Debunking Fake Videos & WHO'S behind 5-min crafts? | How To Cook That Ann Reardon

Welcome to How To Cook That I'm Ann Reardon and if you're new around here what we're looking at is the rapid dissemination of how-to videos instructional videos that are well produced well filmed well edited but the end results they show may be misleading 🤔 now these videos are being sent out to millions upon millions of people through the YouTube and Facebook algorithms and that's how we get here to debunking videos where we actually test those out so that we can see what the truth is in those videos. Now some of them quite honestly anybody could look at and say well I can tell that that's a waste of time or that silly so something like this first one for example ... where it tells you to take a bag of popcorn cut it open make a big hole in the side and then use it like a bowl. Well I think most people could look at that and go well is that really something you should do? And it's not really gonna make a big difference you can eat your popcorn either way. I mean if you do try it you can't rip the bag for one you do have to cut it with scissors because it's too hard to rip otherwise I'd rip in the shops and then you make a big hole in it like they did in their video and it's probably okay if you're eating it on your own but if you need to share when you're passing it it's luckily in a spill. Now the only person that's good for is the dog if you don't happens to like popcorn 🐶so that leads most people to thinking it's just easier to open the bag from the top and it won't spill if you pass it around like that and as an added bonus if you don't finish the whole bag you can seal it over and keep it fresh. This next video though is a bit harder to tell so I can look at these sort of videos because I have a Food Science degree and go right that's not going to work and this is why ... other people don't know so they try it out and people are telling me in the comments they are wasting their money and their time making these and then thinking that it was them who couldn't bake not knowing that the video wouldn't work. If we look at this next example they're making a cake in a cup which is a pretty popular thing nowadays they put in the flour sugar cocoa powder pinch of salt canola oil water vanilla and chocolate chips it's a lot of ingredients for these sort of videos usually ... stir it then microwave for 60 seconds. Now stop I want you to think here use your critical thinking skills ... is there an ingredient missing there that you would normally have in a cake? It doesn't have any eggs in it you can make an egg free cake it's not as nice but you can but there's something else that's pretty vital that's missing. I'm going to make it for you so that you can see what happens ...so I just need to put all the ingredients that they had in my cup stir that together and microwave for 60 seconds and when I pull it out it looks identical after it's cooked. Now the reason for that is there is no baking powder in it baking powder is what makes a cake rise and gives it that cakey texture even brownies have baking powder in them to give them that sort of slightly airy nice crumb texture. Let's see what Dave thinks of this one ... Ooom ... hang on a minute ... no if I was on my own I would not eat another spoon! Now you can make cake with no baking powder but you're going to need something else to add those air bubbles in so you could use egg whites that'll whip to a foam and fold it through like some sponge cakes have or because this was entitled "Recipe hacks from professional chefs" ... the only professional pastry chefs I know that make cakes in the microwave use one of the cream whippers to whip up that mixture and add heaps of air into it before it goes into the microwave. Just microwave that then take it out and tip it upside down and you can see there's a few little cuts in the bottom of the cup to allow that steam to escape and then after a couple of minutes you can take it off and you've got some fresh sponge cake and that's usually torn into pieces and used as a textural element when plating a places dessert. Anyway let's move on to the next one ... make meringue batter pipe it onto a plate they look quite nice, then microwave for 60 seconds. now normally if you are making meringue you wouldn't microwave it you would put it in the oven on a slow low oven for quite a long time to dry it out you don't really bake it you more dry it out. And then they get these nice little meringues very good okay well we will try that... I have my meringue batter which I'm gonna pipe onto a plate normally as I said I'd put them in the oven but I'm going to put them in the microwave for 60 seconds and we get meringues that are soft and soggy and rubbery and they are not meringue texture at all. I'm gonna keep these to Dave and see if they impress him. Alright some little meringues for you... ah meringues ... um are they meant to be like that? Is this what we're doing? I'll try it ... well I can taste the sugar and the jam but it's not a meringue. Now that is it meringue mmm I like that. Okay what are they doing next? Take sweet potato and boil it then peel it and then add enough flour to make a dough roll that into bowls and bake it. Now see when it's baking then it didn't rise in the oven... that was true and honest footage because it wouldn't rise there's no yeast in it there's nothing to make air bubbles there's nothing to make it rise. Oh but now when they take a bite of it that bun is soft and spongy and bread-like and has all those air bubbles in there how did they get in there? Let me bake it for you so you can see what it would really look like. I've got two sweet potatoes boiled and peeled then I'm adding flour and making that into a dough and then rolling it into balls and baking it. It is definitely not bread like it's not spongy and light like their one, it's more like solid play dough consistency. Mm-hmm it is pretty stodgy! Now you can make a sweet potato bread if you use a normal bread dough recipe and add a little bit of sweet potato into that recipe you can get a quite nice sweet potato flavored bread that is soft and airy and yummy a bit like their end shot looks. So why didn't they show you that recipe? How to actually properly make bread dough and add that in well that's because they are producing videos based on data. They are producing videos for the algorithm so that they can get maximum views and make maximum money 💰 they are not producing videos for the audience, it doesn't really appear like they're concerned whether you can recreate it or not. They are purely creating to please the algorithm and the algorithm likes this sort of thing. Their data that they've analyzed has shown them that simple recipes that seem very easy to do but have impressive results get shares and the algorithm likes that and so then they get more with more views and more money. As far as the platforms are concerned YouTube and Facebook their main concern is that they keep people on the platform longer ... Above all the algorithm has two simple goals one help each viewer find the videos they want to watch and two get viewers to keep watching so that they can get more adverts playing and more money from that as well. So as money as the driver the end driver isn't to look after the audience the end driver is to look after the wallets and that's not necessarily a good driver. I was always taught when I grew up to treat others how you want to be treated so I just can't make videos that are instructional how-to videos that have an impressive end result that you can't get to from the steps that I show. But if you take out I guess that sort of moral dilemma block that I've got there I could make some quite fanciful how-to videos that might get lots of shares but I just can't do it. It seems that some companies don't have a problem with that though the algorithm certainly doesn't check for accuracy of the content it just promotes what's gonna get more views and keep people on the platform as long as it doesn't offend advertisers because that would affect the money it seems to be okay. Now my concern here with the platforms is that genuine creators are getting pushed off because not only is there lots of this content happening it is getting fully promoted by the algorithm. The algorithm loves it because that's what they're creating for and then that leaves the genuine creators who are making proper how-to content that the audience will be able to recreate it type content those ones are getting pushed out because they're not playing the game the algorithm wants them to play. So eventually if they don't get enough views don't stop creating which a lot of them already have which is sad I think. Now another example according to this next video if you spill red wine 🍷 on your carpet you should then pour beer 🍺 over it the top and give it a rub and you have clean dry carpet! Well I can't believe I'm saying this let's give it a try... now I don't even have a proper wine glass but I'm sure any glass will do just knock it over and spill it and then according to the video if I just pour on some beer it's gonna work. Now those bubbles sure do a good job of making it look less red and now I'll get the towel and give it a rub to soak up all the wine and beer and voila my carpet stinks of beer and wine and is perfectly clean 😜 I guess if I moved it to a different spot it would probably be perfectly clean but definitely not right there and judging by the number of videos there are on YouTube called how to get beer stains off my carpet this was not a good idea. Interestingly though when the Wall Street Journal approached the makers of this video First Media and they asked them a question about something that a former employee had said ... they'd said in a video about cleaning a mattress they'd made this mixture put it on a stain on the mattress and it didn't work the stain was still there but they were directed just to film a separate area of the mattress that they made slightly damp and that bit was perfectly clean! Now this is what they said in response to that ... the person from First Media said: it doesn't rule out showing a different final product than the one achieved during the filming. I don't know what to say to that!! I would rule that out, I would say it's not okay but apparently in their books that's okay. Well they're not the only ones who think that's okay because obviously 5-minute crafts thinks the same way... they think it's more important to please the algorithm and we can show impressive results even though that's not what we got. Take a look at this next video... they have some sneakers that are really dirty and they're giving them a clean and then magically they are perfectly white and they've gone up a size! That's pretty impressive 🤯I can't do that! Now you guys are of course familiar with these channels that I've been doing debunking videos on and so you know what can be trusted what can't be trusted and to take things with a grain of salt but did you know that the producers of 5-minute crafts. TheSoul Publishing don't just produce a five-minute crafts in fact they have said that they have more than 200 channels and I bet that you don't know what they are I don't know what they all are and not only that but they produce more than 2,700 videos every month. Now that's pretty impressive but it's also a bit of a worry if you're not sure what sort of content they're putting out. Interestingly in the last couple of weeks there's been some focus on this in the US news about some informational videos they're put up on one of their history channels which are teaching people history and it had some dubious content in it. Now I am no history buff. I could probably be easily fooled by incorrect history videos... I know my baking but I don't know my history so I'm gonna handball 🏉this over to Dave because he knows history, he used to be a journalist and he is very good at this sort of thing so I've asked him to investigate and find out for me what is all the fuss about? Who is Soul Publishing and what is going on? Yeah it's actually a bit of a weird situation and it's getting weirder all the time as organizations like this like TheSoul Publishing get an absolute free ride to the top of the internet tree thanks to the YouTube and Facebook algorithms and that's getting some powerful people nervous. Now I know what some of you are saying: they're just silly videos there's not really a problem with it is there? And the answer is maybe... you see over the past few months The Soul Publishing has actually made some big headlines ... it's got some people who worked up because they're worried about the size of their growth and they're looking at some of the historically inaccurate content they've put out there and they're asking what else are these guys up to? "but they're now starting to integrate into that content pro-russian happy talk fake history material and some oddly sort of, sort of, subtle anti-US stuff." So who are they? Who are these guys? Well let's have a look at it. The Soul Publishing are a Russian company that produces 2700 videos every single month that's a lot... for 70 Facebook pages and over 200 YouTube channels JARVIS:"It's a content farm that's the definition of a content farm." These guys use cheaper labor in Cyprus to absolutely pump out content for YouTube and Facebook which is a surefire way to get on the good side particularly on YouTube. 5-minute Crafts and Brightside took off almost immediately on YouTube and Facebook ... according to their website within just the first couple of years they already had 34 Silver play buttons 11 Gold play buttons and 2 Diamond play buttons for 10 million subscribers and that was before things got really big for them! Right at this moment five minute crafts is sitting on 65 million subscribers. Now that's pretty good growth for just over three years. Late last year the three biggest media companies (on YouTube & Facebook) were Disney, Warner Media and TheSoul Publishing! These guys Pavel Radaev and Marat Mukhametov, please excuse me if I got that wrong I'm not trying to be disrespectful but they're not exactly household names right? However they're absolutely killing it on YouTube. Here's a very good article from Forbes in Russia with the headline: "A Machine That Prints Money on YouTube: how two friends from Kazan created the largest factory of content for social networks". We're talking about Paval and Marat, garnering billions of views and tens of millions of dollars. Now we don't know a lot about Pavel and Marat, they literally never do interviews that keep a very low profile but I found this on a Russian website ... it said that Pavel studied technical cybernetics and computer science at university but it also lists his birthday as being in 2011 so I'm not sure I can vouch for the veracity of this information. I guess he could be a child prodigy. Forbes estimates the annual income for The Soul Publishing is 40 million US dollars! That's a lot of Rubles and that's just advertising dollars against their videos on YouTube and Facebook that doesn't include branded content that they negotiate themselves. And the craziest thing is they show no signs of slowing down... while other famous Youtubers go up and go down these guys seem to have the ability to replicate their success their viral success over and over and over again with new channels starting all the time. Just look at this new channel 123 Go, it started a little over twelve months ago on January 17, 2019 and it already has picked up five million subs and 1.6 billion with a B views and of course they started the whole family to go with it ... 123 Go Russian, 123 Go Japan, 123 Go Gold etc In fact the 123 Go brand garnered 4.2 billion views in its first year of operation! Wow wow wow! That brand new little corner of TheSoul Publishing media empire was actually bigger than Pewdiepie last year! This is the person that YouTube rewind told us was the most viewed creator on the platform in 2019. It's almost as if YouTube uses a strange interpretation of the word "creator" to hide from people the fact that its platform is being overtaken by giant media corporations. Now I know what you're thinking in order for one-two-three-go to have done so well and especially they must have done some groundbreaking fantastic content right? it's just the worst! Don't have a bowl? No problem you can eat it right out of the pitcher. 😶 They do these skit videos with cheesy voiceovers that look and sound a lot like Troom Troom ... and we all know what that tastes like don't with kids! What we do know about the Soul Publishing though is that they have experimented with a small number of political ads and this is where it gets interesting. This is according to Lawfare blog which is a respected online service that primarily deals with national security and intelligence issues and this is really interesting because believe it or not the Pentagon isn't really that interested in using Nutella jars to make wallets ... 78 million views! This must be a great wallet! Anyway this article found that the Soul publishing had experimented in running a small number of political ads in the USA. They only had six ads and they spent a really small amount of money that it was almost like they were experimenting with the new regulations that Facebook had brought in surrounding political advertising. On top of that one of the souls channels also copped some heat over a video that predicted that the USA would not exist in 20 years. The Soul Publishing later deleted this but thanks to the power of the interwebs we've been able to track it down for you ... "Smart Banana: "The United States America is a nation of deeply divided social and political beliefs so it's not a surprise that it's included in this list ... the nation exists as a collection of states with wildly polarized partisan populations that are constantly making headlines in terms of ideological conflict. If there's a country that's likely to become several smaller countries it's the United States." And to be honest it's mostly just speculative nonsense but it did get up some people's noses. In another deleted video it shows that Russia will be taking over most of Europe by 2099 ... now I don't know what the guys are up to here maybe they're just having fun maybe they just been cheeky or maybe they've got a great dream for the motherland I don't know. What I do know is that those political ads and these sort of videos have got some people freaking out! "How prepped are we really? How prepped are the Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party for contending with a potentially major foreign based social media operation...?" The hilarious thing is that while the West is getting mad about this there's also this debate going on a Russia about US companies like Twitter and Facebook and Google perverting their electoral system! Okay to be fair to The Soul Publishing they say they are totally non-political. Ksenia who was their editor-in-chief for some time she is adamant that the company is all about and has no interest in politics. "We intentionally stay away from politics because it is too dirty and we are all too tired of it." So after all this drama the Soul Publishing released a statement recently and it's pretty long so I'll leave a link in the description below. Their statement says: "TheSoul Publishing's content is entertaining fun and amusing however we acknowledge that on occasion it has also been factually incorrect. This self-reflection surfaced last week when select media outlets attempted to falsely label us as a foreign propaganda machine. While this label is absolutely untrue and honestly hurtful these same media outlets did accurately bring to light factual mistakes in a very small portion of the videos which we created." Okay so it goes on it talks about the Russian video the United States video it says that look it's a tiny percentage of the thousands of videos that they put out each year and then it finishes with this: "Lastly the infiltration of fake foreign political advertising and propaganda across any social media platform to any country is unacceptable. Although disappointing, we have to address this. To be clear this is not what The Soul Publishing does did or will ever do so. So TheSoul publishing says hey leave us alone we're just crazy fun guys with hot glue guns we're not up to anything we're not biased media we're not doing propaganda but I'm not sure that that allays everybody's fears. Here's a question for you then is it just because it's foreign media that we're suspicious ... sort of the Bond villain idea of the rich guy with a different accent must be some sort of super-criminal? This is our moment! I wanted to find out whether the intelligence community is genuinely concerned about the rising influence of these content farms so I phoned up an old friend of mine Casey Ellis who started a company called Bugcrowd in Silicon Valley. As well as working with multinational companies Casey also deals with the CIA and other intelligence agencies and also appeared before the House Rules Committee recently to talk about the greatest cyber risks facing our world. CASEY: "It's great to chat again mate. Yeah basically what Bugcrowd does is we're a community of about 150,000 - 160,000 ethical hackers ... so hackers but the good kind. You think of them as locksmiths as opposed to burglars in that space. Are the defense, legislative and intelligence apparatus considering social media at large as a risk? Yeah absolutely. Those agencies of looking at this as not just a Russian threat or a North Korean threat or a threat from some sort of you know even individual actor not domestically but you know actually also including potential domestic use of social media. Why are people concerned about a Russian crafting channel? You know is there anything to be concerned about or is this just a case of it's got a Russian accent so it must be a Bond supervillain? CASEY: Yeah I mean I think it starts I think it starts with the Russian accent and the Bond supervillain explanation of it you know that has been and continues in 2020 to be the dominant narrative in the US around who is doing disinformation so I think it don't start there legitimately. You know in terms of if it's a real threat or not I think these sorts of behaviors around both these sorts of behaviors around it's just it's not it's not normal so there's there's clearly some unnatural acceleration that's going on and you know regardless of whether it's Russian or American or Australian or our friends in New Zealand doing it or whoever ... that's cause for concern and, given the ability through you know anything that's on social media to be confused for truth if enough people decide that they agree with it, you know any kind of any kind of channel that grows in this sort of way is pretty easy to weaponize if you decide you want to. And I think that you know stands alone as not necessarily a cause for concern but a cause for alertness." So over to you in the comments what do you think? Are content farms something we need to be worried about do we need to keep an eye on them or is it just a bit of fun to scroll through on your phone while you're waiting for a train. Yes some of the content is a bit dubious but hey isn't this the game that YouTube set up anyway? I mean they reward what they want a reward. And don't forget Google keeps 45 percent of every ad dollar earned so if The Soul Publishing did in fact make 40 million dollars last year Google and Facebook made another $35 million on top and that's 35 million reasons not to change their system. If you want to subscribe click here, if you want to watch more of Ann's debunking videos click here and if you want to watch one of Ann's 400 videos that actually work click down there. Make it a great week and we'll see you soon 😊

Channel: How To Cook That

Views: 6,878,570

Rating: 4.934041 out of 5

Keywords: How To Cook That Ann Reardon 🍰🍫🍨🍭, debunking, fake videos, content farms, who is the soul publishing, who owns 5 minute crafts, documentary, can you clean red wine with beer, cook meringues in microwave, so yummy, 5-minute crafts, blossom, ann reardon, howtocookthat, debunking viral videos

Id: pvqa8dsBtno

Length: 25min 43sec (1543 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/on_]

Now somebody please check those wilderness construction videos that they pretend to do a underground pools with their bare hands, not using even a single shovel. Making bright and thick green paint by smashing some leaves, and cement with termite nest that looks exactly like comercial cement.

And restoration videos of electronics pretended to be abandoned in the mud, with new parts swapped during the filming.

Scam runs rampant on youtube

[u/soda_cookie]

Anyone got a tldw?

Edit: got what I've need here, see any and all comments

[u/Fhhyr3584]

Most of these “crafts” are dumb. It’s total clickbait.

[u/[deleted]]

I like watching her follow the recipes one by one, step by step. She clearly shows how nonsense some of the recipes are. Maybe someone like her could tweak them to make them workable but following the basic recipes they show are sometimes laughable, sometimes directly dangerous. Either way, I recommend her for something in the background while doing housework.

[u/on_]

A home cooking chanel bringing down a political conspiracy by pulling the thread of some 5 minutes fake crafts would be hilarious.

[u/Orinslayer]

Aw, Meringues... are they supposed to be like that? I felt so sad.

But at least he got an actual Meringue.

[u/Embershift]

I hear her voice in my head: ”I’m Ann Reardon and this is how to cook thet”

[u/rawker86]

my only exposure to 5 minute crafts is watchingJenna Marbles try to replicate them in her own videos. she generally spends hours on them and winds up a dejected, withered husk by the end of the video, and i love it.

[u/itotallypaused]

I hope Jenna Marbles has found peace.