Move over cat videos, YouTube has a new series that’ll satisfy our need for midday adorableness and make us smarter. “Explain Like I’m Five” is a new web series from the wildly popular content aggregator, Reddit, that explains topics, such as existentialism and the Syrian war, through giggly conversations with five year olds. The hybrid of animation and live-action narration is part of a broader experiment in creating original YouTube videos out of Reddit’s most popular content. That YouTube is sponsoring (i.e. paying for) the videos is likely related to its previous $100 million foray into original premium content. In the past, YouTube selected top-notch creative talent, such as The Office‘s Rainn Wilson. YouTube appears to be taking the opposite approach with Reddit, creating multimedia content out of what’s already popular.
About Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.