Sambucha

YouTube Channel Review

Some channels find their primary topic and stick with it, whether it be gaming, cooking or tutorials. Other channels, like Sam Beres on Sambucha, don’t easily fit into a single mold.

Of course, it’s not easy to stick to a single genre with more than 3,000 uploads (most of which are short-form videos). So, what kind of videos can you expect to find on Sambucha?

Many of these shorts showcase Beres reacting to comparative data. In others, he engages in trivia or guessing games, and the viewer can play along. In some, he reads off the top things in a variety of categories, such as, “Richest Women in the World,” or, “The Most Followed People on Social Media.” And even those categories don’t cover every short.

As for his long-form videos, Beres likes to challenge both himself and his audience. Regarding the former leaning, he’ll engage in activities such as, “Can I Draw a Perfect Circle,” or, “I Bought Every YouTube Scam.” As for the latter type of videos, Beres likes to see if his audience will catch on to his antics, like when he switches himself out for an AI copy or when he livestreams on a newly created Twitch account until someone notices that it’s him.

And he might even throw in a playthrough of a video game every so often.

Note: Sambucha was requested by a user of Plugged In. Do you have a YouTube channel you’d like us to review? Submit your request by sending it to [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram so we can check it out!

POSITIVE CONTENT

In some videos, Beres views YouTube’s most disliked channels to determine if they deserve the hate based purely on the content they create. And while he occasionally agrees with a given rating, he’s just as likely to stick up for the channel. Similarly, when he ranks certain YouTubers’ products, he gives fair reviews of the items despite how it may affect his relationship with the person.

There are certainly some content issues present when Beres decides to create a new account on a social media platform to see how long it takes before the algorithm recommends lewd material (more on that below). But the videos can also be seen as a warning to parents, since on Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok, he found it took less than a minute before adult content showed up in his feed. The experiment encourages parents to be careful with what apps they let their kids download.

And that’s not the only video where Beres hints at a deeper issue. In one particular long-form video, Beres attempts to trick his audience by slowly replacing himself with AI to see if anyone notices. He’s able to use AI within a variety of videos before anyone begins to catch on. The video warns that it’s not too difficult to fool someone with AI if they’re not actively watching out for it.

Beres also warns his audience to not trust random people on the Internet—including himself.

Additionally, Beres is a Catholic, though that fact rarely comes up or plays out in the videos we saw.

CONTENT CONCERNS

Our most frequent concern about Sambucha involves allusions to sexual topics. In some short-form videos, Beres sees how long he can scroll with a new account on social media app before he gets adult content on his feed. In these videos, we see the same content he sees, including a video highlighting a woman’s breasts and another where a woman’s rear can be seen from the side. In other videos, he reacts to dirty jokes hidden in kids cartoons. We hear some references to sex, arousal and masturbation.

He also plays banned video games, some of which include nudity, which he censors. Beres tries to guess what certain acronyms mean that reference words typically not allowed on social media sites, some of which mean crude things. In a long-form video, Beres reacts to fake accounts that make him appear to be reacting to things he never truly reacted to—one of which pretends to have him comment on which item he thinks would make a better sex toy. And when Beres reacts to a short with abstract tests to see if the viewer is a guy, some of the ideas depicted refer to sexual subjects.

Beres plays some horror games on his channel as well. He’s also played “adult versions” of games made for kids, which include a Minecraft clone where zombies heavily bleed and lose their limbs, as well as a Club Penguin knockoff where the player can shoot other penguins with a gun. Some of the banned games Beres plays include extreme violence, including violence against children. But even though he blurs those images, he still describes what he’s seeing as he plays.

We heard two instances of the s-word. Otherwise, there was one use of “p-ss” and “a–,” and we heard one misuse of God’s name. In one video, Beres attempts to avoid saying crude words while looking at letters that, if one letter was added, would spell a swear word.

CHANNEL SUMMARY

With thousands of short-form videos on his channel with so many different topical connecting points, it’s probably only a matter of time before the algorithm pulls one of Beres’ videos into your feed.

The good news with that is, chances are, you won’t find any issues in any one particular video—we found that much of his content, especially his short-form videos, didn’t stray into any of the content issues we listed above. And as Beres often reacts to interesting data, it’ll probably be an enjoyable watch, too.

However, parents will want to be mindful that some of his shorts and long-form videos do contain content (mainly in the form of sexual references) that won’t be appropriate for children.