Every day at 4 PM, something unusual happens. While most people are wrapping up work or checking their phones, Anand is deep in YouTube—not for entertainment, but as part of a carefully orchestrated ritual that's been running for over 16 years. His viewing history reads less like a casual user's feed and more like the research log of someone systematically mapping two distinct universes.
The data doesn't lie: 20,769 videos watched since 2009, spanning 3,604 unique channels. But the real story isn't in the numbers—it's in the patterns they reveal about a life lived at the intersection of tradition and innovation.
The 4 PM Mystery
At first glance, the hourly distribution looks like a mistake. There's a dramatic surge starting at noon, peaking sharply at 4 PM with 2,318 videos, then falling off a cliff. From 6 PM to 11 PM—prime time for most YouTube users—there's almost nothing. Just 302 videos across five hours.
This isn't procrastination. It's the signature of someone who has structured their life around two distinct modes: learning and living. The afternoon hours are for absorbing knowledge, watching lectures, reviewing his own teaching content. The evenings? Reserved for life outside the screen.
The Double Life
But here's where it gets interesting. The data reveals not one YouTube user, but two people occupying the same account:
🤖 The AI Professional
3,454 videos on LLMs, machine learning, coding, prompt engineering. Recent favorites: Ilya Sutskever on scaling, RAG implementations, vision models.
"In the last 6 months, AI/Tech content has doubled from 15.8% to 31.9% of total viewing."
🎭 The Cultural Connector
2,167 videos of Telugu and Tamil cinema. The data shows systematic exploration: Tamil Talkies (222 videos), SonyMusicSouthVEVO (408 videos).
"The pattern: intense music binges (longest: 11 songs in 47 minutes), often following work-heavy days."
These worlds rarely intersect. The Indian entertainment videos peak during different hours, serve different emotional needs. They're not a distraction from the work—they're a different kind of work: maintaining connection to roots while building a future in AI.
The Search Obsession
Here's the most revealing stat: 28.6% of all YouTube activity is searches, not views. That's 5,944 searches over 16 years. For context, the average YouTube user searches maybe 2-3 times per session.
The top searches read like a research agenda: "telugu movie" (160 times), "gramener" (17 times), "anand s" (14 times), "ted ed" (18 times). This isn't browsing—it's systematic knowledge acquisition. And quality control: he searches for his own content to see how it appears, how it ranks.
The Teaching Paradox
At 4 AM, when most people are asleep, there's a small but consistent spike in activity. Cross-reference this with content type, and a pattern emerges: this is when he reviews his own teaching content. 199 videos from his "Anand S" channel, 180 from Gramener, 140 from IIT Madras courses.
The timing isn't random. Early morning, before the world wakes up, is when you catch mistakes, refine explanations, ensure quality. It's the teacher's equivalent of a writer rereading their work at dawn, when the mind is fresh but the ego is still asleep.
The Transformation Underway
The most dramatic finding appears when you split the data at six months ago. Something fundamental shifted:
AI and tech content has exploded—doubling in proportion. Education content (TED-Ed, how-to videos) has collapsed by two-thirds. Music has nearly vanished. This isn't gradual drift; it's intentional transformation.
The hypothesis: As AI capabilities accelerated in late 2024—Claude Sonnet 4.5, GPT-4o, better vision models— the learning curve steepened. The margin for error narrowed. Every hour counts, so the cultural content gets compressed, the musical interludes cut short. The polymath is choosing.
The Curiosity Engine
Amidst all this focused learning, there's TED-Ed: 489 videos that serve as a counterbalance. Sample topics: "The science of milk," "The hidden meanings of yin and yang," "The scientific origins of the Minotaur." These aren't related to work. They're intellectual wandering—the kind of curiosity that keeps a mind flexible.
The longest TED-Ed binge? 31 videos in a row. That's 5+ hours of pure curiosity-driven learning, no practical application in sight. It's a reminder that even the most focused learning path needs tributaries.
What This Means
This isn't a story about someone who watches a lot of YouTube. It's a story about someone who has weaponized YouTube as a learning platform while maintaining cultural identity.
The patterns reveal:
- Intentionality: The 4 PM ritual, the early morning reviews—these are systems, not habits
- Dual identity: Professional and cultural, never fully merged but both maintained
- Research mindset: 28.6% searches vs. average user's ~5%
- Quality obsession: Reviewing own content 533 times
- Transformation in progress: Doubling down on AI as it becomes critical
The caveats are important: This data can't tell us how much of each video was watched, what was absorbed vs. skimmed, whether a 90-video music binge represents joy or stress. The search patterns might reflect research for students, not just personal learning.
But the macro pattern is clear. This is how someone builds expertise in real-time: systematic, structured, but with intentional space for cultural grounding and pure curiosity. It's the viewing history of someone preparing for a world that doesn't exist yet, while staying connected to one that does.
16+ years. 20,769 videos. 3,604 channels. But the real metric is this: in the last six months, as AI entered its most volatile phase, viewing patterns shifted dramatically. The polymath is becoming a specialist. The question is whether he'll keep that 4 PM ritual when the transformation is complete.