CGP Grey

YouTube Channel Review

CGP Grey wants to teach you things—and many things, at that. He drills into topics related to science, history, culture and loads of other subjects, and he wants to tell you all about it. How does machine learning actually work? How do you read the U.S. Interstate’s code? How far back does the name Tiffany go? All of these questions and more will be answered on CGP Grey’s YouTube channel. There’s a lot this physics-teacher-turned-YouTuber wants to teach you—things you didn’t even know you wanted to know.

POSITIVE CONTENT

Grey offers well-researched and educational videos on a variety of topics, including history, economics, science and more. These videos typically do not reveal any agenda or personal bias, instead wanting to supply the viewer with the overarching facts. Even in his few videos which do expose his personal viewpoints (such as one on the Electoral College), Grey offers his ideas with kindness and logic, providing his argument’s case rather than demeaning those who hold another viewpoint.

He sometimes deals in more philosophical discussions, too. In one video, Grey helps his viewers learn to become more grateful for their lives. While talking about a journal, he encourages users of it to write down at least one specific thing that they are grateful for that day.

Grey even owns up to any mistakes he makes in videos. His desire is to teach rather than boost his ego through misleading people—and his willingness to own up to his few mistakes reveals that.

CONTENT CONCERNS

Grey makes references to evolution. He has also released a couple of videos discussing the idea of immortality via technological advances. In one of those videos, an illustrated video depicting The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, animated people are seen being eaten by the dragon. Additionally, Grey has a couple of videos on political topics, such as the Electoral College and Brexit, that some may not wish to watch. Grey has also very occasionally misused God’s name, including once in the form of “g-dd–n.”

CHANNEL SUMMARY

CGP Grey offers entertaining and insightful videos, often into very specific topics, such as the uniqueness of hexagons or about who owns the Statue of Liberty. And while their focus on often extremely specific ideas may sound boring, Grey’s teaching style often draws viewers in to learn exactly what the answer to his thesis questions are—revealing the traits of a good teacher. However, while CGP Grey remains relatively clean of content concerns, parents will want to check our content summary to make sure the few rare problems we do see are worth it to them.