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Jelle's Marble Runs

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Oddity

The Resume

    (circa 2013- )
    Born in Netherlands
    YouTube channel created by Dutch brothers Jelle & Dion Bakker
    Features assorted marble-run machines and marble competitions including the annual 'MarbleLympics/Marble League' (since 2016) and 'Sand Marble Rally' (also since 2016)
    Marble competition commentaries in English by Greg Woods
    Popular MarbleLympics teams include the O'Rangers, Savage Speeders, Team Momo, Oceanics, Midnight Wisps, Minty Maniacs, Jungle Jumpers and Green Ducks
    Popular Sand Rally racing marbles include Red Number 3, Quicksilver, Black Knight, Summer Sky, Dragon's Egg, Deep Ocean, Marbly McMarbleface and Ghost Plasma

Why Jelle's Marble Runs might be annoying:

    Marbles aren't living sentient beings, and thus don't rely on athletic skill or strength to race and compete the way human athletes do.
    Jelle Bakker accidentally removed the channel while trying to delete an old Google E-mail account, and had to manually restore the channel from scratch (November 2018).
    Some of the marble-run machines featured in the channel's videos are very noisy.
    Some MarbleLympics fans consider the 'OOOOoooooooohhh...' cheer for the popular 'O'Rangers' (solid orange-colored marbles) team somewhat nerve-grating.
    All of the marbles are given names, some of which are silly (such as Marbly McMarbleface and the Team Momo marbles), and many are even assigned genders (Summer Sky is a 'female' marble, for example).
    Red Number 3 (alleged 'marble' resembling the billiard ball of the same name) is a particularly controversial Sand Rally marble, as it's believed to outperform most of the other marbles due to being made of a different material and/or weighing differently from the other marbles.
    Jelle's first name is often mispronounced (the proper Dutch pronunciation is 'yell-ah', rather than like the word 'gel').
    They had to change the name of the 'MarbleLympics' to 'Marble League' to avoid risking legal action from the IOC (August 2019).

Why Jelle's Marble Runs might not be annoying:

    Brothers and co-creators Jelle & Dion Bakker put a lot of time and effort into creating their marble-run machines, outdoor marble racing tracks and competitive events.
    Jelle is on the Autism Spectrum.
    Jelle once received a Guinness World Record for building the world's longest marble-run machine in 2009 (his record lasted until 2012).
    The channel has had over 620,000 subscribers before its accidental deletion, and would quickly return to a six-figure sub count soon after its restoration.
    Their videos are a novel, entertaining and family-friendly guilty pleasure for many YouTube viewers.
    Their MarbleLympics were featured in 'The Ocho', ESPN-2's special one-day-a-year programming block showcasing obscure novelty sports (August 7, 2019).

Credit: Tim the Slipperman


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1613 Votes: 40.30% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2189 Votes: 40.29% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 1790 Votes: 43.91% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 1657 Votes: 41.22% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 230 Votes: 44.78% Annoying