Anyone else watch freewayjim?

[Roadgeekteen]

I watch him and he makes very cool videos. I don't travel much and he has good coverage of all of the US. If you have not watched him then I would recommend checking him out.

[adventurernumber1]

I absolutely love the Freewayjim YouTube channel. He is no doubt one of my favorite YouTubers, and among the ones I watch the most. I so highly look forward to his season of road videos each year. He is truly excellent at making high-quality road videos - I can tell he puts a lot of work, thought, and love into it. While it puts him at risk for getting copyrght strikes from YouTube, I also love that he puts a lot of good music in his videos. He is also very good about putting interesting and significant information about not only the roads and bridges and etc., but even the musicians whose music is presented in the video, at times. I hope his channel continues to grow and prosper, and I will certainly continue to be a huge supporter!! 

 

[Hurricane Rex]

I watch him a lot as well. Currently I'm researching season 16.
He truly set the standsrd on what a roadway youtuber should do. Only stretch I would request from him is I 5 between Sacramento and Portland.
Also why isn't he on this forum yet?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

My experiences with the man himself indicate he's kind of a douche, so that turned me off from him.

[bugo]

There are plenty of other road videographers besides Jim Georges.

[Duke87]

I would recommend checking him out.

So long as you return him within three weeks. Otherwise you'll have to pay a late fee.

[cl94]

Eh, you probably wouldn't like him if you met him in person. He hates "massholes".

[Henry]

I agree, he sets a gold standard in roadgeek videos with his warp-speed driving accompanied by a wide selection of driving tunes, along with various graphics that show the current route number/type and sometimes notes on specific locations on the road.

[US71]

He does good videos, yes. Sadly, he leans Far Right and has limited tolerance for opposing views. He holds Facebook chats about once a week to brag about his latest work.

[bugo]

I didn't want to be the one to come out and say it...but yes, he is alt-right. I don't watch his videos because I don't like sped up videos. As I said, road videographers are a dime a dozen. I've made a few of my own videos. The difference is that most videographers don't have cutesy names and don't market their "brand" to young children. Get off the "freeway" and check out some of the side roads. They're often much more interesting.

[US71]

I didn't want to be the one to come out and say it...but yes, he is alt-right. I don't watch his videos because I don't like sped up videos. As I said, road videographers are a dime a dozen. I've made a few of my own videos. The difference is that most videographers don't have cutesy names and don't market their "brand" to young children. Get off the "freeway" and check out some of the side roads. They're often much more interesting.

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything. --Charles Kuralt

[J N Winkler]

Also why isn't he on this forum yet?

In the case of old-timers who are on some forums and not others (and Jim Georges is definitely an old-timer since I remember him from the MTR days), it is often a conscious decision not to join or participate in various discussion spaces.  Some have a portfolio of different interests and have to ration the time they allocate to each.  Others have philosophical disagreements with the format and management structure of certain types of forum:  for example, unlike Usenet where control is decentralized and a person can set an X-No-Archive header to prevent indefinite public archiving of his or her posts, a Web forum such as this puts you at the mercy of centralized control (since by default a physical or juridical person arranges for Web hosting and the back-end database service) and limits your capacity to assert copyright over the content of your posts.

[AsphaltPlanet]

I think he probably prefers his own facebook group to this style forum as well.  His ego is stroked pretty well and pretty regularly on his facebook group.  He gets to be king of the castle there.  While I am sure he would be welcomed warmly here, I don't think he'd get the same kind of preferential treatment as he does on his own forum.

That said though, he does do excellent road videos.

I softened the wording of my original post, it sounded more negative than I intended

[kphoger]

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything. --Charles Kuralt

I-70 begs to differ.

[Avalanchez71]

I-70 was way better when it was two lanes through the San Rafael swell.

[hotdogPi]

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything. --Charles Kuralt

I-70 begs to differ.

The statement is still true despite Breezewood (using his definition of "see anything"), since you are not forced to use I-70 to travel coast-to-coast.

[adventurernumber1]

Actually, Freewayjim does have an account on this forum, from what I can tell. Sometime awhile ago when I was browsing the forum, I remember for a fact that I saw him post somewhere. This is him: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=88


Also, I have seen other roadgeek YouTubers have accounts on this forum. Another is Tom Valazak of CrossCountryRoads, and this is him: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=10568

CrossCountryRoads is another one of my favorite and among my most-watched YouTube channels. Tom has an absolutely excellent channel and site (CrossCountryRoads.com). For those of you who are more into more real-time road videos, this YouTube channel would be a great choice for you (regarding that, another good YouTube channel is BigRigTravels). I absolutely love both real-time and Time-lapse road videos (and sometimes even a slow-motion road video can be intriguing for me, and I actually do those sometimes on my own channel). Tom of CrossCountryRoads heavily covers interstates, as his dream goal is to document every mile of interstate highway in the country.


Of course, as can be seen by visiting both of these peoples' profiles on this forum, both post very infrequently, so it would be completely understandable that many of you didn't know that they were even on here.

[kphoger]

Actually, Freewayjim does have an account on this forum, from what I can tell. Sometime awhile ago when I was browsing the forum, I remember for a fact that I saw him post somewhere. This is him: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=88


Also, I have seen other roadgeek YouTubers have accounts on this forum. Another is Tom Valazak of CrossCountryRoads, and this is him: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=10568

CrossCountryRoads is another one of my favorite and among my most-watched YouTube channels. Tom has an absolutely excellent channel and site (CrossCountryRoads.com). For those of you who are more into more real-time road videos, this YouTube channel would be a great choice for you (regarding that, another good YouTube channel is BigRigTravels). I absolutely love both real-time and Time-lapse road videos (and sometimes even a slow-motion road video can be intriguing for me, and I actually do those sometimes on my own channel). Tom of CrossCountryRoads heavily covers interstates, as his dream goal is to document every mile of interstate highway in the country.


Of course, as can be seen by visiting both of these peoples' profiles on this forum, both post very infrequently, so it would be completely understandable that many of you didn't know that they were even on here.

FWJ doesn't appear to have any activity since 2010.

[cl94]

I always preferred Calrog's videos over those made by FWJ. Some of them are funny. 

[Brandon]

I always preferred Calrog's videos over those made by FWJ. Some of them are funny. 

Greetings, fellow viatologists!

[cl94]

I always preferred Calrog's videos over those made by FWJ. Some of them are funny. 

Greetings, fellow viatologists!

Of course, some of us here are professional viatologists and get paid to study roads.

In case the newbies here aren't familiar, from his website:

Q: What is viatology?

A: Viatology is the scientific study of highways.   Empirical observation and reporting of roads defines this field of study.

Q: How did this term come to be?

The term was coined by Carl Rogers in August 2007 after many years of travel into several countries and the inherent lack of a scientific term to discuss what he and fellow cohorts engaged.   Prior to the development of this term, vernacular terms like "road scholar" or "roadgeek" were commonplace in small caucasian groups of North America.

Q: What is the etymology behind viatology?

A: The term "via" refers to one of the earliest highways in western history, the Appian Way (Via Appia). As you may know, "-ology" refers to the study of something. If you notice a "t" in viatology, that's simply the conjunction between "via"and "-ology".

Q: What is a viatologist?

A: A viatologist is any person who scientifically contributes to the field of viatology. Viatologists can be found on each continent of the globe, practising the science in many different languages.

Q: Are there international translations for the term?

A: Yes.  The term viatology is also be ported into other languages for a similar meaning:

français: la viatologie
italiano: la viatologia
Deutsch: die Viatologie

[Roadgeekteen]

He does good videos, yes. Sadly, he leans Far Right and has limited tolerance for opposing views. He holds Facebook chats about once a week to brag about his latest work.

I don't really care about youtubers political beliefs.

[hbelkins]

Sorry to see that some are bashing Jim because of his political views. His beliefs are no more conservative than, say, mine, or Scott Kozel's, or many others. I presume that those of you who dislike Jim because he votes differently than you have the same contempt for me.

I think you can ask CPZ how Jim gets along with others of different viewpoints. To my observation, Jim and CPZ get along fine and can discuss differences in a civilized manner.

My understanding is that Jim's a native of New Hampshire, which might explain his dislike of Massholes. But he's a Cheatriots fan, so there's that.

I've met Jim once -- at the winter '08 Atlanta meet. Definitely a friendly enough and likeable guy.

There are a large number of old-timers who, for some reason or another, never made the journey here. Gene VanDussedorp (GR Van), Mark Roberts are two who come to mind immediately. In many ways, Facebook and its various groups have provided the substitute.

[J N Winkler]

I am a member of the FreewayJim Facebook group, though I have disabled notifications for it.  I consider myself sensitive to political coloration, and it has never struck me as having a strong slant toward either the left or the right.  Political discussion in threads is strongly discouraged.  However, I say this without having listened to any of Jim's chats, since they are not captioned (even auto-captioned).

My reservations are more about the high membership count (leads to a high proportion of well-intentioned newbie posts), the strict photo guidelines (both the photos with car hoods etc. in them and the resulting slapdowns are equally annoying, and make me feel disinclined to post anything other than screencaps from sign panel detail sheets), and the discussions about accompanying music I can't hear (I'm all about the roads and could care less about YouTube muting).

As a person who leans strongly to the left but has a deep interest in guide signs, I have had to make my peace with the fact that the majority of the traffic engineers I know who are open about their politics on social media are quite conservative.  Moreover, there are some of the few who describe themselves as liberal that I would instead characterize as centrist or center-right.  And I suspect there are many others who "submarine" their politics but are nevertheless conservative.

[chays]

I don't know anything about him, but reading through all of his posts (there are less than 50), he didn't seem to post anything controversial or overly ego-centric.

In fact, the only time I found him delving into any politics is this post:

General Highway Talk / Re: Barack Obama Freeway?
« on: January 24, 2009, 04:04:11 PM »
Rename I-395 within the DC city limits after him once he leaves office, even if he's a bust as a president he will always be a historical figure and deserve the recognition.

Seems reasonable enough to me.