Primitive Technology

Submission 21,088

About

Primitive Technology is a YouTube channel which contains videos of a man demonstrating how to create primitive tools and shelters using only natural materials found in the wilderness of North Queensland, Australia.

History

On May 2nd, 2015, the first video was uploaded to the channel, in which a wattle and daub hut are built entirely from scratch (shown below, left). Within ten months, the video gained over 8.3 million views and 9,100 comments. On May 22nd, a video demonstrating how to make a celt stone axe was posted on the channel, garnering upwards of 2.4 million views and 1,800 comments in nine months (shown below, right).

On June 23rd, the /r/PrimitiveTechnology^[3] subreddit was launched for discussions about the channel and other survival-related videos. On July 7th, the Primitive Technology WordPress^[2] blog was created. On September 4th, Primitive Technology uploaded footage of the creator making a tiled roof hut (shown below, left). On October 30th, the channel released a video showing how to make a fireplace, chimney and pots (shown below, right), which subsequently reached the front page of the /r/videos^[6] subreddit.

On November 27th, the channel posted footage showing how to make a sling projectile weapon (shown below, left). That day, the video reached the front page of /r/videos.^[5] On January 18th, the channel was highlighted in a post on the hacking news blog Hackaday.^[7] On January 22nd, Primitive Technology released a video showing how to make a cord drill an pump drill (shown below, right). In the coming days, the video was featured on the news sites BoingBoing^[8] and Popular Mechanics.^[9]

On February 20th, Redditor Rideron150 submitted a request for the creator of the channel to answer questions in an "ask me anything" thread to /r/IAmA,^[4] receiving more than 2,700 votes (89% upvoted) and 130 comments in 72 hours. By the end of the month, the channel had received upwards of 31 million video views and 788,000 subscribers.