Adam Ragusea

Adam Ragusea
Ragusea in 2014
Personal information
Born
Adam Conrad Ragusea

(1982-03-22) March 22, 1982 (age 42)
Pennsylvania, U.S.[‡ 1]
Education
Occupation(s)YouTuber
Professor of journalism (former)
Websiteadamragusea.com
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2010–present (first started producing food videos in 2017)
Genre(s)Cooking, science journalism
Subscribers2.4 million[1]
Total views652 million[1]
100,000 subscribers2019
1,000,000 subscribers2020
Last updated: 19 February 2024

Adam Ragusea (/rəˈɡuːsiə/ rə-GOO-see-ə; born March 22, 1982) is an American YouTuber who creates videos about food recipes, food science, and culinary culture. Until 2020, Ragusea was a professor of journalism at Mercer University.[2][3][4]

Early life and education

Ragusea grew up in State College, Pennsylvania.[4] Ragusea attended the Eastman School of Music but left before the end of his first year.[5] He finished his bachelor's degree in music theory and composition at Penn State University in 2004.[‡ 2] He completed all coursework towards a Master of Music at Indiana University Bloomington, but did not graduate.[‡ 3]

Career

Journalism

Ragusea began as a reporter in public media for the Indiana University-owned WFIU, before moving to WBUR-FM in Boston, and then Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB).[6] While at GPB, he served as the organization's Macon Bureau Chief and host of the local Morning Edition.[7]

Adam Ragusea was a journalist in residence at Mercer University from 2014 until February 2020, teaching introductory and advanced journalism, and media production classes, while coordinating with regional news outlets partnered with the university's journalism program.[8][9][10] During his time at Mercer, Ragusea was the longtime host of and contributor to Current's The Pub, a trade podcast covering the public media industry.[citation needed]

YouTube

Ragusea created his YouTube channel on February 12, 2010, and his first videos were food recipes, made with the intention of sharing with his friends.[11] His videos began to garner attention for his "straight-to-the-point" style that is influenced by his background in journalism.[12] He also cites SpongeBob SquarePants as an influence on his style of comedy, describing it as "edgy but fundamentally [...] just a beam of bright sunshine".[13] He launched "The Adam Ragusea Podcast" with the first episode "Dorian Yates Drumsticks" releasing on February 25, 2022. Ragusea announced that he would drop from his usual 2 videos a week along with the podcast to only 1 video a week plus the podcast on December 19, 2022 in a video titled "The next phase of our relationship".[14]

Personal life

Since mid-2021, Ragusea has lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his wife, novelist Lauren Morrill, and their two children. He previously lived in Macon, Georgia.[‡ 4][‡ 5]

References

  1. ^ a b "About Adam Ragusea". YouTube.
  2. ^ Thomas, June (June 8, 2020). "How Journalist Adam Ragusea Became a YouTube Star". Slate Magazine. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
  3. ^ "How YouTuber Adam Ragusea Learned to Talk to the Camera | Working". Slate Magazine. June 7, 2020. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
  4. ^ a b Eating Spicy Food Doesn't Mean You're Tough, says SCIENCE, retrieved October 2, 2022
  5. ^ How I became the Mariah Carey Christmas chord guy (and why I hate it), retrieved December 20, 2022
  6. ^ "Adam Ragusea". Georgia Public Broadcasting. May 10, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  7. ^ "Press Publish 13: Adam Ragusea on podcasts and the pessimist's case for public radio's future". Nieman Lab. August 19, 2015. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  8. ^ "How Adam Ragusea's journalism background helps him in his YouTube career". YouTube. February 12, 2020. Archived from the original on August 30, 2020. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  9. ^ Rammohan, Janani P. (July 4, 2019). "Food videos bring Mercer professor millions of views". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Archived from the original on June 11, 2020. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  10. ^ "The CCJ Team - Mercer University". Archived from the original on September 9, 2016. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  11. ^ "Former professor quit his job at Mercer to become a full-time YouTube creator". WMAZ-TV. February 13, 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
  12. ^ "He was teaching at Mercer when a video he posted on YouTube went viral. Now, he's a full-time YouTube creator". WMAZ. February 12, 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
  13. ^ Ragusea, Adam (July 2, 2019). "The professor that went viral". YouTube. Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Where I take a lot of inspiration from oddly enough is Spongebob Squarepants ... that show is like there's so much acidity in it, like ... it's edgy but fundamentally it's still just a beam of bright sunshine, you know, I want to be Spongebob upon the world.
  14. ^ The next phase of our relationship, retrieved December 20, 2022

Primary sources

In the text these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):

  1. ^ Ragusea, Adam (August 3, 2020). "Why Hershey bars taste like vomit (and I love them)". YouTube. I grew up in central Pennsylvania not far from where Milton Hershey lived, there's an amusement park there called Hershey Park.
  2. ^ Ragusea, Adam (September 28, 2020). "How flash-freezing preserves food quality". YouTube. That's doctor John Coupland, a food science professor at my alma mater Penn State
  3. ^ Ragusea, Adam (December 21, 2020). "How I became the Mariah Carey Christmas chord guy (and why I hate it)". YouTube. [...] I finished all my coursework for my masters, but I never graduated.
  4. ^ "About".
  5. ^ "Adam Ragusea on Instagram: "Greetings from Tennessee! Folks have been asking, so I figured I should clear things up and confirm that we did move to Knoxville a few…"". Instagram. Retrieved February 1, 2022.