Ali Abdaal

[chunlii]

So I personally don't like to "gossip" or even be on sites like this as I try to be empathetic towards people who have a large following or are public figures online knowing how tough it can be for them but this guy pissed me off enough to create this profile and mention this here.

I discovered Ali just like everyone for his productivity and his study videos, I initially liked his videos and even him. However that all changed one fine day when he kept using incel terminologies on his videos like "sexual market value" and shit like that. I have been way deep into RP and incel culture, I know how abusive and toxic it is especially with its so-called "science" (ironically debunked by the proponents of it's field) on women.
I initially thought it was just a joke he was using to make fun of these guys when he discovered this as well as he claimed to be politically left-wing and even people in the comment section were laughing over it so I just looked over it.
But then he kept adding books of the author Rollo proponent of that moment. Again, I try to give him the benefit of the doubt but it was the last straw for me, I just unfollowed him everywhere. He has young people following him especially men who will definitely be influenced by his recommendations.

I discovered this today and all my suspicions got confirmed. I am really surprised it wasn't picked up on this thread or no one even made a post on this on reddit. It's oddly a bit funny how he keeps getting mentioned in incel forums and someone here picked up how he feels like an incel, leading me to discover this forum. I never ever thought he will be like this given his overtly polite attitude on youtube that I took on face value, such a shame. I guess no amount of fame or money can help you with women if you're unattractive inside as well. His brother also seems to follow that author.

I've really taken time to address this as this is the only way I can address this even if I don't like it here, because it has bothered me a long time ago. This account might not be active in future as well .

Xanny, you really came through with the tea.

All I can say is WTF there's something wrong with this guy. He's always been sus. Something about him never sat right with me.

The funny thing is, he literally looks like an incel . I heard incels can be a bit scary too.

The Twitter likes, the following, the books omg this guy is actually shameless. Imagine pushing 30 and liking tweets speaking about women like that, yuck. The fact he was working in gynaecology too...

 

[hollowcrown]

The number of videos Ali releases where he is eating drives me crazy - I barely watch him anymore anyway for so many reasons but I hate the constant sound of him eating in all these 'Woke Wednesday/'Mealtime Monday videos

Filming a video whilst eating is the most PRODUCTIVE way to make income though because it's combining eating with passive income, plus you can reclaim the tax paid on the meal as a business expense thus making meaning this is one of the top 5 ways to be more productive and earn $700 per hour before the age of 30!

 

[Lola123]

What is your legitmitate complaint with Ali?
His vids are well produced and taught me a great deal about money and productivity
Sure, he contributes to toxic productivity but living under capitalism, we have no choice but to partake in hustle culture to survive unless we have rich families to fall back on
You claim Ali is privileged but he comes from a single-parent family
Granted, his mum is a doctor, but his family's finances are about half as much as a family with 2 doctors, or 2 working professional parents

Also, Ali has done videos on effective altruism but not many people cared enough to watch it, which reflects badly on his viewership/wider society
Sure Ali could dedicate his life to charity and give away all his money to charity but nobody, including you would/do
You are using tattle life right now, which makes you more privileged than all the 3rd world people who can't even eat or the refugees fleeing ukraine
But are you spending all your money/time/energy on these people?
Are you giving away all your money to charities and poor people?
If you are not doing so, don't expect Ali to. He is not a moral role-model, so don't hold him up to these standards.
If you want a moral role-model, start watching Malala Yousafzi, not Ali the productivity/money guru ffs

You’ve done this on jack’s thread too, are you one of them? Do you manage them? What is the research you’re doing?

 

[JohnMasters]

If I heard my doctor is only doing this gig one day a week as something "fun" he can brag about to his shithead audience on YouTube, I'd reject any form of interaction with him and request another medic who actually takes his job seriously.

I wonder if that's why he was planning on doing emergency medicine. Someone coming in from a car crash or stabbed in a riot probably wouldn't have much to say as to who their doctor is. I'm hoping patients at whatever hospital he works at become aware of what a fraud he is and reject treatment from him. One can only hope this will act as a wake-up call but with Ali's track record, I'm fairly certain he's gonna brush it off as just haters being haters and continue to believe he's optimized his life for fun, as he so likes to parrot nowadays.

 

[GlowGirlGlowwww]

Ive only just come across this thread and its interesting to see that others see the problems with him that I do. I am a medic and it pains me to see anyone in a position like he is, with such views. I think comes across as classist, snobbish and doesn't make him very likeable. I am sorry to say he is, in my opinion, a prime example of why medical schools and indeed other competitive courses/universities, need to understand that a thousand A*/A grades do not make a rounded candidate; personality, communication and 'people skills' are just as important as one's intellect. It is these skills that cannot always be taught either. I cannot see how In this day and age, someone is a great candidate for medicine when they are devoid of empathy and appear to look down on others. I do not know of his family background in terms of wealth however suspect he comes from privilege and it shows in a very unpleasant way. A little bit of humility wouldn't go amiss.

 

[Comeoneyeleen]

It's unfortunate that he has come to this site and perhaps feels personally affected by the comments (I appreciate it can be very jarring to read negative comments about yourself), but he can't be quite so naive as to think he will have over a million subscribers on YouTube and an increasingly public profile, and NOBODY will have a negative opinion of him? Part of the reason people express their criticisms here is because it is away from any of his main platforms and he can avoid seeing any of it. I agree, some of the criticisms here can be personal in nature, but the majority on this thread are about his business practices and how he markets himself. Did he really think not a single person would watch his videos and think, "I don't really want him to be my doctor"? He's far too savvy and well educated to be that guileless. I suspect he may have mentioned the thread on his podcast to bring a bevvy of his followers here to his defence.

Ali, I'm sure for every poster on here who doesn't want you to be their doctor, there are 100 of your YouTube followers who will be champing at the bit to be treated by you if you go back to clinical practice.

 

[sergeantsantiago]

For anyone who doesn't wanna listen to the whole podcast, the comments thing starts around 56:00 minutes. Btw, his brother tried to call him out about sugarcoating his feelings about these comments but he constantly saying he is indifferent to them and does not feel bad. The way he was grappling for words (since he is usually more eloquent than this), though, I think it affected him even for a bit but he was trying not to show that, at least publicly.

His brother came across as really kind.

I'm curious what brought Ali to the thread, and encouraged him to discuss it in a video.

Ali, if you are reading - none of us know you in real life. This thread isn't gospel, it's gossip and opinions; you're the authority on yourself. If you are affected by reading here, then please don't do so.

 

[JohnMasters]

Any girl who's gonna date him for a significant amount of time is gonna get over the "Ali Abdaal the youtuber" prestige quite fast and will be left with "Ali Abdaal the man" who, by what's evident so far, is sorely lacking in any redeemable qualities. He's trying to make this youtuber/CEO thing his main personality trait. It's gonna be real funny when he starts dating fans or course students and they discover that the edited version of him doesn't correspond with reality and he's just a fumbling stuttering geek with no backbone.

 

[thecatlass]

There's something so grating about this guy. Talks about productivity but can't get his hair washed properly He also struggles with word salad. He keeps talking and talking about the same thing over and over again. He's not concise in expressing his message.

As other posters have mentioned, I don't know if he can enjoy anything in life anymore. Everything has to be 'efficient' and 'productive' to the extent that he probably can't find joy in anything that doesn't meet those criteria. It's a straight road to having an OCD.

His approach to dating is odd at best. People aren't products in a supermarket. Unfortunately, you need to take time to get to know others and sometimes finding love isn't easy, even if you read all self-help books out there. I think he may put off many women when they learn about his obsessive approach to life where everything has to be done on purpose and there's no time to sit back and relax. A great example was his dumb 'super productive piano learning' video. My partner was watching it and I caught a few glimpses. It totally put me off. I would love to play an instrument but if I had a teacher who would want me to train according to this monkey pattern, I think I'd give up ASAP.

Another thing is that the guy is clearly trying too hard. He attempts to come off as a cool bro but you can see the insecurity underneath which many can perceive as arrogance.

I don't have an issue with him abandoning medicine temporarily. I understand it is a tiring and often ungrateful job. But what shocked me is that while several times he mentioned interacting with colleagues as benefits of working in a hospital, he never mentioned working with patients and helping them with illnesses. Pretty weird if you ask me.

 

[JohnMasters]

So he goes and does another studio tour of the same studio he toured 10 months ago. Keep in mind this is a rented space that he had literally nothing to do with in terms of building or setting up, other than the free shit Herman Miller gave him for some unknown reason. Not only is it awkward to tour the same space the second time, but he's leaving in a little while as well. What the hell was the point of that? It's just another video from the content factory. Just another turd spat out by the Abdaal content engine. No rhyme, reason or relevance.

All the fans are posting comments of how inspiring and whatever else that video was... Why? What's inspiring? That he made a bad financial call which would've been obvious to anyone with common sense and now he finally realized it was dumb? Or that the people who built that office space had decent taste in interior design? How does that tie in with Abdaal in any way? Why's nobody asking this stuff? Either he's deleting any negative comment or this audience is so drunk on his koolaid that their brains simply cannot judge properly.

I really have the feeling that the people who watch these videos are low IQ as hell, they just instantly appreciate anything and everything cause it comes from Ali's mouth. There are so many weird and dumb ideas in his videos nowadays and people just fawn over this crap. I wonder how these people live their lives not getting scammed 24/7 if they're this gullible.

I've attached the perfect example of an Ali Abdaal fan below. Reality is stranger than fiction with these people.

 

[mindlessness]

What a dreadful video. I couldn’t finish it. There’s a lot of criticism in the comments which is good. This comment and it’s replies really summed things up for me.

 

[Comeoneyeleen]

Just saw Ali uploaded a video a week or so ago about his toxic relationship with productivity. Apparently he only just realised it was toxic.

He’s just doing it for the views, because now there’s a popular trend of calling out toxic productivity

 

[Comeoneyeleen]

I mean the fact that he quit his doctor job during a global pandemic is a pretty good clue that he did not really enjoy being a doctor that much

In all fairness to him on this, the pandemic has made being a doctor a really risky career and I think morale amongst NHS workers has never been much lower. He can choose between: working in an NHS hospital that's practically a war zone, having to move around the country every few years (or even every few months), whilst also dealing with a large proportion of the public who think doctors are complicit in some 'plandemic conspiracy', the ill-thought-out policies of an increasingly inept health secretary, the threat of GMC fitness to practice investigations and increasingly competitive, bottle-necked specialty training that requires you to take very expensive exams (£500-£1500) with quite low pass rates - all this for the lovely salary of ~45k-70k. Or... he can make 350k in one year from some SkillsShare tutorials he filmed ages ago (not even needing to leave the house and risk COVID) - what would you choose?

And I'm saying this as somebody who comes from an extremely working class background (45k is more than my combined family income has ever been and absolutely not something to sniff at in the early days of a career), so I know a doctor's salary is comfortable, especially when compared to the average salary in this country. But if I looked at it from the point of view of somebody like Ali who went to Cambridge: if he was only working as a doctor, he would probably have one of the lowest salaries amongst his graduating cohort (considering a lot of Oxbridge grads go into IB, tech, consulting and other really high-paying industries) - now he probably has the highest salary out of all of them.

Can you tell I'm getting a bit disillusioned with my course?

 

[xaannaa]

what harmful productivity/money ideas does ali perpetuate
also ali has a business to run-- hence the outsourcing and expensive courses
his future wife thing was set up by his assistant as a joke
who cares if he watches tv 3 times faster? not everyone likes the tv

.... the outsourcing and scammy courses, and not declaring his ads, to name a few again. I have said this. Just because it's part of his business doesn't make it okay. Especially since he doesn't only do it, he also promotes these ideas on his public platform.

I don't care how he personally watches TV but again, he perpetuates the idea that you need to watch on 3x speed for maximum productivity, he tries to tell people to do this as a "productivity hack"

by that logic, you should never buy fast fashion, iphones or most of your consumables ever again bc these things are made by underpaid and exploited labourers from China/Bangladesh
Unless all your clothes are fairtrade/ethically made, all your electronics are ethically made etc. aren't you a hypocrite for slamming Ali

in other news: we live in a society.
no but really, there's a difference between doing your best to avoid fast fashion but still occasionally buying it because that's what you can afford and actively outsourcing work in your own business. There is a difference between the consumer and the business owner in how much power they hold to make these decisions. There is also a difference between those who have the money and privilege to make more sustainable choices and those who don't. And before you try attacking me personally, I have bought hardly any new clothing in like 4 years because I buy whatever I can second hand and I keep it until it falls apart (and even then mend what I can). It's not so black and white, a lot of people are already consciously making the most sustainable choices viable for them.

They never resorted to benefits, crime, sex work etc.

And that's great for your family but let's not demonize people who do have to rely on benefits for various reasons. That's what social systems are in place for and it's not a moral failing if you have to rely on them. I really hope you can educate yourself on the social and economic factors at play when it comes to people "resorting to" crime and sex work (and benefits). This is such a toxic attitude that will never facilitate any real change if you genuinely just think people on benefits or even criminals or sex workers do it because they're lazy and just don't want to hustle

 

[Lola123]

Ali isn’t even “poor” his mum was a doctor! She had two boys who she managed to send to a decent school, it’s all bullshit that the middle class pull to be “relatable” in the modern day. What Ali sells is much worse than some of these companies and his AD declaration is crap! Hope the ASA fine him crap tones and then really had to work out how to “make money”, it’s honestly so infuriating to watch (not that I do anymore!)

 

[aitchH]

To be fair he's probably returned that money 20 times over in taxes. I'm sure there are many people who go to medical school without being passionate about it just like in every other area. His initial motivation for it was stupid though and the way he's handled it afterwards has been even more stupid especially considering 80% of the hype around him was because he was a "doctor". His fear that people will lose interest now is justified and realistic. I hope people do lose interest because outside of the doctor hype, there's not much else there.

Considering the estimated cost of training 1 medical doctor in the UK is around £250,000, I don't he's paid 20x that amount in tax. A doctor working for 40 years would also be paying tax annually and their UK patients who are helped to get better would work and pay taxes too. But the tax argument misses the point. The government has provided medical schools to provide a medical workforce in the UK which is better for UK patients than just importing doctors which would save the government money. No UK medical school would accept a student using the degree as a conduit to make money. It's shameful that he is so open about medicine never being his passion from the start.

Anyway, I figured the way he talks is a good prototype for how artificial intelligence robots will converse with us in the future:
Me: Good morning, I'm tired and just had some orange juice for breakfast.
Robot: Hey, did you know that research shows you can reduce your tiredness by XYZ. You could increase your productivity today by combining another superfood as theorised by author XYZ. Isn't this really insightful and life-changing? As our goal today is to save lives, remember to donate and use your time well, and don't forget to include some fun time too which will increase productivity in the long run.

 

[Machtc99]

I stopped watching at 23:06 and will not watch it again,

This is just creepy.


He employs 20 people, but starts to think like he is a manager/director of operations in a multinational corporation. These kind of things like "how to measure performance" "what are the responsibilities in the role and development opportunities" are vital part of any corporations.

So, he employs 20 people, but behaves like he would be in an organization with 60 000, 80 000 or + 100 000 people around the World.

He his quoting Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon (OMG what a /great/ role model...), so he must think he will achieve the same level of success.



I will repeat myself: University of Cambridge should be ashamed because their admission process clearly does not work. Period. There was probably a person with lower test scores but with more emotional intelligence and passion towards medicine and he has taken that person's place whereas he should study economics, finance, business or computer science.


Ali, what you achieved in life is not success - because great marks on tests and exams aren't everything. Even tough you spend 1 mln GBP yearly on people's salaries you are still "figuring out" where to go with your life. And as mentioned earlier you may be "sexy" for certain demographics, however for the majority of us you are not "sexy". I come from aspiring country, remember how to be poor, had to work during studies just to pay the bills, in winter had to turn off the central heating because I could not afford the bills and I had to choose if I have warm flat or have something to eat. To me you are not a success story of anything. Money can't buy talent, and studying is not a talent itself if you can't utilized skills acquired.

 

[JohnMasters]

The last few videos have me convinced that this guy is a complete idiot and he's managed to gather the most dumbass audience I've seen in a while. He's already made two videos about Will Macaskill's delusions in the past two weeks featuring big brain advice like "spend thousands of hours exploring careers before committing" and "you could just become a policy maker in China" alongside troglodyte-level comparisons like how many people die from terrorism vs covid.

Behold the ramblings of someone who's lived in a fantasy world where defaulting on your mortgage or rent doesn't even cross one's mind and providing for a significant other, child or family are non-issues. What better way to spend your time than take career advice from someone who's never had a job and by sheer stroke of luck and being of a certain demographic he now thinks that he's providing some great service to humanity. In the Ali universe tyrannical governments that "disappear" you within a day or corrupt megacorporations with shareholders that moonlight in the government don't exist, only flower-power goody two-shoes bullshit and sick vibes exist. He's taking the "what's obvious to you can be amazing to others" nonsense to an absurd degree whereby he's flat out presenting the most stupidly basic solutions to insanely complex problems.

Clearly China and India were just too dum-dum to figure out how to pollute less but good thing Ali viewers and Macaskill readers will now pursue policy change in these inferior countries now that they've been redpilled by these two intellectual titans. Maybe they can suggest windmills that don't topple over from too much wind or switching over to Teslas so Congo can get turned into one big cobalt child labor mine and Chile can just be entirely repurposed into a lithium extraction slave state so that first world Huel drinkers can feel good about their fancy cars and phones.

In regards to the galaxy brain comparison of counter-terrorism expenditure, in the UK alone in the past 20 years at least 40 separate terrorist plots were prevented. These are only the reported ones, could be dozens more that are unreported. That's 2-3 events a year on average that could cause hundreds or thousands of deaths, depending on the objective alongside immediate economic costs of tens of billions and potentially trillions in the stock market. But who cares about that when we can just pull a comparison out of our asses that makes our message look good right? Feels good when BAE Systems brings in 23 billion in revenue in the UK alone, but screw that, let's just cancel those guys, take their money and the money that's allotted to MI6 and counter-intelligence and fund pandemic prevention instead cause that's how medical research works right? You just become a researcher and you research stuff right? "We" can just dump money into something that basically has little to no ROI right? Don't need to beg or borrow for research like the other dummies that have been doing it for 100 years cause we can just feel good that we're making a difference and pay our student loans with IOUs and breaths of fresh air. After all, Macaskill said so. I bet it feels good to get on the subway and know that there's little to no chance you're gonna get blown up on your way to Nando's. That's what that money gets you (and even so, London's not doing too well in that department with the frequent stabbings lol).

Alongside that he has the nerve to tell people to become doctors and researchers after he made several videos flexing about how he gave that up for youtubing. Which is it Ali, should people become doctors and researchers or pay you $5k for your shitty youtube course and become Atomic Habits reviewers for 200 views? Should we become doctors or make you richer so that you can buy real-estate and hire dweebs to write your weak-ass videos? It's not like every stupid zoomer doesn't already wanna be a tiktoker or youtuber and some do an infinitely better job at content creation without the need of his bullshit course and 6 writers on payroll.

I don't think I've ever disliked someone so much in my life. Seeing hundreds of people slobbering over this guy's knob in the comments and claiming his videos changed their lives is one of life's prime disillusionments. At least he's getting shit on more often nowadays and his views are plummeting. Maybe there is justice in the world.

 

[Sukia]

Not sure how I feel about the beard...

View attachment 301954

I kinda dig the beard, but the title of the video not so much... Why. Why make everything so "productivity" oriented, shortcutty and scammy. Hopefully this is not the mindset he goes with in medicine.

 

[JohnMasters]

Kharma Medic is really the only one of these people I can stand because he is clearly in it for the medicne first rather than trying to become some weird social media celebrity.

Dunno about all that