Parents are concerned that their teenagers are whiling away too many leisure hours on YouTube.
They ought to take heart…if their kids are spending that time with Michael Stevens, now touring with Adam Savage in Brain Candy Live.
“Smart is the new superpower,” says Stevens, one of YouTube’s most popular creators. “Our live show is meant to be a play date with a combination of Walt Disney, Willy Wonka, and Albert Einstein.”
Stevens, along with his partner, equally beloved TV personality Savage, has just launched the latest leg of a massive tour that will take them through 6 cities a week across the United States, Canada, and Australia in coming months.
On last spring’s tour, the duo performed before many sold out houses in 40 cities, including New York City, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit and LA.
The idea behind Brain Candy is that if you explain science to kids in fun ways, they’ll fall in love with physics, chemistry, and other subjects typically too uncool even to think about.
“On the tour,” Savage says, “we do things like shooting ping pong balls, inflating some things and bursting some things. The show is an investigation into not just discovery, but the pleasure of discovery.”
Brain Candy shows are highly audience interactive and are never quite the same, because of the volunteers brought on stage and the questions the audience members ask.
All of the shows feature Stevens’ and Savage’s crazy toys and gadgets. They’ll make things, and they’ll make things blow up, all in the name of making science fun.
Science teachers may hate to admit it, but the Brain Candy approach to teaching science often communicates better to kids than school does. The videos and stage shows entertain and educate at the same time.
Stevens’ passion for learning, science and making curiosity contagious led him to create Vsauce in 2010. His YouTube channel intrigues kids with questions like, “What Color Is A Mirror?” “Can You Count Past Infinity?” and “Why Are Things Creepy?”
How big is the channel? The numbers don’t lie: his Vsauce channel has 17 million subscribers and total video views in excess of 2 billion, making it one of the largest educational networks on the web. Some videos attract as many as 17 million viewers. Last year, Vsauce received the Webby for Best Science and Education Network.
Stevens’ partner in the live show, Adam Savage, is known to national TV audiences for “MythBusters,” which he co-executive produced and co-hosted for 14 earth-shattering years. He has worked with the White House to increase attention to teaching science to kids in fun and attention-getting ways.
Every parent hates the Internet because of the time their kids spend poring over videos. Stevens and Savage are causes for celebration for parents, because they take the nerdiest stuff in the world and make it cool for kids.
You can try to surprise your kids with tickets for the Brain Candy Live tour, but chances are, your kids have already asked you to take them (or at least to get them tickets and then drop them off at the theatre in case you aren’t cool).
Say yes to Brain Candy, because it’s helping your kids say yes to science.
Brain Candy Live, Wang Theatre, Boston, Saturday, November 18.
For further information on the world tour, http://www.braincandylive.com/tickets
