Kurzgesagt

NEW VIDEO: The Rise of the Machines – Why Automation is Different this Time

Ooook! This was one of the more exhausting videos to finish. Took forever, we spent so much time on all sorts of details. Tried a few new animations, hope you like them! As I said in the last post, universal basic income is next. But we might do a shorter automation bonus video (shorter in this context means around 7 minutes...) because we had to cut three minutes of material from this video last week. Ok. I'll write another post in the next few days. For now we are just happy that this project ...

Update: What is going on, what will be released in the next few months?

Hey everybody! I want to give you a short Kurzgesagt update and what is going to happen in the next few months video wise.

So right now we are probably going to hire more people. Another producer/project manager and an office manager to take care of all the back office stuff. Because, holy shit I did not expect this would be such massive time sink. Company things are hard.

Then another illustration trainee (we found someone really talented!) and a part time animator that will ...

New Video: The Last Light Before Eternal Darkness. White & Black Dwarfs

Everything will end. Even the universe. But in a future so far away that it defies description, there will still be light and therefore a chance for life. It will be around White Dwarfs, the corpses of stars. But even they will fade one day..

Blog post: Why Patreon is the most important part of our income

In light of the ongoing mess that is the Ad-pocalypse on Youtube we thought it might be a good time to share our thoughts about Patreon and why we consider it the most important part of our income. 

I wrote about this here before but it might still be interesting to some of you. As always, thank you guys so much for supporting us! It really makes all the difference, especially now as ad revenue on Youtube has become as insecure as it is right now. –Philipp

NEW VIDEO: Is the European Union Worth It Or Should We End It?

This video will probably not make everybody happy. Probably for completely opposite reasons. Some people want less political and economic integration, some want more of it. Some want to stop immigration, others want better integration instead. Some want an EU army, others want to disband Nato. And most will have a collection of different opinions about all of that. It’s the same for our team, we don’t all share the same vision for Europe and the world. 

We tried our best to present di...

Sponsorships and Kurzgesagt

As you might have noticed, we never put ourselves in the foreground a lot. We never did a face reveal or a behind the scenes video and we never talked that much about how we work – even though this would probably made our lives much easier. Especially in the beginning, people thought we were some kind of corporate financed start up, like Vox.com, while we were just a few guys with laptops. But it didn’t matter. The content is why we are doing this and behind the scenes stuff takes up too muc...

New Patreon Rewards – What Do You Want?

Hey everybody! 

This Patreon will soon be updated (Soon in Kurzgesagt time – 3-4 months probably).

We'll make a new Patreon video (which will probably also double as a "how we do Kurzgesagt" video) And we want to phase out some of the old rewards and offer new ones. 

So we are collecting ideas! Anything you think would be awesome if we offered it? 

For all the long term Patrons – is there something that you think would be nice for you and might motivat...

NEW VIDEO: Are GMOs Good or Bad? Genetic Engineering & Our Food

This was certainly one of the most complicated videos we ever made. Took much more time than usually. We know that this is a sensible topic for many people so we collected all our sources. If you are interested they are in the description and comment section! 

Free Wallpaper!

Hey everybody!

 A few days ago we posted a screenshot from a scene that we had to cut from a video. It turned out that many people asked for it as a wallpaper. So we made a bonus wallpaper for all Patrons, as a mini thank you for being with us.

Three sizes for desktop, tablet and phone.

About Kurzgesagt, Money & Selling out

So we want to share what is going on behind the scenes a bit because I feel we are doing a bad job at communicating with all of you. It is kind of hard to accept for my brain but today we are neither new nor small. Kurzgesagt is one of the biggest science channels and we are one of the biggest earners on Patreon.

So we should tell you guys a bit about it. How we use your money and why we still do things like sponsorships, grants and commercial work. 

And why Patreon is the most impo...

NEW VIDEO! Do Robots Deserve Rights? What if machines become conscious?

What shall we do once machines become conscious? Do we need to grant them rights?

Thank you all for the support!

Kurzgesagt 12,017 – A Patreon exclusive update!

Hey everybody, I just wanted to give you an update on what we are up to.

Right now we are doing a huge amount of work behind the scenes, we are finally tackling a few topics that are so big that we just can’t fit them into „normal“ videos.

The biggest video by far this year will be „AI & the Singularity“. A huge monster of a video that makes our lives pretty miserable. Right now it looks like it will be a 15-20 minute long. This is a nightmare of epic proportion. I have no ...

NEW VIDEO: Why Earth Is A Prison and How To Escape It

Ohhhh boy. This was a hard one. We bascially had it completely finsihed when we showed it a few people and were told that we did explain something crucial in a really confusing way. So we took another week to rewrite, rerecord and reanimate about 60 seconds of the video. It works SO much better now. Patreon is probably the biggest reason we are abe to do this without fearing serious income cuts. So once again: Thank you guys so much for helping us! -Philipp 

PS: I might upload the flawed ...

First Annual Kurzgesagt Patreon Report

Hi Patrons! I feel we owe you a short report what your investment in us got you as a return this past year!

Have I ever introduced myself by the way? I’m Philipp, and started Kurzgesagt three years ago. My main job is deciding the video topics and to write and research the scripts.  I also used to illustrate all the videos.

Ok, so which areas did your support make better than before?

Productivity: In 2016 we produced roughly 120 minutes of animated content, more than ever be...

New Video: Overpopulation – The Human Explosion Explained

Our last video for this year. Thank you so much for supporting us. We'll make a "Patreon Report" for you guys before the end of the year!

A New History for Humanity – The Human Era

It is time to reframe how we think about our past.

We need a new year 0 for humanity. But which one should we choose and why? 

A Calendar for the Year 12,017 – Limited Edition. Secret Patron Version

Dear Patrons. We did something special and since it is limited we want to let you know two days in advance. (We trust you that you don’t post this anywhere on social media until Wednesday.) 

So in two days a new video will be out. The topic is „A new history for humanity“. It is about a new year 0 for our history. A new way to think about the collective past of our species. 

The fact that we live in the year 2000+ always rubbed me the wrong way. From...

NEW VIDEO: The Most Gruesome Parasites – NTDs Explained

There are a group of parasites extremely disgusting and mean. Humanity declared war on them.

Hope you like it – this video was horrible to research but great to illustrate : D

BIRD PERK CHANGING

Dear Bird Patrons! The Bird Perk is about to change very soon and I want to inform you in advance – first of all: NOTHING WILL CHANGE FOR YOU! 

We need to make this perk more expensive for new Patrons. When we started our Patreon, doing the birds was a great idea – it was maybe five birds per month and they were much less complex than they are today (just look at the birds of the Team). Nowadays there are 30-50 birds each month and they are much more complex because we basically have ...

New Video: Fusion Energy Explained

Wooo, new video. If everything goes as planned there will be another one in November. But hey, who knows.

Kurzgesagt Socks available for 7 days

Hey Patreons, 

we thought we let you know that we are doing a very limited run of Kurzgesagt Socks together with Bakdrop. They will be available for exactly 7 days and then never again until the heat death of the universe. Maybe slightly earlier but not a lot. 

This really is a just for fun thing we did because it did not take a lot of time and also why the hell not (+ we get a free pair of socks for everybody in the team). So, if existence is not random enough for you, these s...

Let us talk about pressure.

Hey everybody! I would like to talk to you about pressure today. Kurzgesagt had its best year ever in 2016 (well, ok, there have only been two other years, BUT STILL!). We gained two million subscribers, we made what I think are some of the best videos we ever published. We got an amazing reception and a huge amount of views.

And while this is great, it is also horrifying. As a creator on youtube you are always confronted with the fact that it could end any time. The biggest ...

The Most Efficient Way to Destroy the Universe – False Vacuum

What if there is a way to destroy the universe so fundamentally that life as we know it will be impossible forever?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFm6DxNVyI

THANKS A LOT TO ALL OF YOU LOVELY PATRONS FOR SUPPORTING US!

NEW VIDEO: Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever – CRISPR

The amount of work that we put into this video is insane. I’m extremely proud about the team for pulling it off. It is amazing to work with a bunch of people that talented and dedicated.

You know, doing kurzgesagt videos has almost become normal to us. We don’t work late that often and things tend to go way more smoothly than in the past.

But sometimes we, as a group, just drop everything we were working on and focus on a single video. Until the video is done nothing ...

Many people asked for a wallpaper from the thumbnail of the video yesterday. Here it is (see attachment!) A variant for phones/tablets will follow in about a week or so and will be available to the wallpaper patterns : )

July 2016 patron supported

Thank you so much for the support this month!

New Video: Death From Space – Gamma-Ray Bursts Explained

: )

On reaching the $15K Goal

Hey everybody, it has already been a few days but we reached the $15K goal on this Patreon. Thank you so much for your support!
This is a lot of money and we can say without a doubt that Patreon has become one of the major ways we finance the youtube channel. (if you care to know, it covers about 20%-25% of our monthly expenses, depending on exchange rates to euro). Also thanks a lot for your feedback in our last post!

You guys may have noticed that we did upgrade the quality of the v...

Patreon Relaunch Coming Soon (Do you have feedback?)

Hey everybody! We need your feedback – in the next two to three months we’ll relaunch this Patreon, which means there will be new perks, new rewards and a redesign (all of you will have access to the new rewards too!).

And we’ll do a new Patreon video ( in which we show how a video is made and explain why it takes us so long to make them and why Patreon is crucial for us in keeping the channel alive).

So before we relaunch: How do you like it right now? Are you happy with ...

On possibly overdoing it

We are working on something that is way more work than usual. It might be absolutely not worth it. This is a strange feeling because everything we work on is too much work. Kurzgesagt never wast hat goal oriented in the first place. When I started the channel nobody thought that investing hundreds of hours into a single video and then uploading it on youtube for free, was a smart move, including me.

But the current project makes me doubt myself. And to not get mad I have to talk about this...