There is not a lot of comedy to be found in the cryptocurrency space. At least not since Dogecoin somehow sponsored a freaking NASCAR driver and covered his car in Doge memes. But that was way back in 2014. Remember when magical internet money used to be fun? I think it is time we all stopped taking the scaling debate and everything else so seriously and just have some fun.
Brian Hoffman, best known for founding OpenBazaar, is doing his best to inject some humor into the trollish hell scape that the cryptocurrency space has become. And it is fucking hilarious. Part Bad lip reading, part sketch comedy, Hoffman takes aim at nearly everyone in the cryptocurrency space. From Onecoin to Bitcoin Cash supporters to Core developers to himself, no one is off limits. He hits everyone from every side.
The whole channel is immature, stupid and mostly pointless and that is what makes it so great. That isn’t to say it doesn’t occasionally tackle issues. Its video poking fun at the Epicenter Bitcoin podcast showcases how blurry the lines have gotten with advertisers and scams in the bitcoin space.
I’m not sure if Hoffman was trying to make any kind of point with that video, or if he was just trying to be funny. Either way, it showcases the conundrum cryptocurrency media finds itself in. With almost anything likely to turn into a scam at any time, how does the media make money without finding itself supporting something it would rather not? Especially when scams have more motivation to spend money on advertising than products.
And on the subject of scams, they do seem to be his favorite target. Consistently targeting Bitconnect and OneCoin.
My personal favorites are the ones where he takes the piss out of Jeremy Gardner. But most of the 120-something videos on his page are worth watching.
The most surprising thing about it isn’t that the OpenBazaar creator has created a satirical bitcoin youtube channel. That seems par for the course for Brian Hoffman’s anti-authoritarian slant, but how little known it is. Most videos have less than a thousand views and the channel itself has less than 800 subscribers.
There are a few non-humorous videos on there. Informational videos about OpenBazaar and at least one Cryptoadvocacy video, but those are mostly lost in a sea of comedic gold. There are also some family videos from a few years ago and two videos that predate bitcoin. Of course, its the comedic bitcoin videos that are worth watching (unless you want to see a pretty cool homemade nerf gun).
I asked Hoffman about his channel. He says he does it to blow off steam. That he tries not to be too negative and usually just picks on whoever he thinks is being the most ridiculous at the moment. He also says he bounces ideas of off Mike in Space, another humorous Crypto-focused YouTube channel I was unaware of until I talked to Hoffman (and in which Hoffman can occasionally be found).
Comedy in Bitcoin has typically been regulated to the unintentional form, especially in recent years. Events like Roger Ver rage quitting a debate due to the use of the term “BCash” and then insinuation that his opponent’s opinion wasn’t valid because he doesn’t make enough money.
Events like that resulted in memes abound, but they tended to have a nasty slant. They became part of the Core vs Cash debate. Hoffman made fun of the event too, but his video showcases the ridiculousness of the whole thing. It didn’t cut that deep on either participant. Hoffman says that nearly everyone who has been featured in his videos tell him that they found it hilarious. He did mention one exception, but I won’t get into that here.
If you find yourself tired of the trolling that goes on in Crypto twitter and Crypto Reddit. Make your way over to Brian Hoffman’s Youtube account. That is the kind of trolling everyone can support.