Episode Details

 

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to David Lightbringer, a YouTube content creator who focuses on the world of The Game of Thrones and the mythologies of ancient peoples. Though Lightbringer writes essays, and distributes his thoughts via podcast (and you can also read his views in short-form on numerous topics via his tweets on X), his primary platform is his YouTube channel. Lightbringer's videos, range across topics as diverse as "Harappans, Aryans, and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex: Indian Origins" to "The Grey King: Secret PreHistory of the Ironborn." 

Two years ago, journalist and entrepreneur Antonio García Martínez declared that we were entering a new "age of orality." By this, he meant that the primacy of text was declining in our culture, as younger generations preferentially consumed audio content over magazines. Perhaps Martínez could even have stipulated that this was the age of "audiovisuality." Anyone producing podcast content knows that the "Zoomer" generation, those born after 1995, prefer not to subscribe to a feed proactively. Instead, they spend their days passively "consuming content" by leaving YouTube in the background at length. Nearly 40% of this generation spends four or more hours a day on social media, and 88% use YouTube. Li