[applause] Most experts agree that one... ...is a number. [giggling] And so, I have done a number of talks like this before, but always "in-character"... ...as the fabled YouTube superhero, Captain Disillusion... ...debunker of fake viral videos, explainer of visual effects... ...or sometimes as his adorably nervous intern, Alan. But, not today, because this is Skepticon, one of those skeptic conferences that has "skeptic" right in the name. So, I know you're not interested in all this tongue and cheek, you know, fluff. You want facts and figures and practical advice on how to communicate critical thinking online. So that is what I will attempt to give you today as just myself, just Alan Melikdjanian, a humble filmmaker, creator... ...producer, director, editor and writer of... ...a YouTube series some have described as legendary. So, a little bit of background on myself: aided by graduate degrees in several scientific disciplines... ...and a lifelong deep commitment to skeptical inquiry... ...I spent a number of years developing the concept for Captain Disillusion through extensive market research... ...the makeup and wardrobe went through several stages of design... ...and the whole symbolic meaning behind the character, the meeting of illusion versus reality, it was worked out well in advance before the first episode ever went up on YouTube. To this day, there are tiny clues dispersed throughout the episodes to give you tiny inklings- I'm so sorry, these are the wrong slides, I'm just gonna pull up the correct version of the presentation . Bare with me, I'm sorry. Okay, this is that one. Okay, um... ...so okay, sorry about that, um. As I was saying, um, I begin a typical episode with, uh, the following introduction [intro plays] "Greetings children, it's me, Captain Disillusion." Now, that makes it seem like you're watching some sort of like cult classic 90's children program and, uh... ...that's not true, I mean sometimes I curse and there are kinda adult jokes here and there so it's a little bit misleading... ...but I do that, because in the minds of my audience, which is predominantly men ages 24 to-, 25 to 34,... ...this invokes an emotion called nostalgia, and this emotion has been known to create an illusion of quality and substances, where there might otherwise be not that much of it. So, normally, I then go on to introduce some sort of strange, unusual, unexplainable video from the internet. "And then there's this bizarre traffic sighting, 'The Russian Ghost Car' " "While making a routine turn at a intersection, some drivers are cut off by a car that springs up out of nowhere," "Causing the most mildest accident of all time." "My mind is getting blown harder and harder with every in-run, every takeoff and every knoll!" "How'd they do it?" "It just showed a young girl floating in the woods." "Could such a thing be faked?" "Of course!" And I go on to analyze the details in the video looking for evidence of fakery. "Let's completely stabilize the position, rotation and scale of the floating girl..." "...like some on YouTube have already done, but better!" "And watch it rotate on an endless loop until we've achieved a state of pure skeptical enlightenment." "I'm starting to see some meandering artifacts behind her head, and whatever that is at the base of her leg, and when I stabilize the part on the ground, there's like a giant hole in her coat or something." But I don't just theorize, I go in and explain the details of the visual effects work. "The Porta Potty scene is also made of two pieces, but not in way you might expect." "The tape throw is real, assisted by a wire run through the door handle and pulled from the inside, but when the door opens, the wire operator is masked from our view by a different take of an actor on the toilet." "In both takes the door was opened at about the same speed and any slight discrepancy was easy enough to adjust on the tape measure." "But it wasn't so easy once the toilet guy starts to close the door in his take." "In the thrower's take, the door stayed open, but we see the real tape measure suddenly replaced with a stretchy animated mess that follows the door back." "It wrongly connects to the door at the edge instead of the handle and peaking above it, we can see the wire that actually pulled the door open in the toilet guy's take." And I'm not above explaining innocent illusions that were never meant to fool anyone. Such as this: "What seems like a toss into the mirror and back..." "Is actually two identical bounces against the mirror." "During the first, the camera follows into the the reflection;" "During the second, it follows back to the hand." "Of course, there's a second copy of the ball visible during every part of the journey..." "And often the best use of visual effects is not to add things into the scene, but to subtly take existing things away." "Some judicious frame-by-frame cloning of the background..." "Is enough to hide the real ball during the second half of the first bounce..." "And the reflected ball during the return bounce." "Ok, let's give this a try." [drumroll intensifies] [mirror shatters]
"Oh God." [laughter]
Ok, well, ok, That doesn't always happen. um so uh You know, people all over the world watch my videos. And they ask me: How do you do it, Alan? How do you figure these things out in such detail? How are you so... amazing? And I say "stop it"
[giggles] I mean, I don't know! I guess I just, uh, observe the world in a slightly different way; I guess I notice things that others don't; And... I'm able to surpass my assumptions. 'Cause we all make assumptions, let's face it. You know, you've seen the skeptical presentations before. Uh, for instance, Did you guys realize, that this whole time, I haven't been talking into a handheld microphone. (There's nothing in my hand!) And there's a secret microphone installed on my face! And I hate to blow your mind, but... There are no lenses in my - sorry There are no lenses in my glasses - They're just empty frames! These are the kind of, uh, high level detective skills that I apply in my work. [laughter] And ladies and gentlemen, After ten years on YouTube, And over half a million subscribers, And 33 million views, I've noticed a pattern: I'm always right. [laughter] And everyone else is always wrong. How many of you here are involved in YouTube skepticism in some way? Nobody? Awesome. (Ok, one person) Well, still, With this ability to always be right, like me, ... be helpful to you in your skeptical endeavers? AUDIENCE: (Yes) (Yeah) (Yup)
ALAN: Ok. Well, I'm not sure I could teach raw talent. [laughter] But I can give you a few practical pointers. #1. Try to only talk about things... about which you... know about. Yesterday, I had the privilege of being part of a panel. Anybody here saw it? AUDIENCE: (Yes) (Yup) ALAN: Ok, awesome. So you know, You know how it went: The panel consisted of...
[Happy music plays] Dr. Brad Mckay: Medical doctor, a host on television, and author. Sonya Pemberton: An Emmy-winning producer, director, and creator of all kinds of documentories on science and medical topics. And of course,
[music stops abruptly] "Guy who shoots videos at his parents' house for YouTube" [laughter] Now don't get me wrong, I was honored to be a part of it... And it was exhilarating trying to come up with little quips... ...to insert between the brilliant things these people had to say. But I think most people (kind of) could tell that one of these things is not like the others... [Laughter] And that's ok. That's fine.
Because you know what? On my YouTube channel, *I* am the smart one.
[chuckles] Okay? Because *I* am the only one there... And I talk about things that *I* know, Which are Visual Effects. And visual effects are very complicated. They involve... Motion tracking, image stablization, motion tracking, image stablization, compositing... (uh) computer graphics, compositing, motion tracking, and compositing AND computer graphics! 'Kay? I've been figuring out a way to talk about the same four f***ing things for ten years! Where's my Emmy? That's what I think. Ok, so stick to what you know, and then you don't have to try too hard. Which brings me to #2: Since you're talking about things on which you're an expert... Try not to make any mistakes ever. Try not to make any mistakes ever.
I mean, is that so much to ask? Let's say you were making fun of a very successful Vine star - a visual effects artist. And you compared him to a turn-of-the-century filmaker And you compared him to a turn-of-the-century filmaker
by saying something like the following: "There's really not much that Zach King does that 'George Méliè' didn't do 112 years ago. Ok. So you can do that type of thing, that kind of gambit... But it's important to remember to not pretend that you know French... Because, 'course, it's not "George Méliè", it's "Georges Méliès" (with an "s"). (It- it's right there!) And, you know, you also saw a movie about it - A big Hollywood movie where they say the guy's name like a million times, So that shouldn't be a mistake, ok? Keep track of little details like that... Because honestly, the magnitude of even the tinest mistakes is kind of directly proportional to... ...how smug you are when you make it, right? Uh, for instance, you know how light tends to be either warm or cool and we measure that in degrees Kelvin... And you know, usually tungsten indoor light is like 3200 degrees Kelvin, and daylight tends to be 5600 degrees Kelvin? And cameras have (like) settings for them - white balance settings. And if you get that wrong (uh) on the camera, it could look kind of weird and get all kinds of anamolies So if you're doing a video about how this stuff caused a dress to appear a weird color to a lot of people... And you're being a funny character and you're derisively calling everybody an idiot who saw it differently, Try not to then (maybe) write 32,000 degrees and 56,000 degrees Kelvin, Because I mean that's a whole other color... And you're just kind of adding yourself into the moron pool at that point. (Laughing) So, mistakes (uh) you know mistakes can happen and they can become even more important if other people are involved. Youtubers collaborate and (uh) You might have a guest, let's say hypothetically you had a guest in your Youtube video someone like a founding father of modern skeptical activism, James the amazing Randi Let's say for example you had him and you had him participate in your video which is like a parody of the movie "Contact" He's like (uh) a mentor figure who helped you figure out the secret behind a popular viral ghost video. But he's just acting in your video, he's not doing the deconstruction himself. So he relies on you to figure it out correctly and write the script for him to say the stuff. So I would recommend not to then For the first time in your Youtube career Get the explanation completely wrong. And make James Randi say the wrong thing (Laughter) Instead of yourself Now I know our memory can be faulty and we can kind of remember things backwards. So I just want to re-iterate I'm saying... Don't do that Not do do that, okay? Yeah, I mean I guess it's difficult Let's say your guest was... an actor. who portrayed a very iconic character from childrens' educational TV show in America. You know how Americans say Dr. Carl is the Bill Nye of Australia Well, this guy, Beakman. From Beakman's world, ... is the Bill Nye of America. He used to have a sort of a show that kind of started a little bit before Bill Nye. And so, you've got this guy 20 years later to put on back his costume, his lab coat, and you made yourself his sidekick. And together you guys explained how, um... How, uh, perpetual motion machines are impossible. Right, and so you again do the research, because this guy is just an actor. And you figured out all of the script following: and you made this iconic
scientist guy say to the kids the following: [Video plays]
"Opposite poles of two magnets attract. "The closer they get to each other, the more the two magnetic fields interact... "And potential energy increases." Did anybody catch the slight, uh, discrepancy
there?... A little mistake maybe?... Yeah? As... as magnets get closer, potential energy actually decreases. Right, you notice that? Yeah, so did ALL of the
Internet. All of it. At the same time. you know these kind of things can happen
and you might think that well I guess it's over I failed
I wasn't always right but that is where you're wrong because you are not wrong
because here's advice number three you can with almost any opinion kind of look
at it a certain way where you might find an angle where you're not a hundred
percent wrong maybe like one percent right and what you want to do is grab on
to that opinion and just kind of defend it on the on the forum that is designed
for this purpose which is you to comment sections so with the Beekman
situation maybe somebody intelligent and nice might make a comment and say hey I
love your video I love what you do the Beekman thing is amazing
but you know there's a slight error there and potential energy decreases I
think they're closer so I just wanted to flag that for you that's it you know
what you have to do you have to stay just as nicely actually thank you but it
is you who is somewhat mistaken sir but what you see as magnets get farther yes
potential energy increases but until they leave their spheres of influence
and then at what Beakman was talking about is that when they reach each other
just say whatever it is your baby brain thinks how it works because maybe the
guy doesn't know but then another guy might chime in and say well actually no
that's not how physics works Magnus never lose influence on each
other even if they're at opposite ends of the universe and would you say to
that okay here's another technique you just go
but Wikipedia I saw a thing in Wikipedia that kind of sounds like something that
I'm saying and the two gentlemen will proceed to kind of gently educate you
that how you're completely wrong because at least one of them happens to be a
physics teacher and you were actually not so you're going to be overcome at
this point with an overwhelming desire to just go guys
I'm sorry if you're right of course we just goofed up and you know I'll put
your comment at the top so that we make the correction but resist that urge okay
don't do it don't say anything at all you can just keep going and other people
will join the conversation it'll kind of veer off and you can just kind of slink
away and the important thing is that nobody has to admit that anyone was
wrong about anything now that's kind of a gentle approach
sometimes have to be a little more aggressive let's say that you kinda like
you know thoughtlessly like made a kind of a visual gag at the beginning of one
of your videos where we were showing sort of annoying examples of people on
YouTube and one of them was like this like you know feminist speaker and stuff
that you kind of saw oh people make fun of her and you don't know what's going
on like you don't know you know I guess I'll make fun of her
too and you kind sort of inadvertently can contributed
some sort of online harassment and um someone understandably might make a
comment like this they might say gosh I was really disappointed to see that that
was really unexpected it's not like you and it's strange that you would kind of
feed the trolls a little bit it's it's really disappointed me and I kind of
want to unsubscribe and this you know what you have to do you you have to be
aggressive here you have to go how freaking dare you
I you're gonna make me say it fine I'll say I am a feminist okay I how dare you
accuse me of feeding the trolls did you even see the couple of videos I have
where there are girls in them and also did you know that there are girls behind
the scenes that my girlfriend is a girl for God's sake I'll have you know that
female viewership of my videos is at an all-time high of 4% and by the way I am
friends with Rebecca Watson kind of from I haven't talked to her in 7 years but
still so don't you tell me I'm a bad feminist I don't have the bravery to
show you the real rest of my comment but I did say all of those some version of
all those things and I suggested that he unsubscribe and I finished it with
literally the words to quote Sherlock you repel me what I'm saying is I
totally owned that guy but told him you understand and you can too by following
my powerful techniques but a word of warning I mean with great power comes
the thing that you know you have to be responsible with it it's possible to
maybe potentially cause a slight I'm sorry this is what I was trying to warn
you about okay use them properly these techniques can
- a chain of events that result in a very dangerous spatial anomaly the
threatens to tear this entire community apart
Oh God here everyone please stay back stay back be careful
it's the skeptic asshole singularity Oh God
please everyone exit the theater it's a dangerous black hole of social snacks
teenis that threatens to envelop even the most
brilliant and intelligent of us making them just a little bit less than
admirable no don't do it we want to like you oh god
no no oh Hector dr. Dawkins I can't do this no
don't look at it thinking is there any chance to even avoid it's horrible
gravitational pull pull up 10 well yes it is possible to change your tone
but I fear so many of you two haven't got the memo Oh God skeptic after
skeptic atheist after atheist succumbing to this anomaly I can't let this happen
I have to do something maybe I can help them maybe I could Oh God
fucking I've been so blind I'm part of this aren't I
I got to do something I got to change I won't let it get me I have to commit
here now and resolve to say but I refuse to be as yeah guys I've been thinking these last few
seconds and I think I should amend my advice to you yes sure stick to what you
know stick your area of expertise but don't stay too narrow maybe expand into
other ideas and other topics and maybe don't stay with too niche and audience
because it might lead to kind of an echo chamber and yes try not to make mistakes
if you do you know celebrate that maybe kind of make it into a learning
experience for you and your audience and of course the third one where you try to
weasel out of appearing wrong and maybe refusing to go with the zeitgeist of
changing ideas maybe let's not do that because it's kind of a dick move
but I know that that that that changes kind of the nature of the entire advice
that I'm trying to give you here but I'm afraid like this is the best I can do
and honestly I'm more of like kind of a airheaded sort of artsy person if you
can't tell III even dumbed the advice down a little bit more I kind of have my
own checklist of what I want to include in my content which comes down to kind
of a cheesy thing with three H's one is humor right obvious you know we know you
make people laugh and they can relax and they can be more open to new ideas and
I'm not saying I'm the only skeptic that uses humor the cognitive dissonance guys
are kind of funny but I would argue that skeptics are just really good at making
each other laugh. You know, we've been in here and we've laughed a lot. I would point
out there and would say this is you know look at how ridiculous the the the levers
are look at how ridiculous those ideas are the charlatans... That's fine, but when
we leave this little huddle and we go out there and we try to change people
mind, people's minds, can we be funny to them? Can we, you know, speak on their
level and make them relax and make them laugh? Secondly, humility, you know, also
kind of obvious. I mean, we embrace the scientific method we say things are
subject to change we know things but if we find new evidence we will change our
views and we celebrate that that's kind of the essence of being a skeptic. But if you went out there and you surveyed
people I don't think they would say that humility is part of the skeptic brand - at
all - so and I mean it doesn't make sense because we do embrace that idea and
maybe it's just kind of an image problem and it can be addressed. And lastly, Hope.
Also kind of cheesy but you know I think when you're trying to tear people away
from you know the ideas they hold dear there's not just it's not just simple
ideas these are things in which they placed all their hopes and dreams and
this is where their stuff resides if you're trying to get them away from
those things you have to give them something to put their hope into and
their whole identity into so I don't think we spend enough time kind of
saying why is critical thinking good I mean explain it to me like I'm a
five-year-old I think that's useful I mean I try to be funny in a way that is
kind of universal and understood by any kind of person. I - my character is
extremely conceited and cranky and derisive toward people but this is a
satire to say that's kind of silly yes this guy is smart but also a jerk and
you don't want to be that and I like to think that whatever crazy thing I showed
in a video of mine people watch it and they walk away with like this up feeling
like maybe that's fun that I learned that that's kind of goofy and I think
everything's gonna be okay like I try to project those three things
you know in all my content I know that it works at least in my case I see it in
the feedback that I get I get messages sometimes you know from like young
people saying hey you changed the way I kind of perceive media and the way I
consume media online I've this year I had a couple of students like write me
from different parts of the world asking "Hey can I interview you for... like I have
an assignment to interview a person I admire can I do that?" and I was like "Of course fuck no! I'm not gonna do that I don't have time for that but it was very
sweet." and you know I have more solid metrics
for instance you know the influx of Captain D Halloween costumes every year
these poor kids probably had to spend their entire evening answering the
question who the hell are you supposed to be but they did it anyway and that's
you know that's admirable as well as the influx of amazing fan art that people
send me and you know it does make me realize that I do have kind of a resting
asshole face myself but still the talent on display is is is admirable so and of
course I can tell by just the overall increase in social media following that
I receive especially on Twitter and I just want to tell you something about
Twitter in particular um as you're following grows this may happen to you
you know you get increasingly obsessed with maintaining your identity and you
beg Twitter and they give you a verified badge and this changes things a little
bit because what happens is you have a new filter in your feed that is for
verified and you can click it and it will filter away all the riffraff of
regular people and just show you other verified and other verified in turn will
notice you and you know Verifieds - my people - are very courteous and we don't
just follow each other in silence we send courtesy messages to each other and
we say things like hello nice to meet you I like your work and stuff so as
you're you know growth on social media happens this will happen to you someone
who has like 16 times your following someone from the world of comedy and
entertainment someone who has accomplished more things than you on
YouTube as well as on television will follow you and they will send you a
courtesy message and that message might be something some version of the
following howdy fella I didn't realize I wasn't following you on here but super
thrilled to meet you you've been one of my favorite creators for eight or nine
years now you're also the only skeptic that hasn't turned out to be an utterly
horrible person thank you for your work you know what you have to do you have to
reply so you roll up your sleeves you crack your knuckles and you get at the
keyboard and you say "Hi! Thank you, very kind of you to say. I'm
ashamed to admit I'm just discovering your work, "...but I'm finding it brilliant.
Kudos on your tremendous success!" Thank you for listening. (Please also consider helping viewers with hearing disabilities by creating subtitles for other Captain D videos!)
That ending was... anti-climatic.
That was great. Takes a lot of courage to expose your own previous faults like that in front of an audience, and he really is a master of presentation.
This was pretty great, it is hard to admit fault and recognise that you need to grow and do better, so props to Captain D.
I know Youtube comments are generally trash anyways but wow...
So many people completely missed the point of the video, and are arguing about how their "team" is right because of their carefully crafted reasons.
His nipples are SO visible.
What's the name for the feeling associated with knowing you are right, but the other person is argumentative and won't concede?
Edit: a lot of these words describe the other individual. They seem to dance around the point, but typically the argumentative type doesn't appreciate being called words they don't know- hence why I'm looking for a word to describe my own feelings.
captain D is great and im really glad hes focused on NOT becoming another one of the asshole skeptics. honestly its a big reason still sub to him. cant say the same about the amazing atheist.
If he believes that an innocuous tongue-in-cheek visual gag that included Anita Sarkeesian contributed to her harassment, how can anyone even critique her work without being labeled as an accessory to harassment?
As one of that 4% of female viewship I always get happy whenever captain d does a talk. They are always so cool to watch and he always brings up great points.