For years now, YouTube has been flooded with those awful "tutorials" that have no voiceover, just background music and someone randomly clicking through menus expecting you to somehow absorb what they're doing by osmosis. You know the ones. No explanation, no context, no teaching, just click click click and hope you figure it out. And honestly, I've never really worried about those. Most people watch about ten seconds, realize they're not learning anything, and move on to something actually useful.

However, I ran into something yesterday that's been bothering me more and more lately, and it's something I think everyone needs to be aware of, especially if you're learning anything technical online. I was doing my usual keyword searches, looking for gaps where I might want to create new Microsoft Access tutorials. I came across a video that looked solid at first glance. Clean thumbnail, decent title, clean-sounding voiceover (although it sounded AI-generated to me). It looked and sounded professional - like the creator knew what he was talking about. The topic was using the Count function in Access. Simple enough.

Except the content was completely wrong. Not slightly off. Not a minor mistake. As my wife likes to say, "one-thousand percent" wrong. Here's the video. You watch it and tell me if you can spot the problem. On the surface it looked Starfleet. Under the hood, it was pure Pakled engineering. We need things that make us go.

The video walks through building a query and claims to demonstrate the Count function, but what it actually does is create a simple alias field that just repeats data from another column. There is no aggregation. No totals. No counting. It's the kind of mistake you only make if you don't actually understand how Access queries work.

So I left a comment. Politely, but clearly, explaining the issue (1). Then I looked at the rest of the channel. Dozens of videos. All short. All polished thumbnails. All pumped out at a rapid pace. It's pretty obvious what's going on. This isn't someone teaching from experience. This is someone cranking out content as fast as possible, likely leaning heavily on AI, without actually understanding the material. And that's the real problem.

I love AI. I use it every day. It's fantastic for brainstorming, tightening up writing, catching things I might have missed, and helping organize ideas. It's a great assistant. But it's not a substitute for actual knowledge or experience. What we're starting to see now is a flood of what is being called AI slop. Content that looks professional on the surface but falls apart the moment you actually understand the subject. And for beginners, that's dangerous, because they don't yet know what's right and what's nonsense.

If you're learning Access, or anything technical, be careful who you trust. Just because a video looks good doesn't mean the information is correct. Watch for red flags. Things that don't quite make sense. Results that don't match the explanation. Inconsistencies. And if something feels off, it probably is. There's a lot of great content out there from people who actually know what they're doing. But there's also a growing pile of noise. Your job is to learn how to tell the difference.

And to be clear, this isn't me hating on some new creator. I love seeing new people making videos about Microsoft Access. Anything that brings more awareness to Access and helps grow the community is a good thing. I routinely highlight and promote other creators when they're putting out good, useful content. I share links, I give credit where it's due, and I actively try to support the community as a whole.

Heck, I even repost Mike Wolfe's Access Week in Review on my site every Sunday specifically to help promote other Access developers, articles, and videos. I've got zero problem sending traffic to other people when they're doing solid work. There's plenty of room for all of us, and more quality content only helps everyone.

What I do have a problem with is garbage content. Stuff like those articles that trash Access just to funnel you into expensive "conversion services," or the so-called recovery tools that charge you for something you can fix yourself in ten minutes, or creators like this who are clearly just cranking out AI-generated filler to chase keywords on YouTube and Google. It's all noise, and it muddies the waters for people who are genuinely trying to learn.

This kind of low-effort, high-volume content is everywhere right now, especially on YouTube and TikTok. It looks polished on the surface, but there's no real understanding behind it. And that's the part people need to watch out for. Just because something looks professional doesn't mean it's correct. (2)

LLAP
RR

(1) My comment: This video does not show what it claims to show. What you've built here is not a Count query. The field Count: Company is just a calculated field with an alias. It simply repeats the Company value under a different column name. No counting is happening at all. In Microsoft Access, Count only works as an aggregate function. You have to enable Totals (the Sigma button) or write an aggregate query like Count. Without that, the query still returns one row per record, which is exactly what your result shows. A real Count query would return a single total (or grouped totals), not a full list of records with duplicated values. You explained the concept correctly, but the actual implementation in the video is incorrect.

(2) This kind of thing isn't limited to tech tutorials. You see it all over the place, in politics, in science, in everyday life. Just because someone has a big platform, a polished presentation, or the loudest voice repeating something over and over doesn't make it true. Meanwhile, the people who actually know what they're talking about are often quieter, more measured, and easier to overlook. It's human nature to gravitate toward confidence and repetition, but that's not the same as accuracy. So take a step back, think critically, and don't assume something is correct just because it's being broadcast loudly and confidently.