Recently, Coffee Break uploaded a video criticising Kurzgesagt for stealing his video idea and being untrustworthy.

This all started out with Coffee Break sending Philipp Dettmer, the founder of Kurzgesagt, some emails. These emails were asking Dettmer about the integrity of his Addiction video, and how it was misleading and downright incorrect. And indeed, it was misleading and downright incorrect.

Indeed, Kurzgesagt acknowledged the fact that it was not good, and they made the video private on March 3, 2019. But, here’s the catch. Coffee Break started sending Dettmer these emails on February 2, 2019. Due to this, Coffee Break claims that his emails were the primary cause of the Addiction video being deleted.

The Trust Video…

We also need to look at the fact that Kurzgesagt published a new episode on March 3, 2019, called “Can You Trust Kurzgesagt Videos?“. According to Coffee Break, this video was NOT planned beforehand but was rather a result of Coffee Break sending these emails.

In these emails, Coffee Break requested Dettmer for an interview, and listed a bunch of interview questions. Dettmer did respond to these emails but left the interview hanging till early March. And, in early March, the Trust video was uploaded and published.

Coffee Break states that this was Kurzgesagt being malicious, and stealing Coffee Break’s idea. However, this CANNOT be the case. (I do, however, believe that Coffee Break’s emails did push the Kurzgesagt team into publishing the video early).

The reason I am so confident that Kurzgesagt was planning this video beforehand is due to the fact that it takes a ridiculous amount of time to create animations that are as good as Kurzgesagt’s. Indeed, even my boring videos require plenty of effort to create!

The Email Exchange

In addition, we must understand the fact that Dettmer at first did not allow Coffee Break to release the emails. However, after discussion over on the Kurzgesagt subreddit, Dettmer did allow Coffee Break to release the emails.

FULL Kurzgesagt & Coffee Break Emails Here are the email exchanges between Dettmer and Coffee Break. Now, we can begin to see who is really misinforming their audience.

You see, in the Coffee Break video, he stated that “Kurzgesagt never wanted to delete the Addiction video. He said it was good enough”. However, a quick read through the emails proves that in reality, Dettmer does not say anything remotely similar to “the video was good enough”.

Rather, what Dettmer does say is that he has had many people tell him that the video helped them, and he “couldn’t bring himself to take it down”. So, from the tone of this email, it seems as if Dettmer was having an internal conflict about whether or not he should remove the video.

Public Response

Both of these videos garnered plenty of public attention. I have been subscribed to Kurzgesagt for a year now, but I had never even heard of Coffee Break until this happened!

The Kurzgesagt video on trust was excellent, and I had been waiting for that video for a long time.

Coffee Break’s video criticising Kurzgesagt? Well, I didn’t enjoy it, but maybe I’m just biased.

Destin from SmarterEveryDay commented on both videos. Grey commented on the Coffee Break video.

SmarterEveryDay’s Take from kurzgesagt SmarterEveryDay’s Take! I love the way he dealt with the video!

Conclusion

I personally came up with the idea of this blog post when I searched “Kurzgesagt” on YouTube. However, the first video that popped up was the Coffee Break one.

I disagreed with Coffee Break on nearly every point he made about Kurzgesagt. The one thing I do believe is true is that Kurzgesagt was pushed into releasing the video March 3 (instead of later) due to this string of emails that Coffee Break was sending him.

So, I decided to write a blog post about the situation, trying to be as impartial as possible. However, as I am a fan of Kurzgesagt, my story is obviously swayed in the direction of Kurzgesagt, as I trust Kurzgesagt. A lot. Especially after they showed the courage to delete videos they were no longer proud of.

Thanks for reading. What do you think? Was Kurzgesagt being malicious and stealing Coffee Break’s idea? Or was Coffee Break just getting angry for nothing? Let me know in the comments below!

9/4/19 UPDATE: Made an update post to this. Please check it out!

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