We're Simon Whistler and Daven Hiskey, host and editor of the TodayIFoundOut YouTube Channel (and more). AMA.

Hi!

I'm your fan from Prague. Would you make some event, where fans could talk to you or listen to TIFO episode live?

I would absolutely love to attend.

Hey there, I love that idea! Daven and I were just talking about doing a live show (sort of sarcastically, but I think it could be fun). Not sure if there are enough peeps in Prague, but hey, this is Reddit so upvote that comment if you're near Prague and we can see!!

Also, sidenote: My computers gonna drive me mad if it autocorrects every "upvote" to "up vote" ;)

@Simon: What is your favorite head-shining product?

Dome Wax.

(I don't actually know if that's a real thing, I just watched too much Scrubs back in the day. Eaggglllleees.)

1) Why don't the subtitles match what you're saying perfectly? They are always a little off, like sentence structure or a few pronouns. Do you improvise from the script?

2) Do you know Geography Now? It's a YT channel that is going through every country and talking about what it's like. It would be cool if you did something in a similar style: go through every country and maybe talk about interesting people or stories from there.

1) Bingo!

2) I do not, but now I do. I'll check it out. I wouldn't want to step on their toes, sounds like they've got a great idea going.

About submission:
How many email submissions do you get per day?
Do you respond to the email submissions you see?
Is email still the best way to submit ideas?

General:
Who owns the TodayIFoundOut company?
Will either Daven or Simon be at Vidcon this year?

For Simon:
Do you memorize all the lines or do you read from a teleprompter? I don't notice a lot of cuts in the video, so my assumption is that someone is really good at editing or that you don't say your lines in segments.

I love the Brainfood Podcast, I can't wait for more of them. :)

I'll take the Simon question... being Simon and all.

Teleprompter! I wish I had that sort of memory though... It would have made school a whole lot easier.

Thank you Simon, I appriciate you answering my Simon question.

Sure thing, that's what I'm here for!

"How many email submissions do you get per day? Do you respond to the email submissions you see? Is email still the best way to submit ideas? "

It can vary greatly. But no we don't respond to every email as it would take too much time away from producing content (though we usually do read them all). We also have someone who catalogues any questions (from anywhere, not just email) for later review for approval or not. Once approved, these go to a massive spreadsheet that authors can pick from as they please. I've found it's generally best to let authors pick the topics they're interested in, as that tends to increase the quality of the final product. These are a lot of work, so researching things an author isn't interested in is sure to suck the life out of the piece.

"Who owns the TodayIFoundOut company?" I (Daven) own TodayIFoundOut.com. Simon and I co-own the TodayIFoundOut youtube channel.

"Will either Daven or Simon be at Vidcon this year?" We'll both be at VidCon Amsterdam in March. Not sure about the California one. :-)

"I love the Brainfood Podcast, I can't wait for more of them." That's great to hear. :-) We're both very interested to hear people's thoughts on the first episode.

I'm excited about Amsterdam.

Are you normally spouting history or facts off camera?

My friends have become to call me out, because so often I say "Well, actually we recently made a video about that..."

I've had to reign it in ;D

You look ready for a dinner party 24/7.

That's because I am ready for a dinner party 24/7.

Always prepared.

Simon- Can you do your viewers a favor and never shave your beard? I've been a long time fan (2+ years) but looking back at the really old videos, seeing you clean shaven is unsettling

P.S Do you ever get bummed out when you do research for the more morbid list? I remember you said reading up on the horrors of Tadmor Prison took a toll on you.

Hahaha, I don't think I can ever get rid of the beard. I don't even remember why I grew it in the first place, but 99% of people say I have to keep it!

re: getting bummed: 100%. There are some videos where I need to go have a break afterwards and think about things. Viktor Frankl on the Biographics channel, that was intense.

Hey I'm in the pre 2k todayifoundout subscriber club (I have no prove you gotta believe!). I really appreciate the research and time you invest into the topics you cover, that's rare to find.

I have one suggestion. No. I urge you to change your backgrounds. They always looked a bit cheap to be honest, other than that the editing is really on point so big up for Daven! But since this has to be a question: Why that Background?

Woah, OG. I believe.

Got a background suggestion? I'm totally open to changing it!

Anything that doesn't look like the background of a 90's homepage will do ;) its also a little dark but I don't really know, you could choose a few and do a poll :D

hahahah, okay, I like it. I've actually been thinking about changing it lately, so this will probably push me over the edge and actually do it :)

Hey Simon, any chance you will do a collab with Michael Stevens from vsauce to prove you aren't the same person? Seems like you guys would gel together pretty well.

Man, that would be awesome. Hopefully one day!

Has there ever been a day where you did not say to yourself "Today I found out..."?

On the weekend ;). I record videos ahead of time.

Do you plan on doing more videos where Simon and David switch off (like the screw video where David destroyed the cp component)? I loved that video and the format of it. Do you plan to do more videos like the coke can shaking/foam experiment? I know these are harder to do but I would like to see one every month or so. You two make them so that they are fun!

100% yes. As you mention they do take a lot of time to do, but this year we are working on a lot more of these. We're calling them "mini docs" - the sort of thing we need to leave the studio to go and do. I was working on the edit for one just before sitting down to do this AMA, so stay tuned!

My favorite video we've done is that can shaking video. :-) I love those type of topics where the answer isn't definitively known so we get to do a little original research whether conducting an experiment ourselves or doing an ultra-deep dive into old newspaper archives or the like to try to find an answer to a question nobody else seems to have been able to answer. (I also love it when the questions trend towards the absurd, like "How Many Hamsters Would It Take to Power the United States?" which is one we're currently working on and have been for ages. That's a surprisingly hard question to answer accurately. These are super fun to research. :-))

As you say though, these ones take just massive amounts of time and resources, so we presently can't do them nearly as often as we like. But we're trying to do more of these going forward investing any extra funds available towards them. Hopefully at some point the money will be there to do them extremely frequently. :-)

We're gonna need a lot of hamsters.

what's the most tedious part of your job?

(I handle the video production so I'll answer to that)

Proofing, no doubt.

It's basically watching myself on a screen to make sure I didn't screw anything up. It's pretty darn repetitive (especially as I have already read the script at least 3 times by this point). Then there are still plenty of things that can slip by me, and then I feel bad for losing concentration for a moment while watching the video (or screwing something up between the proof and the upload - for example accidentally dragging a bit of footage on the Premiere timeline to the wrong place).

You guys are some of the hardest working people on YouTube.

Simon, I'm sure someone asked, but which show is your favorite to host? I think my favorite to watch is Biographics, but they're all top notch of course.

Thank you.

I love what I do, and I love working hard at it.

Favourites? I couldn't possibly choose. I love them all equally :). (Can you tell that I host a politics channel? ;) ).

Hi Simon!

I'm a fan of Today I Found Out, that came from TopTenz, and it was mentioned in the comment section that you're living in Prague. Is there any particular reason that you chose Prague?

Sure! My girlfriend (who I met when I was doing an AIESEC internship in Sri Lanka) is Czech and I moved here to be with her :)

Hi Simon! I was wondering if you were ever going to do a show about human trafficking? I think it would be interesting

I'll bring it up. This is a great suggestion, maybe one for VisualPolitik.

Oh man, speaking of that channel. I love it, but I had to unsubscribe because of the editing.

I just couldn't handle the way the music just blares loudly when you're not talking and the constant cuts.

That, and the amount of times you say the word, 'well', at least for me personally, is really annoying.

It's like the Wilhelm Scream, every time you say it it just for whatever reason pulls me out of the narrative.

But man, I love ya. You're awesome and you're channels are amazing.

I understand. I don't have much creative control over that channel... I've brought up the issue of the music a few times with the production team... but they like it how it is.

Heheh, interesting on the "well", I rather like it... But I understand how it could get annoying :)

I hope that didn't come off as douchey, I really do appreciate what you and your team does.

You're beautiful and I support your work :)

Not at all! Loved the honesty. And thank you.

Ohohoh! If I may, I'd like to suggest an idea for an episode. I imagine you probably get this a lot, so sorry in advance if this is annoying. It's one of my favorite historical tidbits! It's of Seattle's history and origin! It's as fascinating as it is obsurd!

They used sawdust as a base for houses and their toilets didn't arrive for like 2 decades or some ridiculous time frame and they eventually turned the second floor of all the buildings into the first floors as they raised the roads. You can actually go and explore the old preserved original first floors! It's crazy.

Woah, that sounds amazing. We're working on a bunch of mini-docs this year, that sounds like it could be a good one!

Two questions, Simon:

1. Would you consider doing a Today I Found Out on what led to the circumstances of West Virginia becoming a state?

2. Since you live in the Czech Republic now, home of the pilsner, what beers do you normally drink?

1. I'll let Daven chime in for that one.

2. Right now, oddly, I'm drinking a beer from the tiny nation of Liechtenstein (I was there last week for a video, and they gave me some free beers!).

Normally I drink something called Kozel (the 11 degree variant, not 11% alcohol!). It means "Male Goat" in Czech, and its delicious.

Czech beer is my absolute favorite. (and I'm German so I'm ought to know)

Kozel is amazing. I also like Budweiser (not the American one, the real deal) and Laško. Defnitly check those out if you haven't already.

Oh yes! Nice choices. I have never heard of Lasko though, if I wasn't glued to my computer I'd go find that in the local shop right now...

Tell us about your life history in a short bit, like where did you grow up? Where have you lived and did you always imagine doing this kind of work? Also who are your idols? You've got to have some! Lastly, if you could've been anyone/had any profession, regardless of your physical limitations, what/who would've you liked to be? I like knowing personal stuff about people, sorry!

Super short life history, lots of questions to get to.

Born in the south east of the UK. Grew up there, went to uni there. I've lived in a whole bunch of different places though, and now live in Prague in Czech Republic (or Czechia after its recent re-branding exesise ;).

As for work, I loved the theatre as a kid. I had a scholarship for it at secondary school (high school), and got involved in all the drama I could. Continued that interest at university (although to a lesser extent). I suppose in a way I always did want to do something like this (performance) in some way, but there's a whole lot of societal pressure that tells you that you can't really do something like that (or maybe I was just to inside the box), and so I went to study serious subjects, so I could get a serious job. I also didn't want to be broke. It's nice that things have come around the way they have so far, I really am so lucky to be able to do this stuff for a living, it's kinda wild when I step back, take a breath and consider it all.

Idols... These tend to rotate depending on whose biography I'm reading. I'd say Arnold Schwarzenegger is a huge inspiration to me. His autobiography "Total Recall" is one of my favourite books of all time.

Anyone, any profession? Hard question. I'm pretty happy on the path I'm on. If I was just transported into my idols position I probably wouldn't appreciate it at all.

Hi Simon, have you ever watched anime?

Nope! Should I?

I admit, I started watching your channel just for your accent, but now I am a huge fan and everyday visitor or TopTenz and TIFU.

Questions: 1. How many writes do you have or who writes your scripts? Its almost never constantly the same person as far as I've seen.

1. How do you manage to come up with so many topics without being repetitive? Especially for TopTenz, it must be a nightmare to find topics.

2. How long does it take to research an episode for TIFU vs. TopTenz?

Thanks!

Thanks for watching :).

WILL THERE A EXCLUSIVE CONTENT FOR PAID PATREONS? sorry about Caps, but you have tons of other people asking questions that won't obtain you a new patreon won won't mind paying you XX per month for exclusive content!

NO PROBLEM.

What sort of exclusive content might you want?

What plans do you have for the future of the channel?

The two big things we're working on atm are mini-docs (where we are out of the studio, do things on location), and the podcast (which technically isn't the channel, but it takes up a lot of time.) :)

Simon, Where do you get your shirts? What size do you get? Do you get them tailored? They fit very well on you.

Despite being a bit on the skinny side, I seem to be blessed with a shape that a lot of clothes were apparently designed for. Off the rack stuff fits super well. I sometimes need to get a coat tailored as they can be a bit big sometimes, otherwise I'm just lucky.

I shop mostly at Zara and Mango, sometimes at Marks and Spencer.

im a big fan of the show, did you do public speaking training before starting this series?

also you never put the URL in the youtube information.

Thanks! Updated the description to add the links!

I did a tiny bit of Toastmasters (which if you are looking for something, I would highly recommend). But what really made me decent at speaking was years and years of drama through school and uni :).

What's the coolist thing you found out today?

Desperately looks to see if we've done any videos about absolute zero

More seriously. Recently I was fascinated by pycrete (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete). We did a video on it, and then I spent way to long watching YouTube videos of people doing all sort of stuff with it.

What has been your favourite subject / video so far?

Not intending to plug a future video here, but I just recorded one about Alan Shepard that was super interesting. It's titled "Don Draper in a Spacesuit" and it dives into the guys fascinating life.

Hey Simon, how do you deal with all the criticism you get from experts and self-proclaimed experts in any specific field? Does it get to you and how do you deal with it?

Honestly it's fairly rare for it to be from a genuine expert. Usually it's an armchair expert with their own opinion/bias about something (or a conspiracy theorist ;) ). It used to bother me a lot more than it does today, I guess you get used to it...

Hello Simon, love your channel, love your accent, and would like to salute your entire team, I love you all.

Are you a native of Prague? Is English a first language? You have a wonderful accent, and if it wasn't your first, what influenced the development of this accent?

Hey there. Not a Prague native, moved here a few years back (still working on my Czech).

I'm originally from the south east of the UK (Kent to be specific, a small village called Headcorn to be even more specific!).

is there anyone who you wouldnt cover in a biograph or today i found out?

love the accent !

Out of a moral standpoint? I suppose that depends. You have someone like Hitler - morally awful, but certainly worth covering (although I can say goodbye to any monetisation on that one ;) ). But then there are notable people who are just nasty, and only notable because of that (like the Westboro Church guy... and I'm not going to Google his name). Those I would not do.

From my perspective we normally look to cover people who make a dent in the world. My preference is covering people who changed it for the better (as you can probably see from the selection so far), but we can't always present the world with rose tinted glasses, and there are plenty of bad people who also need to be covered... Perhaps only if we can learn from their mistakes.

I don't know about anyone for TIFO, but there are certainly topics that are "interesting" in some way that we have not, and probably never will, like that South American tribe that feeds the boys the adults of the tribe's semen... First learned about that in college (where it was explained by the professor that they actually had the boys give the men blowjobs regularly, though I'm not sure if that's actually accurate) and it gets suggested every now and then as a topic. But not touching that one and certainly that would be instantly demonetized on YouTube and probably the website as well. ;-) I actually saw Dr. Doe on sexplanations mentioned that briefly the other day in a topic about respecting other groups' sexual practices. Brave woman. ;-) Sexplanations is a great channel if you've never heard of it.

Woah, Today I Found Out

Hey guys I was wondering about your backgrounds. How did you guys start with Today I Found Out? And (if any) what's one thing you guys researched for a question and you got a completely different answer than what you were expecting?

Daven started TodayIFoundOut long before me. I have a totally non-broadcast background, business then law at university. Got into a spot of voice work/podcasting a bit later, then got into YouTube.

I leave the research question to the Research Master Daven.

Love the Channel. What's the most surprising thing you've learned about?

The Cocaine Bear.

For Simon: will you be continuing your Rocking Self-Publishing podcast?

Also, are you an author yourself? If so, I’m curious what genre you write in. Perhaps provide a link if you’re comfortable?

Hey there! Probably not, YouTube has sort of taken over my life (in a good way!), just don't have the hours in the day to make everything happen, as much as I would like to!

Not an author myself. Maybe some day.

I would watch all your Politik EN videos if it weren't for the music. Seeing other comments on youtube, I'm not alone. Why don't you remove it?

I don't have much creative control over the production on that channel (I came on as a partner quite late in the game - it was a Spanish channel first). I have brought this up with my partners a few times, but they just seem to want to keep it... Lame answer, I know, but it's sorta out of my hands.

I'm still desperate to know. Why, for the love of god, did you stop saying "mMband?"

mMband?

Have you been hit with the whole "adpocalypse" meme? And if you have, how hard were you hit?

Not too badly. Most of our stuff is very advertiser friendly, so we haven't suffered much.

Although sometimes, they'll stop monetisation on a video for no discernible reason. For example, we did one about the classification of peanut butter (what sort of food it was in the US), and YouTube said, "Not Suitable for Advertisers". That was weird. I think they fixed it eventually though :).

do you like Black Metal?

Not particularly. I've had the musical taste of a middle aged man since I was 19.

(Partly kidding, I do like quite a diversity of music, but I tend towards soft-rock, jazz, anything with a piano. If you've got recommendations, I've got Spotify!)

For a typical episode of TodayIFoundOut, how much time does it take to research the topic and how long does it take to film it?

In your opinion, what's the most interesting or memorable fact you learned while doing TodayIFoundOut?

Is there any topic you want to cover on TodayIFoundOut but you've never been able to actually do, either because it's too controversial or not family-friendly?

As for the production time etc, we made a big old video about this a few months back which explains the whole thing better than I could:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok-ZX-FQeQA

Memorable fact: The food pyramid is really really wrong (I've answered this question a few times in this thread and seem to have a different answer each time!).

Controversial topics: Not that I can think of. But with YouTube's monetisation policy of late (not paying creators for sensitive topics) it does tend to push us towards safer stuff.

Hi Simon, first of all I wanted to say your videos cheered me up so much when I was off work after I lost my baby, you took my mind off a lot of difficult things to think about and I learned a lot, so thank you!

My question is:

What is your favourite topic to talk about? Have you ever done any non work related research yourself into something you found particularly interesting?

Keep it up I love your vids :)

Sorry to hear that :(. I'm glad that we were able to provide some amount of cheer though.

As for favourite topic: I really love science in general, or futurism particularly, so anything in depth on those subjects is usually most enjoyable for me.

"non work related research" - haha, yeah, probably too much ;)

Hi! Sending love from Ireland.

What’s been your favourite fact you’ve learned from making your series?

The lies about the food pyramid!

Simon, where are you from? Is that your real accent or do you take a different accent when you make videos, like the BBC? Thanks for all the content!

Nope, that's all me!

What is your favorite video you have done until now?

I always think about the recent ones, but the Westpoint cadets rioting over eggnog had me cracking up so much that I had to do oh so many takes. Loved that episode.

Hi! I love your channel and Simon's buttery voice! My questions are:

What's your favourite episode of TodayIFoundOut? Have there been any episodes that have caused controversy in some way? What countries in the world have you traveled to?

Thanks!

In recent months, my favourite has been the one about the cadets rioting over eggnog at Westpoint, that one cracked me up.

Countries... I'm well into the 40s, it'd be a long list.

What was the overall history of Today I Found Out? Did it start off as a YT channel first, or a website first?

The other question I have is how long does it take to do all the research, editing and filming for a video? I assume the Visual Politk and Biographics videos are more involved than Today I Found Out.

Daven started the website long before YouTube.

I'll also let him chime in on the length of research time for Today I Found Out - but I think it's actually probably the longest of them all because of the crazy amount of fact checking needed.

The production process is pretty long. Longer than I could explain properly here, but we did make a really long video about the whole process a few months back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok-ZX-FQeQA

I'm a huge fan of TopTenz and Biographics. Have you ever had any disagreements about which show a particular story should go on which channel? If so, how do you decide? Thank you so much for the AMA!

They're all quite separate, so don't really overlap too much. Sometimes we'll have something on TIFO or TopTenz that is similar (but even then its usually just one item in the TopTenz video, so its not such a big deal :) ).

When did Simon start going bald?

Too young.

Your episode earlier this week about the "Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon" game makes me wonder -- how many degrees of separation are you from Kevin Bacon?

No idea, but I'd love to do a collab with Kevin Bacon. #thingsthatwillneverhappen

Fellow Englishman here Simon (25 - London) - I happen to be in Prague at the moment as well!!! Do you live here? You up for a pint? I am near Prague 1 and the Old Town and would be surreal to see you IRL after watching your videos for years!

Hey! Hope you're having a great time in the city! I can't make any promises (I have a pretty crazy work schedule), but message me (DM here on reddit) where you might be, and if I have an hour one evening I'll pop in. Like I say, no promises, life be hectic.

Would you be interested in doing a Biographics episode about Edward Snowden?

Yes I would. I will bring this up with the team.

What's your favourite song? Do you watch tennis and do you have any plans on making a video about tennis?

Love watching tennis. Wish I had more time in my life for it, especially with the resurgence of Federer! Go Federer!

Favourite song. Well, let me check my Spotify for my most listened tracks, that's fairly representative.

This Must be the Place (Kishi Bashi covering the Talking Heads, I also love the Talking Heads). Also lots of Joseph Arthur, Andrew McMahon/Jack's Mannequin.

Yes! Go Federer! He deserves the title of official GOAT. Atleast for me, he's the GOAT.

Unquestionable GOAT.