Stumbling across Professor Skye’s Record Review, “the always positive music review show hosted by a French professor”, I quickly googled Skye french professor and found the LinkedIn profile of Skye Payne, Assistant Professor of French at SUNY Brockport. To find out that he’s actually a professor, and it wasn’t just his schtick, I was stoked.
In a way it’s a shame that Skye’s YouTube channel has nothing to do with his teaching and research (maybe he does, or will, review French hip hop?) but Professor Skye’s Record Review is a fantastic case study of why academics make great YouTubers. And Skye’s approach to content creation, and his resulting success, is encouraging for researchers that want to try their hand at video engagement but don’t think they have the time
Publishing his first video in 2018, and publishing three videos per week, as of today1, Skye has created 941 videos. His channel has 58,300 subscribers and has amassed 3,801,626 views2.
This isn’t actually one of Skye’s review. But it is a really informative video in which he discusses his channel, the work that has gone in to building it, how he approaches content, and why he does what he does.
Check out his channel and pick a video based on your own music taste. Personally, I dig the new Andre 3000 album. So maybe check out Andre 3000 beats capitalism.
Skye approaches his videos like he does his teaching. A kind of eloquent rambler3, using his phone camera and some loose notes, he riffs about the new music he’s listening to. Able to structure his ideas and think on the fly, he embraces the fact that he is an academic and uses the skills he’s developed through teaching to charismatically orate his lengthy music reviews4.
Clearly, he has an obsessive personality when it comes to creative culture. Skye possesses the unconventional charisma and passion for talking shit about his hobbies that seems critical to be a successful niche topic YouTuber.
So, how is this helpful for researchers who want to share their research with online video?
Embrace your fixation
Be the internet’s “insert research topic here” obsessive.
Too often, in my opinion, research comms are developed for the broadest possible audience. Particularly when it comes to institutions’ “research impact” type videos, typically hosted on central brand channels, there’s no opportunity for depth or the expression of true thought leadership. The content has to be created with broad audience groups in mind, which might be as far apart as the general public and international research peers5.
To create your own content, there might not be much institutional support. This is a blessing and a curse6. But look at Skye. With little more than his undeniable passion for music and sharing his perspective, he’s built a loyal community in the tens of thousands.
Adapt your teaching style
This is something I’d never thought about before. But it makes perfect sense.
Most researchers also teach. The very nature of academic work is discovering, translating, and sharing knowledge. And when it comes to content creation, for non-professional educators and communicators, that’s actually the hard part.
Do you teach fast and loose or structured? This is a good starting point to developing video content.
And don’t forget to go deep.
See if you like it
If you don’t like it, don’t do it. Unlike teaching and publishing, making videos or becoming a YouTuber aren’t particularly critical roles for academics.
But I would suggest you give it a go, because I do think creatively communicating your research is worthwhile, you might even like it, and success in these endeavours can contribute to achieving your research or professional goals.
I never thought I’d like to present on video, but after putting some of my own research into practice it turns out that I do7.
Also, I think any exposure to video production that academics might have had will have been through their media or marketing teams. On these projects they’re discouraged from waffling on about their research in all its complexity.
But why not try waffling on about your research and see if there’s an audience out there?
Check this out if you’re interested in making better research videos.
November 27, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/@professorskye
Eloquent rambler, I’m going to have to come back to this idea. I worked with a couple of academics last week and I observed some of the differences between an early career researcher (ECR) and a senior professor (a research centre director). I provided some narrative structure and a teleprompter to aide in the production of short research videos. The ECR claimed to find this helpful in translating his research for non-academic audiences, something he was not overly experienced doing. The senior professor wasn’t interested. He just wanted to sit down for a chat. I asked a few simple questions, and his video required no editing. He was able to eloquently ramble about his research.
His videos are often 30 minutes, and even over an hour. This raises another topic of video duration. Marketers are obsessed with length and short form content, but obsessive audiences want to go deep - and depth can only come with a willingness for duration.
These types of videos are important. Raising brand awareness; driving societal or policy change; generating research income etc. I’m not arguing against high profile institution or research centre campaigns. But I am advocating for researchers’ creativity when communicating their own work.
Sure, the curse is obvious: limited support. But the blessing is that you get to do it your way with minimal interference.
Skye does talk about his desire for subscribers and the appeal of monetisation, something he never would have been able to think about when he started his channel. But he reflects on the fact that, regardless, he wants to make these videos and he’s going to keep doing it. The fact that he’s making around $16 per hour (based on his monetisation, as discussed in this video) with the potential for increased monetisation as his channel grows is the cherry on top.