CGP Grey

Grey grew up in the Long Island suburbs of New York City. He went to college in upstate New York, earning two degrees – one in physics and another in sociology.[12]

His grandmother was born in Ireland, and when he was a child, his father applied for Irish citizenship on his behalf; Grey thus has dual American–Irish citizenship.[13] This enabled him to look into opportunities in the European Union, and its then-largest city, London. He later said that if he had not lived abroad while 'still free of life's anchors', he never would later in life, which made it all the more reason for him to go. He attended a masters in economics program in London, and stayed in the city for more than a decade.[14][15]

Grey decided to become a physics teacher in the UK; he went through a one-year course to earn a physics PGCE, and graduated being qualified to teach physics in England and Wales. After spending several years teaching in the UK, Grey wanted to 'escape the system' and become self-employed. During the time he lived with his family in Hawaii to save money. His attempt 'failed miserably,' and he later returned to the UK hoping to find a teaching job and found one. He taught on until his career as a YouTube creator became reliable. Since January 2014 he has co-hosted a general discussion podcast, Hello Internet, and began a second podcast, Cortex with Myke Hurley of Relay FM.[16]

The YouTube channel CGP Grey features, among other things, Grey Explains, a series of explanatory videos[17] on a range of subjects, including politics, geography, economics, and British culture. The videos feature Grey narrating over animations, stock footage, and still photographs. While nearly all of Grey's videos feature his voice, his face has never been shown in his videos, and Grey almost always has his face obscured when appearing in other people's videos;[18] he generally uses a stick figure with glasses to represent himself.[19] Grey has stated that the presentation style of his videos is influenced by that of Yahtzee Croshaw's Zero Punctuation series.[20][21]

Grey records his voice over the music playing in the background on Logic Pro X.[22] The backing music of his early videos is usually credited to Kevin MacLeod. Since 2016, most videos contain music written by David Rees. He used to use Inkscape to make the key frames of his videos and Final Cut Pro X to edit them together from 2010 to early 2016; but now he uses Adobe After Effects to do both. The switch is primarily because he now works with other animators on most of his videos, and they use After Effects.[23] Videos are released on the channel significantly less frequently than other YouTube channels; Grey has said that this is due to thorough research and scriptwriting, with the majority of videos never being finished.[2]

Grey's video that debunks popular misconceptions has been featured on CBS,[24] as has his video about the history of the British Royal Family.[25] Two videos differentiate London, England and the City of London, while explaining the history and government of the latter.[26][27][28][29] Another two videos explaining copyright law and the Electoral College have been featured on Mashable.[17] The channel also explains the economic disadvantages of US one-cent coins in a video titled Death to Pennies.[30][31] Other videos, including How to Become Pope, have received media attention and used in instructional settings.[8][32]

Several videos under the collective name "Politics in the Animal Kingdom"[33] explain the problems of first-past-the-post voting (gerrymandering,[34] minority rule / lack of Condorcet winner,[35] two-party system,[36] spoiler effect[37]) and discuss alternatives (instant-runoff voting,[38] mixed-member proportional representation,[39] single transferable vote[40]).

Grey's video Humans Need Not Apply was covered by Business Insider[7] and Huffington Post,[41] and his animated video of Nick Bostrom's "The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant" was "unanimously praise[d]" by the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation.[42] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Grey released a video titled "Lockdown Productivity: Spaceship You" in which he provided advice on how to remain productive and sane during quarantine.[43]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to CGP Grey.

• Official website