HowToBasic (born: July 8, 1994[1][2] is an Australian YouTuber known for his bait-and-switch tutorial videos which typically start off as actual tutorials, but eventually switch to chaos.
)Content[]
His videos mostly consist of him behaving strangely and throwing, mixing, or smashing food ingredients against the counter tops and floor of his kitchen in a wild manner, causing a large mess. It is this randomness and commonly occurring egg throwing (which is the main attraction of the channel hence the channel picture being a broken egg) that makes his videos comedic. This shows that he is a pioneer of clickbait.
He uses a large number of eggs in his videos, and frequently claims to have an "egg fetish"; he also frequently uses dolls, chicken meats, raw fish, and printed images. Most of his later videos start off looking like real how-to videos, only to become bizarre, chaotic and disturbing, usually due to a mishap he experiences. However, his early videos were legitimate tutorials for simplistic tasks, such as closing doors or picking up items.
Termination[]
On two occasions, HowToBasic's channel was terminated: the first time on December 23, 2014, and the second time on December 2, 2015.[3] No clear explanation was provided, but many people suspected the thumbnails were misleading and that's what the terminations were for. However, he successfully appealed both terminations and was reinstated within that day or the next day.[4]
Deleted videos[]
Due to the nature of his videos, HowToBasic has limited or no ads running on his videos, even after confirmation by manual review. Some of his videos got age-restricted, and never taken down, while the following videos were taken down for Terms of Service violations.
- How To Kill Someone (reuploaded): Removed for violating Terms of Service in fear of future murders.
- How To Make Cookies (reinstated): Removed due to a copyright claim, albeit there were no copyright issues.
- How To Make Vegemite (reinstated): Removed on two occasions because some people suspected he vomited into the mixture.
- How To Masturbate (reuploaded): Removed due to sexual content.
- How To Wipe Your Bottom (private): Removed for nudity or sexual content under suspicion of real feces found in a toilet.
- How To Discipline Your Child (reuploaded): Removed for nudity or sexual content due to brief clips of a man's exposed buttocks being slapped that would often flash up at random for a comedic effect plus having an egg land on it.
- How To Make the Sh*t Hit the Fan (reinstated): Removed for nudity or sexual content because some people suspected that his crotch was shown.[5]
- How To Use a Dishwasher (reinstated): Removed for spam, scams, and commercially deceptive content with no clear indication of what was misleading, maybe perhaps the video's custom thumbnail.
- How To Train a Cat (reuploaded): Removed for violent or graphic content, although he actually chucked a shoe and not a cat at the TV and possibly for animal abuse.
- How To Paint a Realistic Eye (reinstated): Removed due to a copyright claim, albeit there was no copyright issues.
- How To Get Rid of Bed Bugs (reinstated): Removed due to a copyright claim by KQED, albeit there was no copyright strike at all. Most likely because of the music used.
- How To Cure Ebola (reuploaded): Removed due to alleged hate speech.
- How To Get Rich With CS:GO (reuploaded): Removed for allegedly promoting a scam CS:GO Cosmetic Website and fear of future murders (Same as How to Kill Someone except the scam).
- How To Win The Hunger Games (reuploaded): Removed for unknown reasons.
- How To Teach a Dog to Sit (reuploaded): Removed for animal cruelty alongside with the "How to Train a Cat" video.
- How To Give The Perfect Blowjob (reuploaded): Removed for nudity or sexual content.
Face reveals[]
After reaching 10 million subscribers, HowToBasic worked on a project for the face reveal video many were anticipating since the day HowToBasic reached 1 million subscribers. The video was released on March 24, 2018, which includes many YouTubers claiming they are HowToBasic as well as the following notable users. Viewers believed HowToBasic did not do an actual face reveal and that it was a joke just like previous How To videos.
VSauce[]
HowToBasic made a video called 'Face Reveal', and the person that was shown is Michael Stevens of VSauce, who is the #2 YouTube educator with 20 million subscribers. He explains why he made his "tutorials," because machines were being relied on for information and skills more than human knowledge, and that by posting informational videos full of misinformation and absurdist humor, the system would fall apart and people would stop trusting machines above themselves. Michael claims that machines are used to find tutorials by Googling how to do these different things. Michael reveals that he has left hidden eggs in several of his videos as a clue to his identity as HowToBasic, but these eggs are not actually present in any of the videos shown and were edited in for the face reveal video.
MaxMoeFoe[]
After VSauce's part of the video, Maxmoefoe came in and claims he is HowToBasic. People would explain how Max did a video in collaboration with HowToBasic. Max said he used a tennis ball machine filled with eggs to make the eggs hit him and he used a green screen to show the hands throwing at Max. And Max did audio sounds to sound like HowToBasic is grudging when throwing (even though Max's grudging sounds way different). Max also shows his play buttons that have the name 'HowToBasic' in it, on the Gold play button and 2 silver play buttons with HowToBasic and the 2nd HowToBasic channel. After Max has finished, however, the camera keeps rolling and Max asks the cameraman "Do you think people will believe that?", as the cameraman replies "Yeah, yeah I reckon."
Warrun[]
A Twitch streamer known as Warrun (or beansceneTV), claims he has done the face reveal. At the start, he shows a clip that was leaked a few years ago, wherein Max says, "Hey HowToBasic" and "That's HowToBasic", directed towards Warrun. He also shows a BTS video of a video "How To Correctly Serve a Watermelon". In the BTS video, there is one watermelon. But in the actual video, there are two watermelons (half each). In another BTS video of "How To Make a Vegan Cake", he uses red syrup, but in the actual video, it's chocolate syrup. He is then later crowded with famous YouTubers, each of them claiming to be HowToBasic (e.g. Ricky Berwick, Markiplier, theneedledrop, Callums Corner and others).
Ali The Cabbage[]
And finally, a YouTuber known as Ali The Cabbage appears through a low-quality camera, with a background covered in photos of a plethora of YouTubers and markings, saying that he figured out HowToBasic's identity. He has claims it took him "4 years" to find out who HowToBasic is, as well as claiming that HowToBasic has none of the 7 hand types, and that he's had stand-ins appear in videos as red herrings so that we stop searching, among other things. As he's coming close to revealing his identity, however, HowToBasic (whilst staying anonymous) enters the room and Ali turns the camera to night vision as HowToBasic begins to strangle and assult Ali, as he laughs and says "I knew it was you", before cutting to black. When the camera comes back on, it shows Ali laying motionless on the ground as he's dragged away by HowToBasic.
Trivia[]
- His real name hasn’t been debunked, but fans tend to speculate:
- He declared that his name is not 'Aaron Jackson,’ although this was merely a fan theory, based on bloopers from Maxmoefoe's "Krabby Patty Challenge" and “Halloween Challenge.”
- Rumors have circulated about his first name being "Patrick,” but this has yet to be debunked.
- In "How To Edit a Video", the name Joshua can briefly be seen on his laptop screen as he logs in.
- To celebrate his channel reaching one-million subscribers, he uploaded "How To Get 1,000,000 Subscribers". After smashing hundreds of eggs, he creeps along a hallway and stands next to a mirror. Just as he is about to turn and reveal his face, he smashes an egg against the mirror, wags his finger "no" shortly before he flips off the camera.
- He makes obnoxious noises during his insanity.
- There is a theory that HowToBasic has a goatee based on a reflection on a glass door.
- Several YouTubers have attempted to reveal HowToBasic's identity; all face reveal videos that have been posted have been confirmed fake.
- jacksfilms claimed that the identity of HowToBasic is his former college roommate, Darren Cunningham, in a video where Douglass did impressions of fellow YouTubers.
- There are rumors that he revealed his voice from his latest videos.
- On May 24th, 2013, more than a month before turning 19 years old, he was interviewed with Nine News Perth as shown in the video below. At the same time, they provided him a laptop to smash for a video, as seen in the video "How To Fix a Laptop" which was uploaded the same day as the interview.
- He is left-handed, as shown in "How To Make A Krabby Patty".
- He usually gives a thumbs up and occasionally the middle finger in front of the camera.
- People often think he makes messes and then moves to a different house.
- In his older videos (starting from the first 3 posted on December 8, 2011), he didn't make messes.
- All of his videos are filmed in his underwear to give the impression that he is nude. He frequently withdraws a large sausage in place of a penis, which is usually either mutilated or shoved in and out of a raw chicken's neck cavity. In "How To Teleport"; when he teleports into a grocery store, his black shorts can be seen very briefly when the camera looks down. In "How To Put on a Condom", he puts a condom onto a sausage and passes some shoppers in a clothing store. He was obviously clothed. In public, he wears a tank top and shorts. Whenever he’s filming outside or if in the pool, he wears a swimsuit to still make it look like he is nude.
- People often think he uses expired food in his videos; one video "How To Get High" confirms this in which he opens a sealed bag of lettuce with the expiration date briefly visible.
- He frequently sprays water or lemonade to give the impression he’s urinating, though sometimes he could be seen doing it.
- He frequently pours chocolate syrup onto objects as if he was defecating on them, usually with accompanying fart sounds over the clips.
- In "How to Make a Krabby Patty", he mixed together several objects (including a condom, a tampon, lubricant, several bottles of food coloring and glitter, and a SpongeBob SquarePants DVD) into an increasingly disgusting mess. He then transferred the Krabby Patty into a bucket, and served it to Maxmoefoe in his "HowToBasic Challenge" video. Max vomited numerous times upon trying to eat it.
- In some videos like 'How To Babysit', it appears that he uses the Apple software 'iMovie' — though for future videos, he’s most likely moved on to using Final Cut.
- Starting in late 2013, his videos started having over fifty to a hundred cutting points with about two or three cuts per second.
- In early 2021, he started having voice actors narrate his videos, ranging between male and female.
- In "How To Do Homework" as well as a few earlier videos, he is shown to own a dog, perhaps a German Shepherd.
- In "How To Fight A Chicken", it is shown that he has a chicken farm in his yard. It is possible that this is where he gets the vast quantities of eggs used in his videos.
- After "How to Save a Drowning Child", HowToBasic, as well as Maxmoefoe, FilthyFrank, iDubbbz, Anything4views, and others lived in a house that is similar to his old house, but the exterior is shaped like a barn.
- Though, in "How to Quickly Deliver a Baby", HowToBasic drives the baby to his old house.
- As of June 2016, he began using firearms in his videos, such as “How To Make a Paper Gun That Shoots,” in which he destroys various ingredients by shooting them with a shotgun, and in “How To Fix a Slow MacBook,” he destroys a MacBook with a shotgun and a pistol.
- He is most likely not a fan of RiceGum as he was in iDubbbzTV's diss track on him titled "Asian Jake Paul" according to the video's description, but his hoodie hid his face to further hide his identity.
- He has a second YouTube channel, HowToBasic2, which isn't active.
- He hates toy babies as they 'ruin everything' in his videos.
- As of "How To Make the Perfect Coffee", he uses a female narrator through his radio to narrate his videos and give instructions to the viewers while for "How To Make a Slow Cooked Beef Stew" and later April Fools videos, he uses a male narrator to narrate his videos and give instructions to the viewers.
- He has mild autism[6].
- Out of all the YouTube videos he's made, his favorite is How To Correctly Eat Sushi[7].
Channel milestones[]
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
Subscriber milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: June 17, 2013
- 2 million subscribers: October 6, 2013
- 3 million subscribers: March 10, 2014
- 4 million subscribers: October 9, 2014
- 5 million subscribers: June 21, 2015
- 6 million subscribers: December 2, 2015
- 7 million subscribers: April 10, 2016
- 8 million subscribers: September 21, 2016
- 9 million subscribers: May 14, 2017
- 10 million subscribers: December 29, 2017
- 11 million subscribers: April 2, 2018
- 12 million subscribers: September 16, 2018
- 13 million subscribers: March 18, 2019
- 14 million subscribers: December 18, 2019
- 15 million subscribers: August 3, 2020
- 16 million subscribers: February 13, 2021
- 17 million subscribers: March 26, 2022
Video view milestones[]
- 1 billion views: March 25, 2016
- 2 billion views: December 16, 2018
- 3 billion views: January 28, 2021
References[]
- ↑ https://twitter.com/HowToBasic
- ↑ https://www.9news.com.au/technology/perth-teens-videos-become-internet-hit/e1f898db-04e0-4351-9692-c91b19355163
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20151203225128/https://www.youtube.com/user/HowToBasic
- ↑ Though he never got terminated after that, he keeps getting blocked from making a video from YouTube
- ↑ HowToBasic was actually accused for this.
- ↑ https://youtu.be/1TJa_zP3oR0?si=janOXnMuZ9HVlEGx
- ↑ https://youtu.be/1TJa_zP3oR0?si=janOXnMuZ9HVlEGx