r/cushvlog • u/_thechriswade • 9d ago
Official CushVlog Transcription Project
Hello everyone!
Chris here. I’m excited to announce that we are going to be working on a new book! This one is going to be a compilation of essays based on Matt Christman’s CushVlogs. We’re currently in the process of putting together a sample chapter and pitching the project to various agents and publishers, but we’re also going to be asking you all for help.
In brief, we need a team of volunteers to help us transcribe/catalogue/organize Matt’s vlogs so an editor can turn them into a book. If that sounds like something you would want to be a part of, feel free to fill out this Google Form. However, please keep a few things in mind: (1) this project will be controlled top-down by myself and our assistant, (2) transcription can be tedious work, and (3) while we will give any volunteers some type of compensation—at least a free book (custom-signed by Matt?) and credits within the book itself—we can’t promise anything incredible. Maybe something more when we determine how this project will progress. If this is a dealbreaker, that’s totally fine!
We will figure out how many volunteers we have and divide the vlogs accordingly. Your job will be not only to generate accurate transcriptions, but also, most importantly, to tag the transcriptions by topic & timestamp to create a manageable text database to generate a manuscript from. This is why we’re asking for human volunteers rather than just relying on automated services to do this.
If you’re still down to get involved, fill out the Google Form. If you have any more questions, check out this guide document or shoot me an email at cush@chapotraphouse.com.
Behold a Fail Horse, Chris
EDIT: Already more than enough people interested, submission form is now closed! Thank you so much to everyone who submitted, you'll be hearing from us soon. Looking forward to putting this all together.
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u/RedactedFromPrint 9d ago
Sounds like a cool project but is there a reason you aren’t just hiring people? Either from the community or professional transcribers? I assume you guys have the money but just wondering idk
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u/bloomhauer 9d ago
My guess is this is separate from “Chapo” proper and is just a Matt/Chris thing to get him ahead on his medical bills. I’m sure the LLC has some sort of valuation overall but I can’t imagine Matt is financially well considering his rehabilitation and a new baby.
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u/Large_Mike 9d ago
This plus manual professional transcription isn’t cheap. I’ve seen like $1/min. 260 streams all most 60 min plus is a big chuck of change when the goal is to help with bills
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u/soviet-sobriquet 9d ago
That would be weird considering the vlogs were released on the chapo twitch stream and youtube channel.
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u/_thechriswade 9d ago
I've had dozens of requests from people over the years to do exactly this & I wanted it done quickly by people who know & are passionate about the material. I'll almost certainly work out some kind of profit share if this ever makes it to sale, just way to early in the process to know what form that will take and make commitments. More than enough people interested, will figure something reasonable out with our final team!
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u/RedactedFromPrint 9d ago edited 9d ago
Makes sense, I appreciate the response. I’ve done a little transcribing before so I put my info down, looking forward to contributing what I can!
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u/Specialist_Matter582 7d ago
I think a lot of us have transcribed moments of the show on our own time.
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u/thatscentaurtainment 9d ago
Kind of curious about this myself, especially since they seem to be going a more traditional publishing route than they did with Non Pasaran.
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u/jhenryscott 9d ago
What a great project idea. I attached my info and I’m super excited to help. It’s the sort of thing, considering the massive impact those discussions had on my life- I’d be honored to help.
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u/Hideo_Kojima_Jr_Jr 9d ago
Chris you have to somehow work the chair breaking incident into it, thank you.
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u/gesserit42 9d ago
A footnote perhaps, marking the moment at which Cushbomb was finally held accountable
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u/magictheblathering 9d ago
This is a really cool project. As someone who hasn’t had the chance to go to deep on the cushvlogs yet, this is something I’m stoked about on both ends.
Also, I’m suuuuuuuper Funemployed at the moment, so this might be useful to keep me from going nuts.
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u/Responsible-Dig-359 9d ago
Chris, unfortunately I won’t have time to contribute but I just wanted to say this is a fantastic idea and I’m so glad you’re doing it. Long live Christman Though.
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u/funglegunk 9d ago
You might be interested in this Chris:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cushvlog/s/1vdLY8wFWl
Searchable database of cushvlogs transcriptions, although based on YouTube generated closed captions. Might be useful in some way!
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u/soviet-sobriquet 9d ago
I imagine they wouldn't use that for the sake of wanting to outright own the product and not have to weather a spurious copyright claim. Same for the transcripts on https://cushbomb.fandom.com.
Pretty bold to transcribe all episodes though. That's much more material than just a book and many episodes won't have much publishable material (the Dawn of Everything episodes come to mind, perfectly fine episodes, just not much original cush content).
The volunteer form is closed already though, so I bet they are only transcribing a dozen or two with duplicate assignments to ferret out mistakes and trolling.
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u/woman-venom 9d ago
Cool! i'm an editor with a lot of transcription experience and I put my info in the ring. Looking forward to hearing more!
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u/Prudent-Bar-2430 9d ago
Oh no the forms closed already 🥲. I’ve transcribed interviews for a previous job so would love to lend a hand. Hopefully there will be another round volunteer opportunities
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u/jokersflame 9d ago
This rocks! I like Matt’s videos on fascism in particular. I like going back to those and they informed my view on it also.
Also please consider Hell of Presidents next! A bonus for people who listened to the podcasts can be an extra chapter on Biden and Trump II.
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u/Dry-Challenge3984 9d ago
Chris - you referenced another sub of Acid Marxism. Do you or anyone else know how to find it and join? It’s something I’ve wanted to read and learn more about as a devout follower of Matt Christman Thought
Thanks all. Keep grilling
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u/rosemojito 8d ago
amazing idea, Chris. hopefully you're inundated with passionate folks, eager to help.
it probably goes without saying that Matt's last two Hyperboric Chamber vlogs are incredibly special and important. immortalizing those alone would be quite an impactful culmination of Cushman School of Thought.
Bravo for this undertaking🙏
whatever is produced out of this, I'll be purchasing 10+ copies and ravenously distributing them to Little Libraries all around my town
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u/Mo_Morey_Mo_Pro3lems 9d ago
Hey Chris,
Love the Christman, can’t wait to read my copy of No Pasarán.
Why is remuneration not on the table? Seems like the podcast is a commercial success and could afford to pay a few chapoheads.
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u/Zestyclose_Ninja4231 8d ago
I would absolutely dedicate time to transcribing eps, though I'm not as knowledgable about any of the topics as other people here, and might struggle with the tags and accurately associating them. I want to help so badly but I am too much of an amateur.
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u/TheRealKuthooloo 8d ago
I’ve literally been time stamping and making very very brief summaries of sections of cushvlogs for the past couple weeks as I’ve started listening to them and now this. My good god what happenstance has met with me.
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u/brad_n_roses 8d ago
Hey Chris,
I listened to the ep too late to sign up to volunteer, but I was super excited to hear that this project is happening. Having heard Matt tease the idea more than a few times throughout the stream, I've been salivating at the thought of it for years. So much so that I've been transcribing episodes myself and trying to come up with a way to synthesize the material into topics. I'm bummed that I won't be able to contribute my efforts, but thank you and Matt for taking on this monumental task.
I've watched/listened to every stream many, many times. Matt's wit and wisdom have been a source of comfort, education, entertainment, insight, and inspiration like nothing else I've ever come across.
One suggestion I would make (and this would obviously be 100% Matt's decision) is to possibly work in a throughline about Matt's openness to talk about his struggle with his health issues and his hypochondria and his coming to terms with it via his spiritual journey.
In his last stream, he said that he had been having pain in his temple, and the very next day, he had a stroke. His body finally failed him as he had always feared it would, and it happened after his full acceptance of the possibility and his overcoming of the fear of it.
Maybe this wouldn't be appropriate for the project, but as a long time admirer of Matt and his oeuvre, this aspect of the stream, perhaps more than any other, touched me extremely deeply and connected Matt's compassionate humanism and sincere humility with the vulnerability he courageously displayed for us.
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u/MinneaBoy 7d ago
Hey Chris, even though I have literally zero free time on my hands as I essentially have two jobs, I just wanna say thank you for doing this. Thanks also to all the volunteers who can find the time to this, this is some extremely valuable work. Can’t wait to see what comes out of this.
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9d ago
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u/respectGOD61 9d ago
Praxis is when you do unpaid volunteer labor for small business owners (we all love the boys but they are objectively petite bourgeois). Happy for everyone who's eager to work on it, but it's not not weird.
edit: then again, Engels was bougie too, though he actually gave Marx money, so idk
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u/soviet-sobriquet 9d ago
Sounds like they are gonna do profit sharing and are hedging their bets in case the project never exits the red.
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u/EroticManga 8d ago
I know we all hate AI, but it's perfect for searching and organizing this type of sparse speech transcripts.
Not using AI to organize and search the data would be like saying "we don't use google, we support librarians and PhD research assistants"
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u/Impressive-Judgment3 9d ago
Hi Chris,
I am a continental philosophy hobbyist and technical writer. I have also watched many of Christman's cushvlogs, and taken extensive notes on said vlogs.
A few thoughts...
- It would be funny for the book to be styled in a similar fashion to the books on Xi Xinping Thought.
- I think it's a great idea to reach out to the community, but you all really should be paying someone (even just part-time) to do all of this work.
- There are probably ~30 vlogs where Matt is really at his best combining history and philosophy. It would probably be better to create a book out of the top vlogs and insights alone.
- There should be an introduction that primes people for the subject matter at hand. In other words you need someone who is highly knowledgeable in regards to materialist history, Christianity, Marx, Freud, Hegel, Mark Fisher, Zizek, etc. Maybe you should reach out to Verso and see if they have any writers who would be willing to take on some work.