Soup Emporium

Soup Moans About Bethesda For 27(-ish) Minutes | Nebula Plus

Soup Emporium — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:00:34 +0000

Rise and shine, Soup Emporium. Rise. And... shine.

Not that I wish to imply you have been sleeping on. The Job.

No one is more deserving of a rest... and all the effort in the worrrrrld would have gone to waaaaeste. Until...

aham

Well...

Let's just say your hour has... come again

The right video in the wrong place can make. Ahll the diff-- erence in the worrrld

So wake up, Mister Emporium

sssssssss

Wake up and...

smell the aAshes

On Fallout: New Vegas and the Twilight of Democracy | Nebula First

Soup Emporium — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:00:14 +0000

You know, I would really rather not look at politics stuff for the foreseeable future

Timecodes:

0:00 - As a heads up...

0:08 - Hey there! Long time no speak!

3:26 - So, About Legion...

9:24 - Doesn't Stop 'em Being Wrong, tho

12:18 - How About the NCR?

21:05 - Which Is Where Mr. House Comes In

29:42 - It Still Begs the Question: Progress For Who?

46:00 - An Independent Vegas

52:02 - The Followers Segue

54:21 - NCR Redux

58:31 - Onya Marx, Get Set, Go!

01:04:34 - Battle Between Old and New

01:10:35 - Don't Fear Democracy

01:16:20 - Democracy Is Failing and All They Are Doing Is Watching

01:34:22 - We'll Miss It When It's Gone

01:46:45 - Credits

💸 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SoupEmporium

🐦 Twitter: https://notonyourlife.co.uk

Show Notes:

For those who haven't seen the bonus video/are not interested in watching the bonus video, I came across this much better (and better thought through) video essay by the channel Fenrick called "Fallout's Thematic Degradation"

You can watch it here, and I recommend you do

To "Yes, and" Fenrick's video, one of the arguments they make is that Fallout 2 is not strictly anti-capitalist (which is an argument I have sympathy for). They point to the fact most of the mega corps in that game seem to have exclusively government contracts. This is very much in keeping with the text of Fallout 2, which supports an anti-fascist reading of the game

In Mussolini's Italy, the economy was re-organised into state-supervised syndicates where employers and workers were grouped by sector and subordinated to the national interest. Private property and enterprise were preserved and directed, but it was a state-managed, monopoly-friendly capitalism

You see the same thing in Fallout 2. The most realised corporation in Fallout 2 is Poseidon. The Poseidon oil rig is literally the Enclave headquarters, the Gecko power plant is an old Posiedon one, all the petrol stations you come across in the game (more or less) are Poseidon ones

The state and Poseidon in Fallout 2 aren't two separate powers, but the same people. Several companies owned by Poseidon were given lucrative defense contracts by the US government, and the government steered federal money into said corporate arm. In New Reno, the family on top (the Salvatores) is the one that allied itself with the Enclave. The Enclave traded laser weapons in exchange for the Salvatores providing the chemical components needed for their FEV Curling-13 project. Both past and present, Fallout 2 stages its moral architecture around the fusion of corporate and state power being a very bad thing

To Fenrick's credit, they keep their focus for this point on Fallout 2. Fallout: New Vegas does contain anti-capitalist messaging. I think there is also something to be said about whether sci-fi should comment and reflect on the problems of the present, but your mileage may vary with that one. Another reasonable counterargument to Fenrick here is that fascism is the form capitalism takes under stress, so anti-fascist messaging imports anti-capitalist messaging by design. Much to think about

Morbid Zoo - I absolutely cribbed off of her at points in this video, but I really could not tell you where I cribbed from. Take this as an excuse to work your way through her whole channel's backlog, but gun to my head, I would guess I cribbed off her video "This Libertarian Film and Economics Channel Doesn't Know Anything About Film (or Economics)"

You can watch that here

Another person I 100% cribbed off of was long time supporter A Simple Lemming. She has a 10/10 video on Mussolini's Italy, and was very good at explaining Hobbesian philosophy to me. It was this video that got me to read Leviathan, and had me looking at Legion like "...wait a minute!".

You can watch that video here

One subsect of comments from the last video I didn't address was related to Singapore's political structure. The comments were words to the effect of "Singapore can do this because it is ethnically homogenous, it can't work in multicultural societies like the US"

This is just common garden racism which belies the commenters ignorance. Singapore IS a multicultural society comprised of Chinese, Malay, and Indian ethnic groups, and these groups themselves are not homogenous. LKY talks a lot about needing to meddle in the private lives of citizens because, if he didn't, there would be race riots. He talks about "language chauvinism", and what he means by that is "There are 4 languages spoken in Singapore and we should only have one: English"

You can read more about it here

Finally, a big thank you to both my Patreons and to Nebula, who believe in what I do enough to give me money in exchange for occassionaly putting these kindsa things out

Simpsons: Hit & Run Is Not As Good As You Remember (Sorry!)

Soup Emporium — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 16:00:34 +0000

This video is what happens after several ADHD fuelled rabbit holes make babies in the closet and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me

Also bold of me to keep jacking hbomberguy's style after he "Plagiarism and You(Tube)" dropped

ADDENDUM: for the record, I really like Quinton Reviews. His 8 hour video on iCarly basically saved me on a long ass hour train ride from Scotland to London, and his vid on Dan Schneider was excellent -- I found learning about his role on Head of the Class and how that basically opened the door for him fascinating. The bit about video lengths twas a jest. I mean, look at the length of this video! I don't have anything like a high horse to sit on. Relax!

A huge thanks to exa_eille for their insights into speedrunning for this game and checking the second half of the video over, and, as always, my lovely Patreons. You stuck with me for a year and a half while I shat this out. I hope your patience was rewarded

Also not to spoil the best joke in the video but can you believe I got @SimonClark to do a cameo in this!? It's still hitting me how cool that is!! I've been a fan of his stuff for years! And he's in an overindulgent video I made about a decades old video game!

Timecodes:
0:00 - Intro
3:12 - Qualifying Statements
9:07 - Game Feel
12:53 - When The Simpsons Went Bad Mini Essay
20:02 - Simpsons Game Bad Mini-Mini Essay
24:09 - Principal and the Pauper Is Fine, Actually Mini-Mini-Mini Essay
42:12 - The Actual, Objective Reason The Simpsons Stopped Being Good Mini-Mini-Mini-Mini Essay
49:18 - Return of the Game Feel (Hey, Remember When We Were Talking About Hit & Run?)
1:00:20 - Structuring A Game
1:01:33 - The Problem With Artificial Difficulty
1:14:18 - Seems I'm Full Of (Road) Rage Mini Essay
1:20:48 - Physics!
1:25:52 - The Difficulty Detour Superhighway
1:45:52 - Platforming Detour
1:50:19 - Look, I really wasn't joking when I said I played the whole thing. So if you don't wanna watch three minutes of a tutorial video, skip to the next timecode
1:53:03 - Back To The Platforming Detour (Ahh. You skipped the tutorial, I see ...coward)
1:54:30 - Mario 64's Camera Crimes
1:57:03 - The Life And Crimes Of Hit & Run's Camera
2:08:05 - We're Through The Looking Glass Here, People
2:16:23 - Credits

Was Helen Keller A Fraud? | The Deep Dive

Soup Emporium — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 17:00:27 +0000

This is the last time I listen to the comments section. Almost a year of my life has been wasted on this.

Timecodes:
0:00 - Introduction and Qualifying Statements
1:16 - God, I hate TikTok (Or, a journey into the history of Deaf and Deafblind Education and why the Keller Conspiracy is bollocks)
34:35 - Comrade Keller
1:04:07 - Storybook Keller
1:17:39 - Credits

BIG CREDITS:
NoahIOTJ, who did the wonderful artwork for "Bolshevik Ben"

Zendrecdus did the voices of the TikToker and the Duolingo Owl. They also make really high effort video game videos!

Huge thanks to the usuals
Music:
Atumnmnmn,
Patricia Taxxon,
Kevin MacLeod

Research:
The American Foundation for the Blind Helen Keller Archive,

Perkins School for the Blind Archives,

Zagorsk Digital Library of World Famous Defectologists

The translators who took the time to translate Russian documents

The sensitivity reader who took time to review the script and ensure I balanced jokes and subject sensitivity to the best of my ability

** All archival material used is, to the best of my knowledge, covered under fair use. I do not own this content. All credits go to the AFB, Zagorsk Library and Perkins School respectively **

Yellowstone Won't Explode And End Civilisation (Sorry) | The Deep Dive

Soup Emporium — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 15:00:35 +0000

It's sad Yellowstone's off the cards. But at least we still have World War 3!

Timecodes:
0:00 - Introduction
1:11 - "But Yellowstone IS a ticking timebomb!" (Spoilers: No it's not)
2:08 - "But isn't Yellowstone always uplifiting?" (Spoilers: No it's not)
5:11 - "Right so Yellowstone's uplift and subsidence IS caused by magam, then?" (Spoilers: No it's not)
7:14 - "But Yellowstone get's a lot of Earthquakes..."
9:46 - "Well, first off, Yellowstone isn't a supervolcano..."
11:41 - "Yellowstone does have a history of supereruptions"
12:35 - "Volcanoes aren't overdue, that's not how volcanoes work!"
14:53 - "There's good evidence to suggest Yellowstone could be shutting down..."
18:31 - "Larger eruptions than Yellowstone did not kill us off..."
18:57 - "The ashfall wouldn't necessarily be cataclysmic, either..."
20:08 - "One thing a Yellowstone supereruption would do is alter the climate..."
22:16 - "It's okay, we can find another way to destroy civilisation"
23:04 - Credits and an extra tidbit about eruption climate modelling. Oooo. Scandalous!

Music Credits:
Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Chernobyl's Death Toll | The Deep Dive

Soup Emporium — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 19:15:09 +0000

Yes, I do watch a lot of Adam Curtis documentaries. How could you tell?

Today we're talking about Chernobyl! Its death toll, the confusion around the number, how Chernobyl helped cause the fall of the USSR, how it helped create the conditions for the modern day situation Ukraine finds itself in, general political intrigue, and how a lot of these conversations have to be had in the context of nuclear power's crucial role in avoiding catastrophic climate change. This'll be a fun one at parties!

Reference Sheet (I promise it's more intuitive than first impressions give): https://tinyurl.com/Chernobyl-References
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SoupEmporium
Twitter: haha still no!

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - I. Intro
2:04 - II. How To Solve A Problem Like Chernobyl
24:49 - III. I wish I knew, because no-one seems interested in trying (because politics ruins everything)
30:28 - IV. Our Friend, The Atom
54:20 - V. Chernobyl's Forgotten
1:11:37 - VI. Secrets of the Peaceful Atom
1:28:00 - VII. The New Climate War
1:37:24 - VIII. Tomorrow's Ghosts
1:45:32 - Credits

This video was months in the making and came out at, shall we say, a time. I've put a link to a Ukrainian compiled list of credible charities where you can help support Ukraine in any way you can. I've donated to Sunflower of Peace, but others are linked below.
https://ukrainewar.carrd.co/

I've also linked a fundraiser for Save the Children’s Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. They're a BBB accredited charity and have a 4 star rating from Charity Navigator so you can be confident your donation will get to people who need it most. Please give what you can.

Also if you live in the UK or Ukraine go buy some Atomik Vodka. It's very nice and proceeds go to good causes. I'm not sure if you'll still be able to get it in a timely manner. The apples used to make the vodka are grown in Narodychi which is, at time of writing, occupied by the Russians:
https://www.atomikvodka.com/

The Podcast I was shilling:
https://youtu.be/TLl0DV6JCQk

BIG CREDITS:
Huge thanks to Tordmule who reached out and offered their music from their album white; heat. The video really wouldn't have been the same without their music. Show them some love at their bandcamp here:
https://tordmule.bandcamp.com/

Atumnmnmn - as always - for their wonderful music:
https://autumnmnmn.bandcamp.com/

Kevin MacLeod - the OG:
https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/musicEXPalt.html

RBMK-5000 for uploading high quality archival footage around the accident and wider Soviet Nuclear Power sector; as well as translations:
https://youtube.com/c/RBMK5000official

Студія Peredova who made the really cool KGB classification video:
https://youtube.com/c/peredova

Ukrainian Historian Eduard Andryushchenko (KGB Files on YouTube) for their video highlighting some of the things in the KGB archives, and their exhaustive work translating some of them into English as well as linking the full dossier of declassified KGB material. Their channel is here:
https://youtube.com/channel/UCZqIDYYURLSDJLTsw58u24w

Art3mis 444 - this video is so damn funny and it deserved to take off years ago. Go and watch it!
https://youtu.be/IRzrTww61GI

Everyone who read a section from "Voices From Chernobyl"

The factcheckers who took time to review the video so I wasn't entirely off base, and people at British Library who were able to get access to and translate the Ukrainian/Russian documents, as well as old news articles from the time

And, of course, my lovely Patreons who believe in what I do enough to give me money to occassionaly put these kindsa things out.

Black Mesa Is Genius, And Here's Why

Soup Emporium — Sat, 31 Jul 2021 17:09:08 +0000

Some people said I needed to do more clickbait stuff. Others said I have big Hbomb energy. I combined them together, and created: plagarism*

Others say the intro is still going. They were right then, and they're right now.

This was fun to make. I can see why people do it. Please never ask me to make clickbait again. It makes me feel dirty. I was too far into the "joke" around doing a clickbaity title and ripping off hbomb that by the time I realised it was a mistake it was too late, and the infinitely better titles suggested by my Patreons couldn't be used because half the video wouldn't make sense. The joke has only become more of a mistake as time marched forwards

Also there's a lot of audio and footage chopping, which frustrates me. The HD file of this is 20GB. The UHD file was 80GB. Davinci Resolve was having NONE of it, and then the credits were screwy so I had to delete the old video. But despite it being unlisted and not sharing a link, 6 of yous saw it before I took it down to upload a corrected version! What's going on there, YouTube?!

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SoupEmporium
Twitter: haha no

TIMESTAMPS, BABY!
0:00 - Introduction
04:35 - Hey, look! The Intro's still going!
05:40 - I. A Brief History Of Half Life
10:39 - II. Pacing and Gameplay (Or, the ACTUAL start of the analysis)
17:37 - III. Combat and Tutorialising
33:29 - IV. Stameplay
46:53 - V. Sound Design
52:30 - VI. Xen
1:00:33 - VII. Gonarch's Lair
1:09:16 - VIII. Nihilanth and Endgame
1:14:54 - Credits and End Cards

Big Up
Sexy Nutella! Go and sub to them right now!

Borrowed Observations:
Half Life - Broken yet Perfect | Trav Guy Reviews - That Trav Guy

Half-Life 2's Invisible Tutorial - Game Makers Toolkit

The AI of Half-Life - Simon Roth

Half-Life Fact Files - MarphitimusBlackimus

CO-VIDs: what makes an fps arsenal good? - Innuendo Studios

What even happened in Half-Life 1? - Leadhead

EDIT: The original title of this was "Black Mesa Is Ge̶n̸i̵u̶s̴,̴ Ä̸̱́n̴̜̈́d̶͚̽ H̵̞́̈́ë̸͖́r̵̙̹̂̎e̵͎̩̊́'̴̙͜͝s̸̖͚̅̕ ̶̧̃͠W̷̖̽h̵̠̀̾y̸̜̌". I removed the void text after a commenter pointed out that void text can make the title inaccessible to the blind/those who rely on visual readers. I want the things I make to be as accessible as they can be. See, the title isn't just** plagiarism!

Why Koko (Probably) Couldn't Talk (Sorry) | The Deep Dive

Soup Emporium — Wed, 05 May 2021 15:57:26 +0000

:fart noises:

Just as Koko the Gorilla fooled the world into thinking she could sign, I fooled my subscribers into thinking this was a gaming channel

Go listen to the excellent "You're Wrong About" podcast on Koko the Gorilla that I promise I didn't steal everything from

Timecodes:
0:00 - Preamble
0:45 - MS Paint Intro (I'm learning to animate its hard please be kind)
1:36 - So. I talk to my cat...
5:33 - Water Bird
9:36 - Koko
14:07 - Things Fall Apart
25:42 - The Other Side of Silence
34:41 - Amuse and Abused (CW: Animal Abuse)
43:57 - ...One Learns At All Costs
48:27 - Credits

Music:
Kevin MacLeod,
Autumnmnmn,
Patricia Taxxon,
High Skies

De Beers Don't Make (Natural) Diamonds Expensive (Anymore) | The Deep Dive

Soup Emporium — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 12:24:23 +0000

Sorry, Mr Conover. I still love your series Adam Ruins Everything!

(The alternative title for this was 'Why Are Diamonds Actually Expensive? But, I mean, no one's gonna click that. There's a gajillion videos saying the exact same thing about it and that title would blend into the menagerie of people who'd say "De Beers We Know!" You gotta go with the provocative clickbaity title, sometimes.)

(Speaking of, this isn't for the synthetic diamond market where there ARE vestigial effects of advertising and monopoly control. This is specifically relating to diamonds which we dig out of the ground, and the context of the video is talking about mined diamonds, not synthetic ones. I've corrected the title to reflect that)

Listen, I'm no simp for large corporations - epsecially ones dealing in conflict materials - but someone has to set the record straight. And who better than me, a volcanologist with dreams of being a gaming YouTuber?

We've all heard some know-it-all at Nandos say: "Diamonds are expensive because De Beers hold a monopoly over diamonds and they did a super successful ad campaign about it - so we all bought into the collective lie and diamonds are a scam!"

While that was true once, De Beers haven't been in control of diamond markets in terms of sales since 2007, or production since 2009. They aren't even the largest company by sales or production. That honour goes to ALROSA. In fact De Beers' monopoly position has been steadily eroding since the 1990s. In 2020 they posted their lowest earnings ever according to the Financial Times. There's significantly more competition in diamond markets today than at any point in human history, yet adjusted for inflation diamonds are actually twice as expensive today as they were when De Beers held a total monopoly. And it can't just be a marketing ploy, because the company’s marketing budget accounted for roughly 1% of sales in 2017, down from about 5% in the 1990s, according to the investment banking firm Morgan Stanley. And when you bring this up to the smart-arse at the restaurant and explain that De Beers physically don’t control the diamond market anymore, so can't be the reason diamond prices are as high as they are, suddenly you're being kicked out of Nandos because "you're making a scene". Well I'm not having it, Kevin! I'm not having it!

Are the jokes cringe? Yes.
Is the research sound? I hope so
At 12:13 when I said million but the graph said billion did I mean billion? Yes

Timecodes:
0:00 - Intro
0:25 - A Quick History of the De Beers Monopoly
2:53 - The Fall of the De Beers Monopoly
6:20 - C H I N A!
7:15 - Demand Isn’t Enough
8:36 - How Diamonds Form
10:20 - Gahcho Kué
11:17 - Running Out of Diamonds
12:52 - Credits/Endcards

References in video.

With thanks to Kevin MacLeod for the music. All music used is credited at the end
https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Additional Music from:
Beck, Ambrose and his Orchestra, Assaf Ayalon, Joe E Lee, Shitty Flute, The National Anthems Channel, Ginger Rogers and Beethoven (the composer, not the dog)

The Ideology of Mr. House | Fallout: New Vegas

Soup Emporium — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 22:34:11 +0000

In which I talk about a decades old game using things I vaguely remember from my undergrad modules on human development!

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro Gag
0:29 - Introduction
5:20 - The Issue With the NCR
15:02 - Enter Mr. House
19:41 - The Ideology of Mr. House
31:13 - Progress for who, though?
36:00 - Old World Blues
41:10 - The Apocalypse (Or, How To Save Democracy)
47:05 - Endcards

References:
CATO Human Freedom Index

Epistemology of Resistance

Prison Notebooks

Modernism and Totalitarianism>

The 'Developmental State' and Economic Development

Systemic Vulnerability

Creating Malaysia

Politics & Governance in Singapore

Management of Success (Singapore)

Freedom House Report

Singapore's Soft Repression

Singapore RSF

Our World In Data - Singapore

Challenging the Dogma of Free Trade

Corruption Perception Index 2019

Challenge to Liberal Democracy

Detainment of Uighurs

Amnesty International - China

Human Rights Watch

Marxist Critique of Developmental State

Economics for the Many

TL Green

Accumulation of Capital>

The Podcast Josh Sawyer Was On

Spatial Fix

US Kleptocracy

Wider Reading:
Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy (2014) - Peter Dickens
Spaces of Global Capital (2019) - David Harvey
Towards a Democratic Developmental State (2006) - Gordon White