Writing, Writing, Writing | The Friday(ish) Update

Welcome to the Friday Update!

Before we get going, a quick reminder that I recently posted a call-out for the next Patreon Exclusive Q&A. If you've got a question you'd like me to answer, just drop it into the comments of any post over the next week!

What have I been up to this week?

In last week's Friday update, I revealed the topic of my next video. For those who missed it, the video is partly a sequel to my video about Johnny Harris and YouTube Propaganda and partly a sequel to my video about Elon Musk. It engages with ideas of techno-optimism whilst also examining one way in which those ideas are promoted: through ethically dubious sponsorship partnerships between technology companies and educational, science and/or technology YouTube channels.

Writing for that video has been going really well. As many of you will be aware, the past few videos I've made have involved weeks and weeks of research and reading, leading to quite a long turnaround time. While I've certainly been dipping my toes into plenty of new topics whilst writing this video, it's slightly less abstract in its ideas and so I've been able to get writing much quicker.

While I know some creators enjoy making lengthy videos which take a long time to produce, I'm really enjoying working on something which—while the video might not be any shorter than my other videos—is drawing on my pre-existing knowledge. This should mean that there'll be slightly less time between my last video going out and this one!

Alongside this, on Friday afternoon, I took some time away from writing the script to my next video to iron-out the last few bugs in my new website! The website is now up-and-running and can be visited at tomnicholas.com

My main goal in creating this new website was to provide a much easier way for Patreon supporters to browse the growing archive of scripts, commentary videos and other additional content included in your tiers. If you login to the website using your pre-existing Patreon loin details, you should be able to browse, read and watch to your heart's content in a manner that the Patreon website itself doesn't always make super easy.

It's still a bit of a work-in-progress, so if you find anything that doesn't quite work as you think it should, do let me know and I'll try and fix it!

And outside of work?

I went to the circus!

The circus recently arrived in town and, over the past week or so, I've been running back and forth past the site where they've been setting up the big top. With my interest sufficiently piqued, I persuaded my partner that we should book tickets to go and see it.

Now, I didn't have the highest of expectations—the city I live in isn't the biggest in the world and so I assumed that it might not be the best of circuses. In the end, however, I really enjoyed myself. Some of the big acrobatic stuff was particularly amazing, even if my heart was in my mouth... I'd never been to the circus before but I am now 100% a convert.

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

The latest series of Netflix's Sex Education was released this Friday. I've only had a chance to watch the first episode so far but have been enjoying it.

Some of you may remember the video I made in February 2020 about the politics of the show's strange, hybrid British-American setting. Many of the complexities that I discuss in that video (or, at least, that I can remember discussing in that video!) are still present. While I think the aesthetics/geography of the show adds some fun, I think it detracts a little from its engagements with the politics of sex and relationships education in the present day. While the critiques it makes are prescient and important, I still wonder if it dulls those critiques to have the show set in an essentially fictional location.

Anyway, minor critiques aside, it's still a really good fun show so far!

What have I been thinking about?

Last week, I spent this section of the Friday Update reflecting on my attempts to ensure that the video I'm currently writing retains a good balance between critiquing questionable sponsorship practices on YouTube and not being overly sneering or, for lack of a better word, mean.

This week, however, I found that the research I was doing around self-driving cars and Waymo in particular led me to find out a lot more about the ways in which Waymo advertises on YouTube. While I might make the occasional joke about the corporate propaganda pieces which are the focus of my video, shifting the focus to the company orchestrating these promotional campaign rather than the YouTube creators helps to diffuse the criticism a little bit and to focus it at structures rather than individuals.

So, I seem to have untangled that knot from last week!

Thanks for reading this edition of the Friday Update! Do remember to check out my new website and to pop any questions for the upcoming Patreon Q&A in the comments!

Thanks as ever for your generous support all!