I never got that impression from him. He definitely plays up the Rube Goldberg-ishness of his procedures, but his insistence on the risks involved seems to me to be a safety thing.

It’s important to note that he’s never cavalier about the risks. He isn’t playing up the “mad scientist” angle, or portraying any of the risks as cool. Every mention of the dangers involved is presented more in terms of him feeling uncomfortable with the risk, and is swiftly followed with what he did for safety.

Given how much he keeps bringing up that he’s buying all his reagents from Amazon and eBay, there’s a real risk that somebody might decide to try and replicate his videos at home. Ultimately, the stuff he’s doing isn’t super risky for a trained chemist, but it is pretty damn dangerous for the random teenager watching his videos, so you need to make sure they respect the stuff that’s going on.