Crash Course is is one of those few web series that you can actually learn something useful while being entertained. Polished graphics and slick animation accompany an enormous range of episode topics, which is what makes the series such a blast- almost like a unique choose-your-own-adventure. You can travel the world and explore a new hobby, jump from a 10-minute episode of Snorkeling Camels and The Indian Ocean Trade to a lesson in Population Ecology. The best part? Unlike a “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel, the adventure doesn’t end.
Hank Green and John Green, also known as the VlogBrothers, host the series. This brainy duo is central to what makes the webseries stupendous.
The brothers are like a pair of silly-genius-robots on a mission to deliver science-y sermons to the human race. Their goal? To assist us in gaining a working knowledge of the basics: biology, politics, ecology, history and chemistry – leaving us more capable to probe deeper, to inspect the more magnificent intricacies of reality.
One brother hosts the political science episodes, the other the natural sciences. Despite the contrasting nature of topics, the episodes’ style, voice, and flow are the same. As you watch more episodes you begin to feel that carbon cycles and the evolution of democracy are both natural processes. Thinking of political processes as natural processes makes history 1,000 times more interesting.
For instance, in an episode about American history, John Green personifies an 18th century United States as an unsure teen. He describes a self-conscious America asking itself questions like, “what kind of country am I going to be?”
Green validates his metaphor by inspecting Alexander Hamilton’s influential belief that if a country is to be taken seriously, it must pay off its debts. (What adolescent doesn’t have a burning desire to be taken seriously?) The analogy gains momentum as Green paints the United States’ coming-of-age conflict as a choice between filial piety and self-indulgent exploration.
Green states America was presented with two paths. First, to follow Hamilton’s advice and repair ties with its parental unit England. Second, the Jeffersonian route to lose one’s self in the delights of young adulthood, and embody a Parisian style. (For America, France was like that upperclassmen with a magnetizing mojo).
Hank Green is also a master of drawing thought-provoking comparisons. In an episode about Population Ecology he states the following:
“If being alive on earth was some kind of contest, humans, I think, would win it hands down. [The human population] is like the Michael Phelps of being alive, only we have like 250,000 times more gold medals.”
Combine this curious, new way of thinking about the evolution of humankind with ethereal sets, colorful animations, non-Western perspectives, floating antique cabinets, and electric shock punishments for messing up facts, and you have a unique concept for the ultimate entertaining education web series. What will your adventure be?