel and this community are a beacon of hope to a world that it's drifting away from the practice of nuanced thinking. Thank you Mike, for creating materials that prompted and incentivized a love for knowledge and a higher appreciation of popular culture and thanks to this community for sparking great ideas and great discussions in a very engaging and courteous way! I will certainly miss it, but I'm also very excited for all of Mike's future endeavors and for all the amazing ideas that the members of this community will have!
This is a great example of why you write the introduction to your paper last.
I'm going to cry when this is over.
I fear being wrong. I lose my repuatation of being a good idea person once I'm wrong. Once I'm wrong, people move on to the next thinker. And high achievers, especially in school, are known for fearing being wrong, and I feel like it is because of these expectations. Let's build communities where we don't attach ideas to the names that gave them. Where we don't pass the judgement on the idea onto the person. Where we don't take offense when we are wrong.
This comment deserves more likes.
Thank you Mike for bringing us all Idea Channel. I can say that Idea Channel has helped me to develop the way that I think and go about my daily life. The mere concept of presenting concepts and receiving info as observation has helped me to better share my Ideas with others. I am so happy that you lured me in with the promise of memes and justification of my own confirmation bias. Instead of merely entertaining me you showed me a new perspective on all the things that I love and opened my mind to new things to love. The format of The Idea Channel is the best analogue for my thought process and how i process the world. The observational way of thinking has helped me to be a happier person and helped me to make other people happy as well.
Once again, thank you Mike, Idea channel has helped me to become the person i am today. It might have taken me my entire life to learn the lessons that this series has taught me. I hope you get to reading this. I also hope that the Idea channel somehow outlives its brief life on UA-cam so that others may learn from it as I did.
-Drake
"Be the Idea Channel you wish to see in the world."
-Mike, 2017
In the ashes of the Idea Channel;
We think, we become the new idea.
Thanks Idea Channel, it's been a wild ride. Stay gold.
In this video, Mike gives us guidelines to follow to make our own Idea Channels. You could even name it Idea Channel.
Mike would be the best freshman composition instructor ever
I started watching Idea Channel and I wish I got on board a little earlier. Time to go back and watch all the old stuff and not really participate in the community...
Sadly same.
Ive been around since early and have hardly participated. We both have our regrets. He isnt disappearing from online though, dont know what yet but hes kinda hinted at other things he has in mind after his vacation. Edit: Just want to be clear that it isnt going to be on this channel.
I'd probably give a kidney _and_ my appendix to go to this farewell event. Oh, boy, there are so many fucking things that are in my way
1. I'm underage
2. Both my mom and dad are unemployed
3. Mom's a freelancer, but, since she is getting a master's degree she's not doing any jobs for the moment
4. My stepmother just had twins earlier this year and my dad is not only buying a house but also trying to start a company
5. I live in Brazil. Far away and in crisis. Oh, well.
...
BUT MIKE WILL BE THERE SOOOOOO
PACKIN' MA BAGS
also R.I.P. Idea Channel, I fucking love you
In the context of communication ideas must be commonalities, but to stand out they must be different, this duality always plays into my concept of confidence, as it really is in many ways about what you feel you can confide to the people around you.
To constrict yourself to having only original ideas is a quick way to stop communicating, so it's a real balance in making a piece of art or culture and even just in conversation sometimes to not be afraid to draw upon the world and ideas which aren't just yours, but also to keep being spontaneous, random and to keep shaping your ideas (consciously or unconsciously) to resemble yourself.
I am so sad to see this channel reach its end. I think this has been one of the very best things on the internet. You've provided deep and meaningful but still light hearted insight for so many topics from the grand to the very mundane. Never above a cheap laugh, and yet a source of wisdom anyway.
Thanks so much for all the thought and effort over the years. A genuine force for good in a maddening world.
Thank you for doing Idea Channel for so many years. I only discovered it a couple of months ago, and I have watched nearly every video already. A couple weeks after I subscribed, I was sad to see the video about Idea Channel ending.
There's been some good ideas and some less agreeable ones, but all in all it's been a good ride. And it's been a real treat to see my own contribution make it into a couple of the discussion videos! I've been challenged on a few things and really made to consider unconventional viewpoints, and that's always a good thing. It may be difficult to quantify the affect Idea Channel has had, but it's really a special thing when a UA-cam comment section can be this consistently good, even when dealing with controversial issues.
Here's to whatever comes next (maybe a bit preemptive given the two videos still on the way), and to the hope that more will be inspired to do as you've done here~
I will miss new videos when you're gone.
BUT this is not a sad thing.
this channel has inspired deep thought, and has even been shared with others to nothing but positive ends.
This was extremely inspiration. You turned something that I was sad about, Idea Channel ending, and turned around instead of this being an ending you thrust the torch of ideas and the tools needed into the hands of everyone watching this video. Thank-you.
When Idea Channel goes, I'm going to struggle without regularly hearing Mike say "Content" in his pirate voice.
"Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear." ~Lucas
I like the idea of having ideas and then deciding whether they're right.. it's like every essay I've ever written
Well, now I know why I liked this channel so much. Apparently I was using nomadic thought most of my life. It's strange when we have "original thoughts" on our own, but then find out that someone else had them before us (and given them a name).
I'll miss this channel. Thanks for everything Mike.
I got close to crying already. I think it is likely I'll go all out with bawling in the next two episodes. Amazing stuff as always, Mike, and the team.
Here's an idea: Mike is secretly a grey alien who feeds off of the thinking process of primitive species like humans, he's one among many who came here to conquer earth and use our ideas as cattle for their eternal hunger.
I really appreciate how you tried to allow for differing ideas and perspectives, and how you recognize that others can experience a complete different reality from you. I am queer and the gender episodes you did way back helped turn me on to philosophy and cultural theory. In those episodes especially you drew from ideas that were based around an experience that was totally different from yours and still allowed for a discussion that recognized different perspectives as valid. Compared to the lack of civil discussion occuring in the present, the fact that this community has stayed open to contrasting views without polluting discourse altogether is inspiring. It's sad to see you go.
Holy cow I've never been so early to one of your videos before, but I literally couldn't wait to watch this one.
I think another kind of point to make in regards to your "taking big ideas and mixing it with other ideas," is it really creates a place for people who aren't familiar with these big-name theories a good applied introduction. You mentioned this somewhat in the video, but I think it's an important point, at least for me personally. At this point I've read stuff like 1000 Plateaus and the like, but I dunno if I would've ever heard of folks like Baudrillard or Barthes as early as I did if it wasn't for you and your videos. You do a great job of not just giving a basic overview of people, but in fact applying and using them in places that we (the audience) are familiar with. I think that's one of the best parts of Idea Channel, is that ability to make hugely complex ideas accessible without necessarily just "dumbing them down" or "simplifying" them.
So sadhappy to begin this farewell tour, and I love this episode because it so adroitly and clearly puts into words something that I've felt and understood about IC for so long, without the terminology to state it, BUT:
Mostly, I'm just loving how Ben is pulling out ALL THE STOPS, as we head into the home stretch. Kudos, ʒife-meister.
Next episode: What are Channels, and who gets to have them?
you guys are awesome, thanks for touching our lives with your nomadic thoughts...
It's such a good idea for a finale!
This idea about doing then deciding what you make of the experience is new and helpful for me, since I have a hard time writing due to too much self criticism. So thanks for this one especially.
Anyone else feel like the gifs and animations person was just going ham in this episode?
Yeah at 2:41, he lists religion and the TARDIS shows up 😂
seeing idea channel under the interpretation of nomadic thought was the first thing so far to actually convince me that you're right in ending such a good show.
RIP Idea Channel - will miss you ;(
the dancing mike around the four minute mark is exemplary work, and funny as hell
The practice of name-giving is a fascinating one. I love the use instead of build perspective on thought, but I never had words to describe it. And now the words have lifted this perspective out of the realm of sensations into the world of concepts. Thank you Mike :)
Honestly Mike, I think you should seriously consider your next step as confronting all the "bad" ideas out there. You have previously steered relatively away from the polarizing ideas, with a few amazing exceptions. Our world is increasingly becoming an ideological war front and I think you could do some amazing work digging into the trenches and start more dialogues across isles.
I'm pretty positive that this needs to happen more, and it needs someone thoughtful to lead it. I can think of no one better than you.
I hope you at least consider this and thank you for all you've done.
I really wish I'd found this channel much earlier. As usual, I found something awesome not long before it ends. I'll still be going through the older videos and enjoying them, some of them more than once so I can reflect on them, but it'll be a sad thing, knowing that it's finite and there are no new ones coming. I wish you the best in wherever you're going next - and I'll be watching for that!
So I don't actually comment in any media a lot, but I just wanted to say that nothing has made me want to interact in forums like UA-cam more than Idea Channel.
UA-cam comments are famously fickle, and the idea of embracing that forum as completely as this channel does has, for me, really expanded the idea of what an Internet community can look like. The conversations that have been supported through this channel, the material for the episodes, and the wide variety of media that Idea Channel has introduced me to, have noticeably impacted my own conversations, interactions and ideas since I first subscribed.
I point people to this channel's material as often as I can, and will continue to do so as long as it is conversationally relevant (Which will be at least as long as I keep using GIF/JIF/ZHAIF to discuss the fragility of language and irritate my friends).
So thanks, and best of luck to all in whatever other communities we find ourselves.
I think this is a very healthy and productive way of looking at things.
We tend to be daunted by the giants of the past. We think we cannot match them, but their greatness is built upon their past and so we can do the same.
The only thing left to do is trying.
If that's what made this a good channel, then I'm all for it.
Idea Channel has been kind of formative to me through highschool and college.
Also, I have a blanket which I crochetted entirely while watching Idea Channel episodes in high school
i'll miss this show
As already noted in the comments, it seems like this is more an idea about ideas :-) "the philosophy of Idea Channel" in a sense. It feels like you explain the thought process in depth, with care and honesty. Love it :-)
It make me sad that I missed all of this. 8 months later and I'm finding out this show is over
This tends to be my modus operandi. I just have ideas, I exposit them and I guage reactions, I store them and I move on. I will get back to some of them and be surprised and that is when the building process really starts.
I just watched an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson where he talks about how people who are struggling to survive don't really have time to wonder about the nature of the universe, and I get that. To some degree, our ability to have complex ideas is due to the security of homes and reliable food; we have the luxury and _time_ to consider impractical things (not saying impractical stuff is bad, it's just that some people can afford it and some can't).
I love this! The idea that the value in ideas is their application. Here's an idea - our brains are incentivized to discover simpler and better ways of predicting the world. Each idea is a component in the stew of synapses, contributing to larger ideas that your brain learns to reach for in certain situations. As you experience more things, you are better able to find commonality and reduce the number of neurons needed to sufficiently "describe" an idea.
There are a lot of tempting analogies from machine learning, where we are constantly looking for more efficient ways to teach computers strategies for learning from data (experiences) - to the point where the representation of the data inside the model is also learned, much like it appears to be in our brains.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I'm gunna cry after part 3
I'm going to be in New York that week! Also, I kind of wish this was more what VidCon panels were like, the structured thought of how to run a channel. Not just how to get more view but how to have and execute a mission for a community.
+
+
SciJoy +
I will be there too. Would love to have this conversation.
So, if one uses an idea before it has been cemented in their thought, they have a better chance of improving that idea.
More so if that idea is shared in a space where it can be constructively criticized.
I can only imagine a ton of people making idea channel copies to keep the idea chain going.
Nomadic thought for you - living inside of our shared reality bubbled up into our species and out of our mouths is ideas...and we take these ideas to mean exactly what is the reality we share. and then we live by them as if they were not quite so fictional, not fragile stained glass of ancient churches but the mountains our holy men came down from. and we build the cathedrals so that we can come together and share. the more we share the more bricks are in the church the more it seems to be a mountain. it becomes inescapable. so we abstract away enough for perspective but as we do we have reformed once again and collapsed back into this shared space so that when we synthesize we are still inside. you are the architect of my thought and I of yours. and we keep moving and building and breaking and remaking and underneath it all still lies the same truths about ourselves. we are still telling the same stories and creating the same frameworks that we did when we first arose from the dust upright. and we feel as if each telling is more pure more right more just more correct...what if it was the first concepts that were at the truest they could ever be...when the first brick was laid and I went next door to your cave and struggled to make sounds that we could share and when we shared them we felt the purity of the concept and the purity of sharing it...
or more likely we began to fight because you didn't understand exactly what I was saying and I couldn't fathom how this revelation didn't immediately overwhelm you with a sense of awe and absolute truth.
As a filmmaker & visual artist I want to share ideas. It's hard to articulate when you've spent most of your life behind an easel or at an editing bay. I think it important to get your ideas out there because we get bogged down by ideas if we allow them to stagnate.
Great thinking. Thanks for sharing. "Nomadic thinking" is also a great way of thinking for people who like to think aloud/verbalize and exchange their thoughts with others.
Im really going to miss you guys
Here's an idea, Hotdogs are sandwiches, period.
Yes I indeed often think of potato
I'm so meta, even this acronym
Potatoes are full of complex carbohydrates. Does that make them complex ideas?
The comment responses are understated pretty severely, I think. There are a few important functions that comment response videos serve, and one of the most important ones is to provoke thought. Inviting all kinds of constructive thought into a discussion creates a sort of natural desire to be part of that conversation, and to help advance ideas further than before comments were left. Comment response videos are important because they remind the viewer that the conversation isn't over with what the video says - there is always room to question, expand, and modify existing ideas to make them better, even the time-tested ones by famous philosophers, and anybody can take part in this process of idea refinement, and the very concept of idea refinement is one of the most powerful thinking tools a person can have.
The idea of "a book might not be able to contain it" is very similar to the gödel incompleteness theorem in Mathematics.
All the feels!
It's strange yet satisfying to think about ideas in this way. I know I have ideas and I know I evaluate them but I don't know how frequently, actively or to what end they are influenced by other thinkers but I know they happen. That all said I know this show has definitely changed the way I think. I wonder if that's the case with others in this community. I imagine so but still think it would be cool to hear from others and also if it changed how Mike thinks and works with ideas as well.
Jung said that people don't so much have ideas, rather that the ideas appear in their heads and they believe them.
I forgot about this channel because youtube decided I wasn't watching enough, one of your videos popped up in a conversation with a friend and I find out the channel is done. Sad day.
Holy cow this was an amazing episode! Especially 7:52 to 9:27 - which I want to dig into. From my perspective, a lot of the idea channel conversation has been rather secular and rarely makes connections to faith-based schemes of thought. My own Christian faith is personally my fundamental frame of reference, and as a result I often haven't connected strongly with IC (even though I like it very much!) But the section of the video I just mentioned really seized me on an emotional level because the concepts there strongly parallel some of my faith's important themes
"incarnating ideas in a foreign medium"
In my view, one of the main activities God created us for (secondary to knowing him) - to engage with his creation by cultivation, remixing it, transforming one medium to another, inventing new media and creating works of our own
"authors steal from other disciplines with glee but they are more than happy to return the favour"
OK, so God invented everything rather than building on someone else's idea, but it stands that he absolutely rejoices in our creative exercise - having ideas, and as you say...
"worry more about using, exploring, testing"
God loves us to engage with his creation, understand it, puzzle it out, play with it - even if it's just for the sheer joy of it, with no concrete purpose
"and ideally we do it together ... with one another, in conversation"
God literally created us in order to extend the trinitarian community of himself - who do everything together. He desires for us to join in, and do life with him in every aspect of our lives. In the garden God walked with Adam and Eve, he listened to them and spoke with them. He listens and speaks now - whoever has ears, let them hear!
These are all aspects of the Creation element of the gospel - it hasn't been necessary to refer to the Fall, Redemption or the New Creation, but I wanted to mention them, just to highlight that Creation isn't the whole picture of my faith/worldview, though an essential one!
Phew! Long comment, thanks for reading. Hopefully I communicated my thoughts effectively
Also... the zhaif game in this episode was seriously out of this world!!
"Don't have just ideas, just have ideas." What a beautiful idea to work from.
Mike, your work has definitely been inspiring, and sparked many conversations about ideas. In my own life I find the phrase "Here's an Idea" creeping into my everyday speech, often preceding an absurd but curious thought.
I was wondering if your philosophy of "nomadic thought" has anything to do with the onslaught of Zhaifs and references accompanying you in upper right corner of the screen. What thought goes into those?
Cheers, good luck, and thanks for everything.
1) a concept is a particular sequence of thoughts strung together to give rise to a unique meaning not already contained within any other sub-strings of thoughts
2) an idea is simply a particular sequence of such concepts strung together to carry a higher dimensional meaning
3) a meta-idea is an idea of an idea.. a photo of a photo of a collection of thoughts still in the process of being developed.. of becoming something that may carry meaning in this world.. (if and only if it were to be recognized to carry significance).. in those rare instances the thought photographer may be so blessed as to witness the rare event and capture an idea of an idea so fundamental as to reveal the foundations of all thought.. with such penetrating insight.. this image may serve to change our perception of reality.. and perhaps even reality itself.. (care must be taken as to which ideas should be captured and how they should be portrayed less the power of changing the perceptions of others taints our ambitious natures)
4) idea channel is a channel that discussed many ideas
Meta Ideas...I love it! Great episode, I especially like your ending remarks because I am always overly cautious in trying to express my ideas. I guess I should be more concerned in expressing them period.
Talking about ideas & concepts: I wonder what PBS stands for. The only time I came upon this
three letters was in a Kurt Vonnegut jr. novel & it's meaning was "pearls before swines". Bingo?
When you started to describe your idea nomadism, all the sudden Vsause popped into my head
Looks like I have a new book to read. Nomadic thought puts into context the approach to thinking I've always more or less used, and goes a long way towards understanding why Idea Channel resonated with me so much off the bat. I hope my own work reflects your influence this well.
Speaking of which, an interesting outgrowth of nomadic thought is what for convenience I'll call nomadic storytelling. Off the top of my head I can only really think of Homestuck doing this--borrowing plot beats and thematic arcs from sources as diverse as Peter Pan, The Princess Bride, The Neverending Story (the novel), Gnostic, Greco-Roman and Egyptian mythology and working them into its own plot in turn.
I wonder what other stories are out there that use reference and taking from other works outright to structure themselves that way.
I think Aristotle would be proud of Idea Channel and its fellow idea nomads. To him, art is FOR working through ideas and emotions. He coined the term "katharsis" for it, referring to the popular tragedy plays of the time. He wrote in response to popular culture in The Poetics, writing a manual for what makes a great play. He believes great art makes profound truths stick in our minds. We SHOULD be thinking of art in this way, dragging our friend to coffee to exposit our epiphany of how Doctor Who gave us an understanding of religion or how the way we label products is influenced by our culture. Heck, Aristotle didn't even want us to be able to vote until we could think critically. (How we could measure that is another thesis paper in and of itself.) He called people who could think critically about their world, have a wide breadth of experience, and masters of his 11 virtues the guardians, and that these people should be our leaders. I think Aristotle would be proud to sit down with a Yoda mug of coffee and discuss these same conversations with us
Nice thoughts and ideas. I couldn't find 11 virtues of Plato, so I guess you mean the 12 virtues of Aristotle? I'm sure the ancient ones and their ideas were not invulnerable to flaws but I agree those virtues are pretty great and in my opinion make a good way to judge a person by. These virtues and your point about art are the reason why I mostly listen to music that has meaningful lyrics and is made by good people. I got this quote by Ernst Fischer from a band shirt I have:
"In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it."
Aristotle wrote the Poetics, not Plato.
Whoops! I'll fix that
this is actually pretty useful
I'm gonna miss this channel :(
I've been thinking like this recently but with respect to writing. I've been doing lots of stream f consciousness writing, ideas, thoughts and observations- often not even adhering to explanatory or narrative structures. I have found that it has allowed me the capacity to simply write and then to digest my writings as I see fit, after the fact. It's a kind of meditation really.
Epic corresponding videos/pictures for this one :)))) Nice job
This notion of using ideas for things which they were not originally intended made me think of a quote from William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy: "The street finds its own use for things." So while there may be a...caste? Quorum? Cabal? of elite thinkers who build ideas from scratch, it falls to us, the people on the street, to use those ideas in our everyday lives. We can learn to be Idea-hackers, breaking down convention and applying the results in a more democratic, more open-source kind of way.
Anyway, Mike, just want to say thanks- I've been following this channel from the beginning, and it's never let me down. Time to see where the road ahead takes us.
I think we all kinda cant know if we are right and kinda just work with has work for us and others most of the time, we may be building castles of sand but we kinda can't know until we test it. I think we are all in exploration duty and I think treating ideas like so is a nice idea on itself :)
I had an idea: I'm going to miss idea channel and I am feeling things about it that I did not expect.
Omg the day is near
inspiring... going to miss this channel. Though, on and up!!!!
Hey Mike, I am currently binge watching your channel while I am writing my master thesis in chemistry, I really like your and am sad that it is ending. I wanted to tell you guys that your Idea Channel in chronological order playlist is missing some episodes, the bullet hell episode from late 2013 for example is missing in the playlist.
I felt like you were implying but not outright saying that the goal of talking about the classics like this, of not worrying about getting them perfect is to let people who might feel that they have no place with the classics (especially people historically denied from academic discussion) to feel a little more able.
My own issues with studying a lot of philosophy in school meant I didn't really quote philosopher's or even academics in general as much as I'd like, but these videos gave me a framework to connect with them. I still will likely not read a philosophy book, because I'm still uncomfortable, but I have some kind of seat at the table when people talk about them
My roving thoughts:
The world is in a constant state of flux. That includes us, not just physical entities but as creatures of ideas, memetic if you will. I've changed how I view things, constantly and consistently, as have you. Yes, you. The hard part is seeing others as having this almost magical ability, we other them, trying to anchor them to their current mode of thought. My current way of thinking is to let go of ideas, separate them from myself and my ego, end let them do their thing. Let them touch others as they will, and be touched by the thoughts of others as I can. Also, you're a pretty cool dude Mike.
I want to be Mike when I grow up
I freaking lost it at the Professional clip. I'm going to have to take a break and come back to this video later, once the hiccups have left.
I love your channel I wish I could buy like a compilation of all of them