Thug Notes
About
Thug Notes is a YouTube educational entertainment series hosted by Sparky Sweets, PhD[5] who explains and analyzes classical literature in African American Vernacular English.
Online History
In early May 2013, the URL thug-notes.com[1] and Facebook fan page for Thug Notes[2] were created. The YouTube channel[3] launched on June 3rd, 2013 with an episode explaining Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1866 novel Crime and Punishment.[4] His reinterpretation of the novel recieved more than 75,000 views in a month and a half.
Reception
The day after the series launched, TubeGeeks[6] lauded the series for its analysis, which he describes as "peepin' motifs," and compared the series to Quirk Classic, a publishing company that retells classic novels with zombies[7], androids[8] and sea monsters.[9] Over the next two weeks, Thug Notes videos were featured on WebProNews[10], Guyism[11] and MTV Guy Code,[12] On June 24th, his review of Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird (shown below) was submitted to the /r/Videos subreddit[13] where it generated nearly 11,000 upvotes, more than 3,000 points overall and nearly 350 comments.
The same day, the video was submitted to Buzzfeed[14] by a community contributor. On June 25th, the Daily Dot[15] published an article on the show that was shared nearly 330 times. Since June, Thug Notes has been featured on College Humor[16], Complex[17], BroBible[18], the Huffington Post[19], Tastefully Offensive[20] and the Inquistr.[21] As of July 2013, Thug Notes has more than 65,000 subscribers, 801,000 views and receives an average of 17,000 views per day.
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[2] Facebook – Thug Notes
[3] YouTube – Thug Notes
[4] Wikipedia – Crime and Punishment
[5] Twitter – @SparkySweetsPhD
[6] TubeGeeks – Thug Notes: The Gangsterest Cliffs Notes You’ve Ever Seen
[7] Goodreads – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
[8] Goodreads – Android Karenina
[9] Goodreads – Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
[10] WebProNews – Meet Thug Notes, the Best Classic Literature Discussion on YouTube
[11] Guyism – THUG NOTES IS YOUR SHORTCUT TO CLASSIC LITERATURE
[12] MTV Guy Code – 'Thug Notes': The Hardcore Way To Learn About Books [VIDEO]
[13] Reddit – /r/videos: I prefer Thug Notes to Spark Notes. – [3:48]
[14] Buzzfeed – Thug Notes May Be The New SparkNotes
[15] The Daily Dot – Thug Notes is the funniest and smartest lit analysis on the Web
[16] College Humor – Thug Notes – To Kill a Mockingbird
[17] Complex Tech – The Best Video on the Internet Today: Thug Notes Reviews "1984"
[18] BroBible – Here’s Best New YouTube Series ‘Thug Notes’ Taking on ‘Pride and Prejudice’
[19] The Huffington Post – Thug Notes Gets 'Buck Wild' With 'Lord Of The Flies' (VIDEO)
[20] Tastefully Offensive – Thug Notes: Lord of the Flies
[21] The Inquisitr – Thug Notes – Lord Of The Flies (Video)
Top Comment
Kung Fu Cthulhu
Jul 18, 2013 at 10:55PM EDT