In case you weren't in on the tech YouTube scene,
TekSyndicate is an American channel with about 270'000 subscribers at time of
writing. They do PC component reviews and have a weekly show on the news
related to science and computer culture. I've been subscribed for about a year
and a half and find that I need to write about what I think of them.
So I'll start off with Logan, the face of the channel, he is
generally entertaining to watch although he can be incredibly annoying in his
ignorance. He is my biggest problem with the channel. The problem lies with me
wondering if he actually knows what he's talking about, all the reviews read
like a product description on a company website, and his observations range
from "that's nice" to "which is kinda cool". In all the
videos where they talk about their lives outside of the channel he comes across
as the most 'man-on-the-street' of them all, which isn't a bad thing, unless
you run a channel talking about computers.
But moving on we have Qain and Pistol, I don't have much to
say on these two, Pistol seems to be Logan's wife / girlfriend and is just
along for the ride. Qain seems to have a good knowledge of computers and is
busy working most of the time but pops in every now and then because he's a
friend of Logan and Wendell's, he is also the most paranoid of the group.
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| Logan (left) and Qain (the other side) |
And that brings us onto my favourite member of the group,
Wendell. He seems to know the most about computers (and runs his own
consultancy) and easily does the best reviews out of himself and Logan and the
direction TekSyndicate appear to be moving with more professional gear suits
him very nicely (and me as I have Linus, OC3D and Hardware Canucks for consumer stuff).
And that's where we get to some speculation, just what is
their aim? My theory or idea of how things are is as follows. Wendell and Logan
have known each other for years, Wendell has always been interested in
computers and Logan wanted to be an actor (but must have some interest in
tech). So Wendell sticks at technology and works up to having his own
consultancy while Logan goes off and does acting / travelling. This fails for whatever reason and so he turns to Wendell, who lets him use his consultancy premises
to do youtube stuff.
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| You can find Wendell's actual face in 'Inbox 0002' |
My theory could go three ways, and all of them hinge on the
intelligence of Logan. Idea one is that he is indeed completely unknowing about
technology, and is simply a face (that comes across well on
camera because of the background in theater) for use by Wendell to influence the public. I believe that Wendell has
shares in something that relies on distrust of the government to succeed or has
some other aim that is more complicated.
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| The video giving the most evidence towards theories 1 and 2 on Logan's intelligence / motives |
The second theory is that Logan is just out there to make as
much money as possible. This would explain the month-long Asus plug whereby an
Asus employee talked reams about products for a few videos, and the really terrible audio
videos that plugged mayflower electronics like crazy. Wendell helps because
he's just interested in technology and might be getting a cut.
My third idea is that they are in fact a group of hackers
that are trying to overthrow the US government (be it for good or bad motives),
it would explain the recent changes in location from Logan. Logan has also
hinted at having a set of skills in inbox.exe videos to which he never discloses
the nature of. Qain does a lot of security work and Wendell says he has some
government contracts as work. The sheer number of videos that they put out on
the NSA (and more recently all cable companies (and even, even more recently
Samsung)) shows that they are working towards some sort of change.
It also doesn't help that their names don't sound like actual
names. I mean Logan, Qain and Wendell are odd names and for them all to pop up
together is quite a coincidence and sounds like protection of identity. And Pistol is just not a name.
So to conclude, I'm not sure what to make of TekSyndicate,
with other channels it's easy to see that they're just making money from
reviewing products but with TekSyndicate it's different, either they just have
a unique angle on things and that's how they get views, or there is some ulterior
motive or larger 'plot' at work that we don't know about.
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| not really relevant, although Logan seems pretty hot on the 'PC master race' |
But I'm still subscribed so they can't be that bad.