Ratings for Reptile YouTubers and Other Content Creators
I'm going to try to add my ratings for every content creator I review to this post so they remain easy to find!
For YouTube channels specifically, I want to give a warning first. I'm kind of hesitant to recommend almost any reptile YouTube channels, because the more I dig into the popular ones the more issues I find. My blanket statement here is going to be to take any reptile YouTube channel, even those that are usually good, with a grain of salt, and fact-check them more than you would other sources. I don't know what it is about reptile YouTube in particular, but misinformation and bad keeping are rampant over there.
Reviews below the cut.
Creators that are usually reliable, with minimal caveats:
Clint's Reptiles is probably my favorite reptile YouTube channel, his advice is usually solid and you'll learn a lot from his videos. Even so, he's said some things about supporting unethical breeding practices like spider ball pythons in the past, so be aware of that.
Wicken's Wicked Reptiles is a channel I don't hear much about, but Adam keeps his snakes wonderfully and is a pretty great resource. His channel is one of the smaller ones but I don't hesitate to recommend it at all, he's very big on promoting best husbandry practices.
Herpin Hippie's TikTok channel is excellent. He's a professional working at a venomous snake facility, and clearly knows exactly what he's doing. His handling of venomous snakes is textbook perfect and he treats the snakes with respect.
Green Room Pythons is a channel I've grown to really love! He has some great advice for new keepers, and seems to really love and want the best for all of his snakes. A great advocate for proper snake enrichment and non-minimalist keeping.
Reptiles and Research: a wonderful channel! Goes over scientific studies and best keeping practices. My only note of caution is that he does tend to present new keeping practices that haven't been extensively studied yet but have been shown to be beneficial for some snakes as universally necessary for all snakes; just do your own research and come to your own educated conclusions, none of these channels are appropriate as a be-all end-all answer.
Creators that are usually reliable, with major caveats:
Snake Discovery's recent videos are pretty solid, and their how-to videos are spot on. I will exercise caution with them, though, especially with their older videos. Their enclosures now seem to be pretty great, but their older videos have lots of poor rack enclosures and I'm disgusted by how they used to take their alligator into public. Their breeding videos and egg hatching videos are pretty good, but I think they cut the eggs sooner than necessary to ensure the health of the snake, and I don't like that they breed scaleless snakes. It's worth being very cautious with taking information and husbandry advice from their videos.
GoHerping is a channel that concerns me the more I learn about it - his information is usually pretty good, but he doesn't take animals to the vet nearly as often as he should even when advised to do so, which is terrible practice for any reptile rescue/rehabber. He's also said some pretty nasty transphobic/racist/antisemitic things in the past, so be wary there.
Creators that have major issues:
David Orin: The conceit of his videos is that he does "snake bite ratings" by going into the wild, catching a snake, and goading it into biting him. He's coming from a good place by trying to educate about how snake bites don't hurt at all, but there's really no need to go and harass wild snakes to make that point.
Chandler's Wildlife: not quite as bad as some other channels that involve free-handling venomous snakes, but still very bad. He at least includes a disclaimer that viewers shouldn't copy him, but that is not enough. His information is usually good and his enclosures are excellent, but the free-handling is incredibly irresponsible.
Creators that are harmful:
Chrisweeet makes videos of himself free-handling king cobras. While his snakes are beautiful and healthy, free-handling venomous snakes is an accident waiting to happen. King cobras have the most quickly lethal venom of any snake, and free-handling them with an audience is both dangerously irresponsible and willfully ignorant. I'm terrified that his audience is going to try and copy him because he does not present this is as harmful and seems to believe he is absolutely right to handle these snakes in this way.
Jay's Prehistoric Pets and Brian Barczyk are very similar, click-baity channels. They're very bad for spreading misinformation, supporting unethical breeding practices, keeping snakes in tiny enclosures, and goading snakes into striking for views. I think their channels are definitely the most harmful of any I've seen.
The Reptile Channel: easily one of the worst I've ever seen. The entire point of the channel is to characterize snakes as dangerous "man-eaters" and make videos of feeding live small (often baby) animals to snakes and lizards. Their snakes are kept in terrible conditions and are often clearly sick and miserable. Don't give them views, comments, or any other attention; I have a breakdown of one of their videos here.
There is a figure standing behind you. You can see it through your screen. Its hands are on your shoulders and it is speaking to you. Don’t turn around, Don’t acknowledge it. It doesn’t know you are watching.
Tie copper wire around your headphone cords. That will keep out the worst of the hymns. The rest of the chorus you will have to deal with yourself.
If Zoom does not close immediately when you exit, drape a cloth over your device to cover the screen. That will keep it from getting out.
Have a knife at the ready. You never know what manner of thing may try to interrupt your call.
Ward your device with blood or wine, a simple seal on your screen should do. There are always things lurking in the homes of others and you wouldn’t want them crawling through to your side.
Make sure your screen name is a lie. You don’t know what is watching, waiting for you to give it so freely.
Others may join; you don’t recognize them, you’ve never seen them before in your life. Their smile is wide with too many teeth and their eyes are bright and unblinking. Can they just say they are so excited to have been invited to this meeting. Would you mind if they shared something on their screen?
Do. Not. Let. Them.
Be wary of those who become disconnected and come back strange. Check the participants. You won’t find their name on the list.
You can try to remove them from the meeting but they will notice and their eyes will meet yours through the monitor. You may notice the lag before you cut out or you may not. Either way, you’ve been disconnected and there is something breathing on your neck.
so just a question from somebody who just finished reading lotr for the first time . did tolkien like . know what he was doing with sam & frodo? or did that just . happen and countinue to happen
Hear me out. A Rockstar / Marvel Entertainment open-world video game à la Red Dead Redemption 2, but where you play Kl'rt the Super Skrull. Want to enrol in the Skrull army and shoot some Kree Call of Duty-style? Go for it. Wanna have some cosmic fights against Captain Marvel and Thanos? Sure. Wanna become a outlaw, pimp your space ride, just travel through the galaxies, stealing space shit and selling them off? Have fun. Wanna beat up some superheroes? Absolutely. Wanna go on Earth and infiltrate any super hero team with your mad shape shifting skills? YES. You can become anyone you want for as long as you want. Be Spider-Woman for the whole game. Enjoy.
Captain Marvel: So then he was all ‘I told you- you’re never going to be able to control yourself until you can put me on the floor without using your powers’-
Captain America: So you turned them off and kicked his ass anyway?
Captain Marvel: No lol what the fuck I’m not a dumbass, I just shot him. Who the fuck would listen to a villain trying to do his best to win a fight?
Captain America, sweating, remembering the fight with Batroc in which he stowed away his shield and dropped his helmet bc Batroc Asked Him To: Hah lol ikr….. who’d do that…idiots…
everything about this funky little alien is perfect. look at him. look at this pointy ears and this long-ass coat and tell me this Skrull isn’t an icon
Scientists invented fabric that makes electricity from motion and sunlight. To create the fabric, researchers at Georgia Tech wove together solar cell fibers with materials that generate power from movement. It could be used in “tents, curtains, or wearable garments,” meaning we’d virtually never be without power. Source
Y'all are fucking idiots. Clean energy will NEVER be enough to replace the energy we have now. We’d have to tear down DOZENS of forests just to fit enough windmills and solar panels to get even a QUARTER (probably less, tbh) of the energy we can produce now.
Yeah, sure, when they’ve already calculated that a few square miles of panels in the empty ass Arizona desert could power the whole nation. But ok, fracking and the diminishing petroleum supply is worlds better.
Nevermind that windmills are often most efficient off the coast. There they take up no land, impact no trees, don’t pollute the water, and are conveniently located where winds are often strongest anyway.
And solar panels can literally be built into roofs of buildings and in empty areas like deserts. The sun strikes the Earth with the same amount of energy in an hour that our civilization uses in a year.
But yeah, it would be impossible for us to ever have enough energy from clean sources.
Durr hurr technology is bad and I would rather light shit on fire than have clean energy
also…no forests were cleared to make space for Denmark’s windmills and yet they regularly produce so much power that it covers almost all of the country’s power needs. Oh, and then there’s the times when the windmills generate 140% of Denmark’s power needs. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/denmark-wind-windfarm-power-exceed-electricity-demand
The fact that anyone can believe a limited amount of dinosaur oil is more plentiful and efficient than moving air or fucking sunlight is proof that entire populations can be completely brainwashed.
The best place to install solar? Parking lots! Here’s the Community Mercantile in LFK:
Not only can it supply almost all the power needed for stores that build these, it also reduces ambient heating from the roasting pavement and keeps cars covered from the elements.
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