In this exhausting deep dive, Matt and Chris take a break from counting their billionaire stipends to devote (what some might call) an inordinate amount of time to Gary Stevenson’s recent appearance with a challenging interviewer: Tomás from Despolariza. They grapple with the indeterminacy of Schrödinger’s Gary, who oscillates between being an economic and mathematical genius revealing what THEY don’t want you to know on YouTube, and a pragmatic but selfless political activist who oversimplifies complex problems and sacrifices nuance (and himself) in the name of urgent reform.

Despite insisting that he hates fame and has no desire to promote his best-selling book or be a popular YouTuber, Gary takes the time to remind us all of how often he’s recognised on the street and precisely how many millions of views his channel racks up each month. These are depressingly familiar guru tropes, as are his sweeping claims that you can’t trust politicians, economists, academics, journalists, the media, his old colleagues… or even graphs.

Gary’s core message that growing inequality is economically and politically unsustainable is an important one. And his ability to communicate the stakes of that problem to a large audience could be beneficial. So the criticism lies not with his stated goals but with the guru-tastic packaging and unwillingness to deal with complexity.

Luckily, there is a solution... Gary. Only he and his YouTube channel can save your grandchildren from abject poverty and Nigel Farage. And if you doubt him, just look at how many millions he made for himself and the bank with his uncanny predictions… or those monthly viewer stats. Oh, and did we mention he has an elite education from LSE?

Links

A Return to Gary World

Decoding the Gurus