John Tillman

Much as I’d like to liberate myself from the clutches of the Evil Googlian Empire, I’m still entangled in its tentacles. I watch videos on YouTube. The most popular YT channels have more than 100 million subscribers, so I’m not alone.

I’ve always liked maps. Geo History, a YT channel featuring animated map videos, recently caught my attention. With only 692,000 subscribers for its 42 videos in English, it’s not setting the content-creating world on fire. But I’ve found its claimed “neutral and comprehensive” coverage of historical topics usually to be justified.

Some timely videos have attracted higher than average audiences. “The Russian Empire,” released three months ago, has 1.9 million views. Eight-month-old “The Origins of Russia” has been watched 2.8 million times. One-year-old, 24 minute “World War II — Summary on a Map” has 4.2 million views. Most are shorter.

The five videos in its “History of the American Continent” series run from about 13-20 minutes. Their creator seems to labor under the misapprehension that North and South America are one continent. Its final video, “The United States of America,” from two years ago, has garnered 4.3 million views.

The animation is not of the highest quality, but adequate to illustrate the stories. The channel’s creator is probably not a native English speaker, but I enjoy it anyway.

— John Tillman, reporter, East Oregonian