The One Thing #TeamCrispy Should Work On

Note: While #TeamCrispy refers to MKBHD, Unbox Therapy, Johnathan Morrison, Austin Evans and UrAvgConsumer, I’ll be using #TeamCrispy to refer to YouTubers known for making high quality tech videos. So extend this to iJustine, Dave2D, Linus Tech Tips and the like.

Ever since I got a stable internet connection, I’ve watched a lot of consumer technology videos. Over the years they’ve grown a lot, obtaining cinema grade cameras, lots of staff, big sponsorship deals and elaborate studios. Along with all their successes, they’ve upped their video quality, earning them the title of #TeamCrispy.

With all their resources, you would think they would take more creative risks. That they would look beyond the standard pretty videos, “what is up guys”, speak off a spec sheet, run some benchmarks and give an opinion. In my opinion, they’re greatly underutilizing the talent they have.

I suspect that they might make commercials for companies, but surely they must be greater aspirations. While I get that they’re audience actually prefers this format, they should take some risks. They could try interesting challenges or presenting reviews in a different way (think of the skits by Angry Joe does in his full game reviews).

While they’re still working on it, I think that Linus Tech Tips are going in the right direction with this. Starting with Scrapyard Wars, they’ve tried a bunch of interesting challenges once in a while. My favorite challenge was when they did the $1500 Gaming PC Secret Shopper¹ when they got one of their accountants to buy some gaming PCs to see how they perform without knowing that they’re serving Linus Media Group. They’ve also invested in writers which is really noticable if you watch how polished their newer videos are².

Not to gush over LTT, but they’re taking some bold creative risks once in a while and I hope the rest of #TeamCrispy follows their lead. Better yet, it’s likely that such creative courage won’t come from them. Rather someone new might take the creative risk since they don’t have a lot to lose.