In early 2024, the YouTube group witnessed a notable shift as a number of long-standing creators, reminiscent of MatPat from “The Game Theorists” channel, introduced their departures from common content material manufacturing. Tom Scott, one other pioneer on the platform amassing over six million subscribers, declared an indefinite hiatus from his main channel in January 2024, expressing a want to discover new ventures. His “goodbye” video has reached over 11 million views.
After departing, Tom Scott has since been targeted on Lateral, a quiz present podcast that celebrates artistic problem-solving and lateral pondering. Now coming to the tip of 2024, he is not too long ago launched a quiz guide impressed by the Lateral podcast for followers to play at house (see here on Amazon UK, or US).
It’s the primary guide launched by Tom, and we have had the possibility to speak with him, and co-author/quiz whizz David Bodycombe in regards to the new guide, quiz video games, the place content material creation is heading, and the potential for Tom ever returning to YouTube full-time.
What TV exhibits, board video games, and different interactive media impressed Lateral?
DB: I cherished board video games like MindTrap and the Paul Sloane lateral pondering books. However, loads of the traditional lateral pondering puzzles take time to unravel and may have abstruse solutions. By accident or design, we’ve advanced a sort of puzzle that’s impressed by actual occasions, which makes them really feel ‘gettable’ and actually satisfying when you already know the reply.
TS: And as for the present itself: there’s a really lengthy custom of ‘panel exhibits’ in Britain, the place the sport is actually an excuse for a dialog, and it doesn’t matter which crew wins. There’s positively a touch of inspiration from QI and comparable exhibits in there!
You’ve created a powerful physique of labor on YouTube, however you’ve stepped away from producing content material in your most important channel. What led to that call, and do you suppose you’ll ever return to YouTube full-time?
TS: I used to be fortunate sufficient to discover a format that labored, and was sustainable for ten years – however I ran out of concepts, out of vitality, and out of… properly, every thing. I don’t know if I’m going to return full-time, however I believe I’ll positively be again a technique or one other.
Given your background on YouTube, are conventional content material platforms like YouTube nonetheless related within the age of podcasts, TikTok, and short-form content material? Where do you suppose YouTube will transfer to as a platform over the following 5 to 10 years?
TS: It’s unusual for me to listen to YouTube described as a ‘conventional’ content material platform. But I suppose that is sensible, it’s older than a few of our listeners! Predicting the longer term is a idiot’s errand, but when I needed to take a guess: I believe we’re going to see a shift to longer-form sit-back-and-watch initiatives on YouTube. Anything shorter than 4 or 5 minutes – just like the movies I used to make ten years in the past – will get subsumed into the vertical, short-form, swipe-up attention-grabbing apps.
How has your background (Tom as a YouTuber, and David as a producer) influenced the best way you method making a podcast and a guide?
DB: I’ve labored in TV leisure and publishing since my late teenagers. We’ve tried to place our collective expertise into making the podcast really feel top quality from episode 1, and it was vital to us that the guide continued the model to the identical commonplace. Thankfully, our publishers have been fantastic at supporting this imaginative and prescient to the hilt.
TS: Whereas I do know little or no in regards to the publishing trade, so for me it’s been nice at hand off all of the issues I don’t learn about – working with professionals who’ve revealed tons of or 1000’s of books of their profession has been an awesome expertise!
What made you determine to show Lateral right into a guide format, and the way does the guide differ from the podcast?
DB: We’ve made the guide as shut as attainable to the expertise of being a visitor on the present. You get the identical questions, clues, answer and background notes that’s in the identical format as used on the podcast. Often, we don’t have time to enter the finer particulars of a query’s background, and so the guide lets us embrace a number of these enjoyable, additional info.
TS: David usually writes 5 clues for every query, nevertheless it’s uncommon that the visitors want to make use of all of them. That means it’s simple for listeners to play together with answering the questions… however they will’t actually play together with asking them. The guide means you are able to do each!
Lateral: 100 Fiendish Questions to Make You Think Differently
Designed to encourage creativity, curiosity and dialog, every query requires readers to suppose exterior of the field to reply it. The objective is not only to reach on the proper reply – however fairly, to consider the reply in the fitting means.
How do you view the present panorama of YouTube? Has the platform modified in ways in which make it harder—or simpler—for creators like your self?
TS: YouTube is a superb aberration within the historical past of the web. No different platform determined to offer a lot cash away to the individuals who make the content material they depend on. And on prime of that,
YouTube lets creators embed their very own sponsored reads into the movies, with out taking a lower. Video internet hosting is staggeringly costly, and whereas everybody – myself included – could have their points with the platform, there’s nowhere else on the market that matches that beneficiant method.
But the aspect impact of that has been professionalisation: the barrier to entry has turn into increased and better. Back in 2007 when the Partner Program began, all you needed to do was add a video and provides it a title. Maybe you’d an outline for those who have been feeling fancy. You couldn’t even set a customized thumbnail!
But now, if you wish to stand an opportunity, you’ll in all probability must A/B check a number of titles and thumbnails; optimise every thing for click-through charges; and, greater than something, compete with the sheer variety of people who find themselves importing professional-quality video.
Creating lateral-thinking content material like this requires a cautious stability between enjoyable and problem. How do you method this when creating content material?
DB: I consider it as establishing a series of dominoes – you push over the primary domino and hope the others fall neatly, like a logical prepare of thought. I discover that “two main leaps of logic” is a cheerful medium; one generally appears apparent, and three feels tenuous.
TS: As somebody who spent years optimising most of my artistic output for YouTube, it’s been beautiful to work on a challenge that may’t be clickbaited. Sure, folks can and do actually choose a guide by its cowl – nevertheless it’s not a requirement for each particular person query within the guide to have an attention-grabbing title and thumbnail.
Do you consider there’s an “artwork” to creating quiz content material, particularly one which requires lateral pondering? What do you suppose makes a lateral-thinking quiz totally different from different quiz codecs?
DB: There’s a surprisingly deep quantity of artistry in quizzes most individuals don’t learn about. An ideal query wants clear and concise wording, a single reply, factual accuracy, maybe some embedded clues, and – if attainable – an entertaining hook. I’ve had years of observe writing lateral pondering puzzles in books and a puzzle column I used to have within the Metro newspaper. It’s not simple, however I believe I do an OK job.
How significantly ought to Lateral be taken as a type of media? Do you see it purely as leisure, or does it have a bigger objective in making folks suppose in another way in regards to the world?
DB: As a puzzle author, I generally joke that – even when World War Three breaks out tomorrow – there’ll nonetheless be a crossword within the newspaper. Puzzle columns are by no means going to win a Pulitzer Prize, however they’re valued by the readers simply as extremely (and even increased!) than the precise information. There’s growing proof that fixing puzzles maintains one’s cognitive capability. So typically, we invent roadblocks that aren’t even there.
What motivates you when crafting a brand new episode or making the guide?
DB: I’m keen about getting the absolute best questions on the present. I write many myself, however we’re blessed with solutions from listeners everywhere in the world. This means we are able to cherry decide the very best ones and symbolize neat tales from a variety of cultures. For the guide, we’ve packed it with many new questions, background articles and bonus trivia nuggets. I hate it when puzzle books really feel ‘padded out’ with a number of clean house.
TS: The motivation for me is to make one thing entertaining, at the start. I’m actually annoyed when a podcast – and, to be sincere, every other kind of panel or interview present – doesn’t take the time to edit correctly! The present’s editor, Julie Hassett, is simply as vital as David and I’m. She makes positive issues transfer on the proper tempo, that the viewers doesn’t develop bored, and that the reply is at all times clear by the tip of the query.
In an period the place interactive media is quickly evolving, do you see Lateral as a part of a rising development in participatory quiz content material? Could this format increase past podcasts and books?
DB: The apparent route could be a tv format, although we’d miss the quantity of management we get pleasure from now. It’s fascinating to see how exhibits reminiscent of The Crystal Maze (the primary present I labored on), Taskmaster and The Cube have been developed into actual world video games. Would folks wish to do Lateral: The Live Experience!?
TS: I do suppose quizzes and video games have been participatory for a really very long time, notably on tv. One of the important thing factors for lots of tv quiz codecs is ‘shoutability’: the viewers at house ought to be shouting the reply on the display. If the participant’s profitable, the viewers ought to be cheering them on – and in the event that they fail, then the folks at house ought to suppose ‘perhaps I may have performed that’!
What do you hope readers will take away from the guide that they may not get from listening to the podcast?
DB: We’ve packed the guide with a number of associated ‘take away’ info. So, if the reply was ‘Julia was holding a pineapple’, we’ll clarify why Julia was doing such an odd factor after which provide you with an entire bunch of pineapple-related info. That instance is made up, however do you know that the spirals on a pineapple are primarily based on the Fibonacci collection?
Can you share a bit in regards to the course of of selecting which questions and themes made it into the guide?
DB: 60% of the guide is model new, nevertheless it’s been written with the identical course of and obligation of care because the podcast. We’ve additionally chosen the very best questions from the primary 30 episodes; ones that have been solved easily and had an excellent response from the visitors. We’ve organized the questions into 4 problem ranges, so that folks can begin slowly and hopefully work their means up, and it’s vital that there’s an excellent mixture of matters in there too.
How does the collaborative course of between you two change when making a guide versus engaged on a podcast?
TS: For the guide, I’ve performed all of the questions! On the present, I get my questions as a spoiler-filled script – and I don’t see the visitors’ questions in any respect; I hear them similtaneously all the opposite gamers. I intentionally don’t have entry to David’s database of potential Lateral questions, so I can’t unintentionally spoiler myself! So, it was enjoyable to have the ability to truly play the brand new questions for the guide, to have the ability to take the time to pause after every clue and suppose them out for myself, with out having to additionally hold the present operating.
DB: We’re each fairly used to working over e-mail, so it was a easy course of from my aspect. Tracking all of the edits wanted between the UK and US editions was a little bit of a problem, although.
TS: Yes – whereas the questions are the identical in each editions, there’s loads of refined adjustments to cultural references and grammar required to translate all of the textual content throughout the Atlantic!
How would you like your viewers to really feel after participating with Lateral—whether or not by way of the podcast, the guide, or a dwell present?
DB: We need the viewers to know that we worth their time – whether or not they’re having fun with the banter or studying some fascinating tales. When you’re taking part in questions from the guide, both by your self or with a social group, Lateral questions drive your mind to the gray matter in methods it’s not used to. Hopefully readers will have the ability to use a new-found flexibility of pondering of their on a regular basis lives.
Robert Anderson is a offers skilled and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can observe him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
