Paul "Barby" Barbato (born June 8, 1987) is the host of Geography Now, an educational and vlogging YouTube channel. Through its main series and namesake, it covers the geography, history, politics, culture and diplomacy of a sovereign country per episode, through the alphabetical list of United Nations members. Other series are Geography More, an extension of the main series, Geography Go, with vlogs of his travels, and Flag Fridays, a spin-off about the flags and symbols of countries already covered in the main series. Fans of Geography Now are known as 'Geograpeeps.'
Content
Production
Videos are typically filmed at the YouTube space studios in Playa del Rey, Los Angeles, California, USA and are uploaded typically 3-4 times a month with short seasonal intermissions. The videos include an array of simple motion graphic animation sequences.
Geography Now (main series)
Paul's flagship series; it includes Paul talking to the viewer in a black background, with his friends as side actors. The countries discussed follow the United Nations alphabetical list of members, meaning non-UN members such as Vatican City and Taiwan are not included, while the Republic of Macedonia, like in the UN is titled "Macedonia (FYROM)" for "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in order to prevent controversy from Greek viewers who identify the name "Macedonia" as purely Greek. As such, the Macedonia episode is on the "F" category. Official names are also used, so an episode is "Cote d'Ivoire" and not "Ivory Coast."
Dissecting the Flag (discontinued)
Information about the country's flag and the significance that each part of the flag symbolizes – as of May 2016, the Flag Dissection has been replaced by a separate series, "Flag Friday" to be able to upload more videos in a shorter time.
Political Geography
A closer look and analysis on the borders, capital, cities, roads, enclaves, exclaves, regional divisions, over seas territories, autonomous regions, and constituent affiliated territories under the countries sovereignty as well as famous landmarks, buildings and places of interest.
Physical Geography
An overview of the landscape of the country and what the physical components of the land are made up of. This includes forests, deserts, mountains, lakes, rivers, arable land, agriculture and economic production, land cultivation, and domestic resources.
Demographics
A study into the population of the country, the people, the races, the diversity, the culture, the traditions, the language, the government, the notable citizens, the legislation, the heads of state, minor historical anecdotes (however generally history is not highly expounded upon extensively as the show tries to maintain a condensed yet compact lesson covering every category in about 10 minutes).
The Friend Zone
A section that discusses all about the diplomacy and international affairs of the country and how it relates to the rest of the world. Which countries are allies? Which countries are enemies? Why? Typically section ends with the "Best friend" of the country.
Geography More
In Geography More, Paul discusses additional information that was reaserched, but somehow were not included in the main series. It is also a time for Paul to clarify any mistakes in his episodes. It is filmed in Paul's Los Angeles home.
Flag Fridays
Flag Fridays is where Paul discusses the flag and emblem of the country featured in the main series' most recent episode. Like the main series, it is also the work of some of Paul's crew and friends, most notably animations on the reccuring trend of flags with the color red symbolizing "the blood of those who fought for the country." It also features Paul reading and showing off fan mail from Geograpeeps. The series was made as a spin-off from the 'Dissecting the Flag' section of the main series after the latter was removed.
Viewers
As of April 2017, Geography Now has more than 500,000 subscribers, with views ranging from 40,000 to 600,000. Fans of the channel are called 'Geograpeeps.' Paul gains a lot on fan mail, which is often souveneirs and letters from the receiver. Paul also makes fan videos from video clips of his fans sent to him.
April Fool's
Paul is known for making yearly April Fool's Day prank videos.
In 2015, he made an episode on a fictional country, "Bandiaterra" (the name fitting as the series was still on the 'B' section then), located in the middle of the Indian Ocean. According to Paul, Bandiaterra was settled by East African "Bandian" refugees and was heavily influenced by Denmark in the Age of Colonization. Bandiaterra went viral through the internet and set up its own lore and fanbase, with anthem YouTubers even uploading the "national anthem" of Bandiaterra.
In 2016, he made a parody video on educational YouTuber CGP Grey; as "PGC Brey" he discusses the "kinds of" countries, based on the video How Many Countries Are There?.
In 2017 he made a "Geometry Now " video where he discusses Math and Geometry, and claimed it was "sponsored by the government of Bandiaterra", a reference to the 2015 video.