Philosophy Tube is a YouTube channel produced by the British actress Abigail Thorn (formerly known as Oliver Thorn; born 24 April 1993).[2][3][4] It began in 2013, when Thorn sought to provide free lessons in philosophy in the wake of the 2012 increase in British tuition fees.
Since 2018, the channel has become more theatrical, and often makes use of dramatic studio sets, lighting, costuming and makeup. Philosophy Tube has been positively received by critics, and has around 1,000,000 subscribers. In 2019, Thorn hosted a livestream on Twitch in which she read plays from the Complete Works of Shakespeare for the mental health charity Samaritans. The stream lasted five days, featured a number of guests, and raised over £100,000 for Samaritans.
Thorn publicly came out as a transgender woman in January 2021, with the video Coming Out As Trans – A Little Public Statement and the more theatrical Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story.[5][6]
Early and personal life
Thorn is from Newcastle upon Tyne[7] and has two older brothers. She attended the Royal Grammar School, where she was a member of an army cadets group. Taking Philosophy as an A-level alongside Biology and Chemistry, Thorn credits her discovery of the subject with her teacher. Thorn studied Philosophy and Theology at the University of St. Andrews, where she also participated in Mermaids and the St Andrews Revue. Thorn graduated with a first-class Scottish Master of Arts in Philosophy in 2015. She then trained at East 15 Acting School, completing a Master of Arts awarded by the University of Essex in 2017 before moving to London.[8][9]
Thorn began her YouTube channel, Philosophy Tube, as an educational channel in 2013 in response to the university tuition fees tripling in the United Kingdom in 2012, rendering higher education less accessible. Thorn made it her mission statement to "[give] away a philosophy degree for free".[15][16] Thorn originally planned to record her lectures and upload them, rather than appearing in videos, but her university would not allow this.[17] Her first video titled "I think therefore I am" about René Descartes was uploaded in May 2013.[18] Her first subscriber unsubscribed in protest when she first voiced feminist opinions.[19]
Thorn makes money from both YouTube advertisement revenue and crowdfunding on Patreon.[17] The channel's style progressed over a period of years from a direct style of talking to the camera about the works of philosophers such as Descartes and Kant, to more theatrical productions.[20][17] In 2016, Thorn took part in the YouTube NextUp, a week-long training programme for YouTubers with under 100,000 subscribers.[15][21]
Following attendance at the 2018 conference VidCon, Thorn decided to change her content creation, beginning to film at a studio with costumes and makeup.[20] She also used props such as snakes and horses.[17] Kayleigh Donaldson of Pajiba described Thorn's works in 2019 as "long-form think-pieces" with "detailed production design" that use aspects of sketch comedy.[22] Emily VanDerWerff of Vox summarised that the channel covers both philosophical topics and "sociopolitical ideas of the current era from a leftist point of view".[23] For instance, a video beginning with the subject of Brexit becomes a discussion more broadly about democracy.[24] Another video about former Trump advisor and Breitbart News co-founder Steve Bannon features Thorn performing a cover of a Hadestown song, with lyrics about Bannon. VanDerWerff praised that Thorn "undercuts [Bannon's] entire shtick".[23] In 2021, Thorn reached one million subscribers.[19]
In July 2019, Thorn discussed her channel on the BBC radio show World Business Report.[17] In January 2020, Dmitry Kuznetsov and Milan Ismangil, writing for tripleC, reported that the channel is a focus of an internet fan community centered around leftist YouTubers categorised as "BreadTube", including ContraPoints, hbomberguy and Shaun. The authors note fan crowdfunding, production value, criticism of the alt-right, use of citation and videos about broad topics as common BreadTube attributes that are employed by Philosophy Tube. As a case study, Thorn's Climate Grief discusses climate change through multiple personas, citing Timothy Morton's concept of hyperobjects and Terry Eagleton's Why Marx Was Right. In the video, Thorn criticises some right-wing and left-wing arguments and highlights indigenous philosophy.[25]
Thorn's 2018 video Suic!de and Ment@l He@lth examines societal attitudes to mental health, along with her personal experiences: she has a history of self-harm and attempted suicide twice in her life.[20] She said in mid-2019 that she still received at least one email per day by a person who said the video saved their life.[23] Thorn's video Men. Abuse. Trauma. is about men and mental health, with reference to her personal experiences.[23] The video is 35 minutes long, with the script entirely memorised by Thorn. There are no cuts or editing,[22] and a single costume change is facilitated by a slow camera pan across the room;[23] Thorn used the second of two takes.[23] Both the script and the style of the video reference the 1944 Jean-Paul Sartre play No Exit.[23] Emily VanDerWerff of Vox praised that the "tension and vulnerability that builds" is maintained by the lack of editing, and opined that in the video, "aesthetic form is inseparable from content".[23]
In a 2021 interview with Insider, Thorn said she had an idea in mind for the final episode of the channel, saying that she felt the channel had been successful due to her subscriber numbers, an invitation to be a featured creator at 2021 VidCon and other YouTube channels that were inspired by her. She said that the timing of the channel's ending would depend on future acting roles.[19]
Coming Out As Trans and Identity
Coming Out As Trans – A Little Public Statement video, originally posted to YouTube on 30 January 2021
On 30 January 2021, Thorn came out as a trans woman via a public statement, posted on social media and recorded as the video Coming Out As Trans – A Little Public Statement.[12][13][14]Jezebel's Harron Walker described it as a "feminist, anticapitalist appeal in support [of] trans people's legal equality, physical autonomy, and broader liberation in the United Kingdom and beyond".[26] The statement discussed issues in access to healthcare, journalist fearmongering about transgender people and a lack of elected transgender representatives.[27][28] She also says that other issues in society like homelessness disproportionately affect the trans community.[29] "Abigail" trended on Twitter subsequent to the announcement.[30][5]
Thorn also released the video Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story, which drew on the work of the American writer Audre Lorde and saw Rhys Tees acting in the role of Thorn's former self.[6] Thorn told the Daily Xtra that studying works by trans philosophers helped her gain insight about her identity, but that she felt significant societal pressure as a transgender public figure. Prior to the announcement, she had come out to friends and family but experienced difficulties in avoiding being publicly outed in day-to-day life, and in accessing trans spaces anonymously.[6] She had chosen to act as a man in some of her videos despite having realized she was transgender, and decided to keep her pre-transition videos public because of their educational content and artistic value, and as she did not think being transgender should be a source of shame.[31][19]
In 2021, Thorn told Insider that prior to her transition, when male fans would refer to her as a positive role model for masculinity, "it always felt like they were talking about someone else". She described: "I tried to do the man of the 21st century thing... woke but also compassionate and fun and charming and sexy and all the rest of it... and it all made me sort of miserable really. But I understand why some of my audience felt that way". When she came out, she felt external pressure to "perform a certain model of femininity", as a "white, stylish, eloquent, charming, non-threatening woman", saying that "that's kind of what British women are expected to be".[19]
Charity livestream
In 2019, Thorn aimed to read the Complete Works of Shakespeare in order to raise money for the Samaritans, a UK charity that helps people in emotional distress. Thorn chose the charity because she said that its telephone hotline "saved [her] life when [she] was considering suicide".[7] She chose Shakespeare based on the idea that "Shakespeare features every human emotion", which she attributed to Judi Dench.[4] The stream was inspired by a January 2019 video game stream by hbomberguy which raised £278,000 ($340,000) for British transgender charity Mermaids.[7] It was announced at the end of her YouTube video Men. Abuse. Trauma., which was released in late July 2019.[22]
Streaming on Twitch,[4] Thorn began on Friday 23 August[32] and finished on Tuesday 27 August, streaming continuously with only a few hours per day for sleep.[4] Many internet personalities joined Thorn to voice roles in the plays, such as Mara Wilson as Lady Macbeth[4] and Dominique "SonicFox" McLean as Troilus and Cressida's Hector.[33] Thorn initially expected to raise between $2,000 and $5,000, but said on Twitter that the stream had raised £109,447.54 (roughly $130,000) after PayPal currency conversion fees.[7][34] Over 175,000 people watched the stream.[32] The Royal Shakespeare Company praised Thorn for the endeavour,[32] as did the Samaritans.[4]
Other activities
Thorn narrated the audiobook for Axiom's End (2020) by Lindsay Ellis, alongside Stephanie Willis. For her narration she was jointly nominated for an Audie Award for Science Fiction.[35]
In February 2021, Thorn joined Alice Caldwell-Kelly and Devon in hosting the podcastKill James Bond! Released fortnightly, each episode sees the hosts review one of the James Bond films.[36] The podcast takes a critical angle, attempting in the words of its creators to "give 007 the socialist, feminist upcoming he so richly deserves".[37] It peaked at #1 on Chartable's list of most popular film review podcast in the U.K. Thorn said that she got involved after Caldwell-Kelly suggested the podcast on Twitter—she was familiar with the Bond films from her childhood and believed that they are flawed "in interesting ways that say interesting things about Britain". She saw Bond as symbolic of a "British sort of military masculinity" and commented that both she and Caldwell-Kelly had been army cadets as children.[19]
In the second series of Ladhood, which was released on BBC iPlayer on 15 August 2021, Thorn played the guest role of Iona, appearing in the episodes "Indie" and "The Big Day".[38][39]
In May 2021, it was announced that Thorn was filming for an upcoming 10-episode television series, Django, a remake of the 1966 Western film of the same name.[40][19]
Reception
In 2019, Dani Di Placido of Forbes praised that Thorn "doesn't tell you what to believe", instead prompting the audience "to ask themselves why they believe the things they do."[24] Shannon Strucci, writing for the magazine Sight & Sound published by the British Film Institute, said that Thorn's videos "vary tremendously" in "tone and content". Strucci described the videos as "always well-researched, inventive, and theatrical".[41] The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle praised the videos as entertaining and elaborate in design.[42] Di Placido included Thorn on a list of "5 Fantastic YouTubers Fighting The Spread Of Alt-Right Propaganda", whilst the channel Philosophy Tube was recommended in the Slovak broadsheet SME.[24][43] The Irish author and broadcaster Emma Dabiri has enjoyed Thorn's videos.[44] Philosophy Tube was recommended in a list of open access streaming content in an essay for Choice Reviews, and The Guardian's Frances Ryan recommended it as an educational YouTube channel.[45][46]
VanDerWerff described the video Men. Abuse. Trauma. as "one of the best TV episodes of the year".[23] Dan Schindel of Hyperallergic described the same video as a "riveting half-hour", praising its lack of cuts.[47] The video was also praised by Lukáš Pokorný in the Czech magazine A2.[48] Thorn's video Queer✨ was one of 134 video essays included in Sight and Sound as one of the "best video essays of 2019". Strucci reviewed for the magazine that the video was "illuminating and entertaining" as well as "joyful".[41]Gwendolyn Ann Smith, writing for the Bay Area Reporter, praised Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story as "delving deeply into the very nature of being trans in ways [she has] not typically seen", in relation to the perspective that gender transitioning is about "revealing the truth within" rather than "becoming something that we weren't".[49]
Schindel recommended the video Artists & Fandoms.[50] Merryana Salem, writing for Junkee, said The Trouble with the Video Game Industry was one of her "all-time favourite Youtube videos".[30] Salem later recommended Data—a video about ethical concerns of data mining—as one of "10 Video Essays That Will Get You Addicted To Video Essays".[51] Wil Williams of Polygon reviewed Data as one of the Thorn's most underrated videos, comparing the format to a Platonic dialogue and the interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.[52]
Thorn was nominated in the category Online Influencer for a 2021 British LGBT Award.[53]
