Jack Edwards #2

[jhawkins]

Haven't watched a Jack Edwards video in a while, but I watched the '7 translated books in 7 days' one and just turned it off after a couple minutes. From my perspective, it seems the reason he puts on such a grandiose persona, even moreso nowadays, is because he is struggling to find himself now that he's left uni. I think Durham life suited him very well because he felt like a mini-celebrity. I used to watch his Durham vlogs all the time and he would always slyly mention how people joined societies he was in, would say hi to him on campus, go to socials he advertised, or even chose to go to Durham because of his channel. As a young man who probably wasnt really popular at school, this was a big ego boost. When he was rejected by Oxford for his masters, and then had his final year abruptly cut short by covid without the big celabratory graduation, it probably brought him down to earth quite violently. It seems he never really cultivated his personality/raison d'etre past being a 'big name'/socialite at Durham, which I think would happen to anyone in his situation, however he's went about recreating himself the wrong way. He reminds me of Ruby Granger with all the constant lying about having read books and acting like a superior literary genius.

I dated a guy who was his year in Durham... he was like "oh yeah him, he's a fool" which just about summates how we all feel right?

 

[Bennycs]

I dated a guy who was his year in Durham... he was like "oh yeah him, he's a fool" which just about summates how we all feel right?

Oh, really? I've often wondered how people in the real world would view him.

 

[xaannaa]

Oh, for the love of all that is holy, he did it again. No, Jack, you started reading these books months ago. I really don't understand why he thinks it's necessary to lie about such a basic thing. It's perfectly fine to say "I'm going to read some banned books" and then take your time to read them.

lmao just watched the video (morbid curiosity idk, i can't stop myself) and came on here to see if anybody was already talking about it and the thread delivered!

Some thoughts (aka I'm annoyed so now you must suffer too)

• Why is it a book of the month ad? Surely a large portion of his audience is not from the US, so why does he keep taking these sponsorphips?
• "Did you know *hand gesture* that books were even burned in Nazi Germany?! " Whaaat really? oh my god thank you jack for this history lesson, I had no idea!!
• Why does he pronounce Maus without the s at the beginning? Or am I mishearing? (he does pronounce it correctly later but still lol) Not to say you have to be able to pronounce every word in every language perfectly but c'mon
• In The Bluest Eye, it feels weird to describe Pecola's feelings of shame and inadequacy as "inferiority complex"? I mean I guess technically that's correct? idk not trying to be picky about one word, but it just didn't feel like it was the right choic? it feels sort of like it's downplaying her character's feelings (but native speakers lmk i might be wrong?)
• Why is he semi-genuinely contemplating whether the books were rightfully banned? Like what even goes through your head to make that a segment when you've picked books like The Bluest Eye? He obviously concludes that they shouldn't have been banned but like? yes? obviously they shouldn't be banned??? Why even open with a question like "Should this book be banned outright as some people want it to be" after speaking about The Bluest Eye?
• "I felt like my legs had been chopped of because I couldn't stand this character" ugh
• "[all boys aren't blue] covers [...] notions of masculinity. spoiler alert: mostly toxic. because masculinity gives that britney spear's song a run for it's money" can he stop with these? wow he's so quirky! a britney spears reference!
• (paraphrasing) "it's occurred to me that the people... banning these books aren't actually concerned with the sexual content or the crude language, they want them banned because they deal with themes like race and gender identity, they just don't want to outright say that" wow jack! you're so smart for recognizing this, congrats!!! what revolutionary insight!
• His weird smile and the way he speaks when he lists off the themes of the books (that he very obviously googled lol) and just generally I feel like his weird uptone speaking patterns at these very serious themes is so strange? idk I can't pinpoint it but I feel like the way he speaks about some of these books is not the best tone (in terms of actual tone of voice and word choice)?

okay, i'm done being petty for today

 

[Bennycs]

lmao just watched the video (morbid curiosity idk, i can't stop myself) and came on here to see if anybody was already talking about it and the thread delivered!

Some thoughts (aka I'm annoyed so now you must suffer too)

• Why is it a book of the month ad? Surely a large portion of his audience is not from the US, so why does he keep taking these sponsorphips?
• "Did you know *hand gesture* that books were even burned in Nazi Germany?! " Whaaat really? oh my god thank you jack for this history lesson, I had no idea!!
• Why does he pronounce Maus without the s at the beginning? Or am I mishearing? (he does pronounce it correctly later but still lol) Not to say you have to be able to pronounce every word in every language perfectly but c'mon
• In The Bluest Eye, it feels weird to describe Pecola's feelings of shame and inadequacy as "inferiority complex"? I mean I guess technically that's correct? idk not trying to be picky about one word, but it just didn't feel like it was the right choic? it feels sort of like it's downplaying her character's feelings (but native speakers lmk i might be wrong?)
• Why is he semi-genuinely contemplating whether the books were rightfully banned? Like what even goes through your head to make that a segment when you've picked books like The Bluest Eye? He obviously concludes that they shouldn't have been banned but like? yes? obviously they shouldn't be banned??? Why even open with a question like "Should this book be banned outright as some people want it to be" after speaking about The Bluest Eye?
• "I felt like my legs had been chopped of because I couldn't stand this character" ugh
• "[all boys aren't blue] covers [...] notions of masculinity. spoiler alert: mostly toxic. because masculinity gives that britney spear's song a run for it's money" can he stop with these? wow he's so quirky! a britney spears reference!
• (paraphrasing) "it's occurred to me that the people... banning these books aren't actually concerned with the sexual content or the crude language, they want them banned because they deal with themes like race and gender identity, they just don't want to outright say that" wow jack! you're so smart for recognizing this, congrats!!! what revolutionary insight!
• His weird smile and the way he speaks when he lists off the themes of the books (that he very obviously googled lol) and just generally I feel like his weird uptone speaking patterns at these very serious themes is so strange? idk I can't pinpoint it but I feel like the way he speaks about some of these books is not the best tone (in terms of actual tone of voice and word choice)?

okay, i'm done being petty for today

Did he genuinely say that about Nazis? If so, he truly thinks he's more intelligent than his audience.

 

[gossip_guy]

Oh, for the love of all that is holy, he did it again. No, Jack, you started reading these books months ago. I really don't understand why he thinks it's necessary to lie about such a basic thing. It's perfectly fine to say "I'm going to read some banned books" and then take your time to read them.

But then how would he get that hollow, unearned sense of superiority he feels every time he brags about something he never accomplished?

 

[xaannaa]

Did he genuinely say that about Nazis? If so, he truly thinks he's more intelligent than his audience.

yeah, he starts with an "across history many books have been banned in many different countries" kinda thing and talks about a couple books that were banned somewhere (e.g. Lolita in France, Ulysses and Lady Chatterley's Lover in the UK, Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the USSR, etc) and he concludes that bit by saying that in Nazi Germany books were burned and that that included authors like Hemingway and Tolstoy, etc. If you don't feel like watching the whole video, I definitely still recommend watching this bit because he really presents this like it's some new and crazy fact that he just learned? Like "can you imagine? they burned books!" He then basically uses that as a jumping off point for "we think of banning books as a thing of the past but it is still happening today, and that's what this video is about".
The whole intro is kinda weird and imo feels very scripted, almost like he had a list of countries and banned books and had a random number generator choose them. It would have made much more sense to start with something like "We always think of banning books as something of the past, e.g. Nazi Germany, and also [these books] were banned [here] at some point even though we consider them classics now! But books are still being banned today, which is why I'm reading [these]" Would have made for a much more natural flow of the video

• Why does he pronounce Maus without the s at the beginning? Or am I mishearing? (he does pronounce it correctly later but still lol) Not to say you have to be able to pronounce every word in every language perfectly but c'mon

also can't edit my post anymore but obviously the s in Maus is at the end of the word, I feel like this sounds like I'm saying it's at the beginning. At the beginning of the video when he first introduces the books, the way he pronounces Maus sounds like he is pronouncing it without the s (that's at the end of the word)

 

[elangamai]

• "I felt like my legs had been chopped of because I couldn't stand this character" ugh

the way he described that book (me and earl and the dying girl) is literally the way I'd describe him or his Youtube channel.
"there is nothing worse than trying to consume a piece of media that is trying to be funny and doesn't land with you", you don't say...

 

[Mark81]

In fairness, the video titles he is just doing what is needed for the youtube algorithm

 

[sheleg]

Ugh - his harmless face on that thumbnail, mouth open. As my old Nan would’ve said “Catching flies?”

 

[hollowcrown]

What is with this time sensitive context on so many videos it can't be "I read 10 romance books" it's got to be I read only romance books FOR A WEEK"

A week isn't even that long smh

 

[mindlessness]

What is with this time sensitive context on so many videos it can't be "I read 10 romance books" it's got to be I read only romance books FOR A WEEK"

A week isn't even that long smh

Yeah I'm not sure it affects the algorithm that much if he were to leave the time constraints out? As you've all pointed out It's also a flat out lie most of the time

 

[Mark81]

Yeah I'm not sure it affects the algorithm that much if he were to leave the time constraints out? As you've all pointed out It's also a flat out lie most of the time

Yeah it would as its part of 'the story'of the video. The tiem restraint is what will draw some viewers to it

 

[RJF]

Why not call it “Reading Only Banned Books Challenge”, if he really wants a ‘hook’ to draw people in?

 

[Mark81]

Because a time constraint adds to the drama of the 'story' and makes people want to watch. Honestly once you start looking into youtube you realise there is a reason you see similarly titled videos with click bait titles.

I watched a video about this the other day and it did make me think of Jack, for all his faults he is working the algorithm very well at the moment

 

[gossip_guy]

Yeah I'm not sure it affects the algorithm that much if he were to leave the time constraints out? As you've all pointed out It's also a flat out lie most of the time

Yeah, it'd be one thing if he were choosing a clickbaity title to drive engagement to an otherwise honest video, but he also lies throughout the video, on top of clearly not having read the book at all half the time and doing everything he can to disguise that every video is an ad.

He could be using those titles and actually doing the things he claims, if he wanted to. He has no job. His content is his main source of income. There's nothing stopping him from actually reading 7 books in a week. It's not an insurmountable task for someone with nothing but time on their hands. But he just doesn't. Why bother doing the thing when your blindly adoring fans will praise you just for pretending to do the thing?

There are tonnes of YouTubers cultivating a growing audience and active audience engagement with their content without resorting to clickbait titles and videos full of lies and faked accomplishments.

Dude's just creatively-bankrupt, yoinking video ideas from other content creators and rehashing the same crap over and over and lying throughout it all.

 

[Bennycs]

Yeah, it'd be one thing if he were choosing a clickbaity title to drive engagement to an otherwise honest video, but he also lies throughout the video, on top of clearly not having read the book at all half the time and doing everything he can to disguise that every video is an ad.

He could be using those titles and actually doing the things he claims, if he wanted to. He has no job. His content is his main source of income. There's nothing stopping him from actually reading 7 books in a week. It's not an insurmountable task for someone with nothing but time on their hands. But he just doesn't. Why bother doing the thing when your blindly adoring fans will praise you just for pretending to do the thing?

There are tonnes of YouTubers cultivating a growing audience and active audience engagement with their content without resorting to clickbait titles and videos full of lies and faked accomplishments.

Dude's just creatively-bankrupt, yoinking video ideas from other content creators and rehashing the same crap over and over and lying throughout it all.

You say he doesn't read the books, but did you not see his absolutely genuine tears at the end of his translated book video? Next you'll be telling me he faked that.

 

[gossip_guy]

You say he doesn't read the books, but did you not see his absolutely genuine tears at the end of his translated book video? Next you'll be telling me he faked that.

 

[secretalphabets]

also can't edit my post anymore but obviously the s in Maus is at the end of the word, I feel like this sounds like I'm saying it's at the beginning. At the beginning of the video when he first introduces the books, the way he pronounces Maus sounds like he is pronouncing it without the s (that's at the end of the word)

He definitely says Mau when he introduces it but says it correctly later

I just wish they'd look it up if they're not sure. I don't know how to pronounce every foreign word and every author's name, but if it was my job to say it on camera I would at least check to make sure.

 

[StatusWoe]

Haven't watched the video yet, so excuse me if Jack has mentioned these things.

If I made a banned books YouTube video, I'd probably talk about the obscenity trial of 'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg (I know it's poetry, not a novel), and how censorship of sexual content can sometimes overlap with censorship of gay themes. It would be a good opportunity to talk about Section 28 in the UK and how that restricted LGBT youth's access to reading material with queer representation.

Ugh - his harmless face on that thumbnail, mouth open. As my old Nan would’ve said “Catching flies?”

Ha, mine used to say the same thing!

I just wish they'd look it up if they're not sure. I don't know how to pronounce every foreign word and every author's name, but if it was my job to say it on camera I would at least check to make sure.

It definitely feels more respectful when people check the pronunciations in advance.

 

[ScarletBear]

Just saw this in The Bookseller’s article about the newly launch TikTok book club initiative:

I’m out of the loop with Jack’s career path, but is he actually a librarian now?!?