Vsauce logo in black splatter font on a green painted surface

Vsauce

2010viral videoclassic

Published October 4, 2026

Vsauce is the YouTube channel created by Michael Stevens in June 2010 that pivoted from video game clips to deep-dive science explainers. Its question-title format and Stevens' signature "Hey, Vsauce, Michael here" opener spawned one of the most imitated presentation styles on educational YouTube.

youtube culture memes catchphrase memes early 2010s memes streamer memes pseudo intellectual memes

Overview

Vsauce videos are built around a question posed in the title, like "What If Everyone JUMPED At Once?", which Stevens answers across 10 to 25 minutes of science tangents, cultural asides and on-camera demonstrations1. The format is loose on purpose: he opens with "Hey, Vsauce, Michael here", introduces the question, then drifts through adjacent facts before returning to the thesis.

The style became as recognizable as the content. Fans and Urban Dictionary entries latched onto the opener and his habit of ending segments with ominous twists like "Or is it?", treating Vsauce less as a channel and more as a personality template that any explainer video could be edited to parody4. The main channel sits alongside spinoffs Vsauce2 and Vsauce3, which handle gaming and curiosities with the same question-driven structure2.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube
Creator
Michael Stevens
Date
2010

Michael Stevens launched the main Vsauce channel on YouTube in June 2010, and its earliest uploads leaned on video game material rather than science2. One of the first videos was "Mario Farts," a clip of Super Mario Bros. in which Stevens narrates footage of Mario repeatedly passing gas3.

Vsauce2 followed in December 2010, and Vsauce3 launched on December 24th of the same year2. By September 2012 the main channel had pivoted to educational content, where it stayed.

How It Spread

The channel's breakout as a science outlet came on August 18th, 2012 with "What If Everyone JUMPED At Once?", which pulled in more than 23 million views and over 38,000 comments in the following five years1. On February 17th, 2013 Stevens posted a video about the experience of seeing color that passed 18 million views and 64,100 comments within four years5.

Off-YouTube, the brand expanded fast. The Vsauce Facebook page launched on June 10th, 2010 and the @Tweetsauce Twitter account went up in October 2011, with the /r/Vsauce subreddit arriving that December2. On January 4th, 2017 Stevens appeared on the H3 Podcast, and the episode gained over 900,000 views and 9,200 comments in two weeks2.

The opener itself became meme fuel. Urban Dictionary entries from fans joke about t-posing into coffee shops saying "Vsauce, Michael here" or claim they "gained 15 IQ points" from a single video, treating the catchphrase as shorthand for YouTube's educational wing4.

Timeline

2013-02-17

Stevens posts the color-perception video, which later passes 18 million views.

2017-01-04

Stevens appears on the H3 Podcast; the episode gains 900,000+ views in two weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions