Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat

"Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat" is a YouTube video created by the Irish artist and musician Bobby Fingers. In this video, Fingers documents the process of building a functional rowing boat that is also a photorealistic 7-to-1 scale model of Jeff Bezos's face.

This video came out in 2023, and I've rewatched it many times in the years since. Fingers' other videos (he mostly makes dioramas of infamous celebrity incidents) are also great, but this one has a special hold on me. Something about it is incredibly satisfying.

The more I think about it, the more I believe "Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat" is the apotheosis of the YouTube video as a format. Let me explain.

A row boat designed to look like a photorealistic Jeff Bezos face, with wooden oars sticking out of his ears.

First, go watch the video

I will do my best to avoid spoilers. But if you have not seen it... don't read the rest of this yet. Just go watch "Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat". It's a little under half an hour long and I promise your time will not be wasted. Trust me. It's really weird and funny and unique. I'm actually a bit jealous you get to watch it for the first time.

Okay, now let me explain

Taken at face (hah) value, "Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat" fits into the popular YouTube genre of "highly skilled person carrying out a task from start to finish". I'm sure we've all watched something like this before – someone cleaning a filthy rug, or building an elaborate catio, or decorating a cake. In theory, these videos are instructional, but chances are you're never going to replicate the demonstrated steps. The real purpose is entertainment.

"Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat" is a really well executed example of this genre. Fingers takes viewers through every step of the process, clearly explaining what he's doing. It's a complicated project with a lot of different stages and skills, but it's obvious that he's extremely talented at what he does. There's relaxing music. At the end, you get a full reveal of the result promised by the thumbnail, and it looks great.

These sorts of videos are fun to watch, but there's often a question behind the process: would the person be carrying out this task if not for the content? Why are those rugs so incredibly dirty? Does the cake actually taste good, or is it just designed to make an eye-catching thumbnail?

Bobby Fingers sculpts a massive Jeff Bezos head out of styrofoam

In this case, the end product – a massive, hollowed-out Jeff Bezos head in which one might take to the ocean – is so weird, impractical and expensive that it's hard to imagine it being created if the process of its creation wasn't being turned into a YouTube video. Basically, it's extremely unlikely that the viewer will try this at home.

Now you could argue that the boat is a piece of art, and art doesn't need to be practical, and I would agree with you. Even so, it would be awkward for someone to display this boat in their home, it might feel stripped of context in a gallery, and if you were to actually row it out to sea, very few people would see and appreciate it. But is it an eyecatching thumbnail and very entertaining content? Absolutely.

At this point, we could get bogged down in a debate about the line between art and content. If this was simple clickbait, it might feel as hollow as the Bezos boat. Thankfully Bobby Fingers steers things into deeper and weirder genre waters. As "Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat" unfolds, it becomes clear there's a lot more to it than just a man putting a lot of skill and effort into completing a particularly odd task.

Fingers plays it relatively straight for a while, lulling you into the familiarity of the format. There are a few cutaway gags, sure – but there are plenty of creators working in this genre who include quirky digressions to keep their viewers' attention (Micarah Tewers comes to mind). But then the digressions increase in scale, and you start to feel like you're being dropped into different types of videos entirely. Soon you realise you have no idea where this trip is headed. Who the hell even is this man? What is he capable of?

The structure of "Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat" is fantastic. In a lot of funny YouTube videos, the comedy is confined to one-liners or the odd repeating gag. Fingers' narration has those little one-liners from the start, all delivered in the same deadpan snarl. But then seemingly throwaway comments come back in unexpected ways. Suddenly there are characters and plotlines. By the end, you're getting incredible payoffs for jokes you barely even realised were being set up in the first place.

Bobby Fingers' hand inserts a massive eyebrow hair into a massive Jeff Bezos face

The reason I say this is the apotheosis of the YouTube video as a format is that not only does it play with conventions of YouTube-specific genres, but I really cannot imagine "Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat" working as anything but a YouTube video. No TV production company is going to commission or distribute something this weird and niche. It's too visual to be a podcast or a book. This is the sort of thing that can only be created by a man with a very particular set of skills, the mild amount of fame that comes from being in an Irish comedy hip-hop group, and a (hopefully sustainable) Patreon.

There are plenty of other people out there who could make parts of this video. But I don't think anyone but Bobby Fingers who could make all of it. His work is imaginative, clever, funny and political, but more than anything else, it feels wholly unique. And that's what makes every one of his rare uploads feel like an exciting event.

The Jeff Bezos rowing boat is a work of art.

"Jeff Bezos Rowing Boat" is an even greater work of art.