Matt Baume

So you may have heard that there are people who make documentary video essays and post them on YouTube. Frankly, we’ve reached the point where it doesn’t matter what incredibly niche subject you’re interested in; someone somewhere is standing in front of a green screen speaking earnestly about it. Depending on your standards, I myself subscribe to no fewer than two dozen of them. These people cover categories from vintage cookbooks to evolution, from world history to any number of analyses of pop culture. To, okay, the more interesting details of thanatology. I’m a woman of simple tastes. But there is one person at least who is out there making intelligent, well-researched videos about the intersection of queer history and pop culture.

Yes, today, we’ll be discussing the delightful Matt Baume. I am here to tell you that there is very little about the man himself on the internet, and most of it is clearly copied from Wikipedia or Amazon. This much is certain. He has been making YouTube videos since 2015. He has written two books. He podcasts—as, in these days, who does not? He currently lives in Seattle. And . . . that’s kind of where we run out of personal information about him. Perhaps I’d know more if I subscribed to his newsletter, but for the casual researcher, that’s what there is.

But then, do we have to know more? We know that his videos are much shorter than a lot of the other ones I watch, inasmuch as he’s no Jenny Nicholson or Hbomberguy. And we know that he does his research and shows his sources. He’s got an entire Norman Lear-themed playlist. He talks a lot about TV, probably more about TV than movies. His main focus with that seems to be the sitcoms of the ‘70s and the ‘90s. If the videos—and his list of sources—don’t speak for themselves, he’s not doing his job.

Baume’s videos are intelligent and witty. He makes jokes and drops sly innuendo. He includes illustrative clips. He also cross-references enough so that you’d be able to work out that he knows what he’s talking about even if you don’t look up his sources. Tracing the entire history of Frasier and homosexuality takes some doing, after all, and throwing in the odd reference to another sitcom of the same era while you’re at it takes knowing where to find that reference.

Certainly he’s a lighter watch than The Casual Criminalist. I’d put him at about the level of Kaz Rowe, another queer YouTuber I enjoy. Her videos cover a wider range of topics—her Victorian medicine tier list is a delight—but their videos are of similar length and sensibility. Though she does have a better fashion sense, I have to admit. Still, a new Matt Baume video is a worthy watch every time.