I’m an educated person: I have a high school diploma, a bachelor’s degree, even a master’s degree. And as much as I like to think my educational background has shaped my values and formed my personality—and it has!—my second education, the one from YouTube and Stitcher, will always be the most important education I have received. I think the things we actually do, or in this case, our intellectual pursuits and general curiosities completely outside the school setting, are always more prevalent, more ubiquitous, and more honest than textbook educations. 

For myself, my “education” really began secondary and only later moved into a more traditional style of education. Embarrassing as it is, rhetorically cheap yet popular Christian apologists like William Lane Craig and their opponents like Christopher Hitchens defined my first intellectual interests and curiosities. This interest grew into high-school Joshua probing the great thinkers and philosophers of before—Plato, Aquinas, Augustine, etc.—which, I suppose, is still what I do.

This all took place almost exclusively on YouTube. Craig wrote books, but he dominated a certain weird corner on Christian YouTube for several years. YouTube democratized intellectual pursuits, complicated ideas, and real academic debates. In the process, as my more traditional education made clear to me, a lot of nuance was often lost. 

YouTube, and to a lesser extent Stitcher, is still the home of my secondary education. Whether it’s Patrick (H) Willems’s video essays on popular blockbusters or recordings of Slavoj Žižek speeches, here are a few observations on my second education.

Patrick (H) Willems & Lindsay Ellis

Two of the most important individuals on Film YouTube, these two were instrumental in my early interest in film. I still watch everything they make (Ellis took a long, complicated break and moved to Nebula). Now, in the sense that I get paid, I guess I’m technically a professional film critic. I don’t think that would be the case without these two. What Ellis and Willems both do extraordinarily well is equip their audience with the tools they need to look at movies in a different way—to look for what it is, in the actual filmmaking techniques, that make a certain film work (or not).

The Daily 

I no longer listen to the New York Times’ The Daily, but I think I went three years without missing an episode. Because of those three years, I know a little bit more about how our world works—why this country is at war with that one, what this legal challenge means for this community, etc.—than I would have without those three years. 

The Turkish History Podcast

I have probably listened to (conservatively) 15 different podcasts about the history of the Turks, Türkiye, and/or the Ottomans. This is the best of them.

Lectures by Actual, Boring Academics

This might be the most telling entry on here…but I frequently watch recorded lectures by respected academics working in the humanities on YouTube. I’m not talking about TED Talks here but rather two-hour talks on “The Real of the Capitalist Illusion” or on “Egypt and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century.” 

Johnny Harris

I’m a geography nerd and Harris uses geography to discuss politics and dissect important issues. He has also moved into more typical geopolitical journalism, but he will always be at his best when he is using actual geography. 

New Testament Review with Ian Mills and Laura Robinson

A podcast that can be found anywhere where podcasts are found, New Testament Review is a survey of the most influential works in the history of New Testament scholarship. Most of the episodes are right around thirty minutes and do not require familiarity with the academic texts beforehand. Mills and Robinson situate the article or book they are reviewing within the broader scope of New Testament studies, and in so doing, I have probably learned more about the New Testament through this podcast than in the courses I took on the New Testament in seminary.

1 Comment

  1. Phil Rienstra

    I think it’s really interesting how influential these online sources can be for us, especially in high school and college years. Creators like Lindsay Ellis led me to others like ContraPoints and Sean, but I know that other people, especially young men, fall into different info streams and wind up watching Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro.

    Reply

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