You'll never guess the most popular internet country code

Have you ever stopped to think why the two-letter country codes in the world's websites are what they are? We have*, and it turns out it's a fascinating tale with a lovely detailed map to stare at.
Actually, it was Jonathan ('flocky') Flockton who suggested it, and it was a really good idea. Thanks Flocky!
Thanks to Nominet
www.nominet.uk...
BUY MAP MEN MUGS, T-SHIRTS, POSTERS ETC...
www.mapmenmerch...
SEE NEW EPISODES EARLY, AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES EXTRAS...
/ jayforeman
Written and presented by
JAY FOREMAN / jayforeman
MARK COOPER-JONES / markcooperjones
Director/DOP
JADE NAGI / jade_nagi
Edited by
JAY FOREMAN
Runner
ABBY TIMMS
VFX
DAVE BRAIN / guksack
Batty McFadden - Slower by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommon...
Source: incompetech.com...
Artist: incompetech.com/

[@anchiit]

Funny men back

[@WellCookedPotatoes]

He he

[@Idk-ys7rt]

Fr

[@Deathhead68]

This cracked me up

[@rileygvgofficial]

Menmap

[@bullettime8760]

Mhm, they're men and with a map

[@griffredarmy]

As an American, your description of how we think of country codes was 100% on point

[@doxielain2231]

Murica!

[@alan-]

"think" is an overstatememt

[@catherinebutler4819]

On the other hand, the UK took exactly the same attitude towards stamps (the internet of the 19th century!). Even now, only the UK doesn't put the name of the country on their stamps (or so I'm told).

[@tweekins]

Everyone else is just kind of a background country for use in the plots of our movies. I'm not 100% convinced that the UK actually exists. It may have just been created as the ideal place to set historical dramas for TV shows. Same goes for Russia. I think that place was just created to give Boris and Natasha a little backstory.

[@JayForeman]

It's true. We don't. And it's the same for the "English" FA.@@catherinebutler4819

[@EyalBrown]

The editing of these video never fails to make me laugh. The graphic blocking Jay's face is just top tier metahumor.

[@BasicallyBaconSandvichIV]

True. These videos are hilarious.

[@slyseal2091]

I wish England was a real place you could go to

[@DrNothing23]

And the green screen suddenly replacing the island background just before the cut ending the '.tk' bit, when it was said "People who have never been there". lol

[@demondoggy1825]

The little touch of adding the end of film roll marker before the ad break was my favorite bit

[@fluury]

I feel like im blind, where is the bit of the graphic blocking Jay's face in the video?

[@shellder_gaming]

5:00 Advert skip incase you don’t want to hear about the terrible company Betterhelp

[@MusicalArmageddon]

Eh? What's terrible about it? Edit: Just read further down...

[@jacobsaviationreal]

THANK YOU

[@Bessux]

You don't need to posture atop your high horse - just say you skip ads like all of us do.

[@xolotltolox]

​@@Bessuxexcept better help is actually terrible

[@letter_o_hyphen_letter_o]

​@@Bessuxno but this time the company is genuinely bad at what they do, so there's a reason.

[@RJiiFin]

Wow, can you even _imagine_ 4000 people using the internet? I wonder if that will ever happen, or it was just a prediction

[@dvkv999]

It was the beginning of the internet

[@Mr_Morningsloth]

@@dvkv999 damn beat me to it by 12 mins

[@SergioEduP]

Imagine how many alt accounts every one of those 4000 people have just to inflate youtube video views and likes past the 4k mark

[@MarceldeJong]

The internet is just a fad, it’ll never catch on!

[@enjoyerofcontent]

No that's just fantasy. Everyone knows that in the future computers will be so large and expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own one.

[@Stephen_Lafferty]

0:29 - well done to the graphic artist who distorted the map following the contours of the green screen held by Mark and Jay!

[@zeppie_]

It's actually hilarious how well done that distortion is

[@rvsen5351]

Plot twist: they actually printed it out

[@DerMBen]

Looks to me like it might've been made in 3d software

[@somerandomniko]

​@@DerMBenstill had to be tracked manually

[@eliassirvio2779]

@@DerMBen Yeah upon closer inspection I'm not even sure they're actually holding a green screen

[@Aprill264]

10:35. .cat is actually mostly used by the Catalan-speaking community, rather for cat-related websites. I came across a few companies using it when I visited Catalonia last year.

[@PrzemysawIskra]

Not sure whether it is the case any more, but when it was being introduced one had to prove that they are either from Catalonia or, more likely, that the content on the website would be in Catalan.

[@NYKevin100]

Wikipedia says the registry actually enforces that as a policy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cat (TL;DR: You can't register a .cat unless you're already established on the Catalan-speaking internet, but their filters for this are not exactly perfect.)

[@dakat_]

Glad someone else commented this. I'm from Catalonia and yeah, all government-related webpages and some businesses' webpages here use .cat before other TLDs.

Pity. Such a missed opportunity...

[@analienmango8756]

All Catalonians are actually 3 cats in a trench coat.

[@johnkramer8091]

Fun fact: Montserrat's MS is not only unofficially used my Microsoft but also by sites from the German city of Münster due to MS being their license plate code.

[@k.umquat8604]

Thank you Jigsaw from the Saw franchise

[@johnkramer8091]

@@k.umquat8604 I knew it. I knew it! 😂😂😂 As a defense, I was born and named before the Saw series was released. But yeah, my name usually raises suspicion (even in Germany) and I both love and hate it at the same time 😁

[@jonistan9268]

The same thing is with Bern in Switzerland that likes using .be

[@johnkramer8091]

@@vardekpetrovic9716 Exactly, it can sometimes come in handy to look at a car and know where they're from. However, in recent years we've loosened the "one county, one code" policy for historic reasons, allowing some old codes from former counties e.g. such that were merged with another or cities that at some point lost their status as a county of its own. This makes it all the more interesting, but on the other hand it can get very confusing as some of those were ridiculously small, especially in the former GDR. For example, in my county you'll get "HSK" for Hochsauerlandkreis only, but if you're from Mecklenburgische Seenplatte, the standard code is MSE, but you could now also opt for AT for Altentreptow DM for Demmin MC for Malchin MST for Mecklenburg-Strelitz MÜR for Lake Müritz NZ for Neustrelitz RM for Röbel/Müritz and WRN for Waren/Müritz. All for one county 😂

[@johnkramer8091]

@@vardekpetrovic9716 Exactly, it can sometimes come in handy to look at a car and know where they're from. However, in recent years we've loosened the "one county, one code" policy for historic reasons, allowing some old codes from former counties e.g. such that were merged with another or cities that at some point lost their status as a county of its own. This makes it all the more interesting, but on the other hand it can get very confusing as some of those were ridiculously small, especially in the former GDR. For example, in my county you'll get "HSK" for Hochsauerlandkreis only, but if you're from Mecklenburgische Seenplatte, the standard code is MSE, but you could now also opt for AT for Altentreptow DM for Demmin MC for Malchin MST for Mecklenburg-Strelitz MÜR for Lake Müritz NZ for Neustrelitz RM for Röbel/Müritz and WRN for Waren/Müritz. All for one county 😂

[@keystrokecascade]

Isn't BetterHelp the company that was found pressuring its vulnerable clients into giving up sensitive data, and then sharing that data with third parties illegally so bad that the FTC had to step in?

[@凯思]

Why yes, one and the same. But rather than fix its deceptive advertising they’ve decided to throw tons and tons of money into trying to repair their reputation.

[@Metzgeweiser]

Don’t worry, the video creators already accepted the sponsor money without looking into who or what they’re shilling. What can you expect from a two minute answer stretched out 11 minutes

[@Hand-in-Shot_Productions]

Now that you mention it, I'll avoid this company, and I hope Jay and Mark do the same as well!

[@MartynDerg]

and if such a company offered me $10k I would promote them, which I feel is what these two did, but had the decency to make it very obvious they were paid, so with that I'll leave a like on this comment hoping that it stays at the top.

[@denisflorian2431]

oh no...entertainment on the internet? How dare they! If you want boring info straight to the point, you got wikipedia.@@Metzgeweiser

[@helenross3037]

hi both, love the video but it's worth researching Better Help a bit more - they are notoriously sketchy, not only are they dodgy about whether therapists are vetted or not but also they have sold incredibly personal consumer data (lots of articles online about this recently because they were found guilty). There are also some great video essays about BH and how they aren't quite what they seem. just letting you know if it informs future decisions.

[@HarryParkin]

I said years ago something felt off about them; it felt like every other KZbinr suddenly had mental health problems that were solved by BetterHelp. I don’t want to say they’re all lying about it, but it seemed suspicious that the thing that suddenly got thousands of people “talking” about their problems was a random unheard of therapy company that by sheer coincidence happened to be paying the KZbinrs in question.

[@Jojje94]

@@HarryParkin I never trust any sponsorship I hear about from internet content. Be extremely wary of the overdimensioned marketing budget.

[@yuvalne]

++++

[@everythingsalright1121]

@@Jojje94 generally the right way to go. Raycons are bad, raid shadow legends is bad, hello fresh had worker abuse problems and betterhelp...honestly as someone who studied psych in university i immediately went "uhm...so under what regulating body are these "therapists" operating and managed by? Did they do their masters/phds at verified post secondary institutions...?" Therapy isnt really something thats best conducted online through a sign up website...

[@covereye5731]

I remember when BetterHelp was first called out, then it was suddenly an okay sponsor again and the claims were exaggerated and now people are suddenly back to calling them out again. Maybe Jay's audience is just more sensible, but otherwise this pattern will probably continue.

[@Mysterios1989]

To be honest, I still think country codes are rather useful. For me as a German, when a site has a .de option, it will mean that the site will most likely be optimized for German usage. It means I can assume that there is shipping to Germany, that has, if not completely in German by default, a German version available. So, even though I speak good enough English that I can communicate outside of my nations Internet, it still is beneficial for me to prefer the German nation code as I don't have to look at that website if stuff I buy has to be importet or not.

[@boomerix]

And if it's ".at" you know it's in German but uncensored.

[@wta1518]

As an American, I think that country codes are useless because basically everything can ship here and is in English anyways.

[@JoeDower101]

​@@wta1518 the least American mindset.

[@wta1518]

@@bywonline Have you never heard of a joke before?

[@martijn9568]

Jup, being Dutch I do the same with .nl.

[@jonathanwebster7091]

"I've never heard of Tokelau, and neither have you." -how poorly you underestimate my nerdiness.

[@StephenEuanTalua]

I heard of it when I was younger...

[@Stovaa]

.tk was all the rage, back in the day

[@vinhandrade6776]

Same

[@Rundik]

I heard it when I was a kid looking for free tlds 😅

[@shaungross]

In Nz we know every Pacific island country

[@Muffinmurdurer]

One funny thing I learned a few years ago, the French Antarctic Territories have their own domain (.tf) but it's mostly used for websites centred around the video game Team Fortress 2. I'd never really thought there'd be an actual part of the world that was meant to be using it.

[@AlfaGiuliaQV]

Neither did the TLD team

[@agatethegreat9135]

i'm going to make w.tf

[@kyokazuto]

*looks over at .tv*

[@iDomW]

​@@agatethegreat9135100k$ and its urs

[@bonbonbonbons]

​@@agatethegreat9135Good luck. Usually single letter domains are usually taken.

[@kakwa]

As a side note, DNS is no longer only something designed to simply help humans. It's also critical for machines as it is the root of trust used to verify the identity of a website/internet service. It's probably the most critical part of the Internet after the network links themselves.

[@BaldiDevelopmentArchive]

OMG MY FRIENDS ARE EVERYWHERE. WE ARE EXACTLY THE SAME DOWN TO THE PARTIAL WHITE BORDER

[@sourestcake]

This is entirely from my own experiences with my own server, but: The reason is that when getting an SSL certificate for your server, you need to prove to a Certificate Authority (CA) that your domain name is connected to your server. So if you trust the CA and a server can provide a valid certificate for that domain from that CA, you can assume that the DNS entry is legit. The certificate includes a public key, so you know your encrypted communication only reaches the intended recipient and vice-versa. Automated verification works by running a program on the server that asks the CA to provide a challenge, then responding to that challenge by making the answer accessible under the domain name.

[@dreamyrhodes]

@@sourestcake SSL could work without domains as well. You could also just certify an IP number. The issue is rather, that there are often multiple websites behind the same IP address (vhosts) because there are way more domains in use than there are IP numbers available for websites, and also - again - that it's easier for humans to recognize. IPv6 could solve the problem of IP numbers running out but these are even worse for humans to remember: 123.123.123.123 vs 2001:db8::8a2e:370:7334

[@ayatollahlalalola]

nerd

[@Minitwill]

I get so much joy from map men episodes

[@dreadharte9746]

Map Men, Map Men, map map map men men men men men men men men men men men men men...

[@Jeff-yz1wx]

​ @BigPoppaCronie "I point out things no one but me cares about on the internet for validation from strangers"

[@SammjuBognir]

​ @BigPoppaCronie ​ @Jeff-yz1wx If you both disagree with her, why are you watching this video so early?

[@kuzeyrl]

smael

[@ianfreud]

@@BigPoppaCronieYou’re a really big boy.

[@anoNEMOs]

Popularity of the Czech domain (.cz) is interesting. It's probably that high because the letter combination "cz" is quite rare, so Czechs can easily relate to it and feel national connection to it. That's why you often see it in nicknames, more than many other countries. It's funny that "cz" doesn't ever occur in Czech language, but that makes its meaning always clear and unambiguous. It's kind of a symbol or a logo of our country.

[@krishacz]

can confirm, am krishacz

[@_blank-_]

Why does English use this spelling in the first place? It should be spelled 'Chek' or 'Chec' not "cZeCh". So confusing.

[@anoNEMOs]

@@_blank-_ Because it's based on Čech/Čechy. "Č" makes a "ch" sound and in old Czech it used to be written like "cz", like in polish. And the ch is there because in czech "ch" makes a different sound: [x], like "ch" in german and "j" in spanish.

[@abarette_]

@@anoNEMOs would do /ç/ after /e/ in German though

[@edamamevideos]

Souhlasím

[@naota3k]

"Joost Zuurbier" is the new record for most Dutch name I've ever heard.

[@testcardsandmore1231]

How about Hoyte van Hoytema? That's pretty Dutch too! :)

[@apveening]

@@testcardsandmore1231 That is bastardized Frisian.

[@ianstopher9111]

Or Matthijs van Heijningen

[@Zeem4]

Pannenkoek van Windmolen might be a more Dutch-sounding name, with only the small problem that I just made it up.

[@testcardsandmore1231]

@@Zeem4 😂 Most Dutch names sound made up anyway. No problem.

[@PineappleDealer37]

hey guys, I admire your videos, but you should reconsider which sponsors you take, as Betterhelp has had its good share of controversies, including, but not limited to: - Selling personal data of its users - Predatory charging methods - its workers being of questionable quality, with some of them being unlicensed psychologists and some reportedly just saying people to "get over it"

[@emperortgp2424]

So instead of scamming subtly like mainstream therapy, they scam blatantly 💀

[@BasicallyBaconSandvichIV]

Oh, I haven't heard about this before. Not good. But they wouldn't be the only channel of good reputation to do this, unfortunately. I think betterhelp has been quite good at hiding their foul deeds. Though with the amount of comments pointing this out, I don't think they will accept a sponsorship from betterhelp anytime soon....

[@CyanideSun94]

+

[@resugram_YT]

@@BasicallyBaconSandvichIV a quick google search could have save them some trouble.

[@pafnutiytheartist]

Seriously, I'm dissapointed in Jay, do a 30 second google of controversy before taking money. With a more informal way of direct sposnor promotion, where you don't sell an ad spot like TV channel, but let them put words directly in your mouth comes a little bit of responsibility. Not a lot of it, just one quick google search would have sufficed.

[@danielhale1]

If the Monty Python team had developed a hyper-specific interest in maps and made a KZbin channel, they'd still have to sweat to make something this good!

[@ScotchWhiskey864]

The first Map Men episode was where 3 English gentlemen from Minehead were planning a little hike to Bideford.

[@nestoreleuteriopaivabendo5415]

​@@ScotchWhiskey864 I would greatly appreciate it and thank you for the support and encouragement to link it to us!

[@Igamer124]

I was actually thinking they'd probably make some pretty good Monty Python sketches.

[@thichinhphan4010]

I beg to differ.

[@TMCNJ]

3:41 the advert queue thingfrom analog TV is a nice touch

[@mezykin]

nice spot!

[@Sum67]

Ding-ding, ding, ding-ding.

[@kenyarborough812]

I'm in New Zealand, Tokelau is very remote and has only 1,500 people It was under COVID lockdown for 3 years. The only way to get there is on a 24-hour boat trip from Samoa to the closest atoll of Fakaofo, after a four-hour flight from New Zealand to Apia. It takes a further 3½ hour boat trip to Nukunonu and a further six hours to the furthest atoll, Atafu.

[@AlexanderTheEvenGreater]

Now I really really want to go...

[@howardsimpson489]

A Kiwi would need several lifetimes to get to all of our far flung island territories.

[@leeboy26]

As someone that also nearly climbed Rosemany Topping with my mum, I approve of Cape Verde's computing contribution.

[@petertrudelljr]

but is that something you can add to your .CV?

[@dickoon]

Toby le Squids is a T T Teessider.

[@rogink]

Rosebury Topping?

[@plwadodveeefdv]

who's rosemary topping

[@geckolocator]

Do you mean raspberry topping?

[@NithinJune]

“The United States of America considers itself the Default country” Truer words have not been spoken

[@davestrider4973]

"The United Kingdom forgets it once set itself as the default country." Is another important addition

[@i_know_youre_right_but]

That’s sort of when happens when your country dominates popular culture and technology. Plus the fact that the US invented the internet..

[@MGX93dot]

@@i_know_youre_right_but the internet as we know it (and as we use it) was invented by the English. nice try though. sir tim berners lee, for reference

[@Jst4vdeos]

You invent something you can consider yourself the default on it

[@ViDeOMaStErPaUl]

@@davestrider4973 Eh we have like 1000 years and an Empire to back that up.

[@SprashDragicootRed49Sagitarius]

The end credit music is so blissful😂

[@Schattengewaechs99]

_London Bridge is falling down,_ _Falling down, falling down,_ _London Bridge is falling down,_ _My fair lady._

[@bardsamok9221]

My fair lady is melting down, Melting down, Melting dddowwwwnnnNn..

[@alexwynters600]

4:54 What a great visual representation of betterhelp

[@JaredJeyaretnam]

I’ve heard…not-great things about them.

[@esmerat]

@@JaredJeyaretnamsame. Annoyed people keep getting sponsored by them

[@blshouse]

If a company is paying youtubers to advertise for them, it is almost always super shady. Looking at you, Nord VPN.

[@antonistsam]

I think it's interesting to mention that some "countries" using an alphabet other than the Latin get a bonus ccTLD in their local alphabet. For example, in Greece, there are .gr and .ελ (although almost nobody uses .ελ, because it was recently added and people are used to .gr). Also, in the EU there are .ευ and .ею (the greek and cyrillic equivalents to .eu), beacuse official languages of the Union use these alphabets.

[@syferpolski4344]

punycode domains were and are a terrible idea, especially for security reasons -you can dupe a legitimate website by registering it's name in bold unicode characters for example, and links won't make this obvious

[@PanduPoluan]

Due to how they are actually coded (using punycode) those are not "bonus" ccTLD because they actually use more than two characters. For example, .ελ is actually punycoded as .xn--qxam (8 letters); it's the browser that converts the opaque .xn--qxam into .ελ. Browsers that don't support punycode (or those that have IDN support disabled) will simply show .xn--qxam

[@white_145]

Also, in russia you can sometimes see cyrillic urls with .рф domain (meaning RF - russia federation)

[@gamermapper]

​@@white_145in Ukraine .укр and in Belarus .бел

[@JohnFlower-NZ]

I asked my Ukrainian tutor of Russian about this and she says that she often uses the latin alphabet when online because usually it is easier to navigate the internet due to it's prevalence.

[@axelprino]

It has been brought to my attention that what I said is very much outdated info that is no longer true. To whoever might read this: please disregard this comment. Original comment for context: I always thought it was really annoying that here in Argentina the rules don't allow us to register ".ar" domains, instead only ".com.ar" and ".net.ar" being available, because "-ar" is the most common ending for verbs in infinitive form in Spanish so it would be a goldmine of word play.

[@entity_04]

that sounds like a potentially huge revenue stream 🤔

[@joseluislopezpino6964]

It's not the case anymore. You can have a .ar

[@danielbishop1863]

And if Eritrea (.er) or Iran (.ir) cooperated, they could cover the other Spanish infinitives.

[@nbartlett6538]

It would also be great for pirate-themed sites!

[@RossHall-UK]

Also pirates ...

[@alexanderkendall3905]

Gotta say - I love the ITV style cue dots before the ads - nice touch!

[@ryanzarmbinski7446]

You forgot to mention the cool internationalized TLDs for countries that use non-Latin writing systems! Probably not as interesting as the rest of the video content, but an interesting thing for language enthusiasts nonetheless! Especially when the writing direction is something other that left to right!

[@sooowp]

where can i find more info on this topic? that sounds like such a thing i would spend 2 hours reading about

[@fucjk2141]

@@sooowpsames

[@dealloc]

​@@sooowp Here are some keywords: Internationalized country code top-level domain, Punycode, ACE prefix The first is what OP is talking about specifically, the latter two are about how these domains are encoded to be compatible with the Internet domain name standard (which are a subset of ASCII), and still display correctly in user agents like a browser's URL bar.

[@youarewinston]

and how this has caused a massive opportunity for phishing attacks since so many characters are similar in other alphabets - known as IDN homograph attacks. and issues for spam filters for ex. youtube can become yｏｕｔ⋃be

[@gg_vard]

Like .ελ (rarely instead of .gr)

[@clandestin011]

So! something interesting to why cctld is useful to me. I live in the french speaking part of belgium. Whenever I have to google some administrative questions, or find a website that specifically needs to be belgian (for example, real estate agencies), google doesn't always care that I specifically typed "belgium" in the search bar. Screening through the tld's, I can directly see if the website is based in france or belgium

[@beth12svist]

Somewhat less vital reasons, but I sometimes have something similar going on between my native language of Czech, and Slovak. The two are mutually intelligible to a high degree, plus we used to be one country till just thirty years ago, which means I do every now and then get some Slovak results for my Czech queries...

[@kain0m]

If you think that is hard, try being an Austrian. German websites everywhere...

[@beth12svist]

@@kain0m I was thinking of you down south. 🙂 Not my experience, though, so I did not bring it up.

[@u1zha]

Type "site:be" in search bar, that one Google does still care about

[@JohnFlower-NZ]

As a New Zealander I feel your pain. I search in English and so often get American results.

[@Glitter_H_Hoof]

did everyone forget betterhelp's shady past

[@Daye04]

Nope. That's why I'm not watching this video

[@Casey-Jones]

@@Daye04 salty 🤣🤣🤣

[@Daye04]

@@Casey-Jones Are you having a stroke, buddy?

[@calad6482]

Sure, they have shady past, but I'm more concerned about their shady present

[@G3R0George]

@@Daye04 don't let a dumb sponsor take away from the genius behind this video.

[@lucashamilton4674]

2:03 4,000? Wild ideas they had back then.

[@littlefloss._.]

That's so many!!

[@Palgineer]

BetterHelp is a company that has many egregious practices that are detrimental to mental health support.

[@MMM18092]

Elaborate please.

[@cromulentpotato]

Yes, poor form to take their dosh

[@MenloMarseilles]

​@@MMM18092 1) Repeated controversies around sharing clients' private medical information with third parties. I'm sure you can imagine how much the health benefits of therapy would be disrupted by finding out what you'd said to your therapist in confidence has been somehow getting into your ad targeting dossier. 2) 2022 viral topic on TikTok where a lot of former BetterHelp clients came forward and described the shockingly bad quality of care they received on the platform. These are admittedly anecdotes - so we don't know how representative they are - but worrying ones.

[@JonosBtheMC]

Not to mention detrimental to your privacy.

[@MargaretUK]

@@MMM18092 Google them, it's not great 😕

[@akorus_master]

.cat is actually not for cats (although it is oftent use for that purpose) but for catalan language websites. The conditions of use specify that the site must contain content in catalan, sites that do not comply may face termination.

[@capybaratherealoneNL]

isnt catalan cat language tough?

[@jenelaina5665]

I'm pretty sure you meant to say furmination

[@Yuyo545]

​@@capybaratherealoneNL Not reaçly, cats say "meu" instead of "meow" and that's the extent the cat lsnguage goes afafik

[@capybaratherealoneNL]

@@Yuyo545 Nuh uh

[@TheSuperappelflap]

gat

[@johnlittle8045]

Given how crazy for the USA so many of my fellow stateside people are, it's kind of wild that there's not a patriotism-fueled rush to not just use but over-use the .us code

[@BonaparteBardithion]

Nah, more likely they'd use .freedom. If it's good enough for fries it's good enough for the Internet.

[@antonioscendrategattico2302]

Most of the people in question probably don't even know what a TLD is.

[@Gregorius421]

save.us 😀

[@beth12svist]

From a non-US point of view, it's actually INCREDIBLY reflective of how often US-ians on the internet forget that the rest of the world exists and saying which country you're from to put your comments and posts in context, or not assuming everyone else is also in the US, might be a bit of a basic courtesy.

[@frenchsnailbutter]

So many people here in the States get confused when I tell them the name of my website, which ends in .us. It's like they've never even heard about it (dialogwith.us). It was supposed to be clever but it just ends up being confusing for so many people.

[@gnothisauton2116]

Love me some Map Men. The script and delivery are priceless. Well written and interesting!

[@chanyy6838]

10:53 The tune that plays when your makeshift mini-bridge made of only toothpicks collapses into an impossible game of pick-up-sticks

[@Kc_r_s]

As there is a dramatic scene cutting between you and the bridge in slowmo,lol.

[@Sum67]

The tune that plays when you’re sick on the winter night of December and you can’t afford actual money so you use your White Spot chocolate money to go to the gas station to buy chocolate, snacks, and drinks while your eyes are watery and itchy and you’re extremely dehydrated.

[@RadeonVega64]

lol

[@Tornroot]

I love when someone names a 'fake' URL as a joke, and then follows through by actually making the website 😂

[@silverutopia]

Same, although my pc threw up some interesting warnings before letting me go to it 🤣

[@tunyi0]

same, i just had to type in the first sentence of the video in the url bar, and the fact that it worked makes it clear, that these guys are really on some other level

[@andyhoudini]

Agreed, but it needs an SSL cert :)

[@meaninglesskibble]

The joke worked twice - first when I had to pause to read it and second when i laboriously typed the url into my phone and actually went there. Also enjoyed the reference to space jam, it being one of the oldest websites still working

[@ElXando1993]

@@andyhoudini It had one just no automatic redirect, but it does now.

[@NIDELLANEUM]

0:45 fun fact: the Space Jam website is still on, pretty much unchanged since the movie's release in 1996! You can go there and get a peak at what a 1990s website looked like

[@_Vesper]

It redirects me to the Warner Brothers site

[@OnionChoppingNinja]

Tell me they atleast switched to https since then

[@NIDELLANEUM]

they did@@OnionChoppingNinja

[@All4Tanuki]

Seeing a KZbinr you like shilling betterhelp is like ordering your favourite beer and getting a mugful of poison instead...

[@basil4154]

Yeah… let’s hope this’ll be the last time

[@Connie_TinuityError]

@@basil4154 unfortunately it's not, I just had a sneak peak look into their next video and they were sponsored by betterhelp again :(

[@MarabouPatriot]

What's wrong with betterhelp? Am I missing something?

[@hotpocketsat2am]

@@MarabouPatriot they sell your therapy data and hire really shit "therapists"

[@mkgaca8721]

​@MarabouPatriot they sell data from their clients

[@xeladas]

Wait, Betterhelp? didn't they into a spot of bother a few years ago for a whole laundry list of issues? or am I thinking of a different company?

[@hotpocketsat2am]

no you're not, every single youtuber seems to have just fucking forgot about what they've done and are taking the money again

[@sundhaug92]

Fun fact: Before DNS domains were managed by one woman and her team, who'd create the hosts file, and then everyone just had to make sure they had the latest hosts-file

[@sundhaug92]

In addition: There are ccTLDs that exist with no registered domains

[@Smitticus228]

Malware sometimes uses your Host File to redirect your DNS to a different site (IP) while still using the same URL. We also still adjust it in IT land for businesses due to complicated IT reasons. Generally at home your hosts file should be empty except for the default text, if not that could be a problem but ask your admin about it (If you are the admin then it probably is if you're not actively aware of it!)

[@sundhaug92]

@@Smitticus228 1. Is solved by HTTPS 2. If your a corporation you should be using your own DNS-server instead

[@jimbob3332]

Sounds like when you'd pick up the phone and have to get transferred to the number you were wanting by a nice lass by a switchboard.

[@sundhaug92]

@@jimbob3332 Alternatively it's like when you'd get a physical phone-book sent to you

[@hamueramusic]

that outro song's arrangement is gold

[@Defreeze04]

0:39 i love how they depicted the vision of humanity on computers at that time in the form of a waffle iron

[@nixxie2390]

yes! I rewound just after that picture came up as my noggin belatedly went 'huh'? at the waffle iron! Tho frankly I would love a computer that also makes waffles!!

[@benito6036]

No, that was a waffle drive, for your waffle discs, which are capable of storing a single bit per indentation based on whether there's any syrup in there. Additional data density was achieved by the addition of butter or whipped cream or other condiments. Unfortunately the acceptance of additional toppings was not universal, so no one has ever recognized my single sodden waffle storing the entirety of Wikipedia.

[@klausbrinck2137]

Hey, a toaster for only 15.000pounds, where do I pay ???

[@Spacedog79]

These days any PC can be used as a waffle iron by playing Crysis.

[@ZakRoks487]

As a geoguessr player, the country codes are actually on my mind quite a lot

[@draw4kicks]

This is by far my favourite series on the internet! Love from Tokelau xx

[@NormanInAustralia]

Thanks!

[@fiftytwentythree]

Thank you so much for splitting your videos with a Part 1 and Part 2 with commercials in the middle. That's so much better than KZbin's interrupty way of doing it. I appreciate it greatly. Thank you Map Men!

[@jon9103]

DNS doesn't just allow for easier to remember names, it also allows the name of a website to stay the same even if the IP address changes across time or space.

[@kicorse]

Maybe the most interesting effects of resizing countries by a statistic that I've seen, The Cape of Good Hope is now in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon has swapped its Atlantic coast for an Indian Ocean coast, and Palau has come up with a great solution to all those territorial disputes over the South China Sea.

[@oy_oy_]

10:46 apple vision pro predicted fr

[@smidge-J]

I laughed so hard at the New Zealand having six flags on the whatismyflag website at the start. I really appreciate that our flag fiasco gets to be a joke on this channel because it was a joke when it happened as well. Anyway I still think the laser kiwi flag should've won.

[@TheGalaxyWings]

Based laser kiwi enjoyer

[@Trixtah]

A deep cut, but a great one.

[@mat39]

Cringe comments touch grass

[@aceman0000099]

​@@Trixtah Not really that deep

[@rachelcookie321]

If we were gonna spend $25 million on a flag referendum the least we could have got in return was a laser kiwi. I’m a fan of the current flag but it was still quite disappointing to go through all that for nothing to change.

[@Oblivion9873]

that youtubers still take betterhelp sponsorships after everything that happened is a damn shame

[@geolawie]

Not a youtuber, but hadn't heard of the controversies til today?

[@Sam42069]

and then the same KZbinrs take VPN sponsorships to help people with their “privacy”😂😂

[@m_lies]

what happened ? I never heard of the controversies?

[@creounity]

@@m_lies BetterHelp's therapists aren't licensed and anyone can join. BetterHelp failed to have written policies and procedures for protecting the privacy of health information. What's worse, BetterHelp was caught selling data to Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest. The company recently settled for $7.8 million. The FTC confirmed that BetterHelp pushed people into handing over health information.

[@karasumer]

8:35

[@renskedunnewold1995]

It's kind of startling to see the Netherlands this big on a world map. You don't even have to squint..

[@DantevanGemert]

It does have a bit of an odd shape here though, as if a 4-year-old drew it. Oh well, I guess you can't have it all

[@martijn9568]

​@@DantevanGemertIt's just that the mapmakers were bit stupid and took the coastline as an outline for their countries. It works for most, except the Netherlands with the Deltaworks in Zeeland and the Afsluitdijk creating the IJsselmeer. The Scheldes en the IJsselmeer are technically inland waters because of it, creating the odd looking outline.

[@DantevanGemert]

@@martijn9568 they may have taken a low resolution base map as well because Limburg is also a bit shrunken

[@mikemakesmusic7]

Congratulations! You’ve won the prize for KZbin channel that make me pause and read the most while still enjoying every minute of it!

[@Lucifers-Stepdad]

I actually work with country codes every day at my job. I love them deeply. Big up to AD (Andorra) for being at the top of the list and the top of my heart.

[@johndododoe1411]

Sounds like you're in the business of commercial disinformation .

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

I'm www.gl.ad to hear that.

[@drachefly]

@9:00 I love the dropping the greenscreen effect. Nice.

[@JohnSmithShields]

I normally have to watch Map Men videos a few times, looking for those little extras they put in. Even the Unfinished London videos were full of them. Well played Jay, Mark and the rest of any team you have helping you.

[@markwright3161]

I've spent over an hour watching this 11 minute video :)

[@Nooticus]

excellent video! the outro music was one of my favourite things on your channel for a while, im surprised there are not more comments about it.

[@ChristianGregersJørgensen]

That outro had me turning in my chair laughing. Nice strings Jay

[@MarcusMoMain]

2:37 As a New Zealander, I can confirm we do have six official flags

[@MarcusMoMain]

(Jk I'm not a New Zealander)

[@keiyakins]

They used six flags and none of them were the laser kiwi. Disgraceful.

[@matheuscastello6554]

i thought six flags was based in the united states!

[@Ezullof]

I'm pretty sure the official demonym is "Kiwi" or "Rohirrim" depending on the part of the NZ where you live

[@laurencefraser]

@@Ezullof The official demonym is, in fact, "New Zealander"... but "kiwi" is so universally wide spread that no one uses that outside of official documents and super formal speeches for super serious events... or clarifying for confused foreigners. (on a side note, the adjective (I think it is?) for 'things to do with New Zealand' is... 'New Zealand'. ... this Also usually gets replaced with 'kiwi'.) Also, New Zealand's national bird is the Kiwi. Also also, the fruit is NOT a kiwi. It is a kiwifruit. If you talk about eating kiwis here people will wonder if they should be reporting you for poaching or cannibalism for the half second it takes them to realise that your a foreigner. (well, ok, no, in reality they'll just be slightly confused for that half second). Anyway, NZ has One official flag, last I checked. For the country itself anyway. Unless I missed another round of idiocy seeing someone deciding to claim that a symbol of a seperatist or racist movement should be included as some sort of nod to inclusivity (never mind that the entire point of such is to Exclude people). Pick a direction to be stupid in on matters that can be tangentally related to race and you can bet it's been tried by some politician in one party or another at least once

[@oevers]

There is an important fact you should have mentioned here at 09:30 As you said earlier, there are no rules for country based TLDs. Which is why they accidentally sold their tld years ago to a foreign company for a very low price without knowing what they are doing. This company now receives these millions. 🇹🇻 doesn’t see anything from that money.

[@blobbbe]

According to the 2019 budget the Tuvulu government makes $7.1 million a year from the .tv licensing, roughly 8% of the country's total revenue. They also recently (this year) negotiated a new licensing deal with godaddy.

[@Liggliluff]

Is it even possible for a country to sell their ccTLD?

[@schuhey7021]

@@Liggliluffthey could theoretically enter into a contract giving a way control of it and the money generated by it, but it would most likely, technically, still be their property.

[@IparIzar]

It's possible for a country to sell you land, why should the virtual domain be different?

[@thesteelrodent1796]

@@Liggliluff legally they can give/sell anyone the right to admin the ccTLD, but because ICANN is the authority that decide who owns it, the country will always still own the ccTLD and have the final word in how it's used

[@eesti_lv]

3:33 Wouldn’t Eritrea have been apart of Provisional Ethiopia, and Yemen still be split?

[@JayForeman]

VERY well spotted! There are probably plenty more mistakes where those two came from. I 1985ified it in a rush, just from memory.

[@MrBobSter82]

@@JayForeman this is the 3rd time I’ve seen you in this vid, blame the timed comments.

[@Michaelthekiwi]

So (as a Citizen of the Realm of New Zealand) I knew about Tokelau, and even went to school with a Tokelauan. Perhaps you should do a video on New Zealand's attempt to create an empire under Prime Minister Richard Seddon (aka King Dick) and it's own decolonisation story with German Samoa, Cook Islands and a rather large chunk of Antarctica.

[@emilyjanet455]

That sounds very interesting!!

[@AholeAtheist]

TBH, I don't think we should incorporate them into an empire like that, but we probably should create a European Union type situation with all the Pacific island nations so none of us need passports to visit each other. Would be good for the people who come to Aotearoa for work, and good for us and them in terms of fostering tourism. Plenty of kiwis would probably love to have a quick holiday or two in the other, more tropical islands which would be good for their economies.

[@shotmeonsightplease]

Is your attempt at creating an empire why you are cut off from so many maps? World punishing you for having ambition.

[@AholeAtheist]

@@shotmeonsightplease If that was the reason, then the US, China, Russia, France and the UK wouldn't be on any maps either.

[@erikkennedy]

I like that the Map Men stuck up a bunch of alternative New Zealand flags from the 2015-2016 referendums at 2:37.

[@getnohappy]

We were so lucky the early Internet folks were odd techno-hippies who thought about the future, rather than modern day tech bros focused on the next IPO

[@informitas0117]

I hate the modern internet. The spying and data vampirism of corporations against ordinary people is sickening. But I am a paranoid schizophrenic so my viewpoint might be biased.

[@WingsTM]

very beautifully said

[@TheSuperiorQuickscoper]

0:37 Brits using a chonky IBM clone to represent old computers instead of a ZX Spectrum, Sinclair, Amstrad, BBC Micro or Amiga? Don't think I didn't catch that treachery.

[@quuxummephitida1219]

The funny thing is, the list of country codes starting at 2:50 are only those in Latin script. Now there are also ccTLDs in pretty much any script that has a modicum of speakers.

[@Hungarian_Boi]

It's always a good day when Jay foreman posts.

[@birchplywood8464]

I hate that so many folk i watch and listen to are advertising better help. They charge you more money for less than youd get from a private therapist and their selling point is the kind of flexibility you could get from many private therapists too. Fuck better help; we should be encouraging people in distress to seek out an actual therapist.

[@hollowknightenjoyer]

i cant go to an actual therapist let alone a virtual one ;-;

[@magicmanchloe]

How is this an 11 minute video? Edit: how did you keep me entertained and enthralled for 11 minutes talking about cc-tld’s. Bravo.

[@jsloanhpi]

seriously the most entertaining/educational combination I know. I suppose I can think of funnier people, but not many, and you guys make the weirdest stuff absolutely riveting. And very good for slightly modifying my overall worldview.

[@aeronautic2374]

The various TLDs at 10:35 were hilarious! That one song*, the chicken noise*, and .etc! Brilliant! I don't think I'd hire Toby Le Squids though... 8 schools in one year... *Yes, I was reading them out loud - yes, I did only realise what I sang and what noise I made after I had done that. Well played.

[@DerErsteWilhelm]

Reason to have country codes: It makes it very easy to have different languages, The French go for the .fr the Spanish for the .es and so on; easy to understand and implement.

[@MartinOlminkhof]

Not really since i18n is a thing

[@katrinabryce]

What about Canadian French or Latin American Spanish? I guess there is now .quebec for the former, and the latter mostly have their own countries, but there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people in the USA.

[@barneylaurance1865]

But countries don't really map well to languages. There are lots of countries that have multiple languages, and there are lots of languages that are used in multiple countries. For instance Belgian websites tend to offer Dutch, French and English. And what country would you go to for English language content? Or Standard Arabic, or Kurdish?

[@danielbishop1863]

Doesn't work for multilingual countries like Canada or Switzerland.

[@Liggliluff]

The ccTLDs are better suited for online store of physical goods, since it'll more likely be a local warehouse and/or local currency (for the multiple countries using $ for example)

[@inferno3345]

this series always been comfort food to me, brilliant work

[@CoolScratcher]

Hi guys, I just wanted to say that your show reminded me a lot of old Bill Nye and gave me a very strange nostalgia boost while I was laughing my head off. Thank you for the unexpected boost of nostalgia and you guys are awesome!

[@matthewgough9533]

3:13 New ringtone, anyone?

[@NathanCruz-s5p]

sound more like an ad jingle

[@mattandrews2594]

I'm just astonished that Toby Le Squids counted every cod sandwich he's ever made and eaten. Now that's dedication.

[@PixelatedPenfold]

Every one of their videos need to be watched twice - once for the content and the second time at half speed (and with frequent use of the pause) to read all the very clever visual jokes (such as the words for the witch-doctor song in the fast-scrolling list of new TLDs).

[@jeeukko]

Please do not take sponsorship from BetterHelp

[@RandomPerson37233]

Correct

[@AnonymouseVR]

Why?

[@jeeukko]

@@AnonymouseVR BetterHelp is like the back alley surgeon you go to remove bullets from you gut when you are a wanted criminal. Might be great, might steal your kidneys, just roll the dice. But basically they sell patient data, some therapists have no license and just cancel appointments or do something else while you talk.

[@santoi]

Why

[@civrlol]

why

[@PeCzech]

I wouldn't say no to coming back to that typing website addresses manually - I work as the IT service desk for US company and users are stumbled when I ask them to "go to the website". If it's not showing on the first page of google results, it means that the website doesn't exist.

[@Felix-nz7lq]

In fairness .cat is actually short for Catalonia

[@nbartlett6538]

It's also short for catalytic converter and catamaran.

[@thesteelrodent1796]

@@nbartlett6538 not when it comes to URLs though ;)

[@vsm1456]

@@nbartlett6538 and Caterpillar (the company)

[@kojisan1]

It's not. It's short for Catalan (Catalan is spoken in more areas than Catalonia)

[@capnstewy55]

One of the few channels where the ads are debatably funnier than the actual content.

[@sholtorock5904]

I am now going to be singing "I-S-O, three-one-six-six, hy-phen-one!" all day now. Thanks a bunch Map Men

[@johndododoe1411]

Hyphen 2 is also fun .

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Had no business being that catchy.

[@BaltijosAviacija]

4:59 is the end of the ad, your welcome

[@Hand-in-Shot_Productions]

As always, I found this to be quite an informative and entertaining video! I learned about _two_ islands today: Torquay is a small town on the coast of England, while the even smaller Tokelau (which surprisingly, I _have_ heard of) has (or had) the most popular internet country code... despite not even being a country, but part of New Zealand! Thanks for the video!

[@aceman0000099]

🇹🇰

[@efa666]

Remember the Geocities days where you'd use a tk domain to redirect to your site to make it seem way more official.

[@neilmannion9322]

I finally get to add something to one of these videos. At the end of each url there is also an invisible '.' which is the root domain, you can manually at this . at the end of your url which has the dns search go (in theory) to the 'root domain' server first which in turn tells it what top level domain server address to go to

[@Veriflon88]

The "." is always implied, whether you actually type it or not. Which servers are hit with the request depends on the caches of the combination of recursive resolvers and stub resolvers you use.

[@katrinabryce]

@@Veriflon88 Unless you are creating records on your dns server. If the record doesn't have a . at the end, it will append the parent domain to the end of it.

[@CakeLorde]

Isn't better help a scam? Or did they finally hire licensed professionals

[@jensschroder8214]

The ccTLD for East Germany was .dd (GDR or in German DDR) But there were almost no websites because East Germany was behind the iron curtain. When it finally tore up, .de was used for the whole of Germany.

[@techguy_drew]

06:51 as an editor, I felt that in my soul. 😂

[@sterlingtolman]

These two deserve their own show

[@JayForeman]

This is our own show.

[@sterlingtolman]

@@JayForeman you deserve a lot more money for your own show so you can make more shows in your own show

[@itskdog]

​@@sterlingtolman there's a Patreon link in the description of you want to help them with that /j

[@Alan_Watkin]

is it lol@@JayForeman

[@stephenlee5929]

@@JayForeman Wow, that was quick. Is there anything else we should think you deserve.

[@lukerabon7925]

I hope you guys can find a better sponsor. Engaging and informative episode as always

[@agbook2007]

Agreed. Better Help should not be a sponsor. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oamTaJdoe9WNipY

[@Abby_Liu]

noo not the betterhelp sponsorship 😭😭😭

[@MunthTime]

It's not just the content but the way you guys produce it that makes it so wonderfully watchable 🤣

[@bjornroesbeke]

7:46 Au contraire, my dearest map men. I've heard of it. I've even looked it up on Wikipedia after having a .tk domain for years. This TLD was very popular among my 14-year old aspiring webdeveloper friends, back in 2004.

[@TheClintonio]

As someone recently divorced with a recently dead cat and a bunch of angry letters from financial institutions, 3:47 feels strangely personal.

[@gachanimestudios8348]

Oof. I feel sorry for you.

[@Karsonandkaceystorymaking]

I got an ad on that part.

[@Violet_Knight]

Another funny example of a ccTLD being used for an unintended purpose is .tf, intended for the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, but in actuality mainly used for stuff related to Team Fortress 2.

[@rovalin6300]

Don't forget the occasional transformers stuff 🚒🤖

[@Bensoon09]

Wow that guitar duo at the end was amazingly together. Well done guys! That must have been challenging.

[@njdevilku1340]

So glad Jay (& Mark) are back!!!!

[@Dihydrousoxide]

2:36 I see what you did there with New Zealand. We all know that there are is only one well designed flag in that bunch though.

[@AdarshHari708]

The laser kiwi?

[@SutaFokusu]

​@@AdarshHari708yes