Sunday Maptinee: Teaching Geography Through Humor

What do you do when you want to take the geography world by storm while still making people laugh? Start a YouTube channel, of course! The Map Men have done just that, creating a series of geography themed episodes highlighting some pretty cool information about the world around us.

Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman are the Map Men, combining comedy with real information about geography and its importance to our world today. They chose maps as their communication medium because maps are visual; people naturally respond to visual stimuli, and are more likely to want to learn more about a particular topic if they see an interesting visual first.

Mark and Jay tapped into the cartography market, knowing that maps were just the gateway to getting geography out there in the world in a prominent fashion. Making people laugh is another way the two get the word out- people come looking for a quick laugh and end up learning something, too.

Through their videos Mark and Jay have tapped into such controversial issues such as British colonialism, the India Pakistan divide, and differences between the United States and, well, pretty much everywhere else. The two balance the often depressing realm of political or human geography with the very real, very funny, stories behind many of the maps we see around us.

People often think that geography is boring, and it definitely can be. However, the Map Men have created an alternative to the typical method of studying geography and have created something that can be laughed with and at. Far from skimping on facts for a laugh, the Map Men are redefining what it means to learn about the world around us through many different sources.

Start Watching: Map Men