Adam Ragusea (born: March 22, 1982) is an American YouTuber and former Journalism Professor at Mercer University known for his "for-the-home" recipes, food science videos, history/home renovation videos, and his quick and direct presentation style. His channel first gained popularity for the video "Making New York-style pizza at home."
Background[]
Adam Ragusea was born on March 22, 1982 to descendants of immigrants from the Italian Diaspora to America. Much of his taste in food derives from the Italian-American dishes cooked in his household. Ragusea studied music composition at The Eastman School of Music, Penn State, and Indiana University before transitioning to a career in journalism. From 2008 to 2012, Adam published stories for WBUR-FM, a public Boston radio station.
On October 7, 2017, Adam began recording recipe videos to practice camerawork and cinematography. One of these videos, uploaded on December 7, 2018, a recipe for New York-style pizza, spiked in popularity by algorithm suggestion. In March, 2019, Reddit user Steellonewolf reposted the video, which reportedly made it to the front page of Reddit. This spike in popularity inspired Adam to continue to produce food videos. Adam taught Journalism at Mercer Univeristy in Macon Georgia for many years before leaving to make Youtube his full job. It is uknown whether he still has ties to the University or not.
Personal Life[]
- Adam is married to romance novelist Lauren Morrill (born: December 2, 1982), who published her first book in 2012.
- Adam has two children, Leo and Frederick.
Style[]
Adam's presentation style was one of his originally defining features that attracted returning viewers who came across his videos by algorithm recommendation. In contrast to modern conventional YouTubers, Adam's videos move at a relatively fast pace. He presents concisely, quickly, and with few pauses and transitions. Ragusea's videos typically lack music and instead put emphasis on commentary and audio. It has been speculated that Adam's experience as a journalist and professor is one of the contributing factors to Adam's style. However, as of late, Adam has since been slowly retiring his fast pace in favor of sponsored segments.
Trivia[]
- Adam has received a vasectomy.
- Much of Adam's channel is centered around small memes based on his videos, such as "Why I - My - And Not My -," "Vinegar Leg on the Right,” “White Wine," and "Why I Season My Cutting Board, NOT My Steak."
- Adam Ragusea's “White Wine” meme comes from his tendency to frequently add white wine to all his dishes.
- Adam has been rumored to post or spectate on the cooking board /ck/.
- Before his YouTube channel's success, Adam was most notable on YouTube for being the interviewee for Vox's controversial video "The chord that makes Christmas music sound so Christmassy." This video resulted in a large amount of backlash from online music theory communities, including several YouTubers. He would eventually publish a video on his channel where he explains that his example was taken out of context, but that he could have been a better interviewee to avoid the problem in the first place.
