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Barbara Blackburn is often cited as the fastest typist in history. She even appears in the Guinness Book of World Records! She must be legit right? Well, maybe not. I was supposed to make a video about the new typing speed world record, and instead got pulled into a Barbara Blackburn rabbit hole that I can't seem to escape. TL;DR She's not that fast.
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Watch the mainstream media bury this story and not even cover it. This is the most important video I've ever made and definitely wasn't a waste of time... Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/KarlJobst_Jun23 and get a special starter pack with an Epic champion ⚡Tallia⚡ Available only for new players
Exactly....these days of deceit and contrarian glorification are coming to an end!!!
The Biggest Scandal In Speed Typing History
Karl, my man, we call it Telephone these days, Chinese Whispers doesn't really fly in the states. We have a children's game called Telephone where each whispers a phrase the way they heard it whispered to them.
@@fusionspace175Came here to echo this exact comment. Loved the video but found this pretty jarring to hear. I'm sure it wasn't intentional by Karl as in school growing up we'd always call it Chinese whispers but it should really be changed.
i love your sense of humor
You obviously didn't consider that she started typing in second gear.
The Biggest Scandal In Speed Typing History
Todgers typed 213 wpm back then
I was looking for this joke.
Clearly it was an original machine and not an emulator, how obvious can it be.
True
I can't believe Barbara Blackburn achieved a sustained typing speed of 500 wpm for an entire week across the entire multiverse. Truly an inspiration.
Definitely one of the of all time!
5000 wpm for an entire year you say? That's amazing and clearly show the superiority of the DVORAK layout. How else could anyone write at 50,000 wpm for a decade?
I knew I'd seen that pfp before. Didn't expect to find an adtr listener here.
It's definitely insane that she somehow sustained 500,000 WPM for an entire century with the DVORAK layout! Truly incredible!
and to hear Karl Jobst confirm it as a life witness was the cherry on top.
Karl, I will be using this video in my classroom this year to help teach my students about fact checking, and where our information comes from. You are the absolute legend
Nice
@@sorrenblitz805 Todd Rogers videos too? Do you want those students to be scarred for life? 🤣
@@sorrenblitz805 The Todd Togers videos are for the AP classes.
Secondhand sources are terrible and so is Wikipedia. Back in the day, though, the World Book Encyclopedia was my source of choice.
@@Skyblade12and the Todd Roges classes are for the secret club afterwards.
Update: in July 2023, Barbara Blackburn again broke the typing speed world record, sustaining a speed of 561 words per minute over a 48-hour time period. This was confirmed in the 1916 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Congrats to Barbara on this incredible achievement!! Don't believe all the doubters who claim the typing was performed on an emulator.
561 WORDS PER MINUTE? HOLY. SHIT.
She also did it in Ireland during the Easter Rising according to Guinness 1916
No its 666 words per minute the computer wasn't fast enough to record it 😢
Not me just laughing at the sheer thought of the existence of an emulator for speed typing 😂
I heard she actually did 554 wpm
From Minecraft to typing. You never know what type of cheater Karl will cover next.
I agree, 906
I don't think the keyboard grandma was super malicious like todd togres or silly bitchell, but we do have the common denominator of Guiness being completely and utterly useless, worthless, incompetent, pointless, and stupid organization ever
I disagree, 906
Next they'll cover my ex
Just wish he'd get back to the less scandal based things and more fun speed running stuff.
This is the kind of content I live for. Decades old drama from a community I've never heard of? Fascinating
Way too relatable LOL
😂 for sure!
😂😂😂🎉
I know right?!
Same lol. Some of my favorite topics are about early 2000’s Harry Potter fandom
Berber Blackbarn also broke the world land speed record in her office chair and no one has ever come close or even fully understand how she did it. It's ultimately what killed her in the end, she went so fast it peeled all of her skin off and it burst into flames. But what a wicked way for this legend to go out and be forever remembered.
She actually holds the record for the strongest fart ever recorded and during one of these farts is when she also broke the land speed record while sitting in a chair.
Omg 💀
I had to laugh at the mental image of an elderly lady blasting across the Utah salt flats in a swivel chair.
@@NDHFilmsstop laughing and have some respect. Barbara Blackburn died for your freedom.
This made me laugh so hard... XD
The level of dedication and research to such an obscure topic is amazing. I love the channel for the gaming scandal content, but love this more niche stuff, too!
Hey, Sean Wrona here. Thanks for the shoutout. When I was writing my book, the more research I did on Blackburn the more I too was skeptical about her claims. There were a number of other champion typists who were frequently listed in Guinness World Records sections in the '70s, '80s, and '90s like Margaret Owen, Albert Tangora, Margaret Hamma, Stella Pajunas, and Michael Shestov. In all of those cases, those typists had an extremely large paper trail when I did my own research trawling through newspaper archive sites. These typists (especially Owen and even more so Tangora) were actually pretty big celebrities in their heydays and toured America doing hundreds or thousands of typing demonstrations throughout their careers. Their records were talked about in newspapers at the time when they set them and they all got a lot of press before and after. What I noticed when I looked up Blackburn was that she basically got no press coverage whatsoever until after her record was initially placed in the book and it was nearly impossible for me to verify the records she supposedly set (I had the same issue evaluating a lot of the claims I read about Cortez Peters, Jr. but I believe he was more legitimate than she was.) That did trigger my suspicions and I did basically conclude in my book that the whole thing was a marketing stunt for the Dvorak keyboard but ultimately that I didn't really care because I felt the way Letterman made a mockery of her on set was honestly worse than what she herself did and after I got so many nasty comments on the more-viral-than-I-hoped Ultimate Typing Championship videos, I kind of felt for her as a fellow public laughingstock, but I did already know that most of her claims were impossible to verify and I never trusted the Guinness Book of World Records to begin with (the World Almanac was always my favorite reference book as a kid, and it was always way better.) It is frustrating when you see people who have done only a cursory level of research who just *automatically* assume alternative layouts are better (even celebrated nonfiction writers like Stephen Jay Gould, who also propagated inaccurate myths on the QWERTY and Dvorak keyboards), particularly those who get so loyal about their layouts that they sneer at QWERTY users as if we're backward even though almost all typing records ever have been set on QWERTY (this is certainly a vast minority of alt-layout advocates to be fair, but this happens whenever there is any kind of underdog narrative in the media even if it is a fairly astroturfed one like the Dvorak movement seems to be.) As far as I can tell, Colemak is a better alt-layout anyway since at least it puts all the most frequently used letters in the center row if you believe that is a strength (and I have my doubts about that personally) while Dvorak has a few letters that are not among the most frequently used in the center row. I think Blackburn was a very nice but flawed person and kind of feel sad for her that she got roped into this and was made to be a mockery on national television, but I also get how it made her one of the only 20th century typists anybody cares about. Because Late Night with David Letterman was regarded as one of the classic television shows of that period and because he frequently replayed the Blackburn segments, they were very widely seen and since the series was iconic, it was only inevitable that it would survive on KZhead even though a *lot* of footage from talk shows, news reports, and newsmagazines from this era has been seemingly lost to history (try and find an episode of 60 Minutes from the early '90s when it was one of the most popular TV shows on the planet - almost impossible...) I personally don't really like the effect Letterman ultimately had on culture. As a very earnest person who hates that the default mode of Internet discourse is an endless parade of mockery, irony, and snarkiness, I do see his show as the root of popularizing a lot of this stuff and the beginning of the end of earnestness in culture, and I think Blackburn herself was definitely taken aback since she came from Letterman's parents' generation, which was a lot more prim and proper and rather opposed to irreverence. Letterman was a boomer whose entire show was about deflating the egos of his parents' generation and I don't think Blackburn was the sort of person who even ever would have watched it, so I don't think she knew what she was in for and you can see how uncomfortable she was as a result. I guess what I'm saying is for these reasons, I'd go easier on her personally than you probably did even though I likewise know she did not set most of the records ascribed to her. She was not the only typist who appeared on television by the way (Ron Mingo and Cortez Peters, Jr. also did, and they were also frequently cited as the fastest typists in the world in their heyday) but she is the only one who is remembered because Letterman itself is remembered, while a LOT of the history of television is lost simply because few people bothered to archive nonfiction material on television (yeah, you can find most scripted shows probably if you try hard enough, but it seems that talk shows and news shows and the like are a lot more ephemeral and probably all that material is rotting in some studio lot somewhere.) The fact that she was on Letterman is why people still remember her while the fact that nobody remembers the Flip Wilson Show (even though they really should since it was the first popular variety show hosted by a black man) means that Ron Mingo is forgotten, even though his records (which were never listed in Guinness because he never bothered I guess) are a lot more verifiable and a lot more legitimate. Another factor here is that people tend to only remember the initial report on a story and almost nobody pays any attention to the retractions, especially if it's something like competitive typing which literally nobody cared about in the 1980s (although there is a hardcore contingent who do now.) I wouldn't be so quick to compare today's records to the records in her era though. Back then, I don't think anyone typed random lists of words with no capital letters or punctuation like you see on Monkeytype or 10FastFingers today. I believe most people in the 20th century would have seen that as not being real typing so I do think the material that the typists of her era had to type was much harder than what Rocket is typing now. Having said that, I would agree that the best typists today are better than she was. I think I was better than she was in my heyday, even though there are a handful of people faster overall now. There are people now who dream of being the world's fastest typist, which was not even a thing when I was a kid and it was even less of one when Blackburn became famous. Obviously when there are so many people gunning to set records that nobody cared about 40 years ago, the stakes are going to be raised considerably. I think the best millennial typists like myself and zoomers like Rocket are well past Blackburn. But I do think the material they had to type was usually harder and obviously earlier typewriters were more primitive and cumbersome to use (it certainly takes a great deal more physical strength to make a keypress on a mechanical typewriter than on a computer) so I think people should have a little more respect for that era as a result. Having said that, I have in general more respect for the mechanical typewriter typists of the early 20th century like Margaret Owen, Albert Tangora, and George Hossfield, who were a lot more groundbreaking than Blackburn ever was and they used machines that were significantly more difficult to operate. Maybe none of them could have done what Rocket or I did later on computers, but I don't really think we would have been able to do what they did in their era either. And in the first half of the 20th century, typing really was a big deal when the top typists of the time were probably bigger niche celebrities than I am actually. People definitely care more about typing as a competitive pursuit than they have since World War II, but I still think the scene in the 1920s might have been bigger when the top typists went on nationwide tours and made huge incomes for the time. The incentives of that era convince me that maybe the best typists of that era might have been better than the best typists of today, but that's probably incorrect since there are WAY more people competing now. Through all my research, I did come to respect most of the 20th century typists a great deal, but it does disappoint me that the most famous 20th century typist is neither the best nor the most legitimate one. Why does Barbara Blackburn have a Wikipedia page while George Hossfield does not? Sorry to ramble on like this but I did think this was all necessary to say to provide context for this as well as my own research (I see that you did cite some of the articles I shared with you in addition to my book.) Once again, thanks for the shoutout. And yeah, the other commenters mentioned this but you did mispronounce Dvorak. It is 'Duh/vor/ak', an Americanized form, not 'Duh/vor/zhak' like the composer. It's an easy mistake to make though 'cause the composer is way more famous regardless of the Dvorak keyboard advocates' relentless self-promotion.
Amen Sean, love your book and I'm glad to see someone the amount of effort, research, and analysis you put in your post. Where would the typing community have been without out? - Vielle.
what a clever username, arenasnow.
I think you wrote a book here, too! :P No offense, I read the whole comment. And I agree that typing has changed a lot since the 1920s, in both form and function. Also, we don't have to type while wearing the kind of stiff, uncomfortable business wear required of both men and women at the time -- not to mention a lack of air conditioning and a preponderance of cigarette smoke, depending on era and location. I wonder if voice-to-text and "AI" algorithms are going to make it a very niche skill in the future?
Keyboard layouts are far from the only thing Stephen Jay Gould propagated misinformation about...
@@mzxrules At the same time I was dominating on typing sites I was also a tournament Scrabble player and I did reach the expert level and win one tournament in the expert division (admittedly only against three other people, but they're all really good now.) Many of us use anagrams for our names as our usernames everywhere, but I was into Scrabble before I was even into typing...
Obviously this is a casual and entertaining story but Karl's research into this is a textbook example of how to do proper analysis of any kind of historical claim. Tracking down and analyzing the original sources, cross referencing sources, reading the material before forming an opinion, contacting those involved for better sources and more info, etc. Karl did more thorough research into this random claim than most history youtubers do into entire videos, great stuff
How long did it take you to type that?
Reminded me of a cgp grey video
Which is why I love RetroAhoy, especially his videos on Polybius and the first video game.
@@exmello lol what are u talking about I just watched 3 of their videos and they were oversimplified garbage, didn't even list sources in the description, let alone properly show them in the video
@@terminalpreppie8439 I mean if your going on about sources in the description, Karl didn't put them there either
I'm only half way through, but you are an absolute legend mate. Your investigation skills are above and beyond. I'm glad you've grown so much, you truly deserve it. Looking forward to the future stuff especially the crushing of Garret Bobby Fergusson
Love your vids man. It makes things feel way less intimidating seeing someone just go for it. Keep it up!
It was so clear based on the David Letterman appearance that she was more of a spokesperson for Dvorak than an actual speed-typist. She spends most of her interviews talking about the machine than her actual typing speed or how she became so fast other than switching from Qwerty. When all of her Qwerty issues would have been resolved if she'd simply popped the clutch before she started typing.
POPPED THE CLUTCH 😭
She was granny shifting, we're lucky she didn't blow the welds off the intake typing like that
Also Qwerty isn't arbitrary, they put the keys in locations which would prevent key jams. This is why french and German keyboard are laid out differently
@@orsonzeddI beleive it was also so people demo’ing the typewriters during a sales pitch could learn to type “typewriter” all on the top row of keys very easily & make it look impressive with their speed.
@@nodowt Watching this and how they controlled their studies to make their layout more impressive than it really is just gave me a negative view on Dvorak. And I'm not even a big keyboard nerd.
Wow, even after being in the typing scene for years, I have NEVER ever heard about this until recently. I’ve heard of Blackburn before but never thought she cheated. Super interesting.
Ye
Ye
I've been in the typing scene since I first used a computer in 1996.
@@OliverInternational yall know you guys are taking jabs at the ACTUAL wr holder for speed typing.... right?
Ye
Karl. It is the mark of an interesting person to explore and look at different and new hobbies. You are one such interesting man, you are appreciated dude.
Anecdote from a writer: I used a Dvorak keyboard for years, and I did once clock myself at 140 wpm--and I'm not a fast typist--but I eventually abandoned it because I got sick of having to recalibrate my brain every time I used a public computer or the computer of a friend/coworker. It is CLEARLY faster in my experience, but it will never hit the mainstream.
Except it isn't faster because current record holders do not use it and they obviously would use it if it benefited them.
I hit 148 wpm in highschool and broke the school record. I'm sure kids had beaten that lately. But it's all I have to brag about in life LOL
In the 90s I had a friend who was a crazed proponent of the dvorak layout. He went as far as re-arranging the key-caps on his keyboard, which of course made the keyboard un-even as key heights differed. I used to tell him basically the same thing you eventually learned. Everyone else uses qwerty, and you'll have to interact with qwerty keyboards the rest of your life. Also, it was terribly annoying using his computer since it was dvorak and you had to re-map it every time, and the labels were all off and the keyboard felt strange. So typing in a password on his keyboard drove me nuts. Eventually he realized the same thing you did, and switched everything back. And he wasn't even a fast typist!
There is no evidence that suggests that alternative keyboard layouts are faster. Obviously if you pick up an alternative layout, you'll have to practice typing to relearn how to type. Most people do not practice typing so if you start practicing you will likely surpass your previous QWERTY speed. I will say that they are more ergonomic and comfortable to use though.
@@principle6261even if they ARE faster, they would be a different competition. It’s like recumbent vs diamond frame bicycles.
This was a really fun change of pace, I would definitely be down for more videos like this in the future
It's a lot of fun researching random shit like this lol
@karljobst we want a2 hour expose on all the bs Guinness records. any chance we can get you to look into whether those brothers on those tiny motorcycles really were that fat?
@@karljobst Would love to hear you cover the history of keyboards or controllers, i feel like you could probably weave it into something about speed running as well.
@@karljobst i'd love for you to do videos on people that cheated in e-sports competitions, just look at what happened with the COD esports team Team Orbit
@@karljobst I would love to hear an expose on my ex. Huge cheater.
As a former newspaper journalist, I must say your work is brilliant, Karl. You always dig deeper and don't assume something is true just because a book says so. Many journalists could learn a thing or two from you.
I think many people could learn from this in general, not just journalists. I know I'm guilty of not doing proper research XD
@@MorganSaph I don't necessarily do my proper research, because I rarely write research papers or anything of the sort, but I've definitely stopped just saying "hey did you know [x]" and started clarifying when something is hearsay or something I don't know for sure. We've had a big problem in recent years with this sort of stuff spreading like wildfire, but thanks to people like Karl we might start seeing that we've always had a big problem with it.
I think you mean EVERY journalist working today. All modern day "journalists" do is parrot social contagion delusions.
I want to like this comment but it’s at 321 and a don’t want to ruin that
Not surprising that you are a "former" journalist the way things are
Thanks for covering this! It's funny that I've really enjoyed watching speed running explode over the past few years but never really thought about speed typing. I'm hampered by _how_ I type, muscle memory tied to specific words (thanks to text adventures in the '80s), so it's fascinating to see how far things have come and techniques.
Props on all the research you do Karl!
I fricken love you, Karl. Literally nobody else would would even care about something like this, but you saw something that looked weird and couldn't stop yourself from spending god knows how many dozens of hours trawling books and articles and references in order to research this and correct history, on a topic that is ostensibly so minuscule and inconsequential, and I love it 🤣
exactly how i felt watching this hahaha. liars need to be exposed even if they dont look or seem like the typical evil villain type.
I feel this way with many of Karl's videos. I absolutely love when this obscure stuff comes across my feed.
I think maybe we're on the same spectrum👀
He is becoming the CGP Grey of all things records and videogames, and I'm here for it.
Especially like that he puts Wikipedia in its place here. Wikipedia has changed over the years from what it used to be where anyone can make edits. Nowadays you can point clear contradictions in the sources out in its Talk pages and the editors on the site are little "content kings" that refuse to make relevant changes saying that some claims are disputed. Same goes when presented with clear evidence of issues like violating NPOV or situations like this one, where internet lore is just accepted at face value.
The cherry on top for me was that you were shown a never-before-seen letter by Blackburn herself showing the true origins of the 212 wpm claim. That's basically the most primary of primary sources. I'm pretty sure historians would _kill_ to find that kind of original source for any research in their field! Bravo!!!
Surprised Billy Mitchell isn’t the Typer of the Century
I didn't know how much I love speed running until I met you through your channel..I don't speed run..but I love the history and stats..ty for at least 3 years of your work
'He admitted that he must have been wrong'. Its so refreshing to hear this and not just assume its a blatant lie. 'Yeah my bad' when it's your bad. And you're the fastest typer ever at that point. Massive respect
Massive respect for owning a mistake that has very little personal significance? That's an awfully low bar.
@@joshs7160 hyperbolic superlative to you for peeping this!
@@joshs7160 sadly a rare thing i the world of speedrunning
@@joshs7160 In the real world with reasonable people? Yes. In online discourse? It's pretty rare.
@@joshs7160 that almost never happens
Seeing Tommy Tallarico in the video while Karl describes how people use Guinness to market themselves is absolutely hilarious.
Oof
His mother is very proud
I am so glad he made this video
I'm surprised he hasn't covered that story himself yet
who's tommy tallarico
Been using Dvorak for about 8 years now and I certainly wouldn't say it's faster, but I can say that the placement of most commonly used letters in the middle row means there is less finger movements across the keyboard
dvorak doesn't make you faster practice does
This is how ALL investigations of all kinds should be done!! If only media journalists would do even 50% of this amount of hassle... Awesome job, Karl!
I re-watched that Letterman episode a couple of years ago, and remember thinking that her poor live performance must've been a combination of old age and stage fright. I never would've guessed that there would be deep lore, let alone that Karl would put out a banger exposing it. Absolutely insane!
But the point he makes is still kinda a shit point because if you're nervous, making a mistake like putting your hand in the wrong place might be something you do without realising
It probably was nerves. I wouldn't begrudge her for messing up in this scenario. Doesn't change anything about the record, mind you.
@@user-ch9vd4cd3t I mean if your hand is in the wrong place, it would easily do that. I'm not saying she's great, but I'm saying that the point he makes about her not being good at all is not evidenced enough
@@oscarbarnes2130 You make a fantastic point, we should construct a portal to the afterlife and ask her for a repeat demonstration just to make sure.
@@supersardonic1179 finally someone who understands my argument!!
It's amazing that she hit 300 WPM! What an incredible tribute to Barbara, Karl! Anyway, I'd love to see more typing vids.
What 320 words per minute?!? How is that even possible?
@@mikeoxlong1395 No, you're just plain wrong. it's 300, confirmed by Carl Jobs himself, little brother of Steve and creator of the best selling game ever, Miner Craft. Please check your sources!
3000 actually, there was a typo.
@@PointsofData its a minor conversion error from metric to imperial, it was definitely more around 650-660 wpm with an ambient room temperate of 68 degrees Fahrenheit at 5300ft elevation. like the above commenter stated
crazy that she typed at 300 wpm for an entire week
Excelent work researching and incredible video
I remember seeing her on Letterman! I didn’t even watch his show very much but that segment has stuck in my memory over the years. When I saw the thumbnail for this video, I wondered if it was going to be about the woman from Letterman lol. The part I most remembered though was that they had to run their timed competition twice because at first, Barbara didn’t put paper in her typewriter 🙄
and combine that with not even putting her fingers in the correct position
Karl the absolute legend he is, couldn't be contained to just speedrunning videos. He had to go post this awesome documentary on speed typing. Keep up the amazing work Karl!
Thanks so much for the support
Even though he didn't leave any sources.
@@EricGraham1987are you hate watching this channel? Are you even watching the video?
@@EricGraham1987 The sources are the books themselves.
@EricGraham1987 did you even watch the video?
One thing about her interview with Letterman. The QWERTY keyboard is derided as being random. It isn't. It was designed in such a way as to avoid the hammers on a manual typewriter from getting jammed. The position of the keys is also the position of the hammers. It was designed so common groupings of letters are typed from out to in or alternating right and left or on different rows. You can say it was designed to slow typists down, as more ergonomic key layouts allowed people to type faster than the hammers could reset, basically causing mechanical lag.
On a related note, mechanical typewriter quirks are also why the keys on keyboards are staggered; with each row being shifted over a tad rather than the keys being in a neat grid. I don't really feel like getting into explaining that myself unfortunately, but for anyone interested my reference is Technology Connections's video on the correction features of typewriters; he goes on a tangent about keyboard staggering at 6:24.
Also one could argue that making alternate left-right-left keystrokes would naturally be the fastest way to type, and qwerty did this as a side-effect of trying to stop jams. So it's really not that bad of a layout.
Of course it isn't random; they had to ensure you could spell typewriter using only letters on the top row!
@@LonelySpaceDetective They are essentially pianos or harpsichords, possibly based on that design actually, just arranged in such a way that the hammers strike the same string [the ribbon guide]
Which is also why different layouts for different languages exist. I use a QWERTZ layout, because in my native language, a z is more often used than a y. AFAIK in France the layout is AZERTY.
Great stuff, would love to see more speed typing coverage!
Love that Karl Jobst can do video essays on a wider scope of topics. I know the channel from his essays concerning video games and now got to know about this thing, that probably never crossed my path otherwise. And the fact that he explains the subject so anyone not knowledgeable in the area can follow along, learn, and be intrigued without overwhelming you with facts and history that any hobby or field of interest tend to contain, is commendable.
When you explained that Barbara was a spokesperson for a alternate keyboard type all the pieces fit together. It’s so obvious that she’s selling a product that can be advertised as the worlds fastest. This isn’t a record, it’s a advert
She's using Blast Processing
The product was over 40 years old by the time she was a spokesperson. She was likely hired due to her speed. Stop being jaded.
@@Clay3613 She clearly saw that people said she typed 212 wpm, and never decided to address the misinformation. Hired for her speed or not, she knew she was being used as a marketing tool for dvorak, and was well aware her claimed achievements were all BS.
@@beastly7518 was "dvorak" ever a marketable single-source product? Was it still under any kind of protection at the time?
@@beastly7518damn...
This video perfectly demonstrates how one bad source gets replicated among other sources when people don’t check primary sources properly. Happens all the time in history and folklore.
what do you think religion is?
@@nimrodelbeatsjust like your religion of evolution!
This is a fantastic video, the dedication to finding the source reminds me of the Reply All podcast about the case of the missing hit.
Actual journalism
You should do a history of more dubious records from Guinness.
The dirty secret? They're all BS. You pay to get into book.
Aka all of them
I heard the writers were cooking up a new character arc for Karl in this upcoming season, this might be a sign that that's where they're going with the narrative.
I really want him to rip into Tommy Tallarico's alleged 7 records, since he took the time to showcase them.
Fun pronunciation fact for Dvorak. The composer's name is pronounced something like "Vor-jhahk". The keyboard is named after an American with the same name, who pronounced his name more like it's written "Dvor-rack". So the keyboard layout tends not to have that "jh" or "zh" sound in the middle of it. Edit: she pronounces his name at 16:00.
Not to mention the wikipedia page shown at 9:36 shows the pronunciation as /ˈdvɔːræk/ with no "jh" or "zh" sound.
Thank you!!! Fascinating video, but holy crap that pronunciation grated me every single time.
What are you trying to say in the first part? His name is still the exact same Czech name and Karl pronounced it 100% correct. It just makes both pronunciations reasonable and correct.
@@MrAllallalla Except that the American in question for whom the keyboard was named never pronounced it with a jh/zh. You can't just tell someone you get to choose an alternate pronunciation of their name as right, when they've never used it
Karl was using the czech pronounciation with the "Ř" (Dvořák) which is technically correct. But because our Ř sound is kinda difficult, Dvorak opted for english pronounciation which is easier. Karl went the hard way and btw his czech pronounciation wasn't bad, but still was off :)
Fascinating piece of detective work, very interesting. Well done.
Taking down old speed records, one by one. Keep it up! :)
I heard Barabara Blackburn once reached 439 WPM by starting her typing in second gear
😂
Fantastic video, Karl! As a competitive typist myself (Dvorak), I've always disliked the claim that Barbara Blackburn was the fastest typist, not only because of Sean Wrona and more recent records, but also because Stella Pajunas already had a verified 216wpm record in 1946, reported by the Chicago Tribune. Way back in 1918, Margaret Benedict Owen had 1min speeds of 170wpm and sustained speeds of 143wpm! That was on a mechanical typewriter, with by-hand paper changes and manual carriage return being included in the test score. She was a dominant force in competitions, and I'd guesstimate that she could have bursted at 200wpm on a modern machine. I also thought the Letterman mistake was odd because it's the sort of hand-off-by-one error an experienced typist recognises quickly, but I first put it down to TV nerves and copy-typing. I suspect that Barbara had sustained 170 and maybe had a burst speed of 196, but felt pressure to keep increasing that number artificially as ageing slowed her typing. imo, the Typing community at large needs to reevaluate some nomenclature and testing standards. Just saying 'I type 200wpm' isn't enough info: a 200wpm 90%acc 10-word-quote sounds the same as a 5min 99%acc English-1k-random test. The r/Typing leaderboard is an example of one with harder rules, but is far less popular as a result. I believe that Dvorak is a slower layout, but far more comfortable. Compared to many QWERTY typists, I generally have lower error rates and better endurance. I think that the determining factor is experience; most Dvorak typists have been using the layout for less time than QWERTY typists. I'd encourage people to consider alt-layouts, like Dvorak, Colemak/DH, Workman, Halmak, HandsDown, etc, purely for the comfort of everyday typing.
I dunno, I think dvorak is faster because you don't need to move your fingers or hands as much. It also optimizes hand switching and the common letters. I'd say its 20-25% faster.
i have to agree about it being just experience as the determining factor, as although studies done by dr dvorak hint that it is a faster layout, more recent studies show that dvorak and qwerty are nearly identical. id like to add also that the sheer number of people using qwerty as opposed to dvorak probably influences the rate of records, as out of 100 people you have higher chance to get a fast typist than 10. the real determining factor in speed is probably typing style. i switched from querty to dvorak and saw vast improvements - but that was because i was also forced to switch into touch typing.
As someone who failed to learn to type repeatedly all through childhood until I tried Dvorak on a whim as a teenager, I appreciate this video, though not Ms. Blackburn. I can do about 70wpm sustained and I've seen up to 118 on TypeRacer in short bursts. QWERTY tops out at about 35 but I have to look at the keys. What an egg she laid on TV. I always wondered why they didn't give her a second go.
Are the 1946 and 1918 record verified by third parties? I mean if a more recent record can be easily disproven I can't imagine how records from back then were meticulous verified.
@@richardfan7157 Margaret Owens is easy because she executed her records in adjudicated competition. Stella's 216 is harder to verify as I think it was a private gig for a short time period, but the Tribune recently put their archives behind a paywall. At the very least she did hold all 4 typing championships concurrently at one stage: professional, amateur, novice, and women's titles. I could possibly have chosen a better example; Margaret Hamma achieved 149wpm for 1 hr in competition and repeated the feat in public several times, whom apparently had a burst speed of 228wpm. My main point is that there were many fast typists before Blackburn who were seemingly faster, but Blackburn went uncontested.
Karl, you never cease to amaze me. Absolutely incredible. No one else would even bother.
As a guy who took typing/keyboarding in high school and have always been grateful I did, I find this absolutely fascinating.
Karl could make a video disputing the validity of the claim of fastest drying paint and I would be riveted.
I type 100 words a minute as long as the word is cat
I can also do 100 words per minute as long as it’s asdf and hjkl
That’s light work. I can type the word “I” much faster than that.
I can type as long as my keybord and moniter will let me with space.
Agreed😊
i can type the nword in less than half a second
This is an incredible research job, amazing job man.
This record may not exist, but the fact that you are an absolute legend remains undeniable
My mom was a competitive typist, iirc her best was 164 wpm at the Kentucky state fair back when they did that. It was an official competition, I think my sister still has the trophy somewhere. She knew of this record but I don't ever remember her saying it seemed fake, just extremely fast compared to her and everyone she knew.
I’m so fast that I haven’t met a single person faster than me (my best is 148 wpm)
Was it on a typewriter or a computer keyboard? An oversight in this video is that mechanical typewriters are slower than computer keyboards.
@@Vmac1394 he kinda talked about it a little. But her main claim was on computer anyway.
Your mom would’ve dusted this wannabe if they both appeared on the David Letterman show
@@Vmac1394 - Mechanical typewriters were designed to slow typists, as the keys aren't fast enough, and to prevent jamming.
No one is safe from Karl's everlasting reach! Time for him to break another record
Imagine Karl + Coffeezilla collab... 😮
@@te5895tbf, having a sponsor in your video is an easy way to gain money, which I don’t mind people doing YT for, and using your own achievements for reference isn’t such a bad idea, like for example, him using it to compare SpaceUKs hacking
I think the strangest thing featured in this video is the introduction of the 'shh' sound to the word Dvorak. Much like Barbara's world record, it appeared from nowhere.
It's how the composer's name is actually pronounced, but yeah, I've gotten so used to the wrong one that when people do say it properly now it really stands out.
@@TwoWholeWorms But the keyboard layout wasn't invented by the Czech composer, it was invented by an American, which is why no-one else includes the "sh" sound!
@@robhulluk I doubt most English speakers actually make that distinction when deciding how to pronounce the name. If they're not familiar with the composer, they just read it the way it looks. Otherwise, they pronounce it like the composer because he's more famous than the keyboard guy.
I want a Guinness World record for being sat in my room watching this specific video, at this specific time, with this specific weather and at this specific period in the suns lifetime. Literally no-one else has done that so I have superpowers.
Honestly, this was the most intruiging video I've seen in a while. The fact that Karl decided to make a Speed ____ing video that had nothing to do with vintage video games was so fascinating to watch. The same amount of energy, the ame amount of dedication and research. Goes to show that it isn't the interest in the games that drives Karl, but the interest in the story. What an absolute legend!
The interest of Karl is not in games, but in speed itself.
Why not both?
I've done this "going down a rabbit hole of old newspaper clippings you can find on google books that get mentioned as sources somewhere" thing a few times now myself, and it's shocking how hard it often is to find the actual first source of some piece of information. Like one time i was trying to find the date that an old programming language was created and it was genuinely impossible. All i could find was an old book with a vague "in the 70's".
I had this happen several times when writing my bachelor's thesis. I checked all original sources if I saw someone referencing something that I wanted to use as well. The sources might be really obscure and not trustworthy at all, or could not be found anywhere, thus unusable sources for a reference.
@@Revilerify yeah, the thing about the programming language was for a school thing (only a small part but i started getting personally invested because i couldn't believe there was no info on it anywhere). I think it was about COBOL, maybe i was researching it in a stupid way because i was only a kid but it seems pretty crazy that i couldn't find any readily available info on what seems like a decently well known programming language. Might've been a different language though, not sure
Some things that need to be pointed out. The video mentions at 4:53 how a typing speed is always calculated over a specific amount of time and that 150 wpm over 50 minutes made sense whilst 170 wpm on it's own doesn't mean anything. That true. But it's only 1 of 3 major typing variables. The major typing variable that isn't discussed in this video is content i.e. the words that are being typed. As good as Rocket, Josh, Bailey etc. are all of there very high numbers on Monkeytype have been set on a selection of just 200 words, with 167 of them being no more than 5 letters long. What was the content that someone from Barbara's era (born in September 1920) would have practiced typing on a regular basis? We'll never know for sure but it was probably long extracts from books, and that would have meant they had to deal with a far wider range of much longer words that were more complex and obscure. They didn't have computers and the internet. They didn't have websites that would regurgitate the same 200 words in random orders over and over again. When was the last time modern era typists typed out a couple of pages worth of a Charles Dicken's book or an HP Lovecraft book? That would be a true test. The other variable is accuracy constraints. Rocket, Josh, Bailey etc. when typing on Monkeytype are free to ignore any mistakes that they make and just continue typing in the quest for seeing a more impressive number on the test result screen at the end of 15 seconds or 60 seconds. Typists from Barbara's era had to deal with the ultimate accuracy constraints. Until 1973 typewriters didn't have any method of actually correcting mistakes without stopping typing and manually doing something to the paper or just scrapping what you had typed and starting again. Let's not forget that with typewriters, you were printing as you typed. You were consuming physical resources that cost money as you typed i.e. paper, ink and later on correction ribbons. Poor accuracy cost you lots of time and money and possibly your job if continued to waste your employer's time and money. This meant that the typists of yesteryear were incredibly accurate - all the time. They had to be. There was too much riding on it if they weren't. Modern era typists can ignore their mistakes and just keep on typing and if they don't like how a test is going, guess what? They can just press a key or two to quit the test and start another one within a matter of seconds. Last time I checked, the completion rate of the top 30 typists on the Monkeytype 60 second leaderboard was and average of 18% with 18 of the 30 typists completing less than 10% of the tests they start and 7 of them dipping below 5% completion. What was the completion rate of an old school typist like Barbara? Probably almost 100% because every time she "quit" it was wasting physical resources that cost money. So by the time you factor in the variables of content and accuracy constraints (or lack of) and the fact that modern era typists constantly quit tests with no consequences you can see that although old school typists like Barbara may not have achieved great speeds of over 200 wpm, they were probably nearly as fast, far more accurate (consistently so, not just on one test) and they will have had much better endurance as a result. As soon as we got the ability to edit documents an unlimited number of times BEFORE printing them and the ability to spell check them BEFORE printing them true typing accuracy died.
This is just amazing research into such a obscure subject. I love it.
I still contend she trolled Letterman years before trolling became a thing. She "forgot" to load paper? And she "accidentally" moved her hands over one position? She got more fame doing that than a dull world record.
I maintain that this is standard caught cheating bs, not a troll
42 yo male smashing the 25 meter egg and spoon race
@@prac2what does this mean. Please
@@FuzzyDancingBearread it
@@darthsoxx4839 Reading it doesn't help if it is just word salad.
Journalists not back-checking their sources will always be suspicious, even back in the old days.
Wish I saw this video sooner, in middle or high school 2 of my friends and I all decided to learn and use the Dvorak keyboard layout. Specifically, because we heard that it was supposed to be a faster more efficient way of typing. I can't remember why or when I gave it up, but I remember getting to the point where I could type without looking at the keyboard normally. Just funny to have that life experience and find out this history behind it lol
This is an interesting tangent for speedrunning, but I very much appreciate the depth you went for this thing I don't care about (like most of your topics). Good stuff.
Karl: This woman is claimed to be the fastest typist in history ... Me: Oh, okay. Karl: ... but it's a lie! Me: Oh, okay. Karl's videos are always a wild ride.
Speed running has been filled with cheating narcissists since the 1940’s confirmed.
That comment killed me 😂😂😂😂😂😂
In this instance I cannot overly blame Barbara. She typed well and she does state "nearly 200 words per minute". It appears that the media has pressured and embellished her achievements. It is a shame that noone followed up on the facts until now
If you listen to the video, you would see that she can barely type. She lied and shes a fraud
It seems that the only person who for sure was straight up lying was the owner of Dvorak, Philip Davis. Who actually sent the letter to get her name in Guinness.
There was a standard of what a "word" was back then. It was 4 characters. No idea if they still go by that, but all the old typing tutorial software used that to measure what a word was.
Agreed and her "poor" performance on Letterman could just be performance anxiety, it happens to a LOT of people. She does say 170 on a typewriter and up to almost 200 on a computer, which seems plausable given what people can do today. Some embellishment, yeah of course but like you I don't put to much blame on her. More on Guinness and other sources not fact checking.
She had a voice and she was on multiple platforms(articles, talk shows), she could have admitted her achievements were obviously exaggerated by the dvorak people. I am not giving her any slack, she's a disgusting cheater by proxy. Pressure or not, you should stop the rumors before it becomes a ridiculous story and somebody unearths the lies and deception, it's inevitable.
Just wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this video! The drama type videos are fine but this was a really cool deep dive into something I didn't know I wanted to know about. Perfect youtube.
I have to say, that was a great video. You really investigated it very well indeed, and I found it quite engaging particularly as there probably arent many people who accuse her of cheating. Looking at her typing speed in that video (with her right hand over the wrong keys) it seems that I was probably faster at my peak - I used to get near 100 wpm with 99% accuracy, at least on a computer keyboard. There's no way she was getting near 170wpm, unless of course she already knew the passage she was going to type.
Man between the retro video game auctions and this video, you are a genuinely impressive investigative journalist. Happy for all the success you have achieved
Praise to you man. You don’t let anyone slip by your scrutiny
I used Dvorak about 20 years ago for two or three years. In my experience I didn’t type noticeably faster but typing felt less strenuous on my hands, because often used sequences of letters were placed closer together. That’s why I really liked it and still feel fondly of the layout. I eventually abandoned it because of low adoption, touch screen devices not supporting it at all (at the time), and there not even being an official version for my native language. I also noticed Dvorak advocates using sketchy arguments and claims at the time. But again, it was a pleasure to use.
Similar story I can maintain 100+WPM on Qwerty and wanted faster typing speed with Dvorak which my best friend used, he told me they only made Qwerty to slow people down on Dvorak because type writers were jamming, I later discovered when retelling this to a fellow redditor coworker of mine that this was a myth lmao 😂 But yeah it didn’t really make me type faster cuz my brain was so hard wired to Qwerty already I did learn the layout and was able to touch type on it but it still was slower than my Qwerty speed because that’s what I had originally hardwired my brain for. And I guess my brain was saying why tf do you need to type faster, Qwerty already works for you dumbass. Still a fun experience and interesting stories came out of it so I’ll take it.
Far out mate! This hits me in a personal level. She was the reason I switched to using the Dvorak layout. During high school I would show my friends my weird keyboard layout and tell thew how this was so much faster than the traditional. Even I spread her lies!
I am all for more non-game speed record videos going forward. This is great stuff!
Glad to see you mentioned Sean Wrona in this video, as a person that does typing content its always good to see familiar faces
I can't believe that now I'm researching the world record for typing... Great video!
I heard Barbara actually typed 2120 wpm while turned 180 degrees away from her keyboard, it was in the Guiness World records of 1812 book, the fastest before her was Henry VIII at 200wpm and before him was Charlemagne in 813 at 196wpm
Came here to say exactly this
ACTIALLY ☝️ Harald, Hard Ruler held the record of 212 runes per minute from 1066 but the pope made sure the record wasn't recorded
@@Heretbgthank you for bringing this record up! Harald was the best typer of his time, but sadly nobody knows about what he achieved nowadays
LMFAO
And she was using the Nintendo Wii steering wheel, and it wasn't even plugged in.
This is pretty cool for me to see because I have an interest in keyboard layouts and typing and have noticed conflicting info on Barbara MANY TIMES when doing research on various things. Even just a simple google search on fastest typing speeds will generate so many different stories and sources about her that don’t quite add up (at least this was accurate about a year ago). Never expected this in a million years but it was awesome
Another video on a random topic that i really enjoyed
This the most diabolical thing ive watched today 😂 thank you karl
Absolutely loved that one. One thing to note is how a "word" is defined as that is a bit counter-intuitive as it's not measured in real life words. A word in speed typing is commonly defined as 5 key strokes. Now this means that the average word length is actually 4 characters as there is obviously a space between every word (please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here). Taking punctuation into account means even shorter words, meaning that there is a discrepancy to real life words. Still a wpm of 200 means actually an APM of 1000 which might help many people to better put the achievements of speed typists into perspective.
holy hell
I mean I think that I type at smth like 60-80 wpm on your usual internet test on 2 languages and from video footage of this woman from this video she isn't that much faster whatsoever. And claims to be like 3x of that... A bit sus if you ask me :)
I learned how to type from ERP in Warcraft 3. You had to type 2500 wpm to finish before the game desynched or disconnected.
😢😢😢😢
LOL try trash talking your teammates right when an online game ends, you'll probably become the fastest typer in the universe
@@axtra9561rue. My second skill is typing insults with only my left hand while using the mouse with my right (MOBA player)
I once typed on Dvorak and it's indeed way easier to achieve high typing speeds with that layout as it features a huge amount of hand alternation, which allows you to move your hand into position always one letter ahead of the next letter you are going to type. And while also being more comfortable to use than QWERTY, I still got tendonitis when typing a whole lot per day. That's why I switched to Colemak. With Colemak you cannot type as fast as with Dvorak but it's still easier to type faster than using QWERTY and when it comes to comfort, it beats both Dvorak and QWERTY easily as your finger travel the smallest distances, you can often use a rolling motion to type multiple letters in a single swift and 70% of the time don't even leave the home row.
wish i had discovered speed typing when i was 9-13 years old playing on creative minecraft servers religiously for hours a day. my wpm back them was around 196-212 (according to my elementary school technology class, where i would race all my friends) and i now at 19 I still type with my left hand on WASD, not the home row.
Statistics state that, if given keyboards and infinite time, speedtypists will eventually write the phrase, 'Hello, you absolute legends.'
😂😂😂
This is one of the best myth debunking videos I have seen since YMS's Kimba the white lion video. This is why you look into the sources of a claim, because sometimes the source can be of low or zero credibility, misinterpreted, or outright nonexistent/false.
I like that video a lot! I was unfortunately fooled easily about the claim of "Disney took a dead creator's work and made millions". It was the other way around, minus the dead part and made millions, and the people behind that movie stole from Disney.
Back before YMS started talking about wanting to fuck dogs
Love YMS's Kimba vid so informative even as someone fairly familiar with the scandal!
searched that video b/c I remember hearing about that controversy. Wow that video is a savage take-down on the conspiracy and I'm only like 10 mins in. Thanks for the mention
That YMS video is one of my favorite videos ever on KZhead. It's time to rewatch it and hope The Lion King (2019) part 2 comes out this year.
My mother was a secretary in the 70's and she still prides herself on how fast she could, and still can, type. I seem to remember there were different classes of secretary and typing speed was the determining factor, she was at the top. 150 words/m springs to mind but i could be wrong.
@karljobst Superb job as always.... It looks like you have done more research on this one video than the sum of all the articles, stories and claims about it. Not sure if I am shocked or appalled that people just keep repeating the same thing over and over, as fact, and morphing it into something else - all without ever checking for themselves.
I use Dvorak, it’s maybe a tiny bit faster, but personally the more important thing is it makes my hands hurt less. Little things like all of the vowels being on the home row reduces finger strain over entire work days.
I used Dvorak for awhile but found dealing with keyboard shortcuts to be frustrating, particularly the copy/paste block. I switched to Colemak (a sort of compromise layout that improves many key locations while trying to keep common shortcut keys in the same place) for a few years but ultimately have fallen back into using QWERTY due to a few work places not allowing me to change and switching back and forth wasn't worth it. Really sucks though, Colemak definitely put less strain on my hands.
I use Dvorak for the same reason ... I'd never heard that speed was even a purported benefit.
I appreciate the - and _ on the home row for kebab and snake cased coding respectively. Other layouts I've played with made it too difficult to program in.
@@gotoastal I actually custom-switch that key and the ;: key lol for that reason.
@@masaufuku1735 The best part of Colemak is swapping the useless CapsLock key to be the Backspace function!
Thank you Karl for respecting Dvorak's Czech descent and trying to pronounce letter Ř in his name! ❤❤❤
I've never heard anyone actually refer to the keyboard layout as Dvořák. While the creator's name is of Czech origin, I believe it had shifted to an American pronunciation by the time he was born. But I say Gif peanut butter just to turn some heads.
@@japhyriddle true. Interestingly enough there's a note on his Wikipedia page stating that his descendants don't pronounce it the Czech way. And presumably he didn't pronounce it that way either.
It didn't occure to me that Dvorak is inventor's surname until Karl pronounced it as we pronounce Antonin Dvorak's surname in Russian.
@@dantealighieri5547 So it's pronounced "Dvorjak"? I kept thinking why is he putting a "J" in there?
@@Hyxtryx yes, that's how Czech ř pronounced.
This was incredibly fascinating. I never thought I'd be intrigued by typing
Karl, would you share the list of sources that you consulted so the Wikipedia article on Barbara can be corrected? Specifically, the ones about how her records got into Guinness because of intervention from the inventor of Dvorak, but the rest can be used as well.
A small correction regarding the pronunciation of Dvorak, it's not the czech Dvořák ("Dvor-jack"), just Dvo-Rak as it's written. The inventor of the layout, August Dvorak, was born in the US and was called Dvorak, so it follows that his layout is pronounced the same, and not like the name of the famous czech composer who happened to be his distant cousin.
@@CMCMTTTV you're not required to pronounce a word exactly like the original language it's from, specially of someone born where the language is not spoken. Mozart has different pronounciations in many languages, even though it's Austrian, no one's obliged to call him "Moot-zaaht".
@@CMCMTTTV But the typing layout is also trademarked. That makes the incorrect pronunciation, correct for the use of naming this typing layout. :v
Like John C. Dvorak?
My pronouns are attack/ helicopter.
@@oliveryt7168 it's 2023 get a new joke
Man, can't say I expected speed typing to be a topic covered on this channel. Really never know what to expect, but always entertaining/interesting.
Karl at 9:30 you hit “Dvorak” the best I’ve ever heard anyone who doesn’t speak czech say it and, I’ve been hearing it butchered for years, it made me really happy to hear big up the OG legend
It's pronounced D-vorack. It's American, not Czech.
The name of the Dvorak keyboard layout is pronounced differently from the composer's name. I typed on Dvorak for over 10 years, and am in the process of trying my own variation of NotGate's ISRT layout now.
She should have a guiness world record for being cited inaccurately for a guiness world records 😂
Nah that'd be Tommy Tallarico
@@madeliner1682beat me to it
Karl’s such a thorough researcher, he found the letter J in “Dvorak” when even his video sources couldn’t be bothered to do so. :p
With this symphony of research its a new world!
The video sources are correct. (the keyboard layout designer) August Dvorak's name is pronounced without the /ʒ/, while (the composer) Antonín Dvořák's name is pronounced with the /ʒ/
Idk why I had to scroll so far to find this, but it's definitely better than what I was going to say so take my like!
@@theonlymrcat638sorry I liked replied and deleted to you twice but really said nothing of use and they sounded argumentative... So I deleted them.
its the czech pronunciation
awesome taking us off the beaten path for this one
Great and entertaining analysis!