[Music]
MICHAEL STEVENS: Well, I was born in 1986.
What if I just did my whole life?
[Music]
MICHAEL: I first started explaining things to myself out loud.
I talk out loud to myself all the time.
I distinctly remember being on a family vacation when I was in elementary school and I was
in the hotel room alone and the bathroom had one of those y'know clean sealed for your
protection pieces of paper around it.
I said out loud, this paper is put here so you feel like the toilet is cleaner and I
said this as if there was an audience listening.
[Murmuring]
MICHAEL: I remember this moment because it was the first time I went, why am I doing
this?
I'm not talking to anybody.
I think verbally expressing and explaining out loud what gave me the ability to better
understand things and appreciate them.
And so I would just do that even when I was alone.
When I studied in college, I would give the lesson out loud and if I couldn't explain
it easily myself, I probably didn't understand it well enough.
In fact, when I research a topic for an episode, I over research it.
I've always done a week of research on the topic and what I wind up saying in the episode
is just a fraction of what I could have said.
Because if I don't over research it, I don't know it well enough.
I should be able to have anybody come up to me and say, wait, can you clarify this?
Wait, what about this?
I need to be able to say, yes of course, good question.
So the reason I didn't include that is because I figured it out and blah blah blah blah.
Y'know, if I only know what I say, then it comes through because I don't truly understand
the whole thing.
MICHAEL: In high school, I participated in debate but I wasn't that great at it because
I'm not very organized.
[Depressing sound effect]
MICHAEL: This has been a theme of my life, but we had another program called forensics.
Forensics means dealing with the court and law.
[Gavel sound effect]
MICHAEL: Forensics, as a high school extra curricular was basically just competitive
speech.
One of the kinds of speeches you could give was an informative speech which informed on
a topic.
And you could inform on the history of something, you could inform on an upcoming even or a
charitable cause and what I would do is pick a completely mundane goofy topic.
The first one I ever wrote was on ketchup.
And I don't know why, but everyone thought it was hilarious that I wrote this 8 minute
speech just about ketchup, it's significance to society, the viscosity of it as a condiment
and how that effects its ability to come out of certain containers, why is it spelt different
ways?
How should be pronounced, who invented it?
And this went on and on and on and I treated it so seriously.
It was almost like a comedy routine.
ARCHIVAL CLIP: Hey fellas, listen to this letter.
Gentleman…
ARCHIVAL CLIP: That ain't for us we're not gentlemen!
ARCHIVAL CLIP: Speak for yourself!
MICHAEL: But that was when I found what I was both good at and loved doing.
What I do now on Vsauce is the exact same thing.
[Royal music]
MICHAEL: Hey, Vsauce, Michael here and my tea is quite hot.
But it's not the hottest thing in the universe.
So what is?
MICHAEL: It's like I'm back in high school again but instead of one new speech every
year, it's a new speech every week.
I think someone once left a comment like, man, Michael could talk about paint drying
and it would be interesting.
It turns out that pain drying is very interesting.
At a microscopic level, it's fantastic to see how the paint and the water in the paint
interact.
And so I've always kinda taken on challenges of "this episode sounds silly, I know, but
just watch it and you'll see how fun it is."
MICHAEL: Stick around because there will be more videos of me right here on THNKR.
In fact the whole channel has some pretty cool stuff, the ideas and thinking that are
changing the world, so be sure to subscribe.