People outside of Hawai‘i maintain a great deal of curiosity about the Islands. There is no place where this is more apparent than Youtube.
Youtubers love dissecting Hawai‘i’s problems. People love watching them.
Random independently produced documentaries published on the site often attract millions of views. One video published a year ago, for example, profiled Hawai‘i’s power grids.
Before you assume it’s a boring topic, keep in mind that the video has since attracted two million views. People want to learn more about Hawai‘i.
On Youtube, national and international media organizations use the lack of paywalls to continually attract audiences years after a story is published.
Of these, the hardest-hitting example is John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight.” On August 15, 2024, Oliver published a segment that quickly garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
As of January 2026, the video has racked up 5.9 million views. For people with limited knowledge of Hawai‘i who search for the Islands in Youtube’s search bar, Oliver’s reporting can serve as an introduction.
AJ+, a publication that received support from the government of Qatar, financed a similar piece. Even after they are published, these videos continue to circulate on the internet, suspended in a perpetual state of accessibility.
While these media organizations might have the resources to push these pieces, they are not the most fascinating content creators investigating Hawai‘i.
Many creators on the platform operate independent brands, many of which also craft content tailored to specific audiences craving shorter-form documentaries. Their documentaries and short-form videos matter, as their educational content has a major impact on how millions of people around the world perceive Hawai‘i.
The scripts of these documentaries can often take the form of longer pieces in journalism, explaining complex issues in an entertaining, audiovisual format.
The Narrative of ‘Dying’ Islands
One channel, Cogito, has developed at least two videos documenting Hawai‘i’s systemic issues for an international audience.
The first video, to date, has garnered more than four million views. Cogito is run by Domhnall O Luchrain, a Youtube content creator whose LinkedIn lists him as being located in Spain.
It was followed earlier this year by another video which concludes that America’s island communities, such as Puerto Rico and Hawai‘i, are collapsing.
“America’s islands are dying,” the video concludes in the first minute. “They’re crushed by debt. Life has become unaffordable, and those who call these islands home are being forced out at a rate that you’d expect to see in wartime.”
Another producer, RealLifeLore, took the opportunity to relate the U.S. military’s takeover of the Hawaiian Islands. Their documentary was published over two years ago, earning 4.4 million views.
Even before Oliver and these two media channels, the independent journalist Bianca Gralau pursued her own investigation into Hawai‘i. While it is difficult to know how these journalists and content creators inspire each other, their fascination with Hawai‘i is singular.
Both Cogito and RealLifeLore told stories about Hawai‘i that earned audiences that more than double Hawai‘i’s population. Beyond John Oliver and mainstream news sources, their videos showed that people want to learn more about Hawai‘i.
RealLifeLore, Half As Interesting and Wendover Productions
Three channels have had a bigger influence over Youtube than even mainstream news organizations. They have collaborated in the past on videos on other topics (such as isolated Alaska towns), and their content often focuses on the novelties of Hawai‘i.
RealLifeLore’s video on why it is difficult to travel between the Islands by boat has 6.3 million views. It is a veiled critique of Hawai‘i’s failure to provide enough transportation access by boat between the state’s most populated islands. The video’s reach is striking, surpassing even John Oliver’s viral report.
A video by Wendover Productions opens at a Safeway on Kapahulu Avenue in Honolulu. It covers the unique logistical challenges facing the State of Hawai‘i, whose closest port is Los Angeles. Wendover Productions focuses on geographic anomalies, rendering Hawai‘i a natural topic in terms of its relative population size and geographic isolation. “It’s as far from Los Angeles as New York,” their video opens. “As far from Anchorage as Norway. As far from Japan as Afghanistan.” Hawai‘i is a natural topic for their curious audience.
To foreigners, Hawai‘i is a novel place because of its nuances. Our aluminum cans, for instance, are evidently weird.
A video on Hawai‘i’s rigid aluminum cans attracted nearly twice the population of the Hawaiian Islands. It is inspired by Half As Interesting, a channel with very close ties to Wendover Productions. Both Wendover Productions and Half as Interesting were created by Sam Denby, a successful Youtube content creator.
In a later report, Half as Interesting couldn’t help but also poke fun at the construction of the Highway Interstate Three (H-3), the most expensive highway in U.S. history.
Where’s the Local Content?
Perhaps Hawai‘i’s residents don’t know how much the world wants to know about Hawai‘i.
There is ample room for local documentaries to tell more stories about Hawai‘i for audiences beyond our shores.
In the last six months, two different Youtube channels have profiled Hawai‘i’s airlines and their challenges. One video published less than six months ago examined the collapse of Aloha Airlines, earning a quarter-of-a-million views. A more provocative commentary submitted less than three months ago has opined that Hawaiian Airlines will not survive.
These videos also tell us a lot more about the world than Hawai‘i. The world, through platforms like Youtube, is trying to understand Hawai‘i’s challenges. Our highways, aluminum cans, and political history are all natural topics.
Hawai‘i has an intellectual audience. More of our people need to produce content for this audience. If we are so frustrated with the world’s ignorance about these islands, we need to become the world’s educators.
