| Folding Ideas | |
|---|---|
| Personal information | |
| Born | 1982 (age 41–42)[1] |
| Education | Southern Alberta Institute of Technology[2] |
| YouTube information | |
| Channel | |
| Years active | 2011–present[1] |
| Subscribers | 955 thousand[3] |
| Total views | 99 million[3] |
| Contents are in | English |
Last updated: June 26, 2024 | |
Dan Olson (born 1982) is a Canadian documentarian and video essayist, known for his YouTube channel Folding Ideas. He is most widely known for his 2022 viral documentary film Line Goes Up – The Problem with NFTs.[4] He is being considered a foundational figure in the video essay genre, alongside popular creators such as ContraPoints and Lindsay Ellis.[1]
Olson also contributed to Channel Awesome up until at least 2014[5] but no later than 2019.[6]
Education and Career
editAfter graduating from SAIT, Olson worked as a teacher's assistant in a high school turning lectures into videos.[1] While working there he started hosting an educational web series, and self-described "puppet show", called Folding Ideas, where he would use a puppet version of himself to deliver the narrational content.[2][5] The Folding Ideas web series covered topics such as Gamergate.[7]
A Red Pill, released in 2016, was an experimental short video project examining the pressure on masculine identity in modern times. It was pitched to and funded by Storyhive, a Canadian funding program focusing on digital content creators, owned by Telus. The short was written, directed, shot and edited by Olson and produced by Kara Artym.[8][9] In 2017, Olson co-wrote the second episode of Lindsay Ellis' The Whole Plate video essay series dissecting the Transformers film series.[10]
In 2021, Olson released An Exhaustive History of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, a video essay comparing The Lord of the Rings (1978) to Peter Jackson's trilogy.[11]
On January 21, 2022 Olson released Line Goes Up, a two hour-long 13-part essay on cryptocurrency and NFTs.[1] In a Vice interview Olson shares that he has been "keeping [his] thumb on what's going on in crypto" since 2012, stating that while he was the target audience for Bitcoin, he never saw the technology as "actually functional".[1] Olson started working on the essay in April of 2021 but decided to shelve it because the crypto market was changing too quickly. According to himself, he finished the video just four hours before crypto crashed, erasing over a trillion dollars in market value.[1][12]
Filmography
editSelected notable video essays, documentaries and short films from Olson's career.[a]
- A Red Pill (2016)
- In Search Of A Flat Earth (2020)
- An Exhaustive History of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (2021)
- Line Goes Up – The Problem with NFTs (2022)
- The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (2023)
- This is Financial Advice (2023)
- I Don't Know James Rolfe (2024)
Reception
editPolygon named In Search Of A Flat Earth the best video essay of 2020.[13]
Line Goes Up was featured twice on Sight and Sound's best video essays of 2022 poll. Once by film professor Jason Mittell and another time by José Sarmiento, the later of which called it "undoubtedly, the best video essay made in 2022".[14] The following year The Future Is A Dead Mall was nominated in the 2023 iteration of that poll.[15]
References
editNotes
edit- ^a Projects which received any amount of independant reliable coverage.
Sources
edit- ^ a b c d e f g Levinson, Eliza (11 February 2022). "Meet the Guy Who Went Viral for Explaining How NFTs Are a 'Poverty Trap'". Vice. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ a b "Dan Olson". Storyhive. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ a b "About @FoldingIdeas". YouTube.
- ^ "Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Dan Olson". The New York Times. 5 April 2022. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
- ^ a b Elderkin, Beth (22 October 2014). "Only a puppet can explain Gamergate". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ Raftery, Brian (8 March 2019). "How YouTube Made a Star Out of This Super-Smart Film Critic". Wired. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ St. James, Emily (21 October 2014). "Here's a terrific video about the roots of #GamerGate". Vox. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
- ^ "A Red Pill". Storyhive. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ "A Red Pill (2016) Full Cast & Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ "The Whole Plate (2017–2018) Full Cast & Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ Bentz, Adam (25 August 2021). "The 1970s Lord of the Rings Movie Broken Down In New Video Essay". Screen Rant. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ Hajric, Vildana (21 January 2022). "Crypto Crash Erases More Than $1 Trillion in Market Value". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ Williams, Will (30 December 2020). "The best video essays of 2020". Polygon. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ "The best video essays of 2022". Sight and Sound. 13 January 2023. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ "The best video essays of 2023". Sight and Sound. 19 December 2023. Retrieved 26 June 2024.