Thunderf00t has lost last of his marbles and remaining bits of credibility

[Yrouel86]

I am seeing the zeitgeist around social media in all its forms coalescing into a picture that people are reevaluating the value it has for them. The level of outrage they feel after consuming parts of it and the way they now realise how they are being manipulated for profit. It is my opinion that TF also is exploiting his ability to profit from generating outrage and hence clicks and engagement in the form of Youtube comments and whatever other social media platforms he uses. Including on the EEVblog forum. And if that drives the curious to view his latest video then TF has benefited regardless of whether he informed, entertained or just provoked outrage. So I'm saying if you don't think it was worthwhile and of benefit to others, and yourself, then just stop doing it. Stop watching, commenting and sharing. Others can do what they like but you don't need to help them.

TF outrage, both generally and particularly about Musk, is like a sugar hit. Like sugar is empty calories devoid of nutrition so is TF outrage devoid of anything beneficial. And like someone seeking to improve their diet and achieve useful benefits, giving up sugar is hard for a month whilst your body adjusts and then you cease to crave it and then you can break the habit of consuming it. Eventually you will find it is not hard to avert your eyes in the supermarket and buy some healthier more nutritious snacks. in a similar analogous way you can avert your eyes from TF videos and watch or do something of more lasting value.

TF has long ago had a successful relevance bypass operation.

Now I got it.
Yeah I also think his monthly twitter/x posting that was happening regularly was to generate buzz to benefit his channel.

Fortunately as I said earlier on X his relevance is dead.

Only 81k views after a week for the new video.
Previous Musk videos averaged maybe 250k views.
Hard to say what role The Algorithm plays in that.

No surprise there. He spent years shifting his viewership toward Musk haters while alienating who was there for his other content can't expect a non-Musk video to do well.
And that's why he'll return quickly to his usual anti-Musk ramblings.

That depends on how you define relevance. And to whom.

TF has only ever been relevant in two areas, debunking (atheism, then feminism, then tech) and science.
He's still very relevant in both.
If he debunks some tech product then it's gonna get shared when people discuss that thing.
If he does science then it's gonna get taken notice of in that field.

AFAIK he's never really been all that influential in the social media space for social commentary.

Unfortunately since he latched onto Musk for his grift his bs talking points spread like wildfire on Twitter/X, I've had people regurgitate his nonsense verbatim and/or directly provide one of his videos as a source for their argument.
He did a lot of damage for the discourse around Musk companies.

Fortunately as I pointed out earlier at least the responses directly under his posts are now mostly against him so his impact there has evaporated

[wilfred]

That depends on how you define relevance. And to whom.

TF has only ever been relevant in two areas, debunking (atheism, then feminism, then tech) and science.
He's still very relevant in both.
If he debunks some tech product then it's gonna get shared when people discuss that thing.
If he does science then it's gonna get taken notice of in that field.

AFAIK he's never really been all that influential in the social media space for social commentary.

I looked up relevant in the dictionary and got this "Meaningful or purposeful in current society or culture. "

If someone finds something in his videos then yeah, OK, watch him. I haven't for years and don't feel inclined to change that.

[EEVblog]

Only 81k views after a week for the new video.
Previous Musk videos averaged maybe 250k views.
Hard to say what role The Algorithm plays in that.

No surprise there. He spent years shifting his viewership toward Musk haters while alienating who was there for his other content can't expect a non-Musk video to do well.
And that's why he'll return quickly to his usual anti-Musk ramblings.

His science videos often don't do well compared to debunking and other videos. They often get under 100k, and have done that for a decade, so nothing seems to have changed there.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQJW3WMsx1q3VRcPYRONDLBaAcMn3YNu3

[EEVblog]

I looked up relevant in the dictionary and got this "Meaningful or purposeful in current society or culture. "
If someone finds something in his videos then yeah, OK, watch him. I haven't for years and don't feel inclined to change that.

If you have to quote a dictionary definition for a word then you automatically lose.
He's still clearly "relevant" in the anti-Musk world (a rather big world at that), those videos still do very well.
He's still clearly "relevant" in the field of science.
And I have no doubt he'd still be relevant in debunking tech/science scams if he got back to making those videos again. The last one he did was Reflect Orbital and it got over 300k views, but that was almost 2 years ago now.

[paulca]

I see TF as having a "kernel" of credit and of merit for his ideas.  He also does have credentials and validation in his field of science.

Its what the "pulp" is made of which can get grating.  Strawmanning, appealing to extremes, I actually wonder if he has a "Bias checklist" or a "Logical Fallacy Trick book" or something.   Ticks them off as he edits and records.

Starlink seems surprisingly commercially effective.  Something in the ball park of a 1.5 million per sat to launch and they pull in nearly a million in subs a year.  Last 5 years?

But, will it stand the time, like Satelite TV is still to be determined.

The "space junk" agrument is not completely void due to the low orbit and decay.  IF or when they start hitting each other because of a "whoopsie" it could literally place a "No Launch" door for months or years.  So much LEO debris there is no safe launch trajectory through it.  It will decay and burn up yes.... but it will take years.

[Yrouel86]

I see TF as having a "kernel" of credit and of merit for his ideas.  He also does have credentials and validation in his field of science.

He knows just enough to make his bullshit sound plausible. It's akin to "technobabble", the nonsensical language used in TV and movies to sound sciency.
I remember the trick and pony show he put up in his kitchen after SN10 with that experiment to misrepresent what had happened (to make SpaceX look worse of course) and as usual Scott Manley actually explained it well compared to that TF garbage.
 

Its what the "pulp" is made of which can get grating.  Strawmanning, appealing to extremes, I actually wonder if he has a "Bias checklist" or a "Logical Fallacy Trick book" or something.   Ticks them off as he edits and records.

Oh he definitely uses every trick in the book both in his videos and his posts on X, he has zero integrity, zero honesty, 100% disingenuous.

Starlink seems surprisingly commercially effective.  Something in the ball park of a 1.5 million per sat to launch and they pull in nearly a million in subs a year.  Last 5 years?

But, will it stand the time, like Satelite TV is still to be determined.

Irrelevant. TF didn't "bust" Starlink because it wouldn't stand the time but because it was doomed to fail from the start according to him.
He was "skeptical" SpaceX would even launch the V1.5 satellites so...

The "space junk" agrument is not completely void due to the low orbit and decay.  IF or when they start hitting each other because of a "whoopsie" it could literally place a "No Launch" door for months or years.  So much LEO debris there is no safe launch trajectory through it.  It will decay and burn up yes.... but it will take years.

It's a serious topic but anyone with a grain of integrity should recognize that the major offenders continue to be dead stages and the big (dead) satellites in higher orbits and countries like China, not LEO satellites.

SpaceX on the other hand does everything possible to maintain a good orbital hygiene.
One of their last efforts is project Stargaze where they use the star trackers on the Starlink satellites to also observe for other objects and then provide all the data for free to everyone so they can coordinate among each other.

[paulca]

I did see some astrophotographers complaining they can't do long time captures now without a star link or 6 photo bombing them.

On Elon.  I am not a fan.  If I was to give him credit it would be to say, "He has lots of ideas, but is blind to their validity.  Other people pick his good ideas and run with it.".  That said.  Most of "his" big ideas, where not "his" at all.

While this is normal in many "higher functional people", usually they only 'vent' to their advisors and those privately close to them.

Elon does it publicly.  So we get the 999 bad-shit-crazy ideas alone with the 1 which might have legs.

[Yrouel86]

Tenth anniversary of Amos-6 which Thunderf00t used to fabricate a narrative where SpaceX made a series of rookie mistakes on things (related to fueling a rocket) NASA had figured out decades prior.
His bullshit assessment was about cracks on the tanks or downcomer that allowed the propellants to mix and the gist of the video was all to blame SpaceX.
And as the cherry on top of the bullshit cake he also clowned Falcon 9 reuse in that same video (usual rhetorical tactic of purporting the current challenges as an insurmountable obstacle or in other words that progress can't happen because otherwise it wouldn't fit the narrative of SpaceX being a scam full of incompetent people who he later explicitly called morons).

This was also more or less the point where TF grift switched from Sarkeesian to Musk.

A reminder that the actual cause was solid oxygen trapped in-between the wall and carbon fiber liner of a COPV which ignited the carbon and kaboom. A very unique root cause and certainly not something NASA had already figured out.

Oh and when confronted about this he blatantly lied claiming he was correct all along and his explanation coincided with the "crash report" 

[wilfred]

I looked up relevant in the dictionary and got this "Meaningful or purposeful in current society or culture. "
If someone finds something in his videos then yeah, OK, watch him. I haven't for years and don't feel inclined to change that.

If you have to quote a dictionary definition for a word then you automatically lose.
He's still clearly "relevant" in the anti-Musk world (a rather big world at that), those videos still do very well.
He's still clearly "relevant" in the field of science.
And I have no doubt he'd still be relevant in debunking tech/science scams if he got back to making those videos again. The last one he did was Reflect Orbital and it got over 300k views, but that was almost 2 years ago now.

I actually disagree. You have completely misinterpreted my reason for looking up "relevant" in a dictionary. I was adding another source to my interpretation of the meaning of "relevant" My point, that clearly missed the mark, was the there is a distinction between having a useful value and just being popular or doing well in terms of views. Once TF started becoming repetitive and producing video with no added value to prior ones he ceased being relevant as a source of new information. People who continue to watch are doing so more out of habit.Or  they do it merely for entertainment. But is that also relevance? I say no.

I could say the same about many opinion vlogs on YT and elsewhere that regurgitate news flows. Particularly in regard to politics at both extremes. whether or not they are popular it isn't a given that they are relevant. If any one of them stopped and this includes TF, would it matter? No, obviously. Hence I claim they are not relevant.

Furthermore simply stating TF is "clearly" relevant to science doesn't really help. It's still not clear to me. But I am mostly interested in whether TF is relevant to the debate over Elon Musk. Now if TF commented on the amount of money EM donated to elections and the benefit or otherwise to the American electorate of doing so then maybe he could add something. Particularly if it included a technically informed analysis of data centers and their construction in local communities. I think that is a hot topic in the current electoral cycle.

[Psi]

35:15 made me laugh.  (About SpaceX Datacenters in space)

https://youtu.be/FGC4ofTcg2k?t=2110

[EEVblog]

Furthermore simply stating TF is "clearly" relevant to science doesn't really help. It's still not clear to me. But I am mostly interested in whether TF is relevant to the debate over Elon Musk.

The answer is obviously, yes, he's relevant.
Why? Because he gets anywhere from 200k to 600k views per Musk related video.
It doesn't matter where or not you think he's wrong or think everyone laughing at him etc, that has nothing to do with relevance. Like it or not, public views and reach are what makes you "relevant".

You could have the worlds best and most accurate take on Musk, but if you've got a dozen followers and nothing goes viral, then you aren't really "relevant".

whether or not they are popular it isn't a given that they are relevant. If any one of them stopped and this includes TF, would it matter? No, obviously. Hence I claim they are not relevant.

That's crazy.
There is not one master "relevant" person in any particular field of viewpoint, particularly in anything as wide reaching as a debate on Musk. There are millions of people who could be technically "relevant" on any discussion involving Musk, whether it's technical, business, legal, etc etc. But who IS relevant on any given topic? It's the one with the most eyeballs. TF is certainly in the upper echelon of commentators on Musk, that is utterly undeniable.

FYI, i asked Grok who the biggest most relevant critics on Youtube:

Dedicated, ongoing critics

Adam Something (~1.3 million subscribers)
Regular videos arguing Musk projects are poorly conceived: Hyperloop, Vegas Loop, Cybertruck (“a tragedy on four wheels”), Mars colony, $10k home, Starship Earth-to-Earth, etc. Several videos have 2–4 million views. Strong on urban planning and engineering practicality.
Thunderf00t (Phil Mason, ~1.05–1.1 million subscribers)
Long-running scientific/engineering takedowns. Frequent videos on Hyperloop physics, Tesla Semi delays, Starship timelines, “the myth of Elon Musk,” and accusations of overpromising. One of the earliest and most persistent technical critics.
Common Sense Skeptic (~119k subscribers)
Highly focused series: “Debunking Elon Musk,” Tesla founding history (Musk vs. Eberhard), earnings-call breakdowns, and timeline tracking. Smaller audience but very targeted and detailed.

Larger channels with high-profile criticism

WhistlinDiesel (Cody Detwiler, ~9 million subscribers)
Not a full-time Musk critic, but his multi-part Cybertruck “durability tests” (including frame failure while towing and later high-speed crash comparisons) were widely viewed and unusually blunt about Tesla quality and service issues.

Many bigger tech YouTubers (MKBHD, Linus Tech Tips, JerryRigEverything) used to be Tesla owners or enthusiasts and have since become more cautious or critical, especially after the Twitter/X acquisition, Cybertruck problems, and Musk’s political activity. They are not dedicated critics, however.
Political commentary channels also cover Musk frequently, but the three dedicated channels above are the most relevant if you want sustained, project-specific criticism rather than general political commentary.

[PlainName]

FYI, i asked Grok who ...

Oh noes 

[Psi]

FYI, i asked Grok who the biggest most relevant critics on Youtube:

Many bigger tech YouTubers (MKBHD, Linus Tech Tips, JerryRigEverything) used to be Tesla owners or enthusiasts and have since become more cautious or critical, especially after the Twitter/X acquisition, Cybertruck problems, and Musk’s political activity. They are not dedicated critics,

Afaik Linus never owned a Tesla, he bought one for his parents, or his wife parents because it made the most sense.

[Yrouel86]

Furthermore simply stating TF is "clearly" relevant to science doesn't really help. It's still not clear to me. But I am mostly interested in whether TF is relevant to the debate over Elon Musk.

The answer is obviously, yes, he's relevant.
Why? Because he gets anywhere from 200k to 600k views per Musk related video.
It doesn't matter where or not you think he's wrong or think everyone laughing at him etc, that has nothing to do with relevance. Like it or not, public views and reach are what makes you "relevant".

You could have the worlds best and most accurate take on Musk, but if you've got a dozen followers and nothing goes viral, then you aren't really "relevant".

whether or not they are popular it isn't a given that they are relevant. If any one of them stopped and this includes TF, would it matter? No, obviously. Hence I claim they are not relevant.

That's crazy.
There is not one master "relevant" person in any particular field of viewpoint, particularly in anything as wide reaching as a debate on Musk. There are millions of people who could be technically "relevant" on any discussion involving Musk, whether it's technical, business, legal, etc etc. But who IS relevant on any given topic? It's the one with the most eyeballs. TF is certainly in the upper echelon of commentators on Musk, that is utterly undeniable.

FYI, i asked Grok who the biggest most relevant critics on Youtube:

Dedicated, ongoing critics

Adam Something (~1.3 million subscribers)
Regular videos arguing Musk projects are poorly conceived: Hyperloop, Vegas Loop, Cybertruck (“a tragedy on four wheels”), Mars colony, $10k home, Starship Earth-to-Earth, etc. Several videos have 2–4 million views. Strong on urban planning and engineering practicality.
Thunderf00t (Phil Mason, ~1.05–1.1 million subscribers)
Long-running scientific/engineering takedowns. Frequent videos on Hyperloop physics, Tesla Semi delays, Starship timelines, “the myth of Elon Musk,” and accusations of overpromising. One of the earliest and most persistent technical critics.
Common Sense Skeptic (~119k subscribers)
Highly focused series: “Debunking Elon Musk,” Tesla founding history (Musk vs. Eberhard), earnings-call breakdowns, and timeline tracking. Smaller audience but very targeted and detailed.

Larger channels with high-profile criticism

WhistlinDiesel (Cody Detwiler, ~9 million subscribers)
Not a full-time Musk critic, but his multi-part Cybertruck “durability tests” (including frame failure while towing and later high-speed crash comparisons) were widely viewed and unusually blunt about Tesla quality and service issues.

Many bigger tech YouTubers (MKBHD, Linus Tech Tips, JerryRigEverything) used to be Tesla owners or enthusiasts and have since become more cautious or critical, especially after the Twitter/X acquisition, Cybertruck problems, and Musk’s political activity. They are not dedicated critics, however.
Political commentary channels also cover Musk frequently, but the three dedicated channels above are the most relevant if you want sustained, project-specific criticism rather than general political commentary.

While TF might still be getting views on YouTube from his loyal Musk-haters viewers I think his overall relevance has declined quite a bit.
His subreddit is dead and elsewhere he's generally recognized for the rambling idiot he's become, on X the responses have completely flipped from mostly agreeing (with his usual clique to help) to mostly calling him out and mocking him (usual clique essentially disappeared).
Also on X I don't even see anymore people posting screenshots of his bs to mock him or call him out (to clarify this doesn't contradict my previous point which refers to direct responses under his posts)

Also by the way since Grok mentioned him, JerryRigEverything has gone full on EDS-retard blatantly lying and being disingenuous on X (I would consider him more relevant than TF on X given the engagement he generates)

[EEVblog]

While TF might still be getting views on YouTube from his loyal Musk-haters viewers I think his overall relevance has declined quite a bit.

Objectively, nope.
Go back 5 years and even 8 years and look at the Elon busted videos and they are basically similar view numbers to now.
Again, any perception of declining "relevance" is not backed up by the numbers.
You can't argue he's less relevant because of the way you feel about him, or the way you think others fell about him.
Views are views.

His subreddit is dead and elsewhere he's generally recognized for the rambling idiot he's become, on X the responses have completely flipped from mostly agreeing (with his usual clique to help) to mostly calling him out and mocking him (usual clique essentially disappeared).

That's not his relevance, that's the platform and the zeitgeist constantly changing. How do I know this? Because I personally experience it myself. One day I'm branded an Elon Nazi Bootlicker, the next day I have Elon Derangement Syndrome.

Also by the way since Grok mentioned him, JerryRigEverything has gone full on EDS-retard blatantly lying and being disingenuous on X (I would consider him more relevant than TF on X given the engagement he generates)

JerryRig has over 10 times the audience TF does on X, so the engagement naturally scales.
And IMO JerryRig is better at rage bait trolling on X.

[Yrouel86]

While TF might still be getting views on YouTube from his loyal Musk-haters viewers I think his overall relevance has declined quite a bit.

Objectively, nope.
Go back 5 years and even 8 years and look at the Elon busted videos and they are basically similar view numbers to now.
Again, any perception of declining "relevance" is not backed up by the numbers.
You can't argue he's less relevant because of the way you feel about him, or the way you think others fell about him.
Views are views.
 

His subreddit is dead and elsewhere he's generally recognized for the rambling idiot he's become, on X the responses have completely flipped from mostly agreeing (with his usual clique to help) to mostly calling him out and mocking him (usual clique essentially disappeared).

That's not his relevance, that's the platform and the zeitgeist constantly changing. How do I know this? Because I personally experience it myself. One day I'm branded an Elon Nazi Bootlicker, the next day I have Elon Derangement Syndrome.

I'm arguing about his presence and relevance outside of YouTube, just few years ago he was much more popular and impactful both on Reddit and Twitter and that has completely flipped which I think did in fact lower his overall relevance.
It's not just the zeitgeist of the day/week it has been a consistent decline and then flip. "Coincidentally" this happened as SpaceX and Tesla made progress and released products.
Also as far as I know he's not active in other social media so he's basically still somewhat relevant only on YouTube.

JerryRig has over 10 times the audience TF does on X, so the engagement naturally scales.
And IMO JerryRig is better at rage bait trolling on X.

At some point the difference between "trolling" and just being dishonest becomes moot, he's still spewing loads of nonsense and blatantly lying

[Psi]

Meh,  at least JerryRigEverything is making affordable wheelchairs and helping many people.
I don't particular care about peoples views/words (for or against) Elon/Tesla/SpaceX, I care more about peoples actions.
If a person is contributing to society in a good way then it makes up for A LOT of viewpoints that I happen to disagree with.

Don't get me wrong, factual lying about Elon/Tesla/SpaceX still annoys me, but I'd rather be annoyed but 1000's of people get cheap access to wheelchairs, vs the opposite.

[Yrouel86]

Apropos of nothing...

https://i.imgur.com/Xar0ipz.mp4

[EEVblog]

New TF video just dropped, another science one.

[Yrouel86]

New TF video just dropped, another science one.

I admit my prediction was wrong.

Now will he go for a third next month?

[EEVblog]

New video, science again!

[Yrouel86]

New video, science again!

Meanwhile on X the grift continues:

But hey maybe he's just "confused" and making an "innocent mistake" not knowing that SpaceX has never attempted to reach orbit so far and has thus flown intentionally suborbital trajectories for safety (to avoid a stranded Starship to reenter uncontrollably).

Fortunately most of the responses are calling out his bullshit.

[Psi]

Meanwhile on X the grift continues:

Simply commenting on something constitutes grifting now?

It is when someone lies, or twists the truth, or by omission mislead people to create negativity/drama to increase views and their income.

It hurts the community as a whole in order to enrich themselves

[Yrouel86]

Meanwhile on X the grift continues:

Simply commenting on something constitutes grifting now?

Psi already answered better than I could.

I'll just add that if you really think TF was "simply commenting on something", which just happens to be both factually wrong and fitting to his long running bullshit narrative, I have a bridge to sell you...

Oh by the way, he's doubling down in his usual way of intentionally misinterpreting responses and adding more bullshit to the pile, but sure "simply commenting"... 

[EEVblog]

Thunderfoot is damaging the SpaceX fan community (and apparently making himself rich) by making fun of SpaceX constantly moving the goalposts on what each mission is supposed to do? Making fun of Elon Time is now grifting? Come on.

Anyone who thinks TF is "getting rich" off this content has no clue about how much Youtubers make. I can assure you that his videos would struggle to bring in over $100 per video.
As for X, I don't believe he's monestised, and even if he was under the scheme, he'd be lucky to earn $10 a week.
TF is in it for the love of the game.