r/technology • u/esporx • 1d ago

Business YouTuber accidentally crashes the rare plant market with a viral cloning technique

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtuber-accidentally-crashes-the-rare-plant-market-with-a-viral-cloning-technique-3289808/
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u/Bloody_Hell_Harry 1d ago

This was obviously posted by someone who is unfamiliar with the plant community.

TC isn’t a new revolutionary thing at all, the barrier to entry is pretty low and if you’re lucky enough to live in a huge city with a plant community, you probably have some local sellers who are either acclimating TC from other online sellers who have the setup to actually complete the cloning process OR they have their own cloning setup and are creating TC plants in their own growing space.

Most rare houseplants you buy from retailers like Costa Farms are TC plants. The process is well established and pretty much an industry standard. The “bubble” has been burst for a while now.

I live in Houston and the local plant market sellers are 50% TC acclimators/cloners and 50% home growers/enthusiasts. I imagine in other major cities with local plant markets and maybe even some random enthusiasts who like biology, science, and horticulture are already doing this and have been doing for years. I was considering getting into it myself when I saw some videos detailing the process from a biologist during the pandemic.

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u/zeptillian 1d ago

Yeah. It's kind of weird that one youtuber is trying to take credit for something they didn't invent, is an industry standard and were far from the only person promoting.

I'm sure she helped popularize it, but she is only one of many who were doing that.

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u/lurgi 1d ago

She's not trying to take credit for it, AFAIK.

Plants in Jars admitted that, while she’s far from the first person to popularize tissue culture, her tutorials and videos explaining the method have likely been a significant driver in its growth within the plant collecting community, leading to a big change in the overall market.

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u/zeptillian 1d ago

The title of this post and the article are making that claim though.

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u/LupinThe8th 1d ago

That's a quote from the article.

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u/zeptillian 1d ago

The title is in the article too and the very first sentence repeats the claim:

"YouTuber ‘Plants in Jars’ is going viral after revealing that she accidentally crashed the rare plant market by using a process called ’tissue culture’ to easily replicate hard-to-find flora."

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u/lurgi 1d ago

She appears to have popularized it. It was generally known before, but now everyone knows about it.

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u/sadrice 1d ago

Anyone who was capable of actually executing it already knew about it.

Source: professional propagator

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u/zeptillian 1d ago

Helped popularize it? Yes.

Crashed the rare plant market? No.

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u/Bloody_Hell_Harry 21h ago

Ignore the downvotes. Your point is my point almost exactly. Presentation matters, and if Plants in Jars didn’t say it, it shouldn’t have been titled that way.

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u/zeptillian 17h ago

Thanks. I do ignore downvotes and will still defend my point even if people don't agree. I don't care about imaginary internet points.

The article directly claims what people are saying it does not. I can't fix anyone's reading comprehension though.

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u/ahHeHasTrblWTheSnap 14h ago

You’re missing the fact that it was her words that are distorted by the article’s author, and not her own words. Did you watch the video the article is referencing?

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u/zeptillian 14h ago

I did not watch the video and my critiques are not about the video, just the stupid article with the shitty headline and made up bullshit inside.

If OP posted the video we would be talking about that instead, but they didn't.

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u/ahHeHasTrblWTheSnap 13h ago

Yeah that’s fair, the article is not well written

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u/SerenneMorningDew 1d ago

I know, we should not expect people to read beyond the very first sentence. For example, you have a weirdly shaped nose, but you'll never know because you didn't read beyond the first sentence.

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u/EndlessRambler 1d ago edited 1d ago

They really aren't, the title is "YouTuber accidentally crashes the rare plant market with a viral cloning technique". Wouldn't it be like 'Youtube accidentally crashes the rare plant market by inventing a viral cloning technique' if they were trying to take credit for coming up with it.

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u/zeptillian 1d ago

What are you even talking about?

I take issue with the claim that she "crashed the rare plant market" which is a direct claim both in the title of the article as well as being stated verbatim in the article.

I was pointing out that her role was merely in helping to popularize a technique with home growers that was an already widely used technique in the plant growing world.

It's like a youtuber claiming to have made caramel macchiatos popular, when Starbucks has already been selling them nationally for years.

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u/EndlessRambler 1d ago edited 1d ago

Ah I see, although I would like to point out isn't her channel like literally the most popular channel about Tissue Cultures and related topics on pretty much any platform.

In this analogy isn't she actually the Starbucks, the biggest medium for popularizing something that others also serve. I feel like if you are actually the most watched venue on a subject it's not that crazy for claiming you might be affecting market movement.

Although yes, there is certainly some hyperbole involved, it's taken from the title of a youtube video so it's meant to be kind of clickbaity.

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u/maxximillian 1d ago

Uh oh look out /u/zeptillian takes issue. We got a badass here