HowToBasic
| HowToBasic | ||||||||||
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| File:HowToBasic Art.jpg | ||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||
| Born | July 8, 1979[citation needed] | |||||||||
| Nationality | Australian | |||||||||
| YouTube information | ||||||||||
| Channel | ||||||||||
| Years active | 2011–present | |||||||||
| Genre(s) | Surreal comedy, black comedy, visual gags | |||||||||
| Subscribers | 8.25 million[1][2] | |||||||||
| Total views | 1.25 billion[1][2] | |||||||||
| Network | Fullscreen | |||||||||
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Last updated: 22 September 2016 | ||||||||||
HowToBasic is an Australian YouTube comedy channel with over 8 million subscribers that gained popularity between 2012 and 2013. It shows bizarre visual gags disguised as how-to tutorials. The man featured in the videos does not speak or show his face, and remains anonymous. The channel is a part of the Fullscreen network.[3]
The channel has reached eight million subscribers as of mid-September 2016,[4][5] the highest of any Australian YouTube channel.[5][3] In June 2013, the person behind HowToBasic was interviewed as part of a 6 PM News Bulletin by Nine News Perth broadcast on STW. The station preserved his anonymity on his request.[6] HowToBasic videos have been compared to the work of David Cronenberg and Marcel Duchamp.[7]
The channel has been criticized on ethical grounds for its typical waste of large amounts of food, while it has been also claimed that the man behind the channel uses expired food from a grocery store he owns.[citation needed] The channel has been briefly suspended on multiple occasions, once in 2014 and again in late 2015 on presumed violations of YouTube's policy on misleading content. Soon after, the channel was restored, and suspension lifted in both circumstances.[8][9][10]
Content
The channel intentionally misleads first-time unaware viewers to believe it is a how-to channel, with video titles, thumbnails and descriptions, as well as the channel general description, claiming its videos to be tutorials on different subjects, with a particular emphasis on cooking (which becomes less prominent later in time). The videos feature a man interacting with food and objects in a first-person view; he does not show his face or speak, however he does utter groans and other obscure sounds. At certain point of each video, mostly at the beginning but sometimes later, the man begins to act aggressively or strangely, often by mixing or combining food in an unusual way, and then creating a large mess by smashing, destroying and throwing food and objects, with an excessive use of eggs, the channel's symbol, and occasional use of dolls and printed images, along with many different items and instruments. The earliest videos consisted of quick, but actual tutorials of very simple actions, such as "how to open a door"; with the videos' plots gradually changing to this form described above. Recent videos, however, are employing additional gags, with actors and related footages appearing.
See also
References
- ^ a b "HowToBasic".
- ^ a b "About HowToBasic". YouTube.
- ^ a b "Can you make money out of YouTube? You bet, just ask these Aussies". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
- ^ "HowToBasic". YouTube. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
- ^ a b "Top 100 YouTubers in Australia Filtered by Subscribers - Socialblade YouTube Stats | YouTube Statistics". socialblade.com. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
- ^ "Perth teen's bizarre videos become internet hit". Nine News. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
- ^ "Is Kurt Coleman the future of Australian screen storytelling?". The Conversation. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
- ^ "UPDATED: Popular YouTube Channel HowToBasic Terminated Without Warning". MOARGeek. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
- ^ "HowToBasic on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
- ^ "Spam404.com on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2015-12-09.