freeCodeCamp's video essay initiative – Idea thread and what we should cover

freeCodeCamp Community
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The freeCodeCamp YouTube team (@beaucarnes @estefaniacassn @GavinLon @RafaelHernandez and Ania Kubów) has been working hard on developing video essays about programming history.

Here are a couple we’ve recently published:

These are departures from our “Learn X in N hours” format courses, and our project-oriented courses.

We’ve been having a lot of fun with these, and have a ton of ideas for more of them.

I created this thread to share this process with you.

I was inspired by Asian Boss, who pivoted from mainly doing to person-on-the-street interviews (which cost a lot of time and money to do, and for which there’s a more limited audience) .

As YouTube becomes increasingly dominated by AI generated videos, we wanted to create something that felt warm, human, and freeCodeCamp-y.

I’m also a big fan of this channel, for instance. The video creator used to mostly use CGI of space and never appear on camera, but that’s precisely the kind of video being churned out by anonymous AI channels. Now he appears a lot, and his speech impediment makes the video completely his and re-assures viewers they’re not watching soulless AI videos.

So some questions for you good freeCodeCamp folks reading this:

  1. What do you think of this approach of video essays on programmer / technology history?
  2. Are there any channels you particularly like that use a video essay format?
  3. Are there any topics you’d like us to explore in future videos?
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Ya’ll are targeting the millennials who like buzzfeed with this style. But if that’s what you want there’s no shame in that…they are a huge demographic who eat this style up.

I personally like the Coffeezilla style videos (his artist uses Blender for the backgrounds…I love them a lot) and investigation style like Reckless Ben (lego scandal …but he uses ai lol) but that stuff and editing style takes up a lot of work. Youtube popularity especially with the brainless Gen alpha is headed towards very high effort videos that are more cinematic tbh.

I watched the hackers video–I think the music mashup is a bit off for me. Sometimes it’s too loud over the guy talking. Or there’s none at all and there’s no mood.

The Hank Green style will always be liked. (If you want something more upbeat and bubbly)

add on: I find Ania is very naturally charismatic tbh so her videos always seemed super high quality and great content.

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Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a video essay on Dijkstra’s algorithm and how Edsger W. Dijkstra developed this algorithm that changed the world in just 20 minutes.

I’m also considering creating a video essay on The Zen of Python and how this philosophy influenced Python.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on the video essays and this new format.

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I’m really happy to be part of the team working on these essay videos, and I think there’s a lot of room to make something that 's both interesting and meaninful for the cummunity.

I’d love to know what people think about this format, what channels they enjoy, and what topics they would want us to explore next.

I’m currently working on two great topics: the 2007 iPhone and vinyl records.

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All right I’ve got another extremely well researched and well executed video essay to share with you all. This one was really fun to watch, and the graphics, transitions, explanations of concepts were all quite engrossing.

@aniakubow You might like this too.

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I like this idea. Watching Ani’s video there got me thinking of the Post Office Horizon scandal in the UK. If one of you could unravel what went wrong into a video that would be really good. It would probably be a multi parter.

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There’s the tv drama “Mr Bates vs The Post Office” starring Toby Jones. I didn’t watch it, but the think the gist is people put too much trust in machines, then didn’t believe the software could’ve made mistakes.

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I have seen a lot of video essays getting tons of videos detailing companies and brands from the past that have fallen off the map.

This channel is an example of that

It might be interesting to create videos of tech companies that were big in the 90s and early 2000s who lost their relevancy today and why.

Nostalgia content is really big for millennials. Everything from classic TV shows to old video games. So creating tech content around technologies and companies from the 90s that most millennials would remember and be interested in learning what happened would be cool.

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