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Frame from Beats That Defy Boxes | Reggie Watts | TED Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Beats That Defy Boxes | Reggie Watts | TED

96 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this talk2 months2013–2022 score 2.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN points to it as a memorable performance that doubles as a parody of TED talks and a showcase of live vocal looping.

Reggie Watts performs at TED 2012, blending vocal looping, beatboxing, poetry and comedy across musical genres in a larger-than-life improvised set.

“His TED talk is one for the ages” (HN, 2022)

1 strong recommendations · 1 recommendations · 2 jokes · Talks

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@mxfh Dec 2013 Recommends
on HN thread We Need to Talk About TED
Reggie Watts pretty much said it all back in 2012. [this video] Hard to imagine how anyone could follow up after this.
Parody of TED talks.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@boondaburrah Jun 2017 Makes a joke
on HN thread Buzzword Ipsum
Here is Reggie Watts, at actual TED, near as I can tell live synthesizing a ted-talk out of radiation picked up through his hair. [this video]

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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