CGP Grey

CGP Grey is an American educational YouTuber, podcaster and streamer who creates short explanatory videos on varying subjects, including politics, geography, economics, history, and culture. His videos have been reviewed in publications such as "Business Insider" and "The Washington Post".
In addition to video production, Grey is known for creating the audio podcast "Hello Internet" in 2014 with fellow educational YouTuber Brady Haran. Since 2015, he has also hosted the audio podcast "Cortex" with Myke Hurley, the co-founder of the Relay FM podcast network.
Early life and career.
Grey grew up in the Long Island suburbs of New York City. He went to SUNY Geneseo in upstate New York, earning two degrees – one in physics and another in sociology.
His grandmother was born in Ireland, and when he was a child, his father applied for Irish citizenship on his behalf; Grey thus has dual American–Irish citizenship. This enabled him to look into opportunities in the European Union, and its then-largest city, London. He later said that if he had not lived abroad while 'still free of life's anchors', he never would later in life, which made it all the more reason for him to go. He attended a masters in economics program in London, and continues to live in the city.
Grey decided to become a physics teacher in the UK; he went through a one-year course to earn a physics PGCE and graduated being qualified to teach physics in England and Wales. After spending several years teaching in the UK, Grey wanted to 'escape the system' and become self-employed. During the time he lived with his wife's family in Hawaii to save money. His attempt 'failed miserably,' and he later returned to the UK hoping to find a teaching job and found one. He continued teaching until his career as a YouTube creator became sustainable. Since January 2014 he has co-hosted a general discussion podcast, "Hello Internet", and began a second podcast, "Cortex" with Myke Hurley of Relay FM.
Videos.
CGP Grey Channel.
Grey's primary YouTube channel, "CGP Grey", predominantly features explanatory videos on subjects including politics, geography, economics, history, productivity, the internet, and British culture. The videos feature Grey narrating over animations, stock footage, and still photographs. While nearly all of Grey's videos feature his voice, his face has never been shown in his videos, and Grey almost always has his face obscured when appearing in other people's videos; he generally uses a stick figure with glasses to represent himself. Grey has stated that the presentation style of his videos is influenced by that of Yahtzee Croshaw's "Zero Punctuation" series.
Grey records his voice over the music playing in the background on Logic Pro X. The backing music of his early videos is usually credited to Kevin MacLeod. Since 2016, most videos contain music written by David Rees. He used to use Inkscape to make the drawings for his videos and Final Cut Pro X to edit them together from 2010 to early 2016, but now he uses Adobe After Effects to do both. The switch is primarily because he now works with other animators on most of his videos, and they use After Effects. Videos are released on the channel and via RSS. Grey uploads significantly less frequently than other YouTube channels; Grey has said that this is due to thorough research and scriptwriting, with the majority of videos never being finished.
Grey's video that debunks popular misconceptions has been featured on CBS, as has his video about the history of the British royal family. Two videos differentiate London, England and the City of London, while explaining the history and government of the latter. Another two videos explaining copyright law and the Electoral College have been featured on Mashable. The channel also explains the economic disadvantages of US one-cent coins in a video titled "Death to Pennies". Other videos, including "How to Become Pope", have received media attention and used in instructional settings.
Grey's video "Humans Need Not Apply" was covered by "Business Insider" and "Huffington Post," and his animated video of Nick Bostrom's "The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant" was "unanimously praise[d]" by the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Grey released a video titled "Lockdown Productivity: Spaceship You" in which he provided advice on how to remain productive and sane during quarantine.
Podcasts.
"Hello Internet".
In January 2014, Grey launched the podcast "Hello Internet" along with co-host Brady Haran, another educational YouTuber and online content creator. The podcast peaked as the No. 1 iTunes podcast in United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Canada, and Australia. It was selected as one of Apple's best new podcasts of 2014. "The Guardian" included the podcast among its 50 best of 2016, naming episode 66 ("A Classic Episode") its episode of the year. The paper described the podcast as having "in-depth debates and banter that is actually amusing." Grey reported a podcast listenership of approximately "a quarter million" downloads per episode as of September 2015.
The podcast features discussions pertaining to their lives as professional content creators for YouTube, as well as their interests and annoyances. Typical topics include technology etiquette; movie and TV show reviews; plane accidents; vexillology; futurology; and the differences between Grey's and Haran's personalities and lifestyles. Grey's and Haran's opinions and comments on feedback usually starts the next episode of the podcast. As a result of their conversations, Haran has been noted for reappropriating the term "", among other words, to refer to the unauthorized rehosting of online media.
The podcast has an official flag called the "Nail & Gear" which was chosen from five candidates by a postal vote by the podcast's audience using an instant-runoff voting system.
Since its last episode published in February 2020, the podcast has been on hiatus with no immediate plans to return.
"Cortex".
On 3 June 2015, Grey launched his second podcast, "Cortex", with co-host Myke Hurley of Relay FM. Each episode, they discuss the methods and tools they employ to be productive and creative, and how they improve their self-employed lifestyles.
Other projects.
Along with Kurzgesagt founder Philipp Dettmer and Dave Wiskus, Grey started the company Standard Broadcast LLC, which provides production and administrative support to digital creators, as well as managing educational streaming service Nebula. However, CGP Grey left Standard; Wiskus stated that this was due to "philosophical and creative differences at the business level".