Thomas Scott
is a British
YouTuber
A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006.
Influence
Influe ...
and
web developer.
His self-titled
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
channel offers educational videos across a range of topics including
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
,
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
,
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
,
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
, and
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
.
He also has four other channels: ''Matt and Tom'' (featuring Matt Gray), ''Tom Scott plus'' (which features collaborations with a number of other creators), ''The Technical Difficulties'' (which features him with the other members of the comedy troupe of the same name)
and ''Lateral with Tom Scott'' (a podcast based on his 2018 game show of the same name). his five YouTube channels have collectively gained over 6.88 million subscribers and billion views.
Early work
Originally from
Mansfield,
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
, United Kingdom,
Scott graduated from the
University of York
, mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £8.0 million
, budget = £403.6 million
, chancellor = Heather Melville
, vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery
, students ...
with a degree in
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
and
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
, and later earned a
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
in educational studies.
While at university, in 2004, Scott produced a website
parodying
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...
the British government's "
Preparing for Emergencies
Preparing for Emergencies was a public information campaign produced by the Home Office, a department of the United Kingdom Government, advising British citizens on what to do in the event of a natural disaster, accident or terrorism. The campa ...
" website, including a section explaining what to do in case of a
zombie apocalypse
Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack hum ...
. This resulted in the
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
demanding the site be taken down. Scott sent a "polite response declining to take down the site"; the site is still live.
In 2009, Scott became the UK organiser of
International Talk Like a Pirate Day
International Talk Like a Pirate Day is a parodic holiday created in 1995 by John Baur and Mark Summers of Albany, Oregon, who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate.[University of York Students' Union
University of York Students' Union (YUSU) is the representative body for the students at the University of York, England. It provides representation for all students, is the key provider of entertainment and welfare services, and operates a ran ...]
, under the guise of his Talk Like a Pirate Day persona, "Mad Cap'n Tom Scott". Despite running as a joke, with almost 3000 votes, he won the election and served as the organisation's 48th president.
When he was on the podcast Corridor Cast, he said that it was terrible as he did not know what to do, so his team would fill in for him.
That same year, Scott and three friends formed the
comedy troupe
A comedy troupe is a group of comedians and associated personnel who work together to perform comedy as entertainment. The term is often used interchangeably with comedy group, and the troupe may specialize in a specific genre or style of comedy ...
, The Technical Difficulties, with whom he hosted a radio show of the same name on
University Radio York
University Radio York (commonly known as URY) is a University Radio station covering the campuses of the University of York. It was the first legal independent radio station in the United Kingdom. Broadcasting from Vanbrugh College on the Univ ...
. The show later won the
Kevin Greening
Kevin Greening (30 December 1962 – 29 December 2007) was a British radio presenter, who co-hosted ''Radio 1 Breakfast'' on BBC Radio 1 with Zoe Ball from 13 October 1997 to 25 September 1998.
Early career
Kevin Greening grew up in Bristol whe ...
award at the
Student Radio Awards.
After graduating, Scott made several appearances on British television shows both as a contestant and presenter. He captained the Hitchhikers in series 3 of
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002 's ''
Only Connect'' in 2010 but was knocked out by the Strategists in the semi-finals, and, in 2012, was a presenter in the
Sky 1
Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non-terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, ...
series ''
Gadget Geeks
''Gadget Geeks'' is a British television series that aired on Sky1, and focused on technology and gadgets. The series differed to the Channel 5 series ''The Gadget Show'', in that it did not just feature commercially available technology, but ...
'' alongside
Colin Furze
Colin Peter Furze (born 14 October 1979) is a British YouTube personality, stuntman, inventor, and filmmaker from Stamford, Lincolnshire, England. Furze left school to become a plumber, a trade which he pursued until joining the Sky1 programme ...
and Creative Technologist Charles Yarnold, where he was responsible for the creation of
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
solutions.
In 2010, Scott and the Technical Difficulties troupe began the "Reverse Trivia Podcast" series on the Technical Difficulties website wherein Scott would read the answer to a 1984 trivia question card while his fellow panellists attempted to guess the question.
The show concluded in 2014 after the commencement of '.
Scott received widespread coverage in 2013 for "Actual Facebook Graph Searches", a
Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
site which exposed a potentially embarrassing and dangerous collection of public
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
data using Facebook's Graph Search, such as showing men in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
who have said that they were "interested in men" or "single women who live nearby and are interested in men and like getting drunk".
YouTube career
Scott registered his main
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
channel, Tom Scott (originally under the username "enyay", derived from the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
name of the letter
Ñ, "eñe", a username he has mentioned he "despised"), on 17 May 2006. At the start of his YouTube channel, Scott uploaded several cooking videos in which he would cook food in odd ways.
![Tom Scott-headshot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Tom_Scott-headshot.jpg)
Scott produces and uploads educational videos to the channel across a range of topics including
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
,
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
,
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
,
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
and
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
.
Also hosted on the channel is the series ' with The Technical Difficulties which ran for eight seasons, from March 2014 to November 2018. In this series Scott would walk through a chosen Wikipedia article, while his fellow panellists attempted to guess facts about the article. He additionally produced explanations of computer security issues on
Brady Haran
Brady John Haran (born 18 June 1976) is an Australian-British independent filmmaker and video journalist who produces educational videos and documentary films for his YouTube channels, the most notable being ''Periodic Videos'' and '' Numbe ...
's YouTube channel, Computerphile. He is known for wearing red T-shirts, originally worn out of a need for continuity during filming, and because Scott was wearing a red t-shirt in the primary picture he used on his personal website at the time, and used red as the accent colour for the website.
At the end of 2015, Scott launched a collaborative YouTube channel with his colleague and friend, Matt Gray, called Matt & Tom. The channel hosted ''The Park Bench'' wherein the pair would sit on a park bench and discuss videos, their travels, and other anecdotes. The series was produced weekly from its inception until 24 March 2018, when they announced that the series would no longer be produced on a regular schedule due to time constraints. In late 2018, the channel became a vehicle for videos of The Technical Difficulties, including "The Experiments" (2018), where the troupe piloted a number of game show ideas. The channel then aired their series entitled ''Two of These People Are Lying'', in which Scott had to guess which of the troupe was giving accurate information pertaining to a
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
article whose title he had drawn from a prepared stack. This show has since stopped, with only irregular special episodes being released, and The Technical Difficulties have moved to their own YouTube channel.
In November 2018, Scott founded Pad 26 Limited, a company offering content production, format development, and YouTube consultancy.
In 2021, Scott challenged
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
education YouTuber
Jordan Harrod
Jordan Harrod (born July 10, 1996) is an American research scientist and YouTuber who works on neuroengineering, brain-machine interfaces, and machine learning for medicine. A current graduate student at Harvard and MIT, Harrod also runs a YouT ...
to create a
deepfake
Deepfakes (a portmanteau of " deep learning" and "fake") are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else's likeness. While the act of creating fake content is not new, deepfakes leverage powerfu ...
version of him for $100. In a collaboration video posted on his channel, Harrod succeeded in doing so and also discussed the tech and dangers associated with deepfakes.
Also in 2021, Scott launched two new YouTube channels: Tom Scott plus on 14 June, focused on collaboration videos with other YouTubers, and The Technical Difficulties on 2 July, inactive until 7 July 2022 when he published the first video.
In March 2022, Scott collaborated on Tom Scott plus with musician
Beardyman
Darren Alexander Foreman (born 14 May 1982), better known as Beardyman, is a British multivocalist, musician and comedian from London known for his beatboxing skills and use of live looping.
Early life
After studying at Queen Elizabeth's Gra ...
(also brother of
Jay Foreman), creating together a
hyperpop
Hyperpop is a loosely-defined music movement and microgenre that predominantly originated in the United Kingdom during the early-to-mid 2010s. It is characterized by a maximalist or exaggerated take on popular music, and artists within the genr ...
song named "Shelter me from the rain", which was released under the name "MC HyperScott" to
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
on 5 March 2022.
''Amazing Places''
Scott has a series of videos dedicated to talking about certain places around the world called ''Amazing Places''. In 2016, Scott published a video about the geology of the
Wharfe River in
Yorkshire, England
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...
. In 2020, Scott posted a video where he travelled to Iceland's northernmost islet,
Kolbeinsey
Kolbeinsey (; also known as Kolbeinn's Isle, Seagull Rock, Mevenklint, Mevenklip, or Meeuw Steen) is a small islet in the Greenland Sea located off the northern coast of Iceland, north-northwest of the island of Grímsey. It is the northernmos ...
. Also in 2020, Scott posted a video about
Wunderland Kalkar
Wunderland Kalkar is an amusement park in Kalkar, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is built on the former site of SNR-300, a nuclear power plant that never went online because of construction problems and protests. The park was constructed by D ...
, an amusement park in Germany inside a nuclear power plant. In October 2021, he visited the only float-through McDonald's in the world located in
Hamburg, Germany.
''Tom's Language Files''
One series of videos on Scott's channel is called ''Tom's Language Files''. The videos are based on
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
and the grammatical structures of languages. Some of the entries in this series are co-written by linguists
Gretchen McCulloch
Gretchen McCulloch () is a Canadian linguist. On her blog, as well as her podcast Lingthusiasm (which she cohosts with Lauren Gawne) she offers linguistic analysis of online communication such as internet memes, emoji and instant messaging. Sh ...
and Molly Ruhl.
''The Basics''
Scott also has a series on computer science, called ''The Basics.'' In these, he covers the fundamentals of
IT, and also has made videos on actual exploits, bugs with technology.
2010 UK general election
![Tom Scott - pirate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Tom_Scott_-_pirate.jpg)
In 2010, after losing a bet that the
New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the te ...
would lose
Super Bowl XLIV
Super Bowl XLIV was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champions New Orleans Saints and the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Indianapolis Colts to decide the National Football League (NFL) champ ...
, Scott ran for
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
in the
Cities of London and Westminster constituency as the
joke candidate
A frivolous party or a joke party is a political party which has been created for the purposes of entertainment or political satire. Such a party may or may not have a serious point behind its activities. This is a list of frivolous political par ...
"Mad Cap'n Tom". This was a role he had previously assumed in the 2008 race for presidency of the
University of York Students' Union
University of York Students' Union (YUSU) is the representative body for the students at the University of York, England. It provides representation for all students, is the key provider of entertainment and welfare services, and operates a ran ...
, which he had unintentionally won. Coincidentally, Scott stood against the
Pirate Party candidate Jack Nunn, which was described on the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'' as "a split in the pirate vote".
As part of his bid, he promised to scrap taxes on
s due to his dislike of the singer.
Scott described his chances of winning in the safe
seat of Westminster as "Somewhere 'twixt a snowball's chance in hell an' zero." He received 84 votes (0.2% of the total), including the vote of
.
along with Matt Gray. It was a parody
'' as "an inside joke turned into reality". It closed in July 2015 after it became too expensive to maintain. Scott followed this up in September 2015 by creating a full-size
keyboard out of fourteen standard keyboards to type every standard Unicode emoji.
Scott also worked for the
. UsVsTh3m shut down in 2015, but Scott maintains a few of these old games on his personal website.
Other web apps Scott has created include "Evil" (a web app that revealed the phone numbers of Facebook users), "Tweleted" (which showed posts deleted from Twitter), "What's Osama bin Watchin?" (which mashed together an image of
edited Wikipedia), and "Klouchebag" (a satire of the social media rankings site
team.
155-100.
for Learning and Education.