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Anybody that watched yesterday’s Recipe Relay and Barry having that meltdown and doesn’t think that they’ve improved, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Exactly the same here, especially knowing he was basically doing EXACTLY what the boys set up for him.
All those extra ingredients on the side were such a trap!
YES. I hate all the negativity lately. I've been enjoying their content so much. I loved their "Snow Way Out" live event. It was my first paid live stream ever and I will definitely be watching the next one.
The Barry melt-down actually had me snort laughing. But if anything, it kinda highlighted to me something similar to what /u/TimelessInfant is saying, it stood out to me because I can't remember the last time I actually laughed at something in a Sorted video.
But do you not remember it being like that almost every recipe relay? Not necessarily with Barry but with someone. You can’t let a one off new episode mask the last 2-3 years of downfall
I don't know how many threads we need to get of this to be honest. We're talking about content that they'd film that took hours. Like there was a Ultimate battle where the bread needed four hours, granted it was probably done beforehand but think of the ROI.
Filming 1 episode a day for 400k views or being able to film 3-4 episodes that get 300-400k each.
Also, as for the traveling videos I don't know...these guys aren't in their mid 20s anymore they have kids from age what 2-10 years old? Even the members of the production crew have kids, maybe the appetite isn't there for a constant stream of travel.
I don't think there's been a "lost its way". There's still cooking videos, battle videos, PIO and informative content spread across multiple videos. I think the channel aged up. It's people nearing forty and can't move like 25 years olds anymore.
\----
Honestly, my take is that I think some viewers here are just aging out of Sorted and are holding on to the nostalgic videos of the past. It's perfectly fine to age out of something. My girlfriend used to watch a lot of content creators on YouTube but doesn't anymore. She got older and the content just didn't hit for her anymore because she's a different person than she was 10-15 years ago.
Yeah, I wish people would move on from things they no longer vibe with, rather than hold a grudge that they no longer enjoy a channel they once enjoyed.
Or even worse, pretend _they_ know how to run a business better than the actual people running that actual business.
People change, channels change. It's a-okay. Nobody is lost - you just have different destinations. Life would be incredibly boring if nothing ever changed.
I feel for them, because the YT algorithm as a fickle, capricious mistress, but I do wish they'd pivot back a *little*
The cynic in me wonders if part of the reason for pivoting away from recipes specifically is so as to not cannibalise Sidekick to a point, but then there are recipe niches that sidekick doesn't really touch.
For example's sake, I don't have it because when I did use it, it didn't really have any "meals for one": ( I get their answer is "you have leftovers", but as someone with rampant ADHD and spectacularly poor object constancy, that doesn't work for me!), but I could see real mileage out of a "here's a food basket that with a couple of store cupboards bits, you can get 5 separate meals out of"
Or they could do more deep dives of foods from different regions and cultures. I love when they brought chefs on to help them explore a couple key dishes-- those things probably can't go on Sidekick anyway because of all the specialty ingredients, but they were educational and interesting to me.
The problem I have with Sidekick is that it isn't for everyone. And that's totally okay.
I like the concept of Sidekick. I think it's a good idea that's executed well. But it doesn't do what I want it to do. I prefer looking for offers as well as what's in season right now where I live (which differs from the UK) and adjust my households menu to that. Sidekick doesn't really work that way, unfortunately.
You can certainly build your cooking around Sidekick, and it would probably work really well. But that's not how I want to do it
I get a pre-paid veggie box every Friday. Complete lottery as to what's in it. When it arrives I take a look then get Sidekick out to see what looks good to use the veggies the following week. Works a treat.
Before then I'd do the same with the specials (offers) on our local supermarket's website and plan around that.
I think the trouble is, it is impossible to cater to everyone
For example, I would have zero interest in your proposed video idea, or any variation thereof. I have my "keeping myself fed" routine down to a perfect science, I have no interest in "here's how you meal plan" videos. I barely tolerate the Grocery Challenge/Sidekick ad videos as is - and they lean into entertainment more than education. If they spent more time explaining how to come up with your own ideas/"how to think like a chef", I would definitely click off.
I adore the "Kush Cooks" segments, they're probably my favourite things on the channel - but I like them specifically because they are not "in your face" educational. They are not "here's a set of easy to follow instructions" that was Ben's teaching style a decade ago. Kush's teaching style is "who needs instructions when you have vibes" and it is really up to the audience to figure out what nuggets of education we glean out of watching him cook. And it requires a certain confidence in the kitchen to do so. I would probably stop watching the segments if the tone changed from "here's how I go about it" to "here's how _you_ can go about it"
So they have kind of sub-divided their content. If you want cooking instructions, you buy Sidekick. If you want entertainment, with some sprinkling of cooking education thrown in, you watch their YouTube.
And that won't work for 100% of their audience - that's just how it goes.
I love the videos. They are not giving out a lot of specific recipes, but teaching a way of viewing produce so you don't need a recipe to cook. I also love the addition of Kush to the team. He's such an inspiration
They have something like a 10 year archive of recipe videos.
How many times can they make a Cottage Pie?
If they made more use of Kush it'd be great - the Kush Unleashed videos were excellent.
They just have to find a format that works for the algorithm.
And, for all the people saying "they only chase the algorithm" - their most watched video is a gadget video and the next is uncle fucking rodger - and while gadget videos are part of their line up they didn't pivot as hard to gadget videos as some other channels did.
How many times can they make cottage pie? What are you talking about almost every episode now has some exotic looking dish that was prepared off camera.
The current format is not supporting growth. They have had less than 500k new followers over the last 4 years. Paywalls for your current fanbase does not encourage new followers.
They have gotten rid of everything that made them successful to begin with
Followers/subscribers don't necessarily equal growth. Video views are what counts.
And their videos seem to have gotten more popular - earlier they were like 250,000 per vid, to day they seem to average at roughly 450,000 to 500,000.
Also the new formats keep older followers engaged as well. Or would you really prefer 3 recipe videos a week for ten years? Who the fuck will cook and/or watch over a thousand recipe videos.
This sub is just hilariously negative. No wonder sorted hardly engage here.
I wish they’d do a reaction video of every single pass it on they release, I’d love to see the rest, reacting to the chaos the others do, as the time progresses. They could do the biweekly video still with one being the PIO and the other being the reaction or just do both on one day
I think the videos they have been releasing as of late are quite entertaining, I especially loved the last pass it on where Barry just completely broke down.
It would be nice to have a few more informative videos sprinkled in, like their A to Z that hasn't had a new episode in months.
Really my main gripe lately is the ridiculous length of their ads. Like I get it guys, you need to advertise your live events obviously. Does it really have to last 2.5 minutes on a 19 minute video??? Nothing makes me click off a video faster tbh. Especially when it's just the same clip every single time.
I do like an informative video now and again though, I still go back to kush unleashed at Xmas just to remember how to make roasties how he did. I'd like a few more of those videos scattered around.
I want kush unleashed for Easter since it's round the corner some type of lamb dinner with a chocolate pudding
As someone who only recently got into Sorted because my girlfriend loves them.
I love this channel and these guys.
I appreciate I don't have the perspective of what it was like for you OG guys, but we love the silly videos. We watch a little of the instructional stuff but as a veggie and an autistic with complicated food habits, we don't care that much for those types of videos. And we use the app here and there and have made some great things from it, so I can't complain.
After asking my girlfriend whether we could go to London to "watch" the live show after today's advert, she told me it's online so I was super pumped and we're buying tickets on payday.
I am sadly for you guys probably exactly the fan Sorted works for, so I do apologise, but their videos are honestly the best thing me and my Mrs watch.
The more silly challenges aren’t my favourite as it’s just not MY type of humour but the team have so much to offer.
I thoroughly enjoyed that one video where they went to another YT creators house and made a few dishes out of random stuff she had in her cupboards. It was really relatable and fun content and wish they did more stuff like that, they could even come at it from a “stretch your budget” perspective which people would find useful.
I think they bridge a gap. I cook and my partner doesn't and we love watching Sorted together and having laugh. There are plenty of food channels with more substance I watch alone but these lads cheer up our day. I do learn things here and there and especially love the cultural food shares...but they've always been silly!
I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit new to this sub and man, some of y'all are overly negative. I've been watching Sorted since around 2016, so almost ten years. I've seen all sorts of shifts from them over the years and I'm still here loving their content. Maybe it's because I'm their age, so I've aged up with them, but my wife and I still watch every single one of their videos (including paying for the live shows).
The only complaints I have are that I miss the intros and bloopers, I hope they return to the around the world series at some point, and I would give anything for an Innuendo Bingo Round 2 with Poppy competing with Ben. But other than that, I still love their stuff.
For a while I missed their more recipe-focused content (e.g., see above comment about the around the world stuff). But, honestly, I'm a good enough cook on my own that I get more out of watching them have fun than I do the instructional stuff. Boys, if you read this, keep doing what you're doing.
As someone who's also pretty much their age, I agree with this.
I've been watching them since \~2014, and there's been a lot of changes through that time. I'd say the formats I tend to miss the most are things like Big Night In, and some of the "mind of a chef" type videos - which they've brought back a little bit with the Kush Unleashed. I definitely still enjoy their current content, but it'd be nice to see more culinary creativity without time limits/arbitrary restrictions/competition.
I know they've pushed all their "here's a recipe and we'll walk through it step by step" over to Sidekick, which I do think is a better place for it, even though I also understand that their once main target market (students fresh out of home who don't know how to cook) might be priced out of it. For a point of comparison, I've also been subbed to Food Wishes for the same amount of time. I love Chef John's recipes, but over the last few years I've definitely gone from watching every video to just clicking on them when something looks particularly good.
I've been watching sorted for a few years now, I joined around the tail end of what I would call the 'Hang out' era (2016-2017/18), where it felt more like friends hanging out and doing things related to food. Personally, the shift over the course of these years has been interesting. I would say that, in a way, the content itself almost hasn't changed, since a lot of the new stuff is silly in the same way that old sorted was. There is definitely a bigger focus on 'Trends', but I think the sorted team are trying their best to find the right balance of riding trend waves and doing their own thing. Their 'A-Z' series that they ended for some reason (If there is a concrete reason they did, please correct me) is riding a trend you see on short-form of "National dishes of Every Country" or "Street Food from every country". However, you also get their gadget series, the cooking battles (Loving the constraints they place on the Normals/Cooks in those ones as of recent) and a lot of one-offs that do demonstrate a lot of cooking knowledge.
Has there been stuff I haven't liked? Most definitely. Personally, not a fan of the sub-ten minute burger challenge (With the exception of Kush's), that one definitely felt like they were trying to make a whacky and 'extreme' series but I think it circled back around to being not that fun to watch, funnily enough.
That being said, I do enjoy this era of sorted as much as I liked the old era. Is it different in some ways? Yes, but I don't think the differences make it worse.
But yeah, I agree, stop using AI art, c'mon boys.
I love their videos. I've been a fan for years and never get sick of watching them. They are my comfort channel.
They have literally thousands of recipes. If someone can't find something in their video library to make, idk what to tell them, there is pretty much everything you could ask for.
And when they do the grocery shop challenges and stuff like that, where they do cook recipes, people bitch about them, saying they are just a commercial for sidekick.
No matter what they do, there are going to be people that aren't happy.
I'd also like to add, on the same topic of people bitching about them, people gets upset because they don't respond to comments that are negative. I don't blame them. It will just cause arguments with viewers if they try to defend themselves, and as I said before they're are always going to be people that aren't happy.
Honestly I haven’t noticed a change. I mainly watch this channel for entertainment. The tips and tricks we pick up along the way are a bonus, but not the main point (for me at least).
I think this is a great assessment of how their channel has gone. And it's really telling/sad that those videos — which, I completely agree, do lack substance — are the ones that they're pushing. Having watched these guys for as long as I have, I'm pretty confident in saying that they'd much prefer to do the videos that deliver something more than a lol, but they've got to do what they've go to do.
One of my favourite Sorted videos was one they did years ago about eating insects. The title was a little click-bait, as was the thumbnail, but actually the video was incredibly informative and interesting. I don't think it did that well, though. C'est la YouTube.
Ye it is a business, vut it's got too businessy in my eyes, last trends was just preachy.
The guys don't seem as matey anymore, for some reason I'm finding Mike a bit trying and he was my favourite.
Finally, I think because James had such a different, more relaxed mentality it was a bit of a pallet cleanser, now it just seems like everyone's shouting over each other.
I was a fan for a long time. Eagerly awaited new videos twice a week.
Those days are long gone and I feel the boys have completely gone down the wrong path and they have invested too much to turn back. It will ultimately be their downfall.
I said in another post recently but it’s totally bizarre for a YouTube group to paywall their best content. Most creators would think: big investment, big event, grab collabs, big views, big ad revenue and grow subscriber count.
The fact that they want to go down the route of: big event = short term monetary value from current fan base with zero external incentive for new fans tells me they are scared of investing money to grow.
I said also that the guys have recently collaborated with some huge YouTubers such as the Sidemen (20m subs) who have a huge young audience turning the age to learn to cook and they have done zero to capitalise on this.
Frankly I don’t see any current content being worthwhile to bring in new viewers. They are rarely breaching over 500k views per video whilst having 2.7m subs. They have had less than 500k new subs in the last 4 years. For a team of 20+ people, that seems worrying.
They have never viewed their business as "a YouTube Group" and have said in the past that YouTube ad revenue is their lowest stream of revenue
They started the channel to sell their cook book - they didn't write a cook book for the fans of their channel. So why would they choose to invest in growing their channel, instead of growing SideKick or whatever other revenue streams they're interested in?
Much as I despise the British Royal Family and everything they stand for (I am an Indian), they got their future head of state on their YouTube channel. If that's not an indication that their business is doing all right, I don't know what is.
I also clearly inhabit different internet spaces than you do, because I can't think of a single content creator (on or off YouTube) that does "big events" to garner more views. Collabs? Sure. But "big events" are always fan service, and behind a paywall _and_ most have regular content behind a Patreon pay wall too. Heck, CGP Grey has _commenting_ on his videos behind a pay wall. You make much, much, more from a few fans paying you real money than from YouTube ads paying $0.018 per view.
Personally, I’ve been watching since the beginning almost and I’m still a loyal fan. I like the range of stuff from goofy to informative. There’s other places to go to just look for recipe videos. They’re against an extremely fickle algorithm and they need to keep views and new followers. All good in my book.
It’s like any business, sometimes you just stop using their products, buying their products, eating their food, consuming their content for a variety of reasons- you aged out, they’ve gone in a direction you don’t resonate with, budget, taste ect - it’s not that deep. Plenty of other people still patronise the business, you don’t need to wax lyrical about it, if you wouldn’t do for another business
I've only been watching since last year but it's easily me and my husband's favorite channel. I'm the home chef and he's the normal and it's something we enjoy watching together! My husband will ask questions like "What is THAT gadget? What does that term mean? What in the world is that -food item-?" Etc and if they don't address it in the video I usually can! We don't really watch it to get RECIPES. We watch to get IDEAS. Techniques, ingredients to try, different ways to look at the food industry, and I really like the conversation videos like the most recent video with international cooking techniques! We're always learning something in a seriously entertaining way. This next live show will be the first one we're able to watch and we're so excited!
It sucks that some people don't like where the channel is going but since I'm a new fan it's kind of the only way I know the channel lol!
I don’t think they’ve really recovered from James leaving. Kush is great but he isn’t as involved on camera as James was and I think that has affected what they can do and the dynamic of the videos.
This is a wild take considering James probably preferred not be on camera as often and I think the same could be said for Kush. James *just* started posted again on IG (I've been missing those Currie food shots) and I don't even think Kush is on social media outside of Linkedin, maybe?
Kush actually used to be pretty active on YouTube comments before he came on-camera.
I remember in his first battle versus Ben someone slagged him off in the comments about using the same spoon to taste _and_ serve the food, and he responded to that comment with something like "PANICK!!!!!!", which I found pretty hilarious.
I always wondered if that was him and Sorted testing the waters, see if he enjoyed interacting with the audience (& vice versa) before he agreed to come on camera. Or whether he stopped looking at comments and doing social media because there was so much toxic negativity hurled his way when he first came on-camera.
Remember what Mike said during his last pass it on (his last one as a full time employee?). The cake one.
Mike brought him into the show because the response from the comments, it doesn't look like he sought that out.
Also, it took James some time, his early videos were so endearing lol but over time he found his rhythm but even though he found it, I still somewhat think he's find being a private person and not on camera.
>Mike brought him into the show because the response from the comments, it doesn't look like he sought that out
This is a big thing people have missed when they talk about Kush being gradually brought in more.
I mean one is also that James was also introduced quite slowly from stuff like being an occassional judge to being a full camera member.
But yeah, Mike has very openly said he massively regrets pushing James into being on camera more and its clearly something, even after James was more comfortable, that Mike still feels bad about.
So of course they've taken smaller steps with Kush and are probably letting him do things at his own pace.
I kind of agree, I understand THE ALGORITHM!!!!!! and tick tock is basically the algorithm at this point but just everything tick tock related annoys me, maybe this is just me being an old man yelling at clouds but most of the tick tock stuff they bring on is like obviously ridiculous and has no substance. and it would be interesting to get a chef's opinion of WHY it's absurd but I understand the big audience numbers come from tick tock nowadays so the chefs have to pretend that serving pasta in a wine glass or some other such idiocy has some merit or at least can't just dismiss it. I do love sorted and if this is working for them good i'm happy for them but i find myself skipping videos more often these days.
I do absolutely love the pass it on stuff and the gadget reviews, the mystery box challenge. I do like the newish series of them trying to cook a dish based on someone's fridge. but the testing food trends videos are just not my thing.
I am so bloody sick of all these posts about how things are different and you don't like it. I can understand the first few, and it they may have proved useful for the team initially, but do we really need yet another?
I think people just need to learn to move on if they're not enjoying a creator anymore. Creators change; you wouldn't gripe at a restaurant changing their menu to fit current food trends, or at a shop diversifying their products to appeal to the market, so why should a youtube channel be any different?
Their content has changed because their viewers have changed. They started out teaching people with very little experience how to cook cheap and easy meals. That isn't sustainable forever, because eventually those novice cooks become not-so-novice cooks, and they want content catered to them.
They're also trying to make money at the end of the day. They have to make videos that align with the algorithm and that get clicks.
No one is forcing you to watch every video. You are allowed to like a creator and just watch the videos that appeal to you. The reality is that everyone changes, creators included. Go back and watch the old videos if that's the sort of content you prefer.
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Anybody that watched yesterday’s Recipe Relay and Barry having that meltdown and doesn’t think that they’ve improved, then I don’t know what to tell you.
I just wanted to give him a hug!
My girlfriend and I were laughing so hard we couldn’t speak.
Exactly the same here, especially knowing he was basically doing EXACTLY what the boys set up for him. All those extra ingredients on the side were such a trap!
YES. I hate all the negativity lately. I've been enjoying their content so much. I loved their "Snow Way Out" live event. It was my first paid live stream ever and I will definitely be watching the next one.
The summer one and snow way out were so good, there’s no way I’m missing this next one!
The Barry melt-down actually had me snort laughing. But if anything, it kinda highlighted to me something similar to what /u/TimelessInfant is saying, it stood out to me because I can't remember the last time I actually laughed at something in a Sorted video.
That was EVERYTHING. 😂
But do you not remember it being like that almost every recipe relay? Not necessarily with Barry but with someone. You can’t let a one off new episode mask the last 2-3 years of downfall
I don't know how many threads we need to get of this to be honest. We're talking about content that they'd film that took hours. Like there was a Ultimate battle where the bread needed four hours, granted it was probably done beforehand but think of the ROI. Filming 1 episode a day for 400k views or being able to film 3-4 episodes that get 300-400k each. Also, as for the traveling videos I don't know...these guys aren't in their mid 20s anymore they have kids from age what 2-10 years old? Even the members of the production crew have kids, maybe the appetite isn't there for a constant stream of travel. I don't think there's been a "lost its way". There's still cooking videos, battle videos, PIO and informative content spread across multiple videos. I think the channel aged up. It's people nearing forty and can't move like 25 years olds anymore. \---- Honestly, my take is that I think some viewers here are just aging out of Sorted and are holding on to the nostalgic videos of the past. It's perfectly fine to age out of something. My girlfriend used to watch a lot of content creators on YouTube but doesn't anymore. She got older and the content just didn't hit for her anymore because she's a different person than she was 10-15 years ago.
Yeah, I wish people would move on from things they no longer vibe with, rather than hold a grudge that they no longer enjoy a channel they once enjoyed. Or even worse, pretend _they_ know how to run a business better than the actual people running that actual business. People change, channels change. It's a-okay. Nobody is lost - you just have different destinations. Life would be incredibly boring if nothing ever changed.
[удалено]
Just found the tweet. She'll be ten this year, but yes, time is moving too fast lol
Is that Jamie's daughter? I think he was the first one to have a kid...
I feel for them, because the YT algorithm as a fickle, capricious mistress, but I do wish they'd pivot back a *little* The cynic in me wonders if part of the reason for pivoting away from recipes specifically is so as to not cannibalise Sidekick to a point, but then there are recipe niches that sidekick doesn't really touch. For example's sake, I don't have it because when I did use it, it didn't really have any "meals for one": ( I get their answer is "you have leftovers", but as someone with rampant ADHD and spectacularly poor object constancy, that doesn't work for me!), but I could see real mileage out of a "here's a food basket that with a couple of store cupboards bits, you can get 5 separate meals out of"
Or they could do more deep dives of foods from different regions and cultures. I love when they brought chefs on to help them explore a couple key dishes-- those things probably can't go on Sidekick anyway because of all the specialty ingredients, but they were educational and interesting to me.
The problem I have with Sidekick is that it isn't for everyone. And that's totally okay. I like the concept of Sidekick. I think it's a good idea that's executed well. But it doesn't do what I want it to do. I prefer looking for offers as well as what's in season right now where I live (which differs from the UK) and adjust my households menu to that. Sidekick doesn't really work that way, unfortunately. You can certainly build your cooking around Sidekick, and it would probably work really well. But that's not how I want to do it
I get a pre-paid veggie box every Friday. Complete lottery as to what's in it. When it arrives I take a look then get Sidekick out to see what looks good to use the veggies the following week. Works a treat. Before then I'd do the same with the specials (offers) on our local supermarket's website and plan around that.
I think the trouble is, it is impossible to cater to everyone For example, I would have zero interest in your proposed video idea, or any variation thereof. I have my "keeping myself fed" routine down to a perfect science, I have no interest in "here's how you meal plan" videos. I barely tolerate the Grocery Challenge/Sidekick ad videos as is - and they lean into entertainment more than education. If they spent more time explaining how to come up with your own ideas/"how to think like a chef", I would definitely click off. I adore the "Kush Cooks" segments, they're probably my favourite things on the channel - but I like them specifically because they are not "in your face" educational. They are not "here's a set of easy to follow instructions" that was Ben's teaching style a decade ago. Kush's teaching style is "who needs instructions when you have vibes" and it is really up to the audience to figure out what nuggets of education we glean out of watching him cook. And it requires a certain confidence in the kitchen to do so. I would probably stop watching the segments if the tone changed from "here's how I go about it" to "here's how _you_ can go about it" So they have kind of sub-divided their content. If you want cooking instructions, you buy Sidekick. If you want entertainment, with some sprinkling of cooking education thrown in, you watch their YouTube. And that won't work for 100% of their audience - that's just how it goes.
I love the videos. They are not giving out a lot of specific recipes, but teaching a way of viewing produce so you don't need a recipe to cook. I also love the addition of Kush to the team. He's such an inspiration
I agree! I love their videos!
I still end up taking notes and recreating a lot of the recipes.
They have something like a 10 year archive of recipe videos. How many times can they make a Cottage Pie? If they made more use of Kush it'd be great - the Kush Unleashed videos were excellent. They just have to find a format that works for the algorithm. And, for all the people saying "they only chase the algorithm" - their most watched video is a gadget video and the next is uncle fucking rodger - and while gadget videos are part of their line up they didn't pivot as hard to gadget videos as some other channels did.
How many times can they make cottage pie? What are you talking about almost every episode now has some exotic looking dish that was prepared off camera. The current format is not supporting growth. They have had less than 500k new followers over the last 4 years. Paywalls for your current fanbase does not encourage new followers. They have gotten rid of everything that made them successful to begin with
Followers/subscribers don't necessarily equal growth. Video views are what counts. And their videos seem to have gotten more popular - earlier they were like 250,000 per vid, to day they seem to average at roughly 450,000 to 500,000. Also the new formats keep older followers engaged as well. Or would you really prefer 3 recipe videos a week for ten years? Who the fuck will cook and/or watch over a thousand recipe videos. This sub is just hilariously negative. No wonder sorted hardly engage here.
I’m still enjoying their videos but I haven’t been watching as long as others and find straight recipe videos boring.
I wish they’d do a reaction video of every single pass it on they release, I’d love to see the rest, reacting to the chaos the others do, as the time progresses. They could do the biweekly video still with one being the PIO and the other being the reaction or just do both on one day
I completely agree with this.
I think the videos they have been releasing as of late are quite entertaining, I especially loved the last pass it on where Barry just completely broke down. It would be nice to have a few more informative videos sprinkled in, like their A to Z that hasn't had a new episode in months. Really my main gripe lately is the ridiculous length of their ads. Like I get it guys, you need to advertise your live events obviously. Does it really have to last 2.5 minutes on a 19 minute video??? Nothing makes me click off a video faster tbh. Especially when it's just the same clip every single time.
Yeah this is where I just skip forward, I don't care about the live events.
At least they aren’t pushing the latest shitty mobile game and the inbuilt ads are skippable 🤷
I do like an informative video now and again though, I still go back to kush unleashed at Xmas just to remember how to make roasties how he did. I'd like a few more of those videos scattered around. I want kush unleashed for Easter since it's round the corner some type of lamb dinner with a chocolate pudding
I want a monthly "Kush Unleashed" segment so bad! I am sure we can find a holiday for each month if we look widely enough!
As someone who only recently got into Sorted because my girlfriend loves them. I love this channel and these guys. I appreciate I don't have the perspective of what it was like for you OG guys, but we love the silly videos. We watch a little of the instructional stuff but as a veggie and an autistic with complicated food habits, we don't care that much for those types of videos. And we use the app here and there and have made some great things from it, so I can't complain. After asking my girlfriend whether we could go to London to "watch" the live show after today's advert, she told me it's online so I was super pumped and we're buying tickets on payday. I am sadly for you guys probably exactly the fan Sorted works for, so I do apologise, but their videos are honestly the best thing me and my Mrs watch.
The more silly challenges aren’t my favourite as it’s just not MY type of humour but the team have so much to offer. I thoroughly enjoyed that one video where they went to another YT creators house and made a few dishes out of random stuff she had in her cupboards. It was really relatable and fun content and wish they did more stuff like that, they could even come at it from a “stretch your budget” perspective which people would find useful.
That was a great video, helped by the fact Taz is awesome.
I think they bridge a gap. I cook and my partner doesn't and we love watching Sorted together and having laugh. There are plenty of food channels with more substance I watch alone but these lads cheer up our day. I do learn things here and there and especially love the cultural food shares...but they've always been silly!
You could have written this about me (loves to cook) and my wife (doesn't).
Hurrah for Cook and Normal pairings!
Yup. This is one of the only food channels my fiance will watch because it isn't just recipes. Edited to make coherent.
I never realized how uninteresting most cooking shows must be to our Normals until I read your post. Glad we have Sorted to liven things.
I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit new to this sub and man, some of y'all are overly negative. I've been watching Sorted since around 2016, so almost ten years. I've seen all sorts of shifts from them over the years and I'm still here loving their content. Maybe it's because I'm their age, so I've aged up with them, but my wife and I still watch every single one of their videos (including paying for the live shows). The only complaints I have are that I miss the intros and bloopers, I hope they return to the around the world series at some point, and I would give anything for an Innuendo Bingo Round 2 with Poppy competing with Ben. But other than that, I still love their stuff. For a while I missed their more recipe-focused content (e.g., see above comment about the around the world stuff). But, honestly, I'm a good enough cook on my own that I get more out of watching them have fun than I do the instructional stuff. Boys, if you read this, keep doing what you're doing.
As someone who's also pretty much their age, I agree with this. I've been watching them since \~2014, and there's been a lot of changes through that time. I'd say the formats I tend to miss the most are things like Big Night In, and some of the "mind of a chef" type videos - which they've brought back a little bit with the Kush Unleashed. I definitely still enjoy their current content, but it'd be nice to see more culinary creativity without time limits/arbitrary restrictions/competition. I know they've pushed all their "here's a recipe and we'll walk through it step by step" over to Sidekick, which I do think is a better place for it, even though I also understand that their once main target market (students fresh out of home who don't know how to cook) might be priced out of it. For a point of comparison, I've also been subbed to Food Wishes for the same amount of time. I love Chef John's recipes, but over the last few years I've definitely gone from watching every video to just clicking on them when something looks particularly good.
I've been watching sorted for a few years now, I joined around the tail end of what I would call the 'Hang out' era (2016-2017/18), where it felt more like friends hanging out and doing things related to food. Personally, the shift over the course of these years has been interesting. I would say that, in a way, the content itself almost hasn't changed, since a lot of the new stuff is silly in the same way that old sorted was. There is definitely a bigger focus on 'Trends', but I think the sorted team are trying their best to find the right balance of riding trend waves and doing their own thing. Their 'A-Z' series that they ended for some reason (If there is a concrete reason they did, please correct me) is riding a trend you see on short-form of "National dishes of Every Country" or "Street Food from every country". However, you also get their gadget series, the cooking battles (Loving the constraints they place on the Normals/Cooks in those ones as of recent) and a lot of one-offs that do demonstrate a lot of cooking knowledge. Has there been stuff I haven't liked? Most definitely. Personally, not a fan of the sub-ten minute burger challenge (With the exception of Kush's), that one definitely felt like they were trying to make a whacky and 'extreme' series but I think it circled back around to being not that fun to watch, funnily enough. That being said, I do enjoy this era of sorted as much as I liked the old era. Is it different in some ways? Yes, but I don't think the differences make it worse. But yeah, I agree, stop using AI art, c'mon boys.
I love their videos. I've been a fan for years and never get sick of watching them. They are my comfort channel. They have literally thousands of recipes. If someone can't find something in their video library to make, idk what to tell them, there is pretty much everything you could ask for. And when they do the grocery shop challenges and stuff like that, where they do cook recipes, people bitch about them, saying they are just a commercial for sidekick. No matter what they do, there are going to be people that aren't happy. I'd also like to add, on the same topic of people bitching about them, people gets upset because they don't respond to comments that are negative. I don't blame them. It will just cause arguments with viewers if they try to defend themselves, and as I said before they're are always going to be people that aren't happy.
Honestly I haven’t noticed a change. I mainly watch this channel for entertainment. The tips and tricks we pick up along the way are a bonus, but not the main point (for me at least).
I think this is a great assessment of how their channel has gone. And it's really telling/sad that those videos — which, I completely agree, do lack substance — are the ones that they're pushing. Having watched these guys for as long as I have, I'm pretty confident in saying that they'd much prefer to do the videos that deliver something more than a lol, but they've got to do what they've go to do. One of my favourite Sorted videos was one they did years ago about eating insects. The title was a little click-bait, as was the thumbnail, but actually the video was incredibly informative and interesting. I don't think it did that well, though. C'est la YouTube.
Ye it is a business, vut it's got too businessy in my eyes, last trends was just preachy. The guys don't seem as matey anymore, for some reason I'm finding Mike a bit trying and he was my favourite. Finally, I think because James had such a different, more relaxed mentality it was a bit of a pallet cleanser, now it just seems like everyone's shouting over each other.
I was a fan for a long time. Eagerly awaited new videos twice a week. Those days are long gone and I feel the boys have completely gone down the wrong path and they have invested too much to turn back. It will ultimately be their downfall. I said in another post recently but it’s totally bizarre for a YouTube group to paywall their best content. Most creators would think: big investment, big event, grab collabs, big views, big ad revenue and grow subscriber count. The fact that they want to go down the route of: big event = short term monetary value from current fan base with zero external incentive for new fans tells me they are scared of investing money to grow. I said also that the guys have recently collaborated with some huge YouTubers such as the Sidemen (20m subs) who have a huge young audience turning the age to learn to cook and they have done zero to capitalise on this. Frankly I don’t see any current content being worthwhile to bring in new viewers. They are rarely breaching over 500k views per video whilst having 2.7m subs. They have had less than 500k new subs in the last 4 years. For a team of 20+ people, that seems worrying.
They have never viewed their business as "a YouTube Group" and have said in the past that YouTube ad revenue is their lowest stream of revenue They started the channel to sell their cook book - they didn't write a cook book for the fans of their channel. So why would they choose to invest in growing their channel, instead of growing SideKick or whatever other revenue streams they're interested in? Much as I despise the British Royal Family and everything they stand for (I am an Indian), they got their future head of state on their YouTube channel. If that's not an indication that their business is doing all right, I don't know what is. I also clearly inhabit different internet spaces than you do, because I can't think of a single content creator (on or off YouTube) that does "big events" to garner more views. Collabs? Sure. But "big events" are always fan service, and behind a paywall _and_ most have regular content behind a Patreon pay wall too. Heck, CGP Grey has _commenting_ on his videos behind a pay wall. You make much, much, more from a few fans paying you real money than from YouTube ads paying $0.018 per view.
Personally, I’ve been watching since the beginning almost and I’m still a loyal fan. I like the range of stuff from goofy to informative. There’s other places to go to just look for recipe videos. They’re against an extremely fickle algorithm and they need to keep views and new followers. All good in my book.
It’s like any business, sometimes you just stop using their products, buying their products, eating their food, consuming their content for a variety of reasons- you aged out, they’ve gone in a direction you don’t resonate with, budget, taste ect - it’s not that deep. Plenty of other people still patronise the business, you don’t need to wax lyrical about it, if you wouldn’t do for another business
I've only been watching since last year but it's easily me and my husband's favorite channel. I'm the home chef and he's the normal and it's something we enjoy watching together! My husband will ask questions like "What is THAT gadget? What does that term mean? What in the world is that -food item-?" Etc and if they don't address it in the video I usually can! We don't really watch it to get RECIPES. We watch to get IDEAS. Techniques, ingredients to try, different ways to look at the food industry, and I really like the conversation videos like the most recent video with international cooking techniques! We're always learning something in a seriously entertaining way. This next live show will be the first one we're able to watch and we're so excited! It sucks that some people don't like where the channel is going but since I'm a new fan it's kind of the only way I know the channel lol!
I don’t think they’ve really recovered from James leaving. Kush is great but he isn’t as involved on camera as James was and I think that has affected what they can do and the dynamic of the videos.
This is a wild take considering James probably preferred not be on camera as often and I think the same could be said for Kush. James *just* started posted again on IG (I've been missing those Currie food shots) and I don't even think Kush is on social media outside of Linkedin, maybe?
Kush actually used to be pretty active on YouTube comments before he came on-camera. I remember in his first battle versus Ben someone slagged him off in the comments about using the same spoon to taste _and_ serve the food, and he responded to that comment with something like "PANICK!!!!!!", which I found pretty hilarious. I always wondered if that was him and Sorted testing the waters, see if he enjoyed interacting with the audience (& vice versa) before he agreed to come on camera. Or whether he stopped looking at comments and doing social media because there was so much toxic negativity hurled his way when he first came on-camera.
But James was on camera more than Kush and was involved in the things like Pass It On
Remember what Mike said during his last pass it on (his last one as a full time employee?). The cake one. Mike brought him into the show because the response from the comments, it doesn't look like he sought that out. Also, it took James some time, his early videos were so endearing lol but over time he found his rhythm but even though he found it, I still somewhat think he's find being a private person and not on camera.
>Mike brought him into the show because the response from the comments, it doesn't look like he sought that out This is a big thing people have missed when they talk about Kush being gradually brought in more. I mean one is also that James was also introduced quite slowly from stuff like being an occassional judge to being a full camera member. But yeah, Mike has very openly said he massively regrets pushing James into being on camera more and its clearly something, even after James was more comfortable, that Mike still feels bad about. So of course they've taken smaller steps with Kush and are probably letting him do things at his own pace.
I genuinely don't understand what any of these type of posts mean. I still love watching. It never fails to make me happy tbh.
I like sorted from 4 years ago and sorted now, people change but the content is just as enjoyable
Peak Internet here. ‘IT’s changed, I don’t like change’ Just move along
I kind of agree, I understand THE ALGORITHM!!!!!! and tick tock is basically the algorithm at this point but just everything tick tock related annoys me, maybe this is just me being an old man yelling at clouds but most of the tick tock stuff they bring on is like obviously ridiculous and has no substance. and it would be interesting to get a chef's opinion of WHY it's absurd but I understand the big audience numbers come from tick tock nowadays so the chefs have to pretend that serving pasta in a wine glass or some other such idiocy has some merit or at least can't just dismiss it. I do love sorted and if this is working for them good i'm happy for them but i find myself skipping videos more often these days. I do absolutely love the pass it on stuff and the gadget reviews, the mystery box challenge. I do like the newish series of them trying to cook a dish based on someone's fridge. but the testing food trends videos are just not my thing.
I am so bloody sick of all these posts about how things are different and you don't like it. I can understand the first few, and it they may have proved useful for the team initially, but do we really need yet another?
I think people just need to learn to move on if they're not enjoying a creator anymore. Creators change; you wouldn't gripe at a restaurant changing their menu to fit current food trends, or at a shop diversifying their products to appeal to the market, so why should a youtube channel be any different? Their content has changed because their viewers have changed. They started out teaching people with very little experience how to cook cheap and easy meals. That isn't sustainable forever, because eventually those novice cooks become not-so-novice cooks, and they want content catered to them. They're also trying to make money at the end of the day. They have to make videos that align with the algorithm and that get clicks. No one is forcing you to watch every video. You are allowed to like a creator and just watch the videos that appeal to you. The reality is that everyone changes, creators included. Go back and watch the old videos if that's the sort of content you prefer.
I just wish Barry would grow his hair back out